n by which
the pathway wheeled its course around this formidable obstacle. In
another spot, the projecting rocks from the opposite sides of the chasm
had approached so near to each other, that two pine-trees laid across,
and covered with turf, formed a rustic bridge at the height of at least
one hundred and fifty feet. It had no ledges, and was barely three feet
in breadth.

While gazing at this pass of peril, which crossed, like a single black
line, the small portion of blue sky not intercepted by the projecting
rocks on either side, it was with a sensation of horror that Waverley
beheld Flora and her attendant appear, like inhabitants of another
region, propped, as it were, in mid air, upon this trembling structure.
She stopped upon observing him below, and, with an air of graceful ease,
which made him shudder, waved her handkerchief to him by way of signal.
He was unable, from the sense of dizziness which her situation conveyed,
to return the salute; and was never more relieved than when the fair
apparition passed on from the precarious eminence which she seemed to
occupy with so much indifference, and disappeared on the other side.

Advancing a few yards, and passing under the bridge which he had viewed
with so much terror, the path ascended rapidly from the edge of the
brook, and the glen widened into a sylvan amphitheatre, waving with
birch, young oaks, and hazels, with here and there a scattered yew-tree.
The rocks now receded, but still showed their grey and shaggy crests
rising among the copse-wood. Still higher, rose eminences and peaks,
some bare, some clothed with wood, some round and purple with heath, and
others splintered into rocks and crags. At a short turning, the path,
which had for some furlongs lost sight of the brook, suddenly placed
Waverley in front of a romantic waterfall. It was not so remarkable
either for great height or quantity of water, as for the beautiful
accompaniments which made the spot interesting. After a broken cataract
of about twenty feet, the stream was received in a large natural basin
filled to the brim with water, which, where the bubbles of the fall
subsided, was so exquisitely clear, that, although it was of great
depth, the eye could discern each pebble at the bottom. Eddying round
this reservoir, the brook found its way over a broken part of the ledge,
and formed a second fall, which seemed to seek the very abyss; then,
wheeling out beneath from among the smooth dark roc