observation, and I formed the resolution of some time exploring it. At
present I determined to revisit the elm, and dig in the spot where this
person had been employed in a similar way. It might be that something
was here deposited which might exhibit this transaction in a new light.
At the suitable hour, on the ensuing night, I took my former stand. The
person again appeared. My intention to dig was to be carried into effect
on condition of his absence, and was, consequently, frustrated.

Instead of rushing on him, and breaking at once the spell by which his
senses were bound, I concluded, contrary to my first design, to wait his
departure, and allow myself to be conducted whithersoever he pleased.
The track into which he now led me was different from the former one. It
was a maze, oblique, circuitous, upward and downward, in a degree which
only could take place in a region so remarkably irregular in surface, so
abounding with hillocks and steeps and pits and brooks, as
_Solesbury_. It seemed to be the sole end of his labours to
bewilder or fatigue his pursuer, to pierce into the deepest thickets, to
plunge into the darkest cavities, to ascend the most difficult heights,
and approach the slippery and tremulous verge of the dizziest
precipices.

I disdained to be outstripped in this career. All dangers were
overlooked, and all difficulties defied. I plunged into obscurities, and
clambered over obstacles, from which, in a different state of mind, and
with a different object of pursuit, I should have recoiled with
invincible timidity. When the scene had passed, I could not review the
perils I had undergone without shuddering.

At length my conductor struck into a path which, compared with the
ruggedness of that which we had lately trodden, was easy and smooth.