penstock and plaid;
preserving his hat and his knapsack. He was alone, disabled, and
cheerful; in doubt of the arrival of succour before he could trust his
left leg to do him further service unaided; but it was morning still, the
sun was hot, the air was cool; just the tempering opposition to render
existence pleasant as a piece of vegetation, especially when there has
been a question of your ceasing to exist; and the view was of a
sustaining sublimity of desolateness: crag and snow overhead; a gloomy
vale below; no life either of bird or herd; a voiceless region where
there had once been roars at the bowling of a hill from a mountain to the
deep, and the third flank of the mountain spoke of it in the silence.

He would have enjoyed the scene unremittingly, like the philosopher he
pretended to be, in a disdain of civilization and the ambitions of men,
had not a contest with earth been forced on him from time to time to keep
the heel of his right foot, dug in shallow shale, fixed and supporting.
As long as it held he was happy and maintained the attitude of a
guitar-player, thrumming the calf of the useless leg to accompany tuneful
thoughts, but the inevitable lapse and slide of the foot recurred, and
the philosopher was exhibited as an infant learning to crawl. The seat,
moreover, not having been fashioned for him or for any soft purpose,
resisted his pressure and became a thing of violence, that required to be
humiliatingly coaxed. His last resource to propitiate it was counselled
by nature turned mathematician: tenacious extension solved the problem;
he lay back at his length, and with his hat over his eyes consented to
see nothing for the sake of comfort. Thus he was perfectly rational,
though when others beheld him he appeared the insanest of mortals.

A girl's voice gave out the mountain carol ringingly above. His heart and
all his fancies were in motion at the sound. He leaned on an elbow to
listen; the slide threatened him, and he resumed his full stretch,
determined to take her for a dream. He was of the class of youths who, in
apprehension that their bright season may not be permanent, choose to
fortify it by a systematic contempt of material realities unless they
come in the fairest of shapes, and as he was quite sincere in this
feeling and election of the right way to live, disappointment and
sullenness overcame him on hearing men's shouts and steps; despite his
helpless condition he refused to stir, for they