“Hallo, Dan!”—it is Eric’s voice which speaks—“what has come over the night? Isn’t it cloudy?” “Tol’ably cloudy,” answers Dan—he is standing by the fire which he has just replenished—“the clouds seem to be gatherin’ pretty thick. We’ll be in the midst of ’em by mornin’.” “Fine prospect for a sunrise,” says Eric. “Capital prospect for sleeping late,” remarks Charley, in a somnolent tone of voice. I hear no more. I, too, am indifferent to the sunrise, so, shifting my satchel a little, I drop off to sleep again. Incredible as it may seem to those who have never tried such quarters, I never rested with a greater sense of pleasure and refreshment than on this bed of balsam under a mountain-rock. When I wake next, a voice is saying, “Time to be up!—half-past four o’clock,” and I open my eyes to see a dark figure standing in front of the smouldering fire—a figure which I know by the carriage of the shoulders and head to be Eric—while another figure (that of Mr. Burnet) is bringing wood from the diminished pile, and all around are the recumbent outlines of the sleeping party. Far and faint in the east—infinitely distant, it seems—a pale streak of light lies along the verge of the horizon, and, seeing this, I rise to a sitting posture. “Oh, we _are_ going to have a sunrise, after all!” I say. “There is generally something of that kind in the morning,” says Eric; “and it takes place sooner on a mountain than in the lower world, so you had better rouse your neighbors.” I proceed at once to shake each of them, while Eric rouses the masculine sleepers very summarily. There is a little grumbling and much yawning on the part of the latter; then they rise and gather round the fire, which by this time is burning brightly. By this time, also, the glow in the east has widened, so we do not pause for any toilet arrangements, but, pulling the hoods of our water-proofs over our heads, announce that we are ready. We climb the peak in the cold, gray dawn, with just enough of dim light to show us a mist lying all around. “Why, there is a fog!” says Mrs. Cardigan. “A fog!” repeats Eric. “It is a cloud, which has been hovering over us since midnight.” “Then we can’t see the sunrise!” cries a disgusted chorus. “We may see a very fine sunrise if the clouds continue as at present to lie below. They have been up around us two or three times, but now the breeze has blown them off, and we overlook them.” He is right. When we gain the summit, we find a sea of vapor spread below us, out of which nothing appears but the peak on which we stand, and on our left the dark dome of Craggy, toward which the moon is sloping. We are in the midst of a boundless ocean, on the distant limit of which the sunrise glow is growing brighter.