I had often climbed the hill before, but never, till this sunny morning, had I felt the deeper meaning of those passionate lines of Wordsworth's, which he penned when he first heard of the projected Kendal and Windermere Railway, and, with Orrest Head in his mind, wrote:

"Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance

Of nature."

For here peace was absolute. A distant cock-crow, the sound of a village forge hammer, was all that broke the calm, and far as the eye could see all was restfulness and peace.

But it was the colour that astonished me. In the near foreground every imaginable shade of purple faded into grey. The birches shimmered in the sunlight as though they had been made of frosted silver; the ash trees stood up like giant coral-growths, and whilst at my back the rust-red of the fern was seen to cover the lower fells, the deep dark violet folds of bosky woodland swept to the sapphire waters of what seemed a mighty river, but was indeed none other than Winander with its woody holmes, that curved toward the south and to the sea.

The sky was that peculiar blue one sees over Finland, and it was cloudless; the lake took its colour save where the wind ruffled it momently, and then it turned to deeper hyacinthine purple. But the chief glories of the scene were the snow-clad giants that lay around us. In the far south, Ingleborough looked like "Fusiyama," nearer, Farleton Knott and Wharton Crags were winter-white. Nearer still the cones of Froswyke and Ill Bell stood dazzling and spotless, and the white circling range of Fairfield took one's eyes across the northern gap of Dunmail Raise, to the Easdale range, and made one draw one's

breath for beauty of contrast between the shimmering silver of the crescent ridge, and the bronzed and burnished beauty of the lower slopes. Grand and grizzled grey the Langdale Lions tossed their manes; whitely glearned Bowfell; the Crinkle Crags and their neighbour height foamed up beyond to the dusky yellow of Ling Mell; but it was not till one's eyes were caught by the magnificence of the winter cloak upon the shoulders of "those great twin brethren couchant in the west "-Wetherlam and Coniston Old Man, that one realized the superb splendour and dignity of this March ermine upon their kingly shoulders, and was able by contrast of the purple skirts of Oxenfell and the Sawrey woodlands that dropt toward the lake, to understand the meaning of that verse Southey wrote in his Poet's Pilgrimage to Wastdale:

"And now I am a Cumbrian mountaineer,

Their wintry garment of unsullied snow

The mountains have put on, the heavens are clear,
And yon dark lake spreads silently below.

Who sees them only in their summer hour

Sees but their beauties half, and knows not half their power."

Certainly for glory of colouring, for pomp and majesty, I have never beheld the Lakeland hills more wonderful. The mingling of ivory and purple, of ermine and gold and sapphire in this wondrous panorama from Orrest Head, baffled description.

One had seen the hills in mid-winter, but then it was a mild mid-winter sun that gleamed upon them; now it seemed the sun shone with mid-summer bravery, and the snowy mantles were filled with fiery light and radiance, such as one only sees upon the higher Alps in June. But the beauty of these snow-clad hills to-day lay in the exquisite carving of their solid ivory masses, that had been

wrought by the hand of the snow giant in the darkness of the March night. Just enough of the white gift from the north had fallen to emphasize every tiny undulation or hollow on the mountain mass. These hollows were filled with blue shadow; the ranges of Wetherlam and Coniston Old Man were pencilled with lustrous cobalt. It was this same effective modelling of these masses of mountain side, this marvellous giving of detail, that made them seem to come quite close to one. They almost rose up from the Sawrey woods and the purple puce of the Iron Keld ridge, instead of being, as they were in reality, miles away. This nearness added to their bulk and height, and gave them a majesty unexpected.

I stood entranced. The winter beauty over there, with the summer so close at my feet-for the daffodil was bright in the Elleray woods, and the wind-flower was waking into green. Thence descending, I passed along that beautiful road to Ambleside, of which whoso journeys by it in midJune or August can never know the full delightsomeness. To-day the lake gleamed through every copse, and mixed its silver with the tasselled alder and the yellowing larches; to-day the walls on this side were clothed in emerald velvet of mossy grace, or on that side the horn-beam hedgerows ran bronzed like beaten copper, or where the sun smote on them, twinkled into ruddy gold. On by Low wood, some of whose famous fir trees, alas! have fallen; on by the haunts of Mrs. Hemans of old time, to the Sitting, or Seat, of Hamil the Viking, and so to the Loughrigg of my heart I trudged contentedly, and when I reached its bossy and beautiful height I felt that it was difficult to say which scene was fairer the view from Christopher North's old home, or this from the rugged slope of the English Citharon, Arnold knew, and Faber the poet so loved, and so made famous in

song. I gazed upon the Fairfield ridge, with Rydal woods all blue and radiant beneath its winter crown and cloak of ivory, whilst the lily-tarn at my feet lay like a sapphire, set round with bracken-gold. I watched the white cones of the Ill Bell range stand up a miniature Oberland, against a pale blue sky, and, turning westward saw the Hardknott hill gleam in the Wray-Nose gap, and the Grey Friars, rightly so called in their sleet-woven cloaks, lean towards white Wetherlam above a landscape of purplebrown; there as I gazed, the words of Southey and Coleridge and Wordsworth recurred to mind, who put it on record as their solemnest conviction that those who would see Lakeland at its best, must come when it is clad in winter loveliness.

AFTER THE RAVENS, IN SKIDDAW

FOREST.

"IT has been so open a spring, sir, that if we want sight of the ravens this year we shall have to be after them by the end of the second week in April."

I was not by nature or inclination a bird-stealer, but was most desirous to become acquainted with wild bird haunts, and knew that for such purpose no more faithful guide could be found than the 'fidus Achates' who spoke.

"It will be no use going to Falcon Crag, though there is a pair nesting there. They are so shy that the old birds will not play round you, or feed their young ones while you are by. If you want to come upon a pair that will interest you, you must go through Skiddaw Forest, and try for the ravens in the Dead Crags. There is a pair of old birds who have nested there the past ten years. I took one of three youngsters last year, and

almost ken the old birds by name.

"But it's a good bit of a stretch-it's ten mile or mair if we gang round by Lonscale," my friend continued, breaking into his native dialect. "We must be astir by dawr, and by reets sud be off with the stars."

B