than that by which I had come. The beaten road was rendered
circuitous by a precipice that projected into a neighbouring
stream, and closed up a passage by which the length of the way
would have been diminished one half: at the foot of the cliff the
water was of considerable depth, and agitated by an eddy. I could
not estimate the danger which I should incur by plunging into it,
but I was resolved to make the attempt. I have reason to think,
that this experiment, if it had been tried, would have proved
fatal, and my father, while he lamented my untimely fate, would
have been wholly unconscious that his own unreasonable demands had
occasioned it.

I turned my steps towards the spot. To reach the edge of the
stream was by no means an easy undertaking, so many abrupt points
and gloomy hollows were interposed. I had frequently skirted and
penetrated this tract, but had never been so completely entangled
in the maze as now: hence I had remained unacquainted with a
narrow pass, which, at the distance of an hundred yards from the
river, would conduct me, though not without danger and toil, to the
opposite side of the ridge.

This glen was now discovered, and this discovery induced me to
change my plan. If a passage could be here effected, it would be
shorter and safer than that which led through the stream, and its
practicability was to be known only by experiment. The path was
narrow, steep, and overshadowed by rocks. The sun was nearly set,
and the shadow of the cliff above, obscured the passage almost as
much as midnight would have done: I was accustomed to despise
danger when it presented itself in a sensible form, but, by a
defect common in every one's education, goblins and spectres were