Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist | Page 4

that which the hands of man would have found difficult,
supplied a theme of meditation.
Some accident recalled me from this reverie, and reminded me how
much time had thus been consumed. I was terrified at the consequences
of my delay, and sought with eagerness how they might be obviated. I
asked myself if there were not a way back shorter than that by which I
had come. The beaten road was rendered circuitous by a precipice that
projected into a neighbouring stream, and closed up a passage by which
the length of the way would have been diminished one half: at the foot
of the cliff the water was of considerable depth, and agitated by an
eddy. I could not estimate the danger which I should incur by plunging
into it, but I was resolved to make the attempt. I have reason to think,
that this experiment, if it had been tried, would have proved fatal, and
my father, while he lamented my untimely fate, would have been
wholly unconscious that his own unreasonable demands had
occasioned it.
I turned my steps towards the spot. To reach the edge of the stream was
by no means an easy undertaking, so many abrupt points and gloomy
hollows were interposed. I had frequently skirted and penetrated this
tract, but had never been so completely entangled in the maze as now:
hence I had remained unacquainted with a narrow pass, which, at the
distance of an hundred yards from the river, would conduct me, though
not without danger and toil, to the opposite side of the ridge.
This glen was now discovered, and this discovery induced me to
change my plan. If a passage could be here effected, it would be shorter
and safer than that which led through the stream, and its practicability

was to be known only by experiment. The path was narrow, steep, and
overshadowed by rocks. The sun was nearly set, and the shadow of the
cliff above, obscured the passage almost as much as midnight would
have done: I was accustomed to despise danger when it presented itself
in a sensible form, but, by a defect common in every one's education,
goblins and spectres were to me the objects of the most violent
apprehensions. These were unavoidably connected with solitude and
darkness, and were present to my fears when I entered this gloomy
recess.
These terrors are always lessened by calling the attention away to some
indifferent object. I now made use of this expedient, and began to
amuse myself by hallowing as loud as organs of unusual compass and
vigour would enable me. I utterred the words which chanced to occur to
me, and repeated in the shrill tones of a Mohock savage . . . "Cow! cow!
come home! home!" . . . These notes were of course reverberated from
the rocks which on either side towered aloft, but the echo was confused
and indistinct.
I continued, for some time, thus to beguile the way, till I reached a
space more than commonly abrupt, and which required all my attention.
My rude ditty was suspended till I had surmounted this impediment. In
a few minutes I was at leisure to renew it. After finishing the strain, I
paused. In a few seconds a voice as I then imagined, uttered the same
cry from the point of a rock some hundred feet behind me; the same
words, with equal distinctness and deliberation, and in the same tone,
appeared to be spoken. I was startled by this incident, and cast a fearful
glance behind, to discover by whom it was uttered. The spot where I
stood was buried in dusk, but the eminences were still invested with a
luminous and vivid twilight. The speaker, however, was concealed
from my view.
I had scarcely begun to wonder at this occurrence, when a new
occasion for wonder, was afforded me. A few seconds, in like manner,
elapsed, when my ditty was again rehearsed, with a no less perfect
imitation, in a different quarter. . . . . To this quarter I eagerly turned
my eyes, but no one was visible. . . . The station, indeed, which this

new speaker seemed to occupy, was inaccessible to man or beast.
If I were surprized at this second repetition of my words, judge how
much my surprise must have been augmented, when the same calls
were a third time repeated, and coming still in a new direction. Five
times was this ditty successively resounded, at intervals nearly equal,
always from a new quarter, and with little abatement of its original
distinctness and force.
A little reflection was sufficient to shew that this was no more than an
echo of an extraordinary kind. My terrors were quickly supplanted by
delight. The motives to dispatch