‘Do you see that salmon? Well, what do you think? I found a whole big fish hanging up in the cart-house, with all the cats on the farm watching it, first thing this morning. The keepers must have run some poacher very hard before he left his fish like that.’
Needless to say, the good lady was unaware that we had spent our night otherwise than in sleep, and that two wet suits of clothes were being surreptitiously dried behind a pile of sacks in the boiler-house.
TALES OF THE MIST
John Bennett, the doyen of English fell guides, gives the following as one of his most arduous experiences:
‘I left Dungeon Ghyll one wet afternoon guiding a party to Scawfell Pike. At the top of Rossett Ghyll one of the ladies was too tired to go further. I did not wish to leave her without a companion, but she insisted that all the others should complete their walk. We left her resting by a large boulder, and soon were out of sight in the mist. A couple of hours later we returned, but there was no trace of the lady. As it was very probable she had already returned to the hotel, this circumstance did not then trouble us much. But when we got home the lady had not been seen, so I set out again up the ghyll to Esk Hause, and there turned down the head into Borrowdale, as it was apparent that the lady had somehow strayed from the path. At Seathwaite, Seatoller, and Rosthwaite I visited all the inns and outlying houses; then, still unsuccessful, turned up the pass to Wastdalehead.
‘After a seven-mile tramp through very dense cloud, I came to old Will Ritson’s, but could hear of no visitor. I ascended Scawfell Pike, and searched closely and unavailingly as I returned. The lads of the dalehead had been out scouting the hillsides in the meantime, and I got in just after they had completed their task. It was now past midnight and a wild night. After some supper—not many in the hotel would go to bed that night—I made another attempt, almost in despair. There was not the slightest answer to my calls. I climbed over to Eskdale, hoping that my lady had found her way there, and with the intention of raising the alarm thoroughly. At about four o’clock I knocked at the Woolpack, near Boot, and was told that a lady in a very exhausted condition had struggled to the door three hours before. She was then in a dead faint, but I was speedily satisfied that my weary hunt was finished.
‘It appeared that the lady, feeling a little less tired, had followed from Rossett Ghyll less than an hour after we left her. For a while she had followed the path with ease, then lost it completely. Whilst trying to find it again among the mist, she became hopelessly confused as to direction, crossed streams, climbed and descended huge rocks, and walked over much rough ground. At length she found herself by a fence, and, following this a good way, saw the lights of the Woolpack in the distance.’
Such an incident is not uncommon even in these days, when mountain-paths are so well worn that any stranger may keep on them. But even if the route be lost, there is little peril to anyone who knows the fells. The only real awkward possibility that I know of is the danger of coming without warning upon a precipitous descent. Nearly every accident recorded is due to the fact that most people in such a predicament attempt to descend the face of the crag, often coming to grief. On one of his thirty or forty annual ascents of Helvellyn, for the purpose of measuring the density of its atmosphere at various altitudes, John Dalton and his companions suddenly found themselves enveloped in a dense cloud, which had swept up and closed round them unawares. They attempted to move, and stepped a few feet in advance, holding by the skirts of each other’s coat, when the old philosopher suddenly drew back, saying: ‘Not a step more! There is nothing but cloud to tread on!’ It was true; their unconscious feet were on the very edge of the precipice which plunges sheer down to Red Tarn.
To those who know the fells, abundant indications give warning of the nearness of a precipice, as well as, if the route be more familiar, to determine exactly the position of the rambler. These signs are in the air; the different notes sounded by the wind to right and left are of great value. A breeze rushing up or along a wide expanse of grass has a seething note in it, whereas if rising suddenly from a deep dalehead, and encountering many crags, there is a harsh roar in the sound. Once when wandering along Helvellyn, our only proof that we had not involuntarily taken a wrong direction—by no means unusual in a dense mist—was the rattle of the wind among the cliffs on the Patterdale side of the mountain. The edge of a precipice is always heralded by a line of outcroppings, and when travelling in the mist watch should always be kept for these.