“We must get back over it, too, to reach them,” said Walter.
“O ay; I be’ant afear’d of t’ Razor; I’ve crossed him many a time, and I’ll take a bit rope over and help they other chaps. We’ll take a lantern, too. Don’t you be afeared, sir, we’ll get ’em all right,” he said, observing how anxious and excited Walter seemed to be.
“Come, then,” said Walter, “quick, quick! I promised to come back to them at once. You shall be well paid for your trouble.”
“Tut, tut,” said the man, “the pay’s naught. Why, I’d come if it were only a dumb sheep in danger, let alone a brace of lads like you.”
They set off with a lantern, a rope, and some food, and Giles was delighted at the quick and elastic step of the young mountaineer. The lantern they soon extinguished. It was not needed; for though the sun had now set, a glorious full moon had begun to pour her broad flood of silver radiance over the gloomy hills by the time they had reached Bardlyn rift.
“There ain’t no call for you to cross again, sir,” said the man; “I’ll just go over by myself, and look after the young gentlemen.”
“O, let me come, I must come!” said Walter. “The mist’s quite off it now, so that it’s just as easy under this moonlight as when I came; and, besides, if you take a coil of the rope in your hand I’ll take hold of the other end.”
“Well, you’re the right sort, and no mistake,” said the man. “God bless you for a brave young heart! And, truth tell, I’ll be very glad to have ye with me, for they do say as how poor old Waul’s ghost haunts about here, and it ’ud be fearsome at night. I know that there’s One as keeps them as has a good conscience, but yet I’ll be glad to have ye all the same.”
The moonlight flung on every side the mysterious and gigantic shadows of rocks and hills, seeming to glimmer with a ghastly hue as it fell and struggled into the black depths of the untrodden rift; but habit made the Devil’s Way seem nothing to the mountain shepherd, and he protected Walter (who twined round his wrist one end of the rope) from the danger of stumbling, as effectually as Walter protected him from all ghostly fears. When they reached the broken piece, the only difference he made was to walk with great caution, and plant his feet deeply into the earth, bidding Walter follow in the traces he made, and supporting him firmly with his hand. They got across in much less time than Walter had occupied in his first passage, and as they reached Appenfell they saw the two boys standing dimly on the verge of the moonlit mist, while all below them the rest of Appenfell was still wrapt, as in some great cerecloth, by the snowy folds of seething cloud.
“Good heavens! but who are those?” said Walter, pointing to two shadowy and gigantic figures which also faced them. “O, who are those?” he asked wildly, and in such alarm that if the shepherd had not seized him firmly he must have fallen.