The Ashiel Mystery

The cart jogged off to the sound of a chorus of thanks, and Lady Ruth and Gimblet started down the heather-grown path. They rounded the corners of the deserted fold, and walked on into the golden mist of sunset which spread in front of them, enveloping and dazzling. The clouds of the morning had rolled silently away to the horizon, the wind had dropped to a mere capful; and the midges were abroad in their hosts, rejoicing in the improvement in the weather.

"I don't believe it's going to rain after all," said Lady Ruth. "The sun looks rather too red, perhaps, to be quite safe, though it is supposed to be the shepherd's delight. I can only say that, if he was delighted with the result of some of the red sunsets we get up here, he'd be easily pleased, and for my part I'm never surprised at anything. These midges are past belief, aren't they?"

They were, Gimblet agreed heartily. He gathered a handful of fern and tried to keep them at bay, but they were persevering and ubiquitous. Soon the path led them away from the open moor, and into the wood of birches and young oaks which clung to the side of the hill. A little farther, and Gimblet heard the distant gurgling of a burn; presently they were picking their way between moss-covered boulders on the edge of a rocky gully. Great tufts of ferns dotted the steep pitch of the bank below; the stream that clattered among the stones at the bottom shone very cool and shadowy under the alders; and a clearing on the other side revealed, over the receding woods, the broken hill-tops of a blue horizon.

The path wound gradually downward to the waterside, and in a little while they crossed it by means of a row of stepping-stones over which Lady Ruth passed as boldly as her companion.

Another hundred yards of shade, and they came out into a long narrow glen, carpeted with short springy turf, and bordered, as by an avenue, with trees knee-deep in bracken. The rectangular shape and enclosed nature of the glade came as a surprise in the midst of the wild woodlands. The place had more the air of forming part of pleasure grounds near to the haunts of man, and the eye wandered instinctively in search of a house. The effect of artificiality was increased by a large piece of statuary representing a figure carved in stone and standing upon a high oblong pediment, which stood a little distance down the glen.

Gimblet did not repress his feeling of astonishment.