Chapter VI: Front Matter (6)

In ten minutes we are by the water’s edge. The gorgeous lights in the western sky have dulled; rose succeeds the fiery red, silver turns to yellow and to gray-blue. The air resounds to the wingings of tiny insects, yet there is a great peace underneath it all. Broken—yes, broken by the quavering wail of the plover pacing the grassy marge near its nest; by an occasional crash, as a heavy trout leaps high and falls back from its keen pursuit. But stay a moment yet, ere the rod is drawn out, to watch the ephemeræ dancing just above the surface of the water. They wheel in scores, they soar by hundreds; yet every movement seems to bring death close, for one here and one there, in a clumsy swerve, touches the water: its frail wings are damped so that it cannot rise again to the airy quadrille of its companions. But they mark not its absence. The dangerous game is not checked. The fallen insect makes one or two attempts to raise itself; in wild, erratic circles it spins round and round, is floated by the faint breeze of eventide toward the shore at our feet. Yard after yard it gradually comes nearer; then suddenly we see the triangular back-fin of a trout in close attendance. A flash—the fin has disappeared; another, and the dark body of a trout leaps half out the water, and as it supplely curves over the poor mayfly is forced into a maw already distended with like unfortunates.

Scores of fish are on the alert to-night—‘the water is fair wick wi’ ‘em,’ as our companion says—waiting for the downfall of the aerial rejoicers just out of their reach, though here and there an impatient one makes a huge leap for a bonne-bouche.

In a trice the rods are out and ready; every moment is of value, for tarn trout are capricious in their feeding periods, and may suddenly and absolutely cease to rise to their most cherished atoms. J—— takes left and I take right shore and begin. I am hampered at first by a series of tiny bogs, but in a few yards reach a gorse-covered promontory. This proves a capital station for a cast; my line swings far and true to where I last saw a struggling mayfly sucked down. My fly—why, a moment ago I picked up and impaled a mayfly, far less difficult to manage than the armour-plated bracken-clock. In less than five minutes my first trout was ashore, a monster over two pounds in weight. But this is a mere of great trout. I remember some six years ago the bed, which had been drained for some time, being reflooded, and a large number of yearling trout being turned in. For some seasons no angling was done. The stock grew great in size, though doubtless, seeing there are no redds, not even a streamlet passable for minnows, available, there was no increase in numbers. The feed is abundant, weeds and other cover plentiful, and, save for the cursory (and cursed) visits of a swan from a mill-dam some miles away, the enemies to fish-life are few.

While these observations are being passed, my rod is being plied assiduously. My fly, planted though it often is in tempting positions over lurking trout, is again and again drawn out untaken. A sharp eye has my quest. See! the wings of the fly, though as deftly placed on the water as my craft finds possible, are bedraggled with constant immersion, and is therefore considered unpalatable by the fish. It doesn’t take a moment to change it, and with the next cast—aimed at that monster in the lee of that islet, behind whose descending shoulders the parted waters have just gurgled together—comes success. The faint feel of a bite travels to my hand, and I strike. There is a sudden slack of the line; then, as the rod-point is raised to continue the strain, a dead pull; then to right the trout makes a sudden rush. I scarcely have followed it than forward my fish dives and downward, and to the resistance is added the entanglement of a bunch of water-weeds. Carefully I get my trout away from this. There is another run forward—a more disturbing one this time indeed—followed by a cl’ck backward and a salmon-like leap a yard out of the water. I am taken aback at the manœuvre, and _Salmo levenensis_ has obtained some valuable yards of liberty, each adding to its chances of breaking away; and, sure enough, with what must have been a double back-turn by the fish, my line is hitched round a hidden snag, and, as my trout and I put on pressure from our opposite ends, parts.

What size did it look like as that leap was made? Nay, trouble me not. The rascal has got a hook and a piece of gut, undeniably my property, and is still at large, if a trifle discommoded. Well, well! J—— had a turn with a cunning trout from this point three evenings ago, and was defeated more ignominiously even than I; so _he_ can’t crow over me. But that fish knows its way about in a fashion and practises manœuvres I for one don’t like.

My next trout, obtained after hooking a submerged tree and tangling in a clump of water-lilies, fights gamely and gives me some breathless moments. When it comes to the landing-net, I am surprised at its smallness, considering its splendid defence—four ounces or less. Well, back it goes! It deserves a new lease of freedom.

Now the gorging trout retire to the middle of the tarn. It is provoking to watch them rising freely far out of reach. Then the silence deepens; the sharp splashes and gurgles of rising trout gradually stop. My rod must be laid aside, for J—— is signalling across the water.

‘Come on round!’ he calls. ‘I want some baccy.’

If J—— is not fishing, he must be smoking; therefore he is perpetually running short of some adjunct to his passion. We will walk quietly round to where he is.

From the reed-beds the coot murmurs to its mate; now and again we hear soft rumblings as they paddle about. A bevy of wild-duck squabble in undertones at another point. J—— has wandered up the further shore meanwhile. A plover whirls up from his feet, ‘squealing like a stuck pig.’ He growls as we fiercely denounce his carelessness.

The soft cutterings in the reed-beds cease as the wild ‘teeu-wits’ re-echo over the tarn; worse than that, in the half-light we see a small dark body nimbly run along, and without a splash take the water. It is an otter disturbed from his nightly gleaning of crayfish. Now we come to the head of the tarn. A wide series of bogs and mud-holes, with a straggly path over the few sound spits of grass, lie in front of us. We can see the distant hills limned against the softly starlit sky. Bay and shore and bush on either side the faint blue water are in fair sight; but though the fairies have traced it with tufts of bog-cotton, the narrow track is invisible to us. One or two slight slips, ankle-deep in a slough, and we are halfway across. Here a stretch of water, perhaps eight feet wide and a foot deep, interposes—the channel by which on occasion storm-water drains from the upper bogs. Many a slab of rock has been placed here to expedite the crossing, but in a week each has sunk too deep in the soft ooze to be of use. To find the uppermost of the stones to-night will require nicety of judgment, even though the landmarks before and behind us are easily recognisable.

‘Nothing venture, nothing have.’ A frolicsome youth essayed to cross here in broad daylight not many moons ago. He made two steps safely, then trod on the edge of a stone, which capsized and threw him into the channel. He was fished out covered with mud and slime. However, to-night we encounter no such tragedy.

J—— now calls on us to hurry up. We crash through the prickly gorse to his side.

‘Do you know, you fellows, what I have just seen? A moment ago a big eel—I could see it clearly in the dark—slid down that grass-track and took the water. It must have come down from the other tarn’—a quarter of a mile away.

‘Old Jack Brock tells of meeting an eel sliding one wet night between Skeggleswater and Longsleddale. It was more than half a mile from a stream big enough for it to swim in.’

‘Bedad!’ interposes J——, whose knowledge of natural history is full of strange intervals of ignorance, ‘and do eels swim? I thought they wriggled along the bottom like snakes.’

These episodes of eel-travelling may be a little beyond the truth, but J—— doesn’t believe so, giving as evidence against our sweeping assertions to the contrary some marvellous fish-lore. After that he clutches the tobacco-pouch closely, and in a few minutes a reek of pungent smoke tells us that his passion demands whole-hearted attention.

The trout come on the feed again ere morning. They are specially eager by the shallows, where hundreds of becalmed mayfly corpses await them. J—— avers at dawn that he saw a trout rub itself against a reed on which a mayfly hung with such violence that the insect was dislodged, fell into the water, and was eaten up.

IV. EVENING FISHING

One of our best beats lies between the mill-sluice and the top of Beckmickleden. The long shallow dam is succeeded by pools to the old ford, above which is a rocky stretch, and then more pools, some floored with mud and shingle, others with naked rock. Coppices fringe one side of the stream the whole way, and the lavish falls from their overhanging branches go some way towards attracting large fish to these haunts. At flood-time few anglers are disappointed of heavy panniers, but the chief repute of the water is for evening fishing. Many a time alone or with a companion have we wandered along this portion of the river.

The day had been hot and bright; but at evening a faint breeze stirred the leaves, and around the declining orb the clouds formed into a solid bank. I now saw my friend approaching along the riverside, rod in hand. This lean, alert man was one of the best fly-makers and selectors for miles around, and the river held no secret from him. Where everyone else failed he succeeded. He knew where the best fish lay, and the surest methods to get them. Our greetings were short, for I required little urging to join in an expedition to the upper waters.

In ten minutes we approached a water-hewn ravine, and shortly reached the upper mill-dam. Across the narrow stretch of wimpling dark waters, buried almost by towering elms, was a tiny hamlet, but on our side a cornfield was fronted with a row of bloom-spangled briar-roses. The station selected was near the foot of the pool, a place from which we could throw to the vicinity of the sluice. My companion chose me a couple of winged flies, and told me to cast lightly, as the water was bringing down a good many dead insects from the grasses and trailing bushes in its course. Rod in hand, I stood a moment. The fish were rising a long way out, and it took time to get the flies so far without a splash. I had been conceded the best situation, and my friend had gone some way upstream, where he had located fair sport. It would, perhaps, be five minutes before I got my line into the right place, but when I did success came fairly promptly. I was ruefully considering how long my spine and shoulders would stand the labour, when my fly was sucked down. I struck, but without success. Sir Trout had selected a floating body not six inches from where my counterfeit floated. In the second I had looked round for my companion, my eye had been off the lure, and it speaks well for the flymaker’s skill that I could not distinguish my own among the others floating down. I was raising my rod to try another cast, when the fly was taken in reality—not leapt at with a sudden splash, but quietly sucked down without its taker raising a ripple. I could scarce believe it had gone, till a faint tremor passed up the distended line, and then I struck home. Instantly I knew that a big trout was on tow, for my rod swayed and bent as I put on strain. The fish did its little best to get off, but wrist and eye worked for once in unison, and I speedily was reeling it along the surface. This proved to be a dark-coloured trout, but the next was a beautifully scaled one—my friend pronounced it a _Salmo iridens_, the American rainbow trout, a number of which had some time since been turned into the river.

The head of this dam has deteriorated from an angler’s point of view since a family of swans were quartered on it. In my school-days old Jimmy, our veteran angler, would frequently stand by the mouth of the marsh drain there, and take his six or eight fish regularly every evening for a week. A few minutes on, casting at every rise in the purling dubs, and following down every whirlpool, we come to the old ford, and then the bridge. To-night the occupants of the deep pool are not inclined to feed.

Above the bridge the river descends for about two hundred yards over very rocky bottom, where the stream swirls down without a pool or a yard of slack water. During the last two years a fringe of wych-elm has been rooted out on this ride, and a number of good casting-places opened up, for under cover of frothing waters good fish frequently lie, and there is great exhilaration in fighting a stout trout on whose side is the stream commanding a heavy drag on both line and prize. Immediately we reached this point T—— came up with a fresh fly, a gray drake. This fly is not very popular with local anglers, but my friend explained that, after several seasons of close observation, he had found no fly of equal merit during close, warm evenings on this reach of rushing water. I had been previously referred to another local enthusiast for corroboration. ‘Yes,’ said he, in a quaint, homely dialect impossible to transfer to paper, ‘one night we were coming down by the Low Barn, and Tom told me of the gray drake. I didn’t believe in it, so he put one on for me. The water was dashing down and splashing among the stones, but after a bit I found a fish. And, sure enough, at the drake it came with a rush. Well, I threw again and again at different places, getting in ten minutes three of the finest fish I ever did. Then my luck seemed to change, and though I got plenty of bites I could never land a fish. Tom at last got disgusted with my bad work, and prepared to take the rod over, but on examining the fly we found that the hook had broken off short at the shank. Of course, my failures were thus explained with honour.’ Our own experience at this point was much as above; I will not inflict details.

By this time the evening waxed old, the sky grew dusky, the fiery red in the west faded to rose colour, then died out to a faint blue, which as the hours passed intensified to azure, to indigo, and to ultramarine. In the north a pale sheen lit up the sky almost to the zenith—the night-glow—and here by the riverside, between the partly-light sky and the mirroring waters, there was no difficulty in making out any necessary detail. The black gnat had disappeared about sundown, but my friend was now using large sulphur-coloured moths. As in coming up we had used three different lures, I asked if any further variation would be necessary, but the bustard would hold till daybreak, when the hour for clear water worm arrived. Personally, in fishing this reach I should have held to black gnat and night-owl only.

On one side of the long pool selected for our evening’s angling the land rose in a sheer oak-clad bluff, while on the other the coppices, interspersed with flowery avenues, swelled upward in less abrupt line. The fishing was delightful; over the mellow rattle of the incoming stream now and again came the splash as a trout leapt up at the flies whirling above. Our station was in the shadow, else our movements would have been clear to the fish. My friend told me a true angler’s story concerning this dub. After an evening’s angling, he and another were sitting on a rock smoking and talking in subdued tones. Suddenly there was a scuffle almost beneath their feet, and Jack struck towards the scene of the disturbance with his rod-stock. There was a sudden squeal, and the surprised anglers found that the random blow had almost decapitated a young rabbit. Doubtless, frisking along as is common with its kind, it had not noticed the angler’s proximity. After an hour’s successful work we moved still further upstream, clear of the ravine. Here the river has worn a narrow channel into the upper edge of a rock-stream, forming a deep pool, in which iris and long aquatic grasses flourish. The light here was much better, and I rapidly reduced my experienced companion’s lead in captures. At about one a.m. there was a short pause in the fish’s feeding, during which we cast in vain. My comrade promptly noticed this, and for half an hour we left the waterside that he might show me the hole in the ground where some two hundred dead swallows were found after a late sudden frost, and also to take me to a circle of ancient dwarf crab-apple trees, planted, he averred, by Druids of old. In this expedition we also came across a heron, standing poised on one leg in shallow water. Scared at our approach, it winged away uttering a wild alarum; and we were surprised to notice three others of its gaunt kindred make away from near reaches. Of other waterside life, the otter since dusk had been frequently in sight—he lives without fear of a pack nowadays in our river; the dipper and the kingfisher had retired at sunset, but the whitethroat’s song had been constantly in our ears. Game, unseen, had rustled hither and thither in the coverts.

The sky to eastward was brightening when we returned to our rods. My companion told me to do my best, for time was passing; but never a bite came my way. He was more fortunate, for a long cast down the dub was taken. The fish on feeling the barb, however, went through a number of desperate manœuvres. I heard the struggle, then noticed my friend disgustedly drawing in his line. Probably by tangling the gut round some jagged corner of rock the fish had got away.

V. ABOUT THE FISH-SPEAR

Every hour of the short period the salmon spends in fresh water his life is threatened. The sportsman’s method is by rod and line, but the poacher kind incline to the net and the fish-spear. The use of the former has been frequently and fully described; but the spear, not being favoured by the wholesale plunderers of our streams, has been less to the fore. The fish-spear, gaff, or leister (practically, if not quite, identical weapons), is used by the occasional poacher mostly, by the labourer who cannot resist the temptation to take one or two of the great salmon occupying the rock-pools in his immediate vicinity.

There was at one time a practice, in the Derwent and other salmon streams of our Lake Country, of spearing the fish from horseback. The horse was driven into mid-stream at some shallow where the uprunning fish were bound to show themselves, and the rider, armed with a long lance, struck at such fish as he could reach. Apparently some of our forefathers were very keen on this sport, for over a hundred years ago a certain gentleman offered a public wager to kill more salmon from horseback in a stated stream than any comer. So far as records show, the challenge was never taken up. Clarke, the pioneer of Lake Country angling literature, states that in his day (_circa_ 1760) many gentlemen came regularly to Patterdale in autumn to join in the sport of spearing the great lake trout which had run up the Goldrill from Ullswater.

Dalesmen carried torches at night to the great pools to show the sportsmen where the shoals of spawning fish lay. The result of this wholesale destruction was that the monster in question—its weight is variously estimated from sixteen to sixty pounds and over—gradually dwindled in numbers, and is now almost, if not quite, extinct in the great lakes.

My earliest recollection of the leister is also my earliest of anything pertaining to angling. Below our two-arch stone bridge is a pool, perhaps twenty yards long and fifteen wide. During great floods in autumn, salmon very occasionally pass the weirs as far as this, beyond which they are never seen. There was some little excitement, therefore, when the blacksmith showed a salmon resting in the bridge-dub, and at once attempts were made to capture it. But the fish frequented the rushing waters just behind the cut-water of the bridge, and no one could get at it. A neighbouring farmer brought his gun, and fired three shots without effect. I fancy, as I recall the creamy turmoil at that point, his mark would be a difficult one. Finally the blacksmith forged a fearful weapon—a hand garden-fork fixed on to a shaft. Armed thus, he clambered down the cut-water as near as possible to his quarry, and made several lunges. I remember well, for I was not far away, leaning over the ledge of the bridge, seeing the square tail of the fish show through the froth of the ‘rush’ as it turned downstream. But though this attempt was a failure, the smith and the cobbler and the villagers assembled noted that, when disturbed from its favourite haunt, the giant retired to the shade of a big tree just below. With this extra information, the smith climbed down next day to where the fish was lying, and, carefully poising his weapon, I watched him plunge it again and again at an invisible body in the water. Then up he scrambled at great pace, crossed the bridge out of my sight, and disappeared down the stile at the other end. I heard a crackling of boughs, and a few moments later Dove returned carrying the big fish—I remember that its tail was flapping convulsively—in his leathern apron. Of course, the whole affair was kept as quiet as possible, lest the water-bailiff, hearing, should bring the law down on the offenders. Being a very small child, my presence was unheeded; but, try as they would, the cobbler and the smith could not persuade me that the heavy burden in the leathern apron was simply a black river-cobble. I insisted it was the fish. Years later I was told that my recollection of the whole affair was quite correct.

The favourite period for spearing the fish is, of course, during the hours of darkness. More than once I have seen men rendezvous in a lonely spot near our weir. Many a salmon getting thus far up the river at nightfall lies in the deep rock-basins till day returns, and on that his enemies reckon. In the woods fringing the rocks, a close search will at any time discover three or four leisters hidden by their most recent users. As dusk deepens into night the poachers come out; only one is armed with a spear, the other carrying a bag, and the third a dark lantern. When the water’s edge is reached, a brief ray shows where the fish are lying. The spearman, picking out his fish, plunges his weapon. If the stroke goes true, the salmon is rapidly jerked out, to be killed by the bagman. This goes on so long as a fish can be reached.

At other times, from the windows of a rural lodging, I have watched just before dawn stealthy lights flickering by the pools in another river, and two or three hours later have breakfasted off salmon showing leister-marks. Leistering being, of course, a slow process, the villagers alone are supplied, but at a rate per pound which seems to make the game very unsatisfactory from a profit point of view.

I have in my mind’s eye one particular scene. In half-flood the river is dashing beneath a hog-backed stone bridge; all around is darkness. The lower slopes of the great braes are invisible, their summits but dimly in view against the cloudy sky. Now and again a few stars rush across a rift in the upper blackness. Along the water a dim, uncertain light plays, showing sharp currents breaking and swirling over unseen reefs, or roaring in white fury against the dark, unyielding boulders here and there visible in the bed. After a few minutes’ wait, a labourer comes panting up; he is a well-known ‘small-scale’ poacher, the plague of the keepers for miles around.

‘Old Carson is out to-night,’ said the new-comer, ‘but he’s away up behind the weir.’

For a moment we didn’t gather the meaning of this, nor of the immoderate fit of laughter our acquaintance indulged in. Then it struck us that, by making a long détour, he had wiled the water-bailiff far from the series of pools we intended to ‘work.’ In a moment we were over the wall and were deep among the ash-woods fringing the water, following the poacher, who trod the narrow, stony path with the ease and silence of long accustom. In a few minutes he stopped. So intense was the shadow that we cannoned into him before we knew of his halting.

‘Mind where you are coming,’ he growled, in a whisper. As he spoke we could hear a faint dragging and a rustling of dead leaves somewhere in the darkness near his feet. Now we came into the river-bed, where it was comparatively light. The poacher, we saw, had drawn a leister, as well as a bag and a lantern, from a secret place in the river-bank. In a few seconds he prepared for action; then, handing me the lantern, he spoke in a low voice:

‘You keep close to me, and when I give the word turn the light on to the slack water. And you’—turning to my companion—‘had better pick up and bag what fish I stick [pierce].’

Now the three of us crawled stealthily along the rocks bounding the rushing stream. Slack water indeed! In that tumult of fosse and rock and rapid it did not seem likely that a yard of smooth surface would be found. But my judgment was wholly amiss. Here and there, between the eddying current and the hard shore, were quite long stretches without a single ripple, and near the head of one such the poacher stopped suddenly.

‘There’ll be something here,’ he said. At a rustle of his hand I glided forward. ‘Now show a light on the water just in under my feet.’ I did so, and there quite half a dozen silver-sided salmon lay, with their heads upstream, never thinking that that vagrant gleam meant death for one or more of their number. I saw the spear plunge into the water; the nearest fish turned, struck through the vitals, floating in the faint swirl towards the head of the pool. My companion, however, was alert, and seized the carcass before it was tumbled far away down the stream. Meanwhile the poacher prepared for another stroke; again I directed my shaft of light, and again he struck. But the shoal had floated further into the stream, and he failed to reach them from that station.

Now he stepped waist-deep into the pool, directing me to move so as to give a very brief flash _across_ the water. I did so, and another kill was registered, after which the poacher proposed that we should try another place. Accordingly, we moved downstream, walking wherever possible in the shadow of the trees.

A great trough between high banks was our next halting-place. Looking carefully through a screen of bushes, we saw dim figures moving about the lower end of the level water.

‘Some poachers from the town, I reckon,’ whispered our spearman. ‘They’re fools to try netting here, where there’s hundreds of rocks on the bottom to tear their net to ribbons.’ Half an hour or more we stood there watching with all our eyes. But little did we gather, save that the poachers were not averse to plunging into the ice-cold stream to release their net whenever fouled by a boulder or a piece of sunken brushwood. Then, ‘Lie down, quick,’ whispered frantically the poacher; and though we were standing on a bed of soaking, half-rotten leaves, down we went. On the moment, up into the sky from a point just beyond the far end of the pool, soared a rocket. My eyes watched its flight anxiously, watched it burst into a shower of stars which, slowly floating down, illuminated wood and water and rock clearly. The keepers evidently had knowledge of some trespassers. Was it of us or of the netmen, who at the first roar of the rocket dispersed into the woods, abandoning their net in the river? The poacher’s sharp eyes had seen the first spark struck by the keepers, and he had warned us as far as possible.

We were clearly in a predicament. Run for it! No; long ago every avenue from the woods would be guarded. With the wet soaking through our clothes, we lay in the thicket. One of the netmen rushed past, crashing through the dead branches within a yard of us. Half a minute later there was a shout and the sounds of a scuffle from the direction he had taken. Another minute, and, horridly suggestive of personal probabilities, two keepers walked their prisoner past us in the darkness. Not twenty yards away one set up a shout, inquiring the success of the carefully-laid trap.

‘We’ve got the lot!’ sounded from across the water—a reply which relieved us in so far as we now thought no especial watch was being kept for us. It was a long, weary time before the poacher signified that it was safe to proceed.

Down the slimy rocks we descended as silently as possible, drawing towards the head of the long trough. You may be sure that we kept a very sharp lookout as we moved into the half-light of the river-bed, but neither sight nor sound of lurking danger was there. At a sign I turned my shaft of light on the clear waters; the poacher, selecting his salmon, struck unerringly, and the fish was bagged. Again I showed the light, but, though the leister poised, the stroke was never made, for up to the gloomy sky another signal tore. This was for us in very deed.

‘Into t’ water,’ cried the poacher, ‘or we’re caught!’

There was no time for contemplating the darkling stream, or for shivering on the brink—the terror of the police-court is mightily great. In the three of us stepped; knee-deep the cold was horrible, wrist-deep the feeling was worse, but before bottom was touched the water was neck-high, and the chill seemed to freeze our very marrow. The poacher we still had confidence in, for he had been in scores of similar tight corners; with arms outstretched he pressed us close to the rocky bank, which for six feet almost overhung. When the rocket stars had faded away, I noticed a light travelling along the water and the further bank upstream; the keepers apparently knew we had not resorted to the woods, and were examining the rocky brink. I heard them moving high above our heads, and saw the gleam of lanterns light up the running waters almost within arm’s length, then pass on without a pause. The chill of the water was forgotten in that breathless five minutes, but it was again racking us when the poacher said:

‘Now we’re safe for a bit. Sink that salmon bag with a couple of stones, and we’ll make downstream.’

The three of us were fair swimmers, so made little of the distance to the foot of the trough, where, emerging, we crawled cautiously up the bank, and by devious ways passed through the wood. Though chilled through and through, we still had escaped capture, for which we were thankful.

The fish! Oh, our poacher must have found his way again to the pool ere daybreak and rescued the sunken bag, for our landlady came to us at breakfast—a fine piece of salmon was on the table—bustling with information.

‘Do you see that salmon? Well, what do you think? I found a whole big fish hanging up in the cart-house, with all the cats on the farm watching it, first thing this morning. The keepers must have run some poacher very hard before he left his fish like that.’

Needless to say, the good lady was unaware that we had spent our night otherwise than in sleep, and that two wet suits of clothes were being surreptitiously dried behind a pile of sacks in the boiler-house.

TALES OF THE MIST

John Bennett, the doyen of English fell guides, gives the following as one of his most arduous experiences:

‘I left Dungeon Ghyll one wet afternoon guiding a party to Scawfell Pike. At the top of Rossett Ghyll one of the ladies was too tired to go further. I did not wish to leave her without a companion, but she insisted that all the others should complete their walk. We left her resting by a large boulder, and soon were out of sight in the mist. A couple of hours later we returned, but there was no trace of the lady. As it was very probable she had already returned to the hotel, this circumstance did not then trouble us much. But when we got home the lady had not been seen, so I set out again up the ghyll to Esk Hause, and there turned down the head into Borrowdale, as it was apparent that the lady had somehow strayed from the path. At Seathwaite, Seatoller, and Rosthwaite I visited all the inns and outlying houses; then, still unsuccessful, turned up the pass to Wastdalehead.

‘After a seven-mile tramp through very dense cloud, I came to old Will Ritson’s, but could hear of no visitor. I ascended Scawfell Pike, and searched closely and unavailingly as I returned. The lads of the dalehead had been out scouting the hillsides in the meantime, and I got in just after they had completed their task. It was now past midnight and a wild night. After some supper—not many in the hotel would go to bed that night—I made another attempt, almost in despair. There was not the slightest answer to my calls. I climbed over to Eskdale, hoping that my lady had found her way there, and with the intention of raising the alarm thoroughly. At about four o’clock I knocked at the Woolpack, near Boot, and was told that a lady in a very exhausted condition had struggled to the door three hours before. She was then in a dead faint, but I was speedily satisfied that my weary hunt was finished.

‘It appeared that the lady, feeling a little less tired, had followed from Rossett Ghyll less than an hour after we left her. For a while she had followed the path with ease, then lost it completely. Whilst trying to find it again among the mist, she became hopelessly confused as to direction, crossed streams, climbed and descended huge rocks, and walked over much rough ground. At length she found herself by a fence, and, following this a good way, saw the lights of the Woolpack in the distance.’

Such an incident is not uncommon even in these days, when mountain-paths are so well worn that any stranger may keep on them. But even if the route be lost, there is little peril to anyone who knows the fells. The only real awkward possibility that I know of is the danger of coming without warning upon a precipitous descent. Nearly every accident recorded is due to the fact that most people in such a predicament attempt to descend the face of the crag, often coming to grief. On one of his thirty or forty annual ascents of Helvellyn, for the purpose of measuring the density of its atmosphere at various altitudes, John Dalton and his companions suddenly found themselves enveloped in a dense cloud, which had swept up and closed round them unawares. They attempted to move, and stepped a few feet in advance, holding by the skirts of each other’s coat, when the old philosopher suddenly drew back, saying: ‘Not a step more! There is nothing but cloud to tread on!’ It was true; their unconscious feet were on the very edge of the precipice which plunges sheer down to Red Tarn.

To those who know the fells, abundant indications give warning of the nearness of a precipice, as well as, if the route be more familiar, to determine exactly the position of the rambler. These signs are in the air; the different notes sounded by the wind to right and left are of great value. A breeze rushing up or along a wide expanse of grass has a seething note in it, whereas if rising suddenly from a deep dalehead, and encountering many crags, there is a harsh roar in the sound. Once when wandering along Helvellyn, our only proof that we had not involuntarily taken a wrong direction—by no means unusual in a dense mist—was the rattle of the wind among the cliffs on the Patterdale side of the mountain. The edge of a precipice is always heralded by a line of outcroppings, and when travelling in the mist watch should always be kept for these.

A shepherd of my acquaintance started from Wastdalehead one wet afternoon to reach a farm in the Grasmere Valley. His proper route was by Styehead Pass to Esk Hause, thence to Angle Tarn, when a short cast to the left would bring him to the caërn at Stakepasshead. A direct north-easterly course from here would bring him home. However, after leaving the tarn he failed to touch the caërn, but, keeping on for an hour, he came across the splintered edges of projecting strata among the short bent-grass. He guessed that he was too far north, and standing by a craggy slope of Wythburndale. When, however, the hill seemed to turn back on his route, he knew that something was amiss.

The wind, happily, was now blowing the masses of mist away, and every minute the light increased. When the air cleared sufficiently, the shepherd found himself standing on the brink of Pavey Ark, a tremendous array of scree and cliff adjoining Langdale Pikes, with the tarn of Stickle brooding 1,200 feet below, some six miles from his supposed position. Had he carried out the intention of descending, which he formed on approaching the edge, he would have undoubtedly gone into serious danger. Indeed, three years later a fatal accident occurred at the very same point.

The liability of tourists to go astray among the misty clouds is great, and one of the few exciting incidents of dalehead life is to be called upon to join in a search. The number of such hunts, however, does not represent the total of ‘losts.’ Parties or individuals working from some hotel, and starting with the avowed intention of returning the same evening, or sending their luggage beforehand to another hotel, purposing to follow by a more or less circuitous route, are easily missed. But the Bohemian of the fells, who defines to himself no route, is seldom traced. A couple of visitors to the Lake District arranged to walk from Dungeon Ghyll and Grasmere respectively, to meet on the fells near Sergeant Man. The day was very wet and misty, but the man from Grasmere reached the rendezvous, and, after waiting a long time, pushed on to Dungeon Ghyll, where he found that his friend had started, as arranged, some hours previously. The tourist searched the way carefully over to Grasmere, where he stated the circumstances to the inhabitants. Evening was fast drawing on, and everyone turned out to the quest. Not till the last gleam of light faded from the skies did the wearied parties return, when at his hotel the Grasmere tourist found a telegram from his friend, stating that, after climbing into the mist, he had changed his mind and struck along the hillside to Windermere. Many tourists, when lost in the mist, try to await the raising of the cloud curtain. Certainly this is the safest method, but the fog-banks close in for days at times, and human endurance is limited. A gentleman and his sister staying at Mardale essayed to climb Kentmere High Street one misty day. Soon after reaching the shoulder of the ridge, however, they got into difficulties, and finally, lest worse should befall, decided to wait. They were missed from the hotel, and the proprietor with two or three helpers took different tracks up the mountain. After three hours’ search, the couple, now half frozen with the chilly mist, were rescued.

The Scarf Gap district, near Buttermere, with its many rocky hillocks of almost similar contour, is well known in misty weather for ‘circular walking.’ Some years ago a party of ladies going from Wastdalehead to Buttermere were unexpectedly caught in the mist here. For hours they wandered about the fellsides. One of the ladies dropped her pocket-book, and recovered it again about two hours later—conclusive proof that they had been walking in a circle. It is pleasant to add that when the mist lifted, just before sunset, this party found themselves quite close to the path they had so long and utterly lost.

Though we have many times had the pleasure of walking on the fells during dense mists, we have never had the temerity to go crag-climbing under such conditions. The rocks are usually very slippery, and a false step at any point of a steep climb would be fatal. There is little danger of losing your way among the rocks if, in the first place, you correctly hit off the entrance of the climb, but that is difficult when there are many similar openings in the cliff. Once fairly on the right track, however, you can follow the route marked by the white scratches of the hobnails of your predecessors. The mist, though burying any distant landmark, seldom interferes with your view of the work close at hand. People there are, however, who are dead to all discomfort, and who on occasion go climbing even in the densest mist, and the account of an ascent of the Napes Needle, a familiar crag on Great Gable, will be of interest:

‘As the weather was uncompromising and I wanted an easy day, I strolled out for a solitary scramble towards the Napes rocks, to make a mere bowing acquaintance with the Needle, and with the virtuous intention of doing nothing rash in the way of venturing upon a single-handed attack upon it. At the moment of leaving the grass and taking to the rocks, I stepped into cloudland, and there came on a miserable drizzle that was not far removed from rain. There was nothing for it but to get wet. No one can climb in a waterproof, even though it be only a cape; and as to any other protection against the weather, you may as well offer mackintoshes to a family of otters. Somewhere up above was the Needle, but whether I had passed the place or not I could not tell. So I ensconced myself in a sort of cave among some huge boulders to consider the plan of campaign with the aid of a quiet pipe, and had almost given it up as a bad job and made up my mind to return, when I heard voices through the mist. Setting up a halloo, and getting a response, I shouted: “Is the Needle up there?” “Yes, we’re on it—come up,” was the answer. I had been sitting all the time at its very base; so up I went, and, scrambling up a steep but easy gully, soon gained the narrow rock-platform a few feet below the crack which marks the beginning of the climb of the Needle. I found here two first-rate climbers who had just been to the summit of the rock, and were discussing lunch. They very kindly expressed their willingness to go up again if I wanted to make the ascent.

‘Here was a chance not to be lost, so I gladly accepted their offer, and we were soon roped and ready: R—— the leader, I middle man, and M—— came last. The ascents were very difficult, and with muscles out of training for a gymnastic feat such as mounting the last piece of the slippery rock—comparable only to climbing and adhering to a narrow mantelshelf—I was glad to avail myself of a “shoulder-up.” Accordingly, M—— crouched down on the narrow cornice, and, stepping with my left foot on to his right shoulder, I mounted in sybaritic fashion on to the ledge. The mist was boiling up all around us, so that we could see the foot of the rock-shaft, and R——, who ought to have known much better, shouted just as I was making the dangerous step up: “Come, hurry up down there! this beastly weather makes me think of sunnier climes.” Sidling along, I found round the corner of rock a jutting ledge eighteen inches higher that offered a good hold for both feet. The next foothold was for the left foot—a small projection about an inch wide, and several inches higher on the face of the rock. This was about the most ticklish part of the whole climb. It is necessary to step with the left foot confidently up on to this projection, which slopes slightly the wrong way. To make a false step in doing so might entail serious consequences, as the hand-support is of the slightest. A boot edged with good ice-nails would get a firm grip on the projecting ledge, but my boots were merely studded, and the round leather edge felt insecure enough on the wet and smooth stone. However, the step was successfully accomplished, and I was then able easily to grip the right hand and top edges of the boulder in close embrace. A final pull-up, and I lay on my chest across the summit, and after a gasp of relief drew my legs up after me.’

In winter the mists are horrible. I don’t suppose many of my readers have ever crossed the desolate, snow-covered uplands. It is dreary enough work when the pallid sun glints along the even surface, lighting up the air with an unwonted shimmer, and the great crags loom out on the fellsides. The passes between Buttermere and Wastdalehead—Scarf Gap and Black Sail—may be a case in point. As the snow is crunched up towards the narrow depression from which the former is named, the darkness of the afternoon increases. A foot of snow has already obliterated the path, and it now seems apparent that there will be a further fall. In a second the sky seems to fall around us. We barely feel the extra chilliness of the air before the scene is darkened with falling particles, and we look around to find ourselves immured in the gray cloud-walls. A circle of twenty yards of uneven snow is all we can see, the view of lake and mountain being alike blotted out. Perhaps for ten minutes we did not realize the danger of our position, but soon after crossing the ridge towards Ennerdale it dawned on us. Now, however, retreat was more difficult than advance. With every danger-signal masked, with the path lost and undiscoverable, and the wind sending the white storm full in our faces, our position was one of most extreme discomfort. We threw away all idea of getting near the caërns and huts at the foot of Black Sail, devoutly hoping to reach the valley bottom in safety. Drifts of various depths had to be struggled through, and descents of screes and moraines of boulders negotiated. It was a most anxious time. A slip on one of those abrupt breasts of snow might end with us, as with more than one other wanderer of the fell, in a broken leg. How some poor fellows must have suffered before death’s kindly sleep fell upon them! Unable to get away, perhaps with their poor tortured limbs jammed between immovable boulders, they had simply to freeze or to starve. By carefully following the deepest drifts, we got on to a corner of rock whence all but a thin coating of snow had been whirled by the wind. It was no precipice, and, though the descent was hard work indeed, we could yet see our way, and found this route much preferable. We got into daylight again at the head of Ennerdale Valley, and stayed an hour there in the old hut, while the snowstorm passed. There was nothing to make a fire of, and we were glad to note the clearing of the pass in front. We just got over the top of Black Sail before the clouds closed again behind us.

BY THE SHORE

I. DAYBREAK ON THE SANDS

The great mass of the limestone head bounding our estuary to the southward loomed black and sullen against the delicate pearl clouds, through which an unseen sun was endeavouring to diffuse some measure of day to our little valley. To seaward the tide had receded far, and the chill white lines of water tossed to the wind beyond a wide stretch of sand. To landward the dun mist of morning hung, blotting out the distant hills and the woodlands, leaving in view only a stretch of marshy pastures and the houses of a tiny village. Though we were early astir, yet others were in advance; the fishermen were going to take up the spoils which night had brought to the nets fixed on the sand-banks.

* * * * *

At eventide a great flock of wild-duck of various kinds settled after their long flight from the northward upon the moving waters of the bay. They were hungry, but much noise had been heard as they winged over the fishing-village. At nightfall it would be safe to venture closer, and, besides, there would be precious little food to be delved out of those adamant sands, from which the water had long been absent. The flock thus sat on the tossing waters awhile, resting. Then a few detached themselves from the main body, and floated shoreward with the wash of the tide. They were scouts, to spy out the safest ground for feeding. Out beyond the gray stump of the ruined Pile, once fort and port in one, a fiery strip of cloud was losing its glow, turning slowly to crimson and to violet, after which it lost all that distinguished it from its vapour neighbours. In the east perhaps the moon had risen, for, though the great light was withdrawn, a visibility still reigned. The scouts thrown out by the cloud of duck floated up with the incoming tide awhile, then turned from its current into the slack waters widening into a pool near the mouth of a creek. Here, after a cautious survey of their surroundings, they settled down to feed.