“Well, Vag,” she laughingly pursued, “I was only jesting, as you know. But there’s one thing I hate to do—never could do, that’s to half climb a hill without going on to its top. It seems like breaking down or backing out, and crying ‘surrender,’—which our dear father has taught us never to do. Up to the summit yonder is but a step now. It won’t take us ten minutes more to reach it; besides, I want to see something I haven’t set eyes on for a long while—that grand valley through which meanders my namesake, Sabrina. And looking back from there, you can also feast your eyes on that in which wanders yours, Vaga, capricious like yourself. In addition,” she added, not heeding her sister’s shrug of the shoulders, “we’ll there get a better view of a glorious sunset that’s soon to be over the Hatteral Hills; and the twilight after will give us ample time to get home before the supper table be set. So, why should you hinder me—to say nothing of yourself—from indulging in a little bit of aesthetics?”
“Hinder you!” exclaimed Vaga, protestingly. “I hinder! You shan’t say that.”
And at the words she went bounding on upward, like a mountain antelope; not stopping again till she stood on the summit of the hill.
Chapter Five.
Waiting and Watching.
Following with alacrity, Sabrina was soon again by the side of her sister. But just then no further speech passed between them. Not that both were silent. On the crest of the ridge, treeless and overgrown with gorse, Hector had run foul of a donkey, and after a short chase was holding it at bay. With his barks were mingled cries of encouragement from his mistress, laughter, and patting of her hands, as she hounded him on. Possibly had the Forester, Neddy’s owner, come up at that moment, he might not have shown the politeness for which Sabrina had given his fellows credit. But the young lady meant no harm; nor much the mastiff. If he had, there was little danger of his doing it; the creature whose ancestry came from Mesopotamia being able to take care of itself. The demonstrations of the dog—an overfed, good-natured brute—looked as if being made either for his own amusement or that of his young mistress; while the donkey, on the defence, with teeth, and heels, seemed equally to enjoy the fun.
The elder sister, standing apart, had neither eyes nor ears for this bit of hoydenish play. If a thought, it was the fear of giving offence to the ass’s owner, should that individual unluckily come along. As no one came, however, she left Vaga to her vagaries, and stood intently gazing upon the landscape spread before her.
A far and varied view she commanded from that elevated spot. First, a deep, wide valley below, trending away to the right, with a tiny stream trickling adown it, and a straggling village, the houses standing apart along its banks—Drybrook. But not as the Drybrook of to-day, showing tall brick chimneys—the monoliths of our own modern time—with their plumes of grey black smoke; cinder-strewn roads running from one to the other, and patches of bare pasture between. Then it was embowered, almost buried, in trees; here and there only a spot of whitewashed walls or a quaint lead window, seen through the thick foliage. Beyond village and stream rose another ridge, with a gradual ascent up to the “Wilderness”; and still farther off—so far as to be just visible—stretched a wide expanse of low-lying champaign country, the valley of the Severn, once the sound of a sea. As the young girl gazed upon it, the sinking sun behind her back, with the Forest highlands beginning to fling the shadows of twilight across the Severn’s plain, and the white mist that overhung it, she might well have imagined the waters of ocean once more o’erflowing their ancient bed.