Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices | Page 6

heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was always the last, and was
always the man who had to be looked after and waited for. At first the
ascent was delusively easy, the sides of the mountain sloped gradually,
and the material of which they were composed was a soft spongy turf,
very tender and pleasant to walk upon. After a hundred yards or so,
however, the verdant scene and the easy slope disappeared, and the
rocks began. Not noble, massive rocks, standing upright, keeping a
certain regularity in their positions, and possessing, now and then, flat
tops to sit upon, but little irritating, comfortless rocks, littered about
anyhow, by Nature; treacherous, disheartening rocks of all sorts of
small shapes and small sizes, bruisers of tender toes and trippers- up of
wavering feet. When these impediments were passed, heather and
slough followed. Here the steepness of the ascent was slightly
mitigated; and here the exploring party of three turned round to look at
the view below them. The scene of the moorland and the fields was like
a feeble water-colour drawing half sponged out. The mist was
darkening, the rain was thickening, the trees were dotted about like
spots of faint shadow, the division-lines which mapped out the fields
were all getting blurred together, and the lonely farm-house where the
dog-cart had been left, loomed spectral in the grey light like the last
human dwelling at the end of the habitable world. Was this a sight
worth climbing to see? Surely-- surely not!

Up again--for the top of Carrock is not reached yet. The land- lord, just
as good-tempered and obliging as he was at the bottom of the mountain.
Mr. Goodchild brighter in the eyes and rosier in the face than ever; full
of cheerful remarks and apt quotations; and walking with a springiness
of step wonderful to behold. Mr. Idle, farther and farther in the rear,
with the water squeaking in the toes of his boots, with his two-guinea
shooting-jacket clinging damply to his aching sides, with his overcoat
so full of rain, and standing out so pyramidically stiff, in consequence,
from his shoulders downwards, that he felt as if he was walking in a
gigantic extinguisher--the despairing spirit within him representing but
too aptly the candle that had just been put out. Up and up and up again,
till a ridge is reached and the outer edge of the mist on the summit of
Carrock is darkly and drizzingly near. Is this the top? No, nothing like
the top. It is an aggravating peculiarity of all mountains, that, although
they have only one top when they are seen (as they ought always to be
seen) from below, they turn out to have a perfect eruption of false tops
whenever the traveller is sufficiently ill-advised to go out of his way for
the purpose of ascending them. Carrock is but a trumpery little
mountain of fifteen hundred feet, and it presumes to have false tops,
and even precipices, as if it were Mont Blanc. No matter; Goodchild
enjoys it, and will go on; and Idle, who is afraid of being left behind by
himself, must follow. On entering the edge of the mist, the landlord
stops, and says he hopes that it will not get any thicker. It is twenty
years since he last ascended Carrock, and it is barely possible, if the
mist increases, that the party may be lost on the mountain. Goodchild
hears this dreadful intimation, and is not in the least impressed by it. He
marches for the top that is never to be found, as if he was the
Wandering Jew, bound to go on for ever, in defiance of everything. The
landlord faithfully accompanies him. The two, to the dim eye of Idle,
far below, look in the exaggerative mist, like a pair of friendly giants,
mounting the steps of some invisible castle together. Up and up, and
then down a little, and then up, and then along a strip of level ground,
and then up again. The wind, a wind unknown in the happy valley,
blows keen and strong; the rain-mist gets impenetrable; a dreary little
cairn of stones appears. The landlord adds one to the heap, first walking
all round the cairn as if he were about to perform an incantation, then
dropping the stone on to the top of the heap with the gesture of a

magician adding an ingredient to a cauldron in full bubble. Goodchild
sits down by the cairn as if it was his study-table at home; Idle,
drenched and panting, stands up with his back to the wind, ascertains
distinctly that this is the top at last, looks round with all the little
curiosity that is left in him, and gets, in return, a magnificent view
of--Nothing!
The effect of