AMONG THE MOUNTAINS.
One summer morning we all got up very early, except Charley, who was
unfit for the exertion, to have a ramble in the mountains, and see the
sun rise. The fresh friendly air, full of promise, greeting us the
moment we crossed the threshold; the calm light which, without visible
source, lay dream-like on the hills; the brighter space in the sky
whence ere long the spring of glory would burst forth triumphant; the
dull white of the snow-peaks, dwelling so awful and lonely in the mid
heavens, as if nothing should ever comfort them or make them
acknowledge the valleys below; the sense of adventure with which we
climbed the nearer heights as familiar to our feet on ordinary days as
the stairs to our bedrooms; the gradual disappearance of the known
regions behind us, and the dawning sense of the illimitable and awful,
folding in its bosom the homely and familiar--combined to produce an
impression which has never faded. The sun rose in splendour, as if
nothing more should hide in the darkness for ever; and yet with the
light came a fresh sense of mystery, for now that which had appeared
smooth was all broken and mottled with shadows innumerable. Again and
again I found myself standing still to gaze in a rapture of delight
which I can only recall, not express; again and again was I roused by
the voice of the master in front, shouting to me to come on, and
warning me of the danger of losing sight of the rest of the company;
and again and again I obeyed, but without any perception of the peril.
The intention was to cross the hills into the valley of the
Lauterbrunnen, not, however, by the path now so well known, but by
another way, hardly a path, with which the master and some of the boys
were familiar enough. It was my first experience of anything like real
climbing. As we passed rapidly over a moorland space, broken with huge
knolls and solitary rocks, something hurt my foot, and taking off my
shoe, I found that a small chiropodical operation was necessary, which
involved the use of my knife. It slipped, and cut my foot, and I bound
the wound with a strip from my pocket-handkerchief. When I got up, I
found that my companions had disappeared. This gave me little trouble
at the moment, for I had no doubt of speedily overtaking them; and I
set out briskly in the direction, as I supposed, in which we had been
going. But I presume that, instead of following them, I began at once
to increase the distance between us. At all events, I had not got far
before a pang of fear shot through me--the first awaking doubt. I
called--louder--and louder yet; but there was no response, and I knew I
was alone.
Invaded by sudden despair, I sat down, and for a moment did not even
think. All at once I became aware of the abysses which surrounded the
throne of my isolation. Behind me the broken ground rose to an unseen
height, and before me it sloped gently downwards, without a break to
the eye, yet I felt as if, should I make one wavering movement, I must
fall down one of the frightful precipices which Mr Forest had told me
as a warning lay all about us. I actually clung to the stone upon which
I sat, although I could not have been in more absolute safety for the
moment had I been dreaming in bed. The old fear had returned upon me
with a tenfold feeling of reality behind it. I presume it is so all
through life: it is not what is, but what may be, that oftenest
blanches the cheek and paralyzes the limbs; and oftenest gives rise to
that sense of the need of a God which we are told nowadays is a
superstition, and which he whom we call the Saviour acknowledged and
justified in telling us to take no thought for the morrow, inasmuch as
God took thought for it. I strove to master my dismay, and forced
myself to get up and run about; and in a few minutes the fear had
withdrawn into the background, and I felt no longer an unseen force
dragging me towards a frightful gulf. But it was replaced by a more
spiritual horror. The sense of loneliness seized upon me, and the first
sense of absolute loneliness is awful. Independent as a man may fancy
himself in the heart of a world of men, he is only to be convinced that
there is neither voice nor hearing, to know that the face from which he
most recoils is of a kind essential to his very soul. Space is not
room; and when we complain of the over-crowding of our fellows, we are
thankless for that which comforts us the most, and desire its absence
in ignorance of our deepest nature.
Not even a bird broke the silence. It lay upon my soul as the sky and
the sea lay upon the weary eye of the ancient mariner. It is useless to
attempt to convey the impression of my misery. It was not yet the fear
of death, or of hunger or thirst, for I had as yet no adequate idea of
the vast lonelinesses that lie in a mountain land: it was simply the
being alone, with no ear to hear and no voice to answer me--a torture
to which the soul is liable in virtue of the fact that it was not made
to be alone, yea, I think, I hope, never _can_ be alone; for that which
could be fact could not be such horror. Essential horror springs from
an idea repugnant to the _nature_ of the thinker, and which therefore
in reality could not be.
My agony rose and rose with every moment of silence. But when it
reached its height, and when, to save myself from bursting into tears,
I threw myself on the ground, and began gnawing at the plants about
me--then first came help: I had a certain _experience_, as the Puritans
might have called it. I fear to build any definite conclusions upon it,
from the dread of fanaticism and the danger of attributing a merely
physical effect to a spiritual cause. But are matter and spirit so far
asunder? It is my will moves my arm, whatever first moves my will.
Besides, I do not understand how, unless another influence came into
operation, the extreme of misery and depression should work round into
such a change as I have to record.
But I do not know how to describe the change. The silence was crushing
or rather sucking my life out of me--up into its own empty gulfs. The
horror of the great stillness was growing deathly, when all at once I
rose to my feet, with a sense of power and confidence I had never had
before. It was as if something divine within me awoke to outface the
desolation. I felt that it was time to act, and that I could act. There
is no cure for terror like action: in a few moments I could have
approached the verge of any precipice--at least without abject fear.
The silence--no longer a horrible vacancy--appeared to tremble with
unuttered thinkings. The manhood within me was alive and awake. I could
not recognize a single landmark, or discover the least vestige of a
path. I knew upon which hand the sun was when we started; and took my
way with the sun on the other side. But a cloud had already come over
him.
I had not gone far before I saw in front of me, on the other side of a
little hillock, something like the pale blue grey fog that broods over
a mountain lake. I ascended the hillock, and started back with a cry of
dismay: I was on the very verge of an awful gulf. When I think of it, I
marvel yet that I did not lose my self-possession altogether. I only
turned and strode in the other direction--the faster for the fear. But
I dared not run, for I was haunted by precipices. Over every height,
every mound, one might be lying--a trap for my destruction. I no longer
looked out in the hope of recognizing some feature of the country; I
could only regard the ground before me, lest at any step I might come
upon an abyss.
I had not walked far before the air began to grow dark. I glanced again
at the sun. The clouds had gathered thick about him. Suddenly a
mountain wind blew cold in my face. I never yet can read that sonnet of
Shakspere’s,
Full many a glorious morning I have seen
Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden face the meadows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy;
Anon permit the basest clouds to ride
With ugly rack on his celestial face,
And from the forlorn world his visage hide,
Stealing unseen to west with his disgrace,--
without recalling the gladness when I started from home and the misery
that so soon followed. But my new spirits did not yet give way. I
trudged on. The wind increased, and in it came by-and-by the trailing
skirts of a cloud. In a few moments more I was wrapped in mist. It was
as if the gulf from which I had just escaped had sent up its indwelling
demon of fog to follow and overtake me. I dared hardly go on even with
the greatest circumspection. As I grew colder, my courage declined. The
mist wetted my face and sank through my clothes, and I began to feel
very wretched, I sat down, not merely from dread of the precipices, but
to reserve my walking powers when the mist should withdraw. I began to
shiver, and was getting utterly hopeless and miserable when the fog
lifted a little, and I saw what seemed a great rock near me. I crept
towards it. Almost suddenly it dwindled, and I found but a stone, yet
one large enough to afford me some shelter. I went to the leeward side
of it, and nestled at its foot. The mist again sank, and the wind blew
stronger, but I was in comparative comfort, partly because my
imagination was wearied. I fell fast asleep.
I awoke stiff with cold. Rain was falling in torrents, and I was wet to
the skin; but the mist was much thinner, and I could see a good way.
For awhile I was very heartless, what with the stiffness, and the fear
of having to spend the night on the mountains. I was hungry too, not
with the appetite of desire but of need. The worst was that I had no
idea in what direction I ought to go. Downwards lay precipices--upwards
lay the surer loneliness. I knelt, and prayed the God who dwelt in the
silence to help me; then strode away I knew not whither--up the hill in
the faint hope of discovering some sign to direct me. As I climbed the
hill rose. When I surmounted what had seemed the highest point, away
beyond rose another. But the slopes were not over-steep, and I was able
to get on pretty fast. The wind being behind me, I hoped for some
shelter over the highest brow, but that, for anything I knew, might be
miles away in the regions of ice and snow.
[Illustration: I FELL FAST ASLEEP.]
I had been walking I should think about an hour, when the mist broke
away from around me, and the sun, in the midst of clouds of dull orange
and gold, shone out upon the wet hill. It was like a promise of safety,
and woke in me courage to climb the steep and crumbling slope which now
lay before me. But the fear returned. People had died in the mountains
of hunger, and I began to make up my mind to meet the worst. I had not
learned that the approach of any fate is just the preparation for that
fate. I troubled myself with the care of that which was not impending
over me. I tried to contemplate the death-struggle with equanimity, but
could not. Had I been wearier and fainter, it would have appeared less
dreadful. Then, in the horror of the slow death of hunger, strange as
it may appear, that which had been the special horror of my childish
dreams returned upon me changed into a thought of comfort: I could, ere
my strength failed me utterly, seek the verge of a precipice, lie down
there, and when the suffering grew strong enough to give me courage,
roll myself over the edge, and cut short the agony.
At length I gained the brow of the height, and at last the ground sank
beyond. There was no precipice to terrify, only a somewhat steep
descent into a valley large and wide. But what a vision arose on the
opposite side of that valley!--an upright wilderness of rocks, slopes,
precipices, snow, glaciers, avalanches! Weary and faint as I was, I was
filled with a glorious awe, the terror of which was the opposite of
fear, for it lifted instead of debasing the soul. Not a pine-tree
softened the haggard waste; not a single stray sheep of the wind’s
flock drew one trail of its thin-drawn wool behind it; all was hard and
bare. The glaciers lay like the skins of cruel beasts, with the green
veins yet visible, nailed to the rocks to harden in the sun; and the
little streams which ran down from their claws looked like the
knife-blades they are, keen and hard and shining, sawing away at the
bones of the old mountain. But although the mountain looked so silent,
there came from it every now and then a thunderous sound. At first I
could not think what it was, but gazing at its surface more steadily,
upon the face of a slope I caught sight of what seemed a larger stream
than any of the rest; but it soon ceased to flow, and after came the
thunder of its fall: it _was_ a stream, but a solid one--an avalanche.
Away up in the air the huge snow-summit glittered in the light of the
Afternoon sun. I was gazing on the Maiden in one of her most savage
moods--or to speak prose--I was regarding one of the wildest aspects of
the many-sided Jungfrau.
Half way down the hill, almost right under my feet, rose a slender
column of smoke, I could not see whence. I hastened towards it, feeling
as strong as when I started in the morning. I zig-zagged down the
slope, for it was steep and slippery with grass, and arrived at length
at a good-sized cottage, which faced the Jungfrau. It was built of
great logs laid horizontally one above the other, all with notches half
through near the end, by which notches, lying into each other, the
sides of the house were held together at the corners. I soon saw it
must be a sort of roadside inn. There was no one about the place, but
passing through a dark vestibule, in which were stores of fodder and
various utensils, I came to a room in which sat a mother and her
daughter, the former spinning, the latter making lace on a pillow. In
at the windows looked the great Jungfrau. The room was lined with
planks; the floor was boarded; the ceiling, too, was of
boards--pine-wood all around.
The women rose when I entered. I knew enough of German to make them
understand my story, and had learned enough of their _patois_ to
understand them a little in return. They looked concerned, and the
older woman passing her hands over my jacket, turned to her daughter
and commenced a talk much too rapid and no doubt idiomatic for me to
follow. It was in the end mingled with much laughter, evidently at some
proposal of the mother. Then the daughter left the room, and the mother
began to heap wood on the fire. In a few minutes the daughter returned,
still laughing, with some garments, which the mother took from her. I
was watching everything from a corner of the hearth, where I had seated
myself wearily. The mother came up to me, and, without speaking, put
something over my head, which I found to be a short petticoat such as
the women wore; then told me I must take off my clothes, and have them
dried at the fire. She laid other garments on a chair beside me.
‘I don’t know how to put them on,’ I objected.
‘Put on as many as you can,’ she said laughing, ‘and I will help you
with the rest.’
I looked about. There was a great press in the room. I went behind it
and pulled off my clothes; and having managed to put on some of the
girl’s garments, issued from my concealment. The kindly laughter was
renewed, and mother and daughter busied themselves in arranging my
apparel, evidently seeking to make the best of me as a girl, an attempt
favoured by my pale face. When I seemed to myself completely arrayed,
the girl said to her mother what I took to mean, ‘Let us finish what we
have begun;’ and leaving the room, returned presently with the velvet
collar embroidered with silver and the pendent chains which the women
of most of the cantons wear, and put it on me, hooking the chains and
leaving them festooned under my arms. The mother was spreading out my
clothes before the fire to dry.
Neither was pretty, but both looked womanly and good. The daughter had
the attraction of youth and bright eyes; the mother of goodwill and
experience; but both were sallow, and the mother very wrinkled for what
seemed her years.
‘Now,’ I said, summoning my German, ‘you’ve almost finished your work.
Make my short hair as like your long hair as you can, and then I shall
be a Swiss girl.’
I was but a boy, and had no scruple concerning a bit of fun of which I
might have been ashamed a few years later. The girl took a comb from
her own hair and arranged mine. When she had finished, ‘One girl may
kiss another,’ I said; and doubtless she understood me, for she
returned my kiss with a fresh laugh. I sat down by the fire, and as its
warmth crept into my limbs, I rejoiced over comforts which yesterday
had been a matter of course.
Meantime they were busy getting me something to eat. Just as they were
setting it on the table, however, a loud call outside took them both
away. In a few moments two other guests entered, and then first I found
myself ashamed of my costume. With them the mother re-entered, calling
behind her, ‘There’s nobody at home; you must put the horses up
yourself, Annel.’ Then she moved the little table towards me, and
proceeded to set out the meal.
‘Ah! I see you have got something to eat,’ said one of the strangers,
in a voice I fancied I had heard before.
‘Will you please to share it?’ returned the woman, moving the table
again towards the middle of the room.
I thought with myself that, if I kept silent, no one could tell I was
not a girl; and, the table being finally adjusted, I moved my seat
towards it. Meantime the man was helping his companion to take off her
outer garments, and put them before the fire. I saw the face of neither
until they approached the table and sat down. Great was my surprise to
discover that the man was the same I had met in the wood on my way to
Moldwarp Hall, and that the girl was Clara--a good deal grown--in fact,
looking almost a woman. From after facts, the meeting became less
marvellous in my eyes than it then appeared.
I felt myself in an awkward position--indeed, I felt almost guilty,
although any notion of having the advantage of them never entered my
head. I was more than half inclined to run out and help Annel with the
horses, but I was very hungry, and not at all willing to postpone my
meal, simple as it was--bread and butter, eggs, cheese, milk, and a
bottle of the stronger wine of the country, tasting like a coarse
sherry. The two--father and daughter evidently--talked about their
journey, and hoped they should reach the Grindelwald without more rain.
‘By the way,’ said the gentleman, ‘it’s somewhere not far from here
young Cumbermede is at school. I know Mr Forest well enough--used to
know him, at least. We may as well call upon him.’
‘Cumbermede,’ said Clara; ‘who is he?’
‘A nephew of Mrs Wilson’s--no, not nephew--second or third cousin--or
something of the sort, I believe.--Didn’t somebody tell me you met him
at the Hall one day?’
‘Oh, that boy--Wilfrid. Yes; I told you myself. Don’t you remember what
a bit of fun we had the night of the ball? We were shut out on the
leads, you know.’
‘Yes, to be sure, you did tell me. What sort of a boy is he?’
‘Oh! I don’t know. Much like other boys. I did think he was a coward at
first, but he showed some pluck at last. I shouldn’t wonder if he turns
out a good sort of fellow! We _were_ in a fix!’
‘You’re a terrible madcap, Clara! If you don’t settle down as you grow,
you’ll be getting yourself into worse scrapes.’
‘Not with you to look after me, papa dear,’ answered Clara, smiling.
‘It was the fun of cheating old Goody Wilson, you know!’
Her father grinned with his whole mouthful of teeth, and looked at her
with amusement--almost sympathetic roguery, which she evidently
appreciated, for she laughed heartily.
Meantime I was feeling very uncomfortable. Something within told me I
had no right to overhear remarks about myself; and, in my slow way, I
was meditating how to get out of the scrape.
‘What a nice-looking girl that is!’ said Clara, without lifting her
eyes from her plate--‘I mean for a Swiss, you know. But I do like the
dress. I wish you would buy me a collar and chains like those, papa.’
‘Always wanting to get something out of your old dad, Clara! Just like
the rest of you, always wanting something--eh?’
‘No, papa; it’s you gentlemen always want to keep everything for
yourselves. We only want you to share.’
‘Well, you shall have the collar, and I shall have the chains.--Will
that do?’
‘Yes, thank you, papa,’ she returned, nodding her head. ‘Meantime,
hadn’t you better give me your diamond pin? It would fasten this
troublesome collar so nicely!’
‘There, child!’ he answered, proceeding to take it from his shirt.
‘Anything else?’
‘No, no, papa dear. I didn’t want it. I expected you, like everybody
else, to decline carrying out your professed principles.’
‘What a nice girl she is,’ I thought, ‘after all!’
‘My love,’ said her father, ‘you will know some day that I would do
more for you even than give you my pet diamond. If you are a good girl,
and do as I tell you, there will be grander things than diamond pins in
store for you. But you may have this if you like.’
He looked fondly at her as he spoke.
‘Oh no, papa!--not now at least. I should not know what to do with it.
I should be sure to lose it.’
If my clothes had been dry, I would have slipped away, put them on, and
appeared in my proper guise. As it was, I was getting more and more
miserable--ashamed of revealing who I was, and ashamed of hearing what
the speakers supposed I did not understand. I sat on irresolute. In a
little while, however, either the wine having got into my head, or the
food and warmth having restored my courage, I began to contemplate the
bolder stroke of suddenly revealing myself by some unexpected remark.
They went on talking about the country, and the road they had come.
‘But we have hardly seen anything worth calling a precipice,’ said
Clara.
‘You’ll see hundreds of them if you look out of the window,’ said her
father.
‘Oh! but I don’t mean that,’ she returned. ‘It’s nothing to look at
them like that. I mean from the top of them--to look down, you know.’
‘Like from the flying buttress at Moldwarp Hall, Clara?’ I said.
The moment I began to speak, they began to stare. Clara’s hand was
arrested on its way towards the bread, and her father’s wine-glass hung
suspended between the table and his lips. I laughed.
‘By Jove!’ said Mr Coningham--and added nothing, for amazement, but
looked uneasily at his daughter, as if asking whether they had not said
something awkward about me.
‘It’s Wilfrid!’ exclaimed Clara, in the tone of one talking in her
sleep. Then she laid down her knife, and laughed aloud.
‘What a guy you are!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who would have thought of finding
you in a Swiss girl? Really it was too bad of you to sit there and let
us go on as we did. I do believe we were talking about your precious
self! At least papa was.’
Again her merry laugh rang out. She could not have taken a better way
of relieving us.
‘I’m very sorry,’ I said; ‘but I felt so awkward in this costume that I
couldn’t bring myself to speak before. I tried very hard.’
‘Poor boy!’ she returned, rather more mockingly than I liked, her
violets swimming in the dews of laughter.
By this time Mr Coningham had apparently recovered his self-possession.
I say _apparently_, for I doubt if he had ever lost it. He had only, I
think, been running over their talk in his mind to see if he had said
anything unpleasant, and now, re-assured, I think, he stretched his
hand across the table.
‘At all events, Mr Cumbermede,’ he said, ‘_we_ owe _you_ an apology. I
am sure we can’t have said anything we should mind you hearing; but--’
‘Oh!’ I interrupted, ‘you have told me nothing I did not know already,
except that Mrs Wilson was a relation, of which I was quite ignorant.’
‘It is true enough, though.’
‘What relation is she, then?’
‘I think, when I gather my recollections of the matter--I think she was
first cousin to your mother--perhaps it was only second cousin.’
‘Why shouldn’t she have told me so, then?’
‘She must explain that herself. _I_ cannot account for that. It is very
extraordinary.’
‘But how do you know so well about me, sir--if you don’t mind saying?’
‘Oh! I am an old friend of the family. I knew your father better than
your uncle, though. Your uncle is not over-friendly, you see.’
‘I am sorry for that.’
‘No occasion at all. I suppose he doesn’t like me. I fancy, being a
Methodist--’
‘My uncle is not a Methodist, I assure you. He goes to the parish
church regularly.’
‘Oh! it’s all one. I only meant to say that, being a man of somewhat
peculiar notions, I supposed he did not approve of my profession. Your
good people are just as ready as others, however, to call in the lawyer
when they fancy their rights invaded. Ha! ha! But no one has a right to
complain of another because he doesn’t choose to like him. Besides, it
brings grist to the mill. If everybody liked everybody, what would
become of the lawsuits? And that would unsuit us--wouldn’t it, Clara?’
‘You know, papa dear, what mamma would say?’
‘But she ain’t here, you know.’
‘But _I_ am, papa; and I don’t like to hear you talk shop,’ said Clara
coaxingly.
‘Very well; we won’t then. But I was only explaining to Mr Cumbermede
how I supposed it was that his uncle did not like me. There was no
offence in that, I hope, Mr Cumbermede?’
‘Certainly not,’ I answered. ‘I am the only offender. But I was
innocent enough as far as intention goes. I came in drenched and cold,
and the good people here amused themselves dressing me like a girl. It
is quite time I were getting home now. Mr Forest will be in a way about
me. So will Charley Osborne.’
‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Coningham, ‘I remember hearing you were at school
together somewhere in this quarter. But tell us all about it. Did you
lose your way?’
I told them my story. Even Clara looked grave when I came to the
incident of finding myself on the verge of the precipice.
‘Thank God, my boy!’ said Mr Coningham kindly. ‘You have had a narrow
escape. I lost myself once in the Cumberland hills, and hardly got off
with my life. Here it is a chance you were ever seen again, alive or
dead. I wonder you’re not knocked up.’
I was, however, more so than I knew.
‘How are you going to get home?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know any way but walking,’ I answered.
‘Are you far from home?’
‘I don’t know. I dare say the people here will be able to tell me. But
I think you said you were going down into the Grindelwald. I shall know
where I am there. Perhaps you will let me walk with you. Horses can’t
go very fast along these roads.’
‘You shall have my horse, my boy.’
‘No. I couldn’t think of that.’
‘You must. I haven’t been wandering all day like you. You can ride, I
suppose?’
‘Yes, pretty well.’
‘Then you shall ride with Clara, and I’ll walk with the guide. I shall
go and see after the horses presently.’
It was indeed a delightful close to a dreadful day. We sat and chatted
a while, and then Clara and I went out to look at the Jungfrau. She
told me they had left her mother at Interlaken, and had been wandering
about the Bernese Alps for nearly a week.
‘I can’t think what should have put it in papa’s head,’ she added; ‘for
he does not care much for scenery. I fancy he wants to make the most of
poor me, and so takes me the grand tour. He wanted to come without
mamma, but she said we were not to be trusted alone. She had to give in
when we took to horseback, though.’
It was getting late, and Mr Coningham came out to find us.
‘It is quite time we were going,’ he said. ‘In fact we are too late
now. The horses are ready, and your clothes are dry, Mr Cumbermede. I
have felt them all over.’
‘How kind of you, sir!’ I said.
‘Nonsense! Why should any one want another to get his death of cold? If
you are to keep alive, it’s better to keep well as long as ever you
can. Make haste, though, and change your clothes.’
I hurried away, followed by Clara’s merry laugh at my clumsy gait. In a
few moments I was ready. Mr Coningham had settled my bill for me.
Mother and daughter gave me a kind farewell, and I exhausted my German
in vain attempts to let them know how grateful I was for their
goodness. There was not much time, however, to spend even on gratitude.
The sun was nearly down, and I could see Clara mounted and waiting for
me before the window. I found Mr Coningham rather impatient.
‘Come along, Mr Cumbermede; we must be off,’ he said. ‘Get up there.’
‘You _have_ grown, though, after all,’ said Clara. ‘I thought it might
be only the petticoats that made you look so tall.’
I got on the horse which the guide, a half-witted fellow from the next
valley, was holding for me, and we set out. The guide walked beside my
horse, and Mr Coningham beside Clara’s. The road was level for a little
way, but it soon turned up on the hill where I had been wandering, and
went along the steep side of it.
‘Will this do for a precipice, Clara?’ said her father.
‘Oh! dear no,’ she answered; ‘it’s not worth the name. It actually
slopes outward.’
‘Before we got down to the next level stretch it began again to rain. A
mist came on, and we could see but a little way before us. Through the
mist came the sound of the bells of the cattle upon the hill. Our guide
trudged carefully but boldly on. He seemed to know every step of the
way. Clara was very cool, her father a little anxious, and very
attentive to his daughter, who received his help with a never-failing
merry gratitude, making light of all annoyances. At length we came down
upon the better road, and travelled on with more comfort.
‘Look, Clara!’ I said, ‘will that do?’
‘What is it?’ she asked, turning her head in the direction in which I
pointed.
On our right, through the veil, half of rain, half of gauzy mist, which
filled the air, arose a precipice indeed--the whole bulk it was of the
Eiger mountain, which the mist brought so near that it seemed literally
to overhang the road. Clara looked up for a moment, but betrayed no
sign of awe.
‘Yes, I think that will do,’ she said.
‘Though you are only at the foot of it?’ I suggested.
‘Yes, though I am only at the foot of it,’ she repeated.
‘What does it remind you of?’ I asked.
‘Nothing. I never saw anything it could remind me of,’ she answered.
‘Nor read anything?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘It reminds me of Mount Sinai in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_. You remember
Christian was afraid because the side of it which was next the wayside
did hang so much over that he thought it would fall on his head.’
‘I never read the _Pilgrim’s Progress_,’ she returned, in a careless if
not contemptuous tone.
‘Didn’t you? Oh, you would like it so much!’
‘I don’t think I should. I don’t like religious books.’ ‘But that is
such a good story!’
‘Oh! it’s all a trap--sugar on the outside of a pill! The sting’s in
the tail of it. They’re all like that. _I_ know them.’
This silenced me, and for a while we went on without speaking.
The rain ceased; the mist cleared a little; and I began to think I saw
some landmarks I knew. A moment more, and I perfectly understood where
we were.
‘I’m all right now, sir,’ I said to Mr Coningham. ‘I can find my way
from here.’
As I spoke I pulled up and proceeded to dismount.
‘Sit still,’ he said. ‘We cannot do better than ride on to Mr Forest’s.
I don’t know him much, but I have met him, and in a strange country all
are friends, I dare say he will take us in for the night. Do you think
he could house us?’
‘I have no doubt of it. For that matter, the boys could crowd a
little.’
‘Is it far from here?’
‘Not above two miles, I think.’
‘Are you sure you know the way?’
‘Quite sure.’
‘Then you take the lead.’
I did so. He spoke to the guide, and Clara and I rode on in front.
‘You and I seem destined to have adventures together, Clara,’ I said.
‘It seems so. But this is not so much of an adventure as that night on
the leads,’ she answered.
‘You would not have thought so if you had been with me in the morning.’
‘Were you very much frightened?’
‘I was. And then to think of finding you!’
‘It was funny, certainly.’
When we reached the house, there was great jubilation over me, but Mr
Forest himself was very serious. He had not been back more than half an
hour, and was just getting ready to set out again, accompanied by men
from the village below. Most of the boys were quite knocked up, for
they had been looking for me ever since they missed me. Charley was in
a dreadful way. When he saw me he burst into tears, and declared he
would never let me go out of his sight again. But if he had been with
me, it would have been death to both of us: I could never have got him
over the ground.
Mr and Mrs Forest received their visitors with the greatest cordiality,
and invited them to spend a day or two with them, to which, after some
deliberation, Mr Coningham agreed.