here and there a beech tree full of leaf or a Scotch fir green and blue gave {213} emphasis to the general tone of softest harmony. Passing on through the larches upon the little height, I gained a third seat, and here the chief charm was the outlook up Borrodale. Immediately in the foreground were young Scotch fir; beyond them the lake glinted in silver through leafless birches. Away up Borrodale, with every variety of lilac melting into purple-grey, ridge beyond ridge, one saw the bossy outliers of the Borrodale ranges stand up in sunny calm; one felt the deep tranquillity of Glaramara and of nearer Honister, the only sound a distant cockcrow from the far-off Ashness farm and the quiet inland murmur of Lodore. The glory of the vale was the wonderful Castle Hill, with its echo of old Rome upon its head, that stood black-purple against the further lilac haze. But as one sat there in silent content a school of long-tailed tits came quavering by. They found abundant food, it would seem, in the Scotch firs close beside me, and what the squirrels had done before to open one's eyes to their miracle of movement these long-tailed titmice did again, for one here, as I sat and watched their happy quest for food. Such balancing, such joyousness, such fiery energy, such swiftness of {214} sight, such whispering of heart's content would have made the saddest man glad and the dullest marvel. As I rose from that seat, with a long look up Borrodale, I could not wonder that our Viking forefathers had called it the Vale of the Borg or Castle, for that Castle Hill in Borrodale must surely have seemed to them a giant's hold, the fittest place for some high fortress-camp, as it had seemed to the Romans of an older day. If the first height one had ascended was rightly called 'Mons Beata,' and the seat one had last left was placed on a hill that might be called Mons Blencathrae, which gave such fair prospect of Blencathra, surely this fair mount might be called 'Mons Borgadalis,' or the Mount of Borrodale. I heard a whistle, and to my answering hulloa came a shout. The forester was waiting for me away up there on the highest point of the woodland, not far from the main road and above the Brandelhow mines. Descending swiftly and making my way through the frosty undergrowth, with rabbits scuttling here and there and a soft-winged owl lazily fluttering from a bough above my head, I was suddenly aware by the scent that hung upon the fern that a fox had passed that {215} way. But it must have been in the early morning or 'Brer Rabbit' would not have been about and the jay would have been screaming, and, making the best of my way up to the forester, we soon forgot all about bird and beast in our honest efforts to let in light and give fair outlook to the wanderers who should hither come for rest and thought in succeeding summers.