Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume I.djvu/181

 issuing from a quarter where no object could be seen; in a place where all was still as death; and every thing around calculated to awaken attention, and powerfully impress the imagination with solemn ideas, we could not hear them without that mingled emotion of fear and pleasure, astonishment and delight, which is one of the most interesting feelings of the mind; and extremely favourable to the encouragement of the religious principle. After being entertained awhile by this invisible choir, a sudden burst of light discovered the personages to whom we had been obliged for our harmonical treat—eight or ten women and children ranged along a natural gallery of the rock, thirty or forty feet above the floor on which we stood, each holding a lighted taper in her hand. Quitting the chancel, we dropped into the devil's-cellar, or half-way house, through three regular semi-circular arches formed by the hand of nature, and found ourselves at length under a vast concavity called great Tom of Lincoln, from its uniform bell-like appearance. Here our subterraneous tour terminated, at a point nearly two thousand feet from the entrance; the guide, indeed, proceeded twenty-five yards further, where the roof sinks into the water, but as it was necessary to wade through the stream, in order to reach the barrier, we contented