Would see that all went well, and this
candle I later paid in Rome; finding Our Lady of Succour not hung up
in a public place and known to all, as I thought She would be, but
peculiar to a little church belonging to a Scotchman and standing
above his high altar. Yet it is a very famous picture, and extremely
old.
Well, then, having made this vow I still went on, with panic aiding
me, till I saw that the bank beneath had risen to within a few feet of
the bridge, and that dry land was not twenty yards away. Then my
resolution left me and I ran, or rather stumbled, rapidly from sleeper
to sleeper till I could take a deep breath on the solid earth beyond.
I stood and gazed back over the abyss; I saw the little horrible strip
between heaven and hell - the perspective of its rails. I was made ill
by the relief from terror. Yet I suppose railway-men cross and recross
it twenty times a day. Better for them than for me!
There is the story of the awful bridge of the Mont Terrible, and it
lies to a yard upon the straight line - _quid dicam_ - the segment of
the Great Circle uniting Toul and Rome.
The high bank or hillside before me was that which ends the gorge of
the Doubs and looks down either limb of the sharp bend. I had here not
to climb but to follow at one height round the curve. My way ran by a
rather ill-made lane and passed a village. Then it was my business to
make straight up the farther wall of the gorge, and as there was wood
upon this, it looked an easy matter.
But when I came to it, it was not easy. The wood grew in loose rocks
and the slope was much too steep for anything but hands and knees, and
far too soft and broken for true climbing. And no wonder this ridge
seemed a wall for steepness and difficulty, since it was the watershed
between the Mediterranean and the cold North Sea. But I did not know
this at the time. It must have taken me close on an hour before I had
covered the last thousand feet or so that brought me to the top of the
ridge, and there, to my great astonishment, was a road. Where could
such a road lead, and why did it follow right along the highest edge
of the mountains? The Jura with their unique parallels provide twenty
such problems.
Wherever it led, however, this road was plainly perpendicular to my
true route, and I had but to press on my straight line. So I crossed
it, saw for a last time through the trees the gorge of the Doubs, and
then got upon a path which led down through a field more or less in
the direction of my pilgrimage.
