TALES OF THE MIST

John Bennett, the doyen of English fell guides, gives the following as one of his most arduous experiences:

‘I left Dungeon Ghyll one wet afternoon guiding a party to Scawfell Pike. At the top of Rossett Ghyll one of the ladies was too tired to go further. I did not wish to leave her without a companion, but she insisted that all the others should complete their walk. We left her resting by a large boulder, and soon were out of sight in the mist. A couple of hours later we returned, but there was no trace of the lady. As it was very probable she had already returned to the hotel, this circumstance did not then trouble us much. But when we got home the lady had not been seen, so I set out again up the ghyll to Esk Hause, and there turned down the head into Borrowdale, as it was apparent that the lady had somehow strayed from the path. At Seathwaite, Seatoller, and Rosthwaite I visited all the inns and outlying houses; then, still unsuccessful, turned up the pass to Wastdalehead.

‘After a seven-mile tramp through very dense cloud, I came to old Will Ritson’s, but could hear of no visitor. I ascended Scawfell Pike, and searched closely and unavailingly as I returned. The lads of the dalehead had been out scouting the hillsides in the meantime, and I got in just after they had completed their task. It was now past midnight and a wild night. After some supper—not many in the hotel would go to bed that night—I made another attempt, almost in despair. There was not the slightest answer to my calls. I climbed over to Eskdale, hoping that my lady had found her way there, and with the intention of raising the alarm thoroughly. At about four o’clock I knocked at the Woolpack, near Boot, and was told that a lady in a very exhausted condition had struggled to the door three hours before. She was then in a dead faint, but I was speedily satisfied that my weary hunt was finished.

‘It appeared that the lady, feeling a little less tired, had followed from Rossett Ghyll less than an hour after we left her. For a while she had followed the path with ease, then lost it completely. Whilst trying to find it again among the mist, she became hopelessly confused as to direction, crossed streams, climbed and descended huge rocks, and walked over much rough ground. At length she found herself by a fence, and, following this a good way, saw the lights of the Woolpack in the distance.’

Such an incident is not uncommon even in these days, when mountain-paths are so well worn that any stranger may keep on them. But even if the route be lost, there is little peril to anyone who knows the fells. The only real awkward possibility that I know of is the danger of coming without warning upon a precipitous descent. Nearly every accident recorded is due to the fact that most people in such a predicament attempt to descend the face of the crag, often coming to grief. On one of his thirty or forty annual ascents of Helvellyn, for the purpose of measuring the density of its atmosphere at various altitudes, John Dalton and his companions suddenly found themselves enveloped in a dense cloud, which had swept up and closed round them unawares. They attempted to move, and stepped a few feet in advance, holding by the skirts of each other’s coat, when the old philosopher suddenly drew back, saying: ‘Not a step more! There is nothing but cloud to tread on!’ It was true; their unconscious feet were on the very edge of the precipice which plunges sheer down to Red Tarn.

To those who know the fells, abundant indications give warning of the nearness of a precipice, as well as, if the route be more familiar, to determine exactly the position of the rambler. These signs are in the air; the different notes sounded by the wind to right and left are of great value. A breeze rushing up or along a wide expanse of grass has a seething note in it, whereas if rising suddenly from a deep dalehead, and encountering many crags, there is a harsh roar in the sound. Once when wandering along Helvellyn, our only proof that we had not involuntarily taken a wrong direction—by no means unusual in a dense mist—was the rattle of the wind among the cliffs on the Patterdale side of the mountain. The edge of a precipice is always heralded by a line of outcroppings, and when travelling in the mist watch should always be kept for these.

A shepherd of my acquaintance started from Wastdalehead one wet afternoon to reach a farm in the Grasmere Valley. His proper route was by Styehead Pass to Esk Hause, thence to Angle Tarn, when a short cast to the left would bring him to the caërn at Stakepasshead. A direct north-easterly course from here would bring him home. However, after leaving the tarn he failed to touch the caërn, but, keeping on for an hour, he came across the splintered edges of projecting strata among the short bent-grass. He guessed that he was too far north, and standing by a craggy slope of Wythburndale. When, however, the hill seemed to turn back on his route, he knew that something was amiss.

The wind, happily, was now blowing the masses of mist away, and every minute the light increased. When the air cleared sufficiently, the shepherd found himself standing on the brink of Pavey Ark, a tremendous array of scree and cliff adjoining Langdale Pikes, with the tarn of Stickle brooding 1,200 feet below, some six miles from his supposed position. Had he carried out the intention of descending, which he formed on approaching the edge, he would have undoubtedly gone into serious danger. Indeed, three years later a fatal accident occurred at the very same point.

The liability of tourists to go astray among the misty clouds is great, and one of the few exciting incidents of dalehead life is to be called upon to join in a search. The number of such hunts, however, does not represent the total of ‘losts.’ Parties or individuals working from some hotel, and starting with the avowed intention of returning the same evening, or sending their luggage beforehand to another hotel, purposing to follow by a more or less circuitous route, are easily missed. But the Bohemian of the fells, who defines to himself no route, is seldom traced. A couple of visitors to the Lake District arranged to walk from Dungeon Ghyll and Grasmere respectively, to meet on the fells near Sergeant Man. The day was very wet and misty, but the man from Grasmere reached the rendezvous, and, after waiting a long time, pushed on to Dungeon Ghyll, where he found that his friend had started, as arranged, some hours previously. The tourist searched the way carefully over to Grasmere, where he stated the circumstances to the inhabitants. Evening was fast drawing on, and everyone turned out to the quest. Not till the last gleam of light faded from the skies did the wearied parties return, when at his hotel the Grasmere tourist found a telegram from his friend, stating that, after climbing into the mist, he had changed his mind and struck along the hillside to Windermere. Many tourists, when lost in the mist, try to await the raising of the cloud curtain. Certainly this is the safest method, but the fog-banks close in for days at times, and human endurance is limited. A gentleman and his sister staying at Mardale essayed to climb Kentmere High Street one misty day. Soon after reaching the shoulder of the ridge, however, they got into difficulties, and finally, lest worse should befall, decided to wait. They were missed from the hotel, and the proprietor with two or three helpers took different tracks up the mountain. After three hours’ search, the couple, now half frozen with the chilly mist, were rescued.

The Scarf Gap district, near Buttermere, with its many rocky hillocks of almost similar contour, is well known in misty weather for ‘circular walking.’ Some years ago a party of ladies going from Wastdalehead to Buttermere were unexpectedly caught in the mist here. For hours they wandered about the fellsides. One of the ladies dropped her pocket-book, and recovered it again about two hours later—conclusive proof that they had been walking in a circle. It is pleasant to add that when the mist lifted, just before sunset, this party found themselves quite close to the path they had so long and utterly lost.

Though we have many times had the pleasure of walking on the fells during dense mists, we have never had the temerity to go crag-climbing under such conditions. The rocks are usually very slippery, and a false step at any point of a steep climb would be fatal. There is little danger of losing your way among the rocks if, in the first place, you correctly hit off the entrance of the climb, but that is difficult when there are many similar openings in the cliff. Once fairly on the right track, however, you can follow the route marked by the white scratches of the hobnails of your predecessors. The mist, though burying any distant landmark, seldom interferes with your view of the work close at hand. People there are, however, who are dead to all discomfort, and who on occasion go climbing even in the densest mist, and the account of an ascent of the Napes Needle, a familiar crag on Great Gable, will be of interest:

‘As the weather was uncompromising and I wanted an easy day, I strolled out for a solitary scramble towards the Napes rocks, to make a mere bowing acquaintance with the Needle, and with the virtuous intention of doing nothing rash in the way of venturing upon a single-handed attack upon it. At the moment of leaving the grass and taking to the rocks, I stepped into cloudland, and there came on a miserable drizzle that was not far removed from rain. There was nothing for it but to get wet. No one can climb in a waterproof, even though it be only a cape; and as to any other protection against the weather, you may as well offer mackintoshes to a family of otters. Somewhere up above was the Needle, but whether I had passed the place or not I could not tell. So I ensconced myself in a sort of cave among some huge boulders to consider the plan of campaign with the aid of a quiet pipe, and had almost given it up as a bad job and made up my mind to return, when I heard voices through the mist. Setting up a halloo, and getting a response, I shouted: “Is the Needle up there?” “Yes, we’re on it—come up,” was the answer. I had been sitting all the time at its very base; so up I went, and, scrambling up a steep but easy gully, soon gained the narrow rock-platform a few feet below the crack which marks the beginning of the climb of the Needle. I found here two first-rate climbers who had just been to the summit of the rock, and were discussing lunch. They very kindly expressed their willingness to go up again if I wanted to make the ascent.

‘Here was a chance not to be lost, so I gladly accepted their offer, and we were soon roped and ready: R—— the leader, I middle man, and M—— came last. The ascents were very difficult, and with muscles out of training for a gymnastic feat such as mounting the last piece of the slippery rock—comparable only to climbing and adhering to a narrow mantelshelf—I was glad to avail myself of a “shoulder-up.” Accordingly, M—— crouched down on the narrow cornice, and, stepping with my left foot on to his right shoulder, I mounted in sybaritic fashion on to the ledge. The mist was boiling up all around us, so that we could see the foot of the rock-shaft, and R——, who ought to have known much better, shouted just as I was making the dangerous step up: “Come, hurry up down there! this beastly weather makes me think of sunnier climes.” Sidling along, I found round the corner of rock a jutting ledge eighteen inches higher that offered a good hold for both feet. The next foothold was for the left foot—a small projection about an inch wide, and several inches higher on the face of the rock. This was about the most ticklish part of the whole climb. It is necessary to step with the left foot confidently up on to this projection, which slopes slightly the wrong way. To make a false step in doing so might entail serious consequences, as the hand-support is of the slightest. A boot edged with good ice-nails would get a firm grip on the projecting ledge, but my boots were merely studded, and the round leather edge felt insecure enough on the wet and smooth stone. However, the step was successfully accomplished, and I was then able easily to grip the right hand and top edges of the boulder in close embrace. A final pull-up, and I lay on my chest across the summit, and after a gasp of relief drew my legs up after me.’

In winter the mists are horrible. I don’t suppose many of my readers have ever crossed the desolate, snow-covered uplands. It is dreary enough work when the pallid sun glints along the even surface, lighting up the air with an unwonted shimmer, and the great crags loom out on the fellsides. The passes between Buttermere and Wastdalehead—Scarf Gap and Black Sail—may be a case in point. As the snow is crunched up towards the narrow depression from which the former is named, the darkness of the afternoon increases. A foot of snow has already obliterated the path, and it now seems apparent that there will be a further fall. In a second the sky seems to fall around us. We barely feel the extra chilliness of the air before the scene is darkened with falling particles, and we look around to find ourselves immured in the gray cloud-walls. A circle of twenty yards of uneven snow is all we can see, the view of lake and mountain being alike blotted out. Perhaps for ten minutes we did not realize the danger of our position, but soon after crossing the ridge towards Ennerdale it dawned on us. Now, however, retreat was more difficult than advance. With every danger-signal masked, with the path lost and undiscoverable, and the wind sending the white storm full in our faces, our position was one of most extreme discomfort. We threw away all idea of getting near the caërns and huts at the foot of Black Sail, devoutly hoping to reach the valley bottom in safety. Drifts of various depths had to be struggled through, and descents of screes and moraines of boulders negotiated. It was a most anxious time. A slip on one of those abrupt breasts of snow might end with us, as with more than one other wanderer of the fell, in a broken leg. How some poor fellows must have suffered before death’s kindly sleep fell upon them! Unable to get away, perhaps with their poor tortured limbs jammed between immovable boulders, they had simply to freeze or to starve. By carefully following the deepest drifts, we got on to a corner of rock whence all but a thin coating of snow had been whirled by the wind. It was no precipice, and, though the descent was hard work indeed, we could yet see our way, and found this route much preferable. We got into daylight again at the head of Ennerdale Valley, and stayed an hour there in the old hut, while the snowstorm passed. There was nothing to make a fire of, and we were glad to note the clearing of the pass in front. We just got over the top of Black Sail before the clouds closed again behind us.

BY THE SHORE

I. Daybreak on the Sands

The great mass of the limestone head bounding our estuary to the southward loomed black and sullen against the delicate pearl clouds, through which an unseen sun was endeavouring to diffuse some measure of day to our little valley. To seaward the tide had receded far, and the chill white lines of water tossed to the wind beyond a wide stretch of sand. To landward the dun mist of morning hung, blotting out the distant hills and the woodlands, leaving in view only a stretch of marshy pastures and the houses of a tiny village. Though we were early astir, yet others were in advance; the fishermen were going to take up the spoils which night had brought to the nets fixed on the sand-banks.

At eventide a great flock of wild-duck of various kinds settled after their long flight from the northward upon the moving waters of the bay. They were hungry, but much noise had been heard as they winged over the fishing-village. At nightfall it would be safe to venture closer, and, besides, there would be precious little food to be delved out of those adamant sands, from which the water had long been absent. The flock thus sat on the tossing waters awhile, resting. Then a few detached themselves from the main body, and floated shoreward with the wash of the tide. They were scouts, to spy out the safest ground for feeding. Out beyond the gray stump of the ruined Pile, once fort and port in one, a fiery strip of cloud was losing its glow, turning slowly to crimson and to violet, after which it lost all that distinguished it from its vapour neighbours. In the east perhaps the moon had risen, for, though the great light was withdrawn, a visibility still reigned. The scouts thrown out by the cloud of duck floated up with the incoming tide awhile, then turned from its current into the slack waters widening into a pool near the mouth of a creek. Here, after a cautious survey of their surroundings, they settled down to feed.

Meanwhile the main body had felt the rising pulsations of Mother Ocean, and, like an innumerable flotilla of tiny strange craft, they, too, had been approaching with the inflowing stream. In the soft sand were numerous worms and molluscs, and those tiny atoms of life which duck assimilate with avidity. In the faint luminosity prevailing, whether from a clouded moon or the natural light on the water, their movements were plainly visible. A duck floating on the surface would suddenly dip its head beneath the water; then deeper and deeper it went, till the main part of its body was submerged, and the tail and a pair of wildly-moving web-feet were all that remained in sight. Further seaward the duck dived down clean out of sight after the food they were in such need of, coming up to the surface for a moment, shaking their heads and necks clear of water, then disappearing in a flash again. Other birds, more fastidious, maybe, followed in the rising waters, and never dipped deeper than their neck-length. The duck feeding with peaceable cutterings to one another made a pretty sight; yet, unknown to the casual observer, a grim tragedy was occurring right in his sight. Bird after bird dived down and never rose to sight again. The deep-water feeders gave no sign as their numbers were diminished by the score; odd birds feeding in middle depths might have been seen to splash a little as their tails and web-feet were gradually covered by the rising water, while among the shore-haunters there was occasionally a little commotion. Birds were being suffocated on all sides, yet the survivors heedlessly went on gorging, till——For, pegged flat along the sand-banks, the fishermen had left their nets, ready for the ground-loving flocks which would come up with the tide. The duck, in diving and ‘grobbling’ about for their food, got their heads so firmly fixed among the meshes of the nets that they could not withdraw them again, and so were slowly done to death.

Not every one of the village fishermen had got out to his nets. We could hear a ramshackle cart coming clattering down the stony lane behind us. Immediately the belt of shingle was passed, the solitary figure in the vehicle put the horse to its best trot over the swelling sands. It was old Jack, the man whose nets were planted furthest seaward, and it behoved him to move quickly, lest the tide should again cover them before he had taken his toll of their contents. As we rambled further and further out, the shore seemed to rise in altitude, and the great crag where a brave knight slew the last wolf in the countryside seemed to raise its bulk to a more commanding height. In front of us the fishermen’s carts were still far away, and across the channel daylight showed us the chimneys of a town, backed by a long sharp line of hills. In half an hour we reached the nearest cart. Looking into it, we saw a great mass of scales and feathers—the fish and the duck ensnared during the night. This man had completed clearing his net, and was busily pegging it down to the sand-bed, ready for another tide. We would dearly have liked to examine his load, but the man was too feverishly at work; therefore we looked around to see who had not yet completed their task, and, of course, first thought of the old man who in his cart had passed up a while ago. After a moment’s consideration, we decided to go as far as the point where his nets were, and to watch him empty them. A stiff breeze was blowing across the estuary, and helped us to run along to the old man’s netting-ground more easily. He looked up at our approach, and asked us to lend a hand, as the tide had turned and time was precious. My friend and I, therefore, got to work, jerking the fish and fowl clear of the meshes into baskets, which were emptied into the body of the cart in one confused mass. ‘There isn’t time to sort them,’ we agreed with reluctance. In maybe ten minutes we had half filled the cart, and stood watching the fisherman repegging down his nets. The breeze soughed coldly across the bleak sands, the sting of the frozen Northland in it, while the soft rush as the white rollers broke nearer and nearer on the sand-bank filled our ears. The old man directed us to assist in stretching the nets. ‘Be sharp!’ he said, without a glance at the fast-incoming tide. The last rope was stretched and the last peg driven, and the sea was roaring in a great stream not a hundred yards away. ‘Into t’ cart, and sharp!’ And on the instant we obeyed.

I had not looked landward for some time, and was surprised to find that our spit of sand was now cut off by a slowly-widening arm of the sea. If this was deep and we could not cross it in the cart, if it became furrowed with strong water and our cart was overwhelmed, then we would be in a dangerous strait; for swimming in the chill waters of a December tide is not to be contemplated without misgiving. But old Jack, with a word of encouragement to his horse, drove straight at the water. My feelings as I looked over the side of the cart were uneasy, and I watched the water rise upward from wheel-rim, by the thin spokes, to the axle, and higher and higher, till I heard it wash in the bottom of the cart around my feet. Our horse was plodding steadily away, though breast-deep in the tide. Deeper we sank, and deeper still, till our spoil of the nets was hidden in the flood, and the horse’s head and a strip of its back was all that was visible of it. Still on the game old animal steadily waded, and it became apparent that the perils of the passage were over. Immediately we came on to firm sand, old Jack leapt off the shaft on which he had stood, and called us to get out.

‘Now we must run for it The water’ll be pretty deep just outside the shingles.’

The old mare appreciated this remark as well, for it broke into its best lumbering trot, dragging the lightened cart, from which the sea-water oozed, at a fairish pace, to which we three kept up. A quarter of a mile in front was the shore, but a fast-running tongue of sea-water cut us off. Again we mounted the cart as the water was touched, and the blue-jerseyed fisherman drove straight ahead. I was not prepared for what now followed. A powerful undertow whirled us—cart, horse, and men—bodily seaward, while the swift stream striking the oaken sides of the vehicle threw spray right over us. But old Jack had been cautious in his selection of a point to pass the current, and the eddy of the fierce undertow brought the horse where it could take footing again, after which it speedily drew up into safety.

Of course, our first action, after changing our soaking clothes, was to examine the load of duck and flooks we had helped to bring to land. I had prepared myself for disappointment, but surely these damp, muddy, ruffled balls of feathers were not the same as the brightly-coloured, carefullypreened uniform of the ducks which had swum to the sand-banks when the moon was clouded o’er last night? The varieties we had looked to see—the scaup, the teal, the widgeon, etc.—were hardly distinguishable to our novice eyes, and ere long we gave up the attempt in despair. But one bird did interest us, and that was a neat-feathered northern diver, which is a rarity to the fishermen. As to the others, we did not feel it incongruous to their estate to hear them hawked about in the adjacent town that afternoon by old Jack to a sing-song of—

II. The Peril of the Sands

One incident in the life of George Moore of Cumberland has always struck my imagination, and that is his narrow escape from drowning when crossing Morecambe Bay by the oversands route.

Outside the estuaries of the rivers Kent, Leven and Winster, sand-banks stretch almost level seaward for miles, and as the tides recede these soon become clear of water, and in the course of an hour have settled so firmly in most parts that heavy traffic may readily pass. And from the days of Roman legions marching across till the era of railways this was the crossing preferred by all traffic to and from Furness and West Cumberland. The way was fraught with dangers: sometimes a strong wind from the south-west held back the ebbing of the waters for an hour or more, and forced up the succeeding ‘flow’ long before the normal time. On many a stormy day the rush of a single comber blotted out, with a depth of blue water, acres of bare sand. Any conveyance midway on its journey would be simply washed away with such an eight-foot wave; horses and men encountered would be borne over without chance of escape. The channels of the rivers, being below the general sand-level, also constituted a peril. The banks were constantly crumbling under the action of salt water and fresh, and the direction and depth of the current at any given point varied much from tide to tide. At a point where last ebb the eau or river of the sea was fordable, now there might be a deep cavity filled with water, in which, should the driver venture, horse and man and conveyance might be easily lost. That such a thing has happened over and over again is the story told by hundreds of epitaphs in the burying-places of the surrounding countrysides. The third danger was that of quicksand—a terribly remorseless enemy to the traveller; while in misty weather and during the hours of darkness it was possible to lose all sense of direction over the bewildering level waste, and to guide your horse, perhaps, straight out to sea. Case after case could be cited of men going several miles out of their courses from such an accident: the number of mysterious drownings on the sands never to be properly traced gives the impression that those who escape after such mistakes are in a terrible minority.

George Moore reached Cartmel towards evening. He did not take time to inquire as to the state of the tide, but drove off at once towards the sands. It was a reckless undertaking, as he soon found out, for he was scarcely halfway across before he saw the tide was turning. The man who was with him in the carriage jumped out and went back. But George, believing that he was on the right track, drove on. The water was now approaching like a mill-race. He flogged his horses as he never flogged them before. The sand shifted beneath their feet, so he turned aside and drove where foothold still held. A mirage rose before him, and he seemed to see the land. But it disappeared and reappeared again and again. The situation became terrible.

At length he heard a loud shout from some person to the left. One of the mounted guides had seen his peril. The man spurred his horse into the water, suddenly turned round, and waved him to come onward in that direction. Moore understood his position at once, and pulled his horses round by sheer force towards land. By dint of flogging and struggling the horses at length touched the ground, dragged the carriage up the sands, and Moore’s life was saved.

Other equally exciting incidents occur to me as I write. Once the mail-coach when far out on the sands was struck by a powerful gust of wind, and blown bodily some hundred yards out of its course, where it capsized. The horses and passengers made for the shore as quickly as possible. Some days later the great vehicle was found near the tideway, and, after re-upholstering, was again put in use.

The dangers of the sands were so well known from the earliest times that the abbeys, and after their dissolution the Crown, were charged to maintain men whose duty it was to vigilantly study the tideway and conduct passengers safely across. The post of guide on the Kent sands was held by one family for over five hundred years.

During my wanderings in the districts near the sands, I have come across many who had stories to tell of perils braved or witnessed. What more perilous than to have, when your cart is far from shore, a wheel break under a sudden strain put upon it. Yet this happened when a family, some quite young children, was crossing the Leven sands. Two men set out for the nearest village to have the breakage repaired, leaving the women and children to make the best of it during the chilly night. It was several hours before the repair was completed, the tide had long turned, and the wheel was fixed against time. The delayed cart was saved with difficulty, for so high had the water risen that the horses were almost swept off their feet by the force of waves which again and again broke against the carts.

The story is told of a funeral crossing the sands being caught up by the tide; the coffin had to be temporarily left to the mercy of the seas. Another cortège, when halfway across, had to hasten to the shelter of Holme Island—not then, as now, connected with the mainland by a causeway—and from the rocky shores of this they watched the raging sea close over their tracks. More than once the mail-coach has struggled to this refuge when, after passing one of the river channels, the other was, through a sudden rise of the tide, found unfordable, and advance or retreat by the direct route was equally impossible.

But the narrative of one who crossed the sands in his early years—the old man has been dead some years now—is, even among such episodes as already mentioned, worth placing on record:

‘It was mid-afternoon when the gentleman for whom I was working as groom decided to pass from Lancaster to Ulverston. The month was February, and a faint griming of snow covered the land. The day had been hazy, and the weather-wise said a storm was brewing in a villainous-looking patch of clouds hanging out to sea. Of course I had to go, though I urged the undesirability of driving the horses through the cold waters of the channel. At half-past four we were at Hest Bank, having driven quickly over the frozen roads.

‘The folks at the inn advised us to stop there for the night, as it was growing dusk and the wind was rising. But on we went. The guide accompanied us to the Keer, and saw us safely across, then told us that by following a line of bushes planted in the sand we would in about a mile fall in with the Kent guide, who was mounted. We had scarce left this man, whose repeated warnings made me more uneasy, when from the sea there crept up a thick gray cloud, which so enveloped us that I had to dismount and lead the horses, for from our seats we could not see from one small tuft to another. I was thus puzzling out the route, when we came to a pool of water, at which the gray mare shied and then bolted. The loose rein was wrested from my hand, but as the carriage swept past I leapt and clutched the back. The horses ran for fully a minute—the distance was impossible to guess in the dusk of the cloud—before they could be stopped. And when at last they came to a standstill, imagine our plight! We were far out on those bleak sands without any knowledge as to where sound land lay; turn as we might, the open sea was a perilous thing to risk. The tide had turned, and would now be running in at a tremendous rate. Even should running waters be met with, these would give no clue as to direction, for they might be a river-current or a mere eddy of the waves. Then, too, the wind was rising higher, and from afar we heard the growling roar of the sea. “What shall we do?” said the master. I would not reply. The moment of indecision in his mind passed, and he continued: “John, this is one way to die. Let us drive onward somewhere. If so be that we take a wrong turning, it will be but a quicker ending.” I said now: “Let the horses try; they will turn for the land surer than we.” Well, the horses had by this time in some manner realized the danger; they stood shivering and pawing the sands, looking first to seaward, whence the subdued thunder was proceeding, then at one another in silence askance, and to us. At the word they walked steadily forward, bearing, as it seemed to me, somewhat to the left. “If this direction is correct, God help us!” I thought. I spoke to them again, and they quickened to a trot. The sound of their rapid hoofs for a while drowned in my ears that dull, insistent roar, to which, as my senses indicated, we were gradually coming nearer and nearer. Pool after pool of water was run into, but the horses were steady now.

‘All this time the cloud had been blowing along the sands, never lifting a fathom, but allowing some three lengths’ clear view ahead, and the wind blew still harder. Dusk it had been when we lost our way; it was almost pitch-dark now. Time and again I thought voices came through our enveloping shroud, but though I called often there was no reply. Sound did not carry far, and our loudest shouts seemed to be stifled on our lips. As I looked steadily ahead into the flurry of snowflakes, which accompanied a stiffer squall than usual, I thought the chestnut’s ear twitched as though sensitive to something occurring not far away. Then the gray cheered up—it had been doggedly pressing against the collar for some time, as though the previous terror had sapped its strength—and I turned to the master at my elbow. His face was lit with expectation, tempered with doubt. He forestalled my question. “Do you see that? I have been watching for a few seconds, though I didn’t speak, for fear it might be a delusion.” But our animals broke into a canter, and shortly the air around us was filled with the sounds of cracking whips and shouting men; and it didn’t take more than a second for us to realize that we had fallen in with a band of carriers laden with goods for the Ulverston market. Where we had been in our perilous wandering will never be known, but we returned to safety quite close to where the Kent was to be crossed. The carriers had planned to stay the night at Cartmel, and to cross the Leven sands after the morning tide, so we stayed in their company. During the night, however, the threatening storm burst; and at daybreak the sea in the channel raged so wildly that not one would venture, and all made the détour over hilly roads to Newby Bridge, and so to our journey’s end.’