Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 4).djvu/300

They soon came to a decayed thicket, where brambles and thorns supplied the room of the oaks and birches of which it had once consisted. Here the guide turned short off the open heath, and, by a sheep-track, conducted Morton to the brook. A hoarse and sullen roar had in part prepared him for the scene which presented itself, yet it was not to be viewed without surprise and even terror. When he emerged from the devious path which conducted him through the thicket, he found himself placed on a ledge of flat rock, projecting over one side of a chasm not less than a hundred feet deep, where the dark mountain stream made a decided and rapid shoot over the precipice, and was swallowed up by a deep, black, yawning gulph. The age in vain strove to see the bottom of the fall; it could catch but one sheet of foaming uproar and sheer decent, until the view was obstructed by the projecting crags, which inclosed the