After an hour's hard climbing we gain one of the topmost outliers, whence we command an extensive map-like view of the circumjacent mountains. A final struggle for the last ridge, and then along its crest. We are at an angle formed by the vales of Grasmere, Legberthwaite, and Patterdale, when a magnificent effect is produced as the sun suddenly pierces the clouds. A golden mass of molten sea stretches eastward. Bright sunny patches light up the landscape below; and a billowy sea of mountains rolls away, with every wave a name. Purple pavilions of hills stretch far and beyond on every side. Now we are among the clouds, and look down on all things mundane.
We "rush" the last slope, and at last stand three thousand feet above sea level—upon the topmost jag of the mighty Helvellyn!
The grandeur of a mountain is always enhanced by a storm; and as by the wave of a wizard's wand the sun is suddenly shut out by black, inky clouds. A couple of ominous ravens rise slowly uttering a dismal croak, croak, croak; and a merlin rushes past on the wings of the storm. Mists gather, roll up the mountain-side, and far-off mutterings are heard in the hills. As a cold plash strikes the face, we seek a cairn, drawing closer our wraps. Suddenly the storm bursts. In a moment we are soaked with blinding mist and chilled to the marrow. The storm lashes itself to a fury, and for a moment the grandeur is terrible and fascinating. It spends itself, passes as quickly as it came, and a glorious transformation is at hand.
Quivering lines of light shoot from the heavens, the sun bursts in all its strength, and Nature is a flood of dripping gold. The gauzy vapours disperse, and every grass-blade is draped and glowing with resplendent gems. A blue, foam-flushed sky displaces the sullen clouds, and the storm miracle is complete. Then we emerge from the dripping cairn to look abroad. That far, silvery streak, lying shimmering and blue, is Windermere. Directly south Esthwaite Water, whilst Coniston, with its pine-clad slopes, lies to the west. Ulleswater is at our feet, and Red Tarn, black and silent, below. Striding Edge is the spot where young Gough was killed. To its north-west is Swirrel Edge. That is Catchedecam. Betwixt the last-named and Saddle-back a bit of the Solway is seen; while the skyline beyond is formed by the Scotch mountains. The ravines and precipices of the sides of Helvellyn exemplify in a striking manner the possible power of those elements whose ordinary effects are trivial and unnoticed.
A mountain storm in summer is terrible enough if long continued; but the same phenomenon in winter is grander and more terrible still. The crags of the English mountains claim a long list of victims; but for tragic interest the following is perhaps the saddest of all. The subject of it was a young man of great promise, who in early life had been educated for the Church. Just as he was ripe for college, his father, who was at the head of a great mercantile concern, died. This event made it imperative that the young scholar should immediately embark in trade—an undertaking as uncongenial as imperative. The fortunes of his family were threatened, and the only hope of his mother and sisters was that the son should successfully carry on what the father had commenced. A student of books rather than of men, he was ill fitted for the unequal fight, and after struggling for ten years was only liberated by ruin. His brother it is said, made him a bankrupt. "The din of populous cities had long stunned his brain, and his soul had sickened in the presence of the money-hunting eyes of selfish men, all madly pursuing their multifarious machinations in the great mart of commerce. The very sheeted masts of ships, bearing the flags of foreign countries, in all their pomp and beauty sailing homeward or outward bound, had become hateful to his spirit—for what were they but the floating enginery of Mammon? Truth, integrity, honour, were all recklessly sacrificed to gain by the friends he loved and had respected most—sacrificed without shame and without remorse—repentance being with them a repentance only over ill-laid schemes of villainy—plans for the ruination of widows and orphans—blasted in the bud of their iniquity." Following upon the loss of worldly fortune Gough's mother died, and had it not been for a legacy which came to him about this time he would have been absolutely penniless. A relative had died abroad—almost his only one, and the last of his name. Upon his small means he determined to seek an asylum among the northern mountains, where he might study nature and daily stand face to face with her most majestic forms and moods. He left the city which had wrought his ruin at midnight, the last definite object which his eyes rested upon being his mother's grave. The graveyard which contained it lay hard by one of the great arteries of life, and the roar of its myriad sounds was absent neither night nor day. A myriad graves were matted and massed together—a dank, unlovely sight, and one which invested death only with its worst and darkest attributes.
As late winter passed into spring, Gough took up his abode with the family of a northern yeoman in a Westmorland cottage. The majesty of the mountains on this first spring day deeply impressed the city-bred man, and his solitary life among the hills was begun with much heartfelt meditation. The mighty Helvellyn stood out boldly, its crest sharply etched against the sky. Even in this remote spot the wanderer wished to withdraw himself for a time wholly from the eyes of men; and as he gazed upon the passionless peak he thought that there he should be alone—there find solitude. As the short afternoon fell he started to make the rugged ascent. Every shoulder of the mountain gained put him farther beyond human aid, and each look at the peaceful valley below was nearer his last. Still he progressed. The keen air, the first deep inspiration of a purer joy—these lured him on. The face of the sky changed, but he saw it not. Its little lot of stars came out over the mountain, and, oblivious of the fact that night was at hand, he hurried on. The crescent moon rose and floated over its reflection in Red Tarn; and now the wanderer has reached the topmost, silent peak. Steeped in softest moonlight, he looked on the wondrous world below, and saw an English sight such as man has rarely seen. In the delirium of a new bliss the mountain "looked lovelier than dreamland in the reflected glimmer of the snow; and thus had midnight found him, in a place so utterly lonesome in its remoteness from all habitations, that even in summer no stranger sought it without the guidance of some shepherd."
Rising from the stone on which he sat, a flake of snow touched his face, then another, and another. He ran rapidly down the first slope, struck the path, and hurried on. The light was quickly fading. The moon was hidden, and the tarn, which but a moment before lay at his feet, had gone out. Neither road nor path was now visible, and the poor pilgrim of nature, utterly bewildered, plunged blindly into the almost inextricable passes of the mountains. The snow fell thicker and thicker, and as the storm rose it was swept hither and thither in blinding banks and opaque masses until every familiar object was hidden. Although almost overcome with the lashing and fury of the storm the traveller in wildest desperation staggered on, until an awful precipice for ever put a cruel end to his wanderings….
Snow-lines are sketched along the fences of the fells, but this is all that remains. Everything out of doors testifies to the coming of spring, and green grass-shoots are everywhere. The foaming fell "becks" sparkle in the sun, and the sheep are sprinkled over the crags. A breadth of blue is overhead, and the feeding flock is steadily turned towards the skyline. This is the first token of the short summer, and all the sheep on all the hills rejoice. It is at this season that the shepherds most keenly scan their flocks and note the ravages of winter. By the torrent side, by the leas of the boulders, along the rock ledges—everywhere is dotted a white fleece.
It was upon such an occasion, the snow having melted, that a shepherd on his rounds came suddenly upon a dog which emerged from a bracken- and boulder-strewn brae. The poor creature was reduced almost to a skeleton, and upon the man following, it whined and ran forward. It stopped over a weathered corpse—the body of young Gough, beside which it had kept watch and ward for months. It would allow no one to come near, though it was noticed that its collar bore a name—the name of its master, and that which established his identity. In the absence of the dog on its food forays the hill foxes, ravens, and buzzards had done their carnage on the body. This was taken by a party of yeomen and shepherds and interred in the burial ground of the Friends' Meeting House at Tirrel.
Both Scott and Wordsworth have fittingly commemorated the incident, though the lines are too well known to be quoted here.