To convey any idea of old Glover’s state as he listened to this harangue, would be impossible. At first he was speechless, and Fordham began to think he was on the verge of apoplexy. Eventually he found his tongue, and the great cliff in the background fairly echoed to the sound of a volley of strange and gurgling oaths. Then the full torrent of his wrath burst forth. He would sue the delinquent Phil—would ruin him—would sue them both—for conspiracy, libel—what not. There was nothing, in fact, that he would not do—shooting—horse-whipping—every form of violence was enumerated. He should rue the day—every one concerned should rue the day, etc, etc.
But Fordham, lighting a fresh pipe, leaned comfortably back against the rock, and waited with perfect unconcern until this human boiler should have blown off all its steam—or burst—it didn’t matter which.
Chapter Twenty.
On The Summit.
A narrow apex of solid rock, surrounded by a little cairn of stones and four human figures. And around—what a panorama! Everywhere rolling billowy summits, snowy and hump-like, or rearing up sharp and defined in craggy pinnacles—everywhere they rise—north, south, east, or west, the eye wanders confused over a vast sea of them. Below, a mighty array of snowfields, great ice rivers flowing silently down between their rock-bound walls—divided, separated from each other by stupendous ramparts of cliff and snow. Further down still—far, far beneath the region of ice and snow—a confused labyrinth of tortuous valleys, green, and sprinkled here and there with clusters of brown specks, haply representing a town or village, the faintly glittering star above which resolves itself under the lens of the telescope into the metal-sheathed cupola of a church tower. The very immensity of the panorama is overwhelming in its bewildering vastness. The eye, the senses, are burdened with it—can hardly take it in. The whole world seems to lie spread out around and beneath, for this apex of rock soaring up in mid-air seems in very truth to tower above the rest of the world. It is the summit of the Rothhorn.
The two guides—good representatives of their class—with their thoughtful bronzed faces and horny hands, their quasi-uniform attire of grey frieze, and black-cock feather adorned hat—are busily engaged in examining the contents of a bottle, which they have extracted from its snug hiding-place in the heart of the cairn aforesaid—not in the hope of finding it to contain liquid refreshment, let us hasten to explain—nor are the contents precisely of a solid nature. They are calculated to appeal to the mind rather than the body, for they happen to consist, for the most part, of an assortment of visiting cards, bearing the names of such climbers as have hitherto gained this altitude, together with those of their guides, and any other remarks their owners may have seen fit to pencil thereon by way of record.
“Well, Phil? Think my prescription was good enough, eh?” says Fordham, cheerfully. “Worth while undergoing something to get such a view as this?”
But there is no cheerfulness about Philip Orlebar to-day, nor does he seem to take any interest in the view. Sprawling on his back, on the hard rock, with his hands behind his head, he is staring up at the sky—a phase of observation equally well undertaken at the bottom of a valley, thinks his companion. He merely growls in reply, and relapses into his abstraction.