No More Learning

It is true that no trace of wall is visible at its summit, but the
summit has been planted since with trees, and walls are often removed
at time of planting.

The poet would have a full view of the main road, down to, and round,
the Pullwyke Bay; he would see the branch road from the fork, as it
mounted the Water Barngates Hill, to the west, and would see the other
road of the fork far-stretched and going south.

He would also have an extended view of copse and meadow land. He
might, if the wind were south-easterly, hear the noise of Windermere,
sobbing in the Pullwyke Bay, and would without doubt hear also the
roar of the Pull Beck water, as it passed down from the Ironkeld
slopes on his left towards the lake.

It might be objected that the poem gives us the idea of a crag which,
from the Hawkshead side at any rate, would require to be of more
difficult ascent than this is, to justify the idea of difficulty as
suggested in the lines:

'thither I repaired,
Scout-like, and gained the summit;'

but I do not think we need read more into the lines than that the boy
felt--as he scanned the country with his eyes, on the 'qui vive' at
every rise in the ground--the feelings of a scout, who questions
constantly the distant prospect.

And certainly the Pullwyke quarry crag rises most steeply from the
meeting-point of the two highways.

Next as to the Outgate crag, which you have chosen. I am out of love
with it. First, if the lads wanted to make sure of the ponies, they
would not have ascended it, but would have stayed just at the
Hawkshead side of Outgate, or at the village itself, at the point of
convergence of the ways.

Secondly, the crag can hardly be described as rising from the
meeting-point of two highways; only one highway passes near it.

The crag is of so curious a formation geologically, that I can't fancy
the poet describing his memory of it, without calling it a terraced
hill, or an ascent by natural terraces.

Then, again, the prospect is not sufficiently extended from it. The
stream not near enough, or rather not of size enough, to be heard.
Blelham Tarn is not too far to have added to the watery sound, it is
true, but the wind we suppose to have been north-east, and the sound
of the Blelham Tarn would be much carried away from him.

The present stone wall is not near the summit, and is of comparatively
recent date.
It is difficult to believe from the slope of the outcrop
of rock that a wall could ever have been at the summit.

But there are two other vantage grounds intermediate between those
extremes, both of which were probably in the mind and memory of the
poet as he described the scene, and

'The intermitting prospect of the copse.
And plain beneath,'

allowed him by the mist. One of these is the High Crag, about
three-quarters of a mile from the divergence or convergence of the two
highways, which Dr. Cradock has selected.

There can be no doubt that this is the crag 'par excellence' for a
wide and extended look-out over all the country between Outgate and
Ambleside. Close at its summit there remain aged thorn trees, but no
trace of a wall.

But High Crag can hardly be said to have risen at 'the meeting-point
of two highways,' unless we are to understand the epithet
'far-stretched' as applying to the south-western slopes or skirts of
the hill; and the two highways, the roads between Water Barngates on
the west, and the bridle road between Pullwyke and Outgate at their
Outgate junction, and this is rather too far a stretch.

It is quite true that if bridle paths can be described as highways,
there may be said to be a meeting-point of these close at the
north-eastern side of the crag.

But, remembering that the ponies came from Penrith, the driver was not
likely to have had any intimate knowledge of these bridle paths;
while, at the same time, on that misty day, I much question whether
the boys on the look-out at High Crag could have seen ponies creeping
along between walled roads at so great a distance as half a mile or
more.

And this would seem to have been the problem for them on that day.

I ought in fairness to say that it is not likely that the roads were
then (as to-day) walled up high on either side. To-day, even from the
summit of High Crag, only the head and ears of a pony could be seen as
it passed up the Water Barngates Road; but at the end of last century
many of the roads were only partially walled off from the moorlands
they passed over in the Lake Country.

Still, as I said, High Crag was a point of vantage that the poet, as a
lad, must have often climbed, in this part of the country, if he
wanted to indulge in the delights of panoramic scene.

There is a wall some hundred yards from the summit, on the
south-westerly flank of High Crag; near this--at a point close by, two
large holly trees--the boy might have sheltered himself against the
north-eastern wind, and have got a closer and better view of the road
between Barngates and Outgate, and Randy Pike and Outgate.

Here, too, he could possibly hear the sound of the stream in the
dingle or woody hollow immediately at his feet; but I am far from
content with this as being the spot the poet watched from.