button to main menu  Martineau's Complete Guide to the English Lakes, 1855

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Page 65:-
western passes show that sunset is near. He must hasten down,- mindful of the opening between the fences, which he remarked from below, and which, if he finds, he cannot lose his way. He does not seriously lose his way, though crag and bog make him diverge now and then. Descending between the inclosures, he sits down once or twice, to relieve the fatigue to the ancle (sic) and instep of so continuous a descent, and to linger a little over the beauty of the evening scene. As he comes down into the basin where Rydal Beck makes its last gambols and leaps, before entering the park, he is sensible of the approach of night. Loughrigg seems to rise: the hills seem to close him in, and the twilight to settle down. He comes to a gate, and finds himself in the civilised world again. He descends the green lane at the top of Rydal Mount, comes out just above Wordsworth's gate, finds his car at the bottom of the hill,- (the driver beginning to speculate on whether any accident has befallen the gentleman on the hills,) is driven home, and is amazed, on getting out, to find how stiff and tired he is. He would not, however, but have spent such a day for ten times the fatigue. He will certainly ascend Helvellyn, and every other mountain that comes in his way.
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