Then we left
civilisation and the world behind us, and plunged into a wild
mountain region; going up by a track which few feet ever used,
the rough slope to "Number Four." Yet that a few feet used it
was plain.
"Do people come here to walk, much?" I asked, as we slowly
made our way up.
"Nobody comes here — for anything."
"Somebody _goes_ here," I said. "This is a beaten path."
"Oh, there is a poor woodcutter's family at the top; they do
travel up and down occasionally."
"It is pretty," I said.
"It is pretty at the top; but we are a long way from that. Is
it too rough for you?"
"Not at all," I said. "I like it."
"You are a good walker, for a Southern girl."
"Oh, but I have lived at the North," I said; "I am only
Southern born."
Soon, however, he made me stop to rest. There was a good grey
rock under the shadow of the trees; Thorold placed me on that
and threw himself on the moss at my feet. We were up so high
in the world that the hills on the other side of the river
rose beautifully before us through the trees, and a sunny bit
of the lower ground of the plain looked like a bit of another
world that we were leaving.
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