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.
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