But here, in this sun-washed loneliness far above, here was their world; hers and his.
They walked, sometimes climbing a crest where stag's-horn moss branched and spread through the springy turf beneath their feet, sometimes dipping into a hollow, for two miles and more. They could have walked there for half a day and seen no face except that of a tiny mountain sheep, cropping among the gorse; heard no voice but those of the calling plovers, beating their wings in the free air. Then, passing a gap in two hills, they came quite suddenly upon the cottage and the lake.
The sheet of water, silent, deserted, reflected the warm blue of the afternoon sky and the deep green of the overhanging boughs of great hassock-shaped bushes that covered two islands set upon its breast.
"Rhododendron bushes. When they're in blossom they're all simply _covered_ with flowers, pink and rose-colour, and reflected in the water! It _is_ so lovely," Gwenna told the lover beside her. "Oh, Paul! You _must_ come here again and see that with me in the spring!"
On the further bank was another jungle of rhododendron and lauristinus, half-hiding the grey stone walls and the latticed windows of the square cottage, a fishing box of a place that had evidently been built for some one who loved solitude.
Paul Dampier peered in through one of the cobwebby lattices. Just inside on the sill there stood, left there long since, a man's shaving-tackle. Blue mildew coated the piece of soap that lay in the dish. Further in he caught a glimpse of dusty furniture, of rugs thrown down on a wooden floor, of a man's old coat on a peg. A wall was decorated with sets of horns, with a couple of framed photographs, with old fishing-rods.
"Make a jolly decent billet, for some one, this," said Paul.
Gwenna said, "It belongs to some people.... They're away, I think. It's all locked up now. So's the boat for the lake, I expect. They used to keep a boat up here for fishing."
The long flat boat they found moored to one of the stout-trunked rhododendron bushes that dipped its pointed leaves in the peat-brown water fringed with rushes.
Paul stepped in, examining her, picking up the oars. "Nice afternoon for a row, Ma'am?" he said, smiling up at the girl clad in dove-grey on the rushy bank, with the spongy dark-green moss about her shoes.