Descending into the valley, we pass through a plantation that has been formed by the side of one of the large reservoirs of the Liverpool Corporation Waterworks. The tall trees stand out in all their nakedness against the background of snow, looking black, and grim, and spectral like, though relieved in some measure by the bright-hued holly bushes, the glossy-leaved laurels, and the other hardy shrubs, that try to look cheery and make a pretty show. Below, where, in summer time, the far-spreading water reflects the surrounding beauty and flashes and glitters in the mellow sunlight, there is now only a dull leaden glaze, for the returning spring has not yet thawed the mantle of ice in which the hard hand of winter has enfolded it. Across the valley the smoke curls upwards from some unseen habitation, else we might fancy the inhabitants had fled, for neither flocks nor herds are to be seen in the fields; even the rook as he sails listlessly overhead looks dull and dejected, and the fieldfares huddle themselves up in the leafless branches as if they had lost heart; all around is still and cold and lifeless, save that now and then the hedge sparrows set up a twittering as unmusical as the grating of a knife-grinder's wheel, and that sprightly little fellow, the red-breasted robin, trills out his song from the naked hawthorn spray where the tiny buds are striving to break forth. Presently we come to a little lodge, and then, turning to the left, cross the embankment that separates the lower from the upper and larger Rivington lake. At the other end a short length of road straggles upwards towards the village--rough and stony withal, and fenced in places with patches of broken wall, built up of loose stones that time has softened into beauty and decked with moss and lichen and a wealth of clingy ivy. [Illustration: RIVINGTON CHURCH.]