Henceforward, having reached the summit, and not wishing to remain on this wind-swept height, it is necessary to descend: that is obvious enough. But not easily is that descent made. To Avernus the transition is reputed to be easy and comfortable: to Horwich, where the old and new roads join, it is martyrdom, especially if it be undertaken on a cycle. And so descending, cautiously and with alternate prayers and curses, over the agonising pits and gullies in the neglected setts of the Chorley Old Road, to the only less fearful surface of the Chorley New Road at Horwich, we come at the two hundredth mile from London to the great lake-like reservoirs of the Liverpool Waterworks, formed in 1848, stretching for a long way alongside the road, and occupying the site of Anglezarke Moor. To a height of 1,545 feet rises the sullen mass of Rivington Pike, in the background, crowned with its masonry beacon. There are at least two dozen other reservoirs of different sizes up there, in the vast gloomy moors where the Pike presides: reservoirs in solitudes looking down upon the circle of busy towns comprising Bolton, Bury, Wigan, Blackburn, and Preston, and supplying their needs. [Illustration: RIVINGTON PIKE.] The great reservoirs beside the road, fenced from it by an ugly dwarf wall and iron railing, are full of fish, and in most respects like natural lakes; but the scenery, bold though it be, is scrubby and hard-featured, and the scant trees look to those used to the softer and more luxuriant vegetation of the south, starved. But if one has courage sufficient to follow the waggonette-loads of beanfeasters from Bolton, who favour these scenes, there will be found a quite charming wooded glen and waterfall at Dean, beyond Rivington village. [Illustration: RIVINGTON PIKE FROM THE ROAD.] [Sidenote: _MILES STANDISH_]