Page:A tour through the northern counties of England, and the borders of Scotland - Volume II.djvu/190

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upon a natural stone terrace, immediately under the beetling ledge that crowns the summit of the august rock seen from below, where we stood looking down a frightful precipice of seven hun- dred feet beneath us ; with the grand hill audits ruined castle before us, and a stretch of country to the right. We now left the apartment, to return to the surface of the rock, but the wonders of this excavation were not yet exhausted. Passing through another dark subterraneous cavern, we suddenly found ourselves at the entrance of a small chapel, where the light of purple hue, or rather " darkness visible," will just allow the eve to distinguish an altar, and other appropriate appendages. Whilst contemplating these, a venerable figure, clothed in the stole of a Druid, slowly pacing from a dark recess in the apartment, crossed before us to the altar, made his obeisance, and departed; leaving us much surprised at, and almost ashamed of, the very singular impression which our minds could be made to experience, even from childish toys, if presented to them under particular circumstances. Quitting the grotto, we threaded the other mazes ol this singular place, taking in the Hermitage, where a venerable figure is seen in a sitting posture, who (by means of a servant previously placed behind him) rises up as the stranger approaches;

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