223
CHAPTER    XXIII.
CLUNY'S CAGE.
WE came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep
wood, which scrambled up a craggy hillside, and was
crowned by a naked precipice.
"It's here," said one of the guides, and we struck
up hill.
The trees clung upon the slope, like sailors on the
shrouds of a ship; and their trunks were like the rounds
of a ladder, by which we mounted.
Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of
the cliff sprang above the foliage, we found that strange
house which was known in the country as "Cluny's
Cage,"The trunks of several trees had been wattled
across, the intervals strengthened with stakes, and the
ground behind this barricade levelled up with earth to
make the floor. A tree, which grew out from the hill-
side, was the living centre-beam of the roof. The walls
were of wattle and covered with moss. The whole house
had something of an egg shape; and it half hung, half
stood in that steep, hillside thicket, like a wasp's nest
in a green hawthorn.
Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six
persons with some comfort. A projection of the cliff