Masters of the Wheat-Lands by Harold Bindloss

It was a still, clear evening of spring when Wyllard, unstrapping the rucksack from his shoulders, sat down beside a frothing stream in a dale of Northern England. On his arrival in London a week or two earlier he had found awaiting him a letter from Mrs. Hastings, who was then in Paris, in which she said that she could not at the moment say when she would go home again, but that she expected to advise him shortly.

After answering the letter Wyllard started North, and, obtaining Agatha's address from Miss Rawlinson, went on again to a certain little town, which, encircled by towering fells, stands beside a lake in the North Country. He had already recognized that his mission was rather a delicate one, and he decided that it would be advisable to wait until he heard from Mrs. Hastings before calling upon Miss Ismay. There remained the question, what to do with the next few days. A conversation with several pedestrian tourists whom he met at his hotel, and a glance at a map of the hill-tracks decided him. Remembering that he had on several occasions kept the trail in Canada for close on forty miles, he bought a Swiss pattern rucksack, and set out on foot through the fells.