Carrock that Idle had left his native city and
travelled to Cumberland. Never did he feel
more disastrously convinced that he had
committed a very grave error in judgment than
when he found himself standing in the rain
at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew
that the responsibility rested on his weak
shoulders of actually getting to the top of it.

The honest landlord went first, the beaming
Goodchild followed, the mournful Idle
brought up the rear. From time to time,
the two foremost members of the expedition
changed places in the order of march; but
the rearguard never altered his position. Up
the mountain or down the mountain, in the
water or out of it, over the rocks, through
the bogs, skirting the 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 landlord, 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 over-coat
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 drizzlingly 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 was
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 this sublime spectacle on the
minds of the exploring party is a little
injured by the nature of the direct conclusion
to which the sight of it points—the said
conclusion being that the mountain mist has
actually gathered round them, as the landlord
feared it would. It now becomes imperatively
necessary to settle the exact situation
of the farm-house in the valley at which the
dog-cart has been left, before the travellers
attempt to descend. While the landlord is
endeavouring to make this discovery in his
own way, Mr. Goodchild plunges his hand
under his wet coat, draws out a little red
morocco-case, opens it, and displays to the