There are other tales told of Buttermere, but our coach is now ready and before long we swing off the main road by the little church and breast the steep pull up the fellside to Buttermere Hause. The more energetic members of the party are mutely requested to walk by the sight of the straining backs of the horses. If this is ineffectual, as I have sometimes known it to be, the driver explains the seductive delights afforded by a contemplation of the bracken and heather slopes of Sail and Eel Crags when seen “_pied à terre_”. Whatever the inducement, the upshot is a steep walk of about a mile until the hause, or top of the pass, is attained. A fine waterfall in the breast of Robinson--Robinson being the unromantic name of the mountain across the valley--diverts our attention from the moor intervening between us and the Vale of Newlands, with distant Blencathra beyond. A “nervy” hill, surfaced with shale in which the wheel-skids grip finely, leads us down into the valley bottom and thence follows a long stretch of moorland--a fitting preparation for the pretty wooded scenery more in evidence as we near our journey’s end. We bowl merrily along, happy in meditating on the beauties through which we have passed, when suddenly we become aware that the roadway has vanished. There is no time to protest before we find ourselves overlooking a steep brow and bating our breath as the coach tilts at an alarming angle. This is the famous “Devil’s Elbow,” an awe-inspiring hill, the descent of which is rather like a tooth extraction--pleasant enough in retrospect. The proceeding is a perfectly safe one, however, and before long we find ourselves in the heart of Newlands Vale, whence three miles of excellent going takes us through the village of Portinscale, past Crosthwaite Church to Keswick and our quarters. [Illustration: “The Devil’s Elbow” Showing the coaches returning from Buttermere to Keswick, on the “Buttermere round.”] [Illustration: The Head of Ullswater As seen from Place Fell, and looking across to Stybarrow Crag and Helvellyn, with the village and vale of Glenridding.] CHAPTER VI. Ullswater and Helvellyn. Ullswater is at once the finest and the tamest of all the lakes. This seeming paradox is explained when one realizes that it is formed of three distinct reaches, all of which are hidden from the others. The lowest reach stretches out in a thin wedge of water to the confines of the mountains at Pooley Bridge; the higher fells are away at the other end. In its length of nine miles the lake stretches further and further into the recesses of the hills, until, at its head or upper reach, it nestles amongst the most beautiful and impressive combination of mountains and woods in Lakeland. The middle reach also, has a beauty of its own, a mixture of the sublime and the ordinary. Its chief charm lies in its loneliness, evidence of human habitation being almost entirely lacking.