"I rather wish there were a few Austrians
in Pease Gill to-day," cried one of us.

"I should rather prefer Russians," said
another.

"If I could be sure of the right men,"
quoth Hotspur, setting, with his foot, half a
hill in motion as he spoke, " I should like it
to be choke full of Delhi Sepoys."

But, for my part, I thought killing the
mountain ashes was bad enough. It gave us
a tremendous appetite for the trout and fowls,
and broiled ham and eggs (again), when we
got home (home is just the word for that
clean and pleasant farmhouse, with all its
handsome inmates anxious to do their best to
please); and after dinner, before the sports
began, which take place in Wastdale upon
most evenings, I felt inclined to sit a little
with a cigar and read.

The things most wanted here, however,
where it sometimes rains, are books, nor did
I chance to find one, with the exception of a
Shepherd's Guide. This is a large, pictorial
work, and promises very well upon first
appearance, but from every wood-cut having
the same subject— a sheep — and all the letterpress
treating solely of the different marks
by which the ownership of stray wanderers
may be discovered, the volume is on the
whole monotonous. To an unpastural
student, indeed, its information is even
unintelligible. " Twinters are generally redded,"
says the Guide, but how am I to know that
this means that two-year-olds have a red
mark across them, or how should I recognise
these nice distinctions if I met with a stray
mutton in my field, " cropped near ear, upper
key bitted far, a pop on the head, and another
at the tail head, ritted, and with two red
strokes down both shoulders." Putting this
work aside I, therefore, asked for the Visitors'
Book, which is, of course, kept everywhere
in the Lake District. I wanted it chiefly for
its poetry, having recently committed to
memory a pleasing stanza (forming the whole
poem), written at the Swan Inn at Grasmere,
and hoping to find something similar by the
same author; the lines ran thus:

   "Where lake and mountain lay in sweet unite,
       And Terra yields to many a spreading tear;
    Where fleecy clouds adorn each swelling height,
       And form the neighbourhood we call Grasmere."

Besides this particular expectation, I
confess I like dipping into a Visitors' Book. One
reads in it the name, perhaps, of some dear
friend, and the knowledge that he too has
enjoyed the scenes in which we are delighting
is very pleasant: or our own name,
perhaps, occurs in it written years and years
ago under different circumstances, when we
were younger, but not blyther either, which
is a consoling reflection, and even if our
condition is changed for the worse, the memory
of the days that are no more, though sad, is
always sweet.

There is not a great deal of poetry in the
Wastdale volume, not even of those huge
extracts from the Excursion, which embellish
most of these books in Lakeland, and of the
original verses I am afraid these are the best:

   " The vehicles here are rather scarce,
    There is not even a one-horse hearse;
    But Willy Ritson's a merry old chap,
    And knows all the country without a map."

One does not at first see how the want of
conveyances can be made up in any way
by the goodnature of our good landlord, but
upon looking further into the book, the couplets
seem to have some connection too.

"James S., John S., and Miss J. were
conveyed over Sty Head Pass by an experienced
guide," they write; a statement which
certainly speaks very highly for the robust
character of the north country dalesmen. Some
other persons give us to understand that they
are " upon a pedestrian tour, and have
become a little tired." Upon which a critic
appends this note— " We advise these people
to read Walkings Dictionary." One peculiarity
of all writers in Visitors' Books is, that
they tell us where they were yesterday, and
where they are going to-morrow, with the
most elaborate distinctness, as though they
were playing some game of Follow-my-
Leader with the universal tourist. It is
extremely rare to find so undetailed a statement
of a gentleman's movements as the
following:

"Mr. R., upon his return after a protracted
tour to the Hampshire Lowlands." Whereupon
the censor who always haunts works of
this kind inquires pertinently, " where are
the Hampshire Highlands ?" This gentleman
has all the severity, if not the acuteness,
of a Croker. At the conclusion of some lines
beginning—

   "Oh, happy day that fix'd our choice
      To come and see this beautiful place,"

he writes, " Extract from Shakspeare, Milton,
or some other swell, we suppose." Where a
learned tourist has chosen to sign his name
in Hebrew or in Arabic, he notes, "This man
is a snob for his pains;" and thereupon a
second critic, more satirical still, rejoins,
"Don't be jealous, you snob." Here again,
where W. and N. inform us that they
"walked over from Keswick, cum equus,
were much pleased with the scenery and the
lamb chops; and washed in the stream
behind the house." Number One remarks,
"Bad Latin," as information to the illiterate;
but upon the whole he prefers to confine
himself to writing the words " Shut up!"
wherever he considers a visitor's remarks
have exceeded their proper limit.

Almost everybody laments the want of
beer at Westdale Head. Poor William Ritson
is very particular in denying us this
luxury since an infamous exciseman, pretending
to faint, in order to get a drop of malt
liquor out of him, informed against his