Must go down one of these days with Dummy Rugg: he says he knows of some fine bits.

Not to-day, though." He hurried out into the bright sunshine again, went up the steps to the castle, which stood perched at the top of a huge mass of rock, surrounded on all sides by the deep gorge, and then crossed the natural bridge to the main cliff, of which the foundation of the castle was the vast slice, split away, most probably by some volcanic disturbance.
Masses of lava and scoria uncovered by the miners, from time to time, showed that volcanic action had been rife there at one period; additional suggestion that the said action had not yet died out, being afforded by the springs of beautifully clear warm water, which bubbled out in several places in the district.
As the lad crossed the bridge, thinking nothing of the giddy, profound depths on either side, there being not the slightest protection in the way of rail to the six-foot wide path, he shook back his brown hair, thrust his hands in his pockets, and with the sheath of his sword banging against his legs, started off along the first level place for a run.
A looker-on would have wondered why he did this, and would have gazed ahead to see what there was to induce him to make so wild a rush in a dangerous place.

But he would have seen nothing but rugged path, tree-top, and the face of the cliff, and would not have grasped the fact that the reason for the boy's wild dash was, that he was overcharged with vitality, and that energy which makes a lad exert himself in that natural spontaneous effort to get rid of some of the vital gas, flashing along his nerves and bubbling through his veins.
"What a day!" he cried aloud.

"How blue the sky is.

Hallo! there they go." He stopped suddenly to watch a cavernous hole in the cliff, from which half-a-dozen blue rock-pigeons had darted out, and as he watched, others swooped by, and darted in.
The next minute he went on, followed the path, and turned a buttress-like corner, which took him to the other side of the great chine of limestone, which was here quite as precipitous, but clothed with trees, which softened the asperities of nature, and hung from shelf, crack, and chasm, to cast shadows down and down, right to where the river flashed and sparkled in its rapid flow, or formed deep dark pools, which reflected the face of the cliff in picture after picture.
"One never gets tired of this place," muttered the lad, as he began to descend a zigzag path, worn in the face of the cliff, starting the powdered-headed jackdaws from their breeding shelves and holes, and sending the blackbirds chinking from out of the bushes which clung to the grey precipice.
"That's where the brown owl's nest was," muttered the lad.