A sea of glittering foliage lay beneath Catharine's feet; in the
distance the eye of the young girl rested on a belt of shining waters,
which girt in the shores like a silver zone; beyond, yet more remote to the
northward, stretched the illimitable forest.
Never had Catharine looked upon a scene so still or so fair to the eye; a
holy calm seemed to shed its influence over her young mind, and peaceful
tears stole down her cheeks. Not a sound was there abroad, scarcely a leaf
stirred; she could have stayed for hours there gazing on the calm beauty of
nature, and communing with her own heart, when suddenly a stirring rustling
sound caught her car; it came from a hollow channel on one side of the
promontory, which was thickly overgrown with the shrubby dogwood, wild
roses and bilberry bushes. Imagine the terror which seized the poor girl,
on perceiving a grisly beast breaking through the covert of the bushes.
With a scream and a bound, which the most deadly fear alone could have
inspired, Catharine sprung from the supporting trunk of the oak, dashed,
down the precipitous side of the ravine; now clinging to the bending sprays
of the flexile dogwood--now to some fragile birch or poplar--now trusting
to the yielding heads of the sweet-scented _ceanothus_, or filling her
hands with sharp thorns from the roses that clothed the bank; flowers,
grass, all were alike clutched at in her rapid and fearful descent.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80