Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

‘Gray dawn was just coming when we got to the top of the pass; the silence of moonlight was gone, and our company’s talk made the dreary hillsides echo. We had plenty of dogs, so a few of us went to Borwen’s Knott—a stiff climb, where every few minutes we seemed to slip back as far as we had dragged forward. My back ached long before we got to where the sheep had been marked, and I lagged behind to rest. When I got up to the others, the dogs had marked down three sheep at no great depth—perhaps a yard or so—and the spades were clearing the snow away like mad. In a minute or two the sheep were clear, and we sent them off towards the pass-road. One of the dogs scented another close in under the crags of the Knott, and to get this out seemed like to give a lot of work. How do these sheep get buried, you say? Well, it’s sheep nature when a storm—wind, snow, rain, or the three together—gets to a certain pitch to lie down with their backs toward it. Like that they bide [remain] till the worst is over, no matter whether they are buried overhead or not. For a sheep can breathe easily through a covering of twenty feet of snow; and as its body-heat thaws a little cave, the weight above, though it may be tons, doesn’t harm it at all. The breathing-places on the snow can be picked out by a man if the sheep aren’t far under; but if they are, it takes a dog all its time to find where the beast lies. Now, as I was saying, these lost sheep at Borwen’s Knott were right in among the rocks, and pretty deep down. The shepherds, however, dug a deep trench in the drift which had plastered itself against the Knott, and after an hour’s hard work the sheep jumped up not a bit worse. At Yew-tree Ghyll a gang got down to the sheep without much trouble; one of them was so lively after passing thirty hours or more in a drift that it butted over three of the shepherds in making for the open.

‘Joe reckoned that twenty-four sheep were in the deepest part of the big ghyll, and that another score could be got at in a day’s work. While the spades were beginning work, I and two of my men took our dogs and went over the whole two intakes thoroughly. At one spot we had a surprise. A hollow in the hillside not more than a yard deep had been drifted level, and in this were, maybe, a dozen rounded lumps—tops of rocks covered with snow, we thought; but my man Jackson, as we crossed the flat, kicked his foot against one, and found nothing hard. He stopped to examine the thing. It was a sheep, lying just as it had turned its back to the storm, not covered with more than a foot of snow. We whistled the dogs up, and as they came floundering along, fully a dozen ewes jumped up and made away.

‘“Ho, ho!” said I, “this find ’ll make Joe Sumner stare. He’ll have to alter his figures as to what’s in that great ghyll if we go on like this.”

‘But though we found no other great number, a careful look about the walls and other likely places showed us where more lay. Altogether, our tramp about the intakes brought up twenty-three ewes in good strength and condition. One poor thing we found with a leg broken by a stone which somehow had split from the side of a rough outcrop, and another was in the pool beneath a force in the beck that runs into the valley, drowned. Joe Sumner was surprised at how we had come on. A dozen men working for their lives fairly in that great pile of snow in the beck-course had got three sheep out in as many hours. But their digging was coming near to a flat grassy spot where a dozen or so sheep lay, and here all expected success. And it was not long in coming. The sheep had clustered almost into one mass, and were lifted out one after another. In their haste the spademen had left the snow overhanging some four or five feet, and just as the seventh sheep was lugged [hauled] out, a big patch gave way, smothering everything for two or three minutes in a cloud of whirling snow-dust. When this cleared somewhat, it was found that two shepherds were still under the snow. Spades had been used before at some speed, but I can tell you _that_ was nothing to the rush put on now. For what’s the price of a sheep to the value of the life of a man? Tons of snow were whirled aside, and in five minutes the first man was reached. He had an ugly gash on the side of his head: he had been driven down with tremendous force on to the blade of his spade. But he was still conscious, and reiterated weakly what we knew too well: “Jack Howson was further in nor [than] me.”

‘The spademen stopped work not a moment; for though a sheep can breathe through many feet of snow, a man suffers terribly when buried over a foot. Soon a boot was reached, and in a few seconds the drift had been thrown aside sufficiently for Howson to be lifted out. He was pretty much dazed, but no worse for the mishap, and in ten minutes he again took his share of the digging. Immediately beneath where his body had been lying an old ewe was found, and seven more within some two yards. Altogether, thirteen sheep were brought out. Only five were missing from both flocks now—three from mine and two from Joe’s; and as we couldn’t find the exact places—the snow was so deep that the dogs couldn’t scent them—where they were lying, we were forced to let them bide [remain]. They might have the luck, we thought, to live through till the thaw came, and the melting snow mightn’t, perhaps, drown them all. Besides’—and here the native shrewdness of the shepherd shone through the eloquence of the raconteur—‘it would have cost a deal to dig the ghyll dear of snow—far more than five ewes at forty shillings apiece are worth.‘

Seemingly, with this the story was ended, but I queried what eventually became of the five missing sheep.

‘All lost in the thaw,’ was the reply. ‘The beck flooded, and the drift sucked the water in till they were suffocated, poor things!’

IV. IN WILD WEATHER

Under its canopy of leafless sycamores the sheep-farm stands high above the next most remote dwelling in the dale. It is a pleasant place to dwell in during summer: the great fells clothed with green, spreading beds of bracken rise close around. A great rib of rock and scree almost cuts off the tenement, so that it commands only a narrow view of the long, almost level valley. But, though so close confining it, the mountain protects neither the buildings nor the farm land immediately adjoining from the fury of winter storms. When the air becomes filled with sleet, the fields and rough mountain roads stand mid-leg-deep with half-liquid snow. A hundred feet above, the clouds fly in dense ragged beards; their damp breath penetrates nigh even to the cosy kitchen fire. The scene is cheerless: gray sky and grayer dale, relieved only with white where in the shelter of the rocks a small snowdrift resists the general thaw, or where in foamy spouting cataracts the flooded becks are gushing. Dimly seen through the sheets of snow and rain, the sheep are cowering in the dips of the intakes, and among them the shepherd is moving.

As he returns to the steading for another load of hay—it were cruelty indeed to expose even the hardiest horse to the terrible ‘clash’ prevailing—I walk out to intercept him.

‘Can I help you?’ I ask.

For a moment he surveys my outfit of mackintosh, leggings, and multifarious wraps; apparently I pass muster, for he says quite kindly:

‘Well, if you like; but it _does_ blow something cruel outside of the fold. You had better go back to the kitchen.’

This put me on my mettle, and I declined to retire. Without another word, the shepherd slung a rope round a big bundle of hay, and helped me with it on my shoulders.

‘Can you manage it?’ he asked.

It was barely possible, but I would not admit it, especially as he, a spare, bent figure of a man little more than half my size, was already shouldering a bundle of about double the weight. My load seemed to spread over my neck and head, driving my chin perforce on to my chest, and causing me to breathe with increasing difficulty.

‘Now follow me,’ said Ralph, as he staggered through the wide doorway. Clear of the buildings the storm was raging more wildly. A heavy gust, almost solid with sleet, struck us, and at its onslaught I reeled against a convenient wall. When my eyes, dashed with water, took service again, I saw Ralph stepping ahead over the sloppy fold. The mountain of hay he was almost buried in proved a good point to guide by, though the start he had obtained while the gust held me prisoner gradually increased till it became difficult to see him through the films of falling rain. The fold-gate reached—Ralph had propped it ajar—a bleating throng encompassed me.

‘Where shall I drop it?’ I called, my attention being for a moment diverted from my companion, and from a long way in advance his voice replied:

‘Come on! it is for the ewes by the beckside.’

To reach this point we had to face a short ascent and cross a tiny exposed level. This was the very vortex of the hurricane. No sooner had I stepped on to it than the powerful gusts hustled me round and round, dragged my load from my shoulders, and threw it yards away, depositing me meanwhile in a deep basin of snow-broth. The great dashing curtains of snow and rain and this mishap completely wet me through. It therefore seemed of little avail to abandon the job, so I looked round for Ralph. He was delivering his forage to a crowd of pushing sheep two hundred yards away. I essayed unaided to lift the bundle in my charge, but not until the third attempt did it consent to balance on my shoulders. I now made a quick rush in Ralph’s direction. My feet were far from as sure as Ralph the shepherd’s on such slippery ground. The storm tumbled and tossed me about; my unwieldy bundle, caught by the wind, whirled me bodily away, spun me round, then whisked me off my feet entirely. In ten minutes, and after three attempts, I got nearly three-quarters of my journey over, but so storm-tossed that I had to signal the waiting shepherd to come to my aid. He carried the bundle the rest of the way.

For a moment the wild screeching of the gale among the crags above ceased. The sheep crowded round us, intent on getting their share of the forage. Poor miserable creatures they looked, for in winter these valley lands are at best unhealthy. The little corner Ralph had selected for a feeding-place was somewhat sheltered from the sweep of the storm, but the flock had trodden the ground into a perfect quagmire, from which they were now picking stray wisps of muddied hay.

‘Well,’ said Ralph, ‘what do you think of them?’

I had to say that the sheep did not seem very first-class, to which the shepherd replied that there was hardly a flock in the dale in better condition. Fell sheep are brought down from the highest ground in November, and many are sent on to the marshlands near the sea for winterage. As this means certain expense, however, the farmer must in these hard days keep as many sheep at home as he possibly can. Should a protracted season of frost and snow ensue, the slender resources of hay and roots are soon exhausted, and then there is much suffering for the flock. Ralph seemed to feel the misery of his flock as much as any of its individual members.

‘But,’ said the shepherd, ‘our sheep aren’t as bad as they used to be in my grandfather’s time. He says that frequently nearly one-half of the lambs never went to heaf again after winter. Footrot and lungworm used to kill them by scores. Now let us walk round the intake, and see how the others are faring. I fed them up at the top end before it was light this morning, and I wasn’t sure all the sheep turned up.’

Though the storm bellowed and hurled its forces against us, we struggled round that great enclosure. Even on the most exposed shoulder, in every cranny among the rocks, in every fold in the hill where there was anything like shelter, in every beck-course, there were sheep. Back-turned to the seething gale, silent, mournfully chewing their cud. Said Ralph the shepherd:

‘It makes my heart bleed to see them like this, but, then, what can I do?’

One sheep, after careful numbering, was missing, and after a long search we found it. It had been wandering along the edge of the stream, and had fallen down the steep bank into the water. One leg was broken by the fall; it was one of the most ailing of the flock, so weak that it had drowned in a very small pool.

Our patrol over, I returned to the farm kitchen. How cosy a fire looks to one who has been struggling against chill and damp furies for three or four hours! My return was hailed with a chorus of protests against ever turning out on such a day; but I had seen something of the most unpleasant and fatiguing side of shepherd-life, which I could not fail to remember.

Twenty minutes later Ralph left the kitchen to recommence his duties; but flesh and spirit were alike weak, and I did not then accompany him. Till darkness fell, I watched from the inside of a stout home the day’s mood vary from whirling snow to thundering gale and to clashing curtains of rain; then, as night really began, we drew firewards.

‘Where’s Ralph? Hesn’t he come in yet?’ asked the old farmer from the depths of his chair.

‘He’s just gone round to let his dogs out,’ was the reply. ‘He says there’s some sheep want driving in a bit for the night.’

At this the shepherd himself opened the door. He was dripping wet, but that was what he had been all day, and in his eyes lived tiredness.

‘Will some of you come and give me a hand with the sheep from the top end? I’ll have to have them nearer if they’re to be looked at again to-night.’

Three of us promptly offered our services. Lanterns were brought, and soon we started. Even with our lights not more than ten yards could be seen. Soon I lost touch with the others, and for an hour wandered about the storm-swept fellside. Then in the lulls I began to hear men and dogs and sheep on the move: the others were bringing the flock towards the farm. These men had had an exciting time; snow-fringed ghylls and slippery rock-faces had provided real dangers to avoid.

Home at last! The wearied Ralph, divesting himself of several layers of outer garments, went off to bed. We leisured ones sat by the fireside awhile, yarning of fox and sheep and dog and bird—the sport and work of a mountain farm.

The winter dragged on to its weary close. Many days of tempest came, and were calmly endured. When the weather allowed it, we wandered after sport: sometimes a pack of foxhounds was in the vicinity, or the guns were brought out for a shot at migratory wild-fowl. February ended in genial weather, and for a few days of March it continued. After this came an ominous gradual change in the weather.

For a fortnight or so the bitter east winds raged among the mountains and hissed into the dalehead through the narrow passes. But this was seasonable. In a few more days these fierce blasts would exhaust themselves, and more genial weather follow. But, instead of clearing away, the clouds, our constant companions during the long drear winter, crept further down the rugged braes, and occasional snowflakes hovered in the air. In those scant moments when the gale whirled the beleaguering gray masses aside and showed the uplands, we could see that snow-squalls had been frequent. The glasses at the farm portended unsettled weather, and in the Beck Hause flocks lambs were beginning to come. For three days every hand, in varying degrees of efficiency, had been working restlessly, almost frantically, tending the sheep and the newly-arrived lambs. It was impossible to provide shelter for the two thousand sheep on the holding, so the ewes likely to lamb within the next three days were driven into the most sheltered intake—a bleak place at best in this ‘snerping’ wind.

At mid-day the white fury whirled down; the strong sunshine of spring was cut off by the advancing storm, and we were groping in semi-darkness. So dense were the snow-wreaths that no further than ten yards could be seen at any time, and long ere sunset the ancient horn lanterns were bring used by the shepherds. When struck by a storm, sheep generally get to the cover of the nearest wall or bed of boulders, and to this trait we owed much during the hours of stress which now followed.

A succession of patrols went round the intakes, in which ewes and lambs were huddling in scanty shelter. The storm grew wilder; the snow lay inches deep. I had charge of a small hovel among the farm buildings, where a score of ewes which had already lambed had been driven. So intensely nervous is the average sheep that a light had to be kept burning in the shed, and I had to accustom them to my presence. If my candles had blown out, I was assured that every sheep, in her anxiety, would have endeavoured to ‘mother’ her lambs close to her, with the result that in the confusion most of them would have been trampled upon. Now and again a panic would begin. The sheep, restlessly moving about, would break into plaintive bleatings; but at a word they would be pacified, and relapse into silent suffering. At about midnight the door was opened, and one of the maid-servants relieved me. No one would go to bed till the storm had spent its violence. The gale outside was fearful, and I was badly thrown about in my attempt to cross the few yards to the kitchen door. The other females of the house were busy trying to persuade two little lambs which were lying on the hearthrug to drink some cow’s milk. These poor things were orphans of an hour, for their mother had died from exposure soon after giving them birth. The shepherd had picked the unfortunate little mites up, covered them with his greatcoat, and carried them gently to the warmth and care of the kitchen. I asked casually where the other shepherd was. No one had seen him since he set out, four hours ago, to look over the flock outside the lambing intake. ‘Maybe he had come across some ewes lambing which hadn’t been expected yet.’ After swallowing some supper—I was hungry, else the heat and stench of the hovel I had just left would have destroyed my appetite—I went into the hall to glance at the glass.

The storm still continued, and I prepared to go with Jack the shepherd through the lambing intake. Lanterns and dry coats were ready for us—you live in leggings on a farm some thirteen hundred feet above sea-level in winter—and soon we were outside. The blizzard beat into our faces as we groped across the fold to the gateway. Immediately we passed this, Jack pulled my sleeve, indicating that we should go right ahead. It was no use speaking, for the loudest human voice would have been lost in the storm-clamour. The lambing intake was about one-third of a mile long, on the ‘lown’d,’ or leeward, side of the valley, and the sheep were on the farther side.

We had almost got across the space in the face of the howling tempest, when Jack, taking advantage of a momentary cessation of the gale, shouted: ‘We’d better go up this ghyll—there’s likely one or two in it.’ Accordingly, we plunged into a drift-bounded hollow, and, peering to right and left as far as the feeble rays of our lantern gave light, gradually ascended it. But not a fleece could we discover; some of the snow-banks, indeed, were deep enough to have overwhelmed a flock. At last the shepherd turned his glimmer of light on to a rounded hummock in the spreading white. Something told his practised eye that a sheep was lying here under the lee of a big boulder (the rounded hummock), and in a few seconds we disentombed it. The snow was only a few inches thick, but the ewe’s position was one of great danger. We quietly drove it to the shelter of the wall.

We had walked down some way before we came upon other sheep, and here was one which had just lambed. The poor little creatures were lying on the freezing snow-crust, while their mother made frantic efforts in her weak condition to lick them dry. If a lamb is exposed to severe cold for even a short time at this stage of existence, it never recovers. The shepherd forced the lambs to swallow a little milk, and in a while they were standing upright and out of immediate danger. As we followed down the wall the sheep seemed to know us, and watched us come and go without terror. Perhaps they found some company on that wild night in the periodic lantern visits. Towards three a.m., wet through with the sleet and mist, with hands almost frozen, we returned to the farmstead, to be told that the other shepherd had not yet come in, and that some harm might have befallen him. Though the wind was shrieking over the pitch-dark dale, and the cold was, seemingly, more intense; though the snow-blizzard had gradually developed into an awful sleet, and the snow-wreaths were piled high—it was no time to draw back, to wait for help and daylight. The shepherd’s favourite dog was brought out, and three of us tramped sorely and wearily back into the darkness. For awhile we beat the boundaries of the intake closely, visiting every corner where a sheep might have been lying, without avail. Then, as we passed a narrow gully, the old dog gave a sign for which we had been looking. In a few minutes we had located the portion of drift in which Ralph was lying, and ere long we saw a portion of cloth in the excavation we made. A couple of minutes later we were carrying the senseless body towards the farm.

When he recovered consciousness, the shepherd stated that he had looked over the sheep in the further intake, and was returning, when his footing on the snow gave way and he was hurled some little distance down. At the end of his fall his head struck against something hard, and he immediately lost consciousness. The next thing he remembered was being ‘brought round’ in the farm kitchen. Of course, it was Providential that we commenced the search so opportunely, but our best efforts would have been in vain had not the good old dog given us the right direction in which to dig.

The night dragged on wearily. Long ere daybreak we were all tired out, but our task was too important to be allowed to lapse. A few more lambs were born, some to die from their exposure, whilst others were saved. With the first glimpse of coming day the sleet gave way to cold, pelting nun. In a very short time the white garb of the dale had turned a sloppy discolour, and we were splashing about through knee-deep slush. By ten a.m. the thaw had apparently well set, and the mountain torrents began to make their voices heard through the quieting gale. We had some anxious moments searching the ghylls down which floods were beginning to surge; count and patrol as we would, a score sheep could not be accounted for, and it was very possible that they were in some of the numerous gullies. The way in which the rising streams soaked and lapped over the drifts which here and there had formed in their courses was sufficiently suggestive of the fate of any ewe therein entombed. The dogs—the shepherd’s only resource—were quickly brought out, and before long spades were being wielded in one or two of the ghylls. At one point the dogs stopped on the level, wet snowfields. ‘Bruce Ghyll!’ muttered one of the shepherds. A week previously we had scrambled up this narrow ravine, but now there was no sign of it. However, we began to dig, and in a while had uncovered three sheep—two alive, and one smothered in the sodden drift. The dogs gave no further attention to the snow, so we moved on, and in a few minutes were standing by the edge of a tiny fold in the steep hillside. Here was a small basin, some two score yards in width, and maybe a yard and a half deep, but level with drifted snow. The three dogs ran over the surface, giving deep barks as they came opposite where a sheep was buried and scratched the surface. In the drift were our remaining 'missing’—all safe, and not far beneath the surface. We had hardly got them released before the wind shouted an angry warning from the mountains, followed by a tremendous snow-squall, during the passage of which it was difficult to stand upright. When this had spent itself, and was being followed by a downpour of rain, we got back to the farmhouse. The damage done by the storm so far was twenty-nine lambs and seven ewes dead. Had our lambing season been more advanced, Beck Hause, from its great altitude and bleak aspect, would have suffered terribly.

‘FELL-WALKING’ RECORDS

This chapter may be described as a collection of the ‘fell-walking’ records of Lakeland, with as much comparison in fact and figure as may interest the general reader. They are not competitive events in accordance with the common use of the word ‘record’; but primarily, at all events, were carried out that men might look back in afteryears to the time when they were strong and active, and could climb mountain after mountain.

As a comparison of the walking and climbing powers of the men to be mentioned, no account can be absolutely accurate. No two parties take precisely the same routes in their walks, each avoiding some particular variety of fell-land—scree, boulder, crag, or bog—and the value of these avoidances varies in the estimates of other men. The admixture of road and fell over which these walks have been taken is unfavourable to exactitude, for a point-to-point record, involving a considerable stretch of level, may not really be so gigantic a task as a twenty-four hours’ walk over fells exclusively. Another element which cannot be resolved into figures is the weather, which, as in all outdoor events, is an important factor towards success. An unexpected snow-squall, a freezing gale, or a dense mist, may completely stop a walk; whereas on bright, cool days, with dry surfaces underfoot, great distances are compassed with ease.

In this comparison a few rules with regard to figures have been more or less followed, but circumstances often make any systematic treatment useless. While miles walked on the road may be classed as units, the fatigue of each mile over mountain-land varies considerably. According to one eminent authority, the average fell mile is equal to two by road. When screes or boulders are negotiated, each mile will be more difficult; while when great ascents are climbed, the unit may equal as many as four ordinary miles. The energy required in crossing grassy moors, on the other hand, may not be more than equal to road work, but is best assessed as ranging from one and one-eighth to one and a half, according to slope and climatic conditions. Boggy stretches, however, make sport with figures—after a wet period their passing is often as exhausting as the hardest ascents; in dry times they are quite easily dealt with. The in-and-out nature of the figures quoted below must be attributed to such accidentals as these. When record making, some men take all favourable slopes at a run, and this mode of progression is very wearying, though the rapid waste of power may not be noticed at the time. Others, to save too severe concussion of foot and leg muscles, walk down such places, when the fatigue mileage must be only increased by one-half to compensate.

In general, ‘fell walks’ resolve themselves into two classes, the first including attempts to pass a specified number of points in the shortest possible time; the second, records in which the time only is approximately fixed. It must also be remembered that these long walks only attract a few men in a generation, and whole decades have passed without anything noteworthy being done. During the past few seasons more than usual attention has been given to the sport, and it is to be hoped that still greater interest will be aroused.

A fell walk calls for more than speed and strength; vigilance of eye and foot must combine to cope with the ever-changing level. There must be a certain ‘hold-back’ of power to change, as a flash, stride into leap, walk into run. The ability to journey accurately through damp mist; the strength and endurance to cope with the sterner side of the weather; the precise knowledge of locality; the instant recognition of the faintest landmark or sign of Nature, and its application to rectify any error—without these a long fell walk cannot be carried out.

Then, of course, a man must be trained to the task—that is, if he is to do it with the greatest possible ease. Few of the men who have done these enormous walks could be termed ‘trained,’ by any stretch of the imagination. This form of athleticism is different from any other popular sport, and the training requisite is therefore of a different kind. The man must not be too finely drawn, as a good deal of ‘substance’ is required. A fell walker is constantly jolting himself as he copes with the ground, leaping here, balancing himself on a rock pinnacle there, and unless there was a considerable reserve force no man would be equal to the task.

All the fell-walking records have been made over three great mountain groups: Skiddaw, lying to the north of the Greta, including the peaks of Skiddaw (3,054 feet) and Saddleback or Blencathra (2,847 feet). About twelve miles south of this is the Scawfell range, the backbone of the Lake District, lying at the heads of Borrowdale, Langdale, Wastdale, and Eskdale, and comprising three main peaks—Scawfell (3,163 feet), Scawfell Pike (3,208 feet), and Great End (2,984 feet). These are divided by Eskhause from the Bowfell Chain (2,960 feet), and by the Styehead Pass from Great Gable (2,949 feet) and its kindred giants. This district contains the roughest and highest ground in England; in fact, its rocky slopes afford the crag-climbing which has given the Lake District a name for such work. Helvellyn is the remaining mountain mass, divided from the Scawfell group by a long moor, some 1,800 feet in average altitude, and nine miles in breadth, and from the Skiddaw group by the vale of the Glenderamakin. It divides the Thirlmere and Legburthwaite valleys from Patterdale and Grasmere, its chief peaks being Helvellyn (3,118 feet), and Fairfield (2,863 feet) across the Grisedale Tarn depression. The rest of the country is furrowed into deep, narrow valleys.

The pioneer in ‘record walking’ was the Rev. T. M. Elliott, of Cambridge, who in the early sixties made the round of the fells surrounding Wastdalehead. After scaling Scawfell, he passed over Scawfell Pike and Great End into the Styehead Pass. From here he climbed the Great Gable, whence, keeping on the highest ground, he walked, by way of Kirkfell, the Pillar Mountain, and the Steeple, to Red Pike and Stirrup Crag, finishing at Wastdalehead. His time was eight and a half hours, during which 6,500 feet were ascended, and a round of some fifteen miles covered, requiring energy sufficient for thirty-eight level miles. Practically all the walking was done on ground more elevated than 1,500 feet. Mr. Elliott, who did much Alpine climbing, met his death by falling from a glacier, July, 1869.

In the spring of 1870 a notable walk was performed by Mr. Thomas Watson, of Darlington, and Wilson, the Lodore guide. For the height ascended, the distance covered, and the rapidity with which it was executed, this excursion ranks high. The pair left Keswick just before midnight, and covered the nine miles to Seathwaite by 2 a.m., thence making for Scawfell Pike, where they were greeted by a most unwelcome snow-squall. They next wended their way through Langdalehead, and across the Stake Pass to Wythburn and Helvellyn, where, the mist being very dense, they more than once lost their way. During a most unfavourable evening they ascended Saddleback and Skiddaw, the strong wind over the forest compelling them to progress over the more exposed portions on hands and knees. The walk was concluded at 7.45 p.m., and in figures works out to—Total elevation, 10,507 feet; time, 20¾ hours; distance in miles, 48; equivalent on the level, 74 miles.

Again for several years no fresh record was made, till a well-known member of the Alpine Club tried to climb Bowfell, Scawfell Pike, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw in one day. Accompanied by old Mackereth, the Langdale guide, he barely succeeded. His general course has been adopted as the ‘four fells record’ of later climbers. The total distance was forty-one miles, of which sixteen and a half were over the fells. In fatigue the route was equivalent to fifty-seven miles level. The total of elevation reached 9,000 feet.

The first successful attempt to cut this was by the brothers Tucker, in June, 1878. They left Elterwater at 4.20 a.m., and reached the summit of Bowfell in the remarkable time of one hour forty minutes. The day now developed extreme heat, the thermometer reaching 78° in the shade. Passing over the rough crags to Eskhause, they scaled Scawfell Pike by 8 a.m., and then began the long descent into Borrowdale and to Keswick. At two o’clock the four were standing on the top of Skiddaw—a very fast performance, averaging four and a half miles per hour on the road, and just over two on the fell. This speed was too good to last, and Helvellyn, some fifteen miles away over fairly even ground, took six hours to reach, but this period included refreshments. Getting their second strength, the long descent to Grasmere was soon reached, whence a couple of miles over Red Bank would have finished the route. But, as the brothers elected to walk home by way of Rydal and Ambleside, the record route received an addition of ten miles, Elterwater not being reached till 11.58 p.m. The total time was nineteen hours thirty-eight minutes, and the pace over the whole approached three miles per hour. The four brothers—one of whom is now Bishop of Uganda, and another a well-known landscape artist—were fine lusty men, hardened to the fell, and renowned walkers.

The above figures represented the record until August, 1895, when Messrs. Dawson, Poole, and Palmer made an attempt At 1 a.m. on a wet morning Mr. J. J. Astley started the party from Elterwater Common. The clouds were soon climbed into, and then commenced the grope upwards. Bowfell caërn was reached by 3.20 a.m., fully forty-five minutes behind the record, after which the trio made for Eskhause. At no period was a greater distance than a hundred yards clear, and consequently the path was soon lost. The rugged beauty of the crags in Ewer Gap, with the dark brooding Angle Tarn beneath, may be appreciated in broad daylight; but when torrents of rain and the coldness of the hour before dawn are added, the scene becomes dreadful rather than sublime. At one stage the party came to a very steep declivity, and were preparing to descend, when a whirl of wind sent the mist clear from below. There, at the foot of a precipice, on the brink of which the three stood, was Angle Tarn; an advance of a few more yards would have put them in a precarious position. With Eskhause lighter banks of mist were reached, and the less pronounced darkness pointed to sunrise. Palmer, who had injured his knee in crossing one of the crag-beds, now began to move with difficulty, and within five minutes of Scawfell Pike gave up the attempt This peak was reached by 5.5 a.m., and forty-five minutes later the party divided on Eskhause, Dawson and Poole continuing through Borrowdale to Skiddaw. In the valley the sun came out splendidly, but the tops did not clear all day. Skiddaw was climbed by 11.15 a.m., thirty-five minutes in arrears. Being behind at this stage of the walk did not promise much success, but it was hoped that time would be gained towards Helvellyn, and so it proved. This last point was made at 4 p.m., with twenty minutes in hand, the descent, being varied toward Dunmail Raise, enabling the walkers to reach the Traveller’s Rest, near Grasmere, at 5.53. Palmer, who had crossed from Elterwater, here met the pair, and, despite his condition, paced his comrades to the end. Ambleside was passed at 7.22, and the walk came to a finish, amid general enthusiasm, at 8.17¾ p.m., the record thus being improved by twenty and a quarter minutes. It was really a technical victory, but, considering the calibre of the climbers, a wonderful one. The 1895 party did not know much of the ground, Palmer being the only one who knew anything of the route between Scawfell and Helvellyn, and his early retirement probably hindered the result.

A great climber, of whom I shall have much to say later, Mr. R. W. Broadrick, next attacked the record. He was far superior to any of his predecessors, and was able to pick a good day for the walk. On April 27, 1900, he started from Ambleside at 4.20 a.m., reaching Bowfell two hours thirty-nine minutes later. Scawfell Pike was passed at 7.55, and Skiddaw at 12.24. At the foot of this mountain Mr. Broadrick left his purse by a stream where he had a slight meal, and lost forty-five minutes in going back for it. Helvellyn was ascended before five o’clock, and the whole journey was made in fifteen hours twenty-six minutes.

It is not surprising to find that the most appreciated record is the twenty-four hours, and several attempts on it may be instanced. Only such as can be verified are chronicled; many feats passed down in gossip must be ignored. Routes are more varied in these climbs than in the ‘points’ records, some climbers, owing to bad weather at the time of their attempt, skirting mountains which others have ascended, or taking them at different points.

The first long walk of which cognizance can be taken was carried out in the seventies by Mr. Charles Pilkington, President of the Alpine Club, and his cousins, who started from Lodore at 11 p.m. They climbed Great Gable, but, dense mist descending, the walk was abandoned for half an hour. Later the morning promised something better, so they climbed by Sprinkling Tarn to Eskhause, and over Scawfell Pike and Great End. Returning from this détour, Mat Barnes, the guide, not relishing the heavy clouds on Hanging Knott, led down to Angle Tarn, where a steep path leads direct to Bowfell Top. The difficult return negotiated, the party made for Dunmail Raise, and struggled along a rough path over the shoulder of Seat Sandal to Fairfield, a peak across Tongue Ghyll. Mr. Pilkington then dropped for Grisedale Tarn down a series of screes, the longest in the Lake District. The mist thinning to some extent, Helvellyn was next climbed, then Saddleback and Skiddaw, Lodore bring reached by 11.25, the whole tour occupying twenty-four hours and twenty-five minutes, with a very punishing finish, as the party wished to get in within the twenty-four hours. Mr. Pilkington’s party was exceptionally unfortunate in having so much mist to contend with during the day, as otherwise they would have easily finished in the specified time. The total of height ascended was 13,792 feet, and the distance runs to sixty miles, with a fatigue equivalent of eighty miles level.

Next to this performance came a famous walk. On June 17, 1876, Mr. Jenkinson—who afterwards compiled a splendid guide-book to the Lakes—did a remarkable walk. He was a man of middle height, sturdily built, and a grand walker. His action on the level was easy, while his dexterity among screes and boulders was something to marvel at. Mr. Jenkinson left Keswick at twelve midnight—a lovely night with bright starlight—and soon after 3 a.m. was standing at Styehead Tarn, with Great Gable looming over him. To the top of this (from the tarn a climb of 1,519 feet) and back again occupied little over an hour, after which he took the path for Eskhause and Scawfell Pike. Before 7.30 he was on the highest ground in England. The mist, which had for awhile threatened to descend, became dense, and for three hours the famous walker wandered round Eskhause, endeavouring to reach Bowfell by way of Hanging Knott. Just before 11 a.m. he reached the summit, after which the steep descent into Langdale Fellhead prepared him for a tramp to Wythburn. After about an hour’s stay at this village he climbed Helvellyn, and, by way of the Vale of St. John, Saddleback. From here he crossed Skiddaw Forest, but could hardly keep up for sleepiness. At a gamekeeper’s house he rested awhile, and, naturally, resumed his walk sleepier than ever. The summit of Skiddaw Mr. Jenkinson never had more than a hazy idea of scaling—he often joked that he saw it as in a dream—but two hours later he walked into Keswick. The total climb, twenty-five hours in duration, was fifty-three miles in length; the total footage scaled, 12,249 feet; and the fatigue equal to eighty-two miles level.

Mr. Jenkinson’s walk created quite a stir, and ere long another champion arose in Leonard Pilkington, who had tramped from Liverpool to Windermere, a distance of eighty-four miles, in twenty-one hours, and also proved his quality on the fells. With Bennett, the Dungeon Ghyll guide, he passed over Bowfell, Scawfell Pike, Great Gable, Skiddaw, Saddleback, Helvellyn, and Fairfield in twenty-one hours thirty-four minutes, between 2 a.m. and 11 p.m. Mr. Pilkington says of this walk: ‘We were both perfectly fresh at the finish, and had we come straight through, instead of having supper at Grasmere, we should have saved at least an hour—we could easily have done the journey in twenty hours; but having finished the mountains, and with so much in hand, we did not think of it.’ This tour necessitated climbing some 12,900 feet, and walking a distance of sixty miles, approximating in fatigue to eighty miles on the level.

October is not an ideal month for a scamper across the fells; yet at this time of year Messrs. Robinson and Gibbs, the Lorton walkers, essayed to surmount the whole of the giants of Cumberland in twenty-four hours. On the stroke of midnight, Thursday, October 27, 1893, these gentlemen started from Keswick. A strong wind blew from the north-east, and the sky was too cloudy for more than mere gleams of moonlight as they walked up Borrowdale. By 2.10 a.m. Seathwaite was reached, the wakeful sheepdogs making music as the climbers passed towards Great Gable. The dull roar of Taylor Ghyll Fall, and the rattle of the fierce wind on the higher levels, alone disturbed the hush of night. Snow-laden clouds swirled past them as they wound up the gully between the Gables, the air became bitter, a white mantle three inches thick covered the ground, and above a dense mist blotted out completely the summit. At 3.55 the top of the Grand Old Monarch was reached, and the Styehead Pass descended to. From the top a course was struck across the rough north-western face of the Scawfell Range, under Skew Ghyll, over a shoulder of Lingmell, and up to Lord’s Rake, where in the closing days of 1893 Professor Milnes Marshall fell to his death.

In this cleft the scene was wild in the extreme. Snow lay thick, and outside its shelter the gale boomed and moaned among the great crags above. The scene was bleak and wintry; the faces of the rock which were too abrupt for the snow to lie on were crusted with ice. From the top of the first reach of the Lord’s Rake Messrs. Robinson and Gibbs struck off along the grassy ledge which gives easy access to Deep Ghyll. Here a sudden gust of wind loosened a stone high on the crags above, and they cowered under a rock as, with a crash and a bound through the air, it whizzed past into the dark recess immediately below.

The snow now became thicker, having been drifted into this wild ghyll by the wind, and on the steep bits near the top it was frozen sufficiently for them to kick their toes into the almost perpendicular slope, and go up it ladder fashion, holding on as best they could to insure safety. As the pair emerged on to the plateau on the top of Scawfell at 6.10 a.m. the mists began to roll away, and the first streaks of dawn were viable in the east. Across the Mickledore, a fearful, rock-split chasm, lay Scawfell Pike, to reach which involved a descent to Broad Stand and a scramble along the ice-coated ledges. Mr. Robinson says of this portion of their experience: ‘We were not prepared to find the climb in a more dangerous state than it was last year in midwinter, but such it was; and the alpenstocks we had provided ourselves with were without the usual spike in the end with which to roughen the ice to make a foothold. I took off the rucksack which held our lunch, and, with an arm through one strap while my friend held on to the other, kicked off the ice from ledge to ledge.’ Truly a risky mode of progression, when a single slip would have had irretrievable consequences.

The top of the Pikes was reached at 7.10 a.m., and thirty-five minutes later the couple were on Great End. On the fells on every side the gale was harrying the powdery snow. The tracks over the passes were obliterated; a landmark here and there stood above the shifting plains of white. Weird, dangerous, and black the crags stood over their setting of whitened scree—a prospect which cannot be described.

By this time the climbers must have been in a comfortless state. Their clothes, damped by perspiration and half-molten particles of snow, would long since be frozen to their backs. What that means only those who have experienced it can know. Bowfell, with one foot in Westmorland and the other in Cumberland, was next in the line, and here the ground, covered with shale and masked with snow, became extremely dangerous. The summit was found at 8.30 a.m., after which, skirting the Langdale side of Hanging Knott, Rossett Ghyll was descended to, and the tramp over miles of bog to Wythburn begun. This valley was reached by 12 a.m., and an hour and twenty minutes later the ascent of mighty Helvellyn was commenced.

Thirlspot at 4 p.m. was the next point in the tour. After passing through the Vale of St. John, a halt was made for tea at Setmabanning, as the moon was not yet up and it had begun to rain. But at 6 p.m. the plucky climbers started for Blencathra. The night became intensely dark, the clouds denser, and the wind more and more furious. Messrs. Robinson and Gibbs chose the narrow ridge approach by Threlkeld to the mountain, as this afforded some shelter at first, but on reaching the open the violence of the storm was fearful; only in the short lulls was progress possible. Yet by 8.30 p.m. the summit was reached, and the walkers plunged across the moors for Skiddaw.

After getting one-third of the way up this their last peak, they found that, though strength was still sufficient, time was not left to finish. the ascent and reach Keswick ere another day. Accordingly, at 9.50 p.m. the finest pair of climbers the Lake District has ever seen turned back on the Glendaterra, reaching Keswick at 11.25 p.m. in extremely strong condition, considering the day’s exertion.

Of the closing stage of the walk Mr. G. B. Gibbs says: ‘It seems to me possible that we had quite sufficient time on leaving Threlkeld at 6 p.m.’ to finish the attempt, ‘but the darkness and very high wind, which caused us to take two and a half hours over the ascent of Blencathra, instead of one and a half hours (as we did four days later), made a loss of a very valuable hour. Further, the force of the wind as we rose from Skiddaw Forest was so great as to compel us to believe that progression would be on hands and knees when we got to the top, and produced a conviction that under these conditions we could not go the whole round within the day of twenty-four hours.’

Mr. Robinson is best described as a typical Cumberland man, endowed with a muscular system inherited from generations who revelled in outdoor life. As Dr. J. Norman Collie says: ‘Robinson is the great authority on the hills of the Lake District. There is not a rock on a mountainside that he does not know. In sunshine or mist, in daytime or at midnight, he will guide one safely over passes or down precipitous mountainsides. Every tree and every stone is a landmark to him.’

The figures to represent this remarkable walk are: Distance, 56 miles in all—16 on the road and 40 on the fell—equalling in fatigue 86 miles of dead level. The total of height in feet reached was 13,840, the altitude of a considerable alp. The time was 23 hours 25 minutes, and the pace, taking the day’s average, would be 4½ miles per hour on the level, with more than 1⅞ on the fell.

From 1893 to June of 1898 there was no serious attempt to claim the twenty-four hours’ record, but during the month stated four Carlisle men—Messrs. Westmorland, Johnson, Strong, and Ernest Beaty—made a determined effort to put it to their credit. Their design was carried out under very favourable conditions. The men were in perfect training, had had a preliminary spin, and were rested for a start. This was from Seathwaite, right at the foot of the mountains— not, as in previous records, from points more or less distant—on a clear morning, which merged into a bright and cool day. The party started at 5.27 a.m. in broad daylight, and immediately made for Great Gable, which was ascended in one hour eighteen minutes. The descent down the scree to Styehead Tarn was accomplished in eleven minutes, and a cast was made for Great End, reached in forty-three minutes.

This party took the Scawfell group by ascending its easier shoulder, not facing, as did Mr. Robinson, the dangerous scramble on the cliff-face by way of Skew Ghyll and Lord’s Rake. Scawfell Pike was climbed at 8.4 a.m., and Mickledore crossed for Scawfell. The return by Broad Stand took thirty-six minutes—a different matter from Mr. Robinson’s hazardous crossing—Eskhause being rereached at 9.31. Bowfell now loomed over Hanging Knott and Ewer Gap, and was ascended at 10.4, after which Wythburn was made for by way of Rossett Ghyllhead. At the Nagshead the party divided, two making for Threlkeld and home, the other pair for Helvellyn and beyond. The footgear of these two, it may be remarked—gymnasium slippers—was quite inadequate to the strains of fell-walking.

The remaining men now ascended Helvellyn, which took sixty-eight minutes, and walked along the descending tops to Threlkeld. Saddleback’s ascent (from Threlkeld) occupied eighty-two minutes, and the walk across Skiddaw Forest to Skiddaw one and a half hours. What a different finish was this from the October night when Messrs. Robinson and Gibbs attempted to force their way through a howling tempest!