Explore "The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains" by Mary Noailles Murfree on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Down a precipitous path, hardly more civilized of aspect than if it were trodden by the deer, filled with interlacing roots, barricaded by long briery tangles, overhung by brush and overshadowed by trees -- down this sylvan way Dorinda, followed by Jacob and one or two of the companionable old hounds, was wont to go to the spring under the crag.
The spot had its fascinations. The great beetling cliff towered far above, the jagged line of its summit serrating the zenith. Its rugged face was seamed with many a fissure, and here and there were clumps of ferns, a swaying vine, a huckleberry bush that fed the birds of the air. Below surged the tops of the trees. There was a shelving descent from the base of the crag, and Jacob must needs have heed of the rocky depths beneath in treading the narrow ledge that led to a great cavernous niche in the face of the rock.