In the others , as well as I could make out -LRB- standing back at a distance and hearing a strange tongue -RRB- , the news was received with more of consternation than surprise . For all our hurry , day began to come in while we were still far from any shelter . It found us in a prodigious valley , strewn with rocks and where ran a foaming river . Wild mountains stood around it ; there grew there neither grass nor trees ; and I have sometimes thought since then , that it may have been the valley called Glencoe , where the massacre was in the time of King William . But for the details of our itinerary , I am all to seek ; our way lying now by short cuts , now by great detours ; our pace being so hurried , our time of journeying usually by night ; and the names of such places as I asked and heard being in the Gaelic tongue and the more easily forgotten . The first peep of morning , then , showed us this horrible place , and I could see Alan knit his brow . `` This is no fit place for you and me , '' he said . `` This is a place they 're bound to watch . '' And with that he ran harder than ever down to the water-side , in a part where the river was split in two among three rocks . It went through with a horrid thundering that made my belly quake ; and there hung over the lynn a little mist of spray . Alan looked neither to the right nor to the left , but jumped clean upon the middle rock and fell there on his hands and knees to check himself , for that rock was small and he might have pitched over on the far side . I had scarce time to measure the distance or to understand the peril before I had followed him , and he had caught and stopped me . So there we stood , side by side upon a small rock slippery with spray , a far broader leap in front of us , and the river dinning upon all sides . When I saw where I was , there came on me a deadly sickness of fear , and I put my hand over my eyes . Alan took me and shook me ; I saw he was speaking , but the roaring of the falls and the trouble of my mind prevented me from hearing ; only I saw his face was red with anger , and that he stamped upon the rock . The same look showed me the water raging by , and the mist hanging in the air : and with that I covered my eyes again and shuddered . The next minute Alan had set the brandy bottle to my lips , and forced me to drink about a gill , which sent the blood into my head again . Then , putting his hands to his mouth , and his mouth to my ear , he shouted , `` Hang or drown ! '' and turning his back upon me , leaped over the farther branch of the stream , and landed safe . I was now alone upon the rock , which gave me the more room ; the brandy was singing in my ears ; I had this good example fresh before me , and just wit enough to see that if I did not leap at once , I should never leap at all .
I bent low on my knees and flung myself forth , with that kind of anger of despair that has sometimes XXXXX me in stead of courage .
being covered fell grew hurried measure pitched see speaking stood