from a hermit, who, it is said, bore so perfect a love to St. Cuthbert of Durham, that he prayed he might die at the same moment in which his friend breathed his last. "Nor in vain

So pray'd he-as our chronicles report,
Though here the hermit number'd his last day,
Far from St. Cuthbert, his beloved friend,
Those holy men both died in the same hour.'

"I wonder whether this tale is really true?" "That is a point that I will not venture to decide. There is in Derwent Lake a floating island that sometimes comes up to the surface of the water, and at other times sinks to the bottom. It is five or six feet thick, and many say full an acre in extent."

"What a strange thing!

one who did not know of it!"

How it would astonish any

"There are many places from which an excellent view of the lake may be secured; but, perhaps, the field adjoining Friar Crag, to those who prefer to see it near, is the best. In my loiterings about Derwentwater, among other places I visited the Druidical circle on the old road to Penrith, and pondered for some time among the old stones.

Their shapeless forms have braved the power
Of many a stern and wintry hour,

And still in stedfastness they hold

A tale that Time has never told.

Well may they blanch the ruddy cheek!
Their very silence seems to speak

Alike to common men and kings,

Alas! how vain are earthly things!'

K

"We know not now who built the pyramids, or who erected the Druidical circles which are standing in many solitary places. Let us, then, lightly esteem an earthly fame, and humbly seek, through His mercy who died the just for the unjust, to have our names recorded in that book of life that shall endure for ever."

131

CHAPTER XI.

LOITERINGS ABOUT ENNERDALE LAKE.

A true lover of nature always finds enjoyment.-The three tourists again. Departure for Ennerdale. Seatoller Bridge.- Keppel Crag.-Hind Crag.-Scockley Bridge.-Tarns.-Sty Head Pass. -Rashness of Baron Trenck.-Scawfell.-Scawfell Pike.-Lingmell.-Great End.-The two Giant Mountains.-Mickledore.The Lake of Ennerdale.-Char.-Lines of Luther.

"IF ever you should visit the lakes, Paul," said Mr. Ritter, "whether you climb a mountain, sail on a mere, gaze on a tarn, or trudge through a pass, if you have an object in view, throw your heart into it. When the

lark is singing, we should be all ear; when goodly and glowing scenery is spread before us, we should be all eye. Show me one who can visit Honister Crag without awe, stand on the banks of Derwentwater without emotions of pleasure, and gaze on a rising or setting sun without a throbbing pulse and a beating heart, and I will show you one who is not fit to make a tour through Cumberland and Westmoreland. If ever you climb up to the top of Skiddaw, Paul, you must not leave your heart at the bottom."

"That I never will," replied Paul; "I shall be sure to be in earnest, and to get on the heap of stones, though I do not think I should get up the pole.'

"Very right, Paul; running into needless danger is not a proof of wisdom, but of folly. I do wish you, however, to be a lover of nature. When the true lover of nature goes abroad, he is almost certain to find enjoyment. As he walks the valleys when the earth is clothed with verdure and beauty, and when the sun is shining in the vault of heaven, he feels a glow of delight in his bosom. And when he clambers among the hills, in love with solitude, when the skies are at their blackest, and creation around appears waiting in apprehension of the coming storm-even when the flood descends, when heaven opens, and the sheeted lightning breaks from the burdened cloud, and the mighty and terrible voice of the Lord is heard shaking the very mountains, he is not without a feeling of awful joy. I cannot express one half of the interest and delight that my loiterings among the lakes have afforded me. I am about to tell you now of my ramble to Ennerdale, in which I had no agreeable companion, though part of the road is very solitary.

Alone the dreary waste I wander'd,

And o'er the gloomy pathways ponder'd."

"You should have had your good friend the captain with you."

"You have not, I dare say, forgotten the three tourists that I saw at Kendal and Ambleside ?"

"What, Redbreast, Blueback, and Yellowhead? Oh! I can never forget them, travelling together and yet always having a different plan. Of all people in the

world, they ought not to have travelled in one another's company."

“Well, before I left Keswick, I saw two of them again; Redbreast was going up the steps into the townhall to see the model of the lake district, and Blueback was on the roof of the Cockermouth coach; where Yellowhead was I could not guess, but in an hour after I saw him setting off for St. Herbert's Isle on the Lake of Derwentwater."

"Just like them! They never can agree in anything. If one goes one way, the others are sure to go another."

"Making the best of my way once more through Borrowdale, I turned off at Seatoller Bridge for Seathwaite, giving a glance at Keppel Crag, and Hind Crag as I passed. Then crossing Scockley Bridge, I went to Sty Head Tarn.”

"What a number of tarns there are! Go where you will, you meet with a tarn."

"Wordsworth says: 'Tarns, in the economy of nature, are useful as auxiliars to lakes; for, if the whole quantity of water which falls upon the mountains in times of storm were poured down upon the plains without intervention, in some quarters, of such receptacles, the habitable grounds would be much more subject than they are to inundation. But as some of the collateral brooks spend their fury, finding a free course toward, and also down, the channel of the main stream of the vale before those that have to pass through the higher tarns and lakes have filled their several basins, a gra