Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/450

 Now, once started on a fine morning, on a good horse, a 'lazy ally' feeling seems to pervade the surroundings and the landscape. If you meet wayside flowers, you may linger to gather them. You may avail yourself of chance invitations, secure that you can 'pull up time' late or early. As you sail away, if your horse walks well and canters easily (as does this one), you insensibly think of 'A day's ride, a life's romance.' Is that romance yet over? It may be. We are 'old enough to know better.' But still we were quite sure when we started that we should meet with an adventure or two.

First of all, we saw two young people in a buggy, driving towards the mountain land which lay eastward in a cloud-world. There was something in the expression of their backs as they passed us which suggested an early stage of the Great Experiment. The bride was fair, with, of course, a delicate complexion—that goes without saying in this part of the world. The bridegroom was stalwart and manly looking. Presently we were overtaken by another young lady of prepossessing appearance, with two attendant cavaliers, well mounted and evidently belonging to the same party. Bound for some miles along the same lonely but picturesque road, we asked permission to join the party, and fared on amicably. Together we breasted the 'Six-Mile Hill,' and at length emerged upon the alpine plateau, which for many miles lies between the towns before mentioned.

Here the scene changed—the climate, the soil, the timber, the atmosphere. Eastward lay the darkly-brooding Titans of Kiandra, snow-capped and dazzling, the peaks contrasting with their darksome rugged sides, the blue and cloudless sky. Beneath our feet, beside and around us, lay the partially-thawed snow of Saturday's fall, in quantities which would have delighted the hearts of certain children of our acquaintance.

Snow in the abstract, 'beautiful snow,' is a lovely nature-wonder, concerning which many things have been sweetly sung and said. But in the concrete, after a forty-eight hours' thaw, it is injurious to roads, in that it causes them to be 'sloppy' and in a sense dangerous to horse and rider. Given a red, soapy soil, somewhat stony, sticky, and irregularly saturated, it must be a very clever steed, the ascents, descents, and sidelings being continuous, that doesn't make a mistake