88 ASCENT OF FAIRFIELD. 



and last of all Rydal Head. The top of Fairfield 

 is 2,950 feet above the sea level, and Rydal Head 

 2,910. The name Rydal Head originally belonged 

 only to the valley shut in by the summits, but has 

 lately been used for the height above it. 



The stranger should ascend to the ridge, either 

 through Rydal Forest, (for which leave is requisite, 

 and not always easily obtained,) or by the road to 

 the Nook, which anybody will show him. The 



Nook is a farmhouse in a glorious 

 faikfield F situation, as he will see when he gets 



there, and steps into the field on the 

 left, to look abroad from the brow. He then passes 

 under its old trees, to where the voice of falling 

 waters calls him onward. Scandale Beck comes 

 tumbling down its rocky channel, close at hand. 

 He must cross the bridge, and follow the cart-road, 

 which brings him out at once upon the fells. 

 \A hat he has to aim at is the ridge above Rydal 

 Forest or Park, from whence his way is plain, — 

 round the whole cul-de-sac of Fairfield, to Nab 

 Scar. He sees it all ; and the only thing is to do 

 it : and we know no obstacle to his doing it, un- 

 less it be the stone wall which divides the Scandale 



from the Rvdal side of the ridge. 



STONE WiLtS, ml ' , , . ° . 



these stone walls are an inconveni- 

 ence to pedestrians, and a great blemish in the 

 eyes of strangers. In the first place, however, it 

 is to be said that an open way is almost invariably 

 left, up every mountain, if the rover can but find 

 it; and, in the next place, the ugliness of these 

 climbing fences disappears marvellously when the 

 stranger learns how they came there. — In the 

 olden times, when there were wolves, and when 



