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. At last, leaving Modestine by
herself, I was constrained to run after them, hailing the while. They
stopped as I drew near, the mother still cursing; and I could see she was
a handsome, motherly, respectable-looking woman. The son once more
answered me roughly and inaudibly, and was for setting out again. But
this time I simply collared the mother, who was nearest me, and,
apologising for my violence, declared that I could not let them go until
they had put me on my road.
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