'Are yo coomin out to-night?
Yo'll ha coompany if yo do.' David smiled contemptuously and did not condescend to argue.
'Are yo coomin on ?' he said, shouldering his box and bundle again.
'They'st be up after us if we doan't look out.' And on they went, climbing a steep boulder-strewn slope above the pool till they came to the 'edge' itself, a tossed and broken battlement of stone, running along the top of the Scout.

Here the great black slabs of grit were lying fantastically piled upon each other at every angle and in every possible combination.

The path which leads from the Hayfield side across the desolate tableland of the Scout to the Snake Inn on the eastern side of the ridge, ran among them, and many a wayfarer, benighted or mist-bound on the moor, had taken refuge before now in their caverns and recesses, waiting for the light, and dreading to find himself on the cliffs of the Downfall.
But David pushed on past many hiding-places well known to him, till the two reached the point where the mountain face sweeps backward in the curve of which the Downfall makes the centre.

At the outward edge of the curve a great buttress of ragged and jutting rocks descends perpendicularly towards the valley, like a ruined staircase with displaced and gigantic steps.
Down this David began to make his way, and Louie jumped, and slid, and swung after him, as lithe and sure-footed as a cat.

Presently David stopped.