summer noons
`` You may , '' I said , `` I 'm very happy . '' And so I was , though I had the most curious sensation in my toes , as if they were being done up in curl papers . On we climbed , creeping along the high shelf which was so untidily loaded with rough , fallen stones and layers of mud , powdered with bits of ice from the rocky wall that seemed sheathed in glass . Icicles dangled heavy diamond fringes low over the roof of the car ; snow lay in dark hollows which the sun could never reach even in summer noons ; and as we ploughed obstinately on , always mounting , the engine trembling , our fat tyres splashed into a custardy slush of whitish brown . The shelf had been slippery before ; now , slopping over with this thick mush of melting snow or mud , it was like driving through gallons of ice pudding . The great Aigle began to tremble and waltz on the surface that was no surface ; yet it would have been impossible to go back . I saw by my companion 's set face how real was the danger we were in ; I saw , as the car skated first one way , then another , that there were but a few inches to spare on either side of the road shelf ; the side which was a rocky wall , the side which was a precipice ; I saw , too , how the man braced himself to this emergency , when three lives besides his own depended on his nerve and skill , almost upon his breath -- for it seemed as if a breath too long , a breath too short , might hurl us down -- down -- I dared not look or think how far .