The Roots of the Mountains | Page 2

fell into
the Weltering Water amidst the grassy knolls. Black seemed the waters
of that tarn which on one side washed the rocks-wall of the Dale; ugly
and aweful it seemed to men, and none knew what lay beneath its

waters save black mis-shapen trouts that few cared to bring to net or
angle: and it was called the Death-Tarn.
Other waters yet there were: here and there from the hills on both sides,
but especially from the south side, came trickles of water that ran in
pretty brooks down to the river; and some of these sprang bubbling up
amidst the foot-mounds of the sheer-rocks; some had cleft a rugged and
strait way through them, and came tumbling down into the Dale at
diverse heights from their faces. But on the north side about halfway
down the Dale, one stream somewhat bigger than the others, and
dealing with softer ground, had cleft for itself a wider way; and the folk
had laboured this way wider yet, till they had made them a road
running north along the west side of the stream. Sooth to say, except
for the strait pass along the river at the eastern end, and the wider pass
at the western, they had no other way (save one of which a word anon)
out of the Dale but such as mountain goats and bold cragsmen might
take; and even of these but few.
This midway stream was called the Wildlake, and the way along it
Wildlake's Way, because it came to them out of the wood, which on
that north side stretched away from nigh to the lip of the valley- wall up
to the pine woods and the high fells on the east and north, and down to
the plain country on the west and south.
Now when the Weltering Water came out of the rocky tangle near the
pass, it was turned aside by the ground till it swung right up to the feet
of the Southern crags; then it turned and slowly bent round again
northward, and at last fairly doubled back on itself before it turned
again to run westward; so that when, after its second double, it had
come to flowing softly westward under the northern crags, it had cast
two thirds of a girdle round about a space of land a little below the
grassy knolls and tofts aforesaid; and there in that fair space between
the folds of the Weltering Water stood the Thorp whereof the tale hath
told.
The men thereof had widened and deepened the Weltering Water about
them, and had bridged it over to the plain meads; and athwart the throat
of the space left clear by the water they had built them a strong wall

though not very high, with a gate amidst and a tower on either side
thereof. Moreover, on the face of the cliff which was but a stone's
throw from the gate they had made them stairs and ladders to go up by;
and on a knoll nigh the brow had built a watch- tower of stone strong
and great, lest war should come into the land from over the hills. That
tower was ancient, and therefrom the Thorp had its name and the whole
valley also; and it was called Burgstead in Burgdale.
So long as the Weltering Water ran straight along by the northern cliffs
after it had left Burgstead, betwixt the water and the cliffs was a wide
flat way fashioned by man's hand. Thus was the water again a good
defence to the Thorp, for it ran slow and deep there, and there was no
other ground betwixt it and the cliffs save that road, which was easy to
bar across so that no foemen might pass without battle, and this road
was called the Portway. For a long mile the river ran under the northern
cliffs, and then turned into the midst of the Dale, and went its way
westward a broad stream winding in gentle laps and folds here and
there down to the out-gate of the Dale. But the Portway held on still
underneath the rock-wall, till the sheer-rocks grew somewhat broken,
and were cumbered with certain screes, and at last the wayfarer came
upon the break in them, and the ghyll through which ran the Wildlake
with Wildlake's Way beside it, but the Portway still went on all down
the Dale and away to the Plain-country.
That road in the ghyll, which was neither wide nor smooth, the
wayfarer into the wood must follow, till it lifted itself out of the ghyll,
and left the Wildlake coming rattling down by many steps from the east;
and now the way went straight north through the woodland, ever
mounting higher, (because the whole set of the land