Old Wall.—On the east side of the Pillar Rock a natural line of rock runs down to the head of Walker's Gully, having, however, a narrow passage by means of which sheep may reach the Low Man. A hundred years ago or more, the shepherds built a wall of loose stones to stop the sheep, and though little of the wall remains, the name clings to the spot. At one time the North-east Route was usually spoken of as the Old Wall Way.
Patriarch.—By this name the Rev. James Jackson, of Sandwith in Cumberland, was very widely known. It is an abbreviation of one which he himself invented and assumed—'Patriarch of the Pillarites.' Some considerable mention of him is made by Mr. Williamson, but his readers will be glad to have further particulars, for this was a man of no ordinary stamp. Born at Millom just before the series of naval victories which closed the eighteenth century, he passed his boyhood in the thick of the Buonaparte struggle and shared in it personally when a mere lad. However, he soon changed the colour of his coat and entered the Church; but long before his connection with the Pillar he had ceased to take any active part in his profession. Thenceforward he lived at his ease, amusing himself by rambles and scrambles far and near among the fells. 'I have knocked about,' he said himself, 'among the mountains ever since, till I may almost say "I knaw iv'ry craag."' That he was somewhat of an egotist cannot be denied. In his letters as in his poems his own feats form the burden of his song. To this point all topics converged with the same certainty that all roads are said to lead to Rome. He was never tired of relating how, for instance, in his sixty-ninth year he had one day walked 46 miles in 14½ hours, on the third day following 56 miles in 18 hours, and after a similar interval 60 miles in less than 20 hours, thus accomplishing within one week three walks, any one of which might well knock up many a man of half his age; how, on another occasion, he had found two brethren of his own cloth struggling feebly to surmount the difficulties of Rossett Gill; how, taking pity upon their tender years, he had transferred their knapsacks to his own venerable shoulders and, striding on before, encouraged them to complete their weary task. A man aged between sixty and seventy might fairly plume himself on such an exploit. He also rejoiced greatly in the fact that he had been the first student of St. Bees College—a distinction of which, as he justly said, no one could ever deprive him. But the feat on which he especially prided himself was one of bodily activity. During the third part of a century he held the living of Rivington, near Bolton-le-Moors. It chanced that the weathercock of his church had become loose, and the masons rather shrank from the risk of going up to secure it. Here was an opportunity which our friend could not forego; and Rivington witnessed the unwonted spectacle of a beneficed clergyman of the Church of England solemnly swarming up his own steeple and making fast the vane 'under circumstances of terror which made the workmen recoil from the task, and the gazing rustics turn sick with horror at the sight!' While walking proudly back to his parsonage he composed a commemorative epigram which will bear quotation:
Who has not heard of Steeple Jack,
That lion-hearted Saxon?
Though I'm not he, he was my sire,
For I am 'Steeple Jackson'!
Indeed, his fancy was as lively as his limbs were supple. He was ever on the watch for some analogy or antithesis; ever producing some new alliteration or epigram expressive of such contrasts as that between his age and his activity. His favourite description of himself was 'senex juvenilis'—an idea which he frequently put into English, e.g.:
If this in your mind you will fix
When I make the Pillar my toy,
I was born in 1, 7, 9, 6,
And you'll think me a nimble old boy.
On the late Mr. Maitland, a well-known climber, as only second to himself in age and ardour, he bestowed the title 'Maitland of Many Mounts' and 'Patriarch Presumptive of the Pillarites.' There is nothing strange in his thus designating a successor and bestowing titles of honour; for these are matter of royal privilege, and he looked upon himself as the Mountain Monarch and always expected climbers to attend his mimic court and pay him homage. But he had many a high-flown alias besides. When Mr. Pendlebury came under his notice he contrasted himself with the Senior Wrangler, rather neatly, as the 'Senior Scrambler'; after his ascent of the Pillar he dubbed himself 'St. Jacobus Stylites'; and many other titles are introduced into the occasional poems on which he expended much of his ingenuity.
His bodily powers were not allowed to rust away. 'My adopted motto,' he said, 'is "Stare nescio,"' and some idea of his boundless love of enterprise may be formed from one of his letters: 'I have been twelve months afloat on the wide, wide sea. I have been beneath the falls of Niagara. I have sung "God save the King" in the hall of St. Peter's; I have ascended Vesuvius in the eruption of 1828; I have capped Snowdon in Wales and Slieve Donard in Ireland, and nearly all the hills in this district.... It only remains for me to mount the Pillar Rock!' Before the end of the following May this hope was gratified, and a proud moment it was for this veteran climber when, seated serenely on the summit, he was able to record in a Greek inscription (written, as he carefully notes, 'without specs') his ascent of the famous rock. Think of the life, the energy, the determination that must have been in him! Years seemed to be powerless to check the current of his blood. Where are we to look for another of his age—he was now in his eightieth year—showing any approach to the same combination of enterprise, pluck and bodily vigour? It cannot be wondered at that his success filled him with the keenest delight. He wrote off at once in high glee to his friends and felt quite injured if, in their reply or their delay in replying, he detected any sign of indifference to his exploit. But true to his motto 'Stare nescio,' he was not content with this. Within a month we find him expressing a fear that his title 'Patriarch of the Pillarites' might not be acknowledged by 'the Western division of the Order,' and announcing his intention of climbing the Pillar from the west also in order to secure his claim. He playfully proposes, moreover, that while he, 'the aged errant knight,' with his faithful squire toiled up from the west, a certain fair Pillarite should arrive at the summit from the east and crown his success on the spot by the bestowal on him of her hand and heart. According to all approved precedent the 'aged errant knight' ought to have bound his lady's favour around his clerical hat and ranged the mountains extorting from the passing tourist at the point of his alpenstock a confession of her peerless beauty; or for her sake betaken himself to the Rock and there passed nights of vigil and days of toil assisting distressed damsels in the terrible passage of the 'Slab.' Whatever he did, he made no attempt on the west route. Perhaps despair of the reward had cooled his zeal—zeal conditional like that of the Hindoo teacher who, when asked whether he professed the creed which he was anxious to teach, naïvely replied, 'I am not a Christian; but I expect to be one shortly—if sufficient inducement offers.'
There is a sad and sharp contrast in turning from his high spirits and playful fancy to his sudden death. It has been described elsewhere. Though fourscore and two was (as he himself expressed it on the very day of his death) the 'howdah' on his back, it cannot be said that the ever-growing howdah had crushed its bearer. His vigour was unimpaired. Like Walter Ewbank,
To the very last,
He had the lightest foot in Ennerdale.