As the lad crossed the bridge, thinking nothing of the giddy, profound depths on either side, there being not the slightest protection in the way of rail to the six-foot wide path, he shook back his brown hair, thrust his hands in his pockets, and with the sheath of his sword banging against his legs, started off along the first level place for a run. A looker-on would have wondered why he did this, and would have gazed ahead to see what there was to induce him to make so wild a rush in a dangerous place. But he would have seen nothing but rugged path, tree-top, and the face of the cliff, and would not have grasped the fact that the reason for the boy's wild dash was, that he was overcharged with vitality, and that energy which makes a lad exert himself in that natural spontaneous effort to get rid of some of the vital gas, flashing along his nerves and bubbling through his veins. "What a day!" he cried aloud. "How blue the sky is. Hallo! there they go." He stopped suddenly to watch a cavernous hole in the cliff, from which half-a-dozen blue rock-pigeons had darted out, and as he watched, others swooped by, and darted in. The next minute he went on, followed the path, and turned a buttress-like corner, which took him to the other side of the great chine of limestone, which was here quite as precipitous, but clothed with trees, which softened the asperities of nature, and hung from shelf, crack, and chasm, to cast shadows down and down, right to where the river flashed and sparkled in its rapid flow, or formed deep dark pools, which reflected the face of the cliff in picture after picture. "One never gets tired of this place," muttered the lad, as he began to descend a zigzag path, worn in the face of the cliff, starting the powdered-headed jackdaws from their breeding shelves and holes, and sending the blackbirds chinking from out of the bushes which clung to the grey precipice. "That's where the brown owl's nest was," muttered the lad. "Bound to say there's one this year. S'pose I'm getting too old for birds'-nesting and climbing. Don't see why I should be, though." He reached the river's bank at last, and after walking for a few yards, trampling down the white blossoms of the broad-leaved garlic, which here grew in profusion, and suggested salad, he reached a rippling shallow, stepped down into the river, and waded across, the water only reaching to his ankles. As he stepped out on the other side, and kicked and stamped to get rid of the water, he gazed along the winding dale at as glorious a bit of English scenery as England can produce; and on that bright May morning, as he breathed in the sweet almond-like odour of the fully-blown hawthorn blossom, he muttered: "Linkeham's nice enough, but the lads would never believe how beautiful it is here. Hallo! there he goes. I wonder where they are building this year."