FATAL INDISCRETION.
In the face of the precipice to the left, over Paddy'-end, you may note a nearly perpendicular fissure, or niche. It is called Simon’ nick, also after the discoverer, and thereby hangs a tale. The said Simon, to the great mystification, and greater mortification of his compeers, succeeded in obtaining large quantities of rich ore from this nick, wherein no one but himself could discover any indications of it. They were all, of course, very curious and anxious to fathom this mystery, but they could make nothing of it. Simon resisted all enquiries, direct or insidious, till one unfortunate night when, “hot with the Tuscan grape,” or, to express it less poetically, the Black Bull malt, he divulged the fatal secret that he owed his mysterious and envied success to the co-operation of the Fairies. For this breach of confidence, he received condign punishment, for he never again fell in with anything worth working; and becoming reckless from the consequences of his own indiscretion, he abandoned all caution in his perilous operations, and the charge in one of the holes he had prepared for blasting exploding prematurely, Simon paid the penalty of his imprudence with his life.
Still toiling upwards, you soon attain the edge or lip of the basin containing Leverswater, one of the finest of our mountain lakelets, nearly circular in shape, surrounded by very steep grassy slopes and magnificent rocky precipices, and measuring upwards of a mile in circumference. Were Mr Wordsworth here, he might again make the bewailing inquiry—
“Is there no spot of English ground secure
From rash assault?”
for you may observe that even this lonely tarn is rendered subservient to purposes of “sordid industry” (I feel spiteful at that phrase) by having its waters dammed up, so as to form it into a mere vulgar reservoir of water for the dozen or two of water-wheels at the works below. And, moreover, as you follow the path along the southern verge of Leverswater, under the noble offset from the Old Man, called Brimfell, you fall in with very plain indications that mining is pursued, and that vigorously, even up here. In one of these levels very rich ore has been found, including, in minute quantities, copper in a malleable state, which, if I am correctly informed, is the only instance of native malleable copper being found in Britain.
A STIFF PULL.
You wend your way along a very uneven path on the hill-side to the west of Leverswater, and when you arrive at a point about opposite to that on which you approached it, and nearly under a precipice called Oukrigg (Wool-crag?) you take the very steep ascent to your left, and follow up a small water-course, until you observe more on your left a fine dell dished, as it were, out of the hill-side, and thickly dotted with sheep. It is called the Gillcove, because, from time immemorial, the sheep belonging to a farm in the village called the Gill (or Ghyll), have been depastured upon it. You traverse this same cove, and rise over the shoulder of Brimfell, regularly gaining upon the mountain; but the ascent becomes dismally laborious here, so much so, that you are fain to lie down to recover breath, and whilst doing so, what say you to a little familiar chat with the Old Man himself?—Listen!
Old Man! Old Man!!—Your sides are brant,
And dreadfully hard to climb;