’We must take something to eat; I’ll provide for that.  And at the Wastdale Head hotel we can have dinner—­about three or four, probably.  It would be enjoyable, wouldn’t it?’

‘If it doesn’t rain.’

’We’ll hope it won’t.  As we go back we can look out the trains at the station.  No doubt there’s one soon after breakfast.’

Their rambling, with talk in a strain of easy friendliness, brought them back to Seascale half an hour after sunset, which was of a kind that seemed to promise well for the morrow.

‘Won’t you come out again after supper?’ Barfoot asked.

‘Not again to-night.’

‘For a quarter of an hour,’ he urged.  ’Just down to the sea and back.’

‘I have been walking all day.  I shall be glad to rest and read.’

‘Very well.  To-morrow morning.’

Having discovered the train which would take them to Ravenglass, and connect with one on the Eskdale line, they agreed to meet at the station.  Barfoot was to bring with him such refreshment as would be necessary.

Their hopes for the weather had complete fulfilment.  The only fear was lest the sun’s heat might be oppressive, but this anxiety could be cheerfully borne.  Slung over his shoulders Barfoot had a small forage-bag, which gave him matter for talk on the railway journey; it had been his companion in many parts of the world, and had held strange kinds of food.

The journey up Eskdale, from Ravenglass to Boot, is by a miniature railway, with the oddest little engine and a carriage or two of primitive simplicity.  At each station on the upward winding track—­ stations represented only by a wooden shed like a tool-house—­the guard jumps down and acts as booking-clerk, if passengers there be desirous of booking.  In a few miles the scenery changes from beauty to grandeur, and at the terminus no further steaming would be possible, for the great flank of Scawfell bars the way.

Everard and his companion began their climb through the pretty straggling village of Boot.  A mountain torrent roared by the wayside, and the course they had marked upon the map showed that they must follow this stream for some miles up to the tarn where it originated.  Houses, human beings, and even trodden paths they soon left behind, coming out on to a vast moorland, with hill summits near and far.  Scawfell they could not hope to ascend; with the walk that lay before them it was enough to make a way over one of his huge shoulders.

‘If your strength fails,’ said Everard merrily, when for an hour they had been plodding through grey solitudes, ’there is no human help.  I should have to choose between carrying you back to Boot or on to Wastdale.’

‘My strength is not likely to fail sooner than yours,’ was the laughing reply.

’I have chicken sandwiches, and wine that maketh glad the heart of man.  Tell me when hunger overcomes you.  I should think we had better make our halt at Burmoor Tarn.’