"Be it what it may, I resolved to run down the dry channel into the valley. I lifted up my gown, still holding fast the handkerchief with the cap in it. That packet had given me no end of trouble. When you are forced to go perpetually up and down hill, carrying something in your hand, even though it may not be very heavy, you feel as if one hand was tied fast, and quite useless. Hush! I thought I heard a carriage in the valley, so there must be a good road there; probably a one horse chaise from Bern, or perhaps with two horses, it trots along so rapidly. Soon it turned the corner, and then I no longer heard it at all.
"Gracious goodness! I had again allowed myself to be misled: it was only the leaves rustling in the forest that I had heard, and now the sound was far above me. I resolved not to listen to any other sounds, but to do my best for myself. I tried to climb up again, but the way was so steep that I found it impossible to get any footing on the bank. The ground, too was so hard, from the trees being shoved down it, that I could no longer dig my heels into the ground to get a firmer footing, and so I tore a pair of shoes that had cost me two gulden. I was not to get half of that for making the velvet cap. What matter! if I only get home safe, without damage to life or limb! I only fell once. No one should trust to anything they grasp, unless they have first proved its strength. Broom has a good hold, it stands very fast in the soil: once I seized hold of the roots of a tree, but the roots came away in my hand, and I slipped back a long way. I closed my eyes: now I must die, it is all over with me! I was brought up, however, by a rock, in the middle of a large anthill. I managed to get away from it at last. I went close to the dry channel on the side of the hill, and kept it in view, and jumped from tree to tree; but it could scarcely be called jumping, it was as if I had been cast forwards; my progress was just like sparrows flying and clapping their wings, and then tumbling topsy turvy in the air. I felt almost inclined to laugh when this thought struck me, but it was no laughing matter. I thought to myself, this will be a story for you to tell all your life long; and then it occurred to me again--if you could talk about it, you would by that time be well out of the scrape. I plucked up courage, and hoped it would soon be all right, and that there was no fear of dying; only I must get on. And so by dint of first seizing one branch, and then another, I got forward by degrees, and only slipped back once more, but I had no more tumbles. Fragments of rock rolled down beside me, jumping into the air, and rebounding as they went, till at last I seemed to hear them splash into the river. And I thought to myself that if I fell, I should fall, just like them, to the bottom and into the river. I stuck my nails into the earth, and crept on and on, and then sideways into the underwood, close to the dry channel, where a footing was to be found. Slowly, slowly, I crawled along. But stop! one step further and I must have been killed! A rock as steep and high as a house, as if cut out with a knife, overhung the river. I stopped short, and could have seized the tops of the larches with my hands, but there was no path. I went back two steps, and leant on a tree, and now my mind was easier. I saw running water. God be praised and blessed for all His mercies! this is the valley, and to have reached the valley is to have reached home. How pleasant was the rushing of water to my ears--so calm, so peaceful, so homelike! even seeing and hearing it quenched my thirst. I now accomplished the greatest feat of the whole, when, after a long round, I at last contrived, after much scrambling, to land in the valley. And when I actually found myself there, then, and not till then, I thought myself safe.