he yet unbroken stream, and the deep and sombre abyss into
which it was emptied--were full before him, as well as the whole
continuous stream of billowy froth, which, dashing from the one, was
eddying and boiling in the other. They were so near this grand phenomenon
that they were covered with its spray, and well-nigh deafened by the
incessant roar. But crossing in the very front of the fall, and at scarce
three yards distance from the cataract, an old oak-tree, flung across the
chasm in a manner that seemed accidental, formed a bridge of fearfully
narrow dimensions and uncertain footing. The upper end of the tree rested
on the platform on which they stood; the lower or uprooted extremity
extended behind a projection on the opposite side, and was secured,
Morton's eye could not discover where. From behind the same projection
glimmered a strong red light, which, glancing in the waves of the falling
water, and tinging them partially with crimson, had a strange
preternatural and sinister effect when contrasted with the beams of the
rising sun, which glanced on the first broken waves of the fall, though
even its meridian splendour could not gain the third of its full depth.
When he had looked around him for a moment, the girl again pulled his
sleeve, and, pointing to the oak and the projecting point beyond it (for
hearing speech was now out of the question), indicated that there lay his
farther passage.

Morton gazed at her with surprise; for although he well knew that the
persecuted Presbyterians had in the preceding reigns sought refuge among
dells and thickets, caves and cataracts, in spots the most extraordinary
and secluded; although he had heard of the champions of the Covenant, who
had long abidden beside Dobs-lien on the wild heights of Polmoodie, and
others who had been concealed in the yet more terrific cavern called
Creehope-linn, in the parish of Closeburn,--yet his imagination had never
exactly figured out the horrors of such a residence, and he was surprised
how the strange and romantic scene which he now saw had remained
concealed from him, while a curious investigator of such natural
phenomena. But he readily conceived that, lying in a remote and wild
district, and being destined as a place of concealment to the persecuted
preachers and professors of nonconformity, the secret of its existence
was carefully preserved by the few shepherds to whom it might be known.
As, breaking from these meditations, he began