De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

It seemed, however, that Garcias had found a relief in breaking the dead silence which had hung upon us so long, for he continued speaking on various topics as we went, and gradually succeeded in drawing my mind from the actual objects of my regret. Not that I forgot my grief; far from it. It still lay a dead and heavy weight upon my heart; but my thoughts did not continue to trace every painful remembrance with the agonizing minuteness which they had lately done. Such is ever the first effect of that balm which Time pours into every wound. It scarcely seems to lessen the anguish, but it renders it less defined.

Gradually I listened and replied, and though each minute or two my mind reverted to myself, yet the intervals became longer, and I found it every time more easy than the last to abstract my thoughts from my own situation, and to apply them to the subjects on which he spoke.

For more than two hours we continued walking on till we arrived at the heights nearly opposite to Argelez, during which time we had climbed the hills and descended into the valleys more than once. We were now again upon the very crest of the mountain, and the moon was just sinking behind the hills to the west of the Balindrau, when Garcias paused and pointed down the course of a stream that burst precipitately over the side of the hill with so perpendicular a fall that it almost deserved the name of a cataract.

The body of water, though then but a rivulet, was at some part of the year undoubtedly considerable, for it had channelled for itself a deep ravine, which, for some space, wound away from the valley, as if obstinately resolved to bear its tribute in any other direction than towards the principal river that flowed in the midst: but, after pursuing these capricious meanderings for a considerable way, it was obliged at length to follow the direction of the hills, and turn towards the valley in its own despite, as we often see, in some far province, a stubborn contemner of established authorities pursue for a while his own wilful way, fancying himself a man of great spirit and an independent soul, till comes some stiff official of the law, who turns him sneaking back into the common course of life.

The bottom of the ravine, left free by the shrinking of the stream, was lined on either hand with the most luxuriant verdure, and overhung by a thousand shrubs and trees, now in their ruffling dresses of summer green. Where we then stood, however, many hundred yards above, with the moon, as I have said, sinking behind the opposite mountains, all that I could see was a dark and fearful chasm below, at the bottom of which I caught every now and then the flash and sparkle of the stream, whose roar, as it broke from fall to fall, reached my ear even at that height.

Down this abyss it was that Garcias pointed, saying that our journey's end lay there, for the present.

"If you are a true mountaineer," added he, "you will be able to follow me; but attempt it not if you feel the least fear; for I have seldom seen a place more likely to break the neck of any but a good cragsman."

"Go on," replied I, "I have no fear;" and, indeed, I had become so reckless about life, that had it been the jaws of hell, I would have plunged in. And yet it appeared I was even then in the act of flying from death. Man is so made up of inconsistencies, that this would not have been extraordinary, granting it to have been the case--but it was not so. I was not flying from death, but from ignominy and shame, and the reproachful eyes of those I loved.

Garcias led the way; and certainly never did a more hazardous and precarious path receive the steps of two human beings. Its course lay down the very face of the precipice over which the stream fell, and the only tenable steps that it afforded were formed by the broken faces of the schistus rock, without one bough of shrub or tree to offer a hold for the hands. The river at the same time kept roaring in our ears, within a yard of our course; and every now and then, where it took a more furious bound than ordinary, it dashed its spray in our faces, and over our path, confusing the sight, whose range was already circumscribed by the darkness, and rendering the rock so slippy that nothing but the talons of an eagle would have fastened steadily upon it.

At length we came to a spot of smooth turf, with still the same degree of perpendicular declination; and to keep one's feet became now almost impossible; so that nothing seemed left but to lie down and slip from the top to the bottom. It was a dangerous experiment, for the descent might probably have terminated in a precipice which would have been difficult to avoid; but I little cared: and, with the usual success of boldness, I lighted on a small round plot of turf, crowning another turn of the ravine. A man anxious for life would, most probably, have avoided the course of the stream, slipped past the spot on which I found a safe resting place, and been dashed over the precipice which lay scarce two yards from me.