Now, Ron, wake up! I shall be angry with you if you
don't do all you can for yourself. Promise me that you will try!"

"All right! All right! Do let us be happy while we have the chance,
Margot. We had enough worry at home, and this place is perfect. Let us
be wise children, and take no thought for the morrow. What would Elgood
think of you, beginning to worry about the future, the moment his back
was turned? She was a pretty illustration, wasn't she?--that little
bare-headed child. Did you notice her hair? Almost white against the
russet of her skin."

Margot grunted unsympathetically. She was out of breath with scrambling
up the hillside, a trifle out of temper also, and consequently not in
the mood to enthuse over artistic contrasts. She did not speak again
until the summit was reached, and she threw herself on the ground to
rest, and wait the arrival of the Chieftain. His gasps and grunts could
already be heard in the distance, for, notwithstanding his various
handicaps, he was surprisingly nimble, and in a few moments a round
scarlet face hove into sight, and a round grey body rolled over on the
ground by her side.

"Piff! piff! whew-w! Don't look at me, please--I don't like--being
stared at by ladies--when my--complexion is flushed!" he gasped
brokenly, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief. "Every
time--I--come up here--I vow I'll--never come again; but when _I'm_ once
up, I--never want to go down!"

He flourished his handkerchief to the left, pointing out the wide
moorland, beautiful in colouring with its bright rank greens, and the
bloomy purple of heather undulating gently up and down like the waves of
an inland sea.

The pure rarefied air fanned the heated faces of the climbers, and with
every moment seemed to instil fresh life and vigour. It was easy to
believe that, once started, one would wander on and on over this
wonderful moorland, feeling no fatigue, possessed with the desire to go
farther and farther, to see what surprise lay beyond the next hillock.

After all, it was Mr Elgood who made the first start. One moment he
lay still, puffing and blowing, bemoaning past youth, and bewailing loss
of strength; the next, like an indiarubber ball, he had bounced to his
feet, and was strutting forward, waving his short arms in the air, the
white silk handkerchief streaming behind him like a flag.

"_Allons, mes enfants_! No lolling allowed on the moors. Keep your eye
on that