Such a lonely and dangerous road should no doubt be avoided at night, but yet I am always grateful for the delays which made me so late that darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had drawn to that small town farmers and their wives, and most, if not all, the young men and maidens within a considerable radius. I made my way slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose stones and in the waterworn runnels that were scarcely visible in the dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell, its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then the road made a sudden zigzag, but went on climbing more steeply than ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck falling upon quantities of bare rocks. At the edge of the road the ground curved away in an insidious manner without any protecting bank, and I instinctively drew towards the inner side of the way, fearing lest a stumble among the stones that still covered the road might precipitate me into the gorge [Illustration: TWILIGHT IN THE BUTTER-TUBS PASS THE Butter-tubs are some deep pot-holes in the limestone that lie just by the high stony road that goes from Hawes in Wensleydale to Muker in Swaledale.]