THE ENGLISH LAKE COUNTRY 



was nothing for it but to make for home, bearing 

 the burden that should have been his, though that 

 inconvenience was as nought compared to the load 

 I carried on my mind. I didn't even bother about 

 the bull, in the mist, a piece of foolhardiness as know- 

 ing Welsh bulls I should be utterly incapable of in 

 calmer moments. To shorten my tale the miserable 

 brat turned out to be at home safe and sound, and the 

 reaction from anxiety to wrath on my part was great. 

 We had it out, with the schoolmaster as interpreter, the 

 mother and the boy having no English. It transpired 

 that the urchin had become terrified at the lonely and 

 gruesome aspect of the place, and left so long to his 

 own reflection had incontinently fled. The school- 

 master begged me not to give him his shilling, but I 

 thought in this particular I perhaps understood the 

 situation better than the pedagogue, who provided 

 me on the next occasion with a stouter-hearted ghillie, 

 proof against hobgoblins and supernatural influences. 

 After all, this was the very spot, according to the poet, 

 where Timon inspired the youthful Arthur, a very 

 haunt of magic memories ; so who knows but that 

 this little Goidel, this insignificant representative of a 

 primitive speech and a primitive race may have seen 

 and heard things not revealed to a Saesenog. 



There is very fair fishing for heavy trout in Winder- 

 mere, Derwentwater, and Bassenthwaite, and a good 

 rise of mayfly, called here the ' drake ' on all three. 

 With Windermere fishing I have no personal acquaint- 

 ance, but I see, as I write this, that a well-known 

 Manchester angler killed over a hundred trout there 

 last year of from one to four pounds a-piece with fly. 



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