Thus
I Found Room For Everything In The Basket, And Even Stowed The Boating-
Coat On The Top.
By means of an end of cord I slung it under one arm;
and although the cord cut my shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the
ground, it was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again.
I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly I chastised her.
If I were to reach the lakeside before dark, she must bestir her little
shanks to some tune. Already the sun had gone down into a windy-looking
mist; and although there were still a few streaks of gold far off to the
east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all was cold and grey about
our onward path. An infinity of little country by-roads led hither and
thither among the fields. It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could
see my destination overhead, or rather the peak that dominates it; but
choose as I pleased, the roads always ended by turning away from it, and
sneaking back towards the valley, or northward along the margin of the
hills. The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, stony
country through which I was travelling, threw me into some despondency. I
promise you, the stick was not idle; I think every decent step that
Modestine took must have cost me at least two emphatic blows. There was
not another sound in the neighbourhood but that of my unwearying
bastinado.
Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more bit the dust, and,
as by enchantment, all the cords were simultaneously loosened, and the
road scattered with my dear possessions. The packing was to begin again
from the beginning; and as I had to invent a new and better system, I do
not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began to be dusk in earnest as I
reached a wilderness of turf and stones. It had the air of being a road
which should lead everywhere at the same time; and I was falling into
something not unlike despair when I saw two figures stalking towards me
over the stones. They walked one behind the other like tramps, but their
pace was remarkable. The son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre,
Scottish-looking man; the mother followed, all in her Sunday's best, with
an elegantly embroidered ribbon to her cap, and a new felt hat atop, and
proffering, as she strode along with kilted petticoats, a string of
obscene and blasphemous oaths.
I hailed the son, and asked him my direction. He pointed loosely west
and north-west, muttered an inaudible comment, and, without slackening
his pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my
path. The mother followed without so much as raising her head. I
shouted and shouted after them, but they continued to scale the hillside,
and turned a deaf ear to my outcries.
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