182 HONISTEE, CKAG. 



torrent that will be observed flowing down the 

 steep into the lake is called — as others in the dis- 

 trict are — Sonrmilk Ghyll : and it issues from 

 Bleaberry or Burtness Tarn, on the side of Eed 

 Pike. The pretty domain near the margin of the 

 lake is Hasness. Then comes Gatesgarth, — the 

 farmstead whence the road to Scarf 

 Gap IS taken, by which, as we have 

 told, London gentlemen and Kendal ladies have 

 run into such extreme danger. From Gatesgartb 

 begins one of the wildest bits of road in the district. 

 It climbs Buttermere Vale, by an ascent at first 

 gradual, and latterly extremely steep, to the base 

 of Honister Crag. It is a vast stony valley, where 

 sheep and their folds, and a quarryman^s hut here 

 and there, are the only signs of civilization. There 

 are no bridges over the stream — the infant Cocker 

 — which must be crossed many times ; and where 

 there are no stepping-stones, the pedestrian must 

 wade. Everybody walks up the last reaches of the 

 ascent, — so steep and stony is the 

 narrow road, and so lormidable its un- 

 fenced state. The dark, stupendous, almost per- 

 pendicular Honister Crag, frowns above ; and as 

 the traveller, already at a considerable height, looks 

 up at the quarrymen in the slate-quarries near the 

 summit, it almost takes his breath away to see 

 them hanging like summer-spiders quivering from 

 the eaves of a house. 



These quarrymen are a hardy race, capable of 



feats of strength which are now rarely heard of 



elsewhere. No heavily-armed knight, 



«T,.l'i.^i!x.,^ who ever came here to meet the Scot 



— and there were such encounters on 



