The Black Tor: A Tale of the Reign of James the First

by George Manville Fenn

According to Ralph’s calculations, the narrow gap which led eastward to the edge of the huge hollow in which the narrow, roughly conical mass of limestone rose crowned with the Eden Castle, lay away to his left; and as he had in climbing kept on bearing to the right, he was perfectly certain that he had passed right over the men in the river. He felt, therefore, that he had nothing to do but keep steadily on in the same course, always mounting higher at every opportunity of doing so unseen, until close to the top, when he could keep along the edge unseen till well on his way homeward, and then take to the open downs above.

The silence below was encouraging, and in spite of being compelled often to creep beneath the bushes, and here and there descend to avoid some perpendicular piece of rock, he got on, so that he grew more and more satisfied that he had escaped, and had nothing to do but persevere, and be well out of what had promised to be a very awkward predicament. His clothes clung to his back, and his legs were terribly scratched, while one of his feet was bleeding; but that was a trifle which he hardly regarded.

Just before him was a steeper bit than usual, and he hesitated about trying to climb it; but the way up or down seemed to promise no better, so taking advantage of the dense cover afforded by the trees, he steadily attacked the awkward precipice, the dwarf trees helped him with their gnarled trunks, and he mastered the ascent, found himself higher up than he had expected, crawled a step or two farther, and arrived the next minute at the brink of a deep chasm, while to the left, not a couple of hundred yards away, rose the castle-crowned Black Tor.

He shrank back the next instant, and a feeling of confusion came over him. He could hardly understand how it was, but directly after it was forced upon his understanding that he had been quite wrong in his bearings; that when he began to climb, the Black Tor lay to his right instead of his left, and that, instead of going into safety, he had been making straight for the most dangerous place.

To go on was impossible, for the cliff beneath him was overhanging; to go to the left was equally vain; and to descend or return was in all probability to walk right into the arms of his pursuers.

Once more he cautiously advanced his head between the bushes to look out, but the prospect was not encouraging. There, fifty or sixty feet away, was the fellow cliff to that upon which he lay, split apart by some terrible convulsion of nature; and once there he could have made for home, but there was no way of passing the opening save by descending right to the river’s bank, and he felt pretty certain that he could not do this without being seen.

Still it was the only course, and his choice was open to him—to lie in hiding till the darkness came, many hours later, or boldly descend.

To lie there in the shadow with his wet clothes clinging to him was not a pleasant prospect, but it seemed the only one feasible under the circumstances; and he concluded that this was what he would do, wishing the while that he dared go and lie right out in the sunshine.

He had hardly thought this, when a hot thrill ran through him, for from somewhere below there came the sharp bark of a dog, and a voice rose cheering the animal on, and then shouted: “Close in, all of you: he’s up here somewhere. Dog’s got his scent.”

Then voices answered with hails from different parts, and Ralph’s next movement was to crawl forward again to the very edge of the precipice, look over, and seek for a place where he might perhaps descend.