The nature of the ground was so easy and well broken up, although rocky and steep, that his companions never for a moment dreamt of disaster. Hearing a noise of falling stones they looked round and saw a cube of rock, about two feet in diameter, rolling down the mountain side. This was followed by the body of Professor Marshall. Both came to rest on the scree slope below the Lord’s Rake, where, to their great astonishment and horror, Messrs. Jones and Collier found the life of their companion quite extinct. Exactly how the accident happened will never be known, but it was surmised at the time that Mr. Marshall had stepped on the cube of rock and that it had given way with him. It has become proverbial that “it is on the easy places that accidents happen,” and no doubt it was the easy nature of the ground that caused a temporary carelessness on the part of a man who, in all mountaineering circles, was recognised as a most careful and cautious climber.
We may pass over briefly the death of the Rev. James Jackson, who fell on the Pillar and was killed in May, 1878. He was alone at the time, but his body was found at the foot of a steep cliff, near the summit of the mountain. In walking along the top of the cliff he had evidently slipped over, but what caused him to do so will never be known. The fact that the reverend gentleman had attained to the ripe age of eighty-two years may suggest a broad reason.
SCAWFELL PINNACLE AND DEEP GHYLL, SHOWING THE GHYLL AS IT APPEARED WHEN MR. GOODALL GLISSADED DOWN IT TO HIS DEATH.
From a Photograph.
At Easter, nearly five years later, a party of novices were trying to climb the Pillar Rock from the east side. For some time they were unsuccessful. Just then another party reached the top of the Pillar Mountain; one of them, a Whitehaven youth of the name of Walker, had climbed the rock some time before. Seeing the predicament of the novices, he set off down a snow-slope towards them, intending to direct their ascent. He had only gone a few feet when he slipped on to his back and shot off down the snow. Gathering terrific and uncontrollable impetus as he slid, he reached the Rock, which juts out of the side of the mountain, in a few moments and dashed into it. His body bounded off it and then fell into a gully on the right. This was filled with hard snow, which carried him swiftly downward until the crest of a sheer cliff was reached. Over this, for five hundred feet, he plunged, and far into the Ennerdale valley below, death, of course, being inevitable.
SCAWFELL AND MICKLEDORE—THE DOUBLE CROSSES INDICATE THE LEDGE FROM WHICH THE PARTY OF FOUR FELL; THE SINGLE CROSS DENOTES WHERE PROFESSOR MARSHALL SLIPPED; AND THE CIRCLE SHOWS WHERE ALL THE BODIES, INCLUDING THAT OF MR. GOODALL, WERE FOUND.
From a Photograph.
Of the witnesses of this accident two subsequently lost their reason, and the death of another shortly afterwards was attributed to the shock. And all for the want of a little caution and forethought on a snow-slope! Still, “out of evil comes good,” and no doubt the remembrance of this terrible tragedy and its contributory cause has ultimately saved many valuable lives. Only once since then has it been forgotten in the Lake District, and this led to the last tragedy that has happened. This was to poor Alexander Goodall, a Keswick youth, who deliberately set off glissading down the snow at the top of Deep Ghyll on Scawfell.
To those of us who know the frightful velocity that is attained in a few feet on steep snow, and the long years of practice necessary to control this speed, such an act would appear quite inexplicable. But to him, whose first day on snow it was, and in entire ignorance of its insidious dangers, that downward slide would present no terrors, until, with balance gone and ice-axe snatched out of his grasp by the snow in which he wildly dug it, his mistake flashed across his mind with terrible meaning. Alas! he learnt his lesson too late; he did not live to profit by it, for his body dashed downward, crashing into the rocks as it sped, until it came to rest on the scree-slope five hundred feet below, within a few feet of the place on which Professor Marshall fell.
A short three months before this same spot witnessed the most terrible of all the Lakeland tragedies, when a party of skilful climbers fell from the north face of Scawfell Pinnacle. Even the historical accident on the first ascent of the Matterhorn, when all of a large party were killed but Mr. Whymper and two guides, palls before this home disaster, for here four Englishmen in the prime of their youth were suddenly called away.