_THE MOODS OF WASTWATER_
I never think of Wastwater without recalling some exciting
hours--Wastwater surrounded by crag-set mountains and wide bouldery
moorlands where foxes rule wild and strong. Under Tommie Dobson, that
genius among fell-land huntsmen, a pack of wiry hounds has been raised
in the bordering dales. In pursuit ruthless, untiring, determined; a
chase from dawn to night, over country bristling with difficulties, is
no unusual thing to them. Screes, miles of frittering mountain rampart,
Yewbarrow, ridged like a Napoleon's hat, Scawfells, impending over great
piles of fragments, Gable; about these are benks and earths and borrans
innumerable. Never a season do they fail the hunt; never do they fail
for redskins to plunder flock and poultry roost. Then the wilds to
Ennerdale--I had climbed the slope of Gable before the meet at dawn on a
spring day, the crisp air became full of music--what finer sounds than
those from a foxhound's throat!--the turf was springy and dry, the sky
flecked with high-sailing clouds. To climb the rocky terraces was
delightful; to hunt--the exhilaration needs experience, it is beyond my
words to describe. No pink coat was in the knot of men below; and a
follower on horseback is seldom seen at a meet by Wastwater. Hounds
unkennelled as they left the short lane from the inn, and soon above the
babble of eager questers rose the clear peal of a true find. To one line
gathered the pack, and away! Not often does Reynard give so good a
chance. Over the tall drystone walls surged the hounds, at first in a
compact bunch, then, as pace began to tell, dribbling out into a line.
Out of the fields, and into the intakes of Mosedale; and ever higher
rose the note of the chase, ever smarter the gliding forward of the
clan. A check! From Gable's lofty flank I saw hounds halt at a dark grey
patch of stones, circle it almost in silence. Reynard has gone aground;
the huntsmen and the fleeter followers come up. The scent drew the pack
in and out, over wall and beck, through dead bracken and crackling
heather, three or four good miles, but the huntsman, judging the true
route, reached the borran in less than a mile. The hounds called away,
terriers are put "in" and possibly will have Reynard out ere long.
Nowhere but in the fells are terriers really used after foxes--nowhere
else, the dalesmen proudly say, are dogs capable of doing such work.
After a considerable delay two white dots stray out on to the dark grey
stones--Reynard has been killed in the dark recesses.
[Illustration: A FELL FOX-HUNT, HEAD OF ESKDALE AND SCAWFELL]
The sun is now high, the cloud flecks are gone, the air has become warm.
Long ago foxes ceased to be afoot, and hours of careful work by huntsman
and hounds may be necessary to find another fair scent. But even the
pattern of all wiliness, like the human votaries at his shrine,
sometimes overreaches himself. After a tedious march it is refreshing to
hear hounds speak to a piping line. Reynard, lying out in a pile of
boulders, has heard the coming pack. He steals away--too late, for a
keen-sighted dalesman has viewed him away. Ten minutes of frenzied
rushing, and the fox is reached. Ruby in the van seizes him, and over go
both at the impact. The hound, aged but plucky, loses his grip and
Reynard is free again; down the scree, in the very access of terror, the
redskin flies, but with a couple of bounds Chorister has him fast. The
iron jaws crunch into the fox's spine, and though together they roll
near twenty yards the grip never falters. There is no "worry" at the
death; the hounds, now that their enemy is dead, take little further
notice of him. Ofttimes the death is compassed a mile away from the
nearest follower, but occasionally a fair number view the finish. And to
do this you may have to come pell mell down some rotten "rake." We saw
hounds stream over a patch of snow on a near-by hill: a dalesman pointed
out Reynard dead beat a hundred yards in front. "The Gate," called some
one, "who's going down?" Six of us rushed for the head of that
precipitous scree-shoot. The angle of descent was terrible, but, hunting
mad, we leapt and slid, stumbled and jolted down. A thousand feet plumb
drop, with a hail of loose stones roaring behind us. The rake-foot was
narrow, between perpendicular rocks, and in single file we raced down.
No one tried to halt; if it were thought of, the gathering pelt of
stones decided in favour of forward. Shades of Silver Howe! In the
madness of the guide-race you never saw the like of this. But after five
minutes of real, tearing life--oh! it's good to have lived through such
a time!--we were running down the smoother grass. The hounds were
probably quite close by--running mute for the death--and across the
roaring, flooded beck within a score yards came the fox. We halted in
silence--back up, tongue lolling, moving stiffly and with evident pain,
he was the scourge of the fells, but a respected foe at that. Thrice had
he been chased far, now came for him the end. Two outstripping hounds
shot across a cove which was bank-high in snow, leapt at him, and all
was over.
Wastwater, its bed hewn and filled by Almighty power in the beginning to
contrast the silvern temporalities of a level mere with the solid,
silent, rugged eternities of rock around. There is always some pleasure
to the hale of body and mind in climbing from Wastwater, whether by
pony-track, mountain-path, or dangerous puzzle route up the cliffs. In
early October I had to cross to Wastwater from Keswick. In the golden
glory of afternoon we passed up Borrowdale. One side the glen sloomed in
dying bronze of bracken, the other was grey with nude birches below,
chocolate with heather above. We left the main road and passed into the
desolate mountain land. As the sun declined, clouds, at first mackerel
but now dull and heavy with rain and night, floated majestically from
behind the western mountains. Shortly in a low cloud cornice Gable's
head was buried, and billow after billow of mist possessed the higher
ground: at Rosthwaite the glow of day, here the portents of night and
foul weather. "Fraternal Three" and the old wad-mine took but a moment's
attention, then away, up the narrow dell.
[Illustration: WASTWATER, FROM STRANDS]
Night fast closed round. Our last look back barely showed the curve of
Borrowdale. Gillercombe, scored by tremendous ravines, presided over a
scene of almost indescribable wildness. The wind roared and boomed
above, the steady drift of fine rain was in our faces. Hoarsely down its
rugged bed the beck sang in accord. Grey light and dashing water, with
gloom intense above and a rain-sodden world below, our path uncertain,
picked out by boulders. Bogs of sphagnum, sponged a foot high with
water, runnels where in summer are hollows filled with wee splinters,
the rills all shouting becks, and the becks flooding torrents. Our boots
full of water, wet to the thigh, we still squelched on. In a while we
came to a narrow footbridge, and crossed the chief torrent. "Where is
the path?" I knew not, nor cared. Swinging bogs were all about; a grisly
light crept through the clouds in front: that showed the pass-head, and
was my guide. Now, we stood within twenty yards of Stye Head Tarn--what
a scene! Half invisible, a patch of wind-spurned waters, dark mountains
sweeping upward, cloven by black ghylls, whitish beards of cloud
stealthily moving along and hiding the higher ground in ghostly embrace.
The sounds--the tongues of many waters, and the night wind weirding
among crags and crannies. Ten minutes more, our path in a long curve
swept down the rock-shelves toward the dale. What a gulf of gloom, the
waterfalls roaring and possessing the night! Take care, take care, the
way is full of stumbling-blocks, of pitfalls; to the right is steep
rock, to the left a precipice. Over it--crane your neck and see if
foothold is visible beneath. Such is Stye Head Pass at night.
[Illustration: WASTWATER AND SCAWFELL]
We reach the scree where the route is safer, but at the zig-zags more
than once overshoot the path. The clouds apparently are densest near the
mountains, for beyond the rock-girt valley some brighter clouds render
darkness almost visible. There is a dream of a grey Wastwater, a mirage
of something not chaos beyond. A spark of light shows where the hotel
lies, but it is far away. Some twenty minutes from the pass-head we find
grass beneath our feet. Looking backward, there is a walpurgis of grey
shadow and black night. Now the path is easier and we walk more rapidly,
though frequently stumbles remind us that the path is far from smooth.
The light--from hospitable windows--is nearing perceptibly. Now, in
front, is a darker mass--the yew-trees crowding round a tiny House of
God, shielding it by their tough green limbs from the storms. We were
walking quietly in the narrow lane thinking of the gloom on all things
made, when a white shadow beyond that of the dale-church arrested us.
What is it? Memory hasted back a week to that most terrible disaster in
the annals of Lakeland rock-climbing--the accident on the Scawfell
Pillar. Four fine young men were killed, and three are laid here. A heap
of white flowers, like a pall of mountain snow, masks the grave. Sadly
impressive is the scene; the white wilting flowers represent fitly the
brief human span of life--to-day we are, to-morrow we are not, thus is
the will of God: the dense green yew-trees symbolise death, the
time-long end of man. But look higher, I felt--around. "O death, where
is thy sting?" for, though the mists of night bewilder, great rock-ribs
are rising upward, higher, ever higher, till earth and heaven meet. And
the yew of death will moulder by the kirkgarth, but the mountains must
stand fast to prove eternity--immeasurable, infinite.
Wastwater, its shores treeless and forlorn, its waters rippling against
their shingly bays, with mountains beyond and around, curtains of rock
and ribbons of scree. In the cool days of spring the mountains are
delightful, but sometimes there is a sudden revulsion to winter. A shade
sweeps from nor'east, and behold a squall plastering all with snow, a
gale shrieking around, and the temperature tumbling to zero. Such
mischances apart, the bracing air makes a new creature of one after the
fogs of winter, and you simply stroll up the ascents. So much has been
written of the mountain-climbing around Wastwater that to infuse
romance, to say any new thing, is difficult. Steep ghylls there are to
ascend, loose bands of scree to pass, bogs varying in depth according to
weather. Here a rushing rivulet to ford, there, winding beneath crazy
rock fragments, the path hangs on the brink of a deep ravine; collar
work up five hundred feet of slippery grass, and splendid poising
exercise over beds of boulders. When winter holds sway and a white garb
hides the bloom of meadows and hillsides, Wastwater is a very home of
loneliness. Its surface is no home for the wildfowl from northward: a
wastewater it is to them and not worth a minute of the foody, oozy sands
of Irt and Esk, seven miles away. Loneliness and silence. When the babel
of the flock in the intakes ceases to the ear, the absence of all sound
will depress the liveliest soul. The air, chill and cutting, goes
soundlessly by; the lake broods in leaden, stirless gloom. There is no
sound of tinkling rivulets; the raven's croak, the curlew's wild shriek,
are no longer heard; the plover, the heron, and the birds of the
hedgerow have flown to less sombre regions. When the stars are mirrored
in the steely blue water and the moon throws shafts of glory across the
mountain barrier, the silence is more crushing. One side the dale is in
shadow; frost spangles give to the other an ethereal, unreal illume.
Gable and the Scawfells are snowbound where on ledge and scree snow can
lie; the rocks, through which, from the mountain's heart, hidden springs
are driven, are sheathed with ice. Day after day, the deadness of living
nature seems to increase; day after day, the unknowable mysteries of the
mountains seem to deepen. The loudest voice seems hushed; the most
fervid imagination is consciously dwarfed. Then the weather changes; the
air turns raw and damp, and day seemingly forgets Wastwater. Silent,
implacable, falls the rain. Down almost to the water trail the ragged
cloud-beards--they choke day from the low land. Up the mountains--he is
a hardy wight who dares to be there. Half-molten snowdrifts, torrents
roaring, cascading from unseen above to invisible below, gouts of water
cleaving through the mistwreaths. But seldom does such a wanderer brave
the elements long. Turgid torrents and close-enwrapping fogs charm no
one. Indoors the fires burn bright; save for a brief space about noon,
when a sickly lightening proclaims day's climax and glory, the lamps are
hardly out. To the gloom of the clouded sky is added the great shadows
of close-hemming mountains; there are houses among the fells on which
for three months of the year the sun never shines.
[Illustration: WASTDALEHEAD AND GREAT GABLE
Towards evening in autumn]
Wastwater, and the Screes. Three miles of buttresses crumbling down in
fan-shaped beds of ruin. It is grand to pace the opposite shore and
watch the play of light and shade on the rugged mountainside. Streaked
with rich brown are some of the yawning gullies: up there are stores of
ruddle or native iron. Soft and soluble as mud, the substance once had a
value as providing an indelible mark for sheep. The shepherd lads from
distant dales came here to collect it--for a premium of sixpence per
pound from their masters. On the brink and halfway down the face of the
shivery rocks are the little veins of ruddle found. A steady step and a
firm nerve had the lads who dared such labour, for a misstep might split
their foothold to pieces and throw them far down the ravines. We are
told that many lives were lost in the pursuit of ruddle: compared with
it, modern rock-climbing, with the skilfully used safeguards, is safe,
though of course far more arduous. The climber of to-day chooses a sound
crag for his work: the ruddle-gatherer could only work among the
loosest, craziest ground.
The best way to see the Screes is to take a boat and row close to them.
High above your head, a great rampart of rock, scored since the world
began with the cabalistic record of frost and storm, hides the sky.
Somewhere betwixt the crags and lake, following the smoothest route, is
a rough path. In and out of parks of huge boulders (many, geologists
say, still sliding downwards at speeds varying from slothful inches to a
bustling six feet per annum), the track threads, affording a grand
though tiring walk. After frost there is danger in approaching some of
the crags. Huge breasts of stone are so finely hung that the ice wedging
their crannies rends them as surely as gunpowder. There have been some
tremendous rockfalls in the Screes. A century ago one of the sights of
Wastwater was a lofty fragment to which an uncouth imagination gave the
name of Wilson's Horse. For long the vicinity had been shunned: pieces
of rock were for ever disintegrating from the mass. Then, after a winter
grim with frost and snow, came the final catastrophe. At dead of night
was heard the roar of falling rock, and at daybreak the Horse had
disappeared. Judging from the splintery gulf whence the Horse fell,
"What a splash it must have made!" interjected one as we scrambled about
the place. It is said that a twenty-foot wave passed north and south
after the rock struck the water.
[Illustration: WASTWATER SCREES]
Wastwater, the home of many shepherds. As you scramble their flocks are
ever around you. And from among desolate-looking rocks, between beds of
lichened boulders, they obtain sustenance. There is a tuft of grass just
by that patch of parsley fern; a little fringe of soft green nestles
beneath that boulder; a skin of living verdure finds root where the
scree lies fine as dust. For these wisps of grass the hardy Herdwicks
assiduously search, and on such meagre fare they thrive. Our sheep are
small in size compared with those of the lowlands but more robust, and
so intelligent that no dweller in the mountain-land can understand that
cant phrase "a silly sheep." There are other animals with far less
resource or real initiative when faced by danger. The life of the
mountain shepherd possesses little of Arcadian joy and pastoral romance.
The stress of winter when storm sweeps down from the Gable and the air
is riotous with snow, the terrible "clash" at lambing-time when the
weather turns wet for weeks, militate against such idylls as are fancied
in brighter lands. So ruthless is fact in its war with poetic vapourings
that even the glories of the shepherd's summer do not remain. Instead of
the shepherd piping and watching the sheep with lambs by their sides
streaming over green swelling hills, in the English mountain-land it is
the season of the detested maggot. This cruel pest burrows through wool
and skin into the living flesh beneath and devours that. It is almost
too sickening to recall the piteous scenes of visible spines and ribs
from which the flesh has been denuded; of sheep still living in the most
awful agony. Nearly the worst characteristic of this terrible visitation
is that a sheep when attacked generally turns recluse and wanders as far
as possible from its fellows. Thus, when the shepherd should
theoretically be at ease, he is really, ointment pot in hand, climbing
about the roughest parts of his holding. Once, when wandering near
Wastwater, I met a shepherd.
"Been salving?" I queried.
"Nay, been trying to find some to salve. I've a mind they're somewhere
in these ghylls, but I can't come at 'em."
"How many do you reckon there'll be?"
"Mappen sebben or eight. I'm going to try this beck course."
"Yes, do," I said: "I think there's a few up above."
[Illustration: WASTDALEHEAD CHURCH
The smallest in the district--perhaps in England]
Then I explained that from across the mere I had noticed a few white
dots, and had entered into remarks thereon with one who through field
glasses was scanning the great hillside. He could scarce believe that
the small grey masses cluthering in the ghyll were sheep. "They're far
too still." I admitted the mournful fact, also that they were much above
the zone of grass, but added that they were "smitten by wicks." The
shepherd assured that this was the very ghyll, up we went. It was not
long before we came to the lowest--I dare not say animal. So weak and
emaciated was the living organism from ravages of the terrible maggot
that the shepherd immediately kicked out its brain. "Can't save it," he
muttered through set teeth. The next was not so far gone. The shepherd,
with deft hands, cut away the clotted wool and speedily the cleansing
ointment was at work. The plunging and baa-ing of the sheep showed that
the cure was a "smarty" one. One by one the other sheep were found and
remedies applied, so that the shepherd went back to the farm at rest.
Wastwater, haunt of the char and the botling, the latter a mysterious
fish. Now and again he turned up, and his appearance spread dread
through the country-side--what had not happened when last this hermit
fish came ashore? Fever and agues were by some said to follow his
occurrence, or trouble about heafage rights. But progressive science
scared him from existence (the botling was ever a male) with his little
hoard of lore. The fish was taken at the fall of the year in the little
becks and among spawning trout. He was a powerful fellow, differing
chiefly from his associates in greater size and thickness, and in the
manner in which his under jaw turned up and was hooked. In weight the
botling ranged from four to twelve pounds. One killed by leister, or
fish spear, was so thick that its girth was in excess of its length by
four inches. In colour and marking the botling resembled the ordinary
lake trout, the brown spots on its back being only proportionately
larger. Probably it was only a local variation of _Salmo ferox_ (the
great lake trout); it might possibly have been a hybrid fish. At any
rate, here the argument must be left: for half a century the botling has
not been heard of--his train of woe, however, has not been so
considerate.
[Illustration: NEARING THE TOP OF STYHEAD PASS, WASTDALE]
Like our other lakes, Wastwater is most fishable when a faint breeze
ruffles its waters--for the benefit of the visitor-angler, the coch y
bondhu and Broughton Point are the best general flies, with red hackle
during the summer. There is little sport with the char: the lake-bed
does not permit netting, and the fish are not present in sufficient
numbers to encourage the use of the plumb-line. One of my old
acquaintance was wont to walk from Langdale over the mountains to fish
here, in the days of the now proscribed lath. Poor old Tom, it needs a
vivid imagination to picture thy age-wrung frame climbing steep Rossett
Ghyll, to think of thy dim old eyes as alert enough to seek out the path
as in semi-darkness thou wandered among bogs and benks, screes and
boulders. Still more difficult is it to see thee bending over the
lead-weighted board with its twin lines and their droppers of gut, fly,
and barb, keen to get the instrument on its journey. In one of the coves
where purls down a rivulet, the lath is launched; the faint current
carries it outward till the breeze ruffling the lake catches its
upturned edge. Twenty yards out, where the lake sheers down to its great
depth, fish are lying, taking what food air and stream drift to them.
Slowly the lath sails outward, Tom unwinding further line as required.
The board is now, thinks Tom, beyond the shoal, and the droppers should
be presenting their temptations to the fish. Its movement is therefore
checked, and the linesman waits for the fish to bite. Tom's right hand
after a while draws one end of the lath nearer, the breeze catches it
and it floats sidewise. To the right is a few yards of water from which
Tom has previously taken good fish. In an hour he rises from the
shadows, and draws the board slowly to land. At first the lines come
steadily enough, and are coiled neatly; then there is greater
resistance. The right line jerks about in all directions: here comes a
big trout. A faint ruffle breaks from a back fin just beneath the
surface, there is a little wimple as the fish sinks down again. Gently,
gently Tom draws in line. Now there is a brisk curl quite close to his
feet near the rocks, a few splashes, and Tom is handling a half-pounder.
So strong was the tackle used for lath-fishing that no delicate
precision, little fine "play," was requisite. Poor old Tom! Hadst thou
then a taste for the picturesque, what lovely memories thou must be
revelling in now when in age thine eye to outward things grows dim!
Nights by lovely mountain tarns, when the northward light made the water
glow like steel, when the great ribs of the mountains seemed in their
nakedness to support the dome of night. Star-spangled skies, and the
soft mists of summer by the lake-shore when everything droned to rest.
The adventure Tom remembers best is of Wastwater. A keeper had suspected
lathing on the western shore, and secreted himself to watch. Tom came
over from Langdale, and near Yewbarrow made ready his lines. The board
floating out attracted the keeper's attention. He was mounted, and rode
as fast as he could to cut off the poacher. Tom heard the thud of hooves
on the soft grass, threw his lines into the mere, and made up the
hillside as fast as he could run. A few score yards the horseman
pursued, but the poacher managed to cross a deep but narrow gully which
the keeper's pony could not leap. Then, as Tom quaintly remarks, "He
thought he hed hed enew on't, and turned back to the lake. But I got my
lines and board in spite of all. Aye, and there was about twenty pounds
of fish on 'em."
[Illustration: WASTDALEHEAD, WASTWATER]
Wastwater--its memories are quite innumerable. On cycle the western
shore is not difficult. The road undulates, but its surface is fair. It
was a warm afternoon; rain had fallen during the previous night, but
bright sunshine and sweeping breeze had dried up the exposed portions of
the road, though under the trees it was still muddy. We started from
Santon Bridge, a sweet hamlet in the gorge of the Irt, not usually found
by those whose faces are toward Wastwater. For a couple of miles the
road was up, up, and the hills were long; then down, down, down, and the
descents were merry. And the Screes rose loftier in front, and looked
more and more broken. Soon the level blue of Wastwater comes in sight
over larch-tops. Then, as we pedal into a beech avenue, the full view is
lost, but we see a succession of entrancing vistas: narrow shafts of
meadow and woodland, of water and upspringing screes, framed in by
dainty sprays of copper foliage. Through the tunnel of overhanging
boughs is a glimpse of open moor and of distant fell. The road declines
and our speed increases. To northward we see almost the full length of
the mere; the faint breeze is urging the water to gayest laughter. The
Screes, with their rainbow hues of native coal and iron, of green slate
and brown conglomerate, are opposite. The afternoon sun is playing about
their gullies: in some we see long, thin cascades, but between the
cliffs fringing other ravines is a straight, heavy shadow. In there,
unseen by the sun, the water jets and sprays in leaden glories; no
rainbow dances in the soft white veils; dank, slimy cave-ferns grow in
plenty.
Our road now passes into the wild moorland--terrace after terrace of
hillocks we wind through, keeping near the lake's level. The feature in
this approach to Wastwater head is Yewbarrow. Seen from other points
this seems rather tame, but from here it is impressive, commanding the
whole view. The lake is still waving under the influence of the breeze;
green, green and gold are the hillsides with grass and bracken. Among
the stones the staghorn moss threads, sending up club-like spikes in
profusion; every boulder is fringed with parsley fern. Yewbarrow, always
changing shape, now appears as if cloven by a chasm from the great mass
of mountains, and the name of the chasm is Bowderdale. There is heather
by the roadside now, its tufts perfect masses of bloom, and the broom's
yellow glory is not wanting. In half a mile we leave the desolation of
rock and grass--here are trees and even a few pieces of hedges, rowan
and hawthorn, with a few scrubby oaks. The level plain of Wastdale head
appears in front; we coast round guardian Yewbarrow, pass cottage and
farm as far as the road serves, then push our machines to the church of
the dale. Now the weather changes. The brilliant sunshine suddenly
glooms and dies away. I look up to Great Gable, weather oracle of the
glen--and am surprised. Half an hour ago a fluffy cloud seemed resting
on it, but now a dark mass of vapour, distended with wind and bearded
with unshed rain, has taken its place. And over the pass from Ennerdale
on the left, and through the gully from Borrowdale on the right, the
hosts of storm cloud are boiling. A contrary gust whispers a shrill
warning; we seek shelter at once, but with a seething and a roar the
storm is upon us, lashing rain-lines in our faces. Fifty yards away the
vicar's house offers shelter--we are not acquaintances, but---- In three
minutes we are in his kitchen, looking out toward the glen of Mosedale.
At first nothing more is visible than a grey mass of whirling rain,
then, for a summer storm is but brief, again the flanks of the nearer
fells come in sight. The pall passes rapidly, and the sunshine is
pouring over the spine of Yewbarrow before the last rush of rain has
streamed down the hospitable window. Ere long, the glen is again
rejoicing in sunshine; the grass sparkles with fairy gems, the streaming
crags are touched into shields of silver, the hoary crown of Gable seems
to brighten as though the new spirit of life below made even it, the
monarch, rejoice.