FullReads

4:30.–Hurrah! Just seen the sun rise! No end of a fine show. Long bit of poetry about it in the guide-book, cribbed from Wordsworth or somebody. Can’t say the page, as I tore out the leaf last night to put inside my boot, to help to keep my toes warm. Never expected to see the sun rise from the highest spot in England. Awful good score for me, though–very few do it, I fancy. Think of those lazy Cambridge fellows curled up in bed and missing it all; just the way with these fellows, all show off.

The sun’s warm already, and I’ve left off my Daily News and spare shirt, and I’m just going to take the paper out of my boots; that is, if I can ever get down to my toes–but I’m so jolly stiff.

Never mind, I’ve done it, and–bother that cough, it’s made me break the point of my pencil.

5 a.m.–Been sharpening the pencil with my teeth. Rather a poor breakfast; never mind, I shall have a rousing appetite when I get to the bottom. May tip that waiter possibly, if he brings the grub up sharp. Now I’m starting down. I shall go down to Dungeon Ghyl the way I came, I fancy. If I went down to Wastdale, I might meet those Cambridge fellows again, and I wouldn’t care for that. It would mortify them too much to know what they’ve missed. Ta! ta! Scafell Pike, old man, keep yourself warm. I’ll leave you my Daily News, in case you want it.

8 a.m.–Been all this time getting half-way down. Can scarcely crawl. Going up hill’s nothing, but the bumping you get coming down, when you’re as stiff as a poker, and coughing like an old horse, is a caution. Had a good mind to ask a shepherd I met half an hour ago to give me a leg down, but didn’t like to; so I told him I’d just been to the top to see the sunrise, and it was a fine morning. All but added, “I suppose you haven’t got a crust of bread in your pocket?” but pulled up in time. Pity to spoil my appetite for breakfast at Dungeon Ghyl. Ugh! if I sit here I shall rust up, and not be able to move. Must go on.

10 a.m.–Top of Rosset Ghyl. Not very swell time to get from the top of the Pike here in five hours. All a chance whether I get down at all, now–I’m about finished up. Wish those Cambridge fellows–

Here the diary ends abruptly; but, in case our readers are curious to know the end of our hero’s adventure, they will be interested to learn that at the identical moment when the writer reached this point in his diary, the Cambridge fellows did turn up. They had, indeed, been out searching the hills from very early morning for the wanderer. As he did not arrive the night before at Wastdale, they had concluded he had given up the ascent, and returned to Dungeon Ghyl. But when early that morning a guide had come over from Dungeon Ghyl, and reported that the young gentleman had certainly not returned there, the two ‘Varsity men became alarmed, and turned out to search. There was no sign of him on the Wastdale side of the mountain; and, getting more and more alarmed, they went on to the summit. There they discovered a crushed-up Daily News and two or three stained pages of a guide-book. Glad of any clue, they followed the track down towards Dungeon Ghyl, and at last came upon the poor fellow, fairly exhausted with hunger, fatigue, and rheumatism. They gave him what partially revived him, and then with the care and tenderness of two big brothers carried him down the steep side of Rosset Ghyl, and so on to the hotel. There they kept him under their special care, day and night, and never left him till he was well enough to return home to his anxious family.

Since then Bartholomew Bumpus has made several ascents of Scafell Pike, but he has never again, I believe, stayed up there all night to see the sunrise. Nor has he, when he could possibly help it, gone up unaccompanied by at least one Cambridge fellow.