CLEAR WATERS 



have a bit of sport upon their own account. Half 

 the people in the dale know most of the hounds by- 

 name, and it is more than likely that the shepherd- 

 farmer who stops to have a crack with you on the lake 

 shore will recognise each one of these truants who are 

 waking the echoes on the screes above. Brotherswater 

 — that delightful gem of molten silver, which glitters 

 beneath the westering sun in any panoramic view of 

 Patterdale ; and on airless noons and mornings almost 

 invisible from its mirror-like reflections of the woods 

 and mountain which overhang it — is a shallow lake of 

 meadowy margin, but fringed with foliage upon the 

 mountain-side, where the Goldrill streams away from 

 its foot adown the dale. It is full of small trout, and 

 free to the angler (though I am afraid this is now a 

 thing of the past), save for the hire of the boat. I have 

 not fished it myself for many years, and I should per- 

 haps qualify my estimate of its fish, if only for a basket 

 I saw brought in by a local friend quite recently, after a 

 whole night with fly or bustard, which contained among 

 a great number of smaller ones at least a dozen fish of 

 a third to half a pound in weight. 



Now every one who has been up Helvellyn from 

 the UUswater side, or even stood upon the summit, 

 must know Red tarn, since it fills the crater-like hollow 

 below the mountain's eastern precipice, and is walled 

 in on either side by the rugged, projecting flankers 

 of Striding and Swhirrel Edges. In short, it is a 

 conspicuous feature of this, the grandest side by far 

 of the mighty Helvellyn, in shape a half moon, and 

 not quite a mile in circumference. Being sheltered 

 on every side but the east, it is more than likely on 

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