Page:Edgar Huntly, or The Sleep Walker.djvu/203

, and my desperate exertions; suffice it to say, that I gained the upper space not till the sun had dipped beneath the horizon.

My satisfaction at accomplishing thus much was not small; and I hied, with renovated spirits, to the opposite brow: this proved to be a steep that could not be descended, the river flowed at its foot; the opposite bank was 500 yards distant, and was equally towering and steep as that on which I stood. Appearances were adapted to persuade you that these rocks had formerly joined; but by some mighty effort of nature had been severed, that the stream might find way through the chasm. The channel, however, was encumbered with asperities, over which the river fretted and foamed with thundering impetuosity.

I pondered for a while on these stupendous scenes; they ravished my attention from considerations that related to myself; but this interval was short, and I began to measure the descent, in order to ascertain the practicability of treading it. My survey terminated in bitter disappointment. I turned my eye successively eastward and westward; Solebury lay in the former quarter, and thither I desired to go. I kept along the verge in this direction till I reached an impassable rift; beyond this I saw that the steep grew lower, but it was impossible to proceed further: higher up the descent might be practicable; and though more distant from Solebury, it was better to reach the road even at that distance, than never to reach it.

Changing my course, therefore, I explored the spaces above. The night was rapidly advancing, the grey clouds gathered in the south-east, and a chilling blast, the usual attendant of a night in October, began to whistle among the pigmy cedars that scantily grew upon these heights. My progress would quickly be arrested by darkness, and it behoved me to provide some place of shelter and repose: no recess, better than a hollow in the rock, presented itself to my anxious scrutiny.

Meanwhile I would not dismiss the hope of reaching the road, which I saw some hundred feet below, winding along the edge of the river, before daylight should utterly fail: speedily these hopes derived new vigour from meeting a