We have stood so long watching the events of this fierce hunt that our limbs (unbeknown to our excited selves) have long been gripped by the frosty air; our attempts at walking bring excruciating pains, which gradually lose sting, however, as the stagnant blood is forced through the veins of leg and arm and shoulder.
We had completely banished our chill, and were walking along the hillside, gradually trending downwards, when I was surprised to note a little mountain tarn almost at our feet. So close enfolded was it in the swelling ridges that we had not suspected its existence. But pleasure was added to the scene by the fact that on a small patch of unfrozen water were several dark moving bodies—water-fowl of some sort inviting a stalk. We turned abruptly down the slope, going far to the right in order not to disturb our game. When beneath the level of the tarn, we turned into a dell, where rattled a meagre rivulet—the escaping surplus from the lakelet above. In the shelter of this watercourse we hoped to get within shooting distance, but after a hundred yards we had had enough of the scramble. The gully was floored with huge boulders, which, now sheeted with snow and ice, presented slippery faces in every direction, and every foot and handhold had to be carefully scraped. The problem which finally baffled us was to compass a pool occupying the whole width of the ravine, while from its brink the cliffs rose sheer, presenting not a vestige of hold. I tried a dozen methods to circumvent the cornice, but failed. It was quite anxious work descending the ice-sheathed rocks, but after some twenty minutes we were on the whitened hillside again, greatly chagrined that the ducks were to escape. I persisted that another approach to the tarnside more feasible than the river-bed might be found. It was in half-despair that we skirted the ridge bounding the tarn-basin, but in a minute or two my companion, whose high spirits had been somewhat dashed by our failure, jerked my arm. Carefully reconnoitring from the shelter of a summit, he had noticed a shallow furrow in the snow which promised an approach. It did not take more than five minutes for us to reach its depths, when we found that the hollow reached quite down to the water’s edge, and that our advance would in large measure be covered by boulders and dense bushes. We were within fifty yards of the water when all shelter was passed; in front lay an unwrinkled drift. I opined that, by crawling along to where a low wall had been erected for more luxurious and leisurely shooters, we would be able to get to the waterside. It was chilly work and tedious: care, above all, had to be taken of our guns, for a speck of snow in the barrel might mean a dangerous burst. Anyhow, half frozen to the elbow, we had almost worked to our desired haven before the sounds of duck came to our ears. The birds were feeding in the next bay to that we were so toilsomely approaching, and our present goal would be of little use to shoot from. Therefore we patiently skirted the snow-filled wall and got to the side of a little ridge dividing their bay from ours. J—— was in advance, and moved so incautiously that he had exposed his presence to the birds before I got near. I heard a sharp clan-call, a splashing and a rustling of wings, and the flock, I knew, were away. J—— fired twice, and, leaping forward—caution was useless now—I espied the birds in time to add a shot. However, only one bird fell, and it lay on the thin ice edging the water. To retrieve it was a task requiring great nicety of movement, and after many failures the ice immediately round the body was separated from the sounder surface, and floated to within reach of a rock not far from the side. This trophy secured, we were again afoot.
The day which broke so fair and bright was now becoming cloudy; the mists gradually crept into the distant mountains, and descended to one peak after another, till it became apparent that the ground on which we were standing would ere long be enveloped in shifting gray. This was the more disquieting because we had rambled far from the direction we had intended, and a lofty ridge stood between us and our home. It was imperative that we should pass this before the clouds fell so far, so up we climbed, making for where we thought the path to our valley lay. Long ere we reached the crest of the slope the dusky masses had fallen around us, and we walked in semi-darkness. At first we could still see some fifty yards through the creeping mist; then it closed down further, and everything beyond a radius of a score yards was blotted out. When, however, the breeze began to be filled with fine snowflakes, this tiny circle was narrowed till my comrade, two gun-lengths away, was little more than a darker shadow. We tramped upwards for forty minutes; then the slope changed direction—we had passed the ridge, evidently—and we turned to the left. Some half-hour later we judged that we should be in the proximity of our path and clear of the cliff, so we attempted very, very cautiously a descent. The slope was steep, and careful stepping was required to guard against slipping. We had perhaps ventured thirty yards, when the angle of descent became dangerous, and I called a halt. J—— asserted that our valley was right below, and we would soon get to less abrupt ground. I had my doubts as to the latter point, and emphatically refused to risk reaching home by way of a three-hundred-foot drop down the rocks. We argued the point; then J—— gave way. Further and further to our left we patrolled without much success, then rested a moment in the whirling snow. We were inordinately puzzled as to our whereabouts, for we had expected to find here a wide, easily-falling sweep of hillside instead of a rocky precipice.
‘Why, we must have been wandering in a circle!’
Yes, there, not ten yards below, the thickening mantle of snow had not yet completely blurred our footprints of half an hour agone. We were surprised indeed. Now carefully checking our progress at every few paces, we soon came to easier ground, and at last reached the mountain-path we were in search of. It was level with snow, and somewhat bad to follow, yet it served to shortly bring us below the clouds. A thin snowshower was passing up the valley, dimming the distance, but this was soon over and the sun shone out anew. But the clouds clung to the upper slopes of our mountain for the rest of the day.
Our bag weighed somewhat heavily ere we covered the three miles to our quarters, but we regretted this little. When we came below the clouds, the first living thing in sight was a raven, next a curlew, and then a flock of wild-swans swooping down to some unfrozen marsh. After this we cleared the snow carefully from our gunbarrels, and nothing more important than a blackbird was seen.
IV. On the Frozen Meres
Day after day the cold increased. The lake-shore was fringed with ice; in the thin sere woods the trodden leaves crackled crisp underfoot. Then one morning the landscape was blotted out with a slow whirl of white, hastened by scarce a breath of wind. It was delightful to climb up to the moor as the white fleece piled up by inches. The larch-wood at a hundred yards was a dim meaningless shadow, yet we discovered unexpected beauties. During the night the snowfall ceased; the moon set as the day broke. A freezing breeze crept over the miles of snow, and, as it met tarn or beck, congealed their surfaces. On the broad lake the ice-sheet thus encouraged spread even at the height of noon, while after the sun set, and while the bright silent stars looked down, the frost realm extended apace.
Next morning the air was clear. Miles upon miles of white mountain-slopes extended along the horizon; woods and fields alike were buried in snow. Everything seemed pure against the steel blue of the ice-bound lake, or the lighter blue out there where the ducks disported in water as yet unapproached by Winter’s fetters. The ice, though in places sound, was still unsafe where the tiny mountain streams poured in. Yet, with caution, we skated on mile after mile, the sound of steel now ringing through the snow-floored woodland rides, now echoing away across the wide area of ice as we ventured further from shore. An island was now in front, crowned with dark spruces save on the north-west corner, where many centuries ago, some Norseman cleared a space for his habitation. The erection had gone long before the earliest histories were written, but the location was proved by the stray scraps of iron which the builder had used to bind the rough timbers together. As we swing along the smooth ice, always keeping outside the narrow snow-covered ribbon, we think of the Norseman’s iron nails, then of the bloomeries (small smelting furnaces) established by these shores centuries later under the supervision of the Abbot of Furness—in days when it was profitable to bring the iron ore to the woods, to be purified with charcoal. The industry seems not yet to be extinct, for as we glide round a rocky naze into a large bay, the faint breeze carries into our faces a pungent burden of wood-smoke. And there ahead are half a dozen eddying columns rising from as many pyres.