IN WORDSWORTH'S COUNTRY 153 



get the better of the soft rain-clouds, I set out to 

 climb to the top of Helvellyn. I followed the 

 highway a mile or more beyond the Swan Inn, and 

 then I committed myself to a footpath that turns 

 up the mountain-side to the right, and crosses into 

 Grisedale and so to Ulleswater. Two schoolgirls 

 whom I overtook put me on the right track. The 

 voice of a foaming mountain torrent was in my ears 

 a long distance, and now and then the path crossed 

 it. Fairfield Mountain was on my right hand, 

 Helm Crag and Dunmail Raise on my left. Gras- 

 mere plain soon lay far below. The haymakers, 

 encouraged by a gleam of sunshine, were hastily 

 raking together the rain-blackened hay. From my 

 outlook they appeared to be slowly and laboriously 

 rolling up a great sheet of dark brown paper, un- 

 covering beneath it one of the most fresh and vivid 

 green. The mown grass is so long in curing in 

 this country (frequently two weeks) that the new 

 blades spring beneath it, and a second crop is well 

 underway before the old is "carried." The long 

 mountain slopes up which I was making my way 

 were as verdant as the plain below me. Large 

 coarse ferns or bracken, with an under-lining of fine 

 grass, covered the ground on the lower portions. 

 On the higher, grass alone prevailed. On the top 

 of the divide, looking down into the valley of 

 Ulleswater, I came upon one of those black tarns, 

 or mountain lakelets, which are such a feature in this 

 strange scenery. The word " tarn " has no mean- 

 ing with us, though our young poets sometimes use 



