white Georgian steeples across leagues of river and meadow. Here he found

a shady road to Arkham, but no trail at all in the seaward direction he

wished. Woods and fields crowded up to the high bank of the river's mouth,

and bore not a sign of man's presence; not even a stone wall or a straying

cow, but only the tall grass and giant trees and tangles of briars that

the first Indian might have seen. As he climbed slowly east, higher and

higher above the estuary on his left and nearer and nearer the sea, he

found the way growing in difficulty till he wondered how ever the dwellers

in that disliked place managed to reach the world outside, and whether

they came often to market in Arkham.

Then the trees thinned, and far below him on his right he saw the hills

and antique roofs and spires of Kingsport. Even Central Hill was a dwarf

from this height, and he could just make out the ancient graveyard by the

Congregational Hospital beneath which rumor said some terrible caves or

burrows lurked. Ahead lay sparse grass and scrub blueberry bushes, and

beyond them the naked rock of the crag and the thin peak of the dreaded

gray cottage. Now the ridge narrowed, and Olney grew dizzy at his loneness

in the sky, south of him the frightful precipice above Kingsport, north of

him the vertical drop of nearly a mile to the river's mouth. Suddenly a

great chasm opened before him, ten feet deep, so that he had to let

himself down by his hands and drop to a slanting floor, and then crawl

perilously up a natural defile in the opposite wall. So this was the way