Naturally they felt much refreshed after this, and, without condescending to further parley, decided to stroll on; only, as the porter had mentioned a turning to the right, they selected a turning to the left as decidedly more probable.
It may have been Snowdon, or it may not—in any case it was a hill, and a stiff one.
Magnus, the athlete, taking out his watch, said he meant to do it under twenty minutes, and begged Joe to time him.
Joe, the poet, agreed, and sat down on the shady side of a rock with the watch in one hand, the “Half Holiday” in the other, and his share of the damsons in his mouth.
“How long have I been?” shouted the athlete, after stumbling up the slippery grass slope for about five minutes.
“Time’s up!” shouted the poet.
Whereat Magnus, surprised at the rapid flight of the enemy, checked his upward career, and not only did that, but, assaying to take a seat on the grass, began to slide at a considerable pace, and in a sitting posture, downwards, until, in fact, he was providentially brought up short by the very rock under which his friend rested.
“Facilis descensus Averni,” observed Joe, making a brilliant sally in a foreign tongue.
The remark was followed by instant gloom. It was too painfully suggestive of the heathen deities. Besides, Magnus had nearly smashed himself against the rock, and had to be brought round with more cold boiled eggs and damsons.
After this the ascent was resumed in a more rational way. They accomplished a quarter of a mile in the phenomenal time of two hours, during which period they sat down fourteen times, drank at twenty-one streams, fell on their noses about eighty times, and wished a hundred times they had never heard the name of Snowdon.