[CHAPTER XXVIII]
WATENDLATH FORGET-ME-NOT
BORROWDALE is beautiful at every season of the year. The summer sunshine lights up its purple, heather-covered heights; the autumn tints make the wood in its hollows ablaze with orange and red; and the winter snows give it a grand and Alpine appearance.
But the hand of spring, after all, lavishes most loveliness upon Borrowdale. It covers it with a carpet of primroses, it draws through its woods a pale-blue lining of wild hyacinths, it makes its fields into cloth of gold with buttercups; whilst the fresh green of the silver birch, the bursting buds of the chestnuts, the countless signs in every flower, bush, and tree of awakening resurrection life, combine to make the whole valley a perfect fairyland.
So Marjorie Douglas thought, as she set out that spring morning, and began to climb the hill behind Fern Bank, in order that she might pay her weekly visit to one of her favourite old women. Her heart was as full of brightness as the spring day, for was not this the week in which Captain Fortescue had said he was coming to Rosthwaite? She had not seen him for a year and a half, and had heard nothing of him, save those two short notes which he had written to her mother. Evidently he had never yet discovered the missing word in the letter, for he was still living in Birmingham, in that dismal little house in Lime Street.
She was glad that he was going to have a little holiday from his hard work. She was pleased to think that Borrowdale would look its very loveliest when he arrived, and she knew that her mother would be glad to see him and to have a talk with him again.
As for herself—well, perhaps, she would be glad too.
The path led her through a copse wood where the primroses were a sight to see, and then, as she went higher still, she came upon a rough mountain road. She followed this for some way, and, after a stiff climb over the moorland, she came to the little hamlet of Watendlath, which nestles in a hollow amongst the hills. A more picturesque place could scarcely be found; the few white farmhouses and small thatched cottages stand by the side of a quiet mountain tarn, and are reflected in its still waters; the little village seems completely shut off from the world by the mountains which surround it.
Old Sarah Grisedale lived in a cottage at a little distance from the lake. She was a tall, thin old woman, active, in spite of her great age, and still able to walk over the mountain to church, and to climb the steep hill again without even the help of a stick.
Marjorie had a long chat with her old friend, sitting in her usual place on a three-legged wooden stool in front of the peat fire, and then she emptied her basket of the good things she had brought for her, and went on to an ancient farmhouse standing just above the tarn, that she might buy some eggs which her mother had asked her to get there. Several dogs ran out barking when she drew near; but they knew Marjorie well, and were quiet as soon as she spoke to them.