932, APPALLING REALITIES.

bead

in the single word erebling—a provincial term,
expressing that creeping, paralyzing, twittering,
palpitation sort of sensation which a nervous per-
son might be supposed to feel, if, in exploring a
damp and dark dungeon, he placed his hand unad-
visedly upon some cold and clammy substance
which his imagination might paint as something
too horrible to look at. But whatever were the
force and power of these feelings, 1t was not now
the time to let them get the mastership, .. and,
after all, though there were very unequivocal symp-
toms of something terrible in the immediate vici-
nage of the undefined gray screen of rock before
me, I had as yet no certainty of its appalling
realities. For a furlong or two no great change
was perceptible; there was a plentiful supply of
twigs and shrubs to hold by, and the path was not
by any means alarming. In short, I began to
shake off all uneasiness and smile at my imaginary
fears, when, on turning an angle, I came to an
abrupt termination of everything bordering on
twig, bough, pathway, or greensward, and the
Mauwoms Pas, in all its fearfulness, glared upon
me. Hor a foreground (if that could be called a
foreground, separated as it was by a gulf of some
fathoms wide) an unsightly facing of unbroken
precipitous rock bearded me on the spot from
whence I was to take my departure, jutting out