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It would be rather a tip to find one of them. The wind is making a noise, exactly like the sea, against the side of the mountain. I saw the side a little while ago, like a great black cliff, but it's too misty to see it now. Hope it'll clear up soon, or I may be late getting down to Wastdale. By the way, I wonder if they call this heap of stones I'm sitting on one of the cairns?
Can't positively see the big cairn, though I'm sitting on it, and haven't a notion which way I came up to it, or which way I have to go down to Wastdale. I wish those Cambridge fellows would turn up. They weren't bad fellows after all. In fact, I rather liked one of them. Don't know what to do. By the way, may as well eat one of the biscuits I have in my knapsack.
Newlands wide vale we can reach, or cheerful Borrowdale, or lonely Ennerdale, or yes, to-night we will sup at Wastdale, at the jolly old inn that Auld Will Ritson used to keep, that inn sacred to the cragsman, where on New Year's Eve the gay company of climbers foregather from their brave deeds on the mountains and talk of hand-holds and foot-holds and sing the song of "The rope, the rope," and join in the chorus as the landlord trolls out: I'm not a climber, not a climber, Not a climber now, My weight is going fourteen stone I'm not a climber now.
Rather a poor breakfast; never mind, I shall have a rousing appetite when I get to the bottom. May tip that waiter possibly, if he brings the grub up sharp. Now I'm starting down. I shall go down to Dungeon Ghyl the way I came, I fancy. If I went down to Wastdale, I might meet those Cambridge fellows again, and I wouldn't care for that. It would mortify them too much to know what they've missed.
"Yes, but there is help," said Rotha; "there must be." "How? How? Tell me you're like your mother, you are that was the very look she had." "Tell me, first, if Ralph intended to be on Stye Head or Wastdale Head." "He did Stye Head he left me to go there at daybreak this morning." "Then he can be saved," said the girl firmly. "The mourners must follow the path.
It's very grand, wild country, especially the last part, the going down to Wastwater, and not many miles in all. Suppose we have that walk to-morrow? From Wastdale we could drive back to Seascale in the evening, and then the next day just as you like. 'Are you quite sure about the distances? 'Quite. I have the Ordnance map in my pocket. Let me show you.
Not far away rise the mountain barriers of lake-land, Wastdale clearly discernible. At Seascale, then, Rhoda would spend her first week, the quiet shore with its fine stretch of sand affording her just the retreat that she desired. 'There are one or two bathing-machines, Mrs. Cosgrove says, but I hope to avoid such abominations.
"A matter of two hours, for we must go by the Black Sail and come back to Wastdale Head, and that's round-about, thou knows."
Yes, Wastdale shall be to-night's halt. And so over Black Sail, and down the rough mountain side to the inn whose white-washed walls hail us from afar out of the gathering shadows of the valley. To-morrow? Well, to-morrow shall be as to-day. We will shoulder our rucksacks early, and be early on the mountains, for the first maxim in going a journey is the early start.
Rhoda said very little; her remarks were generally a purposed interruption of Everard's theme. When the cigar was smoked Out they rose and set forward again. This latter half of their walk proved the most interesting, for they were expectant of the view down upon Wastdale.