While we were gazing around, ‘Look,’ I exclaimed, ’at yon ship upon the glittering sea!’ ‘Is it a ship?’ replied our shepherd-guide.  ’It can be nothing else,’ interposed my companion; ’I cannot be mistaken, I am so accustomed to the appearance of ships at sea.’  The Guide dropped the argument; but, before a minute was gone, he quietly said, ’Now look at your ship; it is changed into a horse.’  So indeed it was,—­a horse with a gallant neck and head.  We laughed heartily; and, I hope, when again inclined to be positive, I may remember the ship and the horse upon the glittering sea; and the calm confidence, yet submissiveness, of our wise Man of the Mountains, who certainly had more knowledge of clouds than we, whatever might be our knowledge of ships.

I know not how long we might have remained on the summit of the Pike, without a thought of moving, had not our Guide warned us that we must not linger; for a storm was coming.  We looked in vain to espy the signs of it.  Mountains, vales, and sea were touched with the clear light of the sun.  ‘It is there,’ said he, pointing to the sea beyond Whitehaven, and there we perceived a light vapour unnoticeable but by a shepherd accustomed to watch all mountain bodings.  We gazed around again, and yet again, unwilling to lose the remembrance of what lay before us in that lofty solitude; and then prepared to depart.  Meanwhile the air changed to cold, and we saw that tiny vapour swelled into mighty masses of cloud which came boiling over the mountains.  Great Gavel, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw, were wrapped in storm; yet Langdale, and the mountains in that quarter, remained all bright in sunshine.  Soon the storm reached us; we sheltered under a crag; and almost as rapidly as it had come it passed away, and left us free to observe the struggles of gloom and sunshine in other quarters.  Langdale now had its share, and the Pikes of Langdale were decorated by two splendid rainbows.  Skiddaw also had his own rainbows.  Before we again reached Ash-course every cloud had vanished from every summit.

I ought to have mentioned that round the top of Scawfell-PIKE not a blade of grass is to be seen.  Cushions or tufts of moss, parched and brown, appear between the huge blocks and stones that lie in heaps on all sides to a great distance, like skeletons or bones of the earth not needed at the creation, and there left to be covered with never-dying lichens, which the clouds and dews nourish; and adorn with colours of vivid and exquisite beauty.  Flowers, the most brilliant feathers, and even gems, scarcely surpass in colouring some of those masses of stone, which no human eye beholds, except the shepherd or traveller be led thither by curiosity:  and how seldom must this happen!  For the other eminence is the one visited by the adventurous stranger; and the shepherd has no inducement to ascend the PIKE in quest of his sheep; no food being there to tempt them.