Besides the satanic missiles, there are stones somewhere on the brink of the lake known as the ‘Mermaid Stones,’ but not one of us knew where to look for them, so we set our faces towards Counterside, the hill on the northern side of the vale and trudged patiently up the steep ascent in the hot afternoon sun, repaid by the widening prospect. We could see where waterfalls were rushing in the little glens at the head of the dale, and the shadow of hills in the lake, and the remotest village, Stalling Busk, said to be a place of unusual thrift. Even in that remote nook, you would find the dalesmen’s maxim kept from rusting, as well in the villages lower down and nearer the world: it is—“I don’t want to chate, or to be chated; but if it must be one or t’other, why, then, I wouldn’t be chated.” It is no scandal to say that money-grubbing in the dale is proverbial. “Look at that man,” said my Quaker friend at Bainbridge, pointing out what looked like a labourer driving a cart; “that man is worth thousands.” I did not hear, however, that he made an offensive use of his talent, as certain money-grubbers do in the neighbourhood of large towns. “He’s got nought,” exclaimed a coarse, rich man near Hull, slapping his pocket, of a poor man who differed from him in opinion: “he’s got nought—what should he know about it?”
We went down on the other slope of Counterside with Hawes in sight, and Cam Fell, a long ridgy summit more than 1900 feet high. I preferred to double it rather than go over it, and having shifted the knapsack to my own shoulders, shook hands with my excellent friends, and choosing short cuts so as to avoid the town, came in about an hour to the steep lonely road which turns up into Widdale, beyond the farther end of Hawes.
We shall return to Wensleydale a few days hence; meanwhile, good-natured reader, Widdale stretches before us, the road rising with little interruption for miles. Two hours of brisk walking will carry us through it between great wild hill slopes, which are channeled here and there by the dry, stony bed of a torrent. The evening closes in heavy and lowering, and Cam Fell and Widdale Fell uprear their huge forms on the right and left in sullen gloom, and appear the more mountainous. Ere long thick mists overspread their summits, and send ragged wreaths down the hollows, and much of the landscape becomes dim, and we close our day with a view of Nature in one of her mysterious moods. We ascend into the bleak region, pass the bare little hamlet of Redshaw, catch a dull glimpse of Ingleborough, with its broad flat summit, and then at six miles from Hawes, come to the lonesome public-house at Newby Head.
Of such wild land as that we have traversed. Arthur Young once bought a large tract, having in view a grand scheme of reclamation, but was diverted therefrom by his appointment as Secretary to the Board of Agriculture. “What a change,” he says, “in the destination of a man’s life! Instead of entering the solitary lord of four thousand acres, in the keen atmosphere of lofty rocks and mountain torrents, with a little creation rising gradually around me, making the desert smile with cultivation, and grouse give way to industrious population, active and energetic, though remote and tranquil; and every instant of my existence, making two blades of grass to grow where not one was found before—behold me at a desk, in the smoke, the fog, the din of Whitehall!”
The public-house is a resort for cattle-dealers from Scotland, and head-quarters for shepherds and labourers. The fare is better than the lodging. Three kinds of cakes, eggs, and small pies of preserved bilberries, were set before me at tea; but the bed, though the sheets were clean, had a musty smell of damp straw.
CHAPTER XXI.
About Gimmer Hogs—Gearstones—Source of the Ribble—Weathercote Cave—An Underground Waterfall—A Gem of a Cave—Jingle Pot—The Silly Ducks—Hurtle Pool—The Boggart—A Reminiscence of the Doctor—Chapel-le-Dale—Remarkable Scenery—Ingleborough—Ingleton—Craven—Young Daniel Dove, and Long Miles—Clapham—Ingleborough Cave—Stalactite and Stalagmite—Marvellous Spectacle—Pillar Hall—Weird Music—Treacherous Pools—The Abyss—How Stalactite forms—The Jockey Cap—Cross Arches—The Long Gallery—The Giant’s Hall—Mysterious Waterfall—A Trouty Beck—The Bar-Parlour—A Bradford Spinner.
On the way hither, I had noticed what was to me a novel mode of bill-sticking; that is, on the sharp spines of tall thistles by the wayside. The bills advertised Gimmer Hogs for sale, a species of animal that I had never before heard of, and I puzzled myself not a little in guessing what they could be. For although Gimmer is good honest Danish, signifying a ewe that has not yet lambed, the connexion between sheep and swine is not obvious to the uninitiated. However, it happened that I sat down to breakfast with a Scottish grazier who had arrived soon after daybreak, and he told me that sheep not more than one year old are called Gimmer Hogs; but why the word hogs should be used to describe ewes he could not tell.