A couple of hundred yards further along on the road is a natural pedestal of rock with rough hewn steps leading to its top. This is supposed to have been used by Wordsworth as a view point and seat where he wrote many of his poems. What with the dust of motors and the hooting of their horns, and the rattling of char-a-bancs, one cannot help feeling that the poetry to-day would resolve itself into “a curse and a hasty descent.” However this may be, the hundred yards of main road on either side of the rock must surely be the most beautiful in all England to-day, and motorists and coaching-folk have as much right upon it, and perhaps enjoy it as much, as some of those who are so “down” on the wheeled traffic in Lakeland. The little village of Rydal, with its church, beech trees and old houses, leads us thence to Pelter Bridge and the walk through the beautiful park of Rothay. CHAPTER IV. Thirlmere, Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. The main road running North from Grasmere to Thirlmere, over Dunmail Raise, rises to a height of eight hundred and fifty feet. On a hot summer’s day it is a long sultry grind, whether one be walking or driving in a char-a-banc, for the two things are much the same here. About half-a-mile out of Grasmere the coachman pulls up his horses and intimates that if any of the gentlemen would like to walk, the horses would not object. This procedure led a humorous American gentleman, who had paid the usual fare from Windermere to Keswick, to exclaim when he reached the top “Wa’al, I guess I never walked so far for 7/6 in all my life before”! But this walk up Dunmail Raise is a blessing in disguise, for the pedestrian has thus more opportunity of studying the country-side and particularly of drinking in the lovely retrospect to “Grasmere’s peaceful vale.” He will have time also to stop near the foot of the last steep bit and see the Lion and the Lamb on top of Helm Crag, mentioned in Wordsworth’s verse. The curious rocks up there bear a striking resemblance to these animals, but if your driver should ask if you saw the Lion and two Lambs, be very wary, for when you say “No” he will chuckle, crack his whip and exclaim “No? and no wonder for t’ other lamb’s inside of t’ lion”! At the top of the Raise, marked by the huge pile of stones over King Dunmail’s grave, we pass from Westmoreland into Cumberland and get our first glimpse of Thirlmere. A long easy gradient takes us merrily downward until we see the full length of the lake and realize once more what a wonderful country we [Illustration: Thirlmere and Helvellyn From the “new road” on the western side of the Lake.]