Leaving their phaeton at the Bridge of Gorton Inn, the party secured a guide, and proceeded to ascend the hill. A steep footpath led across several enclosed fields, and brought them through a stretch of oak copsewood to a track of open pasture, whence they could look down on the lake spread out at their feet, while the great purple mountain reared its steep shoulders above them, swelling in broad sweeps of heath backward and upward to the beetling crags far up, thrusting their jagged outlines into the sky, and shutting out the climber from the distant summit.
The belt of pasture past, climbing began in earnest. The shaggy heather was knee deep in many places, and every here and there the rocky knuckles of the mountain projected through the peaty soil.
The party began to straggle. Mary, sound of wind and limb, light-footed and active, was in front with the guide. Peter and Wallowby toiled closely behind, the latter showing the first signs of distress in shortening breath, and handkerchief applied occasionally to his brow. Mrs. Sangster followed in steady mechanical fashion. Her fifty odd summers had no doubt impaired the elasticity of her frame, but had left behind a fund of tough endurance and sturdy will, which did very well in its stead. Sophia and Roderick brought up the rear, the coolest and calmest of the party. Her fine physique made the exertion both light and pleasant, and her tranquil soul supplied a wellspring of inward coolness, which even hill-climbing was unable to overheat, while Roderick by her side among the sunshine and the ever-widening view, walked on air, held forth at will, and dreamed aloud in words overflowingly; while his placid companion smiled and looked at him out of her beautiful eyes, listening, and sometimes understanding what he said. The path became steeper after a while, and Mrs. Sangster stopped to take breath, looking around the while for the others.
Mary and the young men were perched upon a rock high over her head, and when she looked down Roderick and Sophia came calmly following her. It seemed too much that Mary should monopolize not only Peter (though that was well enough), but also the wealthy party from Manchester, who had been sent by Providence, as she still thought, to open a larger sphere of usefulness to her daughter; meaning really, if self-delusion would ever let us speak plainly to ourselves, a carriage and pair and a handsome establishment. The ice between the two had been hard to break, what better way could there be to thaw it, than the small difficulties and adventures of a mountain ramble? And here the stupid girl was letting her opportunity escape, and trifling it away with a young man whom she could beckon to her side any day, and could always fall back upon if more ambitious aims did not succeed. A more worldly or a more single-minded mamma would no doubt have spoken plainly to her daughter, and so might have influenced that not very perspicuous person more effectually, but Mrs. Sangster had the misfortune to be looking two ways at once, or like the boatman in the Pilgrim's Progress, she looked one way while she pulled the other. She loved and appreciated the good things of the world, as thoroughly as any one, but at the same time she was wont to say, and to really think that she thought they were a snare, or dross, in comparison with higher interests. She could not bring her tongue to frame such advice to her daughter as would in any way derogate from true religion, or the old-fashioned 'true, true love,' she had thought and sang of in her own youth. She could only suggest and influence in a half-ashamed sort of way. But she was disappointed and mortified that a daughter of hers should be so wanting in common sense. After all the advantages of her upbringing, how came it that she should fail of that well-regulated mind, which, seeing both sides of a question, can both say what is 'nice' in regard to the higher, and at the same time follow the more profitable. The thing requires a little casuistry, but it must be of the unspoken kind. It cannot be decently uttered, so each must work it out alone in those secret chambers of the brain, where not the prying eye of conscience even may intrude. Any one would feel annoyed at a carefully and expensively-educated daughter throwing herself away, and all the proud hopes that have been formed for her, on a poor match; yet openly to preach the mercenary would be infamy. So felt Mrs. Sangster, and she was greatly disturbed; for hers was virtue of the uncomfortable, rather than of the heroic kind,--it could not make her choose the better way, but it would reproach her if she followed the worse. As for Sophia, her mother wronged her if she suspected her of unwisely preferring the good to the profitable. She was only dull. Money and all it could buy would, she felt, be delightful to have, but she did not feel equal to winning it. Roderick had looked and succumbed to her beauty, and it would be very pleasant if Mr. Wallowby would do likewise; it would be grand,--and no personal preference should prevent her making her fortune; but if Mr. Wallowby was only to be captured by something she was to do, she resigned the idea at once; she felt she could do nothing, and the very idea of doing anything to win his regard made her ashamed, which was what might have been expected. If people will bring up their girls to be high-minded and good, they have no right to expect scheming and meanness from them after they are grown.
'Oh, Mr. Roderick,' said Mrs. Sangster, 'I fear I must ask you to take pity on an old woman. This climbing is hot work, with the sun beating down so on my old back. I can bear the weight of my shawl no longer. If there was only a breeze! But the air seems stagnant, and my old limbs are not what they once were.'
'We have only to get a very little higher now to have wind enough,' said Roderick, doubling the shawl on his arm. 'See Mr. Wallowby's handkerchief up there how it blows about. If you will accept a little assistance over this steep place, you will soon reach the cooler level.'
'Sophia!' continued the mother, 'I believe that guide will break a bottle, or something, the way he swings the basket about. Pray bid him take care or we shall have a dry luncheon to eat when we get to the top of the hill,--there will be no water up there. It makes me quite nervous to look at him.'
So Sophia was despatched in advance while the older lady made a leisurely survey of the prospect at her feet.
'A beautiful place Inchbracken, with its woods spreading out beyond the island and rolling away into the distance, and the steeple of Kilrundle church rising from among them. Dives with his good things, and Lazarus with his evil things! You must feel thankful to have chosen the better part, Mr. Roderick.'
'I feel no misgiving about my choice whatever, but I hope there is no reason to look on General Drysdale as another Dives. Difference in people's circumstances, shows things in so different a light.'