"It's more on the right side of the map, I think," Duncan replied, doubtfully.
"Ah! but, you little silly, we're up in Scotland, and we're to walk down the map. You must just reverse it, to be sure," Elsie replied.
"The map's a funny sort of shape, where it joins on to England," Duncan muttered. "It seems to run off more sideways like; we ought to twist about, I'm sure, or else we'll be going straight through the bottom of Scotland into the sea!"
"Oh, you baby!" Elsie cried, scornfully. "Do you think we couldn't walk along the edge? I'm not so sure it wouldn't be the best. We should be certain to know our way then, when once we got to the coast."
"S'pose we was to fall over?" urged Duncan.
"Oh, it is just the best idea of all!" Elsie cried, clapping her hands. "We'll just find the sea first of all; and won't it be a real bonny sight, with the ships sailing on it. Then we'll go along till we get into England, and any one'll tell us the way to London. This turning seems the most like going straight, so we'll take it."
This knotty point decided, Elsie tripped along with no sort of misgiving. Duncan was by no means so sure. He had received geography lessons, in which he had been told how many hundred miles long Scotland was, and he had a sort of dim suspicion that London must be farther off than Elsie thought; but he did not feel much uneasiness.
After a while the road became rough and uneven, and at last it turned sharp round in the wrong direction, but just beyond them the low wall suddenly ended in a scattered heap of stony fragments, and the grass stretched fresh and green away to the hills.
"Come on, Duncan!" Elsie cried, dragging him after her on to the grass. "We'll be seeing the sea from that hill, I'll be bound!"
The hill was farther away than it looked, but they reached it after a good sharp scamper. "And now we'll just be after eating a bit of something before we go any farther," Elsie said, dropping down on the grass, very hot and breathless.