The clouds are gathering in black masses; but there is, nevertheless, no opening between them through which the sky is visible.

The gloom is unbroken, and so is the silence; and a person might imagine that the great operations of Nature had been suspended and stood still.

The outlying cattle betake them to shelter, and the very dogs, with a subdued and timid bark, seek the hearth, and, with ears and tail hanging in terror, lay themselves down upon it as if to ask protection from man.

On such a night as this we will request the reader to follow us toward a district that trenches upon the foot of a dark mountain, from whose precipitous sides masses of gray rock, apparently embedded in heath and fern, protrude themselves in uncouth and gigantic shapes.

'Tis true they were not then visible; but we wish the reader to understand the character of the whole scenery through which we pass.