These two would come in wet from head to foot, change their
clothes, have a good meal, sleep well, and wake in the morning
without the least cold. They would spend the hours between
breakfast and dinner ascending the bank of a hill-stream, dammed by
the snow, swollen by the thaw, and now rushing with a roar to the
valley; or fighting their way through wind and sleet to the top of
some wild expanse of hill-moorland, houseless for miles and
miles--waste bog, and dry stony soil, as far as eye could reach,
with here and there a solitary stock or bush, bending low to the
ground in the steady bitter wind--a hopeless region, save that it
made the hope in their hearts glow the redder; or climbing a gully,
deep-worn by the few wheels of a month but the many of centuries,
and more by the torrents that rushed always down its trench when it
rained heavily, or thawed after snow--hearing the wind sweep across
it above their heads, but feeling no breath of its pres--ence, till
emerging suddenly upon its plane, they had to struggle with it for
very foot-hold upon the round earth. In such contests Lady Joan
delighted. It was so nice, she said, to have a downright good
fight, and nobody out of temper! She would come home from the windy
war with her face glowing, her eyes flashing, her hair challenging
storm from every point of the compass, and her heart merry with
very peacefulness. Her only thoughts of trouble were, that her
father's body lay unburied, and that Borland would come and take
her away.
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