At the foot of the hill, as they left the lake, they came on a bit of old burnt land, and here the way was even harder. Myriads of dead pines, spruces, and firs, interlaced in tumbled ruin, made progress difficult. Now it was a giddy walk, twelve feet in air, along a slippery trunk, now a crawl under spiky and splintered stems. Again Carington looked back, and began to understand the value of the qualities of endurance, strength, and grip of purpose, with which the boy pursued his way.
At length, hot, brier-scratched, and weary, they came out on the hilltop. Jack was for immediate march, but Carington said:
“No. Get cool; you could not hit a barn-door now. Lie down a bit. You will want to be fully rested. As for me, I am half dead,” and he dropped on the scant soil. “Fine, isn’t it?”
A great sea of lesser hills was all around them, with here and there a rare sparkle of silver from distant windings of the river.
As for Jack, who lay on the summit, his eyes were eagerly searching the ravine down which they were to go.
“A friend of mine—oh, drop that bear, Jack; he’ll keep—a friend of mine says that to enjoy a view like this one must walk up. He has a notion that somehow the exercise absolutely increases your mental power to get the best out of it.”
Jack was not clear as to this, and he said so.
“I don’t understand it myself. I do not know why it is true, but it is true—for me, at least.”
“Maybe because it’s hard work,” said Jack.
He could not get his idea into proper shape, not having Ned’s facility of expression.