"Which side, what lake?" asked Howard, hopelessly. "I see nothing of the lake, nothing but mist and sodden hills. No wonder the word 'poet' instinctively arouses one's animosity. When I think of the number of well-meaning and inspired idiots who have written reams of poetry about this place, I feel at this present moment as if I could cheerfully rend even a Wordsworth, a Southey, or a Coleridge; and I look back with remorse upon the hours, the throbs of admiration, I have expended upon what I once deemed their inspired pages. If I remember rightly, most of the lake poets went off their heads; when I gaze around me I must admit that I am not surprised."
Stafford laughed absently; he was quite accustomed to Howard's cynical vein.
"They're all right enough," he said. "That is, I suppose they are, for I never read any of 'em since I left school. Oh, yes, they're right enough about the beauty of the place; you should see it on a fine day."
"Has anyone seen it on a fine day?" inquired Howard, with the innocent air of one simply seeking information. "I asked a countryman in the train if it always rained here, and he replied, 'No; it sometimes snows.'"
"That's a chestnut," remarked Stafford, with a laugh. "But it's all nonsense about its always being wet here; they tell me it's fine for weeks together; that you can never tell any instant whether it's going to clear up or not; that the weather will change like a woman—Good heavens, look at that!"
He nodded to the east as he spoke.
Unnoticed by them, the sky had been clearing gradually, the mists sweeping, dissolving, away; a breath of wind now wafted them, like a veil thrown aside, from hill and valley and lake, and a scene of unparalleled beauty lay revealed beneath them. The great lake shone like a sapphire; meadows of emerald, woods of darker green, hills of purple and grey, silver and gold, rose from the bosom and the edge of the great liquid jewel; the hills towering tier on tier into the heavens of azure blue swept by clouds like drifting snow.
The two men gazed in silence; even Pottinger, to whom his 'osses generally represented all that was beautiful in nature, gaped with wide-open mouth.
"How's that for lofty, you unbeliever?" demanded Stafford. "Ever seen anything like that before?"
Howard had been considerably startled, but, of course, he concealed his amazed admiration behind a mask of cynicism.