Presents a wilderness of tangled boughs
By which would be a task, indeed, to reach
The ground. Yet must I try. Poor hands, poor feet,
This is rough work for you, and one small slip
Would drop me in the stream, perchance to drown.
Not drown! oh, no, my goal was set by Heaven.
Come, rally all ye forces of the will,
And aid me now! Yon height that looms above
Is yet to gain before the sun gets low.
(She climbs the hemlock root and reaches the trunk, across which she crawls on her hands and knees, and at last finds herself some yards up the beech ridge. After arranging her torn and dishevelled clothing she proceeds up the ridge, at the top of which she encounters a British sentry, who challenges.)