Not to-day. It looks cloudy. NORTH. Why, I don't much care though I should accompany you-- BULLER. I knew you would offer to do so, and I feel the delicacy of putting a decided negative on the proposal. Let us defer it till to-morrow. For my sake, my dear sir, if not for your own, do not think of it; it will be no disappointment to me to remain with you here--and I shudder at the thought of your fainting on the summit. Be advised, my dear sir, be advised-- NORTH. Well then, be it so--I am not obstinate; but such another day for the ascent there may not be during the summer. On just such a day I made the ascent some half-century ago. I took it from Tyanuilt--having walked that morning from Dalmally, some dozen miles, for a breathing on level ground, before facing the steepish shoulder that roughens into Loch Etive. The fox-hunter from Gleno gave me his company with his hounds and terriers nearly half-way up, and after killing some cubs we parted--not without a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well-- BULLER. A tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well! NORTH. Yea--a tinful of the creature at the Fairies' Well. Now I am a total-abstinent-- BULLER. A total-abstinent! NORTH. By heavens! he echoes me. Pleasant, but mournful to the soul is the memory of joys that are past! A tinful of the unchristened creature to the health of the Silent People. Oh! Buller, there are no Silent People now. BULLER. In your company, sir, I am always willing to be a listener. NORTH. Well, on I flew as on wings. BULLER. What! Up Cruackan? NORTH. On feet, then, if you will; but the feet of a deer. BULLER. On all-fours? NORTH. Yes--sometimes on all-fours. On all-fours, like a frog in his prime, clearing tiny obstructions with a spang. On all-fours, like an ourang-outang, who, in difficult places, brings his arms into play. On all-fours, like the-- BULLER. I cry you mercy. NORTH. Without palpitation of the heart; without determination of blood to the head; without panting; without dizziness; with merely a slight acceleration of the breath, and now and then something like a gasp after a run to a knowe which we foresaw as a momentary resting-place--we felt that we were conquering Cruachan! Lovely level places, like platforms--level as if water had formed them, flowing up just so far continually, and then ebbing back to some unimaginable sea--awaited our arrival, that on them we might lie down, and from beds of state survey our empire, for our empire it was felt to be, far away into the lowlands, with many a hill between--many a hill, that, in its own neighbourhood, is believed to be a mountain--just as many a man of moderate mental dimensions is believed by those who live beneath his shade to be of the first order of magnitude, and with funeral honours is interred. BULLER. Well for him that he is a hill at all--eminent on a flat, or among humbler undulations. All is comparative. NORTH.