On one of those spring excursions I remember we had made rather a long day of it, starting from Patterdale in the morning, lunching at Grasmere, and then making our way by Easedale Tarn to the summit of High White Stones. It was our intention to descend from that point and to reach the hotel in Dungeon Ghyll in time for dinner. But on High White Stones an eerie and impenetrable white mist descended upon us and we missed our way. For several hours we wandered in the mist until we lost all count of where we were, but at last, by some strange good fortune, we found ourselves on the top of Langdale Pikes, a spot which I knew well from many an earlier excursion. We both knew that below us lay Stickle Tarn, and that from Stickle Tarn ran the brook which would finally lead us to our now much-desired inn. And so in the drenching rain we cautiously descended the hillside till we got to the shores of the Tarn. Then, by some unexpected error, instead of turning on our right, which in a few moments would have led us to the issue of the brook, we took the other direction and were forced to make the whole circuit of the Tarn, reaching at last, almost exhausted, the rushing torrent that descends to the valley. In such fear were we of losing our way again that we determined not to desert the bed of the stream, and, crawling catlike from boulder to boulder, we found the village at last, and saw, with a delight that may be easily imagined, the far-off glimmer in the windows of the Dungeon Ghyll Hotel. It was half-past ten before we arrived at the door, wet through, and with our slight stock of change contained in our knapsacks sodden with rain. But the landlord kindly lent us some strange garments of his own, and I do not think two men ever enjoyed a meal more than we two as we fell upon that staple dish of the Lake District, “ham and eggs.” CHAPTER III ESSAYS IN JOURNALISM Even before I left the City I had already made some tentative excursions into the realm of journalism. My first experiment, I remember, had something of a grotesque conclusion. An early friend of mine, Arthur O’Neil, the younger half-brother of Henry O’Neil, the painter of _Eastward Ho_, had somehow persuaded a modest capitalist to venture a small sum of money in the establishment of a weekly journal called the _Dramatic and Musical Review_. We were both keenly interested in the drama, and I had assisted at O’Neil’s first venture in the shape of a pantomime at the old Sadler’s Wells Theatre. To judge by the scene that occurred during the later stages of the entertainment, it could not have been deemed wholly successful. I remember that the members of the orchestra had to divide their attention between the music of the harlequinade and the shower of stone ginger-beer bottles that were hurled like hail from a hypercritical gallery.