Like all gaps, this Reedy Patch is a narrow defile, winding through the heart of the mountains which hem it on each side, and follows closely the impetuous stream already mentioned. The latter pours downward in foaming rapids and cascades, and, although forced once to turn a rude mill, for the remainder of its way dashes uncurbed over the rocks that strew its course, and crosses our road again and again, so that we have the music of its water first on one side and then on the other. The way is wild and beautiful, but the road is the worst which we have found in all our wanderings. Apart from its natural disadvantages, it has been badly washed by the heavy August rains, and altogether it is so hard on the vehicles that John shakes his head forebodingly, and, whenever we stop to water the horses, he goes round and shakes all the wheels. “Anything wrong?” asks Eric, turning to watch this operation. “No, sir, nothing wrong _yit_,” answers John, with a strong emphasis on the last word. “One of these wheels is pretty weak, though, and I don’t think it’ll go much farther.” “It will carry us down the mountain, won’t it?” “It _may_,” returns John, cautiously, “if the roads git better. _These_ is enough to tare a carriage to pieces.” “The roads will get better when we enter Hickory-Nut,” says Rupert. “Don’t you remember how good they were as we came up?” “There’s bin some heavy freshets since then,” observes John, darkly. In consequence of the weak wheel, a good deal of walking is done by the occupants of the carriage, over those parts of the road which are particularly bad. We travel at such a slow rate of progress that our passage through the gap seems endless. As we advance the scene grows wilder and more beautiful with every step. Great mountains inclose us on all sides—their tall crests towering against the blue sky, and their forest-clad sides burning with the gorgeous tints of autumn. Rough though the road may be, this part of the journey is a delight. The encircling hills “clasp us in their deep repose,” as they stand before, around, behind— the farther ones wearing a faint, mauve-like haze over their mighty shoulders. We are in the heart of the Blue Ridge, and its heights hem us like the serried ranks of an army. “Mountains are beautiful when one views them from a distance,” says Sylvia, “but they are sublime when one is among them! Nothing else in the world impresses one with such a sense of steadfast, unchangeable grandeur. The sea shifts: _these_ never do. One finds one’s self repeating all the time, ‘Fixed as the everlasting hills.’” “But they are not everlasting,” says Eric. “Geology—” At that word Sylvia stops her ears. “I don’t believe in geology,” she says. “I believe in common-sense and—poetry.” “Two rather incompatible things, are they not?” asks Charley. “We shall be at the foot of the Bald—the shaking Bald—this evening,” says Rupert. “I wish it would give us a few shakes.”