THE WALL OVERHANGING THE IRTHING
When I was making this sketch, I walked one day to the bank of the river, a little below the Wall, and there I suddenly saw the figure of a girl appear in a tree overhanging the water on the other side. I looked again, and I saw she was seated in a little wooden chair suspended from a wire, and was pulling herself across by another wire, both of which crossed from side to side. I waited for her to land, and then I asked: "Do you think I might use that?" She said: "It belongs to Underheugh, that farm down there, but I dare say you might."
I promptly went to Underheugh and asked permission. The farmer's wife said: "Oh ay, ye may if ye like, but ye'd do better by plodgin'."
"What is 'plodging'?"
She laughed. "Oh, it's just takin' off yer shoes and stockin's and goin' throo on yer feet."
"I have done that already; so I'd rather cross by the wire," said I.
"Well, then, ye may, so long as ye leave the ropes right."
So when it was time to go home, I ventured into the chair and laid hold of the wire rope, and pulled. I only had one hand, as the other clutched my sketching-things, so it was rather hard work. It was literally uphill work after I got to the middle, though to start with it was downhill, and the thing almost went of itself. It felt funny to be suspended from a rope over the middle of the Irthing, in this very primitive "chair."
I asked at Underheugh what they called the arrangement, but they could not say. Then I inquired at Birdoswald. "Oh, you mean a sort of an aeroplane?"
That was the nearest I could get! And "a sort of an aeroplane" it will always be to me! I used it several times after that.