To breathe the difficult air
Of the iced mountain top.
Manfred.
Fetzo auf den Schroffen Zinken
Hängt sie, auf dem höchsten Grat,
Wo die Felsen jah versinken,
Und verschwunden ist der Pfad.
Schiller.
It was some weeks before the examination, and the close of the half-year, when one day Walter, full of glee, burst out of the schoolroom at twelve, when the lesson was over, to tell Kenrick an announcement just made to the forms, that the next day was to be a whole holiday.
“Hurrah!” said Kenrick, “what’s it for?”
“O! Somers has got no end of a scholarship at Cambridge—an awfully swell thing—and Dr Lane gave a holiday directly he got the telegram announcing the news.”
“Well done, old Somers!” said Kenrick. “What shall we do?”
“O! I’ve had a scheme for a long time in my head, Ken; I want you to come with me to the top of Appenfell.”
“Whew-w-w! but it’s a tremendous long walk, and no one goes up in winter.”
“Never mind, all the more fun and glory, and we shall have the whole day before us. I’ve been longing to beat that proud old Appenfell for a long time. I’m certain we can do it.”
“But do you mean that we two should go alone?”
“O, no; we’ll ask Flip, to amuse us on the way.”
“And may I ask Power?”
“If you like,” said Kenrick, who was, I am sorry to say, not a little jealous of the friendship which had sprung up between Power and Walter.
“And would you mind Daubeny joining us?”
“Not at all; and he’s clearly overworking himself. It’ll do him good. Let me see—you, Power, Flip, Dubbs, and me; that’ll be enough, won’t it?”
“Well, I should like to ask Eden.”
“Eden!” said Kenrick with the least little touch of contempt in his tone of voice.
“Poor little fellow,” said Walter smiling sadly; “so you, too, despise him. No wonder he doesn’t get on.”
“O! let him come by all means, if you like,” said Kenrick.
“Thanks, Ken—but now I come to think of it, it’s too far for him. Never mind; let’s go before dinner, and order some sandwiches for to-morrow, and forage generally, at Cole’s.”
Power and Daubeny gladly consented to join the excursion. At tea, Walter asked Henderson if he’d come with them, and he, being just then in a phase of nonsense which made him speak of everything in a manner intended to be Homeric, answered with oracular gravity—
“Him addressed in reply the laughter-loving son of Hender:
Thou askest me, oh Evïdës, like to the immortals,
Whether thee I will accompany, and the much-enduring Dubbs,
And the counsellor Power, and the revered ox-eyed Kenrick,
To the tops of thousand-crested many-fountained Appenfell.”
“Grotesque idiot,” said Kenrick, laughing; “cease this weak, washy, everlasting flood of twaddle, and tell us whether you’ll come or no.”
“Him sternly eyeing, addressed in reply the mighty Henderides,
Heavy with tea, with the eyes of a dog, and the heart of a reindeer!
What word has escaped thee, the barrier of thy teeth?
Contrary to right, not according to right, hast thou spoken.”
“For goodness’ sake shut up before you’ve driven us stark raving mad,” said Walter, putting his hand over Henderson’s lips. “Now, yes or no; will you come?”
“Thee will I accompany—” said Henderson, struggling to get clear of Walter, “to many-fountained Appenfell—”
“Hurrah! that’ll do. We have got an answer out of you at last; and now go on spouting the whole Iliad if you like.”
Full of spirits they started after breakfast the next morning, and as they climbed higher and higher up the steep mountainside, the keen air exhilarated them, and showed, as through a crystal glass, the exceeding glory of the hills flung on every side around them, and the broad living sparkle of the sea caught here and there in glimpses between the nearer peaks. Walter, Henderson, and Kenrick, were in front, while at some distance behind them, Power helped on Daubeny, who soon showed signs of fatigue.
“Look at that pappy fellow, Evson,” said Daubeny, sighing; “how he is bounding along in front. How active he is.”
“You seem out of spirits,” said Power kindly; “what’s the matter?”
“Oh, nothing. A little tired, that’s all.”
“You’re surely not fretting about having lost the head place.”
“Oh, no. ‘Palmam qui meruit ferat.’ As Robertson said the other day in his odd, fantastic way of expressing his thoughts—‘In the amber of duty you must not always expect to find the curious grub success.’”
“Depend upon it, you’d be higher if you worked less, my dear fellow. Let me persuade you—don’t work for examination any more.”
“You all mistake me. It’s not for the place that I work, but because I want to know, to learn; not to grow up quite stupid and empty-headed as I otherwise should do.”
“What a love for work you have, Daubeny.”
“Yes, I have now; but do you know it really wasn’t natural to me. As a child, I used to be idle and get on very badly, and it used to vex my poor father, who was then living, very much. Well, one day, not long before he died, I had been very obstinate, and would learn nothing. He didn’t say much, but in the afternoon, when we were taking a walk, we passed an old barn, and on the thatched roof was a lot of grass and stonecrop. He plucked a handful, and showed me how rank and useless it was, and then, resting his hand upon my head, he told me that it was the type of an idle, useless man—‘grass upon the housetops, withered before it groweth up, wherewith the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that gathereth the sheaves his bosom.’ Somehow, the circumstance took hold of my imagination; it was the last scene with my poor father which I vividly remember. I have never been idle since then.”
Power mused a little, and then said—“But, dear Dubbs, you’ll make your brain heavy by the time examination begins; you won’t be able to do yourself justice.”
He did not answer; but a weary look, which Power had often observed, with anxiety, came over his face.
“I’m afraid I must turn back, Power,” he said; “I’m quite tired—done up.”
“I’ve been thinking so, too. Let me turn back with you.”
“No, no! I won’t spoil your day’s excursion. Let me go alone.”
“Hi! you fellows,” said Power, shouting to the three in front. They were too far in advance to hear him, so he told Daubeny to sit down while he overtook them, and asked if any of them would prefer to turn back.
“Dubbs is too tired to go any farther,” he said, when he reached them, breathless with his run. “I don’t think he’s very well, and so I’ll just go back with him.”
“O, no; you really mustn’t, I will,” said each of the other three almost in a breath. Every one of the four was most anxious to get on, and reach the top of Appenfell, which was considered a very great feat among the boys even in summer, as the climb was dangerous and severe; and yet each generously wished to undergo the self-denial of turning back. As their wills were about equally strong, it would have ended in all of them accompanying Daubeny, had he not, when they reached him, positively refused to turn on such conditions, and suggested that they should decide it by drawing lots.
Power wrote the names on slips of paper, and Walter drew one at hazard. The lot fell on Henderson, so he at once took Daubeny’s arm, relieving his disappointment by turning round, shaking his fist at the top of Appenfell, and saying, “You be hanged! I wish you were rolled out quite flat and planted with potatoes!”
“There,” said Power laughing, “I should think that was about the grossest indignity the Genius of Appenfell ever had offered to him; so now you’ve had your revenge, take care of Dubbs. Good-bye.”
“How very kind it is of you to come with me, Flip,” said Daubeny; “I don’t think I could manage to get home without your help; but I’m quite vexed to drag you back. Good-bye, you fellows.”
Walter, Power, and Kenrick, found that to reach the cairn on the top of Appenfell taxed all their strength. The mountain seemed to heave before them a succession of huge shoulders, and each one that they surmounted showed them only fresh steeps to climb. At last, they reached the piled confusion of rocks, painted with every gorgeous and brilliant colour by emerald moss and golden lichen, which marked the approach to the summit; and Walter, who was a long way the first to get to the top, shouted to encourage the other two, and, after resting a few minutes, clambered down to assist their progress. Being accustomed to the hills, he was far less tired than they were, and could give them very efficient help.
At the top they rested for some time, eating their scanty lunch, chatting, and enjoying the matchless splendour of the prospect which stretched in a cloudless expanse before them on every side.
“Power,” said Walter, in a pause of their talk, “I’ve long been meaning to ask you a favour.”
“It’s granted, then,” said Power, “if you ask it, Walter.”
“I’m not so sure; it’s a very serious favour, and it isn’t for myself; moreover, it’s very cool.”
“The greater it is, the more I shall know that you trust my friendship, Walter; and, if it’s cool, it suits the time and place.”
“Yet, I bet you that you’ll hesitate when I propose it.”
“Well, out with it; you make me curious.”
“It is that you’d give little Eden the run of your study.”
“Little Eden the run of my study! O, yes, if you wish it,” said Power, not liking to object after what he had said, but flushing up a little, involuntarily. It was indeed a great favour to ask. Power’s study was a perfect sanctum; he had furnished it with such rare good taste, that, when you entered, your eye was attracted by some pretty print or neat contrivance wherever you looked. It was Power’s peculiar pride and pleasure to beautify his little room, and to sit there with any one whom he liked; but to give up his privacy, and let a little scapegrace like Eden have the free run of it, was a proposition which took him by surprise. Yet it was a good deal for Power’s own sake that Walter had ventured to ask it. Power’s great fault was his over-refinement; the fastidiousness which marred his proper influence, made him unpopular with many boys, and shut him up in a reserved and introspective habit of mind. By a kind of instinct, Walter felt that it would be good to disturb this epicurean indifference to the general interests of the school, and the kind of intellectualism which weakened the character of this attractive and affectionate, yet shy and self-involved boy. “Ah, I see,” said Walter archly; “you’re as bad as Kenrick; you Priests and Levites won’t touch my poor little wounded traveller.”
“But I don’t see what I could do for him,” said Power; “I shouldn’t know what to talk to him about.”
“O, yes, you would; you don’t know how his gratitude would pay you for the least interest shown in him. He’s been so shamefully bullied, poor little chap, I hardly like to tell you even the things that that big brute Harpour has made him do. He came here bright and neat, and merry and innocent; and now—” He would not finish the sentence, and his voice faltered; but checking himself, he added, more calmly—“This, remember, has been done to the poor little fellow here, at Saint Winifred’s; and when I remember what I might have been myself by this time, but for—but for one or two friends, my heart quite bleeds for him. Anyhow, I think one ought to do what one can for him. I wish I’d a study, I know, and he shouldn’t be the only little fellow who should share it. I’ve got so much good from being able to learn my own lessons in Percival’s room, that I’d give anything to be able to do as much for some one else.”
“He shall come, Walter,” said Power, “with all my heart. I’ll ask him directly we get back to Saint Winifred’s.”
“Will you? I thank you. That is good of you; I’m sure you won’t be sorry in the long-run.”
Power and Kenrick were both thinking that this new friend of theirs, though he had been so short a time at Saint Winifred’s, was teaching them some valuable lessons. Neither of them had previously recognised the truth which Walter seemed to feel so strongly, that they were to some extent directly responsible for the opportunities which they lost of helping and strengthening the boys around them. Neither of them had ever done anything, worth speaking of, to lighten the heavy burden laid on some of the little boys at Saint Winifred’s; and now they heard Walter talking with something like remorse about a child who had no special claim whatever on his kindness, but whom he felt that he might more efficiently have rescued from evil associates, evil words, evil ways, and all the heart-misery they cannot fail to bring. The sense of a new mission, a neglected duty, dawned upon them both.
They sat for a time silent, and then Kenrick, shaking off his reverie, pointed down the hill and said—
“Do look at those magnificent clouds; how they come surging up the hill in huge curving masses.”
“Yes,” said Power; “doesn’t it look like a grand charge of giant cavalry? Why, Walter, my dear fellow, how frightened you look.”
“Well, no,” said Walter, “not frightened. But I say, you two, supposing those clouds which have gathered so suddenly don’t clear away, do you think that you could find your way down the hill?”
“I don’t know; I almost think so,” said Kenrick dubiously.
“Ah, Ken, I suspect you haven’t had as much experience of mountain-mists as I have. We may find our way somehow; but—”
“You mean,” said Power, with strange calmness, “that there are lots of precipices about, and that shepherds have several times been lost on these hills?”
“Let’s hope that the mist will clear away, then,” said Walter; “anyhow, let’s get on the grass, and off these awkward boulders, before we are surrounded.”
“By all means,” said Kenrick; “charges of cloud-cavalry are all very well in their way; but—”
The three boys scrambled with all their speed, Walter helping the other two down the vast primeval heap of many-tinted rock-fragments which form the huge summit of Appenfell, and found themselves again on the short slippery grass, hardened with recent frosts, that barely covered the wave-like sweep of the hill-side. Meanwhile, the vast dense masses of white cloud gathered below them, resting here and there in the hollows of the mountains like gigantic walls and bastions, and leaning against the abrupter face of the precipice in one great unbroken barrier of opaque, immaculate, impenetrable pearl. As you looked upon it the chief impression it gave you was one of immense thickness and crushing weight. It seemed so compressed and impermeable that one could not fancy how even a thunderbolt could shatter it, or the wildest blast of any hurricane dissipate its enormous depth. But as yet it had not enveloped the peaks themselves. On them the sun yet shone, and where the boys stood they were still bathed in the keen yet blue and sunny air, islanded far up above the noiseless billows of surging cloud.
This was not for long. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the clouds stole upon them—reached out white arms and enfolded them in sudden whirls of thin and smoke-like mist; eddied over their heads and round their feet; swathed them at last as in a funeral pall, blotting from their sight every object save wreaths of dank vapour, rendering wholly uncertain the direction in which they were moving, and giving a sense of doubt and danger to every step they took. Kenrick had only told the master who had given them leave of absence from dinner that they meant to go a long walk. He had not mentioned Appenfell, not from any want of straightforwardness, but because they thought that it might sound like a vainglorious attempt, and they did not want to talk about it until they had really accomplished it. But in truth if they had mentioned this as their destination, no wise master would have given them permission to go, unless they promised to be accompanied by a guide; for the ascent of Appenfell, dangerous even in summer to all but those who well knew the features of the mountain, became in winter a perilous and foolhardy attempt. The boys themselves, when they started on their excursion, had no conception of the amount or extent of the risk they ran. Seeing that the morning gave promises of a bright and clear day, they had never thought of taking into account the possibility of mists and storms.
The position in which they now found themselves was enough to make a stout heart quail. By this time they were hopelessly enveloped in palpable clouds, and could not see the largest objects a yard before them. In fact, even to see each other they had to keep closely side by side; for once, when Kenrick had separated from them for a little distance, it was only by the sound of his shouts that they found him again. After this, they crept on in perfect silence, each trying to conceal from the other the terror which lay like frost on his own spirits; unsuccessfully, for the tremulous sound which the quick palpitation of their hearts gave to their breathing showed plainly enough that all three of them recognised the frightfulness of their danger.
Appenfell was one of those mountains, not unfrequent, which is on one side abrupt and bounded by a wall of almost fathomless precipice, and on the other descends to the plain in a cataract of billowy undulations. It had one feature which, although peculiar, is by no means unprecedented. At one point, where the huge rock wall towers up from the ghastly depth of a broad ravine, there is a lateral ridge—not unlike the Mickeldore of Scawfell Pikes—running right across the valley, and connecting Appenfell with Bardlyn, another hill of much lower elevation, towards which this ridge runs down with a long but gradual slope. This edge was significantly called the Razor, and it was so narrow that it would barely admit the passage of a single person along its summit. It was occasionally passed by a few shepherds, accustomed from earliest childhood to the hills, but no ordinary traveller ever dreamed of braving its real dangers, for, even had the path been broader, the horrible depth of fall on either side was quite sufficient to render dizzy the steadiest head, and if a false step were taken, the result, to an absolute certainty, was frightful death. For so nearly perpendicular were the sides of this curious partition, that the narrow valley below, offering no temptation to any one to visit it, had not, within the memory of man, been trodden by any human foot. To add to the honour inspired by the Razor, a shepherd had recently fallen from it in a summer storm; his body had been abandoned as unrecoverable, and the ravens and wild cats had fed upon him. Something—a dim gleam of uncertain white among the rank grass—was yet visible from one point of the ledge, and the bravest mountaineer shuddered when, looking down the gloomy chasm, he recognised in that glimpse the mortal remains of a fellow-man.
“Are you sure that we are on the right path, Walter?” asked Power, trying to speak as cheerfully and indifferently as he could.
“Certain,” said Walter, pulling out of his pocket the little brass pocket-compass which had been his invariable companion in his rambles at home, and which he had fortunately brought with him as likely to be useful in the lonely tracts which surrounded Saint Winifred’s. “The bay lies due west from here, and I’m sure of the general direction.”
“But I think we’re keeping too much to the right, Walter,” said Kenrick.
“Look here,” said Walter, stopping; “the truth is—and we may just as well be ready for it—that we’re between two dangers. On the right is Bardlyn rift; on the left we have the sides of Appenfell, and no precipices, but—”
“I know what you’re thinking of—the old mines.”
“Yes; that’s why I’ve been keeping to the right. I think even in this mist we could hardly go over the rift, for I fancy that we could at least discover when we were getting close to it; but there are three or four old mines; we don’t knew in the least where they lie exactly, and one might stumble over one of the shafts in a minute.”
“What in the world shall we do?” said Power, stopping, as he realised the full intensity of peril. “As it is we can’t see where we’re going, and very soon we shall have darkness as well as mist. Besides, it’s so frightfully cold, now that we are obliged to go slowly.”
“Let’s stop and consider what we’d best do,” said Kenrick. “Walter, what do you say?”
“We can only do one of two things. Either go on, and trust to God’s mercy to keep us safe, or sit still here and hope that the mist may clear away.”
“That last’ll never do,” answered Kenrick; “I’ve seen the mist rest on Appenfell for days and days.”
“Besides,” said Power, “unless we move on, at all hazards, night will be on us. A December night on Appenfell, without food or extra coverings, and the chance of being kept indefinitely longer—” the sentence ended in a shudder.
“Yes; I don’t know what we should look like in the morning,” said Kenrick. “Let’s move on, at all events; better that than the chance of being frozen and starved to death.”
They moved on again a little way through the clouds with uncertain and hesitating steps, when suddenly Walter cried out in an agitated voice, “Stop! God only knows where we are. I feel by a kind of instinct that we’re somewhere near the rift. I don’t know what else should make me tremble all over as I am doing; I seem to hear the rift somehow. For God’s sake stop. Just let’s sit down a minute till I try something.”
“But’s it’s now nearly four o’clock,” said Kenrick in a querulous tone, as he halted and pulled out his watch, holding it close to his face to make out the time. “An hour more and all daylight will be gone, and with it all chance of being saved. Surely, we’d better press on. That’s uncertain danger, but to stop is certain—”
“Certain death,” whispered Power.
“Just listen then, one second,” said Walter, and, disembedding a huge piece of stone, he rolled it with all his force to their right, listening with senses acutely sharpened by danger and excitement. The stone bounded once, then they heard in their ears a rush, a shuffling of loose and sliding earth, the whirring sound of a heavy falling body, and then for several seconds a succession of distant crashes, startling with fright the rebounding mountain echoes, as the bit of rock whirled over the rift and was shattered into fragments by being dashed against the sides of the precipice.
“Good God!” cried Walter, clutching both the boys and dragging them hurriedly backwards, “we are standing at this moment on the very verge of the chasm. It won’t do to go on; every step may be death.”
A pause of almost unspeakable horror followed his words; after the fall of the rock had revealed to them how frightful was the peril which they had escaped, all three of them for a moment felt paralysed in every limb, and after looking close into each other’s faces, blanched white by a deadly fear, Kenrick and Power sat down in an agony of despair.
“Don’t give way, you fellows,” said Walter, to whom they both seemed to look for help; “our only chance is to keep up our hope and spirits. I think that, after all, we must just stay here till the mist clears up. Don’t be frightened, Ken,” he said, taking the boy’s hand; “nothing can happen to us but what God intends.”
“But the night,” whispered Kenrick, who was most overpowered of the three; “fancy a night spent here. Mist and cold, hunger and dark. O this horrible uncertainty and suspense. O for some light,” he cried in an agony; “I could almost die if we had but light.”
“O God, give us light,” murmured Walter, echoing the words, and uttering aloud unconsciously his intense prayer; and then he fell on his knees, and the others, too, hid their faces in their hands as they stood upon the bleak mountainside, and prayed to Him Whom they knew to be near them, though they were there alone, and saw nothing save the ground they knelt upon, and the thick clammy fog moving slowly around and above them in aimless and monotonous change. To their excited imagination that fog seemed like a living thing; it seemed as though it were actuated with a cold and deathful determination, and as though it were peopled by a thousand silent spirits, leaning over them and chilling their hearts as they shrouded them in the gigantic foldings of their ghostly robes.
And soon, as though their passionate prayer had been heard, and an angel had been sent to rend the mist, the wind, rushing up from the ravine, tore for itself a narrow passage—and a gleam of wavering light broke in upon them through the white folds of that deathful curtain, showing them the wall of sunken precipice, and the dark outline of Bardlyn hill. If this had been a moment in which they could have admired one of Nature’s most awfully majestic sights, they would have gazed with enthusiastic joy on the diorama of valley and mountain revealed through this mighty rent in the side of their misty pavilion, filled up by the blue far-off sky; but at this moment of dominant terror they had no room for any other thoughts but how to save their lives from the danger that, surrounded them.
“Light,” cried Walter, springing up eagerly; “thank God! Perhaps the mist is going to clear away.” But the hope was fallacious, for in the direction where their path lay all was still dark, and the chilly mist soon closed again, though not so densely, over the wound which the breeze from the chasm below them had momentarily made.
“Did you see that we are close to the Razor?” said Walter, who alone of the three maintained his usual courage, because custom had made him more familiar with the danger of the hills. “Now, a thought strikes me, Ken and Power. If you like we’ll make an attempt to cross the Razor. The only thing will be not to lose one’s footing; one can’t miss the way, at any rate, and when once we get to Bardlyn it’s as easy to get down to the road which runs round it to Saint Winifred’s as it is to walk across the school court.”
“Cross the Razor?” said Kenrick; “why, none but some few shepherds ever dare to do that.”
“True, but what man has done, man can do. I’m certain it’s our best chance.”
“Not for me;” “Or for me,” said the other two. “Well, look here,” said Walter; “it would be very dangerous of course, but while we talk our chance of safety lessens. You two stay here. I’ll try the Razor; if I get safe across I shall reach Bardlyn village in no time, and there I could get some men to come and help you over. Do you mind? I won’t leave you if you’d rather not.”
“Oh, Walter, Walter, don’t run the risk,” said Power; “it’s too awful.”
“It’s lighter than ever on that side,” said Walter; “I’m not a bit afraid. I’m certain we could not get safe down, the other way, and we should die of exposure if we spent the night here. Remember, we’ve only had one or two sandwiches apiece. It’s the last chance.”
“Oh, no, you really shan’t, dear Walter. You don’t know how terrific the Razor is. I’ve often heard men say that they wouldn’t cross it for a bag of gold,” said Power.
“Don’t hinder me, Power; I’ve made up my mind. Good-bye, Power; good-bye, Ken,” he said, wringing their hands hard. “If I get safe across the Razor, I shan’t be more than an hour and a half at the very latest before I stand here with you again, bringing help. Good-bye; God bless you both. Pray for me, but don’t fear.”
So saying, Walter tore himself away from them, and with an awful sinking at heart they saw him pass through the spot where the mist was thinnest, and plant a steady step on the commencement of the Razor path.
The brave boy knew well that the fate of the others, as well as his own, hung on his coolness and steadiness, and stopping for one moment to see that he would have light enough to make sure of his footing all along the path, he turned round, shouted a few cheery words to his two friends, and stepped boldly on the ledge.
He was accustomed to giddy heights, and his head had never turned as he looked down the cliffs at Saint Winifred’s, or the valleys at home. But his heart began to beat very fast with the painful sense that every step which he accomplished was dangerous, and that the nerve which would readily have borne him through a brief effort would here have to be sustained for fully twenty minutes, which would be the least possible time in which he could make the transit. The loneliness, too, was frightful; in three minutes he was out of sight of his friends; and to be there without a companion, in the very heart of the mighty mountains, traversing this haunted and terrible path, with not an eye to see him if he should slip and be dashed to atoms on the unconscious rocks—this thought almost overmastered him, unmanned him, filled him with a weird sense of indescribable horror. He battled against it with all his might, but it came on him like a foul harpy again and again, sickening his whole soul, making his forehead glisten with the damp dews of anticipated death. At last he came to a stunted willow which had twisted its dry roots into the thin soil, and, clinging to the stem of it with both arms, he was forced to stop and close his eyes, and praying for God’s help, he summoned together all the faculties of his soul, and buffeted this ghastly intruder away so thoroughly that it did not again return. As a man might shoot a vulture, and look at it lying dead at his feet, so with the arrow of a heartfelt supplication Walter slew the hideous imagination that had been flapping its wings over him; nor did he stir again till he was sure that it had lost its power. And then, opening his eyes, he bore steadily and cautiously on, till all of a sudden, in the fast fading sunlight, something glinted white in the valley beneath his feet. In a moment it flashed upon him that this was the unreached skeleton a thousand feet below, the sight of which imparted a superstitious horror to the Devil’s Way, as the peasants called the narrow path along the Razor. Nor was this all: for some rags of the man’s dress, torn off by his headlong fall, still fluttered on a stump of blackthorn not thirty feet below. And now, again, the poor boy’s heart quailed with an uncontrollable emotion of physical and mental fear. For a moment he tottered, every nerve was loosened, his legs bent under him, and, dropping down on his knees, he clutched the ground with both hands. It was just one of those swift spasms of emotion on which, in moments of peril, the crisis usually depends. Had Walter’s will been weak, or his conscience a guilty one, or his strength feeble, or his body unstrung by ill-health, he would have succumbed to the sudden terror, and, fainting first, would the next instant have rolled over the edge to sudden and inevitable death.
All these results were written before him as with fire, as he shut his eyes and clung with tenacious grasp to the earth. But happily his mind was strong, his conscience stainless, his powers vigorous, his body in pure health, and in a few moments, which seemed to him an age, he had recovered his presence of mind by one of those noble efforts which the will is ever ready to make for those who train it right. Before he opened his eyes he had braced himself into a thorough strength, and once more commending himself to God, he rose firm and cool to continue his journey, averting his glance from the spectacle of death which gleamed below.
He found that his best plan was to fix his eyes rigidly on the path, and not suffer them to swerve for a moment to either side. Whenever he did so, the wavering sensation came over him again, but so long as he trod carefully and never let his eyes wander off the place of his footsteps, he found that he got along securely and even swiftly. He had only one more difficulty with which to contend. In one place the sort of path which the Razor presented was broken and crumbled away, and here Walter’s heart again sank despairingly within him, as his attention was suddenly arrested by the additional and unexpected peril. But to turn back was now out of the question, and as it seemed impossible to walk for these few feet, he again knelt down, and crawled steadily along on hands and knees, about the length of two strides, until the path was hard and firm enough for him to proceed as before. The end was now accomplished; in five minutes more he sprang on the broad firm side of Bardlyn hill, and shouting aloud to relieve his spirits from their tumult of joy and thankfulness, he raced down Bardlyn, gained very quickly the mountain road, and ran at the top of his speed till, just as the sun was setting, he reached the group of cottages which took their name from the hill on which they stood.
Knocking at the first cottage, he inquired for some guide or shepherd who was thoroughly acquainted with all the mountain paths, and was directed to the house of a man named Giles, who had been occupied for years among the neighbouring sheep-walks.
Giles listened to his story with open eyes. “Thee bi’st coom over t’ Razor along Devil’s Way,” said he in amazement; “then thee bi’st just the plookiest young chap I’ve seen for many a day.”
“We must get back over it, too, to reach them,” said Walter.
“O ay; I be’ant afear’d of t’ Razor; I’ve crossed him many a time, and I’ll take a bit rope over and help they other chaps. We’ll take a lantern, too. Don’t you be afeared, sir, we’ll get ’em all right,” he said, observing how anxious and excited Walter seemed to be.
“Come, then,” said Walter, “quick, quick! I promised to come back to them at once. You shall be well paid for your trouble.”
“Tut, tut,” said the man, “the pay’s naught. Why, I’d come if it were only a dumb sheep in danger, let alone a brace of lads like you.”
They set off with a lantern, a rope, and some food, and Giles was delighted at the quick and elastic step of the young mountaineer. The lantern they soon extinguished. It was not needed; for though the sun had now set, a glorious full moon had begun to pour her broad flood of silver radiance over the gloomy hills by the time they had reached Bardlyn rift.
“There ain’t no call for you to cross again, sir,” said the man; “I’ll just go over by myself, and look after the young gentlemen.”
“O, let me come, I must come!” said Walter. “The mist’s quite off it now, so that it’s just as easy under this moonlight as when I came; and, besides, if you take a coil of the rope in your hand I’ll take hold of the other end.”
“Well, you’re the right sort, and no mistake,” said the man. “God bless you for a brave young heart! And, truth tell, I’ll be very glad to have ye with me, for they do say as how poor old Waul’s ghost haunts about here, and it ’ud be fearsome at night. I know that there’s One as keeps them as has a good conscience, but yet I’ll be glad to have ye all the same.”
The moonlight flung on every side the mysterious and gigantic shadows of rocks and hills, seeming to glimmer with a ghastly hue as it fell and struggled into the black depths of the untrodden rift; but habit made the Devil’s Way seem nothing to the mountain shepherd, and he protected Walter (who twined round his wrist one end of the rope) from the danger of stumbling, as effectually as Walter protected him from all ghostly fears. When they reached the broken piece, the only difference he made was to walk with great caution, and plant his feet deeply into the earth, bidding Walter follow in the traces he made, and supporting him firmly with his hand. They got across in much less time than Walter had occupied in his first passage, and as they reached Appenfell they saw the two boys standing dimly on the verge of the moonlit mist, while all below them the rest of Appenfell was still wrapt, as in some great cerecloth, by the snowy folds of seething cloud.
“Good heavens! but who are those?” said Walter, pointing to two shadowy and gigantic figures which also faced them. “O, who are those?” he asked wildly, and in such alarm that if the shepherd had not seized him firmly he must have fallen.
“There, there—don’t be frighted,” said Giles; “those be’ant no ghosts, but they be just our own shadows on the mist. It’s a queer thing, but I’ve seen it often and often on these hills, and some scholards have told me as how that kind of thing be’ant uncommon on mountains.”
“What a goose I was to be so horribly frightened,” said Walter; “but I didn’t know that there were any spectres of that sort on Appenfell. All right, Giles; go on.”
Till Walter and the shepherd had taken their last step from the Devil’s Way on to the side of Appenfell, the boys stood watching them in intense silence; but no sooner were they safe, than Power and Kenrick ran up to Walter, poured out their eager thanks, and pressed his hands in all the fervour of affectionate gratitude. They felt that his courage and readiness had, at the risk of his own life, saved them from such a danger as they had never in their lives experienced before. Already they were suffering with hunger and shuddering with the December air, their limbs felt quite benumbed, their teeth were chattering lugubriously, and their faces were blue and pinched with cold. They eagerly devoured the brown bread and potato-cake which the man had brought, and let him and Walter chafe a little life into their shivering-bodies. By this time fear was sufficiently removed to enable them to feel some sort of appreciation of the wild beauty of the scene, as the moonlight pierced on their left the flitting scuds of restless mist, and on their right fell softly over Bardlyn hill, making a weird contrast between the tender brightness of the places where it fell, and the pitchy gloom that hid the depths of the rift, and brooded in those undefined hollows over which the precipices leaned.
To return down Appenfell was (the experienced shepherd informed them) quite hopeless. In such a mist as that, which might last for an indefinite time, even he would be totally unable to find his way. But now that they were warm and satisfied with food, and confident of safety, they even enjoyed the feeling of adventure when Giles tied them together for their return across the Devil’s Way. First he tied the rope round his own waist, then round Power’s and Kenrick’s, and finally, as there was not enough left to go round Walter’s waist, he tied the end round his right arm. Thus fastened, all danger was tenfold diminished, if not wholly removed, and the two unaccustomed boys felt a happy reliance on the nerve and experience of Giles and Walter, who were in front and rear. It was a scene which they never forgot, as the four went step by step through the moonlight along the horrible ledge, safe only in each other’s help, and awe-struck at their position, not daring to glance aside or to watch the colossal grandeur of their own shadows as they were flung here and there against some protruding rock. Power was next to Walter, and when they reached the spot beneath which the whiteness glinted and the rags fluttered in the wind, Walter, in spite of himself, could not help glancing down, and whispering “Look!” in a voice of awe. Power unhappily did look, and as all the boys at Saint Winifred’s were familiar with the story of the shepherd’s fate, and had even known the man himself, Power at once was seized with the same nervous horror which had agitated Walter—grew dizzy, stumbled, and slipped down, jerking Kenrick to his knees by the sudden strain of the rope. Happily the rope checked Power’s fall, and Kenrick’s scream of horror startled Giles, who, without losing his presence of mind, instantly seized Kenrick with an arm that seemed as strong and inflexible as if it had been hammered out of iron, while at the same moment Walter, conscious of his rashness, clutched hold of Power’s hand and raised him up. No word was spoken, but after this the boys kept close to their guides, who were ready to grasp them tight at the first indication of an uneven footstep, and who almost lifted them bodily over every more difficult or slippery part. The time seemed very long to them, but at last they had all reached Bardlyn hill in safety, and placed the last step they ever meant to place on the narrow and dizzy passage of the Razor’s edge.
And stopping there they looked back at the dangers they had passed—at Appenfell piled up to heaven with white clouds; at Bardlyn rift looming in black abysses beneath them; at the thin broken line of the Devil’s Way. They looked:
“As a man with difficult short breath,
Forespent with toiling, ’scaped from sea to shore
Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands
At gaze.”
They stood silent till Power said, in ejaculations of intense emphasis, “Thank God!”—and then pointing downwards with a shudder, “Oh, Walter!” and then once again, “Thank God!”—which Walter and Kenrick echoed; and then they passed on without another word. But those two words, so uttered, were enough.
The man, who was more than repaid by the sense that he had rendered them a most important aid, and who had been greatly fascinated by their manly bearing, entirely refused to take any money in payment for what he had done.
“Nay, nay,” he said; “we poor folks are proud too, and I won’t have none of your money, young gentlemen. But let me tell you that you’ve had a very narrow escape of your lives out there, and I don’t doubt you’ll thank the good God for it with all your hearts this night; and if you’ll just say a prayer for old Giles, too, he’ll vally it more than all your monies. So now, good-night to you, young gentlemen, for you know your way now easy enough. And if ever you come this way again, maybe you’ll come in and have a chat for remembrance sake.”
“Thank you, Giles, that we will,” said the boys.
“And since you won’t take any money you’ll let me give you this,” said Walter. “You must let me give you this; it’s not worth much, but it’ll show you that Walter Evson didn’t forget the good turn you did us.” And he forced on the old shepherd’s acceptance a handsome knife, with several strong blades, which he happened to have in his pocket; while Power and Kenrick, after a rapid whispered consultation, promised to bring him in a few days a first-rate plaid to serve him as a slight reminder of their gratitude for his ready kindness. Then they all shook hands with many thanks, and the three boys, eager to find sympathy in their perils and deliverance, hastened to Saint Winifred’s, which they reached at eight o’clock, just when their absence was beginning to cause the most serious anxiety.
They arrived at the arched gateway as the boys were pouring out of evening chapel, and as every one was doubtfully wondering what had become of them, and whether they had encountered any serious mishap. When the Famulus admitted them, the fellows thronged round them in crowds, pouring into their ears a succession of eager questions. The tale of Walter’s daring act flew like wildfire through the school, and if any one still retained against him a particle of ill-feeling, or looked on his character with suspicion, it was this evening replaced by the conviction that there was no more noble or gallant boy than Walter among them, and that if any equalled him in merit it was one of those whose intimate friendship for him had on this day been deepened by the grateful knowledge that to him, in all human probability, they owed their preservation from an imminent and overpowering peril. Even Somers, in honour of whose academic laurel the whole holiday had been given, and who that evening returned from Cambridge, was less of a hero than either of the three who had thus climbed the peak of Appenfell and braved so serious an adventure; far less crowned with schoolboy admiration than the young boy who had thrice crossed and recrossed the Devil’s Way, and who had crossed it first unaided and with full knowledge of its horrors, while the light of winter evening was dying away, and the hills around him reeked like a witch’s caldron with wintry mists.
Walter, grateful as he was for each pat on the back and warm pressure of the hand, which told him how thoroughly and joyously his doings were appreciated, was not intoxicated by the enthusiasm of this boyish ovation. It was indeed a proud thing to stand among those four hundred schoolfellows, the observed of all observers, greeted on every side by happy, smiling, admiring faces, with every one pressing forward to give him a friendly grasp, every one anxious to claim or to form his acquaintance, and many addressing him with the kindliest greetings whose very faces he hardly knew; but the deeper and more silent gratitude of his chosen friends, and the manly sense of something bravely and rightly done, was more to him than this. Yet this was something very sweet. When the admiration of boys is fairly kindled it is the brightest, the most genial, the most generously hearty in the world. Few succeed in winning it; but he who has been a hero to others in manhood only, has had but a partial taste of the rich triumph experienced by him who has had the happiness in boyhood of being a hero among boys.
Here let me say how one or two people noticed Walter when first they saw him that evening.
While numbers of boys were shaking hands with him, whom he hardly saw or recognised in the crowd by the mingled moonlight and lamplight that streamed over the court where they stood, Walter felt one squeeze that he recognised and valued. Looking among the numerous faces, he saw that it was Henderson who was greeting him without a word. No nonsense or joke this time, and Walter noticed that the boy’s lips were trembling with emotion, and that there was a light as of tears in his laughter-loving eyes.
“Ah, Henderson!” said Walter, in that tone of real regard and pleasure which is the truest sign and pledge of friendship, and which no art can counterfeit, “I’m so glad to see you again: how did you and Dubbs get on?”
“All right, Walter,” said Henderson; “but he’s gone to bed with a bad headache. Come in and see him before you go to bed. I know he’d like to say good-night.”
“Well done. Evson—well done indeed,” was the remark of Somers, as he noticed Walter for the first time since the scene of the private room.
“Excellent, my gallant little Walter,” said Mr Percival, as he passed by. Mr Paton, who was with him, said nothing, but Walter knew all that he would have expressed when he caught his quiet approving smile, and felt his hand rest for a moment, as with the touch of Christian blessing, on his head.
It is happiness at all times to be loved, and to deserve the love; but happiest of all to enjoy it after sorrow and sin. But we must escape from this ordeal of prosperity, of flattering words and intoxicating fumes of praise, as soon as we can. Who would not soon be enervated in that tropical and luxurious atmosphere? If it be dangerous, happily it is not often that he or we shall breathe its heavy sweetness, but far other are the dangers we shall mostly undergo.
“Dr Lane wants you,” said the Famulus, just in time to save the tired boys from their remorseless questioners. They went at once to the headmaster’s house. He received them with a stately yet sincere kindness; questioned them on the occurrences of the day; warned them for the future against excursions so liable to accident as the winter ascent of Appenfell; and then spoke a few friendly words to each of them. For both Kenrick and Power he had a strong personal regard, and for the latter especially a feeling closely akin to friendship and affection. After they were gone he kept Walter behind, and said, “I am indeed most sincerely rejoiced, Evson, to meet you again under circumstances so widely different from those in which I saw you last. I have heard for some time past how greatly you have improved, and how admirably you are now doing. I am glad to have the opportunity of assuring you myself how entirely you have succeeded in winning back my approbation and esteem.” Walter attended with a glistening eye, and the master shook hands with him as he bowed and silently withdrew.
“Tea has been ordered for you in Master Power’s study,” said the footman, as they left the master’s house.
“Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Genesis chapter 4, verse 9.
“Let’s come and see Dubbs before tea,” said Walter, on rejoining the other two. “Henderson told me he was ill in bed, poor fellow.”
They went at once to the cottage, detached from the rest of the school buildings, to which all invalids were removed, and they were allowed to go to Daubeny’s room; but although he was expecting their visit he had fallen asleep. They noticed a worn and weary expression upon his countenance, but it was pleasant to look at him; for although he was a very ordinary-looking boy, with somewhat heavy features, yet whatever beauty can be infused into any face by honesty of purpose and innocence of heart, was to be found in his, and you could not speak to Daubeny for five minutes without being attracted by the sense that you were talking to one whose character was singularly free from falsehood or vanity, and singularly unstained by evil thoughts.
“There lies one of the best and worthiest fellows in the school,” whispered Power, as he raised the candle to look at him.
Low as he had spoken, the sound awoke the sleeper. He opened his eyes dreamily at first, but with full recognition afterwards, and said, “O, you fellows, I’m so delighted to set you; when I saw Henderson last, he told me that you hadn’t come back, and that people were beginning to fear some accident; and I suppose that’s the reason why I’ve been dreaming so uneasily, and fancying that I saw you tumbling down the rift, and all kinds of things.”
“Well, we were very near it, Dubbs, but, thanks to Walter, we escaped all right,” said Power.
Daubeny looked up inquiringly. “We must tell you all about it to-morrow,” said Power. “How are you feeling?”
“O, I don’t know; not very well, but it’s no matter; I daresay I shall be all right soon.”
“Hush, you young gentlemen,” said the nurse; “this’ll never do; you oughtn’t to have awoke Master Daubeny just as he was sleeping so nice.”
“Very sorry, nurse; good-night, Dubbs; hope you’ll be all right to-morrow,” said they, and then adjourned to Power’s study.
The gas was lighted in the pretty little room, and the matron, regarding them as heroes, had sent them a very tempting tea. They ate it almost in silence, for they were quite tired out. It seemed an age since they had started in the morning with Henderson and Daubeny. Directly tea was finished, Kenrick, exhausted with fatigue and excitement, fell asleep in his chair, with his head thrown back and his lips parted.
“There, I think that’s a sign that we ought to be going to bed,” said Walter, laughing as he pointed at him.
“O no,” said Power, “not yet; it’s so jolly sitting here; don’t wake him, but come and draw your chair next to mine by the fire and have a chat.”
Walter obeyed the invitation, and for a few minutes they both sat gazing into the fire, reading faces in the embers, and pursuing their own thoughts. Each of them was happy in the other’s presence; and Walter, though more than a year Power’s junior, and far below him in the school, was delighted with the sense of fully possessing, in the friendship of this most promising and gifted boy, a treasure which any one in the world might well have envied him.
“It’s been a strange day, hasn’t it, Walter?” said Power at last, laying his hand on Walter’s, and looking at him. “I shall never forget it; you have thrown a new light on one’s time here.”
“Have I, Power? How? I didn’t know it.”
“Why, on the top of Appenfell there, you opened my eyes to the fact that I’ve been living here a very selfish life. I know that I get the credit of being very conceited and exclusive, and all that sort of thing; but being naturally shy, I thought it better to keep rather aloof from all but the very few towards whom I felt at all drawn. I see now,” he said sadly, “that at the bottom this was mainly selfishness. Why, Walter, all the time I’ve been here, I haven’t done as much for any single boy as you, a new fellow, have done for little Eden this one half-year. But there’s time to do better yet; and by God’s help I’ll try. I’ll give Eden the run of my study to-morrow; and as there’s plenty of room, I’ll look out for some other little chap who requires a refuge for the destitute.”
“Thank you, for Eden’s sake,” said Walter; “I’m sure you’ll soon begin to like him, if he gets at home with you.”
“But that’s the worst of it,” continued Power; “so few ever do get at home with me. I suppose my manner’s awkward—or something; but I’d give anything to make fellows friendly in five minutes as you do. How do you manage it?”
“I really don’t know; I never think about my own manner or anything else. I suppose if one feels the least interest in any fellow, that he will probably feel some interest in me; and so, somehow, I’m on the best terms with all I care to know.”
“Well, Ken and I had a long talk after you left us, to cross the Devil’s Way; and I hope that the memory of that may make us three friends firm and fast, tender and true, as long as we live. We were in a horrible fright about you, and I suppose that, joined to our own danger, gave a solemn cast to our conversation; but we agreed that if we three, as friends, were united in the silent resolution to help others, and especially new fellows and young, as much as ever we can, we might do a great deal. Tell me, Walter, didn’t you find it a very hard thing when you first came, to keep right among All sorts of temptations?”
“Yes, I did, Power, very hard; and I confess, too, that I sometimes wondered that not one boy, though there are, as I see now, lots of thoroughly good and right fellows here, ever said one word, or did one thing to help me.”
“It’s all wrong, all wrong,” said Power; “but it was you first who made me see it. Walter, I shall pray to-night that God, Who has kept us safe, may teach and help us here to live less for ourselves. Who knows what we might not do for the school?”
They both sat for a short time in thoughtful silence. Boys do not often talk openly together about prayer or religion, though perhaps they do so even more than men do in common life. It is right and well that it should be so; it would be unnatural and certainly harmful were it otherwise. And these boys would probably never have talked to each other thus, if a common danger had not broken down completely the barriers of conventional reserve. Never again from this day did they allude to this sacred resolution; but they acted up to it, or strove to do so, not indeed unwaveringly, yet with manful courage, in the strength of that pure, strong, beautiful unity of heart and purpose which this day had cemented between them for the rest of their school-life.
“But you seem to aim higher than I do, Power,” said Walter; “I certainly found lots of wickedness going on here, but I never hoped to change that. All I hoped to do was to save one or two fellows from being cruelly bullied and spoiled. We can’t alter the wrong tone which nearly all the fellows have on some matters.”
“Yet,” said Power, “there was once a man, a single man, in a great corrupted host, who stood between the living and the dead, and the plague was stayed.”
“Then rose up Phinees and prayed, and so the plague ceased,” whispered Walter to himself.
All farther conversation was broken by Kenrick, who at this moment awoke with a great yawn, and looking at his watch, declared that they ought to have been in bed long ago.
“Good-night, Ken; I hope we shall sleep as sound as you,” said Power.
“Walter here will dream of skeletons and moonlit precipices, I bet,” said Kenrick.
“Not I, Ken; I’m far too tired. Good-night, both.”
Sleepy as they were, two of those boys did not fall asleep that night till they had poured out with all the passion of full hearts, words of earnest supplication for the future, of trembling gratitude for the past. Two of them—for Kenrick, with all the fine points of his character, was entirely destitute of any sense of religion, and had in many points the standard of a schoolboy rather than that of a Christian.
When Walter reached his room, the rest were asleep, but not Eden. He sat up in his bed directly Walter entered, and his eyes were sparkling with animation and pleasure.
“O Walter,” he said, “I couldn’t go to sleep for joy; Every one’s praising you to the skies. I am so proud of you, and it is so very good of you to be friends with me.”
“Tush, Arty,” said Walter smiling; “one would think I’d done something great to hear you talk, whereas really it was nothing out of the way. I meant to have taken you with us, but I thought it would be too far for you.”
“Taken me with you, and Kenrick, and Power!” said Eden, opening his large eyes; “how kind of you, Walter! but only fancy Power or Kenrick walking with me!”
“Why not, Arty? Power’s going to ask you to-morrow to sit in his study, and learn your lessons there whenever you like.”
“Power ask me!”
“You! Why not?”
“Why, he’s such a swell.”
“Well, then, you must try and be a swell too.”
“No, no, Walter; I’m doing ten times as well as I did, but I shall never be a swell like Power,” said the child simply. “And I know it’s all your doing, not his. O, how shall I ever learn to thank and pay you for all you do for me?”
“By being a good and brave little boy, Arty. Good-night, and God bless you.”
“Good-night, Walter.”