_CRUMMOCK WATER_
Two chief routes bring you easily to Crummock Water--the first to Scale
Hill at its foot, the other to its head, over Newlands Hause. From
northward, as you approach, the hills on either side the vale of Lorton
rise to higher flights, to greater ruggedness. At Scale Hill there is a
sudden glimpse up the lake, a silvery level stretching far into the
mountain land. Your way has wound round a great tumulus of rock and
larch and oak which chokes the vale, to bring you so quickly to this
lovely view.
[Illustration: CRUMMOCK WATER, FROM SCALE HILL]
Wild and stern is Crummock. All is particularly gloomy and forlorn on an
afternoon threatening snow. The hillsides start up grey and stark and
desolate. The only sounds you hear are the occasional yelp of a sheep
dog in the fields near by and the sulky croak of a raven, a black spot
up there where a grim cloud is hovering, shutting out the life of day,
and sending the weather-wise sheep cluthering to sheltered spots by
ghyll and fence. Suddenly the grey firmament above drops on to the
hilltops and smothers them. Then snow begins to flutter, first in single
flakes, then in a small shower which grimes the nearer fields and paths.
Finally the storm giant asserts himself and a continuous shadow of white
falls around. That far-off mist-wall which showed the head of the vale
is shut off; only a few yards of grey lake trembling and tossing into
little waves as the north wind harries it. At such a time it is well to
seek shelter, for the gale may be wild and strong as day dies, and the
snow fall in winding sheets. Rather, then, turn indoors and listen to
stories of stress--the shepherd can tell you of peril faced for the sake
of his flock; the postman, of danger in his daily round: men as wild and
strong and devoted in their way as pioneer-heroes in a cannibal land,
and as deserving to furnish matter for stories of renown. Through rain
and shine, when torrents brawl havoc, rending bridges like straws, when
drifts hide even the tall tree tops,--
"The service admits not a 'but' or an 'if'"
and the gritty postman, by one device or another, wins through with his
mails to solitary farm or wild moorland hamlet. And they live long,
despite their hardships, as witness one who, after a day's wrestle with
the unbanded elements, was asked how he fared.
"Why, man, it's wild on t' top. I tried to git ower t' moor, but I
couldn't. I gat to that lile [little] black planting, hooivver, aboot
halfway, and I rested a bit. Then I said to mesel, I said, 'Noo, Wat,
thoo's faced it four and fifty year, thoo sureli isn't gaen to gie in
noo.' And at that I set tull again, and I gat ower; but it was hard
wark, mindst ta."
By calm hearth the dalesmen tell their stories; the gale rumbles against
the house, and the windows tinkle to the driving of snowflakes. By
morning the storm has passed, the ground is deep in snow, sky and
hilltops are clear, stars still shine down on a scene of quietness and
savage peace. Soon dawn-beams fire the east, and the summits are touched
with rose. With full day the greyness clinging to the mountain flanks
disappears, revealing riven glens and beetling crags. A boat is being
launched for an expedition to seek what wild fowl may during the storm
have taken refuge on the lake, and on it we go. On the open water the
cold is terrible; pulling with might and main would hardly relieve the
numbness of hands and feet, but our game is wary and any incautious
rattle of oars would send them beyond reach. For half an hour we put up
with the discomfort, then find that the boat is leaking badly and that a
baler has to be used freely to keep the floors from floating. We ask to
be put ashore!
On the road, walking is less difficult than we had imagined. At one
place is quite a hundred yards of wind-swept path, but at a gateway the
soft snow is piled deep. It is hard work passing even occasional drifts
where you wade waist-deep for yards. At places the road between cliff
and lake is so blocked that we climb along the open hillside. Now from
an outstanding crag above the road we have a view of the lake and its
surroundings. The water lies in a huge trough, bounded by immense walls
of mountain, hardly ever falling far enough back to allow an alluvial
meadow to slip between. Mellbreak! What a mighty mass! White are the
wide fans of scree, but black and frowning the tiers of precipice. Above
in a grand sweep comes the head of the mighty monarch, from which the
sunshine is striking a thousand frost spangles. The sky is deep blue
overhead. Hark to the croaking of the ravens; they seem to have found
some carrion--perhaps a dead sheep--in yonder ghyll, and down they come,
one, two, three, in all six, a crowd for these unsociable birds. Some of
the ghylls are choked with snow, but others show black, rocky rents in
the snowfields. Particularly I look for the great ravine down which
comes Scale Force, the highest of our waterfalls. Once I climbed that
gorge on a moonlit night in winter. Never to be forgotten that scene! An
opal sky streaming with faint beams of aurora, tall crags closing the
chasms, the fern-like alders limned against the starry glow above, the
water rolling in pearly waves over the rock-edge toward me, then falling
through an unseen zone to trouble the darkling pool at my feet.
Part of our homeward route lies through woodlands, where we watch a busy
squirrel visiting its _cache_ of nuts, and where, among the snow-laden
branches, scores of little birds flit and twitter. Once we hear a
buzzard mewing high above, and a sparrow-hawk's raucous voice, but
neither bird is seen.
Crummock in midsummer is a dream of delight. Once lately, on a warm
summer evening, I cycled up its shore from Scale Hill. The road is
rather gritty and loose of surface, but quite ridable. The sun was
dipping toward the mountain ridges, pouring a flood of glorious light
into the valley. From the lake came the chunk-unk of oars; two
heavy-laden boats were being pulled toward the foot of the lake, and
soon a clear young voice rippled across the water to us the charming
strains of "Killarney." What a sublime scene! Lofty Mellbreak sheering
from the water's edge, Grassmoor and many another craggy giant sweeping
up to invisible heights above us, the golden green of new bracken, the
purple bloom of heather, here and there an emerald patch of larches. To
me there is infinite change in a view over a wide lake. Those huge,
irregular phantoms are the shadows of a cloud above: they sweep across
the lake, then dull the mountainside; drop away into some deep glen,
pass on to dim far-away summits ere they slide over the horizon. The
emotions of the heavens are reflected in God's mirror beneath. Should a
thunderstorm gather, then the lake is cast in gloom, sable ripples heave
and fall. To the roaring of heaven's artillery and the blinding flare of
lightning, the fury approaches, passes, and the water wimples and
rejoices in the falling curtains of rain. After storm, how noble and
sweet that restful bosom! With fresh sunlight the land renews life and
hope. The down-bent harebell rises again to dance in the gentle airs
that play about; the heather casts off its gleaming pearls--down the
sinewy fronds of bracken runs a tribute to the thin soil. Birds burst
forth in wild chorus: the throstle and the blackbird make the rowaned
ghylls resound; wagtails, wrens, linnets, each pipe their tuneful parts.
To these from on high joins in the ringing of the skylark--a wild song
of defiance to the storm, of thanks for coming calm to the Most High.
And the lake, ruffled with passing breezes, seems to rejoice as well.
There is a fragrance of earth and air and land after a summer storm on
Crummock Water.
[Illustration: CRUMMOCK WATER AND BUTTERMERE]
Away across the lake, by the bouldery ness the torrent of Scale has
driven into the mere, are two islets, and from one a smudge of smoke is
travelling lazily. What more delightful than to have a foretaste of the
joy of picnicing there? The road now inclines from the water, and we
climb toward the village of Buttermere where a new series of views
awaits.
Perhaps fewer people live by Crummock than by any other lake: the fells
hem it in too closely for farms to be settled. There is much shepherding
on the commons, where flocks wander unchecked over wide areas. It was in
a scene similar to this that a touring Devonian ventured to tell his
Cumberland host that he did not think much of this sort of country, for,
he explained:
"Down in Devonshire we have land, we can grow apples, and we have green
meadows."
"Div ye mean ther's nae land here?" said the Cumbrian, sweeping his hand
toward jagged crag, sleeping lake, and boulder-strewn field. "Why, man,
ther's that mich land here that it hes to be piled togither, one farm on
top o' t'other. Why, man, ther's eneu' land to mak' fifty farms i'
Benkle Crag theer."
"Aye," assented the Devonian grimly, "and enough waste water to till the
lot there," pointing to the shimmering lake.
The wild moorland above the lake is one of the few remaining English
breeding-places of the dotterel. This is a migrant of the plover type
from high latitudes; odd pairs are apt to stay all summer, and to rear
broods. The nest is increasingly rare: for collectors will give long
prices for a complete clutch of eggs, and the native shoots the bird on
sight, for no more successful lure for trout exists than a fly made from
the underwing of a dotterel. I have declined £5 offered to disclose the
whereabouts of a nest. Once I undertook to show a naturalist a nest, but
though I had marked the place ever so carefully I failed to give him
"the sight of a lifetime." There are great difficulties in the way of a
non-resident again finding, in a maze of benks and boulders, ghylls and
riggings, so small an object as a dotterel's nest. Other summer birds of
the mountains are the ring-ouzel, a white-throated blackbird, the
peregrine, the kestrel, and the sparrow-hawk. The bittern no longer
booms in the upper glens or by the lake; hen-harriers and their kindred
are also gone. But the wailing of the curlew still rings in our ears,
the plover is never at rest, and the sinister "dowk" or carrion crow
gorges on every dead carcase on the uplands. Of lesser birds, by every
rill you see the pretty dipper in his uniform of brown and white, and
less often the bright metallic sheen of the kingfisher. Winter brings
the fieldfare and redwing to the mountain valleys, with now and then a
flock of snow buntings. On the lake too come the pochard and the golden
eyed ducks from the frozen North, with rarer species such as the
sheldrake, the wigeon, and the shoveller.