Slightly taciturn everywhere, he was actively so here. The path
narrowing, he and Ian must go in single file. Leading, Alexander
traveled in silence, and Ian, behind, not familiar with the place,
must mind his steps, and so fell silent, too. Here and there, now and
then, Alexander halted. These were recesses, or it might be projecting
platforms of rock, that he liked. Below, the stream made still pools,
or moved in eddies, or leaped with an innumerable hurrying noise from
level to level. Or again there held a reach of quiet water, and the
glen-sides were soft with weeping birch, and there showed a wider arch
of still blue sky. Alexander stood and looked. Ian, behind him, was
glad of the pause. The place dizzied him who for years had been away
from hill and mountain, pass and torrent. Yet he would by no means
tell Alexander so. He would keep up with him.
There was a mile of this glen, and now the going was worse and now it
was better. Three-fourths of the way through they came to an opening
in the rock, over which, from a shelf above, fell a curtain of brier.
"See!" said Alexander, and, parting the stems, showed a veritable
cavern. "Come in--sit down! The Kelpie's Pool is out of the glen, but
they say that there's a bogle wons here, too."
They sat down upon the rocky floor strewn with dead leaves. Through
the dropped curtain they saw the world brokenly; the light in the cave
was sunken and dim, the air cold.
Pages:
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63