At a certain point, they were obliged
to cross the water, their progress on this side barred by natural
obstacles. It was a crossing of some little difficulty for Irene,
the stones being rugged, and rather far apart; Piers guided her, and
at the worst spot held out his hand.
"Jump! I won't let you fall."
She sprang with a happy girlish laugh to his side, and withdrew her
hand very gently.
"Here is a good place to rest," she said, seating herself on a
boulder. And Piers sat down at a little distance.
The bed of the torrent was full of great stones, very white, rounded
and smoothed by the immemorial flow, by their tumbling and grinding
in time of spate; they formed innumerable little cataracts, with
here and there a broad plunge of foam-streaked water, perilously
swift and deep. By the bank the current spread into a large, still
pool, of colour a rich brown where the sunshine touched it, and
darkly green where it lay beneath spreading branches; everywhere
limpid, showing the pebbles or the sand in its cool depths. Infinite
were the varyings of light and shade, from a dazzling gleam on the
middle water, to the dense obscurity of leafy nooks. On either hand
was a wood, thick with undergrowth; great pines, spruces, and
larches, red-berried rowans, crowding on the steep sides of the
ravine; trees of noble stature, shadowing fern and flower, towering
against the sunny blue.
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