For, lo! I stood at the foot of a long pale slide of water, coming smoothly to me, without any break or hindrance, for a hundred yards or more, and fenced on either side with cliff, sheer, and straight, and shining.

The water neither ran nor fell, nor leaped with any spouting, but made one even slope of it, as if it had been combed or planed, and looking like a plank of deal laid down a deep black staircase.

However, there was no side-rail, nor any place to walk upon, only the channel a fathom wide, and the perpendicular walls of crag shutting out the evening.
The look of this place had a sad effect, scaring me very greatly, and making me feel that I would give something only to be at home again, with Annie cooking my supper, and our dog Watch sniffing upward.

But nothing would come of wishing; that I had long found out; and it only made one the less inclined to work without white feather.

So I laid the case before me in a little council; not for loss of time, but only that I wanted rest, and to see things truly.
Then says I to myself--'John Ridd, these trees, and pools, and lonesome rocks, and setting of the sunlight are making a gruesome coward of thee.
Shall I go back to my mother so, and be called her fearless boy ?' Nevertheless, I am free to own that it was not any fine sense of shame which settled my decision; for indeed there was nearly as much of danger in going back as in going on, and perhaps even more of labour, the journey being so roundabout.