“How pleasant it is here!” said Rollo to his cousin Lucy, as they were
gathering blueberries high up on old Mount Benalgon, the day they went
up with Rollo’S father and mother, and uncle; “and how thick the
blueberries are, Lucy!”
“Yes,” said Lucy, “they are very thick, I think; and how far we can see
now, we are up here so high! I wish we were up on that great high
rock.”
Rollo looked where Lucy pointed, and he saw, away above them, a rocky
summit projecting out from the mountain. The front of the rock was
ragged and precipitous, but it was flat and mossy upon the top, and
firs and other evergreen trees grew there, some of them hanging over
the edge.
“I wish I could get up there,” said Lucy.
“I wish I could too,” said Rollo. “I should like to climb up one of
those trees which hangs over, and then I could look down.”
“O, Rollo,” said Lucy, “you would not dare to climb up one of those
trees.”
“Yes, I should dare to,” said Rollo.
Rollo was sometimes a proud, boasting boy, pretending that he could do
great things, and talking very largely. This was one of his greatest
faults; and whenever he seemed to be in this boasting mood, he almost
always got into some difficulty after it. There is a text in the Bible
that was proved true, very often, in Rollo’s case. It is this—“Pride
cometh before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Rollo
had a sad Tall this day, though it was not from that high rock. It was
a different sort of a fall from that, as we shall presently see.
“Lucy,” said he again, “I do not believe but that I could get up upon
that rock myself. I can climb rocks.”
“O no, you could not,” said Lucy.
“Why, yes, I see a way.”
“Which way?”
“O, round by that great black log There is a path there through the
bushes.”
“O no,” said Lucy, “you could not get up there. But there are some boys
by that log; what boys are they?”
Rollo looked. They were some boys which they had seen coming up the
mountain, and Rollo’s father had warned him not to go near them. They
had wanted Rollo to go with them before, but his father had forbidden
it. Rollo wanted to go, and now he was glad to see them again; but Lucy
was sorry.