Reeth, that waywardness which now rules my mind, as
squalls an abandoned boat, took me somewhat further south-west to the
village of Thwaite, which I actually could not enter, so occupied with
dead was every spot on which the eye rested a hundred yards about it.
Not far from here I turned up, on foot now, a very steep, stony road to
the right, which leads over the Buttertubs Pass into Wensleydale, the
day being very warm and bright, with large clouds that looked like
lakes of molten silver giving off grey fumes in their centre, casting
moody shadows over the swardy dale, which below Thwaite expands, showing
Muker two miles off, the largest village of Upper Swaledale. Soon,
climbing, I could look down upon miles of Swaledale and the hills
beyond, a rustic panorama of glens and grass, river and cloudshadow, and
there was something of lightness in my step that fair day, for I had
left all my maps and things, except one, at Reeth, to which I meant to
return, and the earth, which is very good, was--mine. The ascent was
rough, and also long: but if I paused and looked behind--I saw, I saw.
Man's notion of a Heaven, a Paradise, reserved for the spirits of the
good, clearly arose from impressions which the earth made upon his mind:
for no Paradise can be fairer than this; just as his notion of a Hell
arose from the squalid mess into which his own foolish habits of thought
and action turned this Paradise. At least, so it struck me then: and,
thinking it, there was a hiss in my breath, as I went up into what more
and more acquired the character of a mountain pass, with points of
almost Alpine savagery: for after I had skirted the edge of a deep glen
on the left, the slopes changed in character, heather was on the
mountain-sides, a fretting beck sent up its noise, then screes, and
scars, and a considerable waterfall, and a landscape of crags; and
lastly a broad and rather desolate summit, palpably nearer the clouds.

* * * * *

Two days later I was at the mines: and here I first saw that wide-spread
scene of horror with which I have since become familiar. The story of
six out of ten of them all is the same, and short: selfish 'owners,' an
ousted world, an easy bombardment, and the destruction of all concerned,
before the arrival of the cloud in many cases. About some of the Durham
pit-mouths I have been given the impression that the human race lay
collected there; and that the notion of hiding himsel