You may think I am humoring Hartman too much, and letting him shirk the subject. But I have a week—more if necessary—and I don't want to be too hard on him. He'll thaw out by degrees: so long as he doesn't blame Clarice, it is all right. He has got my idea about the way to discover Truth now, and it will work in his brain, and soften him. I know Jim: he never seems to take hold at first, but he comes round in time. You just wait, and you will see whether I know what I am about.
XXVII.
SCENERY IMPROVED.
The next day we drove to a farmhouse which had annexed some rather decent fields for that region. On one side was tolerably level ground, on the other a cut between two savage mountains. Down this we made our way, taking presently the bed of a small brook: woodroad or footpath never can be there. For a while there was room to walk on dry land: soon the cliffs closed in upon us, on the right rising sheer, on the left sloping, but steeper than I would want to climb. At first the stream was very shallow and narrow, and the fish small and scarce; but think of the creatures that must come there to drink at night! It was the only watercourse for miles, Jim said. He pointed out the tracks of a bear or two, and he thought of a panther; but it is not here I should choose to hunt—your game might have you at a disadvantage. He tried to make me believe that even now some of these beasts might catch us; but that was simply to discourage me from going after them, later on: Jim does not like the chase. My jokes are in better taste: as he is now, I believe the bears could beat him in manners. Near noon we found a place to sit down, where we could see a little of the crags, and proceeded to assimilate our frugal lunch.
"Hartman," said I, "I should think you would want to live up to your scenery, as the ladies do to their blue china. Look at this majestic cliff, whose scarred and aged front, frowning upon these lonesome trout since the creation, has never been profaned by mortal foot."
"Probably not. People very seldom come here, and when they do, they wouldn't be fools enough to try to climb up. They couldn't do it, and it wouldn't pay if they could."
"Well, it is grand, anyway, and it ought to quicken your soul to grand thoughts. In such a scene you ought to feel stirring within you noble sympathies and resolves."
"I can't see much grandeur in human nature, Bob, nor any in myself. If you had thought yourself a gentleman, and suddenly awaked to the fact that you were a cad and a scoundrel, you would be apt to change your tune, and drop the high notes."
Oho, I thought, he is coming to the point. While I was meditating how to utilize this confidence, a small piece of rock fell from above upon the edge of my toes: if it had been a large piece, and fallen on my head, you would have missed this moral tale. When I had expressed my sentiments, he said, "I can't insure you against accidents,—any more than you did me. If I had brought you here in spring, you might growl. The rocks are loose then, and it is dangerous. A man was killed once just below here, and his body never found till the year after." This trivial occurrence seemed to turn his thoughts away from the important topic, and I could not get him back to it.