"That is well," he said, with his great sigh. "Look over and see my
hole."

I did not care to look over again, and, moreover, knew that I could
not see it. I mind every jutting stone and twisted yew that is on
the cliff there, to this day. However, one of the others went a
little to one side, where Erpwald had appeared, and swung himself
to the tiny ledge that had given him foothold as he came up, and so
looked at the place. There was a long cleft between two layers of
rock which went back into the cliff's face for some depth, with a
little backward slope that had saved the helpless man from rolling
out again, and there was a raven's nest at one end of it. One may
see that cleft from below and across the gorge if one knows where
to look, but not by any means from above, by reason of the overhang
of the brink. It was plain that, as he thought, the horse's body,
or maybe its shoulder, thrust him into the cleft, but it was well
that he was senseless and so could not struggle, or he would have
surely missed it. It is his saying that he had no trouble in
getting into the place, but more in climbing out.

Now we called the good news to some of our people and the villagers
who were on the road below, and they broke into cheers as they
heard it. They could hardly believe that the man they had seen on
the edge just now was Erpwald himself. Then we went down to the
village, meeting the men with the ropes halfway, and so came to the
first houses of the street, where the ealdorman was standing
outside one of the better sort. He came to meet us, and I never saw
anything like the look on his face when he saw Erpwald and heard
his cheerful greeting. I told him how things ended.