He told us it was his custom each evening to come out of his cottage for
a short time before retiring to rest, and that about a month before our
visit he had been out one night as usual after his neighbours had gone
to bed, and, standing at his cottage door, he thought he heard a faint
cry. He listened again: yes, he could distinctly hear a cry for help. He
woke up his neighbours, and they and his son, going in the direction
from which the cries came, found a gentleman fast in the rocks. He had
been on a visit to Grasmere, and had gone out for an afternoon's walk on
the fells, when the mist came on and he lost his way. As night fell he
tried to get between some rocks, when he slipped into a crevice and
jammed himself fast between them--fortunately for himself as it
afterwards proved, for when the rescuing party arrived, they found him
in such a dangerous position that, if he had succeeded in getting
through the rocks the way he intended, he would inevitably have fallen
down the precipice and been killed.
After hearing these stories, we felt very thankful we were safely off
the fells. Without knowing it, we had passed the scene of the Battle of
Dunmail Raise, where Dunmail, the last King of Cumbria, an old British
kingdom, was said to have been killed in 945 fighting against Edmund,
King of England.
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