and Duncan
skipped along merrily. Presently the sun began to struggle through the
clouds and disperse the haze. The day promised to be fine and warm,
which was certainly a great advantage.

The few straggling houses that formed the village of Dunster were soon
passed, and then arose the first difficulty. The road for some little
distance was direct enough, but at last it came to a sudden termination,
or rather, opened out into a wider space, where there was a dirty pond,
a patch of grass, and two roads: the one to the left, the other to the
right. Right before them, filling up the way they ought to take in order
to carry out Elsie's plan of keeping straight on, stood a tiny crofter's
cottage, surrounded by its meagre crops enclosed within low stone walls.
Beyond it the ground began to rise into hills, and far away in the
distance rose the black-looking peaks of mountains.

Elsie stood still for a few minutes in puzzled thought. "If we begin to
take turnings we are sure to lose our way," she said to herself, in
woeful disappointment at this sudden check; but presently her spirits
revived. "I see it all!" she cried, "Of course, if the road went
straight on, apart from having to go right through the croft, it would
lead us just straight away into the mountains; an' I'd like to know how
we'd ever get over the top of that big one, with the clouds hanging over
it. The road takes you clear away through the glen, of course, and it
runs a bit to the side, no doubt. We'll just keep in the right
direction, an' it'll be right enough. Let us think a minute. Is London
to the right or the left, Duncan? Which think you?"

"It's more on the right side of the map, I think," Duncan replied,
doubtfully.

"Ah! but, you little silly, we're up in Scotland, and we're to walk down
the map. You must just reverse it, to be sure," Elsie replied.

"The map's a funny sort of shape, where it joins on to England," Duncan
muttered. "It seems to run off more sideways like; we ought to twist
about, I'm sure, or else we'll be going straight through the bottom of
Scotland into the sea!"

"Oh, you baby!" Elsie cried, scornfully. "Do you think we couldn't walk
along the edge? I'm not so sure it wouldn't be the best. We should be
certain to know our way then, when once we got to the coast."

"S'pose we was to fall over?" urged Duncan.

"Oh, it is just the best idea of all!" Elsie cried, clapping her hands.
"We'll just find the sea first of all; and