St. Winifred's Part 17

They sat for a time silent, and then Kenrick, shaking off his reverie, pointed down the hill and said--

"Do look at those magnificent clouds; how they come surging up the hill in huge curving ma.s.ses."

"Yes," said Power; "doesn't it look like a grand charge of giant cavalry? Why, Walter, my dear fellow, how frightened you look."

"Well, no," said Walter, "not frightened. But I say, you two, supposing those clouds which have gathered so suddenly don't clear away, do you think that you could find your way down the hill?"

"I don't know; I almost think so," said Kenrick dubiously.

"Ah, Ken, I suspect you haven't had as much experience of mountain-mists as I have. We _may_ find our way somehow; but--"

"You mean," said Power, with strange calmness, "that there are lots of precipices about, and that shepherds have several times been lost on these hills?"

"Let's hope that the mist will clear away, then," said Walter; "anyhow, let's get on the gra.s.s, and off these awkward boulders, before we are surrounded."

"By all means," said Kenrick; "charges of cloud-cavalry are all very well in their way; but--"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

IN THE CLOUDS.

The three boys scrambled with all their speed, Walter helping the other two down the vast primeval heap of many-tinted rock-fragments which form the huge summit of Appenfell, and found themselves again on the short slippery gra.s.s, hardened with recent frosts, that barely covered the wave-like sweep of the hill-side. Meanwhile, the vast dense ma.s.ses of white cloud gathered below them, resting here and there in the hollows of the mountains like gigantic walls and bastions, and leaning against the abrupter face of the precipice in one great unbroken barrier of opaque, immaculate, impenetrable pearl. As you looked upon it the chief impression it gave you was one of immense thickness and crushing weight.

It seemed so compressed and impermeable that one could not fancy how even a thunderbolt could shatter it, or the wildest blast of any hurricane dissipate its enormous depth. But as yet it had not enveloped the peaks themselves. On them the sun yet shone, and where the boys stood they were still bathed in the keen yet blue and sunny air, islanded far up above the noiseless billows of surging cloud.

This was not for long. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the clouds stole upon them--reached out white arms and enfolded them in sudden whirls of thin and smoke-like mist; eddied over their heads and round their feet; swathed them at last as in a funeral pall, blotting from their sight every object save wreaths of dank vapour, rendering wholly uncertain the direction in which they were moving, and giving a sense of doubt and danger to every step they took. Kenrick had only told the master who had given them leave of absence from dinner that they meant to go a long walk. He had not mentioned Appenfell, not from any want of straightforwardness, but because they thought that it might sound like a vainglorious attempt, and they did not want to talk about it until they had really accomplished it. But in truth if they had mentioned this as their destination, no wise master would have given them permission to go, unless they promised to be accompanied by a guide; for the ascent of Appenfell, dangerous even in summer to all but those who well knew the features of the mountain, became in winter a perilous and foolhardy attempt. The boys themselves, when they started on their excursion, had no conception of the amount or extent of the risk they ran. Seeing that the morning gave promises of a bright and clear day, they had never thought of taking into account the possibility of mists and storms.

The position in which they now found themselves was enough to make a stout heart quail. By this time they were hopelessly enveloped in palpable clouds, and could not see the largest objects a yard before them. In fact, even to see each other they had to keep closely side by side; for once, when Kenrick had separated from them for a little distance, it was only by the sound of his shouts that they found him again. After this, they crept on in perfect silence, each trying to conceal from the other the terror which lay like frost on his own spirits; unsuccessfully, for the tremulous sound which the quick palpitation of their hearts gave to their breathing showed plainly enough that all three of them recognised the frightfulness of their danger.

Appenfell was one of those mountains, not unfrequent, which is on one side abrupt and bounded by a wall of almost fathomless precipice, and on the other descends to the plain in a cataract of billowy undulations.

It had one feature which, although peculiar, is by no means unprecedented. At one point, where the huge rock wall towers up from the ghastly depth of a broad ravine, there is a lateral ridge--not unlike the Mickeldore of Scawfell Pikes--running right across the valley, and connecting Appenfell with Bardlyn, another hill of much lower elevation, towards which this ridge runs down with a long but gradual slope. This edge was significantly called the Razor, and it was so narrow that it would barely admit the pa.s.sage of a single person along its summit. It was occasionally pa.s.sed by a few shepherds, accustomed from earliest childhood to the hills, but no ordinary traveller ever dreamed of braving its real dangers, for, even had the path been broader, the horrible depth of fall on either side was quite sufficient to render dizzy the steadiest head, and if a false step were taken, the result, to an absolute certainty, was frightful death. For so nearly perpendicular were the sides of this curious part.i.tion, that the narrow valley below, offering no temptation to any one to visit it, had not, within the memory of man, been trodden by any human foot. To add to the honour inspired by the Razor, a shepherd had recently fallen from it in a summer storm; his body had been abandoned as unrecoverable, and the ravens and wild cats had fed upon him. Something--a dim gleam of uncertain white among the rank gra.s.s--was yet visible from one point of the ledge, and the bravest mountaineer shuddered when, looking down the gloomy chasm, he recognised in that glimpse the mortal remains of a fellow-man.

"Are you sure that we are on the right path, Walter?" asked Power, trying to speak as cheerfully and indifferently as he could.

"Certain," said Walter, pulling out of his pocket the little bra.s.s pocket-compa.s.s which had been his invariable companion in his rambles at home, and which he had fortunately brought with him as likely to be useful in the lonely tracts which surrounded Saint Winifred's. "The bay lies due west from here, and I'm sure of the _general_ direction."

"But I think we're keeping too much to the right, Walter," said Kenrick.

"Look here," said Walter, stopping; "the truth is--and we may just as well be ready for it--that we're between two dangers. On the right is Bardlyn rift; on the left we have the sides of Appenfell, and no precipices, but--"

"I know what you're thinking of--the old mines."

"Yes; that's why I've been keeping to the right. I think even in this mist we could hardly go over the rift, for I fancy that we could at least discover when we were getting close to it; but there are three or four old mines; we don't knew in the least where they lie exactly, and one might stumble over one of the shafts in a minute."

"What in the world shall we do?" said Power, stopping, as he realised the full intensity of peril. "As it is we can't see where we're going, and very soon we shall have darkness as well as mist. Besides, it's so frightfully cold, now that we are obliged to go slowly."

"Let's stop and consider what we'd best do," said Kenrick. "Walter, what do _you_ say?"

"We can only do one of two things. Either go on, and trust to G.o.d's mercy to keep us safe, or sit still here and hope that the mist may clear away."

"That last'll never do," answered Kenrick; "I've seen the mist rest on Appenfell for days and days."

"Besides," said Power, "unless we move on, at all hazards, night will be on us. A December night on Appenfell, without food or extra coverings, and the chance of being kept indefinitely longer--" the sentence ended in a shudder.

"Yes; I don't know what we should look like in the morning," said Kenrick. "Let's move on, at all events; better that than the chance of being frozen and starved to death."

They moved on again a little way through the clouds with uncertain and hesitating steps, when suddenly Walter cried out in an agitated voice, "Stop! G.o.d only knows where we are. I feel by a kind of instinct that we're somewhere near the rift. I don't know what else should make me tremble all over as I am doing; I seem to _hear_ the rift somehow. For G.o.d's sake stop. Just let's sit down a minute till I try something."

"But's it's now nearly four o'clock," said Kenrick in a querulous tone, as he halted and pulled out his watch, holding it close to his face to make out the time. "An hour more and all daylight will be gone, and with it all chance of being saved. Surely, we'd better press on.

That's _uncertain_ danger, but to stop is certain--"

"Certain death," whispered Power.

"Just listen then, one second," said Walter, and, disembedding a huge piece of stone, he rolled it with all his force to their right, listening with senses acutely sharpened by danger and excitement. The stone bounded once, then they heard in their ears a rush, a shuffling of loose and sliding earth, the whirring sound of a heavy falling body, and then for several seconds a succession of distant crashes, startling with fright the rebounding mountain echoes, as the bit of rock whirled over the rift and was shattered into fragments by being dashed against the sides of the precipice.

"Good G.o.d!" cried Walter, clutching both the boys and dragging them hurriedly backwards, "we are standing at this moment on the very verge of the chasm. It won't do to go on; every step may be death."

A pause of almost unspeakable horror followed his words; after the fall of the rock had revealed to them how frightful was the peril which they had escaped, all three of them for a moment felt paralysed in every limb, and after looking close into each other's faces, blanched white by a deadly fear, Kenrick and Power sat down in an agony of despair.

"Don't give way, you fellows," said Walter, to whom they both seemed to look for help; "our only chance is to keep up our hope and spirits. I think that, after all, we must just stay here till the mist clears up.

Don't be frightened, Ken," he said, taking the boy's hand; "nothing can happen to us but what G.o.d intends."

"But the night," whispered Kenrick, who was most overpowered of the three; "fancy a night spent here. Mist and cold, hunger and dark. O this horrible uncertainty and suspense. O for some light," he cried in an agony; "I could almost die if we had but light."

"O G.o.d, give us light," murmured Walter, echoing the words, and uttering aloud unconsciously his intense prayer; and then he fell on his knees, and the others, too, hid their faces in their hands as they stood upon the bleak mountainside, and prayed to Him Whom they knew to be near them, though they were there alone, and saw nothing save the ground they knelt upon, and the thick clammy fog moving slowly around and above them in aimless and monotonous change. To their excited imagination that fog seemed like a living thing; it seemed as though it were actuated with a cold and deathful determination, and as though it were peopled by a thousand silent spirits, leaning over them and chilling their hearts as they shrouded them in the gigantic foldings of their ghostly robes.

And soon, as though their pa.s.sionate prayer had been heard, and an angel had been sent to rend the mist, the wind, rushing up from the ravine, tore for itself a narrow pa.s.sage--and a gleam of wavering light broke in upon them through the white folds of that deathful curtain, showing them the wall of sunken precipice, and the dark outline of Bardlyn hill. If this had been a moment in which they could have admired one of Nature's most awfully majestic sights, they would have gazed with enthusiastic joy on the diorama of valley and mountain revealed through this mighty rent in the side of their misty pavilion, filled up by the blue far-off sky; but at this moment of dominant terror they had no room for any other thoughts but how to save their lives from the danger that, surrounded them.

"Light," cried Walter, springing up eagerly; "thank G.o.d! Perhaps the mist is going to clear away." But the hope was fallacious, for in the direction where their path lay all was still dark, and the chilly mist soon closed again, though not so densely, over the wound which the breeze from the chasm below them had momentarily made.

"Did you see that we are _close to the Razor_?" said Walter, who alone of the three maintained his usual courage, because custom had made him more familiar with the danger of the hills. "Now, a thought strikes me, Ken and Power. If you like we'll make an attempt to cross the Razor.

The only thing will be not to lose one's footing; one can't _miss_ the way, at any rate, and when once we get to Bardlyn it's as easy to get down to the road which runs round it to Saint Winifred's as it is to walk across the school court."

"Cross the Razor?" said Kenrick; "why, none but some few shepherds ever dare to do that."

"True, but what man has done, man can do. I'm certain it's our best chance."

"Not for me;" "Or for me," said the other two. "Well, look here," said Walter; "it would be very dangerous of course, but while we talk our chance of safety lessens. You two stay here. I'll try the Razor; if I get safe across I shall reach Bardlyn village in no time, and there I could get some men to come and help you over. Do you mind? I won't leave you if you'd rather not."

"Oh, Walter, Walter, don't run the risk," said Power; "it's too awful."

"It's lighter than ever on that side," said Walter; "I'm not a bit afraid. I'm certain we could not get safe down, the other way, and we should die of exposure if we spent the night here. Remember, we've only had one or two sandwiches apiece. It's the last chance."

"Oh, no, you really shan't, dear Walter. You don't know how terrific the Razor is. I've often heard men say that they wouldn't cross it for a bag of gold," said Power.

"Don't hinder me, Power; I've made up my mind. Good-bye, Power; good-bye, Ken," he said, wringing their hands hard. "If I get safe across the Razor, I shan't be more than an hour and a half at the very latest before I stand here with you again, bringing help. Good-bye; G.o.d bless you both. Pray for me, but don't fear."