noon
The creature 's family was scattered on the mountain-sides ; he could give Rowland no help to find them . Rowland climbed into many awkward places , and skirted , intently and peeringly , many an ugly chasm and steep-dropping ledge . But the sun , as I have said , was everywhere ; it illumined the deep places over which , not knowing where to turn next , he halted and lingered , and showed him nothing but the stony Alpine void -- nothing so human even as death . At noon he paused in his quest and sat down on a stone ; the conviction was pressing upon him that the worst that was now possible was true . He suspended his search ; he was afraid to go on . He sat there for an hour , sick to the depths of his soul . Without his knowing why , several things , chiefly trivial , that had happened during the last two years and that he had quite forgotten , became vividly present to his mind .