reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he
had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of
clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody
to push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front,
nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent,
the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and the
unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the
world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on instead.
Was it for this that Thomas had left London? London, where there
are nice short walks in level public gardens, with benches of
repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers--London,
where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the
road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement!
No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock
that Idle had left his native city, and travelled to Cumberland.
Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed
a very grave error in judgment than when he found himself standing
in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the
responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to
the top of it.

The honest landlord went first, the beaming Goodchild followed, the
mournful Idle brought up the rear. From time to time, the two
foremost members of the expedition changed places in the order of
march; but the rearguard never altered his position. Up the
mountain or down the mountain, in the water or out of it, over the
rocks, through the bogs, skirting the heather, Mr. Thomas Idle was
always the last, and was always the man who had to be looked after
and waited for. At first the ascent was delusively easy, the sides
of the mountain sloped gradually, and the material of which they