THE BORROWDALE YEWS
Evening
The fishing of Buttermere is now in a few hands: sportsmen have leased the mere and devoted much attention to its re-stocking. The result is that few anglers outside this coterie come here, though on an occasional day the mountain becks are worthy attention. Most visitors here are active enough to relish rambles over the fells, and there are many routes to select from. Away from the narrow band of meadow-land touching the lake, there are few obstacles to free-and-easy wanderings. Sheep walks are divided by wire fences, but these are fairly negotiable, by climbing over at the “posts” or squeezing between the running strands where slackest. Stout folks find the latter the preferable method. To make the circuit of the glen of the lake is a fairly big task, but it can be divided into three moderate courses. You start by crossing the meadows and climbing Scale Force brow, then, left-handed, along Red Pike and High Stile (over bog and bracken, across ghyll and up steep, with a glimpse into Ennerdale here, a peep through Newlands at Derwentdale there, and always the moor in sight, with a clean, sweet breeze and, if the day be clear, a wedge of blue sea on the horizon), finally descending into Scarf Gap, the home of mists, where an easy return path ends course one. From Scarf Gap, into the back-o’-beyont country behind Haystacks, and to Brandreth with its legs into Buttermere, Ennerdale and Borrowdale, always keeping to the right, and ending the course over Fleetwith to Honister Hause. From Brandreth it is easy to pass over Green Gable to Great Gable, and so to gain Wastwater. Honister pass-head is the scene of a legendary battle between Britons and Picts, or between Angles and Scots—history hardly decides which. One party had been a-foraying in Borrowdale and hoped to withdraw over this pass with their spoil; their pursuers, however, cut them off and, after a wild resistance, recovered the cattle. From Honister Hause—it is a wild place of rocks and screes and untamable streams—the final stage carries the wanderer over Dale Head to Hindscarth, whence he descends by Robinson to Buttermere or to Newlands Hause.
Every one walks up Honister as a matter of course. What is it like on a bright July day, when the beating heat is tempered by a smart breeze? Every rambler should live with eyes open to nature; to-day will repay him his interest. Up in the brilliant blue ravens and hawks are hovering, crows and rooks are ever passing over the glen. From one wood to another the wild pigeon wings rapidly, the blackbirds in the hedges are busy at their nestage duties. Take note of the flowers, O man with seeing eyes. In the pastures are great purple spikes of loose-strife, amid the white waves of ox-eyes; round by the lake are belts of blue lobelia. The air is full of the scent of meadow-sweet, the honey-suckle here and there throws trailers, adorned with creamy bloom, along the hedges, and in great clusters blow the wild roses. Up the shady beck-courses you might find the blue forget-me-not and the still bluer birdlime, and in the mossy springs the violet-shaped butterwort. Butterflies and dragon-flies, softer moths and gaudy beetles, are attracted by the multi-flavoured feast spread about.
Now we come to Gatescarth, the largest sheep-farm within many a mile. A noted breeder of mountain sheep lives here, one who has done much to improve our semi-wild Herdwicks—much honour to him. The farmlands, even in the glorious to-day, look harsh and bare, though the soft, short sward is of the greenest. In winter there is often severe stress here; at times the shepherds are called upon to collect, in a day of storm, the flocks from far-off crags and ghylls. Long hours are spent battling the elements, collecting the unwilling sheep, and bringing them down. The wanderer here on a stormy winter night is not unlikely to see a light patrolling far up the hillsides—one of the belated shepherds patiently driving his sheep down from the danger of flood and drift and gale. The white cross which is attracting the eye, O inquirer, is erected to the memory of a young lady accidentally killed at that spot: “In the midst of life we are in death,” is carved on it. The incident is one to make every mountaineer pause and think. It was an everyday risk, alas! The lady descending a steep slope held her alpenstock straight in front of her; the point struck the ground, but the lady slipped, her chin caught on the butt of the stick and, such was the force of the fall, her neck was dislocated, causing immediate death. Such an accident is possible a score times in every day’s walk here. Now the great crag of Honister is frowning by our very side. Around its base the rambler will find broad tracts of alpine ladies’ mantle, while forked spleenwort and many a rare plant besides are among the screes and shelving rocks. Among the grass and boulders near our path are long fantastic growths of stagshorn moss, with more alpine ladies’ mantle, with wild thyme, the precious eyebright and yellow tormentil lifting their lovely heads in the desolate wilderness. Now we reach the passhead: Honister is the wildest of our passes, the place where the great thews of Nature are least hid. But the slate quarries make Honister less desirable to some eyes; great confusions of debris, railroads sweeping up into the bowels of the great crags; for nowadays men do not work here, as they did in Wordsworth’s time, hanging down the cliff in frail basket-chairs tapping and blasting the surface rock, nor do they carry down the slate on handsledges as they did two score years or so ago. The mining is more scientific—more reliance is placed on machinery than on men. The new railroad, carrying slates to Seatollar has improved one thing at any rate—there is far less of that penetrating screaming of brakes than when the loaded carts descended the pass-road. On a calm day the racket could be heard for miles.
LODORE AND DERWENTWATER
A summer’s morn
CHAPTER XII
THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER
Proud Cumberland ranks Derwentwater as queen of the English Lakes; but I was born south of Dunmail raise, and feel at liberty to worship at other altars. To see the lake at its best one needs be afoot long before the coaches and motors appear. A road smothered in dust clouds, an atmosphere quivering with clatter, the fumes of petrol and the general unpleasantness of heavy traffic, detract from the most imperious beauty. At daybreak the town is almost silent: sweet mountain air has descended to dissipate the closeness of midnight; the songs of larks and throstles are wafted into the medley of houses and streets from the fields and woods; the murmur of flowing Greta is pleasant indeed. On Friars Crag you may meet an early visitor, and at the landings a boatman is cleaning up. As you stand there, in a pleasant but undeniable way the waters call. “A boat, sir? Certainly. Will you wait till I’ve finished here?” And you watch the man haste on his scrubbing and polishing. In two minutes he scrambles on to the pier, selects oars and cushions, sees you safe in your place, and gives a push off.
As yet no other boat is astir: you have the wide expanse to yourself. From Friars Crag scores of people in the summer watch the sun set. And at the close of a clear day the scene is glorious, even sublime. Around a hundred peaks, ranging from noble Skiddaw to humble Swineside and Catbells, the shafts of light fall and ebb. Here in the rift between two summits is a stretch of purple, there a patch of rosy light fades on a scree-seamed brae. If the sun sets in a flurry of crimson cloud the spectators will hardly take their eyes from the lake: the reflections of the sky are so charming, so magnificent. No painter could match the evanescent changes, the kindlings of the sky, the soft portrayal of each living flame on the shimmering water, the green gloom of overhanging mountains. What boots it if the fiery splendour is a presage of rain when so splendid a pageant is the forecast? To your left is rocky Derwent Isle. Fountains Abbey held it, before the Dissolution of Monasteries, as Vicars Isle; it has had half a dozen names since. Secluded, a fringe of trees hiding its narrow lawn, a house stands here which for sheer romantic situation would be hard to beat in the Lake Country or wide England. I would sit in an upper room there, on a day of April squalls. First in the grey nor’-east I would see the storm clouds gather darkly behind the cone of Skiddaw.
