A NIGHT RAMBLE
'I can recall ... our delight in the moonlight walk from the Windermere station by the Lakeside to Ambleside, that loveliest five miles in all England; our next day's climb (the track missed) over the Stake Pass, after bathing under the fells in a pool at the head of Langdale; how we lingered, dallying with our joy, on the mountain tops till night came on, a cloudy night of late September, after a day of autumn glory, overtaking us before we could reach the Borrowdale road; how, unable even to grope our way, we lay down together on the stones to sleep, and awakened by rain, crept under an overhanging rock, and cold and hungry, smoked our pipes and talked till the dawning light enabled us to find a path to Stonethwaite; how we sat in a cottage porch to await the rising of the inmates and welcome a breakfast of bad coffee and mutton-ham so salt that it scarified our mouths. No grave-minded man was either of the pair who went laughing and singing, if somewhat limping, on their way.'—William James Linton: Memories.
IV
A POET ENGRAVER
WILLIAM JAMES LINTON
I.—THE MAN
'I would build up in my own mind
A temple unto Truth,
And on its shrine an offering bind—
My age and youth.'
W. J. Linton.