h, so we got ropes an' let a man
down to fetch un up, but of coorse it was gone dead."

"That minds me, Jack," said Maggot, "that I seed a daw's nest here the
last time I come along, so lev us go an' stroob that daw's nest."

"Thee cusn't do it," said John Cock.

Maggot laughed, and said he not only could but would, so he ran down to
the neighbouring works and returned with a stout rope, which he fixed
firmly to a rock at the edge of the overhanging cliff.

We have already said that Maggot was a noted madcap, who stuck at
nothing, and appeared to derive positive pleasure from the mere act of
putting his life in danger. No human foot could, by climbing, have
reached the spot where the nest of the daw, or Cornish chough, was
fixed--for the precipice, besides being perpendicular and nearly flat,
projected a little near the top, where the nest lay in a crevice
overhanging the surf that boiled and raged in Zawn Buzzangein. Indeed,
the nest was not visible from the spot where the two men stood, and it
could only be seen by going round to the cliffs on the opposite side of
the gorge.

Without a moment's hesitation Maggot swung himself over the edge of the
precipice, merely cautioning his comrade, as he did so, to hold on to
the rope and prevent it from slipping.

He slid down about two yards, and then found that the rock overhung so
much that he was at least six feet off from the crevice in which the
young daws nestled comfortably together, and no stretch that he could
make with his legs, long though they were, was sufficient to enable him
to get on the narrow ledge just below the nest. Several times he tried
to gain a footing, and at each effort the juvenile daws--as yet ignorant
of the desperate nature of man--opened their little eyes to the utmost
in undisguised amazement. For full five minutes Maggot wriggled and the
daws gazed, and the anxious comrade above watched the vibrations and
jerks of the part of the rope that was visible to him while he listened
intently. The bubbles on Zawn Buzzangein, like millions of watery eyes,
danced and twinkled sixty feet below, as if in wonder at the object
which swung wildly to and fro in mid-air.

At last Maggot managed to touch the rock with the extreme point of his
toe. A slight push gave him swing sufficient to enable him to give one
or two vigorous shoves, by which means he swung close to the side of the
cliff. Watching his opportunity, he planted both feet on the nar