The scene in front was quite the wildest I have met with: save the stream gurgling over a bed of shingles, there was scarce a sound to be heard. The folded flocks were silent, the ‘low, continuous murmurings’ of the fellside torrents were hushed, the very air was held in a frosty stillness. But the sky—here at last was a clear view to where the primrose of the aurora gleamed and faded and gleamed anew. The whitened mountain-peaks seemed rimmed with a wandering, golden irradiance for a moment; then the hues died away, leaving a chilling aspect before my eyes. Eastward, lo! along the hill-tops ran a line of fire, and the sky above was glowing. Moonrise! Now backward to quarters as smartly as foot can spurn the iron road.
Next morning, skates in hand, we took the direction of the mountain tarn. For nearly two miles our way held up a side-valley, in which were two or three sheep-farms. Here the shepherds were at work carrying huge bundles of hay to their flocks. Now we reached the open moor. The frost-rime lay thick on every blade of grass, and as we climbed higher the air seemed to turn colder. The path was so littered with loose stones that we shortly abandoned it, and struck up the steep slope more directly. In half an hour we stood upon a shelf in the mountainside which commanded a full view of the glen, and of miles of gray-white mountains around it. The worst of the ascent over, we struck across the frozen bogs, and very shortly stood by the mountain tarn. Seen from the beach near its outflow, it was a splendid sheet of ice, without a crack or a flaw anywhere. Its bluish surface seemed to extend a great distance into the lap of some great rocky bluffs. In a few seconds our skates were fixed on; our hands, unspoiled by the false luxury of gloves, were not numbed and nerveless. Despite the cold air circulating about us, we were distinctly warm with the exertions of our brisk climb. How the echoes resounded the ringing sound of steel meeting ice! A buzzard hawk, perched on the tip of a crag five hundred feet above us, took fright and threw itself into the air. For awhile it seemed as though other bird-life was absent. We coasted along cautiously a hundred yards to prove the soundness of the ice; then, as our confidence rose, extended our journeyings, though still keeping on the lower section of the tarn. The only island on this water is a small outcropping patch of rock, without a bush, but the inland home and breeding-place of a family of gulls. We skated out to this and passed around it. So far we had not seen the trace of a skate-track; we were the pioneers here, and, if I knew the dalesmen aright, no other skaters were likely to enjoy this delight.
Fully satisfied as to our security, we now set out to skate right round the sheet of ice, my friend leading. Now and again we passed over areas of Jack Frost’s most delicate tracery in hoar: thin white lines joining the most elaborate little ‘knobs’ of frost-rime, which, examined closely, bore close relation to the beautiful structure of a flower. There was a subdued croaking going on in front; the still air carried sound so well that we skated with the utmost care forward. Both of us hoped to see a raven and were not disappointed. As we swept into a shallow rock-fringed bay the bird rose with rapid wing from his feast of frozen mutton. A dead sheep lay within ten yards of the shore, gnawed and torn by a dozen tribes of mountain-dwellers. Occasionally from a spot like this a winter wanderer may scare a fox, but generally Reynard eats his fill during the hours of darkness and in some snug corner of the rocky hillside above is sleeping. Our run up the shore of the mere was fairly rapid, but I did not expect our view to have changed so completely. We were now in the upper part of the tarn; two jutting crags approached and narrowed its centre. The hillsides were strewn with great blocks of stone, tributes from the huge cliffs overhanging them. A deep narrow glen ran up some way from the head of the tarn, then suddenly ceased as a mountain-front arose. Feeding in the burn were birds—a gaunt heron the chief. The little knot of wild-duck did not take alarm till we had run close enough to admire their gorgeous sheeny plumage and soft contours. At the opening of one bay I halted a few seconds and looked through the clear ice beneath me. An unseen current was moving a tangle of yellow water-weeds and, almost touching them was a large pike. A sharp tap on the ice with my skate sent him sheering out into the deep waters. In shallow dubs I have frequently seen the same thing, but not on large tarns; For some time we had been striking in the direction of a high front of rock which rose sheer from the water. Its front, seared with a vein of brilliant white felspar, had been a landmark to us. Isn’t it curious to stand on a sheet of thin ice and look down into the inky depths? There we could see, for twenty feet, ledge after ledge and slab below slab, but not the foundation of the rock itself. The ice all round had been in splendid condition, and now we simply flew along beneath the frowning scaurs towards the beach we started from.
Arriving here, skates were doffed and we made down the rugged path again to the dale. Our experience had been an enviable one: there had not been a single drawback. The travelling was rugged enough to keep us warm, the skating glorious. When shall we have such another time?
AMONG UNDERGROUND SCENERY
The whole district of Craven, in North-western Yorkshire, is honeycombed with innumerable earth-chambers. Ribblesdale, Wenningdale, Wharfedale, and half a score of other dales named after their respective rivulets, are undermined and tunnelled for miles by the hand of Nature, and beneath their surfaces flow ‘sunless streams,’ no one knows whither, and measureless to man. Often, in wandering over the mountains there, we hear voices and gurglings from torrents which never find their way at all to the upper world, and from out one cavernous mouth in the hill Whernside flows a stream which in flood-time washes out periodically old silver coins of the reign of Edward I., from some long-lost treasury.
Near Giggleswick Scar is an ebbing and flowing well of exceedingly irregular habits. If you lay your ear to the ground at a certain spot in Ribblesdale, you will hear how the water comes down at Lodore in fairyland, although not so much as a rivulet is to be seen outside of Robin Hood’s Mill. Sometimes tremendous funnels, 200 feet in depth, lead by a very direct route, and one which would take no time at all to traverse, right down upon these mysterious streams. Black and deep enough the water seems, as we peer over the edges of the ‘pot’ at it, nor does it make one at all ambitious for subterranean exploration. Hellen Pot, which contains in it an underground waterfall of no less than 40 feet, has been descended to the depth of 330 feet, where the black river revolves in a quiet pool, and does not reappear to mortal eye for more than a mile. Some few of these ‘pots’ have fish in them; large black trout abound in Hurtle Pot, where the boggart, in rainy weather, is heard to threaten and fret, and are also found in less quantity in the chasm above it, though the upward force of the water is there so strong as to cast up stones of considerable size to the surface, and even on to the bank.
These are some of the wonders within reach of Ingleton: Yordas Cave is perhaps the most wonderful of all. If you are awheel, you turn westward from the village to Thornton-in-Lonsdale. At the church here—note the ancient stocks still standing at the crossways for the punishment of malefactors—your road turns northward up a formidable hill. As seen from the summit of this, Kingsdale presents a wild, and to some folks a dreary, appearance. On the occasion of my visit mist-clouds hung low, and even the lower hills about the valley could scarce be seen. The lower part of the descent is easily rideable, and ere long you are pedalling along a fair moorland road. Around you belts of limestone at regular intervals seam the hillside, while closer are the dry brown stones of a river-bed. This is but one of Ingletonia’s many freaks; a mile back were anglers plying their craft. After a wet period this river-bed flows with a torrent, but in a few hours the overplus has dwindled away. The becks on all the surrounding hillsides disappear down rock-chines as they near the dale, to rise to the surface again, perhaps, a couple of miles away.
Opposite the first house in the valley is a notice-board, ‘Apply here to view Yordas Cave.’ I crossed the fields to Braida Garth House in accordance. Here I found Mr. Batty willing to guide me, and to give me any information in his power. Various photos and plans of the cave were shown me, and it was only after an hour’s interesting chat that we got under way. My cycle was now left behind, and we made ‘crow-drive’ for a larch-plantation a mile away. As we passed along the fields, mine host pointed out the locality of various ‘pots’ on the opposite fell. Rowton Pot, he assured me, was the deepest yet discovered among the Craven hills. From the ground to where its tributary rills sink out of sight and sound it descends 365 feet! It starts on the top of a ridge, and its bottom is 20 feet below the level of the stream in the valley beneath. About 100 feet down, Mr. Batty informed me, there was a natural bridge across the chasm.