268 OUTDOOR STUDIES 
vigor of a limb. Vegetation driven to its alpine 
stronghold does its worst at last, before it van- 
ishes and leaves you in free air. You must 
clamber above it, you must burrow through it ; 
you cannot stop to find out whether it is branch 
or root on which you are treading, since they 
seem equally rugged. Sometimes, in creeping 
beneath a bough, I found myself trailing my 
wet breast over some exquisite bed of wood- 
sorrel and linnza, the sweet: pink flowers fad- 
ing unseen where no eye had looked on their. 
race before, 
At last, as by magic, all obstruction van- 
ished, and I stood in increasing darkness on the 
bare ridge, with thousands of feet of stormy. 
vapor spreading and sinking on either hand. 
So great was the sense of freedom — for there 
was now nothing before us but a descent of 
five miles by the rough carriage road to Mer-: 
rill’s — that I remember no feeling except of 
exhilaration. I had nothing on but a thin ten- 
nis shirt and trousers, with shoes and stockings. 
all saturated ; but I recall a distinct savage. 
enjoyment in the pelting of the cold rain, mixed 
with a slight hail, upon my shoulders. Fatigue 
seemed to vanish; we all felt as if at the begin- 
ning of our day’s work. Nature presently re- 
sponded ‘to our mood ; already the veil of cloud 
was thin over the western outlook, and soon it 
