William T. Palmer

In touring, extremes in conveyances and men meet—or perhaps, in these days of petrol, avoid one another. As the motor begins to monopolise the main roads, the true pedestrian is driven to the byways and field-paths. Gone for us seems the pleasure of swinging steadily, easily, over the hard turnpike; instead, we trudge in narrow, rutted lanes. Where, ten years ago, we watched the great events of the dale—the funerals, the weddings, the infants carried to church—now we must acquire a love for the everyday repose of Nature, else the Cult of the Hobnail knows us no more. Green hedges, grass-pitted roadways, ferns and flowers, birds and beasts of the wilder sort, must afford us food for observation and contemplation. Deeper and still deeper into the unknown countrysides have we to pierce, to taste again the keen delights of old.

HAWESWATER

It is a summer evening; the sky is packed with loose clouds; the sun’s rays, pouring through an archway left between two grey masses, merely touch the mountain-tops and are reflected down into the hollow glen about us. Not a sigh rustles the dense foliage; everything is dead calm save for the tinkle of water in yonder dingle—and the birds! The lark, the thrush, the whitethroat from its tuft of bosky grass; the sweet trills of the hedge-sparrow and linnet in the hedges, the yellow-hammer and the wagtail among the weatherbeaten outcrops. The stonechat too is here in his sober livery—but the harsh “natching” calls we hear are not all from its throat. There are three migrants hereabouts with almost identical characteristics—the whinchat, the wheatear, and the stonechat; but the last-named alone gives the call to perfection. There he stands on a notch of mossy rock on the roadside, his body seesawing as he gives forth the crisp, clear notes. That tuft of crimson feathers on his alert head distinguishes him from the others. Extending from the eye backward, they give the appearance of wearing a closely fitting skull-cap.

The hillsides around are steep, small crags jut out of their sides. Naddle Forest’s northern flank is clothed with a garth of small oak, through which in rides and patches the lovelier, livelier sward is seen. As we top a short rise, our view opens further, and into the distance stretches another narrow glen, its utmost limits invisible in a sea of filmy blue mist. In front, against a patch of bright blue sky, Walla Crag seems to mount to a tremendous height, its bare rocky facets catching the wandering gleams. The chorus of evening rises to rhapsody; then, as the light fades, the feathered choirs droop to silence and repose. Like a sheet of dull steel, between banks of darkening green Haweswater now appears. Its outlet is through the plain of rushes, tall grass, and tangled underwood to the left. What an ideal spot for a heron! and seldom will you visit Haweswater without seeing one, more often a pair, here. The true wanderer will not deem half an hour ill spent in watching this interesting bird. As we ramble on, the glassy surface of the lake is ruffled by the rising evening breeze. The green and black-grey shadow of Walla Crag—the clear water had carried it so faithfully that I thought of Tennyson’s undersea isle—

“Where the water is clearer than air:

Down we looked: what a garden! O bliss, what a Paradise there!

Bowers of a happier time, low down in a rainbow deep

Silent palaces, quiet fields of eternal sleep.”

But now “the Paradise trembles away,” the vivid detail is blurred, its beauty marred.

To Measand we walk in silence. Ever darker, yet lovely in its gloom, is the lake beside us. Against the grey skyline the Force, coming in irregular foamy streaks down the crags, stands out finely. Where tall hedgerows overhung the roadway, we met a lad carrying a rod. His fresh, honest face, as fine in its lines as that of many a woman, attracted my companion, and, as a fellow in Walton’s craft, he asked what sport the youngster had had. His pannier showed nine trout, two of fair size. The lad had climbed over the fellsides to Cordale glen: after rain the upland streams become torrents and the trout feed voraciously. With these small brown fish life must indeed consist of a few feasts and long, weary fasts. When asked what lure he had been using, the lad replied that, though he had carried a bundle of worms, the sleugh was more valuable. This, also called by the dalesmen the docking-grub, is a small white maggot chiefly to be found under flat stones in wet places. From angling, the chat turned to the native red deer. Yes, they were often seen, two or three generally haunting the ridges just above. Last winter one died there of starvation, and to-day, in Cordale glen, the boy had found the skeleton of another.

The beck we have just crossed comes from Fordendale, a gully prized by geologists as showing perfectly the course and action of a past British glacier. A wood-owl now begins its long-drawn “hoot-hoo,” from some glen across the water. A ring-ouzel, the mountain blackbird of the natives, though it wears a white crescent on its breast, next flies past. This is one of the later migrants to arrive, and does not leave us so long as berries remain on the rowan-trees by the ghylls. Now we are on the lakeside again: a trout leaps and returns to the water with a heavy “plunk.” A swallow flits along the dark expanse, hawking the last of the dayflies, and at the same time, with soft cuttering song, winging home. The last light is almost dead over the western ridges, and the detail of things by the roadside is uncertain. See, on that patch of dripping moss, five flat yellowish leaves from the centre of which, on a slender bending stem, rises a flower not unlike the woodland violet in shape. It is the butterwort, most inaptly named, one of the three British insectivorous plants. Unroll that curling leaf and you will find a store of partly-digested flies. With us in Lakeland the butterwort is usually found far from cultivation. A plant of the wilds it is, trusting to the free air rather than to the thin, poor soil for sustenance. The owl in Naddle Forest has now roused up a mate: their combined voices come across distinctly. A faint whistle sounds up the mere: an otter is out for its nightly raid. As I have observed him this creature is not an arch-enemy of trout. In wanton sport he may mutilate numbers of fish, but his chief diet is the freshwater crayfish. A casual examination of an otter’s hole will prove so much from the appearance of the excreta; and, while you are at such close quarters, note the plenty of fish-life in the pools near by. No further evidence is needed to correct much misjudgment. In the water the otter is graceful; in the meadows he lopes along at great speed when such is necessary. Overland he occasionally crosses even mountain ranges: lying on Kentmere High Street one midnight I heard the unmistakable calls of a pair close by, but the night was too dark for me to see the creatures.