No More Learning

The scene from the crag must be extended, and half plain half
wood-land; at least one gathers as much from the lines:

'as the mist
Gave intermitting prospect of the copse
And plain beneath. '

Lastly, it was a day of driving sleet and mist, and this of itself
would necessitate that the poet and his brothers should only go to the
place close to which the ponies must pass, or from which most plainly
the roads were visible.

The boys too were

'feverish, and tired, and restless,'

and a schoolboy, to gain his point on such a day and on such an
errand, does not take much account of a mile of country to be
travelled over.

So that it is immaterial, I think, to make the distance from Hawkshead
of either of the four crags or vantage grounds a factor in decision.

The farther the lads were from home when they met their ponies, the
longer ride back they would have, and this to schoolboys is matter of
consideration at such times.

Taking then a survey of the ground of choice, we have to decide
whether the crag in question is situated at the first division or main
split of the road from Ambleside furthest from Hawkshead, or whether
at the place where the two roads converge again into one nearer
Hawkshead.

Whether, that is, the crag above the Pullwyke quarry, at the junction
of the road to Water Barngates and the road to Wray and Outgate is to
be selected, about two miles from Hawkshead; or whether we are to fix
on the spot you have chosen, at the point about a mile north-east of
Hawkshead, 'called in the ordnance map Outgate. '

Of the two I incline to the former, for these reasons. The boys could
not be so certain of 'not missing the ponies', at any other place than
here at Pullwyke.

The crag exactly answers the poet's description, a rising ground, the
meeting-place of two highways. For in the poet's time the old
Hawkshead and Outgate road at the Pullwyke corner ran at the very foot
of the rising ground (roughly speaking) parallel to and some 60 to 100
yards west of the present road from the Pull to Wray.

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.