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had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving
town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a
small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to
give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody to
pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who really
felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the
rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly
of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when
there is level ground within reach to walk on instead. Was
it for this that Thomas had left London? London, where there
are nice short walks in level public gardens, with benches
of repose set up at convenient distances for weary
travellers - London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded
into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped
into smooth slabs for the pavement! No! it was not for the
laborious ascent of the crags of 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
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