232 APPALLING REALITIES. 



in, the single word crelling a provincial term, 

 expressing that creeping, paralyzing, twittering, 

 palpitation sort of sensation which a nervous per- 

 son might be supposed to feel, if, in exploring a 

 damp and dark dungeon, he placed his hand unad- 

 visedly upon some cold and clammy substance 

 which his imagination might paint as something 

 too horrible to look at. But whatever were the 

 force and power of these feelings, it was not now 

 the time to let them get the mastership, . . . and, 

 after all, though there were very unequivocal symp- 

 toms of something terrible in the immediate vici- 

 nage of the undefined gray screen of rock before 

 me, I had as yet no certainty of its appalling 

 realities. For a furlong or two no great change 

 was perceptible ; there was a plentiful supply of 

 twigs and shrubs to hold by, and the path was not 

 by any means alarming. In short, I began to 

 shake off all uneasiness and smile at my imaginary 

 fears, when, on turning an angle, I came to an 

 abrupt termination of everything bordering on 

 twig, bough, pathway, or greensward, and the 

 Mauvais Pas, in all its fearfulness, glared upon 

 me. For a foreground (if that could be called a 

 foreground, separated as it was by a gulf of some 

 fathoms wide) an unsightly facing of unbroken 

 precipitous rock bearded me on the spot from 

 whence I was to take my departure, jutting out 



