subject: The Newlands Valley [print this page] The Newlands Valley is charming, and Stair a very pretty spot, but there were no signs of tea anywhere, and they appeared to me in consequence a very abomination of desolation. I passed a picturesque old cottage with a stone slab over the door, bearing a date and a cabalistic inscription which, under more favourable conditions, would have fascinated me, but I passed it with barely a glance.
Then I passed a house, where I could see through the open window a table spread with all the appurtenances for a bountiful North Country tea, and my heart was filled with envy, hatred and all uncharitableness. Somebody dallied idly, while I was slowly dying. And I wondered what would happen, if I were to go straight in and ring the bell for the teapot to be brought in, and whether I should get it, and what the people for whom the repast was intended would say, when they returned to find me consuming their tea. They would probably say a good deal, but I felt that I could bear it with equani mity, if I had had time to have plenty of tea first.
In the midst of these attractive but tantalising cogitations a party of four or five persons suddenly rushed round the corner, and into the house, and took possession. Evidently these were the genuine proprietors, and I had lost my chance. They had not sufficient of the milk of human kindness to ask me to join them, so I anathematised them and went sadly on my way.
Soon I arrived at the little Swinside Inn, and dashed incontinently in, and demanded tea and plenty of it. Licensed houses sometimes object to provide tea. I have been refused it more than once or twice, although I believe they are bound to provide it, if asked for. If the good lady here had refused it, there would have been murder done, or I should think they might have brought it in, Justifiable homicide. Fortunately she raised no difficulty, and I had a very excellent and copious tea at a very moderate price, and walked on to Keswick much fortified thereby.
It was_ a year or two before I was again in that particular corner of Lakeland. Then one morning in the middle of June I set out from Buttermere to walk round Grassmoor. I started up the moor opposite the postoffice, and passed over Whiteless Pike and Wand hope to the 2,749 feet top of Eel Crags. It was a fine bright morning, and I got very hot as . I tramped steadily up the steep grass slopes of White less Pike, but as I got higher, I found a very cold east wind blowing, and soon it increased to a stiff gale. As I passed along the ridge from Whiteless Pike to Wandhope, I was several times almost blown over, and kept on the lee side as far as possible.
