She had followed out Senhouse’s precepts as nearly to the letter as might be; neither staff nor scrip had she—no luggage at all, and very little money. In her exalted mood of resolve it had seemed a flouting of Providence to palter with the ideal. To follow the patteran unerringly—a bird’s flight to the north—one could only fail by hesitation. Time, and the pressure of that alone, had insisted on the railway. The road, no doubt, had been the letter of the law. Perhaps, too, a map was another compromise; but she found one in the station where, having made full use of its water, hair-brushes, and looking-glass, she dallied in the gay morning light—hovering tremulous on the brink of the unknown. It showed her Wastwater—where he had told her he was always to be found; and it showed her Kendal, too, dim leagues of mountain and moor apart. A loitering lampman entered into conversation with her. He was a Langdaler, he told her; used to walk over once a week to see the old folks; and there was another call he had thither, it seems. There was a lady—his “young lady,” who took it hard if he missed his day.
He spoke profoundly of Rossett Gill and Green Tongue, of Angle Tarn and Great End, and of the shelter under Esk Hause, which many a man had been thankful of before to-day. He advised the train to Windermere, the coach to Ambleside; thence, said he, you would get another coach to the Langdales, and there the road stops and you must take to Shanks’s mare. Here he looked her up and down, not disapprovingly. “Yon’s a rough road for you,” he considered, “and the track none so sure where the ground is soft. But you’ll do it yet,” said he; “and I’m thinking there’ll be looking for ye out of Wastwater.” She blushed, and denied. “Then he’s a fule,” said the lampman. His final warning was that she should inquire at the hotel before she started off to walk. She promised, and went into the town for a breakfast.
Fold within fold, height above height, wood and rock and water, the hill-country opened to her and took her in. When she changed coaches at Ambleside she was driven into the arms of the west wind, and could feel that every mile brought her nearer to her friend. Before the end of this sunlit day she would be face to face with the one being in all this world who might know, if he would, every secret of her heart. As she thought this, she pondered it. Every secret of her heart? Might he then know all? Yes—and she could tell herself so without a blush—even to that which she dared not confess to herself; even to that, he might know them all. She was in great spirits, and there were those in her company upon the coach who could have commerced with her, by way of exchange or barter. But though her eyes sparkled, and her parted lips were dewy, she had no looks for gallant youth. She faced the north-west, and never turned her face.
The horses drew up, and stretched their necks for water and the nose-bag; the passengers tumbled into the inn for luncheon. Mary, faltering no more, struck out along the valley, up Mickleden, for the sheep-fold and Rossett Gill. The coachman had told her that this road could not be mistook; her trouble would begin from the Gill. “Follow the beck,” he said, “to Angle Tarn—that on your left hand—and over the pass. Make you then for the gap betwixt Great End and Hanging Knott. Esk Hause we call it—a lonesome place. You shall not turn to right or left, if you mind me. Due nor’-west lies your road, down and up again to the Sprinkling Tarn. Maybe you’ll find a shepherd there. ’Tis a place to want company in, they tell me. You should strike the Styhead pass near by—if you’re in luck’s way.”
At starting, she felt that she was; springs in her heels, music in her heart. Up the broad valley, over rocks and tufted fern, beside clear-running water she sped her way, until under the frowning steep of the Pikes she began to climb. Here she had needed both patience and breath; but being alone with all this mountain glory, she must frolic and spend herself. She took off boots and stockings and cooled her feet in water and moss; she crossed the beck, and re-crossed it, picked a knot of harebells for her belt, stooped to drink out of clear fountains, rested supine in deep heather, fanned herself with fronded fern, watched the clouds, the birds, bared her arms to the shoulder and plunged them after trout. She played with her prospect, and had never been so happy in her life. At five o’clock, biscuits and chocolate; and instead of being by Sprinkling Tarn she was not yet at Esk Hause.
It was here that she misgave herself, and for a moment knew the wild horror of the solitude. Man is not made for the fells; Pan haunts them, and the fear of him gripes the heart suddenly and turns man to stone. The sun, sloping, had hidden himself beyond Great End. The world looked dun and sinister—estranged from her and her little joys and hopes. She stood on a trackless moorland encompassed by mighty hills. The black earth oozed black water where she trod; right over against her stood a mass of tumbled rock, spiked at the top as with knives. She was to go neither right nor left, she had been told; but which was right and which left by now, when she had roamed broadcast and at random a few times?
The knowledge that she was intensely alone braced her against her nerves. She beat back panic and considered what had best be done. Here stood the shelter, a rude circle of stones breast-high. Within was a seat half hidden in tall fern and foxgloves. Until she knew her road more certainly, she would not leave that refuge from the night wind; but at the thought of night coming down and finding her here, alone with bat and crying bird, made her shiver. With the shelter, then, always in her eye, she explored the tableland where now she was on all sides. The walking was rough and boggy; she was near being mired more than once. Fatigue settled down upon her as her spirits fell dead; despair rose up in their place and drove her to frantic efforts. She climbed heights which could give her no helping prospect—since all was alike to her, one intricate puzzle of darkening purple valleys and clouded peaks. And here the darkness came down like a fog and found her still. She huddled closely into her cloak and sat in the shelter, while fear, reproach, and doubts of which she would never have dreamed drove howling over the field—like the warring women of the Rheinfels scenting havoc from afar off, who, or whose likes, we suppose, people the uplands i............