“Yonder is the summit, Herbert—courage for a quarter of an hour more, and the breach is won.”
The youth heaved a heavy sigh, and muttered—
“Would it were so.”
If Herbert became dispirited and worn out by the dark and dreary way, where no sight nor sound relieved the dull monotony of fatigue, Mark's spirit seemed to grow lighter with every step he went. As if he had left his load of care with the nether world, his light and bounding movement, and his joyous voice, spoke of a heart which, throwing off its weight of sorrow, revelled once more in youthful ecstasy.
“You who are a poet, Herbert, tell me if you have faith in those instinctive fancies which seem to shadow forth events.”
“If you mean to ask me whether, from my present sensations, I anticipate a heavy cold, or a fit of rheumatism, I say, most certainly,” replied Herbert, half doggedly.
Mark smiled, and continued—
“No, those are among the common course of events. What I asked for was an explanation of my own feelings at this moment. Why, here upon this lone and gloomy mountain, a secret whispering at my heart tells me to hope—that my days and nights of disaster are nigh oyer—and that the turning point of my life is at hand, eyen as that bold peak above us.”
“I must confess, Mark, this is a strange time and place for such rose-coloured visions,” said Herbert, as he shook the rain from his soaked garments; “my imagination cannot carry me to such a lofty flight.”
Mark was too intent upon his own thoughts to bestow much attention on the tone and spirit of Herbert's remark, and he pressed forward towards the summit with every effort of his strength. After a brief but toilsome exertion he reached the top, and seated himself on a little pile of stones that marked the point of the mountain. The darkness was still great; faint outlines of the lesser mountains beneath could only be traced through the masses of heavy cloud that hung, as it were, suspended above the earth; while over the sea an unusual blackness was spread. The wind blew with terrific force around the lofty peak where Mark sat, and in the distant valleys he could hear the sound of crashing branches as the storm swept through the wood; from the sea itself, too, alow booming noise arose, as the caves along the shore re-echoed to the swelling clangour of the waves.