Author's Notes - Lift Up Mine Eyes To The Hills by A.J. Hall

This story takes its jumping off point from ACD’s The Reigate Puzzle.

There is a very fine pub in the position described in this fic but it is not called “The Ape and Artisan” and particulars about its menu, signage, décor, and the geo-political opinions of its management have been invented to suit the purposes of the plot.

ACS: Association of Cricket Statisticians. Harry’s secret past as a scorer is fanon for which I am indebted to Kalypso.

The relevant Francis Thompson stanza reads as follows:

Somewhere still ye bide in my long-lost Northern places/But dead to me with youth, long ago./I mind me of your staun chness as I near the shadowy water,/Oh Stonewall and the look of your little fair-haired daughter*;/(But the years have done upon you all the unassuagable slaughter)/As the run-stealers flicker to and fro,/To and fro,/Oh my Monkey and my Stonewall long ago!

The Gough Memorial commemorates the death of Charles Gough of Kendal, who fell to his death on Helvellyn in 1805 and whose body was discovered three months later, his faithful dog still standing by. Wordsworth wrote a poem, “Fidelity” about the event, whose final stanza (“The Dog had watch’d about the spot./Or by his Master’s side:/How nourish’d here through such long time/He knows, who gave that love sublime,/And gave that strength of feeling, great/Above all human estimate”) translates neatly as “And God only knows what the dog was eating all that time”, a question which has fascinated numerous gory-minded small children over the years.

*Your guess is as good as mine.