feet above where he sat, he
wondered whether the ravens nested there.

No more likely place could be found for the great birds to rear their
young; the cliff looked inaccessible, and days would pass, sometimes
weeks, and not a soul come near.

"Old Master Rayburn must be right," thought the lad. "What eyes he has
for everything of this kind. There are no rooks in the beeches; there
isn't a jackdaw about; and I haven't seen a rock-dove; all proof that
the ravens are here, for the others would not dare to nest near them.
Only be to hatch young ones for food. But I don't see my gentleman nor
his lady."

A hoarse, distant bark was heard, just as the lad's neck began to ache
with staring up in vain, in the search for the nest, and he sat
perfectly motionless, crouched amongst the hemlock and heracleum, to be
rewarded by seeing a shadow thrown on the white limestone far on high,
and directly after one of the great glossy black birds alight, right on
the edge of the cliff, from whence it hopped into the air, and seemed to
let itself fall some forty feet, down behind a stunted patch of broom,
which had rooted in a cleft. There it disappeared for a few moments, to
reappear, diving down toward the stream, but only to circle upward
again, rise higher and higher, and finally disappear over the cliff,
half a quarter of a mile away.

"Found it!" panted Mark; "a nest with young ones. Chance if there are
any eggs for Master Rayburn."

He leaned back to examine the place.

"Can't get up there," he muttered at last; "but it would be easy to get
down from the top. I could do it, but--"

He took off his cap, and gave his brown hair a vicious scratch, for
there were other obstacles in the way.

It would be easy to wade across the river; easy to make his way along
the other side to where the cliff sloped, five hundred yards lower down
the stream. From there he could reach the high down, which was broken
off short to form the cliff, and walk along the edge till he was exactly
over the nest, and then descend. Those were not obstacles, but trifles.
The great difficulty was moral. That great mass of limestone was on
the Darley estate, and for a few minutes, the lad felt as if he must
give it up.

But obstacles only spurred him on to action, and he cried to himself,
petulantly:

"Is it theirs? Who are they, to claim an open wild place like that?
They'll be saying next that all Darbyshire belongs to them. It's as
much our