Page:Angela Brazil--the leader of the lower school.djvu/191

Rh Although with her nature it did not agree. She wept and she sighed, And she bitterly cried: 'I wish once again in the north I could be! Oh! the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree, They all grow so green in the north countree!'"

"Don't know whether you'll get Gipsy to agree with you; she ought to be a dab critic of scenery by now," grunted Donald.

"Oh, it's lovely!" said Gipsy, who was enjoying herself immensely. "Of course it's quite, quite different from America, or Australia, or South Africa. It's smaller, but it's prettier in its own way. It looks much more cultivated."

"Ah! wait till you get right out on the moor at the top. You won't insult that by calling it cultivated."

The woods were soon left behind, and the pathway led ever upwards, first through a tangle of heather and bilberry and gorse; then, higher still, over short, fine, slippery tracts of grass. They were reaching the upper region of the fell, where the hard rock cropped out into great splintered crags, weathered by countless winter storms, and where no bushes or softer herbage could face the struggle for existence. So far the walk had been comparatively easy, but now the footpath had disappeared, and they were obliged to trust to their knowledge of mountaineering. The top still towered above them a very long way off, and they calculated it would need a two hours' climb before they could reach the particular crag that marked the extreme summit.

Donald assumed the leadership of the party, and,