Mary's answer was a curious one. She was looking at the black and oozy soil around her, with its scattered knobs of yellow grass.
"I suppose," she said, meditatively, "they send the sheep up here later on? But it must be wretched pasture even at its best."
All this time they had been shut out of sight of the sea by the higher ranges on their right; but by and by, when they had surmounted the ridge in front of them, they came in view of at least one new feature in the landscape—the river Garra, lying far below them, in a wide and empty valley. No hanging birch woods here, or deep pools sheltered by lofty banks, as in the neighbourhood where they had surprised the ghostly fisherman; but a treeless expanse of rather swampy-looking ground, with the river for the most part rushing over stony shallows.
"Did it occur to you, Käthchen, that we should have to cross that stream?" Mary asked, as they were descending the hill.
"Where is the difficulty?" said Käthchen, coolly. "We shall simply have to do as the country girls do, take off our shoes and stockings, wade over, and put them on again on the other side."
However, this undertaking they postponed for the present; for it was now mid-day; and they thought they might as well have luncheon when they got down to the side of the Garra. They chose out a rock wide enough to afford them seats; opened their small packages, and filled the leather drinking-cups at the stream. Up in these altitudes the water was not at all of a peaty-brown; it was quite clear, with something of a pale greenish hue; it had come from rocky regions, and from melting snow.
"It seems very odd to me," said Mary, as they contentedly munched their biscuits and sliced hard-boiled eggs, "that I should find myself in a place like this—a place that looks as if no human being had ever been here before—and yet be the actual owner of it. I suppose there never were any people living here?"
"They must have been clever if they did," said Käthchen. "To tell you the truth, Mary, the most part of the Lochgarra estate that I have seen is only fit for one thing, and that is to make heather brooms for sweeping kitchens."
"Ah, but wait," said the young proprietress, confidently. "Wait a little while, and you will see. Wait till you hear of all the improvements——"
"A railway to Bonar Bridge?" said Kate Glendinning, carefully lifting the leather cup.