Excerpt from Stormcliff a Tale of the Highlands The will to attain the summit of the cliff was not impaired by the severe toil of his ascent. When his hat brushed from his head, and fell away into the yawning gulf beneath him, he smiled a bitter smile, then clung by one hand, and with the other swept back from his eyes the long hair, that he might better calculate his course; then higher and more carefully he climbed with unabated earnestness and will. He knew that no other human creature had ever attempted the mad feat. He knew also that the chances of his being able to descend again with his life, were the chances only which madmen take. But a storm was raging within him, which drowned fear, and reason, and prudence; and the ter rors of the ascent were to this storm as the zephyr to the tornado. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.