We two lads wandered away one day along a valley down which a stream came gliding here, roaring in a torrent there, or tumbling over a mass of rock in a beautiful fall, whose spray formed quite a dew on the leaves of the ferns which clustered amongst the stones and masses of rock. To left and right the latter rose up higher and higher crowned with fir-trees, some of which were rooted wherever there was sufficient earth, while others seemed to have started as seeds in a crevice at the top of a block of rock, and not finding enough food had sent down their roots over the sides lower and lower to where they could plunge into the earth, where they had grown and strengthened till the mass of rock was shut in tightly in what looked like a huge basket, whose bars held the stone fast, while the great fir-tree ran straight up from the top.
These wild places had a constant attraction for us, the greater that we were always in expectation of hearing a deer rush away, or catching sight of some fresh bird, while there was always a shivering anticipation of our coming face to face with a bear.
The sun came down glowing and hot into the ravine, where the strong aromatic scent of the pines floated to us laden with health as we toiled on higher and higher, leaping from rock to rock, wading or climbing, and often making use of a great pine-trunk for a bridge.
“It’s so different to the city,” Esau used to say. “The roaring of the water puts you a bit in mind of Cheapside sometimes; but you can’t lie down there, and listen and think as you can here.”
“What do you generally think about, Esau?” I said.
“Dunno; mostly about getting higher up. Let’s get higher up now. I say, look at the trout. Shall we try and get a few for dinner; the old man likes them?”
“As we come back,” I said. “Let’s go up higher now.”
“How far would it be up to where this stream begins?”
“Not very far,” I said. “It cannot come from the ice up yonder.”
“Why not?” he said sharply. “I think it must.”