SHELTER

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20498, 14 May 1938, Page 19 (Supplement)

SHELTER

(continued rrom last week) f She knew enough of it from her mother and Mrs Raeburn to be aware that while to the summer tourist the district was a beautiful one, and to the archaeologist rich jn treasure of one kind or another, it kept itself in a sense aloof from them. Only the natives and long-settled residents could really feel themselves part of It. Only to them it gave confidences; Marion felt that she deserved them and that even the grey crags up aloft recognised tfiat she was one of the old blood, and signified more to her than they could ever do to an ** incomer.” Even her greatest chum at school was Inclined to chaff Marion when she talked in this romantic strain about her mother's country. To her, a city-bred girl, it seemed pure fantasy, so Marion had learned to keep her feelings on this matter to heraelf. Her mother understood: so, to tome extent, did old Mrs Raeburn. Indeed, the latter’s store of local tales and legends, in which the name of Calms was for ever cropping up, had renewed and increased Marion's perhaps exaggerated enthusiasm. After leaving the village. Marion had to tramp along the highroad for a couple of miles. Then, just beyond a pretty bridge, * side-road plunged into a wood of old Scots pine. With their dark foliage and richly contrasting red trunks and branches, their beauty was independent, of the season. Later in the year the deep heather in which they stood would glow deep purple in the sunshine: af present its brown was touched but scantily with the green of new buds. This road lead to a farm, and from her map Marion saw that she had to pass through the steading and And a path beyond it. A black and white •heepdog came towards her barking Toclferouslv as she opened the gate. She spoke to him quietly, and though he still barked as though In duty hound, his tall began to wage and his eyes grew friendly. Marion stopped to pat him. and presently his mastfr. a gaunt and bearded giant with the bluest eyes she had ever seen, same out to speak. w '* The dog won’t harm you.” he said in his gentle Highland accent. ** I know he won’t.” she answered: M we’re* friends already. isn’t it a lovely day?” ** It's all that just now,” the farmer answered, ’’but wouldn't count on it. Were you going far?” Well* through the hills to Daigle" ” It’s a long step for a young lady. and rough.” " Oh, I think I shall manage it. I’m a good walker and I have plcnrj to eat with me.” ” You’ll need It. for you'll not get more till you comp to Balgie. There’s not a house inhabited now between this and Balgie Mains.” ” That's all right. Well, I'll step out. Good-bye, and I'm sure the weather's goina: to be nice for me. Good-bye. doggie.” Marion supposed that the farmer's pessimism about ihe weather was a mere formality. Surely this st ; r ami these brilliant sunbursts could not t>* deceptive? Certainly tin* wind was cold and more boisterous here than It had been when she set out. She had been ascending all the time, and now the firs were fewer. Ihe heather less luxuriant, end there \\.»s nothing to break the strength of the gu«fs that came tearing at her from the great cleft in the mountains through which she had to make her way. This headwind was going to make lipt walk harder, hilt at the same time it was exhilarating, and she strode into it with zest. At her first pans** for a breather she turned her baek to the wind and aurveved the landscape ’now widening as she mounted. It was beautiful indeed. but a little desolate, nml she realised that now it was almost entirely cloud-shadowed. Tim blue patches and the sunbursts w.*re pressingly fewer than when she started. Marion was not. however, the kind of airl to be easily discouraged. Condition* were rplainly !**■* genial, but. a true daughter Of the i.airnses was no fair-weather walker: Turning again to face the wind, she tramped on.

(By W. Kersley Holmes)

The blue-eyed farmer had not exaggerated when he described the path as rough. It switch-backed ovei the rising moorland with a rutty surface that permitted no careless walking. Ancient tree-roots and hcatherroots criss-crossed its sandy stretches, ready to trip the unwatchful pedestrian. Also it seemed interminable; Marian began to think she was entitled to a rest and some lunch before she had really reached the hills at all, though the opening of the pass by then loomed close ahead, its flanking heights grown tremendously in hefght and impressiveness. In the lee of an obliging boulder she sat down and ate the first Instalment of her rations, allowing herself one cup of tea from her thermos. It was delicious, and the day seemed brighter for the internal glow it pave her: the sturdv sandwich she ate — a morning-roll cut in two. lavishly buttered, and enclosing quite unrefined chunks of cheese —seemed one of the best things she had ever eaten! eaten! That interlude over, she took the road again, noticing now that some of the high tops were hidden in hurrying grey mist. It had the' effevt of magnifying their height and induing them with a strange remoteness, nnd as Marion at last found herself between the steep soaring grey hills, now so sombre, might well have seemed menacing, hostile. She. however. was no stranger. Generations of Cairnses had known those mountains in ttieir every mood, and she had surely entered in to the spiritual heritage of her race! Be that as it might, the weather showed no sign of granting her special consideration. Caught as in a funnel between the sides of the glen, the wind came charging at her with everincreasing force, the cloud-wreaths blew ever lower along the crags above, and now and then she felt on her face the sting of a raindrop. Well, she didn't mind. A light waterproof was in her rucksack, and she wasn't afraid of getting wet. As it mounted, now close to the bank, now high above' the stony torrent. racing valley wards down the glen, the path grew* ever rougher. Marion congratulated herself on her sensible shoes, thinking that even their big nails would soon wear down amongst the stones of all shapes and sizes, some fixed, some moving treacherously beneath the tread. Her day’s walk was by now beginning to assume the aspect of an adventure. In summer sunshine the glen might seem an ideal place for picnics to those who had the energy fo reacli it, but now it looked forbidding. even savage, while the wind filled it as with a hostile presence. Marion was astonished at the changed conditions; It seemed as if, rising from the valley, she had left the spring behind her and was making her way back into some stronghold of winter." Winter indeed—as the thought passed through her mind she was aware that a hillside ahead was obscured by a moving grey curtain I denser than rain, and in a few minutes , more she was tramping on through i a whirling snow-shower. It passed. • leaving the surroundings grimmer ! than ever in appearance with their grey sprinkling: but presently it was followed by another, thicker and of longer duration. St• I Marion wasn't worried: she felt very fit. and if she kept steadily nn it could not be very lone before she reached ttic* topmost point of the pass, and surely the going would he a little easier downhill. T’p there, on the watershed, she knew, she would have to exercise a little rare fo make sure ot' the right path: the hills fell back, leaving a roughly level plateau. On this her present path branched in several directions. In clear weather it could not be difficult to find the right one—as shown by the map. seconded bv Urn local authorities she had consulted. The realisation that snowshowers and mist would complicate matters made Marion increase her | pace, wishing that the snow, now gathering everywhere around her, d ; d not so conceal the inequalities of the laborious path. (To be continued)