“He was a fool, was Cranbery. He didn’t know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn’t good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don’t mate well in harness, that’s a fact.
“After goin’ every where, and every where else amost, where should they get to but the Alps. One arternoon, a sincerely cold one it was too, and the weather, violent slippy, dark overtook them before they reached the top of one of the highest and steepest of them mountains, and they had to spend the night at a poor squatter’s shanty.
“Well, next mornin’, jist at day-break, and sun-rise on them everlastin’ hills is tall sun-rise, and no mistake, p’rhaps nothin was ever seen so fine except the first one, since creation. It takes the rag off quite. Well, she was an enterprisin’ little toad, was Miss Lot too, afeered of nothin’ a’most; so nothin’ would sarve her but she must out and have a scramb up to the tip-topest part of the peak afore breakfast.
“Well, the squatter there, who was a kind o’ guide, did what he could to dispersuade her, but all to no purpose; go she would, and a headstrong woman and a runaway hoss are jist two things it’s out of all reason to try to stop; The only way is to urge ‘em on, and then, bein’ contrary by natur’, they stop of themselves.
“‘Well,’ sais the guide, ‘if you will go, marm, do take this pike staff, marm,’ sais he; (a sort of walkin’-stick with a spike to the eend of it), ‘for you can’t get either up or down them slopes without it, it is so almighty slippy there.’ So she took the staff, and off she sot and climbed and climbed ever so far, till she didn’t look no bigger than a snowbird.
“At last she came to a small flat place, like a table, and then she turned round to rest, get breath, and take a look at the glorious view; and jist as she hove-to, up went her little heels, and away went her stick, right over a big parpendicular cliff, hundreds and hundreds, and thousands of feet deep. So deep, you couldn’t see the bottom for the shadows, for the very snow looked black down there. There is no way in, it is so steep, but over the cliff; and no way out, but one, and that leads to t’other world. I can’t describe it to you, though. I have see’d it since myself. There are some things too big to lift; some, too big to carry after they be lifted; and some too grand for the tongue to describe too. There’s a notch where dictionary can’t go no farther, as well as every other created thing, that’s a fact. P’rhaps if I was to say it looked like the mould that that ‘are very peak was cast in, afore it was cold and stiff, and sot up on eend, I should come as near the mark as any thing I know on.
“Well away she slid, feet and hands out, all flat on her face, right away, arter her pike staff. Most people would have ginn it up as gone goose, and others been so frightened as not to do any thing at all; or at most only jist to think of a prayer, for there was no time to say one.
“But not so Lot’s ‘wife. She was of a conquerin’ natur’. She never gave nothin’ up, till she couldn’t hold on no longer. She was one o’ them critters that go to bed mistress, and rise master; and just as she got to the edge of the precipice, her head hangin’ over, and her eyes lookin’ down, and she all but ready to shoot out and launch away into bottomless space, the ten commandments brought her right short up. Oh, she sais, the sudden joy of that sudden stop swelled her heart so big, she thought it would have bust like a byler; and, as it was, the great endurin’ long breath she drew, arter such an alfired escape, almost killed her at the ebb, it hurt her so.”
“But,” said Mr. Hopewell, “how did the ten commandments save her? Do you mean that figuratively, or literally. Was it her reliance on providence, arising from a conscious observance of the decalogue all her life, or was it a book containing them, that caught against some thing, and stopt her descent. It is very interesting. Many a person, Sam, has been saved when at the brink of destruction, by laying fast hold on the bible. Who can doubt, that the commandments had a Divine origin? Short, simple and yet comprehensive; the first four point to our duty to our Maker, the last six, towards our social duties. In this respect there is a great similarity of structure, to that excellent prayer given us—”
“Oh, Minister,” said Mr. Slick, “I beg your pardon, I do, indeed, I don’t mean that at all; and I do declare and vow now, I wasn’t a playin’ possum with you, nother. I won’t do it no more, I won’t, indeed.”