o be. Why, it seems to be getting quite dangerous! It is too bad
of Jordas not to see to things better. My father used to ride this way
sometimes. But how could a horse get along here now?"

There used to be a bridle-road from the grounds of Scargate to a ford
below the force, and northward thence toward the Tees; or by keeping
down stream, and then fording it again, a rider might hit upon
the Middleton road, near the rock that warned the public of the
blood-hounds. This bridle-road kept a great distance from the cliffs
overhanging the perilous Scarfe; and the only way down to a view of
the fall was a scrambling track, over rocks and trunks, unworthy to
be called a foot-path. The lady with the bag had no choice left but to
follow this track, or else abandon her intention. For a moment she
was sorry that she had not been satisfied with some less troublesome
destruction of her foe, even at the risk of chance suspicions. But
having thus begun it, she would not turn back, and be angry with her
idle fears when she came to think of them.

With hereditary scorn of second thoughts she cast away doubt, and went
down the steep, and stood on the brow of sheer rock, to recover her
breath and strength for a long bold cast. The crag beneath her feet was
trembling with the power of the flood below, and the white mist from the
deep moved slowly, shrouding now, and now revealing, the black gulf and
its slippery walls. For the last few months Miss Yordas had taken very
little exercise, and seldom tasted the open air; therefore the tumult
and terror of the place, in the fading of the sky and darkening of the
earth, got hold of her more than they should have done.

With the frail in her right hand, poised upon three fingers (for the
fourth had been broken in her childhood), she planted the sole of her
left foot on the brink, and swung herself for the needful cast.

A strong throw was needful to reach the black water that never gave
up anything: if the bag were dropped in the foaming race, it might
be carried back to the heel of the fall. She was proud of her bodily
strength, which was almost equal to that of a muscular man, and her long
arm swelled with the vigor of the throw. But just when the weight should
have been delivered, and flown with a hiss into the bottomless abyss, a
loose flag of the handle twisted on her broken finger. Instead of being
freed, the bag fell back, struck her in the chest, and threw her back,
for the clock wei