CHAPTER II.
Away with me. The clouds grow thicker--there--now lean on me. Place your foot here--here, take this staff, and cling A moment to that shrub--now, give me your hand.
* * * * *
The chalet will be gained within an hour. _Manfred._
After surveying the desolate scene as accurately as the stormy stateof the atmosphere would permit, the younger of the travellersobserved, "In any other country, I should say the tempest begins toabate; but what to expect in this land of desolation, it were rash todecide. If the apostate spirit of Pilate be actually on the blast,these lingering and more distant howls seem to intimate that he isreturning to his place of punishment. The pathway has sunk with theground on which it was traced--I can see part of it lying down in theabyss, marking, as with a streak of clay, yonder mass of earth andstone. But I think it possible, with your permission, my father, thatI could still scramble forward along the edge of the precipice, till Icome in sight of the habitation which the lad tells us of. If there beactually such a one, there must be an access to it somewhere; and if Icannot find the path out, I can at least make a signal to those whodwell near the Vulture's Nest yonder, and obtain some friendlyguidance."
"I cannot consent to your incurring such a risk," said his father;"let the lad go forward, if he can and will. He is mountain-bred, andI will reward him richly."
But Antonio declined the proposal absolutely and decidedly. "I ammountain-bred," he said, "but I am no chamois-hunter; and I have nowings to transport me from cliff to cliff, like a raven--gold is notworth life."
"And God forbid," said Seignor Philipson, "that I should tempt thee toweigh them against each other!--Go on, then, my son--I follow thee."
"Under your favour, dearest sir, no," replied the young man; "it isenough to endanger the life of one--and mine, far the most worthless,should, by all the rules of wisdom as well as nature, be put first inhazard."
"No, Arthur," replied his father, in a determined voice; "no, myson--I have survived much, but I will not survive thee."
"I fear not for the issue, father, if you permit me to go alone; but Icannot--dare not--undertake a task so perilous, if you persist inattempting to share it, with no better aid than mine. While Iendeavoured to make a new advance, I should be ever looking back tosee how you might attain the station which I was about to leave--Andbethink you, dearest father, that if I fall, I fall an unregardedthing, of as little moment as the stone or tree which has toppledheadlong down before me. But you--should your foot slip, or your handfail, bethink you what and how much must needs fall with you!"
"Thou art right, my child," said the father. "I still have that whichbinds me to life, even though I were to lose in thee all that is dearto me.--Our Lady and our Lady's Knight bless thee and prosper thee,my child! Thy foot is young, thy hand is strong--thou hast not climbedPlynlimmon in vain. Be bold, but be wary--remember there is a man who,failing thee, has but one act of duty to bind him to the earth, and,that discharged, will soon follow thee."
The young man accordingly prepared for his journey, and, strippinghimself of his cumbrous cloak, showed his well-proportioned limbs in ajerkin of grey cloth, which sat close to his person. The father'sresolution gave way when his son turned round to bid him farewell. Herecalled his permission, and in a peremptory tone forbade him toproceed. But, without listening to the prohibition, Arthur hadcommenced his perilous adventure. Descending from the platform onwhich he stood, by the boughs of an old ash-tree, which thrust itselfout of the cleft of a rock, the youth was enabled to gain, though atgreat risk, a narrow ledge, the very brink of the precipice, bycreeping along which he hoped to pass on till he made himself heard orseen from the habitation, of whose existence the guide had informedhim. His situation, as he pursued this bold purpose, appeared soprecarious, that even the hired attendant hardly dared to draw breathas he gazed on him. The ledge which supported him seemed to grow sonarrow, as he passed along it, as to become altogether invisible,while sometimes with his face to the precipice, sometimes lookingforward, sometimes glancing his eyes upward, but never venturing tocast a look below, lest his brain should grow giddy at a sight soappalling, he wound his way onward. To his father and the attendant,who beheld his progress, it was less that of a man advancing in theordinary manner, and resting by aught connected with the firm earth,than that of an insect crawling along the face of a perpendicularwall, of whose progressive movement we are indeed sensible, but cannotperceive the means of its support. And bitterly, most bitterly, didthe miserable parent now lament, that he had not persisted in hispurpose to encounter the baffling and even perilous measure ofretracing his steps to the habitation of the preceding night. Heshould then, at least, have partaken the fate of the son of his love.
Meanwhile, the young man's spirits were strongly braced for theperformance of his perilous task. He laid a powerful restraint on hisimagination, which in general was sufficiently active, and refused tolisten, even for an instant, to any of the horrible insinuations bywhich fancy augments actual danger. He endeavoured manfully to reduceall around him to the scale of right reason, as the best support oftrue courage. "This ledge of rock," he urged to himself, "is butnarrow, yet it has breadth enough to support me; these cliffs andcrevices in the surface are small and distant, but the one affords assecure a resting-place to my feet, the other as available a grasp tomy hands, as if I stood on a platform of a cubit broad, and rested myarm on a balustrade of marble. My safety, therefore, depends onmyself. If I move with decision, step firmly, and hold fast, whatsignifies how near I am to the mouth of an abyss?"
Thus estimating the extent of his danger by the measure of sound senseand reality, and supported by some degree of practice in suchexercise, the brave youth went forward on his awful journey, step bystep, winning his way with a caution and fortitude and presence ofmind which alone could have saved him from instant destruction. Atlength he gained a point where a projecting rock formed the angle ofthe precipice, so far as it had been visible to him from the platform.This, therefore, was the critical point of his undertaking; but it wasalso the most perilous part of it. The rock projected more than sixfeet forward over the torrent, which he heard raging at the depth of ahundred yards beneath, with a noise like subterranean thunder. Heexamined the spot with the utmost care, and was led, by the existenceof shrubs, grass, and even stunted trees, to believe that this rockmarked the farthest extent of the slip or slide of earth, and that,could he but turn round the angle of which it was the termination, hemight hope to attain the continuation of the path which had been sostrangely interrupted by this convulsion of nature. But the cragjutted out so much as to afford no possibility of passing either underor around it; and as it rose several feet above the position whichArthur had attained, it was no easy matter to climb over it. This was,however, the course which he chose, as the only mode of surmountingwhat he hoped might prove the last obstacle to his voyage ofdiscovery. A projecting tree afforded him the means of raising andswinging himself up to the top of the crag. But he had scarcelyplanted himself on it, had scarcely a moment to congratulate himself,on seeing, amid a wild chaos of cliffs and wood, the gloomy ruins ofGeierstein, with smoke arising, and indicating something like a humanhabitation beside them, when, to his extreme terror, he felt the hugecliff on which he stood tremble, stoop slowly forward, and graduallysink from its position. Projecting as it was, and shaken as itsequilibrium had been by the recent earthquake, it lay now soinsecurely poised, that its balance was entirely destroyed, even bythe addition of the young man's weight.
Aroused by the imminence of the danger, Arthur, by an instinctiveattempt at self-preservation, drew cautiously back from the fallingcrag into the tree by which he had ascended, and turned his head backas if spell-bound, to watch the descent of the fatal rock from whichhe had just retreated. It tottered for two or three seconds, as ifuncertain which way to fall, and, had it taken a side
long direction,must have dashed the adventurer from his place of refuge, or borneboth the tree and him headlong down into the river. After a moment ofhorrible uncertainty, the power of gravitation determined a direct andforward descent. Down went the huge fragment, which must have weighedat least twenty tons, rending and splintering in its precipitatecourse the trees and bushes which it encountered, and settling atlength in the channel of the torrent, with a din equal to thedischarge of a hundred pieces of artillery. The sound was re-echoedfrom bank to bank, from precipice to precipice, with emulativethunders; nor was the tumult silent till it rose into the region ofeternal snows, which, equally insensible to terrestrial sounds andunfavourable to animal life, heard the roar in their majesticsolitude, but suffered it to die away without a responsive voice.
What, in the meanwhile, were the thoughts of the distracted father,who saw the ponderous rock descend, but could not mark whether hisonly son had borne it company in its dreadful fall! His first impulsewas to rush forward along the face of the precipice, which he had seenArthur so lately traverse; and when the lad Antonio withheld him, bythrowing his arms around him, he turned on the guide with the fury ofa bear which had been robbed of her cubs.
"Unhand me, base peasant," he exclaimed, "or thou diest on the spot!"
"Alas!" said the poor boy, dropping on his knees before him, "I toohave a father!"
The appeal went to the heart of the traveller, who instantly let thelad go, and holding up his hands, and lifting his eyes towards heaven,said, in accents of the deepest agony, mingled with devoutresignation, "_Fiat voluntas tua!_--he was my last, and loveliest, andbest beloved, and most worthy of my love; and yonder," he added,"yonder over the glen soar the birds of prey, who are to feast on hisyoung blood.--But I will see him once more," exclaimed the miserableparent, as the huge carrion vulture floated past him on the thickair,--"I will see my Arthur once more, ere the wolf and the eaglemangle him--I will see all of him that earth still holds. Detain menot--but abide here, and watch me as I advance. If I fall, as is mostlikely, I charge you to take the sealed papers, which you will find inthe valise, and carry them to the person to whom they are addressed,with the least possible delay. There is money enough in the purse tobury me with my poor boy, and to cause masses be said for our souls,and yet leave you a rich recompense for your journey."
The honest Swiss lad, obtuse in his understanding, but kind andfaithful in his disposition, blubbered as his employer spoke, and,afraid to offer further remonstrance or opposition, saw his temporarymaster prepare himself to traverse the same fatal precipice over theverge of which his ill-fated son had seemed to pass to the fate which,with all the wildness of a parent's anguish, his father was hasteningto share.
Suddenly there was heard, from beyond the fatal angle from which themass of stone had been displaced by Arthur's rash ascent, the loudhoarse sound of one of those huge horns made out of the spoils of theurus, or wild bull, of Switzerland, which in ancient times announcedthe terrors of the charge of these mountaineers, and, indeed, servedthem in war instead of all musical instruments.
"Hold, sir, hold!" exclaimed the Grison. "Yonder is a signal fromGeierstein. Some one will presently come to our assistance, and showus the safer way to seek for your son.--And look you--at yon greenbush that is glimmering through the mist, St. Antonio preserve me, asI see a white cloth displayed there! it is just beyond the point wherethe rock fell."
The father endeavoured to fix his eyes on the spot, but they filled sofast with tears that they could not discern the object which the guidepointed out.--"It is all in vain," he said, dashing the tears from hiseyes--"I shall never see more of him than his lifeless remains!"
"You will--you will see him in life!" said the Grison. "St. Antoniowills it so--See, the white cloth waves again!"
"Some remnant of his garments," said the despairing father,--"somewretched memorial of his fate.--No, my eyes see it not--I have beheldthe fall of my house--would that the vultures of these crags hadrather torn them from their sockets!"
"Yet look again," said the Swiss; "the cloth hangs not loose upon abough--I can see that it is raised on the end of a staff, and isdistinctly waved to and fro. Your son makes a signal that he is safe."
"And if it be so," said the traveller, clasping his hands together,"blessed be the eyes that see it, and the tongue that tells it! If wefind my son, and find him alive, this day shall be a lucky one forthee too."
"Nay," answered the lad, "I only ask that you will abide still, andact by counsel, and I will hold myself quit for my services. Only, itis not creditable to an honest lad to have people lose themselves bytheir own wilfulness; for the blame, after all, is sure to fall uponthe guide, as if he could prevent old Pontius from shaking the mistfrom his brow, or banks of earth from slipping down into the valley ata time, or young harebrained gallants from walking upon precipices asnarrow as the edge of a knife, or madmen, whose grey hairs might makethem wiser, from drawing daggers like bravos in Lombardy."
Thus the guide ran on, and in that vein he might have long continued,for Seignor Philipson heard him not. Each throb of his pulse, eachthought of his heart, was directed towards the object which the ladreferred to as a signal of his son's safety. He became at lengthsatisfied that the signal was actually waved by a human hand; and, aseager in the glow of reviving hope as he had of late been under theinfluence of desperate grief, he again prepared for the attempt ofadvancing towards his son, and assisting him, if possible, inregaining a place of safety. But the entreaties and reiteratedassurances of his guide induced him to pause.
"Are you fit," he said, "to go on the crag? Can you repeat your Credoand Ave without missing or misplacing a word? for, without that, ourold men say your neck, had you a score of them, would be indanger.--Is your eye clear, and your feet firm?--I trow the onestreams like a fountain, and the other shakes like the aspen whichoverhangs it! Rest here till those arrive who are far more able togive your son help than either you or I are. I judge, by the fashionof his blowing, that yonder is the horn of the Goodman of Geierstein,Arnold Biederman. He hath seen your son's danger, and is even nowproviding for his safety and ours. There are cases in which the aid ofone stranger, well acquainted with the country, is worth that of threebrothers who know not the crags."
"But if yonder horn really sounded a signal," said the traveller, "howchanced it that my son replied not?"
"And if he did so, as is most likely he did," rejoined the Grison,"how should we have heard him? The bugle of Uri itself sounded amidthese horrible dins of water and tempest like the reed of a shepherdboy; and how think you we should hear the holloa of a man?"
"Yet, methinks," said Seignor Philipson, "I do hear something amidthis roar of elements which is like a human voice--but it is notArthur's."
"I wot well, no," answered the Grison; "that is a woman's voice. Themaidens will converse with each other in that manner, from cliff tocliff, through storm and tempest, were there a mile between."
"Now, Heaven be praised for this providential relief!" said SeignorPhilipson; "I trust we shall yet see this dreadful day safely ended. Iwill holloa in answer."
He attempted to do so, but, inexperienced in the art of making himselfheard in such a country, he pitched his voice in the same key withthat of the roar of wave and wind; so that, even at twenty yards fromthe place where he was speaking, it must have been totallyindistinguishable from that of the elemental war around them. The ladsmiled at his patron's ineffectual attempts, and then raised his voicehimself in a high, wild, and prolonged scream, which, while producedwith apparently much less effort than that of the Englishman, wasnevertheless a distinct sound, separated from others by the key towhich it was pitched, and was probably audible to a very considerabledistance. It was presently answered by distant cries of the samenature, which gradually approached the platform, bringing renovatedhope to the anxious traveller.
If the distress of the father rendered his condition an object of deepcompassion, that of the son, at the same moment, was sufficientlyperilo
us. We have already stated, that Arthur Philipson had commencedhis precarious journey along the precipice with all the coolness,resolution, and unshaken determination of mind which was mostessential to a task where all must depend upon firmness of nerve. Butthe formidable accident which checked his onward progress was of acharacter so dreadful as made him feel all the bitterness of a deathinstant, horrible, and, as it seemed, inevitable. The solid rock hadtrembled and rent beneath his footsteps, and although, by an effortrather mechanical than voluntary, he had withdrawn himself from theinstant ruin attending its descent, he felt as if the better part ofhim, his firmness of mind and strength of body, had been rent awaywith the descending rock, as it fell thundering, with clouds of dustand smoke, into the torrents and whirlpools of the vexed gulf beneath.In fact, the seaman swept from the deck of a wrecked vessel, drenchedin the waves, and battered against the rocks on the shore, does notdiffer more from the same mariner, when, at the commencement of thegale, he stood upon the deck of his favourite ship, proud of herstrength and his own dexterity, than Arthur, when commencing hisjourney, from the same Arthur, while clinging to the decayed trunk ofan old tree, from which, suspended between heaven and earth, he sawthe fall of the crag which he had so nearly accompanied. The effectsof his terror, indeed, were physical as well as moral, for a thousandcolours played before his eyes; he was attacked by a sick dizziness,and deprived at once of the obedience of those limbs which hadhitherto served him so admirably; his arms and hands, as if no longerat his own command, now clung to the branches of the tree, with acramp-like tenacity over which he seemed to possess no power, and nowtrembled in a state of such complete nervous relaxation as led him tofear that they were becoming unable to support him longer in hisposition.
An incident, in itself trifling, added to the distress occasioned bythis alienation of his powers. All living things in the neighbourhoodhad, as might be supposed, been startled by the tremendous fall towhich his progress had given occasion. Flights of owls, bats, andother birds of darkness, compelled to betake themselves to the air,had lost no time in returning into their bowers of ivy, or the harbourafforded them by the rifts and holes of the neighbouring rocks. One ofthis ill-omened flight chanced to be a lammer-geier, or Alpinevulture, a bird larger and more voracious than the eagle himself, andwhich Arthur had not been accustomed to see, or at least to look uponclosely. With the instinct of most birds of prey, it is the custom ofthis creature, when gorged with food, to assume some station ofinaccessible security, and there remain stationary and motionless fordays together, till the work of digestion has been accomplished, andactivity returns with the pressure of appetite. Disturbed from such astate of repose, one of these terrific birds had risen from the ravineto which the species gives its name, and having circled unwillinglyround, with a ghastly scream and a flagging wing, it had sunk downupon the pinnacle of a crag, not four yards from the tree in whichArthur held his precarious station. Although still in some degreestupefied by torpor, it seemed encouraged by the motionless state ofthe young man to suppose him dead, or dying, and sat there and gazedat him, without displaying any of that apprehension which the fiercestanimals usually entertain from the vicinity of man.
As Arthur, endeavouring to shake off the incapacitating effects of hispanic fear, raised his eyes to look gradually and cautiously around,he encountered those of the voracious and obscene bird, whose head andneck denuded of feathers, her eyes surrounded by an iris of anorange-tawny colour, and a position more horizontal than erect,distinguished her as much from the noble carriage and gracefulproportions of the eagle, as those of the lion place him in the ranksof creation above the gaunt, ravenous, grisly, yet dastard wolf.
As if arrested by a charm, the eyes of young Philipson remained benton this ill-omened and ill-favoured bird, without his having the powerto remove them. The apprehension of dangers, ideal as well as real,weighed upon his weakened mind, disabled as it was by thecircumstances of his situation. The near approach of a creature, notmore loathsome to the human race than averse to come within theirreach, seemed as ominous as it was unusual. Why did it gaze on himwith such glaring earnestness, projecting its disgusting form, as ifpresently to alight upon his person? The foul bird, was she the demonof the place to which her name referred? and did she come to exultthat an intruder on her haunts seemed involved amid their perils, withlittle hope or chance of deliverance? Or was it a native vulture ofthe rocks, whose sagacity foresaw that the rash traveller was soondestined to become its victim? Could the creature, whose senses aresaid to be so acute, argue from circumstances the stranger'sapproaching death, and wait, like a raven or hooded crow by a dyingsheep, for the earliest opportunity to commence her ravenous banquet?Was he doomed to feel its beak and talons before his heart's bloodshould cease to beat? Had he already lost the dignity of humanity,the awe which the being formed in the image of his Maker inspires intoall inferior creatures?
Apprehensions so painful served more than all that reason couldsuggest to renew in some degree the elasticity of the young man'smind. By waving his handkerchief, using, however, the greatestprecaution in his movements, he succeeded in scaring the vulture fromhis vicinity. It rose from its resting-place, screaming harshly anddolefully, and sailed on its expanded pinions to seek a place of moreundisturbed repose, while the adventurous traveller felt a sensiblepleasure at being relieved of its disgusting presence.
With more collected ideas, the young man, who could obtain, from hisposition, a partial view of the platform he had left, endeavoured totestify his safety to his father, by displaying, as high as he could,the banner by which he had chased off the vulture. Like them, too, heheard, but at a less distance, the burst of the great Swiss horn,which seemed to announce some near succour. He replied by shouting andwaving his flag, to direct assistance to the spot where it was so muchrequired; and, recalling his faculties, which had almost deserted him,he laboured mentally to recover hope, and with hope the means andmotive for exertion.
A faithful Catholic, he eagerly recommended himself in prayer to OurLady of Einsiedlen, and, making vows of propitiation, besought herintercession, that he might be delivered from his dreadful condition."Or, gracious Lady!" he concluded his orison, "if it is my doom tolose my life like a hunted fox amidst this savage wilderness oftottering crags, restore at least my natural sense of patience andcourage, and let not one who has lived like a man, though a sinfulone, meet death like a timid hare!"
Having devoutly recommended himself to that Protectress, of whom thelegends of the Catholic Church form a picture so amiable, Arthur,though every nerve still shook with his late agitation, and his heartthrobbed with a violence that threatened to suffocate him, turned histhoughts and observation to the means of effecting his escape. But, ashe looked around him, he became more and more sensible how much he wasenervated by the bodily injuries and the mental agony which he hadsustained during his late peril. He could not, by any effort of whichhe was capable, fix his giddy and bewildered eyes on the scene aroundhim;--they seemed to reel till the landscape danced along with them,and a motley chaos of thickets and tall cliffs, which interposedbetween him and the ruinous Castle of Geierstein, mixed and whirledround in such confusion, that nothing, save the consciousness thatsuch an idea was the suggestion of partial insanity, prevented himfrom throwing himself from the tree, as if to join the wild dance towhich his disturbed brain had given motion.
"Heaven be my protection!" said the unfortunate young man, closing hiseyes, in hopes, by abstracting himself from the terrors of hissituation, to compose his too active imagination, "my senses areabandoning me!"
He became still more convinced that this was the case, when a femalevoice, in a high-pitched but eminently musical accent, was heard atno great distance, as if calling to him. He opened his eyes oncemore, raised his head, and looked towards the place whence the soundsseemed to come, though far from being certain that they existed savingin his own disordered imagination. The vision which appeared hadalmost confirmed him in the opinion that his mind was unsettled, andh
is senses in no state to serve him accurately.
Upon the very summit of a pyramidical rock, that rose out of the depthof the valley, was seen a female figure, so obscured by mist that onlythe outline could be traced. The form, reflected against the sky,appeared rather the undefined lineaments of a spirit than of a mortalmaiden; for her person seemed as light, and scarcely more opaque, thanthe thin cloud that surrounded her pedestal. Arthur's first beliefwas, that the Virgin had heard his vows, and had descended in personto his rescue; and he was about to recite his Ave Maria, when thevoice again called to him with the singular shrill modulation of themountain halloo, by which the natives of the Alps can hold conferencewith each other from one mountain ridge to another, across ravines ofgreat depth and width.
While he debated how to address this unexpected apparition, itdisappeared from the point which it at first occupied, and presentlyafter became again visible, perched on the cliff out of whichprojected the tree in which Arthur had taken refuge. Her personalappearance, as well as her dress, made it then apparent that she was amaiden of these mountains, familiar with their dangerous paths. He sawthat a beautiful young woman stood before him, who regarded him witha mixture of pity and wonder.
"Stranger," she at length said, "who are you, and whence come you?"
"I am a stranger, maiden, as you justly term me," answered the youngman, raising himself as well as he could. "I left Lucerne thismorning, with my father, and a guide. I parted with them not threefurlongs from hence. May it please you, gentle maiden, to warn them ofmy safety, for I know my father will be in despair upon my account?"
"Willingly," said the maiden; "but I think my uncle, or some one of mykinsmen, must have already found them, and will prove faithful guides.Can I not aid you? Are you wounded? Are you hurt? We were alarmed bythe fall of a rock--ay, and yonder it lies, a mass of no ordinarysize."
As the Swiss maiden spoke thus, she approached so close to the vergeof the precipice, and looked with such indifference into the gulf,that the sympathy which connects the actor and spectator upon suchoccasions brought back the sickness and vertigo from which Arthur hadjust recovered, and he sank back into his former more recumbentposture, with something like a faint groan.
"You are then ill?" said the maiden, who observed him turn pale."Where and what is the harm you have received?"
"None, gentle maiden, saving some bruises of little import; but myhead turns, and my heart grows sick, when I see you so near the vergeof the cliff."
"Is that all?" replied the Swiss maiden. "Know, stranger, that I donot stand on my uncle's hearth with more security than I have stoodupon precipices compared to which this is a child's leap. You too,stranger, if, as I judge from the traces, you have come along the edgeof the precipice which the earth-slide hath laid bare, ought to be farbeyond such weakness, since surely you must be well entitled to callyourself a cragsman."
"I might have called myself so half an hour since," answered Arthur;"but I think I shall hardly venture to assume the name in future."
"Be not downcast," said his kind adviser, "for a passing qualm, whichwill at times cloud the spirit and dazzle the eyesight of the bravestand most experienced. Raise yourself upon the trunk of the tree, andadvance closer to the rock out of which it grows. Observe the placewell. It is easy for you, when you have attained the lower part of theprojecting stem, to gain by one bold step the solid rock upon which Istand, after which there is no danger or difficulty worthy of mentionto a young man, whose limbs are whole, and whose courage is active."
"My limbs are indeed sound," replied the youth; "but I am ashamed tothink how much my courage is broken. Yet I will not disgrace theinterest you have taken in an unhappy wanderer, by listening longer tothe dastardly suggestions of a feeling which till to-day has been astranger to my bosom."
The maiden looked on him anxiously, and with much interest, as,raising himself cautiously, and moving along the trunk of the tree,which lay nearly horizontal from the rock, and seemed to bend as hechanged his posture, the youth at length stood upright, within what,on level ground, had been but an extended stride to the cliff on whichthe Swiss maiden stood. But instead of being a step to be taken on thelevel and firm earth, it was one which must cross a dark abyss, at thebottom of which a torrent surged and boiled with incredible fury.Arthur's knees knocked against each other, his feet became of lead,and seemed no longer at his command; and he experienced, in a strongerdegree than ever, that unnerving influence, which those who have beenoverwhelmed by it in a situation of like peril never can forget, andwhich others, happily strangers to its power, may have difficulty evenin comprehending.
The young woman discerned his emotion, and foresaw its probableconsequences. As the only mode in her power to restore his confidence,she sprang lightly from the rock to the stem of the tree, on which shealighted with the ease and security of a bird, and in the same instantback to the cliff; and extending her hand to the stranger, "My arm,"she said, "is but a slight balustrade; yet do but step forward withresolution, and you will find it as secure as the battlement ofBerne." But shame now overcame terror so much, that Arthur, decliningassistance which he could not have accepted without feeling lowered inhis own eyes, took heart of grace, and successfully achieved theformidable step which placed him upon the same cliff with his kindassistant.
To seize her hand and raise it to his lips, in affectionate token ofgratitude and respect, was naturally the youth's first action; nor wasit possible for the maiden to have prevented him from doing so,without assuming a degree of prudery foreign to her character, andoccasioning a ceremonious debate upon a matter of no greatconsequence, where the scene of action was a rock scarce five feetlong by three in width, and which looked down upon a torrent roaringsome three hundred feet below.