OR THE GNOME VALLEY. 43 



crags, which seemed as if a touch would hurl them OH the sward be- 

 low ; and caverned blocks of fretted rock, fringed with intertwisted 

 festoons of ivy. A dusky glare was profusely shed on every object, 

 crimsoning leaf, branch, and trunk, and faintly irradiating the sky. 

 Gathered around the fire was an assemblage of strange and hideous 

 shapes ; dwarf-like in proportion, and monstrous in feature : their bo- 

 dies were covered with hair, deformed, and uncouth in motion : from 

 their shrivelled hands there extended claws of odious length : their 

 heads, covered with lank black hair reaching down to their feet, were 

 large and heavy-looking, with " foreheads villanous low," ape-like 

 ears, mouths resembling those of brutes, armed with yellow fangs, 

 and fringed with shaggy beards; and the skin of their faces was 

 withered and wrinkled. Every now and then, loud shouts of discord- 

 ant laughter burst out from their lips, making the woods re-echo for 

 miles round. A fawn, which they were devouring, lay torn and 

 bleeding before them. But Kuyp had scarcely leisure to observe all 

 these particulars : his first thought, and a horrible one it was, was 

 that he beheld an assemblage of demons, revelling with satanic glee 

 over the body of some lost mortal. 



Kuyp had the ordinary courage of man, and would have feared 

 nothing that had come before him in a human form ; but this con- 

 gregation completely mastered him. He lay gazing in a sort of 

 fascination ; while party after party of fresh comers descended into 

 the valley, till the whole space was literally covered with the strange 

 and hideous- looking creatures. Every jutting rock and branched 

 tree were also occupied ; and the fire seemed to glow brighter and 

 fiercer, and to shed its glaring light with increased intensity. The 

 whole scene seemed to Kuyp's disordered faculties a type of the in- 

 fernal regions, if not the infernal regions in reality. Roar and revel- 

 ry, and shout and wild laughter, and still wilder antics, made the 

 valley before him seem absolutely alive; and the cry was " Still 

 they come !" till so densely was the place peopled, that crowd was 

 heaped upon crowd, and vast masses of these horrid beings were 

 growing up like walls around the fire. Kuyp became utterly bewil- 

 dered : he lay deprived of all power of locomotion, his head jutting 

 over a ledge of the rock, the fierce light glowing in his face, and the 

 struggling and yelling heaps of demons rising every moment higher 

 and higher directly beneath him. Horrible were Kuyp's thoughts; 

 and, stirred by the same feelings which make men induced to throw 

 themselves from lofty eminences, he swayed to and fro, every second 

 losing his self-possession more and more completely, till at length, 

 absolutely maddened, he toppled over the crag, dragging his dog 

 with him ; himself uttering a scream of horror, and his companion a 

 howl of the same signification. As soon as his person was descried, 

 whirling over the crag, a thousand arms were opened to receive him, 

 and a yell arose that drove consciousness from the mind of our un- 

 lucky traveller, who knew nothing farther till he awoke as from a 

 dream, and found that the sun was almost in the meridian. Shud- 

 dering at the recollection of the horrors of the past night, he arose, 

 and gave one fearful glance around : all was now quite noiseless 

 and deserted, and he strode as fast as possible away. Anxious to 



