Spirit Voices

By “A. Rambler.”

The Twenty-first Annual Dinner was over and the Rambler laid himself down to rest. Whether it was the result of the champagne or the cigars or the songs or the speeches appeareth not, but it came to pass that in the night when deep sleep falleth on men he had a dream that was not all a dream. He seemed to be in some mighty temple of nature, somewhat resembling Gaping Ghyll cavern, only immeasurably vaster, stretching away on all sides into illimitable distance, whilst overhead it seemed to oversoar the loftiest star of unascended heaven pinnacled dim in the intense inane. Suddenly across the darkness flashed a gracious vision, a procession of poets with their garlands and singing robes about them. The vision faded as quickly as it came and the Rambler then became aware of the presence of articulate sounds, tuneful and rhythmical. It soon became clear that that glorious company–the flower of men, had been interested in the greatest event of the twentieth century and that it had evoked from these far-off intelligences, lyrical manifestations. Sundry of these manifestations only reached the dreamer in fragmentary form, possibly because the muddy vesture of decay did too grossly close him in, possibly for reasons beyond our finite ken, and in some cases owing to deducible causes. An unfortunate accident appears to have cut short the poem of that well known lake enthusiast, W. W-ts-n. As for R. K. he is so obsessed with his military prejudices that he fails to appreciate the value of sport. Consequently the interruption of his effusion cannot be regarded as unfortunate.

It is indeed only recently that rock-climbing has come to be recognized as a reputable pursuit for sensible men (an impression which certain ultra-gymnastic young gentlemen are doing their best to undo), so that it is not remarkable that the nineteenth ‘century poets are disposed to look somewhat askance at that sport and the kindred pastime of pot-holing.

First in the lists the Pilgrim of Eternity came veiling, as is quite obvious, all the lightnings of his song:-

Deep and unfathomed as is woman’s heart,
Black as her hate, the gaping ghyll descends.
Vain-glorious man! contrast thy puny art
With Nature’s, in her temples, when she rends
The hills in fragments. Far beneath extends
A labyrinth of caves and streams and pools.
Not even in these depths men’s daring ends :
Behold they come with ladders, ropes and tools
To risk their silly necks, the godforsaken fools.

Scarcely had the last words, resonant with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, trembled into silence, than stole a. sound of softer melody:-

My head aches, and a drowsy numbness chills
	My fingers. My sad muscles all are tense
Through standing tiptoe on these stony hills.
	Something melodious rings that sounds like sense,
Perchance the self-same strain that found a path
	Through Rambler’s heart – and lips – when ill at ease,
He stubbed his toe and hurt his fav’rite corn;
	The same that oft-times hath
Woke sentry-boxes opening on the screes
	Of perilous steeps in mountain lands forlorn.

Whilst the Medium was trying to make sense of these lines and, not being Carrie Morelli, utterly failing to do so, there came a soft, sobbing wail through the still air. Gradually it took articulate form:-

With fingers weary and worn,
	With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
	Somewhere near Wastdale Head.

At this point the words were lost in sobs. Gradually they recovered strength and clearness:-

It’s O for a pair of bags,
	As worn by the lively Turk,
Where woman has never a skirt that drags,
	If this is climbing work.
Climb! climb! climb!
	My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? My hands all raw,
	A lump on my head and – rags,
Those hideous screes, these ghastly slabs,
	A stumble, a broken fall,
And blanketty blanks are all my thanks
	For coming off at all.
O, but for one short stop!
	A minute would be enough!
No blessed respite for food or drink
	But only to get my puff

A little cussing would ease my heart –

From the words which followed, which are entirely unprintable, it would appear that the good lady gratified her desires and unpacked her heart in words.

There was a sweep of harp-strings and a rich, mellow voice gladdened the darkness. So pleasant was it that the sadness of the theme was forgotten in the music of the tone:-

I saw to the Fleet the poor debtors returning,
	With their tears on their cheeks and their shame on their heads;
They had wasted the money they should have been earning,
	Their homes were all ruins, their characters shreds.

And I said, ‘That reminds me, bedad and bejabers,
	Of the day that I climbed to the top of the Reeks,
When I spent all my breath on my pain for my labours,
	And my hose were all tattered and so were my breeks.’

The next voice was soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman, but a bit footling in man. The extraordinary conciseness of the title suggested the identity of its owner:-

Lines to a friend whilst tying up his left bootlace one misty morning in autumn previous to the ascent of pavey ark from dungeon ghyll by way of Mill Beck.

Up with me! Up with me, into the clouds!
If thy rope, friend, be strong.
Up with me! Up with me, into the clouds!
Clinging, clinging
With all my weight below thee swinging,
Lift me, haul me till I find
That spot that seems so to thy mind.
I have plodded through morasses dreary,
And to-day my legs are weary,
And to cans long and beery
Fain with thee would I fly.
There is madness in this, but a moral hope
In the strength of the rope.
Up with me! Up with me! Gimme a hitch
To the banqueting place at the top of the pitch.

Again a voice, sweet and most gentle-this time a woman’s. The verses would seem to indicate it was that of a lady noted for her piety, but not always, as still appears, for her accuracy. As usual, she is a bit mixed as to her metre:-

Have you heard the Ramblers’ language, O my brothers,
	Down beneath the pot-hole’s brim?
One of them is swearing hard at all the others;
	They are laughing hard at him.
Sad it is to hear him; ‘t will be far sadder
	Should he chance to come
Swinging off the pirouetting rope-ladder
	With a life-line round his tum.
See him clinging there like a human creeper,
	Swearing fit to make you jump,
For the cave-man in darkness curseth deeper
	Than a navvy with the hump.

The next psychic communication was preluded by loud snores. Indeed, throughout the whole recital came the sound of stertorous breathing, as of a man under an opiate, so that the medium could only catch a few lines here and there with difficulty:-

In Helin Pot, creation’s plan
Formed for the Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club
A playground grim, whence streamlets ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Right upward to Turn Dub.

* * * *

But Oh! that long mysterious churn that slanted
Through the fell side, beneath a limestone cover,
Where once imprisoned Ramblers strove and panted
Mid breast high waters, shivering, but undaunted,
And held their own until the flood was over.

* * * *

A damp fool with a whisky jar
In a pot-hole once I saw,
He had a helmet on his head
And was, I judge, from what he said
Swanking about Ingleboro’.
Could I revive within me
A liquor of that brand,

* * * *

I would cry, Beware! Beware!

Here the words died away in a moan of intense, half conscious agony.

A stern voice, rough and discordant, but manly withal, rang from the empyrean:-

O to be at Wastdale
	Now that Easter’s there!
Whoever goes to Wastdale
	To the mountains wild and bare
Sees that Kern Knotts crags and the rugged Napes
Are crowded with men who climb like apes,
All chaffing and making a jolly row
At Wastdale – now.

Another starts and others follow
Where the Tongue is Brown and Stones are Hollow.
See, like a dainty blossom on a ledge,
	A lady of the hills, a mountain rover,
Balance and cling beneath the chockstone’s edge.
	That’s a wise girl! she tries each hold twice over
Lest she should come, should no one chance to stop her,
A most unholy cropper.

What though her hands are cut! Her step is light,
Her heart is cheerful and her cheeks are bright
With rosy hues, a healthy body’s dower,
Far richer than a chemist’s Patent Flower!

The next voice was slightly Scotch in accent and for a moment the medium feared he was to be honoured by a visitation from ‘Oor Rabbie’ in a tongue not understanded of the people. The refinement of the cadence reassured him. It rang out like a silver clarion:-

Hark! Hark! Wastdale and Ennerdale
	Call from the heights to the Cragsmen and Scramblers.
Hark! Hark! Kingsdale and Ribblesdale
	Call from the depths to Pot-holers and Ramblers.
Will you not heed the call?
Busk yourselves one and all,
	Chuck up your work and come northwards together.
Come to the crag and hill.
Come to the pot and ghyll,
	Come to the rocks on the wild moorland heather!

Come from your desk where the telephone’s ringing,
	Come from the town of the rate and the tax,
Come from the fields where the mavis is singing,
	Come with the rucksack, the rope, and the axe.

Garments are rending, toil seems unending;
	Toil is but transient, joy is eternal.
These are your holidays!
Make them all jolly days,
	And, please be sure, write them up for the Journal!

A voice, harsh and raucous with anger, clave the silence.

“And wad ye daur say I canna write language understandit o’ the people?” it cried. “Tak this in your lug.”

See you yon Rambler ca’d a man?
	In caves he’ll jowk, and a’ that,
And gar ye think nae ither can;
	The man’s a gowk for a’ that.

For a’ that and a’ that
Whativer ye may ca’ that,
	He’s naething but a feckless loon
And gomeral for a’ that.

A dark cloud overshadowed the medium, like some vast bird of ill omen with outspread wings, and from the obscurity croaked a voice:-

To a place obscure and lonely
Haunted by the Ramblers only,
Where a Phantasm called sport
Lures you Where you didn’t ought.
Come I from my comfy tavern
To this dim infernal cavern
On a wild weird climb, down all the time
Out of AIR-into SLIME.

Bottomless vales and boundless chasms
And groans and swears and grunting spasms,
And forms that no man can discover
For the Wet that slops all over,
And candles toppling evermore
On the pot-hole’s greasy floor.
By the stagnant lakes that spread
Their foul waters, still and dead,
By the subterranean river,
Murmuring hoarsely, murmuring ever,
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where sport the Fools.

For a cove whose funk is legion,
‘Tis a most distasteful region!
Scrabbling over greasy planking,
Clinging, sweating, shivering, blanking,
To a place obscure and lonely,
Haunted by the Ramblers only,
Where a Phantasm called sport ,
Lures you where you didn’t ought.
Came I from my comfy tavern
To this dim, infernal cavern.

The harsh, discontented croaking died away, the silence swelled into music and:-

From the deepness and the blackness,
From the deep and dark abysm
Came a tone that rung in rhythm,
Came a voice that spoke in metre:-

Though I know ye are not gamblers
	In the sacred game of life,
Take these warnings, O ye Ramblers,
	In your sport of toil and strife.

Courteous be your speech and gentle,
	Never let your passions warm;
Language strange and ornamental
	Is exceedingly bad form.

Nay, nay, nay, I shall not quarrel
	With your words about my eyes
Though I cannot find a moral,
	Mine it is to moralize.

Ah, I think at last I’ve got a
	Parable the case to fit.
List to me, you climbing rotter!
	Though you’re buried in the pit.

Though the damp and darkness smother
	And the pot-hole’s black as night,
With the succour of a brother
	You may reach again the light.

‘ Hail to the world!’ cried the next visitant, with a marked nasal accent, “Salut au monde!“-

“Others push their way through grisly swallets,

Risk their necks and their souls in the depths of Ingleborough,

Sleep in Long Churn, spend sleepless nights in the draughty chambers at the bottom of Gaping Ghyll,

Running the danger of asthma, catarrh, double pneumonia, chills, rheumatic pains and starvation,

Till some come down through the howling waters, bringing rucksacks full of bovril, oxo, maggi soup, . tinned meat in huge variety, and plentiful drinks, non-alcoholic, but comforting.

The voice grew faint; there came a further change; Once more arose the mystic mountain-range –

and from the heights rang out the ‘deep-chested’ music of a bard of bards ‘mouthing out his hollow o’s and a’s’ ‘which, by the way, made it uncommonly difficult to understand him.

O who would be
A Rambler brave
Sweating alone,
Panting alone
Under the lea;
Down in a cave
On a stone.

II.

I would be a Rambler brave;

I would smoke and chat the whole of the way
	To the pot-holes deep by the mountain track,
And, when there, I would climb about and stray
	With the Ramblers in and out of the crags
	Which for ever are trying your skull to crack,
	Or hooking you back by the seat of your bags.
I would range with my comrades under the lea,
I would cuss at them till they cussed at me
	Chaffingly, chaffingly.
And we would wander away, away
Down the caverns dark far from human eye,
	Rotting each other heartily.

A wrathful voice with a note of agony in it, like the wailing of a lost spirit, shuddered through the darkness:-

Fouled with the slime that covers me,
	Greasy and wet from foot to poll,
I hope to goodness I shall be
	Soon out of this confounded hole.

In spite of jolts and falls and shocks
	I have not uttered grunt or groan;
Though bashed ‘gainst stalactites and rocks
	I still pretend to hold my own.

Beyond this place so grim and dank
	Looms but the menace of the shade,
And I, in spite of all my swank,
	Feel most detestably afraid.

It matters not how swift the rate,
	Tho’ the chair twizzle as it will,
Ye Ramblers, masters of my fate,
	Do haul me out of Gaping Ghyll!

Then came the cheery tones that betoken the mountain lover:-

Climbing the Needle Aréte! O yes, it was Hades and Thomas,
Base over apex I fell, flat on my back on the scree –

The cause of the sudden cessation of the poem is here evident, albeit it is quite certain that the poet must have been under a misapprehension as to the correct name of the climb; a fall to the scree from the Needle Aréte would probably be fatal.

Wastdale Head’s by Mosedale Beck,
	Curse the rocks and blank the scree I
That’s the place to break your neck,
	But it is no place for me.

Crocks, Crocks, Crocks, Crocks, Crocks of Wastdale Valley,
Bastard Patriots are you, every one.
O, you putteed fools in clinkers,
You abandoned set of stinkers,
Why don’t you change the ice-axe for the gun?

Wastdale Head’s a blasted place –

The abrupt break-off is conceivably accounted for by the preceding verse and may ‘be not wholly unconnected with clinkers.

The manifestations had clearly ceased, yet the medium waited. Where was that pard-like spirit, beautiful and swift? Had he so far outsoared the shadow of our night as to be out of touch with the earth altogether, or had his ethereal soul anticipated? The medium turned to his bookshelf and found, to his delighted surprise, that his latter conjecture was correct.

A deep ravine ……

And in its depths there is a mighty rock
Which has, from unimaginable years,
Sustain’d itself with terror and with toil
Over a gulf, and with the agony
With which it clings, seems slowly coming down;
Even as a wretched soul, hour after hour,
Clings to the mass of life; yet, clinging, leans,
And, leaning, makes more dread the dark abyss
In which it fears to fall. Beneath this crag,
Huge as despair, as if in weariness
The melancholy mountain yawns. Below,
You hear, but see not, an impetuous torrent
Raging among the caverns, and a bridge
Crosses the chasm.