They walked down the steps again, therefore, on to the high road, and, stopping a girl who was passing, asked the way to Waverley.
"It's a good four miles by the road, but it's only about two by the fields," she volunteered in reply.

"I think you'd find the path.

You go down the road to the right, and turn through the first gate across a field to a farm.

Then you keep along the river bank, on the left.

You can't miss it." To save two miles in their present predicament was a matter of importance, and they all felt that they would greatly prefer walking through fields to tramping along a dusty high road.