(FOR THE "FREE LANCE" CHRISTMAS NUMBER.)

Free Lance, Volume V, Issue 233, 17 December 1904, Page 24 (Supplement)

(FOR THE "FREE LANCE" CHRISTMAS NUMBER.)

THE men decl.u cd we couldn't do it, and, naturally, that statement alone was quite enough to make any self-re&pectmg female sueai to accomplish the feat of climbing Mount Olhviei. They ueie good enough to add that, if we waited till they came back from then three day^s' tri^ on the glacier, they would "take" Ub up the mountain. Which remark, fcieatedby us with silent contempt, clenched the mattei . We kept our ow n counsel, and saw oui masculine protectors off with cheerful faces. The men might have known there was something in the wind if they had not been utterly taken up with their anxiety not to leave anything behind We watched the last knaps*icked back disappear over the tussocky nse, and then we held a council of war. There were four of us, all of the female persuasion — Cleopatra, Lady Clara Veie de Vere, the Elf, and the writer— and we were each of us panting to "do" a mountain before the scoffers leturned Cleopatra had only arrived by coach the evening before, and, as we had peered through the sittmg-ioom window at her stately tailor-made figuie and the lovely face beneath the picturesque hat, we had agreed that she did not belie the reputation for beauty that had preceded her. But, we had shaken our three heads over her utility as a climbing companion. For ourselves, we had 1 exhausted the limited resources of the Hermitage, our little mountain inn that nestla? among the New Zealand Alps. We had read every scrap of literature in the establishment. We had wiled! away wet hours with whist until we were weary of cards We had sketched' — and bidden, the appalling results from mortal eyes. We had acted as amateur guides to each coachload of tourists that arrived, and we had played How, When, and Where with the queerest assortment of humanity in the evenings. Even into the verv kitchen had our ennui driven us. There we were graciously permitted, bv the buxom high-priestess, to make barleysugar, and mould! the breadt-dough into fantastic shapes But, we yearned now for higher things. We resolved to attack Mount Olhvier, whose great grey-green flank could be seen from our hotel windows. It hadi been climbed by others, and why not bv us p It took but a short time to enlist Cleopatra in. the noble cause. Indeed, as is often the case, our convert became more enthusiastic than he.r teachers, and the strictly feminine character of the expedition — which we thought she might object to — was regaided by her as a refreshing change. It is possible Cleopatra may have got tired of men. But, among her many garments she had no mountaineei ing togs, so we had to skirmish around for a pair of boots a trifle less ephemeral than her dainty French shoes. Clinton Dent somewhere describes an old gentleman who, when he went his first mountaineering; trip, carefully put on his thinnest boots ' He was anxious to test the accuracy of the theorv that man, bem'or descended' from the ape, can use his feet as prehensile members. But Cleopatra had 1 no idea of hanging: by her toes to rocks She had no theories at all about mountain-climbing She raised her dark eyebrows doubtfully when the boots were presented to her and put them on over onen-work silk stockings' We had later in the dav ample opportunity for studying these frivolities.

The day dawned seicne and blue, and we foui ate our bieakiavts hurnedly, t>o eager weie we to set oft on our tiavels. The motheily old housekeeper wasveiy dubious as to our ventuie. I'm no Ccirm' aboot ye gom' ver lane," she ■said. "Wull ye no tak Simon? He's a fine decent lad'' But we nimly declined to "tak Simon or any other ot his perfidious sex. Well we knew that if we did the gloiy would be gone f1 om our achievement. It would not be a question of our taking Simon, but of Simon's taking us Luncheon m satchels on our shoulders, and staves' in hand, we bet out across the tussocky flats to conquer oui mountain. The moinmg wa<> hot, and we loiteied a little, introducing to our new friend the cool delights of totaia bemes At last the steep, nariow path that curled corksci ew r -w lse up the mountain was leached. Almost vertical it looked 1 as we, hot and rather tired — though none of us w ould havo confessed the latter fact — paused at the foot. We came to the desperate resolve to shed 1 our skirts, and hide them in a friendly bush. The result was foui maidens in cotton, blouses and 1 knickerbockers, auaint combinations of male and female apparel. We were indulging; in a little caper expressive of oui delight at ridding oui selves of our feminine trammels when a horrified exclamation from Cleopatra made us cease our antics. In an attitude, though foardJy the attire, worthv of the Eeyntian queen, she nointed' with one slendei finger down the little path we had iust traversed. There, coming brmklv along the flat knapsack on back, and ice-axe in hand' was Simon the only m.ile that had been left at the Hermitage.

We ciouched behind' our big bush, and hold our breath. Was he going up our mountain? Oi was he merely skirting it to get into the Muellei Moiaine' 3 Clutching one anothei with f i 1 a 1 ful fingcis we watched him come nearer, nearer, till lie almost touched our bush He might, had his thoughts not been elsewheie, have heard the ElfV giggle hefoie she was throttled bv the writer But, lie passed below ui->, lound the , spur, and was soon out of -.i'srht. We arose with restoied 1 equanimit\ f i om out very uncomfortable positions. I think I have said befoie the dav hot. I lemember we mentioned the fact frequently, and with increasing intensity of expression. It was about the time foi that latest and most de^ hghtful caprice of woman, eleven o'clock tea, and 1 we each thought with a sigh of the big, cool room, the luxui lous aim-chair, and the delicious draught that might have been ours had our ambition not enticed us up this mountain. Instead, we were toiling up gieat broken stones and slippery clay slopes, lifting our feet muoh'highei than we had ever been accustomed to— even in a skat-dance — and clawing on to vegetation that was either disgustingly prickly, or else gave way with a. jeik at a critical moment. The sprightly chatter became spasmodic, and then ceased. All our breath was requiied for another purpose than for conversation. Lady Clara Vere de Vere was the first to give in. She sat down with a dainty deliberation that characterised her, andf announced she was going to have a rest. Then, the Elf became much interested in the new, which she also had to contemplate from a lowly position. Cleopatra, as she and I struggled on, announced she only crawled on because she could not find sufficient horizontal space for her stately form to repose upon. Shortly after, she, too, was extended im a thicket of birch, with her feet against a stable stone, and her arm tightly embracing the stoutest branch, for fear she should slip to the bottom of out

mountain. I alone, of oui d'auntle&t> quartette, was left in a perpendicular position. What was to be done? As I looked dow n on the hillsbide, strewn with prostrate feminine foims — poetically speaking — I decided theie vvas> but one panacea for our ills,, tea, and that should be forthcoming. As yet, we had passed by no water-co uii^es, though at time^ the mountain is laced with silver threads and musical with streams. With a oheeiy good-bye, I climbed, bdly in hand, up the little, curly path, skirting sometimes gieat preoiDicei-> thousands of feet deep Alas, every water-worn gully was dry and white. I had mounted beyond the bush-line, and, raising my head' a^ I breasted a, grassy brae, I saw the loveliest of lovely sights. On either side of the lattle green plateau was a lake One was an oval turquoise bet in emerald grass and golden-brown lusher. Only a narrow border of its bronze anr> green setting seemed to separate it fiom the great ice-mountain that was mirrored in its satin sweep of blue water. In. reality, miles of moraine lay between. The orhei lake wa-> brown and gloomy. Filling my billy, I hurried back, and trom afar roused my comrades to action. A fire was made, water boiled tea infused, and there we sat and dramk and ate, vowing that never before had we tasted so delicious a meal We did not notice- that behind us our file was beginning insidiously to spread from plant to plant. When we did turn round, we enjoyed an exciting ten minutes, for we had no mind to be burnt like rabbits on the hill-side. The scrub was as div as tinder, and it was onl y »y pulhng the burning plants out of the ground, and beating the sparks out wiith our sticks, that we managed! to extinguish it. We had diunk all the water long before, and none of us saw much pleasure in fleeing down that steep and rugered track with a ravening conflagration at out backs. Whether the tea and the sandwiches had given us a sort of temperance Lmtch courage, or whether we were afraid to face the lifted eyebrows and the amused 1 superiority of our men fnendswhen they heard we had failed, it is difficult to say, but it is certain we simultaneously declared our intention of conquering "our" mountain. It was now two o'clock in the afternoon, and we had been so long on the hill-side that it was no wonder we felt as if it belonged to us. By this time we should have been trudging homeward, but we were keen to do or die, and, leaving all possible impedimenta under some bushes, we started again. TTp the narrow twisting path climbed four feminine figures in improvised rational dress, Cleopatra's stately height dwarfing the rest of usi as she clambered up the ledge-, and hung desperately on to the mountain hhes. Far below us, a little doll's house among fields where l'llinuti.in cattle were feeding, lay the Hermitasre. But so clear was the excmiMtei al''a 1 ''- that the tinkle of a cow-bell rose' mii'sicnillv to our ears. We had nearly gamed the little mountain tains, on whose beauty I had dilated largely as we climbed, when a faint' cry came from Cleopatra. She, ambitious as her old-time namesake, was eager to be the first to breast the rise. With hori or visible m the very back of her head, she falteied "There — there's a lniciu coming'" Suie enough, rounding the tinv path ahead, swinging along carelessly, and biting "Annie Laurie" a> he came, was the "fine, decent lad" that had parsed us hours ago at the foot of the mountain ' He had gone lound the spur, climbed up the other side of Mount Ollivier, and had maturnllv come upon us in his descent. Theie was no time foi consultation. All of us dropped down where we stood, in a confused heap of feminine human-

lty. We lesolved nothing would make us get up till Simon had passed by. Cleopatra, who was. nearest the invader, had the greatest difficulty in stowing away out of sight hei thapely black sdk ankles. At hist the lad did not &ee us. When, he did, he must have imagined we were in the last btage of exhaustion, it he judged by the extraordinary huddle we had got into. Someone — Cleopatra, I fancy — made a faltering lemaik oa the fineness of the day. Lady Claia, with polite firmness, asked ]f he would, mind dropping down the &teep Mde of the path on to the track below, a> we were really too fatigued to 1 lse and let him pass. At which the Elf showed an inclination to be frivolous, but was repressed with a firm hand. Simon, good soul, consented' cheerfully to take a perpendicular short cut, and we watched him dashing down the track till he was out of sight Them, we laughed uproariously. We reached' the little lakes, we climbed the grassy terraces, we scrambled over the belt of gigantic boulders, and the last bit of our mountain lay before us — a very steep slope of ecree, with here and there "a big stone ready to slip down with the merest touch. By this time the Elf had got her second wind, and -was far ahead, slipping down two inches in every three, but still full of pluck and determination. We made for a big square gap like a great luined gateway, with pillars of dark-red stone. Through the opening was the soft blue of the sky, and we judged! that, if we gained that point, we had — as the Alpine men say — our mountain in. oui pockets. Slowly we zig-zagged across and up the steep treacheious. shingle. Suddenly a cry of delight came from the Elf, and we saw her slight figure in the gap, dark against the sky. A struggle or two moie, andi we were all on the top, tired but triumphant. We were d^sappolnted with the top. It was altogether on too large a scale We should have preferred a flattened pinnacle, where, as on some Swiss mountains, one person has to come down to let another on the summit. Instead, a wide snow-field! stretchedi awav in front of us, and curved out of sight. Huge red and purple rocks of fantastic shapes lay scattered about in wildest confusion. Peering over the edge ot one immense boulder, we looked down thousands of feet of ghastly precipice, and shuddeied. Far across the valley the long range of snow mountains — curving glacier, gleaming ice-spear, frowning cliff— lay exquisitely pure in the dying daylight, and the wide lasman flats, green, and crimson, and gold, embroidered bravely with the flashing silver loops of the river, were bounded by the dim purple of the distant hills. Beyond those hills lay the world, and etiquette, and calls, and the latest thing m chiffons But all these seemed very trifling and very far away to us as, strangely silent, we stood upon our mountam-top amdi gazed at the glory around us. But, ib was late. The afternoon was drawing to a close, and we had to start to go down I initiated my comparir ions into the mysteries of a running glissade down the scree. But at this Cleopatra struck. Down she sat with her feeit, in their borrowed boots, stretched' out before her, and refused to budge. She announced her intention of stopping: the night there. lam not sure she did not say she would spend the rest of her life on that slippery mountain slope rather than trust herself to its uncertain surface. We represented to her the grief of her relatives at her loss. She was unmoved. We informed 1 her, in an emphatic trio, that her conduct was ridiculous, and silly and childish. She simply gazed at the landscape, and settled 1 herself more firmlv in her shifting seat. It was such an uncertain seat that, had we had time and patience, she would have reached' t^e bottom of the slope in accordance with the laws of gravitation. At last we bade her a tearful good-bve. and Raid we should send a

man up to help hei down. That wa*> enough to bung hci to hei senses and her feet. No man should bee Cleopatra, whose movements were, in the woald below, a silken rustic and ai peifumcd hieath, m suoh a, guise. Hand in hand, she and I slid down that slope, and, long before the foot was readied, she wan in love with the dehghttul new expei lenoe. Next came the gras*> slopes We had been feeling our way carefully dlown the slippery terraces, clutching at bubstan-tial-looking plants, and stepping gingerly for fear of sliding. Suddenly the Elf, who had chsappeai ed down a steep slope rather unexpectedly, called out, with an ecstatic thrill m hen* i^oice "Girls! Try sitting down' It's too lovely !" In a trice we had launched ourselves feet-first down the steep httie hill, and. found! that, after the first push-off, our progress was dielioiously rapid, if somewhat eiratio By means of our sticks — used like a steer-ing-oar — we were able to guide ourselves to a certain extant. Occasionally we got broadside on, but we always managed to right ourselves before reaching the foot. Nothing could have stopped our headlong career at some poanite. We yelled with delight as we played our queer game of follow-my-leader down those grassy gullies in the terraces, and subsided into giggles as we came to an abrupt full-stop at the bottom. We, like young Loohinvar, "stayed! not for brake and we stopped not for stone." We passed feicatheless, m our m>ad' oareei , over half-buried boulders and spear-grass. Now and then our impetus was suoh thiat we were carried across a tiny plateau and down a second incline. The Elf, who led, had a fine foreshortened view of us, and her description of oui three flying forms, and our respective war- whoops that accompanied our progress, was distinctly vivid. We hadi laughed so much when we reached the little lakes that we felt positively boneless Never before we were sure, was that part of the descent accomplished in so harum-scarum a fashion. Down the corkscrew path we hurried. By this time the*3now-peaks were soft.lv rose-coloured in. the sunset, and Aorangi's great tent-crest stood flushed against the evening sky. A tinv whispering wind told of the coming mgiht. The day was as lovelv Jn its dvinsr as in its life A little rest was taken wheie we had eaten, our lunch, and then we hastened down to the bus'h where oui skirts had been hidden, not without misgivings that Simon, might have discovered them, and — in the crass ignorance of bovhood — 'have carried them on to the Hermitage. But, there they were, and, m the fast darkening twilight, we got into them again. Across the two miles of flat we trudged in the dark, with the hospitable lights of the Hermitage ruddy against the dark mountain beyond Stones got in our way out of spite, logs rose up and thumped us little twigis slashed our faces, and ditches opeined l suddenly before our tired l feet. But ait. last we gained the warmth and welcome of the inn. Not veTy long afterwards we were sitting demurely at a very late dinner, clothed, and in, our right minds. We gave the only man who hadl returnmed a revised and expurgated version of our adventures. Cleopatra was radiant in a silklined frock, and! a blouse all shimmer and flitter. No one would have taken her for the wild, weird fisure wlho dashed down those slopes in its mad career, utterine; howls' of delient as it skimmed over spear-graisis a.nd bouldens. I*adv Clara and, the Elf were daintv in crisp white gowns, lookiiTior quite ns incapable of anv KUdh reTveihensihle conduct. Sweet.lv demure tliev helped to out climb and our decent to the man from O-r-fopid n bncr.pl or wbom report, declared 1 to hnve

an uttea ignorance of women, and, therefore, a tmuoious fear of them. "Sat down and slid, you say!" he remarked, with inteiest. "Dear me l But, didn't you hud your skirts rather —in the way? Did nothing — er — catch behind when you wene sbisisading?" The Elf was pi etematurally busy peeling a potato, and Cleopatra looked at me, but Lady Claia said oaimly — "Nothing at all, I assure you'" and abruptly changed the subject. The four may, perhaps, never climb again. Cleopatra is far away, and happiear than 'her Egyptian nammakp, has found her Antony. The other three lave in cities whose huiry and bustle they would 1 often gladly exahamge for the space and peace of the everlasting hills. But wherever Fate may leadi them, the wild' delights and bo<n enmeradene of that Christmas ebmb will be long remembered. — Forrest Ross

Thtey were duscuasaeg "Hiawatha," as given' at the Town Hall. Mabel — "The men, too, were so rude." Alice — Did they stare?" Ma>bel — "No , they never looked at us!" * » * There are times when it ife. positively unsafe to enter dhutpoh. For instanoe, wfheai there is a canon, in action at the reading desk, a big gun in the pulpit, wfhem, the Bishop is ohairging the olergy the alwir murderinig thie ainrthem, and the orgarasft trymg to drown the ahon,i .

It happened in Oubanstireet last week, to a maiden of uncertain! yearns. "What I want," she said, after trying on a dozen Jiats, and making tihe malluuea- mass her young roan, "is a, 'hat tlhiat wall suit my complexion.." Tlieoi the miilloner — "I ihave a hamdpaiiited one in. the window that must be just the vea - v thing to suit you !" * • . They were talking of a citizen who lias lost liis mother-in-law. "Yes, I believe he hsn> taken it very nuudh to heart." "Oil, how'iv that ?" "Well, the fact is there's no o.ne mow wmtJh whom they can, lea.ve the youngsters when they want to g*> out. The general h'as got her young man." * * * Have 3'ou heard how Brown hiad Smaitli up at the Basan ReseirFe lasft Saturday ? It happened this way : Smith — "You dou't mean to say that Jones called you an ass?" Browin — ''Well, it amounted to the same thing. He said you and I were tarred with the same stick !" Titteirs all 1 ound. * * •* There is a man at Pet one who has a oonscaence. Listen to a train item : "Yooi don't want to look at tihe pamper this ereniung;? Why?" "It's on account of my ooniscdenoe. I found a real nice umbrella to-day, left in place of my old one, a/nd, I'm afraid I'll see it advertised."