128 By Stream and Sea. 



Sportsmen also know the spot — sportsmen, that is to say, 

 who hire their shooting from a distance, and sojourn in the 

 district only so long as there is sport to be had — sportsmen, 

 very often, who here, and here alone during the year, renew 

 their bygone experiences of country life. At Ashopton and 

 at Lady Bower, further up in the direction of Sheffield, you 

 may always reckon upon finding a goodly selection of 

 setters, pointers, retrievers, and spaniels, and a very miscel- 

 laneous collection -of dog-owners, hanging about the inn 

 doorways of an autumn evening, when the day's work is 

 done, and when the sun scatters about the valleys and hill- 

 tops shadows so mystical and weird that you may gaze at 

 them, forming and re-forming, until, in the belief that a new 

 order of spirits have come down from the rocks and caves 

 to take temporary possession of the Peak country, you see 

 visions of cloud-capped towers and gorgeous palaces rising 

 out of the shroud-grey of the twilight. Should pleasure or 

 business call you forth next morning before the sun has re- 

 appeared over the east-lying landmarks, you may look down 

 the valley from Lady Bower and watch the stately pageant 

 dissolve like a scroll, and the old familiar outlines of tor and 

 moorland gradually steal back again, real as the duties which 

 daily life brings to responsible humanity. 



To this district come tourists, but not in dreaded shoals. 

 The country is a little too inaccessible for the common- 

 footed variety of the modern excursionist, who loves to have 

 his "special " run right into the novelty he has come out to 

 see. A good walking or riding man with leisure at his com- 

 mand always loves the Peak, but it may be said that, as a 

 general rule, the tourist, pure and simple, either stops short 

 at Chatsworth and that part of Derbyshire which lies south 

 of. the line which you may draw from that noble Dukery 

 straight across to Buxton, or pursues the railway from 



