Some accident recalled me from this reverie, and reminded me how much
time had thus been consumed. I was terrified at the consequences of my
delay, and sought with eagerness how they might be obviated. I asked
myself if there were not a way back shorter 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 to me the objects of the most violent apprehensions. These
were unavoidably connected with solitude and darkness, and were present
to my fears when I entered this gloomy recess.

These terrors are always lessened by calling the attention away to some
indifferent object. I now made use of this expedient, and began to amuse
myself by hallowing as loud as organs of unusual compass and vigour
would enable me. I uttered the words which chanced to occur to me, and
repeated in the shrill to