Read Online The Secret Catamite Bk 1, The Book of Daniel by Patrick C Notchtree - Free Book Online Page B

be
trains up here?" asked Simon. He had noticed what looked like
railway sleepers on the path, and it occurred to him that the
straightness of the path was like a railway line.
    "Not bad, son. Not trains in
that sense, but they used to take the slate down in wagons drawn up
and down by a big steam engine. Not a locomotive, but a big drum
that wound a cable round it attached to the wagons."
    "Where was the big drum?"
    "Here. This is what used to be
the Drum House, pulling the wagons up the slope. Clever boy."
    Simon felt pleased to have drawn
praise from Daddy, and sat contented to wait for Mummy and Frances.
It seemed so wild and quiet. Some other people came past and said
hello.
    "Do you know them, Daddy?" asked
Simon when they had gone past.
    "No, but people often say hello
to each other on the fells, even when at home they would pass in
the street without a word."
    After Mummy and Frances caught
up and had got their breath, the family set out away from the Drum
House following a path that would take them to Great Gable. Soon
the great, forbidding dome, black against the sky with wisps of
cloud brushing across it, was in view.
    "Are we climbing that ?" asked Frances. Simon
concurred with her concern.
    "Soon be there," said Daddy.
They marched on, the path going up and down, past some small pools
until they started the steep climb to the top of Great Gable’s
little companion, Green Gable. Little in this case of course being
a relative term. But Simon now felt he had the measure of this and
simply kept going until they were all at the top, looking up at the
mass of Great Gable. Simon was first off down into the gap between
the two, Windy Gap, which justified its name when Mummy's woolly
hat blew off as the wind is funnelled between the peaks. But Simon
ran after it and recovered it. He was enjoying being so high,
looking down on the mountains and down into the valleys below. Soon
he was scrambling up the path to the top of Great Gable. It took
quite a while, and Daddy kept saying not to go too far ahead, but
now Simon had the bit between his teeth and like a mountain goat as
Mummy said, he sprang from rock to rock until it levelled out into
a broad rocky top. But where was the top of the mountain? Clouds
kept brushing past and then he could see a mound of rocks, a stick
sticking up and people gathered round it. Alone now, he set off
towards it. Sometimes it was lost in the cloud, as was he, but he
kept going and then the clouds swept away, there was sunshine and
he was there, at the very top. He clambered past some other people
who were sitting round, some eating sandwiches, and stood on the
very top. Only in one direction was the view blocked by other
mountains. Otherwise he could see now for miles and miles. He could
see the sea, so far away. And faintly in the distance beyond the
sea, he could make out the grey shapes of other mountains. It was
an exhilaration of a kind Simon had never known before. He had
conquered the mountain, he could conquer the world! Looking round,
he could see Mummy's blue anorak as a dot coming towards him, along
with Daddy's less visible brown one and Frances. But he was there
first. He let out a whoop of sheer delight, which startled the
sandwich eaters, not that Simon cared. Even when the others arrived
he refused to get down from his perch at the highest point. He was
going to savour this for as long as he could!
    "Come and get your sandwiches,
Simon," called Mummy, who was producing food and a flask from her
rucksack. With some regret, Simon succumbed to the call of food and
climbed down.
    "This is fantastic," he said.
"Everybody should do this."
    And in the years to come, he
certainly tried his best to offer that same elation to as many
others as he could.
    All too soon the holiday was
over, and Mummy drove the Wolseley back home. It was not the only
holiday Simon was to have in the Lake District as a child, but it
was the most memorable, and the most influential. Here were the
seeds sown