From underneath its base the river emerges; the baby river, conceived nobody quite knows where on the wild heights above, and carried in that dark womb of nature until its birth at the foot of the Crag—a giant’s child, itself destined to be a slave, whose lot it will be to bear to the sea the filth and off-scouring of factory and dye-house. That, however, is later history; our concern is with Meander; let the towns lower down account for Styx! The face of the gigantic cliff has its seams and wrinkles, and at a point midway rapidly-narrowing ledges run out from either side and paint streaks of green across the grey; but each tapers off and disappears long before the centre of the crescent is reached. On the western ledge a few dwarfed ash-plants have rooted themselves on the steeply-shelving soil, and their presence gives the illusion of breadth and inspires in the adventurer an entirely false sense of security. One tree stands within a foot or two of the ledge’s vanishing-point; but few are the youths of Mawm who have ventured within many yards of it without self-reproach and prayer. Save for the call of the jackdaw and other birds that nest in the crannies, and the faint puling of the stream, the Cove is quiet in winter-time as a cathedral cloister, and has something of the cathedral’s air of mystery and awe. And when the sun is setting in a haze that betokens snow and frost, and a section of the white cliff borrows a warmer hue from the blood-red globe whose rays penetrate the western windows, the sense of reverence is heightened; and though a man may not bare his head as he stands there it is much if he does not lower his voice. It was just after two o’clock when Nancy left the road at the point where it begins to fall, and having stood for a moment to watch the sun tripped down the slippery hillside to the foot of the Cove. It was an adventure to slide over the short grass, to cling to the slender boles of the stunted trees in order to check the pace or save herself from falling, but it was an adventure to which she was accustomed, and which involved no greater risk than that of a twisted ankle or a bruised knee; and with one as agile as Nancy there was little fear of either. Her cheeks burned as she reached the bottom, and more hotly when Jagger walked forward and greeted her. “I thought you’d be at Betty’s,” he said, “and guessed you’d come this way.” He was the answer to her thoughts—one might say to her prayers; the embodiment of the image she had been carrying with her all the afternoon; the substance of her hopes and fears.