A Scramble 



be a humiliating alternative to turn back. I therefore 

 adopted the imprudent, but exciting course, of scaling the 

 precipice directly opposite the spot which I had accidentally- 

 come to. It looked very pretty climbing, but on experi- 

 ment I found it difficult to make a start up the first perpen- 

 dicular twenty or thirty feet, which was so ticklish work 

 that it effectually cut off my retreat ; for as one has not 

 any eyes in one's heels, it is much more difficult to climb 

 down than up. I therefore, as in prudence bound, now 

 launched in my difficulty, crawled slowly and carefully up a 

 wrinkle in the rock's face. 



It was all so hazardous for three hundred feet or so, that 

 the slightest slip would have rolled me away to perdition. 

 I began to be seriously alarmed, for I felt sure that if I 

 came to actual impossibilities further up, I should very 

 improbably be able to get down again alive. I was espe- 

 cially afraid of a great tuft of brambles which blocked up 

 my wrinkle, and was very hard to get over. My footing 

 was not improved in safety by my having on an old pair 

 of dress-boots which had danced through a season on the 

 polished floors of the metropolis, and were very slippery- 

 soled. But it is no use to try to make one's own dangers 

 excitinw in the narration. Like all other narrators of hair- 

 breadth escapes, I got to the top, the reaching of which, I 

 assure you, caused me a very pleasurable sensation. 



There certainly is a luxury in danger. The mind enjoys 

 excitement too much to be particular as to whether the 

 excitement is for the moment pleasurable or painful. I 

 certainly don't think it is a pleasant sensation to be afraid ; 

 and yet I know by experience, that since the time when I 

 could walk across a gate, whether there was anybody to 

 look on or not, it has always been a sort of instinct with 

 me to do those things which engender fear. 



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