Off she started, saying she should be back again directly, leaving mamma and the child to watch her from the latest point where there was a direct path,—the cottage where the old woman had come out and gone to the burn at sunrise. Behind it was a large boulder, sunshiny and warm to sit on, sheltered by a hayrick, on the top of which was gambolling a pussy-cat. Sunny, with her usual love for animals, pursued it with relentless affection, and at last caught it in her lap, where it remained about one minute, and then darted away. Sunny wept bitterly, but was consoled by a glass of milk kindly brought by the old woman; with which she tried to allure pussy back again, but in vain.
So there was nothing for it but to sit on her mamma’s lap and watch her Lizzie climbing up the mountain, in sight all the way, but gradually diminishing to the size of a calf, a sheep, a rabbit; finally of a black speck, which a sharp eye could distinguish moving about on the green hillside, creeping from bush to bush, and from boulder to boulder, till at last it came to the foot of a perpendicular rock.
“She’ll no climb that,” observed the old woman, who had watched the proceeding with much interest. “Naebody ever does it: she’d better come down. Cry on her to come down.”
“Will she hear?”
“Oh, yes.”
And in the intense stillness, also from the law of sound ascending, it was curious how far one could hear. To mamma’s great relief, the black dot stopped in its progress.
“Lizzie, come down,” she called again, slowly and distinctly, and in a higher key, aware that musical notes will reach far beyond the speaking-voice. “You’ve lost the path. Come down!”
“I’m coming,” was the faint answer, and in course of time Lizzie came, very tired, and just a little frightened. She had begun to climb cheerfully and rapidly at first, for the hillside looked in the distance nearly as smooth as an English field. When she got there, she found it was rather different,—that heather bushes, boulders, mosses, and bogs were not the pleasantest walking. Then she had to scramble on all-fours, afraid to look downward, lest her head should turn dizzy, and she might lose her hold, begin rolling and rolling, and never stop till she came to the bottom. Still, she went on resolutely, her stout English heart not liking to be beaten even by a Scotch mountain; clinging from bush to bush,—at this point a small wood had grown up,—until she reached a spot where the rock was perpendicular, nay, overhanging, as it formed the shoulder of the hill.
“I might as well have climbed up the side of a house,” said poor Lizzie, forlornly; and looked up at it, vexed at being conquered but evidently thankful that she had got down alive. “Another time,—or if I have somebody with me,—I do believe I could do it.”
Bravo, Lizzie! Half the doings in the world are done in this spirit. Never say die! Try again. Better luck next time.