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 green peak to the right, and make for it as straight as a die. A few hundred yards away is a cottage where, if we are very polite and ask prettily, the guid-wife will give us a cup of buttermilk, the Gaelic substitute for afternoon tea. In a certain spot, which shall be nameless, I should as soon think of drinking poison in glassfuls, but after a stretch on the moors it tastes like nectar! Take my word for it, and try!" That was the first walk which Ron and Margot had ever taken over a Scotch moor, and to the last day of their lives they remembered it with joy. The air went to their heads so that they grew "fey," and sang, and laughed, and teased each other like a couple of merry-hearted children, while the Chieftain was the biggest child of the three.