Sentence The Threehundredandfiftysecond

Meanwhile, today, in Melrose, while Patience Scott and Thomas Learmonth had been exploring their pasts in the present, Elizabeth Bennett and Roxy Davidova (free of responsibility after the Scottish Parliament retired for the duration of the upcoming elections, and taking a day's respite before being plunged headlong into her party's campaign) were taking the opportunity to walk over the Eildon Hills to try to identify the entrance to The Cavern where Lizzie (formerly known as Umm by her People, but who had chosen her new name during a three-hour session with Roxy, and had said that she also liked the cognomen Lizzie) had lived for as long as she could remember; and as they walked, they talked, for Lizzie had shown a grand facility with English, and although her vocabulary – after only a few days of exposure – while still extremely restricted, was growing with every passing day and hour, and even minute as she quickly absorbed the new words which Roxy (formerly a Primary

School Teacher before she went into Politics) used – always wanting to know the meaning and how to use it and differentiate it from other, similar sounding, words: she asked about the various tribes who had inhabited the area in her time, but Roxy admitted to some ignorance on the topic, and Lizzie wanted to know of the clarigation the Elders had sought from the Red Faces “over there,” she pointed in the direction of Hawick to the South, and wanted to know if there had been a Battle (which she said would be between Ogg of the Cavern People and Pigg of the Faraways, and who had won, but Roxy sighed and admitted ignorance; then, at the top of The North Hill, overlooking the Tweed Valley and Melrose, with views in all directions, Roxy pointed out the different features and asked Lizzie to describe the differences from the countryside she was familiar with: “no houses,” said Lizzie, “different trees, nothing there,” she said, pointing towards the whiteness of Langlee, a housing estate on the outskirts of Galashiels; she slowly turned, clockwise, saying “no, no, no, no. no, yes and no – she was pointing towards the Trig point and direction pointer on the mid Hill; “this,” she indicated the cairn they were standing by, “not here, there,” and Roxy understood – there had been no cairn on the North Hill, but there had been one on the Mid Hill, instead of the two pillars which stood there now, and she asked: “was that the Food Cairn?” and Lizzie nodded; so they descended to the

shoulder between the hills and climbed the steeper and taller Mid Hill to its summit; Lizzie ran around, staring at the ground and the view until she pointed at a spot where she confidently claimed that the Food Cairn had been; and she indicated a place down on the slope between where they stood and the smaller South Hill and said “the Cavern was there;” after Roxy had taken photographs of the cairn site, the two walked down and came to the small quarry which was dug our of the ground between the hills; “this was the entrance, but it's filled in,” said Lizzie confidently and triumphantly,” suddenly she sat down and began weeping: “my friends, my family, all my beers,” she wailed, “gone, all gone, buried there,” indicating the rubble; and Roxy, sensing something auspicious was happening here and now, took out her mobile and made a quick call to Aunty Crist!