stream, yet it rose toward the water, though not so
much as the ness over against it. It was as if some one had cast down
a knoll across the Sundering Flood, and the stream had washed away the
sloped side thereof, and then had sheared its way through by the east
side where the ground was the softest. Forsooth so it seemed to the
Dalesmen, for on either side they called it the Bight of the Cloven
Knoll.

Osberne stood amazed right over against the cave in the cliff-side,
and stared at the boiling waters beneath him, that seemed mighty
enough to have made a hole in the ship of the world and sunk it in the
deep. And he wondered at the cave, whether it was there by chance hap,
or that some hands had wrought it for an habitation.

And as he stood gazing there, on a sudden there came out of the cave a
shape as of man, and stood upon the ledge above the water, and the lad
saw at once that it was a little maiden of about his own age, with
ruddy golden hair streaming down from her head, and she was clad in a
short coat of dark blue stuff and no more raiment, as far as he could
see. Now as aforesaid Osberne was in his holiday raiment of
red-scarlet by the bidding of Stephen. Now the maiden looks up and
sees the lad standing on the eastern shore, and starts back
astonished. Then she came forward again and looked under the sharp of
her hand, for the sun shone from the south and was cast back dazzling
from the water. There was but some thirty feet of water between them,
but all gurgling and rushing and talking, so the child raised a shrill
and clear voice as she clapped her hands together and cried: "O thou
beauteous creature, what art thou?" Osberne laughed, and said in a
loud voice: "I am a man but young of years, so that they call me a
boy, and a bairn, and a lad. But what art thou?"

"Nay, nay," she said, "I must be nigher to thee; it is over-wide here
amidst the waters' speech. Fare up to the top on thy side, and so will
I." And therewith she turned about and fell to climbing up the side of
the cliff by the broken black staves and the shaly slips. And though
Osberne were a boy, yea and a tough one in some ways, he trembled and
his heart beat quick to see the little creature wending that perilous
upright road, and he might not take his eyes off her till she had
landed safely on the greensward; then he turned and went swiftly up
the eastern knoll, and reached the edge of the sheer rock just as the
maiden came running up the ne