Sheenach from the blackest hut on the property--Marjory would mind it, seeing that she held it to be a disgrace to a Christian landholder--set her up for new-fangled notions indeed!--had actually spoken to her, Mrs. Cameron, about beer-money! The kitchen girl over at the Forest, forsooth, got it, and three shillings a week for washings. Heard one ever the like! a barefoot lass that had not spent three shillings on washings since she was born, and would have to look to it for white robes in the future. And Mistress Mackenzie at the ferry house saying calmly that her prices would be doubled from the 10th August. "It is too true, mother," Will would say consolingly. "I'd like to see the Commission have its way, and destroy the Forests altogether, if only to teach the people what it would mean. But there! parcel post is only twopence a pound, and we can get butter from Devonshire. They pay high rents there, you know, so they can afford to sell produce cheaper." But even this paradox would not soothe the old lady's ire, and the three idlers would escape from the butter-problem into the wilderness of beauty beyond the fat pastures which fed the dairy; in so doing, no doubt, following the example of the offending English folk, who do not care to trouble their holiday with thoughts of the dishonesty and greed they foster and encourage. Many a tramp had these three over hill and dale. Sometimes climbing the boulder-strewn heights whence sea and land showed like a map; more often lingering by the river lazily, as it made its way through the grassy uplands in a series of foamy leaps and oily pauses. For here the sea-trout were to be beguiled by patience; if not by that, then by the red-tailed fly which Will used with the consummate skill of the real pot-fisher. Paul, on the other hand, beset by lingering prejudice, would lounge on the bank intermittently, offering the rod to Marjory in order to bring him luck; while she, engaged in collecting a perfect herbarium, would deprecate her own past skill in the Long Pool. "And the admirable underhand cast was a chance also?" he retorted drily. "Really, Miss Carmichael, my modesty is catching." Marjory laughed. "Oh, no! I learnt that from Will. I never could make out whither he went on Sundays, till one day I came upon him in that little strip of pasture in the middle of the larch plantation, flicking at dandelions with his ten-foot rod. Then he confessed that it was his usual occupation of a Sabbath afternoon, because it was so deadly dull with nothing to do at home. So after that I flicked, too. We used to do it against each other for hours, didn't we, Will?" "Ten for a dandie, twenty for a daisy, fifty for a bumble-bee," murmured Will from under his tilted hat, as he lay on the grass.