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.