nd the
floor was rocky, and the bushes had grown overhead till they met, so
that it was quite dark. And I went on and on through that dark place; it
was a long, long way. And I came to a hill that I never saw before. I
was in a dismal thicket full of black twisted boughs that tore me as I
went through them, and I cried out because I was smarting all over, and
then I found that I was climbing, and I went up and up a long way, till
at last the thicket stopped and I came out crying just under the top of
a big bare place, where there were ugly grey stones lying all about on
the grass, and here and there a little twisted, stunted tree came out
from under a stone, like a snake. And I went up, right to the top, a
long way. I never saw such big ugly stones before; they came out of the
earth some of them, and some looked as if they had been rolled to where
they were, and they went on and on as far as I could see, a long, long
way. I looked out from them and saw the country, but it was strange. It
was winter time, and there were black terrible woods hanging from the
hills all round; it was like seeing a large room hung with black
curtains, and the shape of the trees seemed quite different from any I
had ever seen before. I was afraid. Then beyond the woods there were
other hills round in a great ring, but I had never seen any of them; it
all looked black, and everything had a voor over it. It was all so still
and silent, and the sky was heavy and grey and sad, like a wicked
voorish dome in Deep Dendo. I went on into the dreadful rocks. There
were hundreds and hundreds of them. Some were like horrid-grinning men;
I could see their faces as if they would jump at me out of the stone,
and catch hold of me, and drag me with them back into the rock, so that
I should always be there. And there were other rocks that were like
animals, creeping, horrible animals, putting out their tongues, and
others were like words that I could not say, and others like dead people
lying on the grass. I went on among them, though they frightened me, and
my heart was full of wicked songs that they put into it; and I wanted to
make faces and twist myself about in the way they did, and I went on and
on a long way till at last I liked the rocks, and they didn't frighten
me any more. I sang the songs I thought of; songs full of words that
must not be spoken or written down. Then I made faces like the faces on
the rocks, and I twisted myself about like the twiste
|