By their united efforts the net is brought nearer land. As they bend over, the sheen from the water lights up the faces of the struggling men. There is satisfaction in every coarse and bloated line. As the net moves the surface of the pool becomes troubled, a fin or a tail cuts through the water: the salmon, though enmeshed, are exerting themselves to escape. But in vain, for, with an oath at the coldness of the water, the elder poacher steps into the pool, going deeper and deeper till the water rises to his shoulders, till he is able to force the pole and its heavily-laden bag-net to the surface and then ashore. In the clear depths his footmarks are traceable by the places where the moss was scraped from the stones by the hobnails of his boots.
The fish are rapidly killed and their carcases placed in bags (here and there a broken scale gleams silvern among the grass and shales); then, one carrying the unrigged net in addition to his load of salmon, the poachers are quickly lost to sight in the woods. Such is the story told by the abandoned net-pole and the shores of the robbed salmon-pool.
We turned aside from the river, scrambling up a steep clay bank, forcing a passage through a barricade of hazels, and in a couple of minutes were once again in a cleared area. Crossing this, in the shadow of the larch grove, here and there were quite considerable conical mounds, seemingly composed of dead sections of twigs. In and out of these by a thousand tunnel entrances were moving files of large black ants. These hills claimed our attention awhile. They were indeed cunningly built, and more than once a longing came to make an examination of their interiors. A scientist or a competent naturalist would have been justified in such an experiment, but not a pair of mere wanderers.
To compensate us, as it seemed, almost at once we heard a soft patter of paws and a soughing of delicate branches—a squirrel was dashing along the boughs not far away. As soon as the tree-bole was reached, the russet body whisked out of sight at great speed, but an eye kept on the point where it disappeared soon detected two sharp, tufted ears and a pair of bright eyes anxiously watching our movements. I called my companion’s attention to this, and so long as we refrained from movement the keen three-sided contemplation went on; but as soon as my arm stirred the little head was withdrawn, and I knew that four legs were carrying the squirrel swiftly up towards the crown of the tree. And, as anticipated, after the lapse of a few seconds the little animal reappeared on a branch quite a long way up, quietly observing us. The squirrels of Duddonside suffer little persecution by humans evidently, for this one had a curious, if rather distant, interest in us, and refused to be scared by any pretence at hostilities. Even as we moved away, a backward glance told us that the animal had altered its position to get a final glance, and was now hanging head downwards, peering at us from under the branch it was sitting upon.
A few minutes more, and the swiftly-moving waters of Duddon appear through the straight larch-stems. We are close beside the impassable stepping-stones and our path back from the woods to the little hamlet by the church.
V. Ghyll-climbing
Nearly the most miserable class in society contains those who have just fallen below distinction, while their efforts have raised them high above mediocrity. These persons are unjustly described by the brilliant as ‘the rank and file.’
In crag-climbing there are a few who seem to successfully emulate a fly or a spider in negotiating slippery rock walls, who can scramble unmoved along the sheerest precipices, or climb untiringly at the steepest ascents. Then come ‘the rank and file,’ whose deficiency of nerve or strength does not permit such risky work. Where do we find this class during the holiday season? Squatting under some towering crag, maybe, which it is their ambition to ascend, in the vain hope that familiarity with its outline will breed contempt for its dangers. Or spread-eagled in some dangerous situation, as the man who many years ago attempted to climb Piers Ghyll, a narrow, deep chasm in the side pf Scawfell Pike (Cumberland). He scrambled to a ledge nearly level with the waterfall which closes the direct ascent of this most majestic ghyll, then lost confidence, and dared neither advance nor retreat. Twenty-four hours’ exposure made him desperate enough to leap into the fall pool thirty feet beneath, in which manner he escaped.
‘A good cragsman is a good mountaineer’ is a proved axiom; but when the fells are so thoroughly and accurately mapped out, and paths are so distinctly traceable as they now are, few adventures happen to the careful man, and the fierce struggles which form the chief delight of crag-climbing are woefully lacking.