CHAPTER XVIII
SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot be
recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon.
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