The Doctor drove along the southern foot of The Mountain. The "Dudley
mansion" was near the eastern edge of this declivity, where it rose
steepest, with baldest cliffs and densest patches of over-hanging wood.
It seemed almost too steep to climb, but a practised eye could see from
a distance the zigzag lines of the sheep-paths which scaled it like
miniature Alpine roads. A few hundred feet up The Mountain's side was a
dark, deep dell, unwooded, save for a few spindling, crazy--looking
hackmatacks or native larches, with pallid green tufts sticking out
fantastically all over them. It shelved so deeply, that, while the
hemlock-tassels were swinging on the trees around its border, all would
be still at its springy bottom, save that perhaps a single fern would
wave slowly backward and forward like a sabre, with a twist as of a
feathered oar,--and this, when not a breath could be felt, and every
other stem and blade were motionless. There was an old story of one
having perished here in the winter of '86, and his body having been
found in the spring,--whence its common name of "Dead-Man's Hollow."
Higher up there were huge cliffs with chasms, and, it was thought,
concealed caves, where in old times they said that Tories lay
hid,--some hinted not without occasional aid and comfort from the
Dudleys then living in the mansion-house.
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