ng
and booming hundreds of feet below; and although the night was calm and
still, the ever-restless waves beat heavily against the rocks, and sent
masses of froth and foam high into the air. He saw her till she turned
the angle of the path, and then she was lost to his view.

"I don't think I have head for it. I 'm not used to this kind of thing,"
said Hankes, in a voice of helpless despondency to the old groom, who
now stood awaiting him to dismount "Is there much danger? Is it as bad
as it looks?"

"'Tis worse when you get round the rock there," said the groom, "for
it's always going down you are, steeper than the roof of a house, with a
shingle footing, and sloping outwards."

"I'll not go a step; I 'll not venture," broke in Hankes.

"Indeed, I wouldn't advise your honor," said the man, in a tone too
sincere to be deemed sarcastic.

"I know my head could n't bear it," said he, with the imploring accents
of one who entreated a contradiction. But the old groom, too fully
convinced of the sentiment to utter a word against it, was now only
thinking of following his mistress.

[Illustration: 191]

"Wait a moment," cried Hankes, with an immense effort. "If I were
once across this"--he was going to add an epithet, but restrained
himself--"this place, is there nothing more of the same kind
afterwards?"

"Is n't there, faith!" cried the man. "Isn't there the Clunk, where the
beast has to step over gullies five-and-thirty or forty feet deep? Isn't
there Tim's Island, a little spot where you must turn your horse round
with the sea four hundred feet under you? Is n't there the Devil's
Nose--"

"There, there, you need n't go on, my good fellow; I 'll turn back."

"Look where she is now," said the man, pointing with his whip to a rocky
ledge hundreds of feet down, along which a figure on horseback might be
seen creeping slowly along. "'Tis there, where she's stealing along now,
you need the good head and the quick hand. May I never!" exclaimed he,
in terror, "if them isn't goats that's coming up to meet her! Merciful
Joseph! what'll she do? There, they are under the horse's legs, forcing
their way through! Look how the devils are rushing all round and about
her! If the beast moves an inch--" A wild cry broke from the old man
here, for a fragment of rock, displaced by the rushing herd, had just
come thundering down the cliff, and splashed into the sea beneath. "The
heavens be praised! she's safe," muttered he, piously