HIGHWAYS •• &« BYWAYS
IN' THE i LAKE=DISTRICT
ILLUSTRATIONS
H=PENNELL﻿I/J(jr d 5W5
J>A
CIO
LI
h*i
/w
r~fL
!
(Cornell Hmueraity Slibtary
Strata, Ncm $nrk
WORDSWORTH COLLECTION
MADE BY
CYNTHIA MORGAN ST.JOHN
ITHACA. N. Y.
THE GIFT OF
VICTOR EMANUEL
CLASS OF 1919
1925﻿
r﻿﻿HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN THE
LAKE DISTRICT﻿MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON . BOMBAY . CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORE . BOSTON . CHICAGO
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Lti>,
TORONTO﻿


﻿T rout beck.﻿Highways and Byways
in the Lake District
BY A. G. BRADLEY
WITH • ILLUSTRATIONS • BY
JOSEPH PENNELL
MACMILLAN AND CO, LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1908﻿A* 60 7^	]
Richard Clay and Sons,
BREAD STREET HILL, E C
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
Limited,
AND
-tirst Edition, 1901. Reprinted, 1903 1908.﻿CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I................................. i
CHAPTER II................................36
CHAPTER III...............................68
CHAPTER IV................................92
CHAPTER V................................121
CHAPTER VI...............................150
CHAPTER VII..............................180
CHAPTER VIII ............................217﻿CONTENTS
viii
PACE
CHAPTER	IX .	.	  248
CHAPTER	X................................  262
CHAPTER	XI.................................298
INDEX.....................................  324﻿LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
TROUTBECK.................................Frontispiece
PENRITH CASTLE .......................................
BROUGHAM CASTLE.......................................
ASKHAM VILLAGE........................................
EAMONT BRIDGE, NEAR PENRITH...........................
ASKHAM................................................
THE MONUMENT, ULVERSTONE..............................
ULLSWATER, FROM NEAR GOWBARROW........................
HEAD OF ULLSWATER ....................................
BROTHERSWATER AND KIRKSTONE PASS......................
DACRE CASTLE .........................................
THE ROAD, KESWICK TO PENRITH .........................
ON THE WAY TO THE LAKE, KESWICK.......................
LANDING STAGE, KESWICK................................
KESWICK...............................................
17
31
33
35
36
38
40
5i
68
74
76
83
S7
CROSSTHWAITE CHURCH.
92﻿X	LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
I’ORTINSCALE BRIDGE...................................95
THE VALE OF NEWLANDS..................................96
SKIDDAW FROM THE COCKERMOUTH	ROAD...............98
COCKERMOUTH CASTLE .	,...............................IOO
SKIDDAW FROM THE FOOT OF BASSENT IT WAITE..........IO3
A SKETCH OF SOUTHEY FROM LIFE, BY A. T. PAGET, JULY, 1836.
IN THE POSSESSION OF CHARLES	E.	PAGET, ESQ.......107
DERWENTWATER..........................................HO
VALE OF NEWLANDS...................................120
CRUMMOCK LAKE........................................121
THE BRIDGE AT GRANGE.................................125
HONISTER PASS.........................................I30
CRUMMOCK LAKE......................................133
LOOKING UP BUTTERMERE................................134
BUTTERMERE FROM NEAR GATESGARTH......................I46
FURNESS ABBEY......................................149
APPROACH TO BUTTERMERE................................I50
CRUMMOCK IN STORMY WEATHER.........................155
ST. BEES.............................................162
EGREMONT CASTLE....................................164
WHITEHAVEN.........................................168
EGREMONT FROM A DISTANCE..............................171
CALDER ABBEY.........................................  173
NEAR CALDER BRIDGE.................................175
ON TPIE RIVER LEVEN................................179﻿LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS	xi
PAGE
RAVENGLASS........................................ . iSo
MUNCASTER CASTLE.....................................1S2
FROM THE TERRACE, MUNCASTER CASTLE ........ I S3
ESKDALE..............................................185
NEAR BOOT............................................iSS
TROUTBECK..........................................192
CON1STON FROM ACROSS THE LAKE.......................  196
THE SCHOOL HOUSE, HAWKSHEAD....................... .	201
NEWBY BRIDGE.........................................202
WINDERMERE..........................................  203
A STREET IN HAWKSHEAD................................205
HAWKSHEAD, MISTY MORNING...........................208
WINDERMERE..........................................  2I4
THE MOUNTAINS AT CONISTON............................2l6
WINDERMERE.........................................217
THE MILL AT AMBLESIDE................................220
RYDAL CHURCH........................................  225
RYDAL................................................228
GRASMERE, LOOKING TOWARDS DUNMAIL RAISE............231
GRASMERE CHURCH......................................234
DOVE COTTAGE.........................................235
THIRLMERE............................................242
HELVELLYN FROM THIRLMERE.............................244
ON THIRLMERE.........................................247
HESKET NEWMARKET, NEAR CALDBECK......................248﻿LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
MARKET PLACE, HESKET NEWMARKET...........253
JOHN PEEL’S HOME.......................  257
ROAD TO KESWICK.........................261
THE CASTLE AND EDEN BRIDGE,	CARLISLE ....262
NEAR HIGH HESKET ........................263
WIGTON ..................... ....... 265
DALTON-IN FURNESS CASTLE .............	266
THE MARKET, CARLISLE............. 275
DACRE CASTLE ....... .......... 281
GRETNA GREEN.	  292
ESKDALE................................  297
KENDAL...................................298
GREAT SALKELD............................’OT
THE ROAD OVER SHAP FELL..................302
SHAP ABBEY.............................  304
PI A WES WATER................... ......-06
NEAR BAMPTON...........................  308
LOOKING WEST FROM SHAP ABBEY .
LEVENS HALI.............
MILNTHORPE.............. .
FURNESS ABBEY .......
LEVEN BRIDGE .......
MAP OF AUTHORS ROUTE .
End of Volume﻿Penrith Castle.
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN THE
LAKE DISTRICT
CHAPTER I
“ No record tells of lance opposed to lance,
Horse charging horse, ’mid these retired domains
Tells that their turf drank purple from the veins
Of heroes fallen or struggling to advance.”
Thus sings Wordsworth, and with small regret no doubt—but
he puts my difficulties in a nutshell. For the English Lake
Country, as a subject of literary treatment, differs in certain
essential points from any other part of the British Islands, and
on this account I feel most reluctantly constrained to preface
my journey through it with a few explanatory words, and crave
such small measure of indulgence from the reader as they may
seem to justify. Now whatever comparisons may be instituted
between the scenery of the Lake district and that of kindred
regions in Wales, Scotland, or Ireland, it is quite certain that
nowhere else in these islands is such a wealth and variety of
IE	b﻿PREFATORY REMARKS
CHAP.
2
natural beauty concentrated in so very small an area. At the
same time, few districts are more naked in those human and
historic interests about which the authors of this series find
pleasure in gossiping.
I do not wish to be misunderstood. I shall no doubt be
reminded of the abounding literary associations of the Lake
Country on the one hand, and of its racy and independent
peasantry upon the other. But in regard to the first it will be
remembered that, with a single notable exception, they are not
indigenous or of the soil, that they belong to a recent and brief
period, and, moreover, that the subject has been treated by
experts and enthusiasts, as a glance at the library shelves will
testify, in the most exhaustive fashion, under various headings.
Indeed, the enquiring stranger who had not realised the com-
parative limitations of Lakeland outside its physical beauties,
might almost complain that the region had been wholly sub-
ordinated to the personality of the literary celebrities who in
modern times sought a resting-place there.
Mountain and valley are not here, as in Wales, and in much
of Scotland and Ireland, saturated with historic memories and
eloquent with story for such as care to read it. And I speak,
of course, only of that district which is usually visited and
spoken of as “ the English Lakes.” Its story is merely such
as can be made by a pastoral people, scarcely affected by the
outer world, or by the usual feudal and social cleavages;
neither makers of history, nor builders of castles and abbeys,
nor passionate advocates of kings, princes, or chieftains ; a.
people who within measurable times have neither been trampled
upon, nor trampled upon others ; who have merely desired to
be let alone, and from their situation have offered small temp-
tation to others to meddle with them. To the folklorist, or
the ethnologist, or the specialist in kindred paths, the indigen-
ous portion of the Lakeland people and their history have, of
course, much to interest, but for the general reader I should
be tempted, for the sake of brevity, to describe them as more﻿I
THE PLAYGROUND OF ENGLAND
■3
3
adapted to be the background of a chapter than of a book.
Moreover, a century of intercourse with a steadily increasing
flood of visitors must inevitably affect so small a community
however conservative. And, after all, the conservatism of the
Northern Englishman is not that of the Celt, who in the
back of his mind has always the impulse to heave a brick at
the outsider, however much he may profit him, and in any case
remains impassive to his influence. Indeed, if it were neces-
sary to enlarge further on this topic, I might fairly quote the
author of a deservedly popular guide-book, who in his enthu-
siasm for Lakeland scenery makes something like a merit of
its freedom from such adventitious aids to interest as a stirring
past may give, and almost lays the lack of them to its credit
account.
I was already sufficiently familiar with the Lake Country to
be fully alive to these and certain other difficulties, which,
taken by itself, it would most assuredly present to any author
of a volume upon the lines of this series. And as I sped
northward by that admirable train which permits of a tea at
Rugby, and a not unreasonably late supper at Penrith or Win-
dermere, they were borne in upon me with a force inevitable to
the situation.
It has been often and truly said that Lakeland is the play-
ground of England. It is also in a high degree the holiday
resort of busy people of culture and education. As habitual
visitors, or often indeed as villa and property owners, there
springs up a feeling of identification with the country, and part
ownership, as it were, in its scenic glories ; a pleasing and
natural sentiment which has none the less scope from the
virtual absence of old landed families and of a peasantry with
the natural prejudices thereby engendered. Nearly all the
enthusiasm of the Lakeland habitue is expended on the
physical beauties of his environment. These are, of course,
dwelt upon in great detail by many scores of intimate admirers,
and are indeed the subject of no little rivalry between various
B 2﻿4
NORTHWARD BOUND
CHAP.
sections. And I, a poor gossiping prose writer, have to ride
through all these pet preserves, upon which such torrents of
enthusiasm, such volumes of literature, such floods of verse
have been expended.
Now in North Wales, the region physically most analogous
to the Lake district, the conditions are wholly different. The
Saxon, be he visitor or resident, cannot acquire that feeling of
part proprietorship in the country or identification with it. It
would be impossible in a country whose language he does not
understand and of whose literature and past history he as a
rule knows nothing, and whose people regard him, very pos-
sibly as a “ nice shentleman,” but most certainly as a foreigner
to his dying day.
In the Lake Country there is nothing of this sort. To the
simple dalesman, “ the gentry,” in which term he courteously
includes all the well dressed and well behaved summer visitors
or residents, have been almost the only social feature in the
country since time, so far as he is concerned, began. He is
hampered by no old allegiances, and, canny Cumbrian as he is,
knows well on which side his bread is buttered. All these things
were very much on my mind as I was whirled northwards
through the green pastures of Lancashire just freshened by the
genial touch of spring, and watched the sun sinking behind
the level shores of Morecambe Bay. It was quite certain that
neither my inclination nor my sense of proportion would allow
me to attempt three hundred pages of unalleviated word-
painting, which seemed from a distance the only treatment
that the Lake district lent itself to. Even were I equal to
achieving some measure of success in such a sustained effort,
I felt sure that neither publisher nor reader would greatly thank
me for it. I derived, however, some little consolation from
the thought that we are, in the main, road travellers, that it
was outside my province to grapple with that vague and vast
field of hill-climbing, which, though it constitutes the chief
attraction to the active visitor, might well give the boldest﻿I
PENRITH
5
author pause. But if I had supposed that even the roads of
Lakeland, using the term in its strict meaning and as defined
by maps and guide-books, were my limit, I should have had
grave misgivings. Happily, I was in no way bound to the
chariot wheels of the Jehus whose daily rounds mark the con-
ventional routes of travel. So long as I kept Skiddaw and
Helvellyn in sight, there was no good reason why I should
not occasionally stray into regions where the pulse of the old
border life beat with a more strenuous throb than it did in
the quiet backwater behind them. And I well knew that
within sight of Skiddaw and Helvellyn there were regions as
rich in story as Northumberland itself or the Welsh marches ;
and what more can be said ! Cut and dried plans or a regularly
progressing route seemed impossible in a country of such
rugged and beautiful confusion and proved so, I determined
therefore to let the fancy of the moment, in a great measure,
be my guide, and to order both my steps and my pen as
the spirit moved me.
Penrith, which I purpose to make our starting-point on this
little journey, has for all time been on the great western highway
between North and South, and a moment’s glance from the
lofty plateau above the town, on which the London and North
Western Railway lands you, assisted by an only reasonable
acquaintance with English topography, would be sufficient to
explain the cause. For westward, the broken masses of the
Lakeland mountains, beginning with the fainter outline of the
Skiddaw group, and circling round in rugged and familiar
detail to the lower moorlands over which our train has laboured
on the way from Kendal and the south, unmistakeably proclaim
the barrier they have always been. Looking eastward, the
entire horizon, from the Scottish border to the south, as far as
we may see, is filled by the billowy undulations of the
Pennine range. Here in the wide vale between, down which
the Eden rolls its broad and glistening streams towards the
Solway, with the Petterell piping in feebler tones beside it, in﻿6
AN ANCIENT ROUTE
CHAP.
its narrower trough, the obvious route from Scotland or from
England, of friend or foe, of footman, horseman, stage-coach,
or railway train, is written so large that any child may read it.
But to quite grasp the situation, it might perhaps be neces-
sary to realise what broods behind these undulations to the east-
ward, which, though obviously barren of all human life, seem yet,
by comparison with their savage neighbours on the West, so mild
and gentle. Even Crossfell yonder, guarding the corner where
the five northern counties almost meet, and actually within a
trifling fraction of the heights of Skiddaw and Helvellyn, might
for all the dignity and boldness it possesses be an outcrop of
the Sussex downs ! But a very different country to the Sussex
downs lies behind these wild Northumbrian fells, for solitudes
as rude and dreary as any English curlew ever screamed
over lie about the sources of the Tyne and Tees and Wear.
Everyone knows, too, that the Cheviots guard the greater part
of the Northumbrian frontier towards Berwick, giving a choice
therefore of only two routes to which nature had lent much
real assistance. And Penrith, eighteen miles south of Carlisle,
lies, as I have said, upon the western one.
Nowadays such a situation is an undeniable advantage.
You have an admirable railway service; you build hotels,
and receive with open arms a steady stream of visitors and a
steady income. There was a time, however, above all in this
part of the kingdom, when such accessibility was a prodigious
inconvenience. You received, it is true, a spasmodic influx
of visitors, but they were not of the kind to swell the local
revenue; their sole object being to decrease it by violent
methods. You did not build hotels to receive them, but
castles to keep them out; and here by an irony of fate the
railway station and the castle, the bustling present and the
dead past, an ill assorted pair enough, stand side by side
upon this lofty ridge looking down upon the town.
I think, had it been otherwise, I should have hesitated at
this, the very outset of our journey, before my reader has﻿I
PENRITH AND THE NEVILLES
7
even had time to get to his inn and deposit his luggage,
to thus risk his goodwill, by buttonholing him beneath the
ruins of a feudal castle. Perhaps feudal is, for once, the wrong
word, seeing that these tall red freestone fragments, for they
are little else, of Penrith Castle, enjoy the somewhat singular
reputation of having been erected, not by a baron for selfish
purposes, but by a community for their own defence. The
castle is painfully modern from an archaeological stand-
point, not having been erected till the fifteenth century,
when Penrith, sick and tired of being pillaged by the Scots,
set to work, under the leadership of a Neville who was then in
power, to rectify the evil by the erection of this once spacious
fortress. Its history, too, is short, for in little over a hundred
years it seems to have fallen into ruin. The fact is that Pen-
rith, though a place of importance, had never been a chartered
town nor the centre of barony like Appleby, Kendal or
Carlisle; but for the most part a mere royal manor, till
Richard the Second gave it to the Nevilles, who showed their
gratitude by being among the first to welcome Henry of
Bolingbroke to England and its throne. It was Henry
Neville of Raby to whom the ill-fated Richard made a present
of Penrith, or Perith as it was then often called, though the
origin of the name is Celtic (Pen-rhydd, the red hill) • and
before that time it had the singular experience of being
exchanged with the Duke of Brittany for Brest of all places in
the world. But it was Ralph Neville who in the next century,
with the co-operation of the citizens, built the castle, after a
peculiarly harrowing and compulsory entertainment of their dear
neighbours the Scots. Indeed, how open Penrith stood, should
Carlisle flinch or fall before the loosened floodgates of northern
invasion, I have already said, a child may see standing upon
this very spot. But what chiefly entitles these ruins to our
regard so far as personal history goes, is the fact of the famous
hunchback Richard having been in charge here for some time,
and according to tradition having lived as royally and extrava-﻿8
PENRITH AND RICHARD III.
CHAP.
gantly in Penrith as if he were already King, which at that
time he was very far from being.
Now it is not my business to recommend hotels, and the
Dockwray house, situated in a quiet square of the town, is a quiet
and unpretentious hostelry of whose catering merits I know
nothing, since I have only sought such passing entertainment
there as would justify me in exploring its fascinating interior.
If I were going again to Penrith, however, I should most
certainly test its capacities, not merely for the sake of lying in
a house where a King of England, even though a bad one,
had once resided with much eclat, but because it contrives to
look its part so thoroughly; from the enormous thickness of
the walls, eight or nine feet in some places, to the oak panelling
which graces almost every one of the small chambers. It is all
very miniature, and even the old banqueting hall upstairs, of good
dimensions in itself, is partitioned. Richard’s own room is of
course a matter of no little pride, and is thoroughly equal ir
appearance to what is required of it; and of walls that have
listened to the troubled dreams of that monster of iniquity
much is expected. The landlord tells me a good many
Americans patronise him, which I can well believe, and the
natives speak of a secret passage hence to the castle, which I
may believe in or not as I choose, for we have descended near
half a mile from the station through narrow and somewhat per-
pendicular streets, and are now among the irregular open spaces
that are significant and pleasant features of a pleasant old-
fashioned market town. I use the term significant advisedly
for while still wondering how Penrith contrived to exist so
long without any recognised means of defence, a local friend
kindly demonstrated to me how every street leading into the
town either was, or had been, of singularly narrow proportions,
invariably, however, terminating in one of those open spaces
where tradition says the cattle of the neighbouring country
could be gathered in times of stress. You have only to lift your
eyes too, and hanging some seven or eight hundred feet above﻿I
A STORMY PAST
9
the town is a wooded hill, whose beacon fires for centuries
flared far and wide their warning of danger, death and woe.
How often Penrith was raided and how often burned it would be
ill saying. To the boroughs on the Welsh marches one might
look for something of a parallel to these northern border towns.
But there was almost nothing there but racial conflicts, which
ended earlier, and, furthermore, the forces of law and order
were comparatively near. But here in the lawless and ferocious
north every community had to look after itself, and the
motives for battle were not merely race hatred intermittently
aroused, but that of plunder, which was ever present and irre-
pressible. Two centuries, indeed, after a man’s stackyard was
in normal times as safe in the vale of Clwyd or Glamorganshire
as in Surrey, the farmers of the Eden and the Lowther and the
Petterel valleys slept with their arms beside them, with the
match handy and the beacon laid; while the whole forces
of a market town were none too great when a thousand
Armstrongs, mounted to a man and clad in steel, were on the
war path, and all this, moreover, when the two kingdoms were
not merely at peace but actually united under one crown.
And in the meantime one looks at the stalwart descendants of
these borderers as they throng the Penrith streets on market
days, and wonders how much of their character, expression,
or physique is due to the strenuous times in which the breed
was nourished. It is quite certain that a person who would feel
no special cause for humility as regards his physical proportions
in a southern country gathering would feel some thankfulness
on market day in Penrith that might no longer ruled the day.
A short time since I should certainly myself have been looking
out for Celtic traits in Cumberland, and I fancy most people,
particularly Welshmen, would here in this old land of the
Northern Cymru—the very heart of Strathclyde—be possessed
of some notion of this sort. Experts however are all agreed that
there is very little left of the Kymri whom Cunedda ruled,
but their place names, which are thick enough. If one traverses﻿IO
PAST AND PRESENT CUMBRIANS
CHAP.
the history of this western border, however lightly, and reads
of the harrowings and devastations that long before the
mediaeval period swept through a country which was chiefly
wild mountain or thick forest, it is easy to see that the Briton
of Roman times can have little claim of such kind as is
based on his original occupation of the soil. That he con-
tributes some small share we cannot doubt, but the prevailing
factor after the long chaos, that has left its mark upon the race
and soil, is with equal certainty the Scandinavian, filtering
chiefly, it is said, through Northumberland. However that
may be, the Cumbrian is a lusty soul and full even yet of a lively
animal relish in his strength. It is always said that when serious
fighting became no longer possible, to speak broadly, in the
Stewart period, he betook himself, like the Welshman of an
earlier epoch, under similar circumstances, to litigation, and
thus worked off, with results sometimes as lamentable as those
of war itself, his fighting zeal. The well known peculiarities of
land tenure in these counties, whereby such a mass of yeomen
were freeholders, or “ statesmen,” gave enormous scope for
this amusement, which in more recent years, combined with
whiskey, temptations to move away and the high selling price
of land, has gone far to destroy, not the breed itself, but its
position on the soil.
What I do think causes surprise to many people is the lucid
English that the average country folk of Cumberland and West-
moreland address one in. To the man familiar with the com-
mon speech of the regions by which these isolated counties are
surrounded, of Lancashire that is to say, and West Yorkshire,
of Durham, Northumberland, the Lothians, and Dumfriesshire
— the language of these others as now in ordinary use, sounds
singularly pure. I have been often told that there are plenty even
yet, of Cumbrians particularly, buried away in the hills, who
can astonish you with the ruggedness of their speech. I don’t
venture to dispute it; but I have looked about for them, both
among the hills and plains, without much success, and in the﻿I
THE VERNACULAR TONGUE
ii
ordinary course of my mission and my inclination have for-
gathered with farmers by the score and in every conceivable
situation, and often miles away from any tourist beat. The
Cumbrian vernacular in print looks formidable enough; that
it sounded so at no distant time I can quite believe, but
to fully recognise its present lucidity you have only to
stumble suddenly on a Durham pitman or a Lancashire mill-
hand, a rustic from the North Tyne or the deep fallows of East
Lothian. Indeed I met a young American at Carlisle who was
filled with astonishment not unmingled with regret, at the
comparative absence of those lingual obstacles he had fully
reckoned on encountering.
He was not a Boston cosmopolitan, but an honest Western boy
with the hayseeds not long combed out of his hair; a freshman
in the Harvard Law School bubbling over with intelligent curi-
osity and packed with information. That he was a youth of
some uncommon enterprise may be gathered from the fact that
though he had never been either in England or on a bicycle
before, he was making his first experiment of both concur-
rently. He had, in short, got right off the steamer in Liverpool
and mounting then and there the “ wheel ” he had brought with
him, essayed to push his painful way by road through Lanca-
shire en route for Carlisle and the North of Scotland. It was
here, as I have said, that his first serious mishap, caused by
forcible impact with a fruiterer’s truck, laid both him and his
machine by for repairs, and gave me the pleasure of his passing
acquaintance. He readily admitted to having encountered
some diversion and some pleasing obstacles in the conversation
of the wayside Lancastrian, but was vastly disappointed at the
relapse into lucid English which greeted him in Westmoreland
and Cumberland. He might just as well have been at home in
Wisconsin he protested, so far as this feature of his tour was con-
cerned. He had built up immense hopes from the English
dialect novels, as well he may have, without being fully able to
realise the geographical limitations which distinguish them.﻿12
AN ENTERPRISING YANKEE
CHAP.
“Yet there is one word ” he said, “ fairly gets away with me; one
they’ve used right along from Liverpool to Carlisle here, and I’d
like mightily to have your explanation of it. They fire it out
about every five seconds, and seem to me to punctuate their
conversation with it right along. I’d like to know how to spell
it and what it means, any way.” I told him that I believed the
monosyllable that worried him was spelt a-y-e, that it meant
everything or nothing, and, in short, that he was not far wrong
in supposing that it was, upon the whole, a superfluous ornament
to northern eloquence; and that it was sometimes used merely
for dividing long periods of silence when there was nothing else
to say. This by no means satisfied the youth’s legal mind, but
he made a note of it as the best I could do for him. I then
proceeded to comfort him with the reflection, that unless the
Doric of Southern and Eastern Scotland had undergone vast
deterioration in the last twenty years, he would certainly find
considerable entertainment of the kind he was looking for
between the Solway and Aberdeen, whither he was bound by
way of Edinburgh. I also assured him that as he got east he
would encounter another little word, that would worry him quite
as much as the North English ejaculation. That it had been
made the subject of comic songs even by the Scots themselves,
and was, moreover, unspellable, being feebly expressed by
a couple of small m’s and a hyphen. Having undergone a
protracted examination as to the whole bench of British judges,
past and present, in which I miserably failed, we parted—he in
search of strange sights and strange tongues, I------well, it is of
no consequence now, for we are in Penrith, and likely to be
there, or thereabouts, for the rest of this chapter.
And I hope my reader will bear with me for not leaping on
my bicycle at once and tearing off for the mountains and the
setting sun at Keswick, or jumping on the coach for Pooley
Bridge, and pushing straight for the head of Ullswater. My
ways will not, I fear, be wholly those of the recognised inter-
preters of Lakeland, nor will my paths be always their﻿I
THE LOWTHER MANSION
13
paths. If such had been the possibility I should have flinched
from such a contest. I have dared to hope, now that locomo-
tion is so much more easy for so many people, that Cumberland
and Westmoreland may be recognised by the traveller as having,
like other English counties, some human and historic interests,
and not wholly to depend on the natural beauty of their moun-
tain regions and the literary celebrities who in recent times
have been attracted by them. It will be very little I can do
in this way, to be sure, having proper regard to the title of
this book, but I purpose in any case to loiter in the neigh-
bourhood of Penrith till this opening chapter has run its course.
Now while we were at Dockwray Hall we should have
stepped across the square, or triangle rather, that it faces, the
ancient Bullring in fact, and sought by means of a quaint
passage in the walls the secluded hostelry of the “Two Lions.”
This, too, is more famous among antiquaries than tourists, for it
represents with tolerable fidelity the town house of a notable
member of the great Lowther family, by name Gerard, whose
father was Sheriff of Cumberland in his day, and received Mary
Queen of Scots when she crossed the Solway and threw herself
on her royal cousin’s clemency. The house dates in part from
the fifteenth, but mostly from the end of the sixteenth century,
and being a good deal cut about, will perhaps appeal more to
the specialist than the amateur in such matters. But the old
dining-room is still intact, with the unusual accompaniment of a
dais, and all the adjuncts of buttery hatch, and arrangement of
retiring rooms that were the features of Collegiate architecture
at that time. The plaster work of the ceiling is a fine example
of the period, and bears among much other ornament the
shields of the great families who then held in their hands the
destinies of the two counties. The old inn is full of odds and
ends dating from the Tudor period, while a bowling green
smooth as a billiard table fills in the background, and is a
great resort of those Penrith townsmen who follow the popular
northern pastime.﻿14
“PROUD CIS OF RABY”
CHAP.
There is nothing left of “ the beautiful Gothic church ” which
Camden tells us stood in Penrith in his day but the tower. No
man even knows what like it was, which is curious, seeing
that the present edifice proclaims its comparative modernity
in that unmistakable fashion common to most sacred
buildings of the Georgian period. This one was built in 1721 ;
and I am bound to say if the deplorable style of that epoch
can ever find some justification in men’s eyes it should do so
in the spacious proportions and undeniable dignity of Penrith’s
square church. Perhaps the only detail of the interior that
need detain us are two or three pieces of stained glass, rescued
from the old church and set in the windows of this later one.
One of these is a portrait, as is supposed, of Richard II., not
favourable to that monarch’s reputation for comeliness. The
other is that of Cicely Neville, who, in a sense, is the most
illustrious lady in the local annals of the district.
Now Richard II. not very long before his fall, had bestowed
the honour of Penrith upon Henry Neville, who, as I have before
remarked, showed the characteristic gratitude of a Norman baron
by being among the foremost in welcoming his benefactor’s
enemy Bolingbroke to England and its throne. Neville, however,
did yeoman’s service for his new and much harried master in
protecting Cumberland, which had now long been English shire
ground against the Scots, for many years, though this in no way
seems to have interfered with his domestic affairs, since he
married twice and had two and twenty children It is Cicely,
the youngest of all these, that with pale face and golden hair
now looks down on us from the window in Penrith church. She
was a famous and haughty beauty, well-known in London,
where she was commonly styled “ proud Cis of Raby.” Her
chief claim to notoriety, however, lies in the distinction acquired
by her marriage and her motherhood. For she became the
wife of Richard Duke of York, the Yorkist heir-presumptive
to the English throne, and mother of Edward IV. and Richard
III. The first was captured at the battle of Wakefield and﻿I
THE GIANT’S GRAVE
15
hurried instantly to the block, and his head, decorated with a
paper crown, impaled on York gates. Their son, Lord Rutland,
on this same occasion, begged on his knees for mercy from
the Black Clifford, the fiercest member of the strenuous
Westmoreland line. “ As your father killed mine,” cried the
“northern wolfe,” plunging his dagger into the boy’s breast, “so
will I kill you.” Richard Duke of Clarence, too, who was slain
by Edward IV., was Cicely’s brother. She herself was grand-
mother to Henry the Seventh’s Queen, while her nephew
Warwick the kingmaker succeeded to this same manor of
Penrith, where he kept prodigious state. He built indeed the
upper part of this very church tower which still carries aloft at
three of its four corners his well-known device of the ragged
staff. So Proud Cis, it will be seen, paid for her distinction
with a full measure of sorrow, the last fifteen years of her life
being spent as a nun at Berkhampstead, whither so many royal
personages of that day retired to brood over their sorrows and
do penance for their sins.
It is probable, however, that for one person to whom the
portrait of Cicely Neville inside Penrith Church possesses
attractions, fifty will linger round the prehistoric puzzle
which the churchyard boasts. As the Giant’s Grave has wholly
foiled the antiquary, the amateur may just as well fall back
upon the local legend, which points to it as the resting place
of one Owen Ctesarius, a giant, a soldier and a sportsman of
the sixth century—a century that must have been a strange
enough one to live in, if all the saints and sinners and
monstrosities it is credited with really walked the earth. The
grave is fifteen feet long, with rudely ornamented stone pillars
ten feet high at the head and foot. Large semicircular stones
also showing traces of ornament, connect them, by some
supposed to represent the backs of the huge boars which our
departed giant was accustomed to encounter in the adjacent
forest of Inglewood. These remains are spoken of in the
oldest writings extant, and must really have been prized by﻿i6
BROUGHAM CASTLE
CHAP.
the Penrithians even in the darkest hours of sensibility to such
things. For when the present church was built in the time of
George the First, and the churchwardens, true to the instincts
of their period and their class, commenced to break up and
make away with the stones as rubbish, the population rose as
one man, and the rivets with which they repaired the mischief
already perpetrated may yet be seen.
There are still left in Penrith not a few quaint corners and
old bits of architecture, but speaking generally it has been
refashioned to the needs of a modern country town of some
ten thousand souls, and entertaining for a portion of the year
a good deal of passing traffic. Nor is there anything particular
to be noted as we drop down from the market-place into the
wide street leading out gn to the old Southern road, and turn-
ing sharply to the left at the outskirts of the town head for
Appleby. It is but a short round that I am bound on, not a
two hours’ walk if there were nothing to stop us by the way.
And by any quicker means of progress there would be scarcely
time to note how rich and fair the rolling foregrounds showed
beneath the dawning summer, and how fast the cloud shadows
race along the green billows of the Pennine range before the
great red ruins of Brougham Castle, standing grim and lonely
amid the summer fields, fill the eye Beneath its walls
the now united waters of the Eamont and the Lowther leap
and flash in curious contrast to the quiet scene around. No
modern buildings mar the dignity of the slow crumbling pile by
their contact. There is no incongruous union here of the living
and the dead; no later mansion tacked on to the old walls
making vain efforts to reconcile the outside comforts and
necessities of the twentieth century with the ghost of feu-
dalism ; no flower beds, no tennis courts, no farm buildings
even are here. A grove of stately trees, lime, elm and ash,
murmurous just now with rooks and cushats, lift their boughs
above the roofless walls, and a herd of milk cows champ the
thick carpet of grass that spreads between the ruddy bastions﻿THE VIPONTS
37
and the silver stream. Roman roads converging from the
south, and leading to Carlisle and Hadrian’s wall, made this
the Roman fortress of Brovacura, a noted spot even in days
when Cumbria was thick with such, and widely different
from the semi-wilderness it afterwards became. But we must
limit our reflections to the life of the hoary pile before us,
which in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries belonged to
the Veteriponts or Viponts, who for three generations were
the feudal magnates of this whole region, and whose memory
Brougham Castle.
yet survives in the annulets that may be seen in the quarter-
ings of so many northern houses. But three brief and
significant words carved above the gate, “ Thys made Roger,”
tells the story of its prime, and carries my thoughts away
for a moment to the marches of South Wales, where all
that is left of Clifford Castle, the birth-place of fair Rosamund,
looks down through bowers of leaves upon the glancing rapids
of the upper Wye. For the Viponts ran a briefer course than
most great houses of that day, ending in Henry the Third’s
c﻿18
THE CLIFFORDS
chaF
time in two little girls, who were consequently at the King’s
disposal. The elder one was sent as ward to Roger Clifford
of Clifford, and in due course reappeared in the north as his
wife, endowing that comparatively needy noble with the vast
estates of her ancestors, her sister dying childless. Well may
her husband have written “ Thys made Roger ” on the gate of
the castle he so magnificently rebuilt. For three centuries
the history of the Cliffords is practically that of England, and
no race on the north-west marches was so continuously great.
Fierce, vigorous, and of enormous wealth they fell foul more
than once, as was inevitable, of their sovereigns, and as often
suffered the attainder and confiscation which in those times
was so readily, and in their case so invariably, revoked. Black
Clifford, the fiercest of them all, we have already met in the
murderer of the Neville lad upon the field of Wakefield. That
the Yorkists as soon as they had the chance took his life and
stripped his family of everything goes without saying, and the
late Chancellor Ferguson quotes the finding of the jury on his
body which seems to have a grim finality.
“ The jurors find that he was attainted of high treason by
virtue of an Act of Parliament in i Edward IV. : that he died
on Palm Sunday and held nothing in any comity.'1'1
This may well have looked like an end of the Cliffords, and
indeed his widow was so alarmed for the safety of her two
sons, then children, that she sent them in hot haste abroad,
where one died, the other being brought home again, to become
the hero of perhaps the most romantic incident of its kind in
border story. For his mother, who had in the meantime
married Sir Lancelot Threlkeld, a famous country gentleman
of that day, whose hojise we shall shortly pass, went still in such
fear for the life of any child of the terrible black Cliffords that
she sent him privily to a shepherd’s house upon the slopes of
Blencathra, as is generally said, to be brought up as his own
son in ignorance of his name and race. And here till he was
thirty years of age or more he led the life of a rude .Cumbrian﻿I
THE SHEPHERD LORD
19
peasant. But the sequel shows how strong must have been
the instincts of his race, for with the advent of Henry
VII. his identity being disclosed and certified to, he was re-
stored to his estates, and proved a model of virtue and wisdom.
The fighting instincts of the Cliffords, however, would appear
to have been effectually stamped out by his Arcadian life, which
seems to have made an astronomer of him, for in the study of
this science he spent the rest of a long life. He married twice,
in the first instance from the neighbouring family of Lowther ;
and his famous descendant, Anne Countess of Pembroke, wrote
of him a century later: “ He was a plain man and lived for
the most part a country life, and came seldom to Court or
London ; but when he was called thither to sit as a Peer of
the realm, he behaved himself wisely, and like a good English
gentleman.” “ The Shepherd Lord ” was just the man to catch
the fancy of Wordsworth, whose verses in his honour will be
familiar to all the poet’s admirers.
Long before the time of the Black Clifford and his Arcadian
son, Balliol King of Scotland had come on a visit to Brougham,
when a memorable staghunt took place under the auspices of the
Clifford of that day, who in his passion for hunting failed to meet
his end, like all Cliffords before him, and most of those after him,
on the battle-field. The stag on this occasion was roused on
Whinfell over yonder, and led the chase the entire length of
Cumberland to the Scottish border, and then back again to
Whinfell, where the noble animal after leaping a wall fell dead
upon the far side of it. But the point of the story is that a
gallant hound named Hercules, who was close on the quarry’s
heels, struck the same wall a moment after, in his efforts to
clear it, and fell back also dead within a few yards of the deer.
The latter’s horns were nailed to an adjacent oak tree, and
becoming imbedded in the trunk preserved the memory of this
great run till the time of Charles I. The oak itself lived for
two centuries after the horns had disappeared, and was known
as the Hartshorn tree. Indeed, Wordsworth says he well
C 2﻿20
A FAMOUS BUCCANEER
CHAP.
remembers it himself in his youth, tottering to decay beside the
Appleby and Penrith road. An old couplet, too, has come down
with the story—
“ Hercules killed Hart a greese,
And Hart a greese killed Hercules.”
Brougham Castle is indeed a noble pile, and the more not-
able from the fact of its presence in a region somewhat poor in
the more imposing monuments of feudal days, a poverty in great
part owing to the fact that in these two counties every man’s
house was very literally his castle. The peril was too constant
and too near for any other arrangement, and, moreover, the feudal
custom was never applied in its full sense to the greater part
of Cumberland and Westmoreland. With Brougham went
Appleby, Skipton and Pendragon. But the former only is in
our beat, and memories crowd so thickly on us in the blessed
silence that seems to reign here, it is perhaps just as well. For
we must not leave without a word of that celebrated lady
already briefly mentioned, Anne Countess of Pembroke, in whom
the long line of Clifford eventually determined. I should
like to have said something, too, of that audacious Clifford who
made a royal messenger swallow the large waxen seal which
fastened the King’s writ, and must certainly not pass over a much
later one, who sailed the Spanish Main with Drake in the
biggest vessel (900 tons) that a subject had ever built, and
with a force of Soo men in his constant pay. Like the rest
of them, he tried a business partnership with the Virgin
Queen, but found her both too timid and too greedy, till
his passion for buccaneering on a great scale, joined to a
love of horse-racing when on shore, and an immense popu-
larity at Court, where he was the Queen’s “ Champion,” well
nigh ruined him. Finally, says Mr. Watson, to whom I am
much indebted in all that concerns Brougham Castle, he
ranged himself among the Immortals by commanding a
Queen’s ship in the fight with the Spanish Armada.
But all this is not the Countess Anne, and it is a good thing﻿I
THE COUNTESS ANNE
21
our journey is short and the summer day is long. The
extraordinary succession of deaths, which left this last
representative of the Cliffords, after two unhappy marriages, a
widow in sole possession of their vast estates, does not concern
us. The point is that at the demise of her second husband,
the Earl of Pembroke, this sprightly and nimble-minded old lady,
for she was then over sixty, returned to the north and sat down
at Brougham, her birth-place, with the fixed determination of
restoring the glory of the Clifford name and fortunes. This
was the more creditable as there was no Clifford to succeed,
nor even had she herself a son. If family pride can be
accounted a virtue, surely the Countess Anne was both virtuous
and single-minded in her efforts to mark the exit of her race from
the stage on which it had played a leading part so long, with
such honour and distinction as was in her power. And her
power was very great, seeing that she laid out ^40,000 in
building, and repairing her castles alone. Cromwell was then
supreme, and as the greatest dismantler of all time it so enraged
him to hear of this noble lady’s building activity, he sent word
to her that he would knock her castles about her ears as fast as
she built them up. But the Countess replied with spirit that as
fast as he pulled them down she would of a surety rebuild
them. She had the liturgy of the Church of England, too, read
publicly every day in her chapel, and dared the authorities, who
raged and threatened great things, to do their worst. And she
travelled about her estates looking closely into the leases and
agreements of her numerous tenantry, which had fallen into
much confusion. If she was just and generous, she was also a
woman of business, and refused to be imposed on to the value
of a single farthing, and set so many lawsuits afoot that the
local attorneys held her for long in blessed memory. She
spent £200 in sueing one Mr. Murgatroyd, a retired clothier of
Huddersfield, for the payment of a single “ boon hen,” and
ultimately won her case. She thereupon asked her vanquished
opponent to dinner; and when the sole cover of the first course﻿22
A LADY HIGH SHERIFF
CHAP.
was removed, the identical bird which had sealed her victory
was displayed upon the dish, and amicably divided between the
lady and her tenant. She disapproved of the manners of
Charles II. and his court as much as she had done of those of
Cromwell and his friends. When Sir Joseph Williamson, the
King’s secretary, rashly assumed that he could impose a
member on the borough of Appleby, and wrote to that effect,
the aged Countess replied, “ I have been bullied by a usurper,
and neglected by a court, but I will not be dictated to
by a subject. Your man sha’n’t stand.” She set clerks
to hunt up and record the doings of her ancestors, and has
left voluminous manuscripts in her own hand descriptive of
her sentiments and her life, which, to judge from the extracts
made by those who have seen them, one might well wish were
published.
In these, she describes with much minuteness and delightful
self-complacency, the early beauties of her face and figure, and
the abiding qualities of her mind and heart, attributing the
singular combination to the astral influences under which she
was born. She found herself, moreover, High Sheriff of
Westmoreland by inheritance, for the office in this county had
been hereditary since the days of the Viponts. That a lady
would occupy the situation, however, had never entered into
the calculations of either Kings, Cliffords, or people, and it did
not now till the venerable Countess sent off the nearest male
relative who claimed the honour with a flea in his ear, and
herself assumed the duties and responsibilities of the office,
taking her place upon the bench between the judges of assize.
She was particular, too, to have it stated on her coffin, which lies
mouldering below St. Lawrence Church in Appleby, that she
was “ High Sheriffess by inheritance of ye County of
Westmoreland.”
With this uncommon lady, the great and strenuous race of
Clifford, after thirteen generations, vanished from the north,
and Brougham Castle echoed no more to the sound of theirs,﻿I
CLIFTON MOOR
23
or probably of any human voices. It was left to a daughter of
our Countess to carry away its wide domain to the Kentish
family of Tufton, and the severance was made complete by the
dismantling of her castles, and the sale of such material from
them as could be marketed.
But I have lingered here longer than I intended. We
must leave the Eamont river and the broad Appleby road, to
follow each their pleasant course into the Eden valley, and
turn our backs upon the smooth Pennine hills, and set
our faces towards those other and more rugged heights
that seem to call our tardy steps towards the West.
A couple of miles of uneventful byway, and we are out upon
the great North road, along which, before the days of railroads,
the stream of travel ran ’twixt Carlisle and the south. It is
dead enough now to all but local traffic, for people do not cross
Shapfell to Kendal when they can go by train, unless, indeed
as we shall do later in our journey, for a summer day’s jaunt.
There was life enough here, however, at the close of the year
1745; for close to Clifton, the point at which we strike it, and just
three miles from Penrith, there took place the very last battle
which was ever fought on English soil. It was on a gloomy
evening, in late November, when the Duke of Cumberland
caught Prince Charles’s rearguard and forced them to stand in
the enclosures about the village here, and fight an indecisive
action in the dark. The Pretender’s people were then, of course,
in full retreat from Derby and hastening on to Carlisle, which
was being held for them by friends. No difficulties had been
encountered till Westmoreland stretched its inhospitable hills
across their path, and they began the ascent from Kendal into
a country that even in the after days of coaches and Macadam
was dreaded by the traveller more than any single stage in
England. That adventurous Franco-Scotsman, the Chevalier
Johnstone, who had a command with the Prince, and was as
ready with his pen as his sword, has left us a vivid account of
the struggle over Shapfell with guns and waggons, threatened by﻿24
A MOONLIGHT BATTLE
CHAP.
three parallel forces and pushed at the sabre’s point by one of
them. The Chevalier indeed, unlike the Countess Anne,
could have been born under no lucky star, and was fated to
chronicle the triumphs of his foes; for he was not only at
Culloden but was at Montcalm’s side fourteen years later on
the Plains of Abraham, for which, seeing his literary tastes, I
have myself had cause to be, in quite another place, extremely
thankful.
It was just before sunset on the 17th of November, when the
rebel rearguard reached Clifton, the main body being already
between that village and Penrith. A hundred and twenty of their
horse had the day before, a Sunday, made vain endeavours from
their base at Kendal to cut their way into Scotland down
the Eden valley. But the Penrith people, and the country
folk had turned out in force and hunted these Jacobite hussars
back upon their army to their no small discomfiture, and the
elation of the others.
As to this twilight and moonlight affair at Clifton, there are
several accounts of it from both points of view, but I do not
think it would be worth the while of any one, unless he were a local
antiquary whose ancestors took part in it, to try and describe
such an involved and hurly-burly business in detail. About
2,000 Highlanders seem to have been in action, while another
thousand, the Brigade of Athole, held the Lowther bridge
towards Penrith. The rest were either in the latter place or
marching on to Carlisle. A muddy narrow lane, bordered
by high walls and hedges, then ran where is now this
ample highway, while fenced enclosures and wet ditches
abounded on both sides. Those hardy annuals of that period,
Bland’s, Kerr’s and Cobham’s dragoons, who we sometimes see
running away like demented hares, and at others fighting like
heroes, formed the chief attack, and on this occasion played
the nobler part. There were also with them the Yorkshire
foxhunters, full of amateur zeal. The men they met were
those of Cluny, Appin, and Glengarry, and the Edinburgh﻿I
THE DUKE AND THE QUAKER
25
regiment. Night fell before they had well warmed to their
work. There was then much wild shooting, and a great deal
of very pretty hand to hand cutting and thrusting, with sword
and claymore, in narrow lanes, and amid small enclosures. An
early moon struggled fitfully through rolling clouds, and gave
fresh stimulus to a fight that threatened to collapse at times,
from sheer inability on either side to see where to shoot or
when to strike. For in these intervals of moonlight, says a
combatant, the white belts of the dragoons, who were of course
dismounted, showed out conspicuously, whereas the plaid
enveloped clansmen were by no means so easy to see. The
rebel cavalry, the Loyalists declare, fled at once, and their own
commander, Murray, says, “ our horsemen on seeing the enemy
went to Penrith,” which confirms in terse fashion their enemies’
report, and shows some consideration for their feelings on
Murray’s part!
Mr. Thomas Savage, a Quaker, who occupied a house in
the very thick of the fun and stuck to it, has left a graphic
account of what he saw and did. When the Highlanders
had had enough of it and followed, though leisurely, their
cavalry to Penrith, and Thomas Savage was congratulating
himself on coming so well out of the scrape, there came a thun-
dering knock at the door which made him jump. It proved
to be the Duke himself, who, liking the look of the honest
Quaker’s house, had decided to spend the night there, “and
pleasant agreeable company he was, a man of parts, very
friendly and no pride in him.” What caused Thomas Savage
still more gratification was that none of his cattle had been
hit, though they had been between the two fires through the
whole business. And while the Duke’s people camped upon
the field, and his Royal Highness snored peacefully between
the Quaker’s sheets, the poor Highlanders were tramping
through Penrith and along the road to Carlisle in the mud and
darkness.
The local hero of the fight was Colonel Honeywood, squire﻿26
A TOUGH HERO
CHAP.
of Howgill. Mr. Ferguson relates how a Highlander after
the fight was heard to say, “We did vara weel till the lang
man in muckle boots came o’er the dyke,” alluding to the
gallant Colonel, who was eventually “ got down ” and wounded
three times. Considering, however, that he had received
twenty-three sabre wounds at Dettingen and a couple of
bullets which he still carried about in him, it is not surprising
that he made light of the Clifton matter, and lived for forty
years afterwards, being much of that time M.P. for Appleby.
He was Colonel of the Twentieth Regiment in 1755, when
James Wolfe, who for some reason resents his appointment in
his private letters, was as Lieut.-Colonel making that corps
the best in the British Army, and creating for himself those
opportunities of which he made such noble use. As to the
number of the killed and wounded in the Clifton fight
accounts are hopelessly conflicting. But before leaving we
will step inside the ancient little church, and, with the vicar’s
leave and help, turn back the pages of the register, and note
the following entry, not because it throws any light on the
above matter, which is of really no importance, seeing that
every man who fought here was dust ages ago, but because
these entries are somewhat unusual in the humdrum tale of
a parish record in peaceful England.
Here they are :
“ 19th of December 1745 Ten Dragoons to wit, Six of
Blands, three of Cobhams and one of Mark Kerrs regiment
buried, who was killed ye evening before by ye rebels in ye
skirmish between ye Duke of Cumberland’s army and them at
ye end of Clifton moor.”
Then comes a later entry, a wounded man evidently :
“ Robert Atkins a private Dragoon of General Blands regi-
ment buried ye 8th day of January 1746.”
We are within a mile or two of Lowther Castle—immense,
magnificent and modern—but are much nearer than that to
the Park edge, for we can hear the river, noisy with the tribute﻿I
PEEL TOWERS
27
of distant and stormy fells fretting in its rocky bed, and
see what looks like miles of woodland rolling away towards
the hollows of the hills. But Lowther is too big a sub-
ject to grapple with at this late period in the day; though,
having gossiped so much about the Viponts and the Clif-
fords, it would seem only fitting to say something of the
potent race that, so far as changed times admit of, have suc-
ceeded to their honours.
But we have had enough of great folk perhaps to-day.
Our backs too are turned on Lowther and our faces set
towards Penrith, and scarce a hundred yards along the road
and so close that there is no overlooking it, as character-
istic a remnant of old border life as could be found in West-
moreland. I have remarked before, that in this north
country every man’s home in former days was very liter-
ally his castle, and here in yonder little Peel tower was the
castle of the Wyberghs, who built it in the 15 th century and
own it still.
Fallen indeed is this particular Peel tower from such dis-
tinction as it once enjoyed, for it has been rejected even of
the farming folk who for generations lived here, which, taking
note of the prodigious rents across its scarred face, I am not
surprised at; but it has the rare merit of standing quite alone,
just as it came into the world, so to speak, and affording an
admirable object lesson in the evolution of the border family
and the border country house. For the Peel tower was the
rock on which both were founded, the chrysalis from which
they almost invariably sprang. To go about Cumberland and
Westmoreland without a knowledge of the Peel tower germ,
would be wandering in the wilderness indeed, so far as such
interests are concerned. In the larger houses they have been
so built in, duplicated or otherwise disguised, one feels inclined
on coming in sight of an ancient mansion or farm-house to
think of the familiar puzzle of the dog in the tree and exclaim,
“ Find the Peel tower.”﻿CLIFTON TOWER
CHAP.
2b
Indeed, from the battlements of this tottering Clifton tower
one may see, not a mile away, the stately walls of Brougham
Hall, as conspicuous an illustration of the highly elaborated Peel
as could be found in the two counties, to say nothing of the
finest avenues in the country, and of the famous Lord Chan-
cellor of that ilk whose family bought it early in the eighteenth
century and live there yet. But this cracked old relic in the
Clifton stack-yard is in its way more interesting. Like the old
log blockhouse or frontier cabin that you may sometimes see
preserved with reverence amid the brick homesteads of Virginia
or Kentucky as a relic of a rude and bloody past, so the old
Peel tower of the north, which has a much more dignified
position, reminds the Cumbrian of a much remoter past and of
the fierce fashion in which his breed was nurtured. There is
nothing resembling it in the south. Think of these scores of
country squires scattered from Kendal to the Solway, all boxed
up on the first story of their tiny castles, and compare
the situation with the spacious, gabled, lattice-windowed
mansions of their south country equivalents of the Tudor period
and the placid life that if they wished was theirs. Clifton is a
fair specimen of the Peel tower, though rather a small one, for the
dimensions of course greatly varied. Oblong, like most of them
in shape, it may be thirty feet by twenty or rather more, and
of three stories, with a spiral staircase leading through them
on to a battlemented roof, in one corner of which is a small
watch-tower. The space usually admitted of two or three
living rooms on the first story and as many sleeping apartfnents
on the upper one. The ground floor was more frequently reserved
for storage purposes, and was often without a door, being entered
like a cellar from the rooms above. The squire’s front door
being thus on the first story was only available by a ladder;
and as this could be hauled up at a moment’s notice, the
security of the owner and his family against ordinary intrusion
was singularly complete. Swung, so to speak, in mid air and
snugly ensconced behind walls of stone five or six feet thick, he﻿t
THE TUDOR SQUIRES
29
could snap his fingers at the whole kingdom of Scotland, and,
what is more, shoot arrows or lead at his visitors to his heart’s
content.
But this mere saving of his skin was of course only the
method of procedure when odds were hopeless. The Scottish
wars were intermittent, but the moss trooper was perennial, and
might turn up at any time and in any strength, from a dozen
to a thousand. Booty of course, and cattle mainly, was his
immediate object; human life, his own or other people’s, was
only an inevitable factor in the trade. So beside every Peel
tower was an enclosure, or a “ barmkin,” into which at the first
warning of danger, heralded by fugitives or beacon-fires, the
cattle were driven, and around this outer rampart of the little
fortress the fiercest battles raged. Nor must it be inferred
for a moment that these conflicts took place only or even
mainly on the English side. The Scottish borderer took,
perhaps, more positive pleasure in this ill doing; but, on the
other hand, the country north of the Solway lay even more
generally open to attack than Cumberland, and led upon the
whole as anxious and precarious an existence. But Carlisle
will be a better point at which to talk of these and kindred
matters. I will only here remark that the Peel tower did
begin to expand itself before these evil days were over.
Southern influences slowly but gradually crept into the north
as the Tudor period advanced. The squire, and his ladies too
no doubt, began to realise that their quarters were not only
cramped but no longer suited to their station. Then began
that rage for building in the two counties, which, stimulated
we may be sure by social competition, sacrificed something of
the old security for added comfort and improved appearance.
Long, low two-storied Tudor wings crept out from one side
or other of the old Peel, sometimes terminating in a second
tower—sometimes forming two sides of a square, or even
expanding gradually to the dignity of a complete four-sided
court-yard, with chapel, gateway and outbuildings. But,﻿36	EVOLUTION OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE CHAP.
unlike their larger southern prototypes, they could not throw
off the guise of war nor forget for a moment the enemy at
their gates. Though panelled walls and decorated ceilings
and rich oak carving began to distinguish the interiors, the
light of battle to this day still gleams through the low mullioned
windows, and defence if not defiance is written all over the
massive stone walls, while the flanking Peel towers, battle-
mented, loopholed and slotted, give a distinction to the whole
picture which the small scale of the building in no way de-
tracts from. On the contrary, it adds, I think, some charm
and character to it, and suggests a type of man and a style
of life that had no analogy elsewhere in England. On this
very account however it is in what are now farm-houses that
the best examples are usually to be found, for the others have,
with some notable exceptions, been much obscured by the
increasing requirements of modern social life. The near
neighbourhood of Penrith abounds in admirable specimens.
Yanwath is close by us and practically within sight, and one of
the very first of the Peel tower manor house combinations, being
mostly late fifteenth century work according to the late Dr. Taylor,
of Penrith, the greatest of authorities on this particular subject.
The Threlkelds lived here from the time of Edward the First to
that of Henry the Eighth, and it is still much as they left it.
One of them, it will be remembered, married the widow of the
Black Clifford who secreted her son the “ Shepherd Lord ” in his
youth. It was their boast that they had three noble houses—one
at Crosby Ravensworth, with a park full of deer ; another here at
“Yanwath nigh Penrith, for profit and warmth to reside at in
winter ; ” a third at Threlkeld, “ well stocked with tenants to go
with them to the wars.”
Cliburn too, close by on the other side, has a Peel, and a
smaller tower near it, covering a well. Sockbridge, still nearer,
the home for centuries of Lancasters and Tankards, seems an
unnoticeable farm-house till you get close up to it. Askham
lies behind us close to Lowther Castle, and is now a rectory.﻿THE SANDFORDS OF ASKHAM
I
3*
Over the gateway of the court-yard, beneath a helmet and a
boar’s head, the quaint inscription may be read :
Thomas Sandford Esquire
For this paid meat and hire
The year of our Saviour
XV hundred and seventy four.
And he got his money’s worth, for it is a most beautiful and
not greatly altered house, set well upon a wooded knoll, with
the Lowther breaking finely at its base.
Askham Village.
Thomas Sandford doesn’t suggest as a name in our con-
fused English social jumble very much distinction, but it
was one to conjure with for many generations in the north,
and, what is more, carried with it to battle one of the largest
bodies of armed and mounted retainers in the two counties.
Nor again would the homely patronymic of Dawes convey
to the average ear much social lustre. But at Barton Kirke,
over yonder beyond the Pooley road, you will find not only a
quaint and ancient church with the most remarkable chancel
arch I ever saw, but an old manor house as well, where﻿32
PATHOS IN STONE
CHAP.
in the court-yard armorial bearings, showing a fess between
three Jackdaws, tell the old familiar tale of a forgotten race.
But there is always one spot in a country parish where
these vanished men and women are still permitted to prattle
to us of one another from the walls in such pathetic uncon-
sciousness of the oblivion that is sometimes to come over the
very sound of their names. I am free to confess that these
mute voices, who in stone or marble tell us the eternal story of
life and death after the varying fashions of their period, are apt at
times to hold me longer than the buildings which enclose them.
Here in Barton church for instance is the lament of Lancelot
Dawes, lord of the manor in 1676, for his young wife of two
and twenty, a Fletcher of Great Strickland, over yonder behind
the Lowther woods :
Under this stone reader Interr’d doth lye
beauty and vertues true epitomy
Att her appearance the noone sun
blush’d and shrunken c’ause quite outdone
In her concentor’d did all Graces dwell
god pluck’t my Rose yl he might take a smell
I’le say noe more but weeping wish I may
Soone wth thy Deare chast ashes come to lay.
Just the man, the unfeeling reader will remark, to marry again
within the year and live to be ninety. Doubtless • but the mural
records of Barton church preserve a decent silence if this indeed
were so. They do, however, tell us by inference that in a hun-
dred years the bearers of the “ three Dawes ” escutcheon had
vanished from the old manor house, and one Nicholson had died
possessed of it, a fact commemorated by the united efforts of his
ten grandchildren, whose satisfaction that their grandsire lived to
see them all married and settled is quaintly expressed upon the
tablet. But this is wandering far from the Penrith road, and
to very little purpose I fear some may say. So, leaving for the
present, at any rate, all further mention of the many other Peel
towers of this district, let us hurry on across the bridge of﻿I
OVER EAMONT BRIDGE
33
Lowther, where the Highlanders of Athole stood on that dark
night and listened to the clamour of battle on Clifton Moor,
and on yet to the more ancient bridge across the Eamont,
which lands us once again in Cumberland and within a mile
of Penrith town.
There is quite a village here at Eamont Bridge, and one by no
means devoid of interesting features, if one might note them. But
I have gossiped quite enough for one day of things dead and
Eamont Bridge, near Penrith.
gone; and we will shake the dust of tombstones and ruins off
our minds in a little honest mirth at the gorgeous work of art
with which the “Welcome Inn” at the bridge end greets the
visitor to Cumberland. It rivets one’s attention instantly
from its conspicuous position, and seems for the moment to
exclude all other features of the landscape, and is to me at
any rate, as often as I pass this way, an unfailing source of
entertainment. For we have here the full-length portrait
of a mammoth Highlander in the height of war paint, whom a
D﻿34
“WELCOME TO CUMBERLAND”
CHAP.
diminutive gentleman in a tall hat is shaking by the hand and
bidding in very large type “ Welcome to Cumberland.” Now the
Cumbrian, together with his neighbour east of tire Pennine range,
is accustomed to regard himself as the lengthiest among Britons,
while the physical virtues of the Highlander we all know do
not lie chiefly in his inches. By the same inverted process"
the Gaelic visjtor is entering the canny county by a strangely
circuitous route—unless indeed, which seems hardly likely, the
illustration contains a really unkind reference to Clifton Moor,
for this is assuredly the only time that kilted Highlanders ever
entered Penrith by Eamont bridge. And to suggest that the
Penrithians on this occasion met their visitors with the hand of
friendship and tricked out in their Sunday suits is jesting on a
serious subject with a vengeance and trampling on the feelings
of both parties. For it may perhaps be remembered how the
locals turned out with guns and pitchforks and made things
very unpleasant indeed for any parties of Prince Charles’s people,
who straggled from the main body and drove numbers of them,
it is said, into the Eamont, which was then in flood. Still it is
a great picture, and for the man who doesn’t appreciate it, I
wouldn’t give much as a vagabond.
Like the coach travellers of olden times, we enter Penrith at
the lower end, and the distant Castle shows out finely on the
hill behind, to the complete effacement of the railway station
and public houses, which on close acquaintance jostle it in
such incongruous fashion. And above all, if the western sky
be glowing with the approach of sunset or fiery with its lingering
lights, the ragged line of broken walls standing out against
it makes a most effective picture.
I shall be told, I know, of the places I have passed un-
noticed, even in this short round—of Eden Hall, and
Carleton, of Brougham church, and the Countess pillar and
what not. But it is my privilege to go where fancy leads me
and linger where I like; and, having thus weakly made rejoin-
der to a possible but unreasonable complaint, I shall make﻿I
GRAY IN PENRITH
35
no more. If it is of any use to assert that I am not writing
a guide book, as every author in this series has done with
pathetic reiteration, I hereby do so.
It was on September 30th, 1769, that the poet Gray was
tramping into Penrith for the first time along this very road.
He tells us how he came by Brougham Castle and “ Mr.
Brougham’s new house ” and over Lowther and Eamont bridges,
and so to Penrith, where he “ dined with Mrs. Bucken on trout
and partridges.” May we fare as well!﻿The Monument, Ulverstone.
CHAPTER II
Talking of guide books it will, I fancy, be news to many
that Wordsworth condescended to write one. I suspect,
however, that tourists who are accustomed to place them-
selves with such well-merited confidence in the hands of Mr.
Baddeley or his rivals would think Wordsworth’s guide a very
poor affair. Indeed there is not perhaps a great deal to be
said for it from any point of view —though it must have an
abiding interest from the mere personality of its author. It was
sixty years before this again that the first guide book to the Lake
Country was written. The author was one West, who had
been a teacher on the Continent, but ultimately became a
resident in Ulverstone, and acquired a knowledge of the
district, which he put to a practical use by conducting
“genteel parties making the tour.” It will be seen therefore
how early the Lakes began to attract tourists. Taste in
landscape had then barely emerged from what may be called
the “ Richmond Hill ” stage, when crags and mountains and
solitudes and the nobler forms of nature created only repulsion,
and received epithets accordingly. “Lakers,” as we know,
were a recognised social development in Jane Austen’s time :
and indeed West’s Guide in 1774 is sufficient evidence of the﻿CH. II
AN OLD GUIDE BOOK
37
tendency even thus early, while of Gray’s tour and journal some
years previously I have already spoken. So far as I know, the
famous author of the “ Elegy ” is the first outside voice that comes
to us from the Lake Country. He walked to Ullswater from
Penrith, climbed Dumnallet Hill, and thence looked up
the lake, lying motionless beneath a grey October sky. He
followed the road we are about to travel as far as Watermillock ;
gazed at the mountains “rude and awful with their broken
tops”; and then, warned by lowering clouds and the waning
light of an autumn day, turned homeward. A guide book
written twenty years before Wordsworth sang his first lay has
obvious claims on our curiosity. West, however, is at no loss
for poetical quotations, and draws heavily on Richard Cumber-
land, who in sounding periods gives Ullswater the palm not
only of all neighbouring, but of all British and Irish Lakes.
None of them, he sings,
“ Shall shake thy sovereign undisturbed right,
Great scene of wonder and sublime delight.”
West’s table of altitudes is a remarkable testimony to the
vagueness of the period in such matters. Snowdon he has
with tolerable accuracy, Helvellyn and Skiddaw are only two
hundred feet or so amiss, but the Yorkshire hills of
Whernside and Ingleborough, he doubles in height, placing
them far above Snowdon and nearly a thousand feet above
the Lake mountains !
We are now traversing the four miles of road between
Penrith and Pooley bridge at the foot of Ullswater, and I
ventured on the foregoing disquisition, since so far we have
been covering old ground. Now, however, we are across the
Eamont again into Westmoreland, and turning to the right
abruptly leave our route of yesterday. The sun is bright, and
the sky is clear, for it does not always rain in the Lake country.
On the contrary, these mountain fringes of the island with
their watery reputations are, in my experience, apt to be as﻿3§
THE BLESSED CYCLE
CHAP.
dry as Kent or Sussex in the spring and early summer.
Some seasons I have known them to be drier, and this
was one of them. Need I indicate my method of pro-
gression ! There are coaches travelling this easy undulating
stage, even now with much regularity—but I have not yet
come to that, while the most ardent pedestrian in these
days does not waste his powers, as of old, upon dusty
highways, but uses the choicest gift that the gods in recent
years have conferred upon mankind, to place himself with
Ullswater, from near Gowbarrow.
expedition where his legs may be utilized to the best pur-
pose, and the greatest enjoyment of his eyes and brain.
There are still belated beings here and there, who affect
to sniff at the cycle, but they really are not worth powder
and shot, for within easy memory, there was still a prejudice
against railroads, and the one will go the way of the other.
There is the young person of either sex whose supreme
ambition is to be thought horsey and to whom a few cheap
sneers at the cycle seem calculated to foster the delusion.
Then, there are the old people, God bless them. Human﻿II
CYCLES VERSUS COACHES
39
nature is on their side and they have, upon the whole, been
extraordinarily tolerant. Lastly, we have those who would like
to ride and for various reasons cannot. To many of the latter
the situation of a cyclist in motion appears one of perennial
tension and anxiety. They do not realize the secret of habit
and balance, nor that at an easy pace of seven or eight miles an
hour along a country road, the most ordinary rider experiences
no sense of effort whatsoever, and can look about him with al-
most as much ease as a pedestrian, and very often see over
fences that hide the country from the latter’s view. Nor need
I dwell on the supreme advantage that pertains to the cyclist
when a few miles of dull or very familiar road have to be travelled
and a journey that on foot is wholly tedious and wearisome is
surmounted with brevity and exhilaration. I think I hear some
carping souls exclaim, Fancy a bicycle in the Lake country ! as
if one were proposing to take it up Skiddaw or Scafell, or
over Black Sail pass. The fact is, a cycle, to those who use
one, is never a superfluity. If you elect to walk upon the
mountains for a week or fortnight, as any one with strength
sufficient would surely do, the iron horse, secure in the Inn
coach-house, requires neither food nor thought and is at hand
for those less ambitious expeditions by road, that play a greater
or a lesser share in almost every programme of Lakeland-travel.
Look at the coaches again, which go lumbering past us,
always in a hurry, and bound for some train or steamer, when
one would fain loiter, or at other times leaving one to kick
one’s heels for half a. day, where an hour would well suffice.
If we were a passenger, we could not cry halt just here, for
instance, and leaving the road for a few minutes cross this ox
pasture on the right to where the screen of trees yonder marks
a spot worth seeing. I would not stop for a mere cromlech or
an ordinary so-called camp, for their name is legion in these parts
and unless you approach these prehistoric matters as a separate
subject and with becoming seriousness, it seems to me there is
nothing to be done except allude to their situation. But what﻿40
THE MAYB0R0UGH CIRCLE
CHAl’
is known as the 'Druid Circle at Mayborough challenges one’s
attention in no ordinary way. It is a massive rampart of loose
stones, though for the most part overgrown with turf, and en-
closing a circle of about one hundred yards in diameter. In the
centre is a huge stone twelve or fourteen feet in height, the
survivor I believe of several which once upon a time stood
round it. It is a fortuitous circumstance perhaps that makes the
spot more suggestive to the ordinary eye than other remains oi
a similar kind. For on the ridge of the high encircling bank a
Head of Ullswater.
growth of timber, oak, ash, and sycamore, has sprung up, which
gives to the level grassy arena thus enclosed, a singularly realistic
look—while experts I believe encourage the notion that would
spring at once to the mind of the ordinary observer, namely,
that this was a place of high ceremonial in Druid times.
Indeed, it would be difficult to conceive a spot more suitable
for a great gathering to-day. The Welsh possess some British
camps more interesting than this, but the Welsh bardic societies
would give much for a gathering-place at once so accessible and
so strikingly appropriate as the Mayborough circle. But the﻿II
POOLEY BRIDGE
4i
Dane and the Saxon are stronger far in Westmoreland than
the Celt and a wrestling contest would, I fear, draw much larger
crowds to Mayborough than any amount of musical or intel-
lectual exercises suggestive of the spirit of the place and of the
past.
A smaller circle lies across the way; but we must on to
Ullswater at best pace along a pleasant undulating road. The
Eamont valley lies upon our right. Beyond it spread the
woods of Dalemain where Hasels had lived since the days
of the Tudors, and not far behind in a secluded valley stands
the beautiful Peel tower manor-house where Huddlestones
have been their neighbours for at least as long. In the
morning light against the western sky lie piled the pale grey
and shadowless masses of Blencathra and its satellites. Close
above us rises the wooded height of Dunmallet which Gray
climbed for his first view of Ullswater and in less than no
time we glide through a cluster of snug-looking inns and a
cheery commotion of horses, ostlers, and coaches in various
stages of their day’s work and so out on to the old stone
bridge of Pooley under which the Eamont rushes from the
shining lake beyond. There is no choice of sides for those on
wheels of any kind who like ourselves would penetrate to
Patterdale at the head of Ullswater nearly nine miles away,
for the road by the eastern bank only extends to Howtown,
less than half the distance. It would be no bad plan indeed
to take the little steamer which is even now puffing at the
pier end as if in a hurry to be off with the score or so of
travellers that the Penrith coaches have set down. But the
lake side road is not one to be missed, whereas I will assume
that the traveller who reaches Patterdale will have the good
sense to linger there, and thus doing will take boat at some
time and contemplate with a mind at peace from the jingling
of wandering minstrels and the flavour of orange-peel the
noble proportions of the finest of English lakes.
We have a smooth road before us, a luxury, let it be said﻿42
LEAFY JUNE
CHAP.
at once, not too common in the Lake country. For a region
whose life-blood is locomotion, it is surprising how diseased
are some of its arteries. The roads of North Wales as a
whole are better graded and better kept. But there is no
cause for complaint here, even if one were in the mood for it
on such a day and in such a place. It is good to be any-
where away from bricks and mortar, when a bright May is
merging into a brighter June, but above all it is good to be
among British hills and mountains. There is no season like
it and there are surely few regions elsewhere so perfect and so
entirely fair. Why, it may be said, thus tantalize the reader by
discoursing of June woods that blow along the feet of moun-
tains and glimmer in the rippling surface of May-fly haunted
lakes, or of June streams which shine amid leaf and blossom
as they will assuredly never shine again. For it is few people
now-a-days that the demands of business or pleasure ever
permit to see the best of England at its best. But there are
compensations in the reverse and the traveller who has to woo
nature in her late maturity or in actual decay may well find
them voiced in Keats’s famous lines :
Where are the songs of spring ? Ah ! where are they ?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too.”
Ullswater possesses a peculiar charm in the way it
gradually unfolds its glories to those who pursue its winding
course upwards from Pooley Bridge. It is rarely more than
half a mile wide and is divided into three distinct reaches,
each one of which exceeds the last in beauty, till the blend
of wild overhanging mountain and rich homelike foreground
which marks its head fills the visitor with a delight that is
perhaps the keener from the skilful way in which this great
masterpiece of nature has drawn him into her presence. For
the first few miles our road lifts us up at times to some height
above the lake and gives us glimpses of the distant mountains
clustering thick about its head, with Catchedicam’s pointed﻿II
THE MIDDLE REACH OF ULLSWATER
43
peak, posing for all the world like the monarch of a group
which the broad summit of Helvellyn in actual fact easily
dominates. We pass the high-perched inn at Brathenrigg,
drop down past Watermillock towards the lake edge and thence,
once more thrust inland by the intervening woods and park-
lands of Hallsteads spread beautifully along the margin of the
water, go rising and falling in gentle fashion along a quiet and
leafy road, till a final descent to the lake shore leaves us there
for the remaining five miles of our journey.
The banks of Ullswater are practically unspoiled. The
villas that in some other lakes have seized upon conspicuous
points and contributed nothing to the landscape but their own
inharmonious presence scarcely trouble this one. Such
habitations as are here have the dignity of broad acres and of
sufficient age to have surrounded themselves with woodlands
that now spread far and wide in rich maturity. Across the
lake is the leafy bay and snug hamlet of Howtown, where road
traffic upon the further shore terminates, and the mountain wil-
derness, over which the only wild red deer left in the north have
still a range of some forty square miles, begins to rise with some-
thing of savage grandeur from the water’s edge. With a bend to
the right the second reach now opens up to view. A single sail,
barely tightened by the light and fitful breath of the south-
west wind, makes a charming picture, drifting idly along, the sole
object it would seem on the wide expanse of blue water. If
you look closely, however, you may make out a boat or two
here and there lying motionless against the greenery of the
further shore. Each of these will contain a trout fisherman,
sore at heart and. whistling for a wind, for Ullswater is the
best of all the larger lakes for trout, for the simple reason
that it enjoys a blessed and rare immunity from that water
wolf, the pike.
But here is Gowbarrow park ; no tract of ox-fed pastures, no
stiff rows of elm and limes, but a real chase is this in all its
pristine wildness and a seat moreover of ancient time. Indeed﻿44
GOWBARROW PARK
CHAP.
the chieftain Ulph who is supposed to have given his name to
the lake once lived here, and, where his keep stood, a Duke
of Norfolk early in the past century erected a small castellated
shooting lodge which time and ivy have contributed to mellow
into much harmony with the romance of its situation. The
present Lyulph’s tower stands just above the road and lake,
while the deer park descending from steep and craggy fells be-
hind, leaps over ravines noisy with falling streams, spreads over
rocky slopes, the home of birch and thorn, to drop near the lake
shore into soft glades of grass and fern shaded by imme-
morial oaks. Within its limits too, and just above us, is Aira
Force, where the stream of that name takes a clear leap of So
feet into a rocky chasm.
“ List, ye who pass by Lyulph’s Tower
At eve, how softly then,
Doth Aira Force, that torrent hoarse,
Speak from the woody glen.”
This spot is the scene of a famous legend which it would
require some hardihood to ignore.
Now, in the predecessor of the present tower—how long ago
history does not say—there dwelt a lady of the house of Grey-
stoke to whom this estate, then as now, belonged. Her beauty
was famous throughout the land and she was betrothed to a
gallant knight. The lady’s name was Emma and the knight’s
Sir Eglamore. Though affianced to so fair a damsel this
young cavalier was not a man to sacrifice Mars to Venus and
so he set out after the custom of his kind to roam the country
in search of adventure, or in the words of one teller of the
tale, “ to make children fatherless and their mothers widows.”
He met with such success that his name wras noised far and
wide and the fame of his deeds even filtered through the
wilderness behind which Ullswater lay. A betrothed maiden
must have had many heart-pangs while her lover was scouring
the country as the professed champion of ladies in distress.
Sir Eglamore was so industrious in this pursuit and so long﻿II
THE LEGEND OF LYULPH’S TOWER
45
absent, that grave doubts of his fidelity preyed on the mind of
the gentle Emma, and she contracted the dangerous habit of
walking in her sleep, the object of these midnight rambles
being always a spot upon the banks of the Aira where she
had first plighted her troth to this adventurous knight errant.
In the meantime, the latter still faithful and now full of
honour and crowned with laurels, was wending his way home
again, to lay them at his mistress’ feet. It was so late at night
when he arrived within sight of the tower, runs the story,
that unwilling to disturb its inmates, he decided to rest by the
stream till morning dawned and the world awoke. It was
natural enough too that he should be drawn to the spot most
closely connected with his present mood; and it so happened
that on this very night the fair somnambulist made one of
those weird excursions to which anxiety had unconsciously
accustomed her. The knight was aroused from his musings
by a figure clad in white which he took for a phantom, but
with a hardihood not too common in that superstitious age
he undertook to put the matter to the test of touch. His grasp
however awaked the fair sleep-walker so suddenly and with
such a start that she fell headlong into the foaming torrent
before her lover could realize the situation. When the terrible
truth flashed upon him he lost not a moment but plunged into
the stream, only however, to bring the maiden’s bruised and
dripping form to shore in time to receive a single glance of
recognition before the gentle spirit fled. The knight it is said
turned hermit on the spot, and a better locality for this par-
ticular calling could hardly have offered itself than the place
which witnessed his bereavement.
From the mountain parkland of Gowbarrow, still clinging to
the lake shore, we pass almost at once into the woodlands of
Glencoin. Here upon every side of us are tall forest trees, oak
and beech, ash and sycamore, elm and pine, spreading their
fresh leaves over banks of fern, over outcrops of grey lichen-
covered rocks, over glades of short and dewy turf. Upon every﻿46
THE HEAD OF ULLSWATER
CHAP.
side is the hand of some long-departed planter, whom all
generations who visit Ullswater shall rise up and call blessed.
Rabbits dash across the unfenced road, cock pheasants call
from the depths of the wood, and the squirrel scuttles on the
bough, while just below us the clear waters of the lake sleep
quietly in rocky coves and reflects the colour and the motion
of the green leaves that quiver above its surface.
For the second time to-day we are passing from Cumber-
land into Westmoreland, and it was just here where the
rocks press closely on the lake that a troop of Scottish moss-
troopers was once repulsed with much eclat by one Mounsey at
the head of his brother statesmen. Now the Mounseys were
the largest landowners in this remote community of statesmen,
and for this exploit the hero in question was dubbed the King
of Patterdale as we shall see. What is more, however, the title
became hereditary, and Patterdale had its royal dynasty till the
last sovereign some fifty years ago parted with his property and
consequently with his crown. Of this, however, more anon,
for we have turned the last corner of the lake and the upper and
shortest reach breaks finely into view. The eastern shore has
now assumed the full measure of its wildness in the fifteen
hundred or two thousand feet of rugged front that rises up
from Silver Bay and culminates in the rocky crown of Place
Fell. All round the lake end which is now before us the
mountains crowd in grand and dominating fashion. Many
regard this as nature’s greatest masterpiece in all Lakeland, a
rare distinction indeed if it be admitted. It is not my business
to catalogue the wild array of mountain tops that on south and
west and east shut out the world and fill the sky. It will be
enough to know that yonder ridgy hog-back overtopping
everything on the right, with the shadow of a precipice on its
hither side, is Helvellyn, and that it starts the long procession.
Low in the foreground the mouth of Patterdale spreads a rim
of gleaming meadow, and a fringe of dainty woodland along
the shining margin of the lake. Thence lies the only outlet to﻿II
PATTERDALE
47
the south, to Ambleside and Windermere and Kendal, and
you might well wonder where any road could break its way
over such a barrier as seems to shut out the further world. And
indeed, when four miles up the dale you understand how the
coachroad contrives its exit, and mark its strange contortions as
it zigzags up the Kirkstone pass, the desire to stay in Patterdale
which takes hold of every one who enters it will probably grow
still stronger. Many are the cyclists who, dropping down here
in too reckless fashion from Kirkstone, remain against their will,
and a local doctor tells me he regards the lunatics who in the
teeth of warning and past mishaps come to perennial grief on
this precipitous descent, as quite a regular asset in his income.
But how describe the wealth of colouring and of detail, of
hill and meadow, of rock and wood, that is so marvellously
grouped around the head of Ullswater, between the mountain
background and the glittering lake. Let us rather look at
it and enjoy ourselves instead of boring the reader with a page
or two of futile word painting.
The abundant life that in village, hall, and farmhouse clusters
by the lake head and straggles up the dale beyond, seems so
contrived as to be free from all offence and to form part of a har-
monious whole. The delightful seclusion from the outer world
that distinguishes Patterdale above all other Lake districts of
equal population, contributes something doubtless to its charm.
And I use the word seclusion strictly in its geographical sense,
for it would be idle to deny that the world, in a touring and a
tripping sense, is partial to the head of Ullswater. But after all
how transitory and how trifling is this ebb and flow of human
ants when measured by the scale of the surrounding hills and
vales, and yet more when the gregarious and unadventurous
habits of most of them are taken into account. The man would
lack enterprise indeed, who sought solitude and could not find
it here even in August, and at this early season he may have more
of it, perhaps, than is precisely suited to everybody’s taste. There
are two hotels near the waterside, both of which in their respec-﻿48
A TYPICAL LANDLORD
CHAP.
tive ways are unsurpassed in Lakeland. The larger of these is
the Ullswater, a celebrated house, at the foot of whose gardens
the steamer discharges and receives its passengers. In the
Lake district, where the hotels are almost invariably good and
their landlords, unlike so many in the far north, invariably
obliging and never extortionate. A hotel with a reputation needs
no word from any one. But I am not myself over partial to being
a number in the best regulated establishment, and always, when
possible, seek out some house of entertainment conducted
upon personal lines, if on a less palatial scale, and where some
sort of local atmosphere is floating about. I like too, to be in
touch with mine host, whose discourse is apt to be more pur-
poseful and to the point when one’s interests are worthily
engaged in local matters, than that of the most genial guest
from Liverpool or London in immaculate dress clothes.
And in countries like this your landlord of the better sort
is apt to be a sportsman, a farmer, and a stockbreeder, as well
as a man with infinite opportunities of observing his fellow
creatures from outside. His local interests are of necessity
far reaching, and he not only knows the country round for
many miles, but everybody in it. He deals in sheep or
cattle with the larger farmers, and takes eggs or poultry from the
humble dalesman. Many months of comparative leisure fall
to his lot, and he hunts with the mountain hounds, and is
familiar with every fell and crag, as well as with the trouting
capacities of each lake and stream. The very eccentricities
and differing tastes of successive waves of guests make him a
many-sided man, and bring him all sorts of odd adventures,
not of his own seeking, by flood and field, and such as would
hardly befall the average mortal. As likely as not, too, he is the
parson’s right-hand man, for when the fair-weather gentry have all
fled, and the snow lies deep round their deserted lodges, and
the little stone church, so crowded at other times, is now cheer-
less, mine host will be there to a certainty, with the offertory
bag in the corner of his pew, and supported by his domestic﻿II
GLENRIDDING
49
circle. Very often he will be the saving of the situation,
from a congregational point of view, for a month of Sundays at
a time. Such indeed, with more or less completeness, are
many landlords of my acquaintance, and they seem to me a
vastly more interesting type than the bottle-nosed individual,
of rotund person and torpid habits, that has been the subject of
so much prose and verse.
But I must not be suspected of applying these general
observations in quite literal fashion to the management of
the private hotel at Glenridding. I was but picturing a type
with which many of us, I am sure, are familiar. I shall merely
remark, for the benefit of any one who, like myself, prefers to
be a name to a number, when taking his ease at his inn,
that he will find here a regard for his comfort and welfare
such as would be an admirable object lesson for many landlords
who are accounted well up to their business and certainly
account themselves to be so.
It is a milky stream, alas, that comes prattling past the door
at Glenridding and tells a tale—happily the only one hereabouts
—of lead-mining desecration in the once beauteous dale that
wanders up towards the mighty shoulder of Helvellyn. One
route to the top of the famous mountain leads this way, or you
may pursue the high road for half a mile and turn up Grisedale,
whose unsullied charms are accounted the fairest of all the
glens that cleave the steep sides of the Helvellyn and Fairfield
range. You will make acquaintance here with the ancient little
church of Patterdale (Patrickdale), one of the rare dedications
to St. Patrick, and supposed to be a survival of the fifth-
century Christianity of the Strathclyde Britons. It is probable,
however, that the beautiful woods and grounds of Patterdale
Hall, with the Grisedale beck glittering through them with
merry music, will hold your fancy more, for a fairer foreground
to the chequered hills that in their summer dress rise green
behind, and the dark crags that far above them again loom
silent and solemn, it would be ill to find. If the poets who
E﻿5o
BENEFICENT TREE PLANTERS
CHAP.
have sung of this Lakeland deserve such immortality surely
those also who have been conspicuous in preserving and
adorning it should have their meed of recognition. The
Marshalls came into the Lake country, bringing wealth and taste
with them, nearly ninety years ago, and their name is written
large all over it in such a fashion as does it honour. What
extent of land their descendants may own on the various lakes I
know not; but not only here on Ullswater but on Coniston and
Buttermere and Derwentwater you will find them the pervading
influence. The saplings that these earlier Marshalls planted
have long sprung up into noble woods of oak and ash, beech
and sycamore, that roar finely in wild weather above the
breaking waves, and in quiet sunny weather make a fringe of
twinkling foliage between lake and mountain that is wholly
charming.
Now I cannot think that the disguising of any British
mountain side with a covering of larch or pine wood is of any
advantage whatever other than a commercial one. It is con-
soling to find that so eminent a judge of nature as Wordsworth
held this view very strongly, denouncing in no measured
terms the wholesale planting of these stiff exotics, though
the larch, it is true, has the merit of being the first tree to feel
the touch of spring. Sprinkled here and there among forests of
deciduous trees, the Scotch fir gives an admirable touch of
colour. In isolated groups, upon crags or lonely hill tops, they
have a character of their own, and a weird charm that is
undeniable. In dull and level countries forests of pine are
serviceable to the landscape, especially in winter, are good to
walk in, while their music on a windy day is of a high order.
But both in America and on the Continent you may freely
gauge the measure of their monotony when covering the
surface of a hilly or a mountain country. It would be a
strange taste indeed that would prefer them to the varied detail
and matchless colouring that glows upon an English mountain
side, and above all upon a Cumbrian one. Indeed, that very﻿TI
HEATHER OR TURF?
5i
scantiness of heather which every one remarks upon, and some
people without much discrimination deplore, is almost an
advantage. The sportsman of course has associations connected
with the mountain plant which make a just estimate of its
decorative value difficult, and many sportsmen only see it for
the few weeks of its bloom and beauty. Perhaps of the
mass of tourists the same may be said. But for many months
in the year it is surely the ugliest growth, regarded from a
distance, that a mountain produces ? We call it russet, and
Brotherswater and Kirkstone Pass.
speak of it in endearing fashion, unconscious that other
influences are working in the mind, or else that we are talking
something like nonsense. It seems ungracious and unnatural to
depreciate heather; but as the Lakeland mountains are often
criticised for their scanty growth of it, it is only reasonable to
ask the reader to consider himself, in spring, summer, or winter,
standing opposite a mountain clothed with heather upon the one
hand, and on the other showing a varied surface of rock and
fern, of many coloured bog grasses, of bright sheep-nibbled
turf, and to honestly say if he would wish to exchange the
E 2﻿52
PATTERDALE
CHAP.
bright and changing hues of the one for the sombre monotony
of the other. I think he would not.
Now Patterdale as a district, or “ kingdom ” which it formerly
was in the Mounsey period, runs some four miles up from the
head of Ullswater, wedged in between the mountains, till the
little lake of Brotherswater fills the narrowing vale and
marks the commencement of the steep climb over Kirk-
stone. A straggling village, in no way unsightly, which is
creditable under the circumstances, follows the highway for
half a mile or so, and a snug old-fashioned-looking hotel sug-
gests in its exterior the post-chaise period of Lake travel, though,
for aught I know, it may be fitted inside with electric light
and every “modern convenience.” Meadows now laid up for
hay, for the most part cover the levels, and twisting through
their midst the silvery streams of the Goldrill shine in the
open sunlight, or twinkle through screens of willow and alder.
Farmhouses, in white or grey, nestle beneath either mountain
foot; and though most of these, I fancy, lay themselves out for
rustic entertainment of summer visitors, there is little or no
sign of the private villa, which even in the Ambleside and
Grasmere district, to say nothing of Windermere, is somewhat
over pushful.
One can well imagine that Patterdale was a sufficiently
secluded spot in the year 1745, and that many of the people
in the low country around Penrith, at the first rumours of the
Pretender’s army having crossed the Solway, sent their
valuables up there for security with much confidence, is not
surprising. It is curious, too, to read Wordsworth’s encomiums
on the wonderful perfection which the art of news transmit-
ting had achieved in his time, as compared with a period then
comparatively recent. These particular remarks were occa-
sioned by his receiving the news of Trafalgar and Nelson’s
death on November 10th while breakfasting in Patterdale, and
this, it may be noted, was exactly three weeks after the battle !
During the past year, it is hardly necessary to say, one﻿IX
A FAITHFUL DOG
53
heard in Patterdale at breakfast of some things at least that
had happened the day before in South Africa.
It was in this same year, too, of Trafalgar, 1S05, that an
unfortunate youth, whose name, Gough, has by a fortuitous
circumstance been immortalized, left Patterdale to cross the
Helvellyn range to Wythburn and Thirlmere, no very des-
perate performance of a truth under ordinary conditions. It
was to his dog however, a small yellow-haired terrier bitch,
that his memory owes such measure of notoriety as surrounds
it. Scores of people have lost their lives amid these lakes
and mountains since Gough’s time, and passed into oblivion,
while he and his dog have been sung of by two great poets,
Scott and Wordsworth, and to this day are the occasional
subject of articles and paragraphs. The young man seems to
have been of a cheerful disposition and popular with the natives,
and much addicted to fishing and mountaineering, always being
accompanied by his four-footed companion. He belonged to
a respectable middle-class family in a northern town, and seems
to have been amusing himself for a few months prior to
entering on some definite career. Snow had fallen lightly on
the morning in question (April 18th), but Gough was familiar
with the route, and as he proposed to be away for a day or
two, little notice was taken of his absence, till it was discovered
that he had not been heard of on the other side. In brief it was
three months before his body was found, and then only through
the barking of what was left of his faithful terrier, who had
watched all these weary weeks by her dead master’s side. The
body was found by some shepherds, near the banks of Red Tarn,
a wild spot, under Striding edge, and the flesh had been eaten
from the bones by birds of prey. Whether the young man
fell from above, or whether he was overcome by illness or
exhaustion, remained a mystery; but it is of small consequence
nowadays, though the gist of the story which relates to the
amazing fidelity of the little dog well deserves immortality. It
made, indeed, quite a stir at the time throughout England; and﻿54
SUNSET ON ULLSWATER
CHAP.
people unfamiliar with the mountains not unnaturally gave
credence to a ghoulish story, that the terrier could only have
maintained life for so long by feeding on her dead master’s
flesh. But as a matter of fact, the number of sheep that die
every year on the fells of maggot and other causes, and are
left to rot where they fall, banishes any horror or mystery from
this part of the story, though it in no way detracts from the
wonder of it. The dog recovered, and was taken away by
Gough’s friends after they had buried him in Penrith. Let us
hope she was cherished as she deserved.
But let us away with such melancholy tales, and eat our
dinner with a good appetite, though the beck by whose foun-
tain springs the poor man died and the faithful dog watched
sings cheerily under the window. The lake lies smiling
before us; and what better finish to a day on the road than a
night on the water at such a season as this ? So let us take
boat and rod, and our landlord too, who is both a sportsman
and a waterman, and see what Ullswater looks like beneath
the sunset, the twilight, the darkness and the moon, for we
shall have the last if we are patient.
If any breeze was moving before, it is dead enough now, for
the upper bay is like a mirror, on whose surface rocks and
mountains, trees and islands with all their wealth of colour-
ing live again. As we glide out on to the lake, the sun is just
drooping behind the northern shoulder of Helvellyn, and the
mystery of the afterglow is drawing its purple mantle over a
world of detail on the hither side of it, that but a moment ago
shone with such conspicuous clearness.
And in no long time the shadows on the lake edge grow
blurred, the water changes from glass to polished steel, and the
latter slowly fades into the leaden hues of twilight. The last
gleam has vanished from the mountains around Ivirkstone and
the head of Patterdale, and died away upon the summit of
Placefell. But in the meantime we have not been drifting
idly, even in the presence of a transformation scene so﻿II
TWILIGHT
55
exquisite as this, but have passed the steamer landing, and
looked in at the rocky caves and wooded cliffs that culminate in
the much painted crag of Stybarrow, We are the only boat,
save one, on the whole visible portion of the lake, which strikes
one as a strange thing at this most jocund season of nature’s
year. Even the single boat in question is but carrying two
natives across the bay, armed with gigantic rods, to where the
Goldrill beck finds its outlets. The native of this Lake country
has no faith in anything much less than sixteen feet in the way
of a rod, with a strong preference for something even longer,
whether to catch salmon or three-ounce trout. These
sportsmen are going “ bustard ” fishing, and the bustard is a
peculiar and time-honoured institution in the Lake country.
The trout of the two counties are well educated—not a doubt of
that, but at the same time they have been, by some means
or other trained up to an hereditary appetite for the bustard,
an article that I am quite sure the most unsophisticated fish
of other latitudes would scorn either by day or night. The
bustard is well named; it is the size of a moderate salmon fly,
and resembles nothing that crawls upon the land or sails over
the face of the waters. It has a rough yellow body and white
wings, as monstrous and clumsy a caricature of an insect as was
ever offered to a trout. But the trout of Cumberland and
Westmoreland, I am assured, have a wonderful liking for it
between sunset and midnight, and vastly prefer it to the
cunning and delicate contrivances most of us are accustomed,
even at that hour, to think almost indispensable.
There is still plenty of light, though a grey tinge rests upon
the world. We are beside a shelving gravelly beach, and my
companion proclaims that if we are to catch trout this night, it
should surely be here, and indeed for this long time the fish
have been breaking the water with some show of activity, though
in what mood who can say ? I will not bore the reader with the
details of our industry. They are not remarkable, but the
interest at any rate is sufficiently sustained to enfold us in the﻿56
NIGHT SHADOWS
CHAP.
wings of night before we seem to have got well to work. Still,
even four or five handsome little fish, weighing a pound and a
half between them, which is Ullswater size, make a tempting
breakfast at any rate. A light breeze is springing up, and there
is a touch of chill in the air: the moon will soon rise, and
when my guide suggests putting out a trolling line, and taking a
further journey under the steeper eastern shores of the lake,
I am nothing loth, though trolling for trout as a sport is to my
mind of the poorest. But there is a certain weirdness about the
situation, and sensations that recall night journeys in frailer craft
than this stout boat, and through scenes wilder though assuredly
no grander than these, are in no way interrupted by the light
responsibilities of holding a trolling line. The breeze blowing
down Patterdale through the gap at Kirkstone is beginning to
moan in the trees, that cling precariously to the rocky foot of
Birkfell, and to make music under our keel. The night shadow
of this same Birkfell too, with its thousand feet or so of preci-
pitous and naked boulders, lies somewhat awesomely across our
path, and we can well understand at this eerie moment why the
mountain foxes are so partial not only to rearing their cubs in
its fastnesses, but to turning their faces thither when hard
pressed by the exigencies of the chase.
But stay ! Here is a fish. He has not much chance if the
triple hook is in his jaws, nor is there any great measure of
excitement in bringing him up to the boat, though he weighs
some three quarters of a pound. Ullswater trout are of
the bright and silvery kind, differing much from those of
Derwentwater, which run larger, and are thick, short and
richly marked. Ullswater, too, is one of the lakes where that
eminently local fish, the char, is found ; but this species of the
salmonidas has little sporting value, as it lies in deep water
and can only be caught by methods that hardly commend
themselves to the angler who is not fishing for his living. The
char run mostly three or four to the pound, and may be
roughly described as trout richly tinted with red and orange﻿II
MOONRISE
57
hues. On the rare occasions when he takes the fly and leaps
from the water, the angler who might perchance have caught
American brook trout in their native haunts, would be
instantly put in mind of the fontinalis, who are held, I believe,
by some to be of the char species. Such at least was
my experience. But prowling around somewhere, in the
depths of Ullswater, with three or four hundred feet of
water above them, are the great grey trout of fabulous size that
are never omitted from ancient accounts of St. Ulpho’s lake, and
are still, I believe, reckoned among its inhabitants. In old days,
however, they figured as a regular item in its table of contents;
but I have observed that the most sanguine tackle makers of
the district do not hold out hopes to their southern customers
of drawing such a prize, which I may take conclusively to
mean that it is no longer to be drawn. At any rate my
companion, who is a most ardent Patterdaler, has not suggested
that our minnow, spinning merrily through the dark water forty
yards behind, is likely to have a visit from one of these
monsters of the deep. Indeed it has ceased apparently to
have attraction even for the small fry atop, and it seems we
are opposite Gowbarrow near half way down the lake. The
long-looked-for moon has now risen in full orbed splendour,
and shows even to my inexperienced eye the suggestive
embattled outline of Lyulph’s tower, and the shadowy park-
lands with their scattered trees stretching upward to the fells
beyond. We can hear quite plainly too, the steady roar of
Aira force, though the wind is soughing almost ominously
in the woods upon the bank, where an owl is dolefully
hooting, and the ripples beating on our keel with some-
thing of the force of waves. Clouds too are chasing across
the moon, and surely the wraith of the fair Emma might
well choose such a night as this to steal across yonder stretch
of light and shadow, to where Aira force is sounding the
same notes that it sounded six hundred years ago. It must
be near midnight, and full time we turned. The lights that﻿58
A MIDNIGHT ROW
CHAP.
were twinkling here and there along the shore are now all
quenched, and the fish have long ceased to feed before the
rising wind and waves.
Each bird or beast
That haunts the tangles of the brake,
Or dwells beside the silver lake,
In placid slumber, lies released
From trouble by the touch of night.
We ought to be quoting Wordsworth here, not Virgil. But
in truth, there will be no further opportunity for such philan-
derings, for there is a four mile row against a head wind and
rising sea in prospect; and Ullswater when it chooses can put
up a storm in which no ordinary boats that ply upon the lake
can live. Indeed, the wind rushes down betimes with such
sudden fury from the mountain passes that the over confident
visitor is apt to find himself storm bound at Gowbarrow or
worse still at Howtoun with nothing for it but to get back by
land as best he may, “ and we,” says mine host, “ have to get the
boats back as best we may.”
It is an hour past midnight, when, not without relief and our
task accomplished, we push our boat’s nose out of the rough water
into the lea of the landing place. The shadowy forms of the
mountain tops loom in sombre silence above us, for the clouds,
though moving swiftly, are moving high, and there seems no
real ill humour in the night. The thought occurs to me, as
we walk across the meadows to where a single light gleaming
from the sleeping village marks our bourne, that we of this
generation in England are inclined to overlook the out-
door attractions of the night in curiously wholesale fashion.
Many of us, no doubt, at some period of our lives and in
some quarter of the world, have been obliged to travel often
and far beneath the moon and stars; and speaking for
myself such journeys seem to have left anything but barren
memories. The modern dinner hour accounts in part no doubt
for this neglect of night’s sombre charms. Wordsworth, De﻿II
A NOBLE SOLITUDE
59
Quincey, and the rest of them—not as enthusiastic nature-
lovers, but as a matter of course,—when paying visits and so
forth, used to walk great distances at night, both in winter and
summer. Wordsworth, for instance, leaves his friend’s house
at Patterdale on the occasion already alluded to at ten o’clock
on a November night, to walk the twelve miles home to Rydal,
over Kirkstone Pass, as a most ordinary proceeding.
While the tourist will find upon the western or Helvellyn
side of Patterdale the finest blend of dale scenery and notable
mountain tops and routes that land a good walker by luncheon
time, if he so wishes it, at Grasmere, Thirlmere or other
desirable centres, upon the other or eastern side a country
no less worthy of exploration stretches away from the very
shores of Ullswater. In fact when you have crossed the valley
meadows at the head of the lake, and climbed on to the top
of the lower rampart of Place Fell, there spreads before you a
practically illimitable stretch of sheep and deer forest,
unbroken by house or village or fence or wall. A fine vista
of rolling moorland and bold outstanding hills is here, with the
long ridge of the High Street (vulgarism of Ystryd) bounding
the eastern view. Hartsop and Rest Dodd, Gray Crag and
Kidsty Pike, and many other hills of rugged character, and
twenty-five hundred feet or thereabouts of altitude, break
the surface of a prospect that is more suggestive of continuous
solitude than almost any part of the Lake Country. Bore-
dale, Martindale and Bannerdale, lonely glens enough but for
the joyous becks that water them, drop down through the
moorland wilderness towards the green levels of Howtown.
The High Street ridge, like a mighty wall, with its red, storm-
washed sides, hems in, as I have said, our vision. It takes
one’s fancy too from the uncompromising directness with
which for miles it cleaves the sky line. It is prominent
from every peak of note in Cumberland or Westmoreland, and
well deserves such distinction, if only for the great Roman road
that may yet be traced along its summit. Hidden behind it.﻿6o
RED DEER
CHAP.
like a miniature of its greater sister here beneath us, Hawes-
water winds its beauteous course amid woods and rocks, and,
with Mardale at its head, may be said to divide the Lake
district proper from the moors of Shap.
Over all this country, the ancient red deer roam in their
wild state, as on Exmoor. But the range is much smaller,
nor are they systematically hunted, which no doubt accounts
for their being more frequently in evidence to wandering
anglers or pedestrians. I have myself had no such luck,
but I have been told by men who often fish the lonely
lakes of Hayeswater and Angletarn, that it is no un-
common thing to see a herd of these noble animals drinking
on the shore. They must be familiar enough however with
the note of hound and horn, for the Ullswater fox-hounds,
kennelled in Patterdale, regularly hunt these solitudes. It is
lonely enough as it is lovely in June, and I have wandered
here all day without seeing a sign of human life but an
occasional farmer looking up his sheep. For these last, at this
season of the year, are sorely beset by the maggot, that curse
of the fell countries, which drives the wretched animals into all
sorts of holes and corners, where they perish to a certainty if
not hunted up and doctored. The life of the fell farmer is
very far from all that fancy is apt to paint it. When wool was
two shillings a pound, and Herdwick wethers fifty per cent,
above their present figure, it was another matter; but nowa-
days, with the first at sevenpence, and the last at twenty
shillings, to speak approximately, it must somewhat take the
heart out of the further struggle with floods and foxes, summer
maggots, and winter snow storms. The sheep industry, I need
hardly say, is far and away the chief business of the mountain
districts. Quarrying and mining occupy but a fraction of the
people, and, happily for the landscape at any rate, there are
no Festiniogs and Bethesdas here. The country too has
probably the finest breed of mountain sheep to be found in
these islands, and it has been cherished for centuries with care﻿II
HERDWICK SHEEP
61
and pride. From Skiddaw to Black Combe, from Ennerdale to
Shap, the Herdwick sheep is the pivot on which all local life
not wholly absorbed in the tourist business turns. Yet I met
a midland county sheep breeder the other day who had never
heard of them, so little does one half of the world know how
the other half lives, even when occupied in the same trade !
The Herdwick runs a trifle heavier than the Welsh or Exmoor,
though of course lighter than the Cheviot, or black-faced High-
lander, which, seeing that, like the former, he makes his living
without help to speak of, is to the credit of his stock, admitting
at the same time that the mutton is as good, which is, I think,
the case. The merest amateur in such matters, too, will see at
once that the Herdwick carries a heavier fleece than the Welsh.
Above all, the grey colour of the wool will be immediately
noticeable, though the stranger would at first probably take it for
granted that it was merely the result of dipping, and make no
comment. Nothing, strange to say, is more like the grey
colouring of the fleeces grown on these pure sweet fells than
that you sometimes see on sheep pastured amid the smoke of
a great city, and it is remarkable that the wool of Herdwicks
bred in Wales turns to pure white again. The lambs
are mostly piebald, black and white, with a humour of
appearance all their own, though their fleeces tone down
afterwards to the right shade. Farmers tell me, however,
that the tendency to black wool is always very strong with
Herdwicks, and has to be contended with in breeding. They
are apt, moreover, to run to horns in the ewes, which is
incorrect. The Lakeland farmer is for the most part of
the smaller yeoman variety. With the inevitable exceptions
he is a plain working farmer, employing little labour outside
his own family, and personally tending his own stock. Most
of them were at one time freeholders, using the term
broadly; a few of them still are. The Westmoreland and
Cumberland statesmen (estatesmen) were once the leading﻿62
THE STATESMEN
CHAP
feature in the social economy of the country, varying in their
holdings from thirty to a thousand acres.
They were not ordinary yeomen, these Bells, Brownriggs and
Bowes, Hodgsons, Nicholsons, Bowmans, and the rest of
them, like those of whom so few survive in the South, and
whose small estates have lain for all time wedged in between
those of greater folks, to whom they paid unquestioned social
deference. The Cumbrian or Westmoreland dale was often a
small republic, among whom the larger freeholders were only
“primi inter pares,” making no pretension to social ex-
clusiveness. There had naturally been small temptation in old
days for knights and armigers to acquire property and take up
residence in such outlandish regions. So while in the more
lowland districts squire and statesman flourished side by side,
occasionally overstepping the social line that divided them, the
latter had the mountain country almost entirely to himself. All
this is intelligible enough to any one going over the country
with an outline of its history in his mind. But what does come
as a bolt from the blue to the most patient of inquiring strangers
is a paper written some years ago from a most distinguished local
antiquary, entitled, “The Heraldry of Cumbrian Statesmen.”
Turn a statesman into an armiger, and he loses all interest at
once! If his escutcheon meant anything, he was simply a country
gentleman in a region and at a period when education, luxury and
refinement were not necessary adjuncts to consideration. But we
gather from our author that the devices such statesmen aspired
to wear, “ mostly on the back of their tombstones,” were
irregular. In which case it strikes one only as suggesting an
interesting excursion for the student of heraldry. These es-
cutcheons had not the cachet of the Heralds’ College; but any
official, says Chancellor Ferguson, who had ventured to call in
question the right of these warlike yeomen to exercise their
heraldic fancies, would have run a grave risk of being made a
spatchcock of, or, in other words, of his head being stuck in a﻿ii	THE KINGS OF PATTERDALE	63
rabbit hole, and his legs staked to the ground. But that of
course is another story altogether !
Democracies, we well know, are prone to drift into absolutism,
and I have already alluded to the notable example which was
furnished by the rise of the Mounsey dynasty to power here in
Patterdale. In the obituary column of the “ Gentleman’s
Magazine,” for October, 1793, I find the following entry:
“On the 21 st, at Patterdale Hall, in the parish of Barton, co.
Westmoreland, in the 92nd year of his age, John Mounsey,
Esq., commonly called King of Patterdale, the owners of
which place from time immemorial have been honoured with
this appellation.” Then follows a page or two describing the
habits and manner of life of this singular monarch.
“ The palace ” (on the site of the modern Patterdale Hall), so
says the writer, “makes but an indifferent appearance; neglect
for half a century hath made it almost a ruin.” His Majesty
himself seems to have been a sad miser, and altogether a most
undesirable person. With an income of ,-£Soo a year, his
ambition was to keep his expenses down to ^30 ; and in this he
was more than successful. He rejoiced in his physical strength,
which was prodigious, and used it to row his own slate and
timber down the lake to market. He toiled from morning till
night at the hardest manual labour, and exhausted his
ingenuity in saving the expenditure of a penny. When it was
necessary for this penurious monarch to spend a night outside
his dominions, he slept in barns and under haystacks, to avoid
the cost of an inn. On one occasion, when riding with a
neighbour on the banks of Ullswrater, he suddenly jumped from
his horse, stripped off his clothes, and plunged into the lake,
emerging triumphantly with an old stocking. The sight of a
stocking that did not float suggested infinite possibilities to an
eye so eager for gain that the impulse was irresistible. His
own, says his biographer,-were invariably heeled with leather
when first purchased, and he always wore the wooden clogs of
the country, shod with iron. To save the expense of buying or﻿64
A PENURIOUS MONARCH
CHAP.
wearing a respectable, suit on occasions when one was an
unavoidable necessity, he used to commandeer those of tenants
or neighbours, leaving his own rags in the house, to be assumed
again when the function was over. His tenants had to supply
him with so many meals a year in addition to rent, a plan in
which he unconsciously imitated the system of the earlier
English kings, whom we all know moved their court about,
levying heavy contributions of food stuffs on the localities
thus honoured. He was so fearful of being robbed that he
used to hide his money in stone walls and holes in the ground,
and this well-known propensity of his Majesty’s seems to
have had a somewhat demoralising effect on some of his
subjects, who spent in vain hunts for this treasure trove much
time that might have been better employed. Shortly before
his death this penurious autocrat derived much satisfaction,
we are told, from haggling with various persons about the fee to
be paid for the making of his will. The Patterdale schoolmaster
bid lowest and got the job, tenpence being the contract price.
But the codicils and alterations were so numerous that the
dominie struck for half-a-crown, and thereby lost all.
It is satisfactory to learn that his eldest son, who succeeded
to the throne, was in all respects the opposite of his father,
and possessed every virtue. He was, I think, the last of a
long line, making those sales of his property which marked the
beginning of the new era in Patterdale.
But before turning our backs on Ullswater and Patterdale I
must say another word about the trout fishing, as this is upon the
whole the best district in the Lake Country for the casual angler.
This, be it remembered, is not saying very much. Still there
are compensations for even indifferent sport in such a country,
and there is great variety of ground, and good baskets are
frequently made. A day on a mountain tarn too has a fascina-
tion peculiarly its own, and such as the pedestrian who merely
passes along the shore and is gone knows nothing of.
Angletarn is about three miles from Patterdale, set high﻿II
A STORMY LAKELET
65
among the hills to the eastward, and as wild a spot as ever the
lover of mountain solitudes could desire. Its waters are of a
clear amber tint, being fed by peaty streams, but full of trout
from a quarter to three quarters of a pound, somewhat dark in
colour, and a trifle “ soft,” as is only to be expected, but rising
freely to the fly and showing excellent sport. There is a boat,
the key of which may be had, but the lake can be readily
fished from the shore, and better still by wading. It is by no
means easy to find, and however carefully the stranger takes
his bearings before mounting out of Patterdale, he will most
probably end by climbing to the summit of “The Pikes,”
which overlooks the surrounding moorlands, before solving the
problem of its situation.
I have spoken too of Brotherswater, that charming little lake,
which, skirted with woods and bright meadows and overhung
with heaped-up fells, fills the narrow head of Patterdale. Near
its banks, and by the side of the coach road which ascends
the Kirkstone pass, is a homely little inn, kept by a most
worthy couple, where I feel quite convinced the hardy angler
would find such full measure of simple comfort as he could
reasonably desire. The landlord rents the lake, which is
crammed with free rising trout: but I am bound to add that
these have become so small as to give much cause for surprise
that something is not done to remedy the evil. There are two
boats on the water, which, small as it is, is sometimes lashed
into a perfect fury by the storms which tear down between
Red Screes and Caudale moor, or the more westerly gorge
of Dovedale. I have very vivid and recent recollections of
struggling nearly the whole of a June day with lashings of rain
and wind on this little lake; and though the labour of sculling
back against the drifts was intensified by the dimensions of a
boat which were ample enough for the needs of a man of war,
I felt amply consoled for what seemed like such superfluous
toil when rolling back again with the gale.
Indeed, it is almost worth a ducking, even if a basket of
F﻿66
AN ANCIENT HAMLET
CHAP.
fish were not thrown in, to witness the wild rage with which
the south-westerly storms, with their endless battalions of
whirling clouds, pour through these mountain passes ; lifting
at times to show the soaking rocks and the white rills leaping
down the turf-clad steeps; then in a moment swallowing
everything, mountains, woods, meadows, and leaving nothing
visible around the rocking boat but a little world of black
waves, hissing and spouting, and throwing up clouds of white
spray to join the mad race of driving rain.
An ancient manor house of the ruder kind, with tall chimneys
and overhung with trees, stands amid the meadows at the head
of Brotherswater—a surprisingly sequestered spot for a Tudor
house of even such modest dimensions as this one. I do not
remember the history of Hartsop Hall, now for many genera-
tions the home of statesmen or farmers ; but an ancient right of
way runs straight through the house, and I am told that once a
year, with great punctuality, a venerable dalesman, possessed of
an abnormally developed concern for vested rights and usages,
makes a special expedition to uphold the maintenance of this one.
At the lower end of Brotherswater, a deep valley opens from the
east, and from it emerges a good sized beck and a rough
road. The first is Hayeswater gill, and rises in the lake of that
name some two miles distant, and about a thousand feet above
us. This latter, something more than a tarn, is one of the best
trouting waters of the district. At the mouth of the valley, where
the sportsman would leave his trap or cycle before beginning
the ascent on foot, is the little hamlet of Low Hartsop, a
collection of ancient buildings nestling beneath a canopy of
oaks and sycamore leaves, that has scarcely its like in the
whole Lake Country as a picture of times gone by. There is
nothing here of what one means by a picturesque village in the
ordinary sense of the word; a mere cluster only of farm-
houses and cottages, straggling along in more or less propin-
quity to a leafy lane. But the look of mellow age and rude
simplicity in these old stone homesteads, so snugly nestling﻿II
HAYESWATER
6 7
at the mountain’s foot, would arrest the steps of the most
impatient angler; and one’s fancy is still further touched by
the ruins of other buildings, which, if not more ancient, have
at any rate sooner outrun their span of life. The moss has
gathered thick upon their broken roofs; ferns and wild grasses
riot in rank profusion in their gaping doorways and sightless
windows, and they would almost appear to be seeking that
oblivion from nature’s kindly covering which the thickness of
their walls has denied them by the ordinary process of decay.
It is a pleasant walk up the dale beyond till it narrows
to a deep glen, down which between high slopes -waist-deep
in bracken, the beck which guides us tumbles its silvery
streams. I found much consolation one bright summer day,
when an absence of breeze made Hayeswater unfishable, and
the beck was clear and full, in quite a good basket of small
sweet trout, picked out with fly from its boisterous streams and
pools. At one point indeed it makes a clear leap of quite forty
feet over a precipitous rock, the white water shooting in exquisite
fashion through trailing boughs of birch and mountain ash.
Above this is a stretch of open moorland, and then Hayes-
water spreads away long and narrow, walled in upon three sides
by steep mountain sides. Here too is a fine solitude, though
of a different kind from that of Angle tarn, with its dark
waters, its boggy banks, its craggy promontories and storm-
beaten look. Hayeswater is bright and silvery. So are its
fish, and it runs like a trough deep into the mountains; Gray
Crag, Kidsty, and the end of the High Street range, dropping
to its shores with abruptness in all places, and at some with
striking precipitousness. Here, with many apologies for so long
a digression to those readers who follow not the gentle art, we
will leave the angler and all that concerns him, only wishing
him a good breeze, without which his mission would be a
fruitless one indeed, and reminding him that this otherwise
excellent trouting lake is at some disadvantage in this respect
from its sheltered situation.
F 2﻿Dacre Castle.
CHAPTER III.
I hope to get to Keswick within the limits of this chapter,
an achievement which would be simple enough if we went by the
shortest route, namely, the one which leaves the lake at Gow-
barrow and cuts across to Troutbeck station on the Keswick
and Penrith road. But I will ask the reader to transfer him-
self once more to the foot of Ullswater, and by the steamer
this time if he will; for a mile or so short of Pooley bridge at
Waterfoot a road bends away to the left, which will serve our
ultimate purpose well enough, and, though somewhat rougher
than the other, is perhaps more interesting.
For leaving the Eamont on the right and passing through
Soulby, another two miles brings us to a stream, a castle
and a village; on a small scale, to be sure, all of them, but the
cradle of a mighty, though long vanished race. Dacre Castle
stands in the middle of a pasture field, lifted above the woody
banks of the stream which shares its famous name, and
sings plaintive airs upon the rocks to its departed grandeur.
Half castle, half embattled manor-house, small for the first,
uncompromisingly stern for the last, it is well worth a visit. A
plain rectangular fortress under a single roof, and flanked at
each angle by a tower, it still looks, save for some later﻿CH. Ill
A POTENT RACE
69
windows, very much what it was in the 13th century, when the
Dacres built it. They were then but tributary chieftains to the
great neighbouring barony of Greystoke. Later on they became
the greatest power in Cumberland, as the Cliffords were in
Westmoreland. It was largely indeed at the expense of the
Cliffords that the Dacres rose, and by means chiefly of two
daring elopements, if this indeed were not too gentle a term.
For in the time of Edward the Second, the heiress of the
great barony of Gilsland lying beyond Carlisle against the
Scottish march, was in the sufe keeping, at Warwick Castle,
of Beauchamp, its famous earl. She was destined for a
Clifford. But Ranulph de Dacre had the address and hardi-
hood to carry her off even from such illustrious guardianship,
and thus secured her vast estates. Seven or eight successive
Dacres were wardens of the western marches, living chiefly at
Naworth and Kirkoswald. Their red banner, with its silver
escallops, their war cry, 11A Dacre a Dacre, a read bull a read
bull I ” was the bane of generations of Scottish invaders. At
Flodden Field Thomas Dacre, “ Dacre of the North,” with his
strenuous following, was a prominent factor in the victory.
This same Thomas, too, was as successful in love as in war,
for he carried off the second great heiress from the hands of
the Cliffords in the dead of night, even from their own
stronghold of Brougham Castle, and took with her the barony
of Greystoke, and vast estates besides. It was not till Eliza-
beth’s reign that the succession failed, the only boy, a little
lad, being killed by a fall from his vaulting horse. There were
then three girls, but there was also a collateral male Dacre, a
plausible claimant. But the Duke of Norfolk had obtained
the guardianship of the ladies; and as he had three sons, this
settled the question, the collateral Dacre being able to make
no head, in spite of much endeavour, against such a combina-
tion of destiny and power and marriage bells. And that is
how the Howards became great landowners in Cumberland.
To-day, a labourer’s family inhabit some of the rooms of the﻿7o
GREYSTOKE
CHAP.
castle and show all of them ; and they are worth seeing, both
those above ground and those below. One room is called
the “ King’s Chamber,” after a doubtful tradition that the Kings
of Scotland and Cumbria there swore allegiance to Athelstane,
of England.
After passing by Dacre Church, with the great stone bears,
brought centuries ago from the castle, squatting weirdly about in
the long grass of the grave yard ; and traversing Dacre village,
a gem of old world cottage architecture, and following for a mile
or so an indifferent road, we come out on the main highway
between Keswick and Penrith. Happily too it is running just
here along a lofty ridge, and gives us the last fair look we shall
have of the rich country stretching northward towards Carlisle,
with Greystoke Park full in the foreground, spreading its six
thousand acres of timber and pasture over hill and dale.
It is a stately enough pile that the Howards of Greystoke
now inhabit, and looks finely out at us from embowering woods,
but, like Lowther, it is comparatively new, having been twice
burnt, once in the civil war, and again some thirty years ago.
Away into the distance beyond towards Carlisle and the north
stretches the country covered in ancient days by the forest
of Inglewood. Even in Wordsworth’s youth, a hundred
years ago, the last of its original trees had vanished, “ o’er
its last thorn the nightly moon has shone.” Around the far
reaching limits of Greystoke Park many of the Peel tower
manor-houses that held of that barony in the middle ages
with their Tudor additions are still standing. Hutton John of
the Huddlestones, nestling in the glen behind us, and still their
country seat, has been mentioned in a former chapter. So
has Catterlen, a farmhouse now, but still carrying over the
door of its latest Tudor wing the Vaux arms, and the notifica-
tion, “ At this tyme is Rowlande Vaux Lorde of thys Place and
builded this Hallyr of God 1577. Of Blencowe too I have
spoken, also a farmhouse, now half ruinous and wholly striking.
The Blencowe of that period so distinguished himself at Poitiers﻿Ill
DAME DOROTHY OF HALTON
7i
that he was allowed to bear the Greystoke arms, and Blencowes
were here till the beginning of the century, when the Howards
absorbed them, as the Lowthers absorbed so many like them.
They were connections of Lady Jane Grey, and over the door
is carved the enigmatic sentence, “ Vivere mori, vivere vita”
which some think has an allusion to that unhappy lady. Away
yonder, at the northern edge of the park, lies Johnby, whose
large seventeenth century barns alone would give it some
interest, even if this charming little manor house with its
outside tower and newell staircase was not full of Elizabethan
work. Musgrave arms are graven here, as well as many curious
inscriptions; there is a wonderful kitchen and some fine old
chambers. A Welsh family, oddly enough, owned the manor
from the civil war onwards. Greenthwaite, now inside Greystoke
Park, is considered too a gem of its kind. It was built by the
last of the Haltons in 1650, whose Lady, Dorothy Halton, was a
sad poacher, or something worse, for she used to tempt the deer
from the Duke of Norfolk’s park over her boundary with green
oats, and then shoot them with a cross bow. Nor was she
impelled to these unneighbourly acts from sporting motives,
but only by the sordid aim of feeding her domestics at his
Grace’s cost, till they themselves cried out at being treated
to “ black mutton four days in the week ” She was also
addicted to snaring the small game in Greystoke Park, and
practising all kinds of poaching wiles. Dame Dorothy was
at length summoned to the assizes at Cockermouth, to answer
for her unneighbourly depredations. One of the Fletchers was
counsel for the prosecution on this occasion, a family who
had recently achieved landed position through success in the
wool trade, and were rather touchy on the subject. “ Here
comes Madame Halton with her traps and her gins ! ” called out
the incautious barrister as this Diana from Greenthwaite entered
the court;11 And there,” retorted the lady, “sits Counsellor Fletcher
with his packs and his pins l ” a ready-witted rejoinder, that, in
Ireland at any rate, would have ensured her a legal as well﻿72
A NOTABLE PARISH
CHAP.
as a controversial triumph. Of how she fared history says
nothing.
But we are rapidly leaving this bit of green low ground, so
rich in soil, in foliage, and in memories, behind us, as we pass
through the little hamlet of Penruddock, another reminder in
its name of dim Celtic times, and see Blencathra, yet another
one, looming large before us. We are still, however, in this most
notable parish of Greystoke, which numbered within its bounds
for centuries a ducal family and at least half a dozen manor-
houses of repute. It is not many country churches of com-
parative aloofness from the world that from the Tudor to
nearly the Victorian period can boast of ringing to church on
Sundays such a substantial gathering of land-owning armigers
as this one of Greystoke, which can be plainly seen standing
apart from the village which clusters round the park gates.
No traveller indeed who cares for such things should miss
Greystoke Church. Its low warlike-looking tower of red
freestone needs no reminder of the sort of service it has
sometimes been called upon to render. The body of the
church, which is of late fourteenth century creation and of noble
proportions, contains three aisles, and covers the site of a
former fabric with, as is supposed, tolerable accuracy. It had
a collegiate character, and its founder, a knight in chain armour,
lies at full length in alabaster within the building, while the old
sedilia occupy their proper position in the spacious chancel,
which, by the way, is a modern replica of an older one. There
is also a fine old screen, and windows emblazoned with the
arms of Howard, Blencowe, Huddleston, Vaux, Musgrave
and others, who have been, or still are, lords of manors in this
distinguished parish. Most of the great Strathclyde missioners
too passed up and down this country. St. Patrick we have al-
ready met with; St. Ninian was here, and, according to Bede,
performed miracles at Dacre ; Kentigern, who went to Wales
and founded St. Asaph, was almost certainly a frequent
visitor. The next parish of Mungrisedale itself commemorates﻿Ill
ON THE PENRITH AND KESWICK ROAD
73
his other name of St. Mungo, while the famous church of
Crosthwaite at Keswick is also a Kentigern dedication.
But enough of Celtic saints. We have reached the water-
shed, and at the same time the half-way house on the eighteen
miles run from Penrith to Keswick. You might well think that
the only road entering the Lake Country from the east would
be a much travelled one. But in many journeys over it, and
for the most part in the finest of weather, I have rarely met
any one but farmers. It is a tolerable road too, though it has
to cross at Troutbeck some high ridge land. But what chiefly
keeps it so quiet I have no doubt is the railroad that follows
almost the same route. For in the Lake Country a road that
does not actually climb a pass or border on a lake is usually
written down by the authorities as dull. Those however who
are not pressed for time will do well to take this one, for here,
on the dividing ridge at Troutbeck, and for some miles on
either side, you are lifted well up above the world, and it is a fair
world too that lies between the Eden valley and Saddleback
or Blencathra—between the Pennine and, Helvellyn ranges.
This Troutbeck, by the way, must not be confused with that
other one near Windermere. There is in truth little here but
an inn and a few cottages, set high in a windy country of
reclaimed moorland. There is a rifle range, to be sure—an
object just now of welcome significance, and apparently well
patronised. The smooth bulk of Mell fell too, which is such
an outstanding feature here, should be large enough to stop
the wildest bullet that ever sped from a recruit’s Lee Metford.
Over the green and russet uplands of Matterdale Common
yonder, where plovers and curlews are screaming above their
fresh hatched young, the white high road winds to Gowbarrow
on Ullswater, but five miles distant. So the tourist usually
trains to Troutbeck, and is carried thence by the friendly char-
a-banc, or some more exclusive vehicle, to Patterdale.
We have a long downward run into the valley of the
Glendermakin, which, right in front of us, opens a gateway﻿74
A BREEZY UPLAND
CHAP.
between the northern limit of the Helvellyn range and the
Skiddaw and Blencathra group. Before beginning the descent,,
we may enjoy a really fine outlook over Matterdale and
Threlkeld Commons, and the wild moors that from thence
swell gradually upwards to Clough Head and the. Great Dodd
and the other shoulders of the Helvellyn range. On the right,
the foot hills of Saddleback are beginning to shut us in, though
not before we have caught just a glimpse of the Caldbeck
moors, and John Peel’s country far away to the north. A
The Road, Keswick, to Penrith.
lonely house—indeed it is a lonely road—stands by the way-
side, some halfway down the slope. Approaching it from the
east, it is not in the least likely that any cyclist would be
going slow enough to notice a small inscription on the wall.
A frivolous rider would almost certainly be in the full enjoy-
ment of a two mile run with his feet up, while the more sober
wheelman, under the stimulus of a good road and a gentle
downward slope, would be enjoying the delightful prospect
that had just opened ahead of him, It is, to be sure, quite﻿Ill
A FORGOTTEN HOSTELRY
75
possible that either of these might take the solitary building at
Moor End for a house of refreshment—as indeed it once was—
and in looking for the long vanished sign by chance encounter
the plate on its whitewashed wall bearing the following
inscription—
This building’s age
These letters show
Though many gaze
Yet few may know
MDCCIX.
The architect evidently did not rate the intelligence of the
neighbourhood in 1709 very highly.
This was once a busy hostelry enough, though now so lonely
and forlorn, and was known in the coaching days as the Sun
Inn. It was kept from 1790 to 1850 by a well known couple
named Hutchinson. The old lady, who went on crutches for
the last part of her life, was a popular gossip, and no regular
travellers when the coach stopped there failed to visit the
chimney corner in the kitchen and have a crack with her.
Mr. Wilson, of Keswick, has preserved a somewhat character-
istic reply given by old Isaac Hutchinson to Bass’s agents
when they first travelled the country, placing large orders
everywhere, in consequence of the increasing demand from
tourists.
“I git aw my yal,” said the old Tory, “fra Alfred Eemison
o’ t’ Burns, an’ it’s alius varra good; bit I divvent want to
be unneighbourly—what, ye mun send me a hofe quarter ”
(42 gallons).
At the foot of the long hill we cross the babbling current of the
Glendermakin on its way from Mungrisedale, and, running
parallel with its course, go rising and falling with the road over
the rough toes of Blencathra, and beneath its mighty shadow
to the ancient village of Threlkeld. Down in the meadows on
the left, the tall stone chimneys of Threlkeld Hall rise above
the trees, a venerable farmhouse, once a seat of the potent﻿76
THRELKELD HALL
CHAP.
knight of that name, who, it may be remembered, married the
widow of the Black Clifford, and the mother of the “ Shepherd
Lord.” The manor was even in those days, according to the
owner’s own showing, full of fighting yeomen.
A still greater Conservative than even Sir John Threlkeld, I
have heard somewhere, lived at Threlkeld Hall not very long
ago : for when the landlord, to the immense satisfaction of the
tenant’s family, proposed to refloor the ancient kitchen, the old
gentleman in possession, whom age had consigned to his arm
On the way to the Lake, Kcs^vick.
chair, offered the stoutest resistance, urging the time-honoured
plea, that as it had done well enough for him and his ancestors,
it should be more than good enough for degenerate moderns
and their descendants. As this stout preserver of ancient
monuments refused to move, he and his chair were lifted
bodily about during the progress of the work, under a steady
fire of protest.
The valley is still fairly populous; grey or whitewashed
homesteads, blinking between the fresh June leaves of the﻿ill	IN MEMORY OF FOXHUNTERS	77
sycamore, which is the great “shade tree” of the Cumbrian
farmhouse, are everywhere in evidence as we descend it.
They do not shelter fighting, but fox-hunting yeomen nowa-
days, as is sufficiently indicated by a monument in Threlkeld
churchyard, which we must by no means pass by. Here
indeed is a memorial I will venture with much confidence
to assert is unique of its kind ; for near the gate of the grave-
yard, which opens on the village street, is a homely cenotaph
of local stone, and on it are inscribed the names of over forty
fox-hunters, natives of Threlkeld parish, who have died within
the last twenty or thirty years.
“ A few friends ” (we read) “ have contributed to raise this
stone in loving memory of the undernamed, who in their genera-
tion were noted veterans of the chase, all of whom lie in this
churchyard
Then comes the long list of typical border names—Cock-
bains, Hudsons, Brownriggs, Bells, Atkinsons, and so forth,
giving the date of the birth and death of each departed
sportsman. Around the cenotaph, and below the names, we
may read, though not without some difficulty,
The forest music is to hear the hounds
Rend the thin air, and with a lusty cry
Awake the drowsy echoes and confound
Their perfect language in a mingled cry.
A space is left for the names of those still living who may
be thought worthy of this measure of local immortality, when
the day comes that they are called to more shadowy hunting
grounds. The most famous perhaps of all Cumbrian sports-
men, though over four score years of age, is still hale and, what
is more, residing within a few hundred yards of this very spot
—no less a person than Mr. Crozier, the present master of the
Blencathara hounds, who seeing that he has hunted them for
sixty years may fairly be accounted the Nestor of his profession
in all England.
Threlkeld churchyard is certainly an ideal spot for the last﻿78
THRELICELD CHURCH
CHAP.
resting place of fell fox-hunters. Blencathra, with its. steep
sides riven into dark gorges and its huge supporting buttresses,
towers over it on the north, while to the south, not a mile away,
leap up the northern outworks of the Helvellyn range. St.
Kentigern himself is said to have preached where the church
now stands, which last, in the way of remarkable ugliness, wholly
mitigated by antiquity, is well worth a look inside. From
what point of view it thus repays inspection is another matter,
certainly not from either the Early English or the Perpen-
dicular. For it is a barn pure and simple : not indeed very far
from an actual square, and carrying a bell turret; but then the
fact of its being such an ancient barn just makes all the
difference. The whole floor of the west end is sloped like the
pit of a theatre; and the pews would cause infinite anguish of
mind to experts in church furniture, for they suggest the two first
Georges in uncompromising fashion. The general appearance
is that of a conventicle; but a conventicle of the Civil War
period at least, it is so quaint. Restoration is of course in the
air—or rebuilding as it would practically mean, which is a costly
business, and Threlkeld would seem to have neither resident
magnates, nor many summer visitors. It may seem unkind,
but I trust Threlkeld Church may be spared to us. Restored
churches are as common as blackberries, but I do not think
there can be more than one Threlkeld. There is a rugged
simplicity too about it, which is in keeping with a graveyard so
plentifully strewn with the remains of simple hardy fox-hunters.
Very different indeed are these Lakeland sportsmen from
the smart gentlemen who take hunting boxes in the shires.
They know as little of cross-country riding as perhaps some of
these latter do of hounds and foxes. Social statisticians of a
cynical turn sometimes amuse themselves by guessing at the
proportion of Englishmen who hunt from other reasons
than love of it. Nobody ever gets up at six in the morning
and goes a hunting with the Blencathra hounds—who by
the way are kennelled here, or any of the Lake packs, for﻿Ill
CUMBRIAN SPORTSMEN
79
other reasons than to see hounds hunt. It is needless
too, to remark that the horse plays no part whatever in the
business. Every one, including the master and whip, goes afoot,
a proceeding which one glance at the country would make
immediately explicable, though a horse might be used by some
to get to the meet, just as a cycle or a trap might be by others.
Indeed, I met Bowman, the veteran huntsman of the Ullswater
mountain hounds, one summer day in Patterdale, exercising his
own pack, as well as a low country one that he had in charge,
on a bicycle, and I confess to being struck by something of
incongruity in the spectacle. Now, Bowman, with one
exception perhaps, has killed more foxes and walked more
thousands of miles than any Lake country sportsman. It is
said of him, with pardonable hyperbole, by his friends, that
he could go blindfold from Kidsty to Scafell on a misty
winter’s night, but all the same he is sadly unmindful of
his dignity. If he were only the popular huntsman of the
Blankshire Blazers, he would know what was expected of him.
and the right attitude to assume towards the unspeakable bike.
But here was this simple Cumbrian sportsman quite enthusiastic
with his mount. He could exercise his hounds to greater
advantage on it for both himself and them, he declared; and
it saved him many a weary mile of road tramping in the
hunting season.
These mountain hunt clubs are democratic associations.
Subscriptions range from £\o to a shilling, and the smallest
subscriber is as welcome as the largest. The Dale farmers,
who turn out in great strength, are their chief mainstay ; but
many of the local tradesmen are zealous and experienced
sportsmen, farmers’ sons some of them, and bred to hunting
in their youth. There are four packs of hounds at least in the
Lake country kept entirely for fell hunting, to say nothing of
two or three more who divide beween them the adjoining low
country, and occasionally run into the mountains. Ten couple
is about the number of hounds usually kept in work, some of﻿8o
HOUNDS AND FOXES
CHAP.
which will be on the flags through the summer, and some at
walk with various members of the hunt. These mountain hounds,
it goes without saying, have been carefully bred for their special
work for generations, and can make fast going over precipitous
and rocky ground that would bring an ordinary foxhound to a
standstill. The killing of foxes too has here a double signifi-
cance—that of real necessity as well as sport; for even four packs
find it by no means easy to keep the stock in the Lake country
within reasonable limits, and the toll of lambs levied is a high
one. One large sheep farmer of my acquaintance averages his
annual loss at thirty ! Hunting is, on this account, often carried
on till very late in the season, and I have heard the woody
cliffs of Borrowdale echo to the crash of hounds in full cry as
late as the end of May.
The mountain foxes breed as a rule in screes and rocky
wastes in lofty and remote situations. Sunrise is the primitive
but profitable hour for commencing operations, unless of course
there has been much frost on the mountains. There are no
coverts to draw, and Reynard must be hunted on the drag
in the early morning as he returns with supper undigested
from his nightly rambles. The main pleasure of the busi-
ness consists of course in seeing hounds work and run;
and the experienced fell hunter, with average luck, and his
own knowledge of the sport and the country, can by judicious
manoeuvring see a great deal of this. These foxes do not
as a rule, unless very hard pressed, leave their particular
country. Those for instance on the Fairfield and Helvellyn
range will not usually cross the Threlkeld valley to Skiddaw
and Blencathara ; while the Skiddaw fox, with the wide range of
his own forest and the Caldbeck fells, would have to be in sore
straits before he faced the Greta and the vale of Keswick, and
trailed his draggled brush into the wilds of Whinlatter or
Wythop. But as it is, he often runs away, and the hounds with
him, from the most vigorous and most knowing of the field,
leaving them nothing for it but to go home and speculate on﻿Ill
FELL FOX HUNTING
Si
the probable issue of the chase. The dogs frequently sleep
out on their own account after long runs, putting up at any
friendly farmhouse that happens to be handy. Foxes too
being plentiful the small pack often divides, and two or three
couple of hounds frequently kill their fox after a long run. I
am assured, by well-known members of both the Blencathara
and Ullswater hunts, that there is scarcely an old hound in
their respective packs that has not at some time or other hunted
and killed a fox single-handed. In the bye days at the close
of the season, provoked by the bitter cry of sheep-farmers, the
small pack is sometimes split up into two, or even into three
small drafts, so that more than one district can be dealt with
on the same day.
There are always plenty of terriers out too, both regulars and
volunteers, and they play an especially prominent part in these
mountains : for some of the holts among the rocks are of pro-
digious depth. Sometimes the terriers fail altogether to regain
the upper air, and are not unfrequently lost for days in these sub-
terranean labyrinths, turning up at home after they have been
given up for lost and duly mourned. I have seen one tyke, still
in full work, who once spent eleven days in the bowels of Raven
crag, over yonder towards Thirlmere. In this precipitous country
it is quite a frequent thing for a fox, and indeed for hounds and
terriers too, to get “binked”1 in the heat of the chase—to find
themselves, that is to say, on a ledge of rock from which they
can neither go back nor forward. If Master Reynard lands
himself in this predicament, stones are used from above as an
inducement to him to take the risks, while a dog can as a rule be
rescued by a crag climber and a rope. It is a fine wild sport
this, and has immense fascination for those who are fond of
hound work. A few strangers do come north for it in the
winter, and it is only surprising that there are not more. There
is certainly no part of Great Britain where the farmers, and for
obvious reasons, are so generally addicted to foxhunting. The
1 “ Bink ” is an old border term for shelf.
G﻿82
APPROACH TO KESWICK
CHAP,
horse question, of necessity limits the number in a lowland
country, while following on foot under such conditions has none
of the advantages for seeing the sport offered by the great bare
and mostly grass covered mountains of Cumberland and West-
moreland. Besides the two packs already mentioned, there
are or were others at Coniston and Wastdale Head respec-
tively, which hunt on the same lines.
Threlkeld is four miles from Keswick. We have not gone
one when the Greta, noisy with such streams as the Manchester
Corporation can spare from Thirlmere, sparkles beneath the
road, and away into that series of wooded glens that make its
descent to Keswick so notably romantic. Rising the hill beyond,
the vale of St. John opens out on the left, and squeezing between
Naddle fell and Wanthwaite crags vanishes from sight in the
direction of Thirlmere. Saddleback, on our right, gives place
to Skiddaw. Lattrig, crowned and robed with woods, confronts
us; while the Borrowdale fells, rolling round the head of the dark
hollow where Thirlmere lies, join the Helvellyn group at Dun-
mail raise upon the verge of sight. Another low hill and we are
atop of the last ridge, Bassenthwaite gleams ahead and beneath
us, in the lap of woods and hills. The whole range of moun-
tains that divide that lake and Derwentwater from the west
bursts into view, all gloriously illumined by the slow descending
sun, and showing so obviously the path by which the waters
of all this country below us travel to the open country and
the sea. It is wonderful indeed what bold shapes these
miniature Alps assume as the shadows of approaching evening
begin to creep among them. The outstanding Pikes of Grise-
dale and Grasmoor, of Robinson and Causey, are none of them
three thousand feet, nor in the glare of morning or mid-day
do they look it; yet touch them with storm or shadow, a
golden sunset or a black thunderstorm, and their altitude in
figures becomes a thing of nought.
The descent into Keswick is more gradual, and nothing like
the fearsome business it is by the more travelled route over﻿Ill
SHELLEY
83
yonder to the left, which comes from Thirlmere and Ambleside,
and pitches you down to the lake level in a way to be remem-
bered. We may here run down gradually, and with sufficient
confidence, to spare a glance over the left shoulder to the
house on Chestnut Hill where Shelley, at nineteen or there-
abouts, lived for some months with his girl bride, and as a
mere stranger aroused the indignation of the good matured
Southey by the rent that an over-greedy landlord was exacting
of his youthful inexperience. We come upon level terms
with the rocky loud roaring Greta at the same instant the
pleasant suburbs of the town are entered : and, after following
its course for half a mile or so, are landed fairly in Keswick
streets.
Now the situation of Keswick may in truth, and fairly, I
think, be claimed as the most beautiful enjoyed by any town
in England. When guide books enunciate in dogmatic
fashion that this pass or that valley “ has no equal in Great
Britain,” thus intruding individual taste or perhaps even
G 2﻿84
A CHEERFUL TOWN
CHAP.
local prejudice in the garb of information, one is apt to wax
impatient. But Keswick could be proved by mere geography
to occupy a site that no other town of several thousand souls
in England can offer any parallel to. At any rate if there
be such a town I cannot imagine what or where it is. For
immediately behind Keswick the noble mass of Skiddaw fills
the whole sky upon the north; and Skiddaw, though sneered
at by cragsmen, is in outline and dignified independence of
position one of the finest as it is almost the highest of
northern mountains. Upon the other side, and almost from
its doorsteps, the only lake that in beauty is generally thought
to rival the head of Ullswater spreads away to the southward,
and gleams among its marvellous setting of wood and crag
and mountain. To the west the vale of the Derwent spreads
a rich green carpet of pasture, wood and meadowland, through
which that turbulent river, just released from the upper lake,
rolls beneath high and grassy banks to merge itself again in
the quiet depths of Bassenthwaite. Keswick itself is a cheery
little place of some three or four thousand souls, that in the
days before railroads must have enjoyed a great measure of
seclusion from the outer world. It has no social and historic
memories such as cling to Penrith. Save for its dim associations
with the Derwentwater family, it was but a gathering place for
statesmen, and a sprinkling of small gentry—a little mountain
capital, where wool was woven and sheep bought and sold.
The only remains of the ill-fated house of Radcliffe are the
stones of the Town-hall, standing in the centre of the wide
high street, which are said to have come from the old mansion
on Lord’s island, together with a bell that certainly once hung
there.
Lead pencils are the industry that Keswick chiefly plumes
itself on. A hundred or two souls thus make their living
amid an aroma of cedar that floats not unpleasantly about the
banks of the Greta, whose roaring stream turns their factory
wheels. Many hundred tourists however deem it incumbent﻿Ill
LEAD PENCILS
85
on them to go and see these same pencils made, and stimulate
the industry, no doubt, by buying many contrivances in cedar
they do not want, and would not dream of purchasing at home.
I was myself several weeks in Keswick, and successfully resisted
the still small voice which every wet afternoon—though these, I
am bound to say, were not many—tortured me with whispers
of the pencil factory, till the very last day, when I weakly yielded.
My forebodings were more than justified, and I am supplied with
pencils and penholders for the rest of my life ; to say nothing
of some wholly useless cedar boxes, and a monstrosity called
a pencil walking stick. All these things too I purchased with
a deliberation that in the open air afterwards seemed incredible ;
and the more so as I am bound to say, no sort of pressure
is put upon the intelligent visitor. His craving to support a local
industry, beyond the main one he is already supporting, is, I
fancy, as spontaneous as it is evanescent.
Having purchased the esteem of the pencil makers I was
also entitled to their confidences, which led me to suppose,
among other things, that they do not hold our American
cousins in any great regard, declaring that, while their interest
in the machinery is greater than that of others, and the ques-
tions they ask more numerous, a desire to possess themselves
of samples of the work is conspicuously lacking. But Americans
surely have some excuse if any is needed. Those in Lakeland
will for the most part be either at the beginning or the end
of a European tour. If the former, they will not be anxious
to carry Keswick wares to Paris, Rome, and Vienna; if the
latter, their trunks will be full to bursting. As a matter of
fact, however, Americans seem curiously unpopular with all
the catering fraternity of the Lake country, except the pro-
prietors of the hotels they actually stop at, which to be sure is
an eminently saving clause.
The vendors of photographs or curiosities declare that
American tourists give them no end of trouble, and buy nothing.
The tip-expecting class complain that their most obvious and﻿86
SOME AMERICAN TOURISTS
CHAP.
most equitable claims are often disregarded—a note which, I
believe, is being sounded, and not wholly without justice, even
in London, and a sharp reaction surely from the lavishness in
this respect that was the burden of the British tourist’s complaint
in former days. The fact is, I take it, an immense number of
Americans of a class "that did not formerly travel now cross the
Atlantic. Strict economy is often necessary to the accomplish-
ment of the projected tour, and the disposition to distinguish
between superfluous or extortionate fees and those which are as
equitable and as morally obligatory as if posted on a tariff,
seems to be lacking. This probably arises more often than not
from a very natural inability to adjust their ideas to circum-
stances which are genuinely different from any they are used
to at home.
One minor cause of complaint is not without its humorous
side, and proceeds from the wayside hostelries where coaches
stop for changing horses, or for quenching the thirst of man
and beast. Now one of the features of American life is of
course that unnatural craving for cold water, iced if possible,
which, stimulated by habit, amounts almost to a vice; for
it does sound somewhat abnormal to hear a coach load of
young women on a chilly morning speculating as to the
earliest chance of gratifying an appetite so morbid and
unseasonable. But the rosy-faced matron of the Black Bull
or the Dun Coiv has yet more practical objections to so
untoward a practice. Carrying out gratuitous glasses of the
hostile element not only to young women but to able-bodied
men goes sorely against the grain. She would scarcely indeed
be human if she did not resent a tax upon her good nature
that added something of insult to the injury. Englishmen
would not dare thus much, even supposing they followed the
pernicious habit of drinking cold water between meals, and
iced water at all times. I think the publican who has enterprise
enough to store ice and retail iced water to American tourists
at a penny a glass has a bright future before him. People who﻿m
A PROMISING ENTERPRISE
87
often begin their breakfast with this cheerless draught in January
will not stick at a penny on a dusty road in July or August,
and there is really no reason why any bad habit should
be indulged in gratis. I have made a present of what I believe
to be a really valuable suggestion to every wayside innkeeper﻿88
IMPORTUNATE JEHUS
CHAP.
in the Lake Country of my acquaintance. I doubt, however,
but that the question of ice has even yet too unattainable
a sound about it for the rural Englishman.
Various small local industries are pressed upon the attention
of the visitor as he saunters about the pleasant streets and
lanes of Keswick. But it really is so very obvious that its
absorbing industry is entertaining tourists, driving them about,
rowing them on the lake, bedding them, feeding them and
supplying them generally with all the necessaries and such
superfluities as they want, that the overwhelming predominance
of so cheerful a trade makes one inclined perhaps to be a
bit cynical about the “local industry,” and lukewarm in one’s
curiosity as to whether this one employs fifty hands or that
one three men and a boy. Places are apt to occur to one
where five or ten times the entire population of Keswick are
hanging for their daily bread upon some precarious production
or the slight turn of a market. Skiddaw and Derwentwater
are much better than a gold mine to Keswick, which is also a
great distributing centre for notable places around. From
May till October char-a-bancs and coaches perambulate the
outskirts of the town each morning in a steady stream, and the
eagle eyes of the competing Jehus search every cranny of your
domicile. You may be shaving at an upper window, or having
breakfast at a lower one, or discussing household matters in
the basement, but they will never fail to find you out and
compel your attention to the fact that they are about to start
for Buttermere or Ambleside.
Keswick, as I have said, is a cheery place, and should be a
prosperous one. It is void, or nearly so, of architectural
offence, but has nothing of particular interest within the town
limits. The public gardens are delightful, stretching along
the banks of the Greta. And it may be well perhaps to
remind the reader that this is not the Greta of Rokeby and of
Scott. Its banks, like those of the other, are “gay,” and its woods
of a truth are “ fresh and fair.” But Brignall is fifty miles off,﻿Ill
GRETA HALL
89
while this Greta, “Southey’s Greta,” as some of the hand-
books call it, not Scott’s, rises in Thirlmere, as I have already
intimated. With all the claims that Southey has to our
admiration, it seems a trifle incongruous to link him in such
fashion with a turbulent mountain stream, even though it did
flow near his house ; for if ever there was an indoor man
and a bookworm it was Southey. His friends used sometimes
to wonder that he enjoyed such good health with so little
exercise.
Greta Hall, where part of the time as Poet Laureate and for
the greater part of it as the most industrious prose writer of his
day, Southey lived for forty years, lies on the western outskirts of
the town. It is an ugly but capacious house, redeemed in some
sort by the big trees around it and the glorious mountain view
that it commands. To many people Greta Hall will be the
most interesting spot in Keswick. For Southey came here in
1803, and rarely left it till his death in 1843, maintaining by
his pen a comfortable home, not only for his own family but for
that of his erratic genius of a brother-in-law, S. T. Coleridge, and
his wife’s widowed sister, Mrs. Lovel. Cuied of his youthful
phantasies, when he came to Keswick, Southey presents us
with the none too common picture of a famous poet and
author whose private life was neither disreputable, eccentric,
nor peevish. All one hears of him as a man compels our
admiration. Till his well-earned fame brought him, together
with many other honours, a pension from the Crown, Southey’s
indefatigable pen was the only means of livelihood, not only
for his own family, but for those other relatives to whom in
the kindness of his heart he gave a permanent home. H is
industry, as all the world knows, was quite phenomenal. His
books and poems were supplemented with a continual flow of
essays and reviews, his long connection with the “ Quarterly ”
being one of the leading features in his literary career. He
succeeded in maintaining the establishment at Greta Hall with
its numerous inmates in sufficient comfort and simple refine-﻿90
SOUTHEY
CHAP.
ment, and steadily refused all increase of fortune which would
have necessitated leaving Keswick. Southey was in short a
blameless and a well bred gentleman. He had neither the un-
desirable habits of some of his contemporaries nor the boorish-
ness and fecklessness of others. His hair was black, his face
pale, his features clear cut and refined, as is well shown by his
marble effigy in Crosthwaite Church across the meadows
yonder. He was neat in dress and particular about his person ;
polished and courteous in manner, practical in his affairs—an
astonishing combination surely for a man of his peculiar genius
—Southey’s great passion was books, and he collected at Greta
Hall a most valuable library, to which he was devotedly attached,
handling the precious volumes with dainty and loving care.
He used to say that letting Wordsworth, who seems to have
had few books and those ill arranged and ill preserved, into his
library was like “ turning a bear into a tulip garden.” Though
one of the hardest working men of his day he bore the inroads
upon his time made by visitors introduced to his hospitality
with a serene good nature that is rare enough. In matters oi
honour he seems to have been almost hyper-sensitive, and
De Quincey declares that a more exemplary man than Southey
in all probability never lived. The same distinguished author
makes an interesting comparison as regards the smaller matters
of life between his two friends, Southey and Wordsworth, who,
the reader may perhaps be reminded, were for most of their
lives on by no means intimate terms.
The former, says De Quincey, is “ certainly a more amiable
man than Wordsworth. He is less capable, for instance, of
usurping an undue share of the conversation ; he is more
uniformly disposed to be charitable in his transient colloquial
judgments upon doubtful actions of his neighbours; more
gentle and winning in his condescensions to inferior
knowledge or powers of mind; more willing to suppose it
possible that he himself may have fallen into an error; more
tolerant of avowed indifference towards his own writings: and﻿Ill
ACCOMMODATION IN KESWICK
9i
finally, if the reader will pardon so violent an anticlimax,
much more ready to volunteer his assistance in carrying a
lady’s reticule or parasol.”
The chief hotel at Keswick is a very grand establishment,
standing on high ground outside the town and hard by the
station, with a fine outlook. The others are of the old-fashioned
description, and, I have no doubt, comfortable, but are mostly
in the centre of the town—a situation which does not com-
mend itself to me when touring in a fine country at mid-
summer. On the side, however, nearest the lake there are
terraces of excellent houses facing the mountains and the
open country, and commanding beautiful views, where most
comfortable quarters can be had at extremely reasonable rates.
My experience of this particular class of entertaiment in the
Lake Country leads me to think well of the local landlady.
There is little perhaps of that conspicuous and demonstrative
interest in your comfort which makes so many Welshwomen
past mistresses in their art. You would not expect it in a
country where the Celtic strain is slight, but there is a high
average of integrity and sufficiently good manners. Many
people will prefer the privacy of apartments to the crowded
rooms of an hotel, and cherish a fancy for regulating their
own hours and their own menu. In the case of a family too
the cost of living, with, upon the whole, an equal amount of
comfort, is just about half that of the most reasonable inn.
For such people Keswick seems to me to offer the best head-
quarters on many accounts in the Lake Country. With the
help of the railway, in addition to coach or cycle, more, I think,
can be accomplished without shifting quarters than from any
other centre. Lastly, as at Penrith, there is a most admirable
reading room and library, an advantage which the traveller may
in the anticipation perhaps make light of, but will probably
find reason at some time or other to be thankful for,﻿Crossthivaite Church.
CHAPTER IV.
Let us away then over Greta bridge at the western end oi
the town, past Southey’s now somewhat forlorndooking house
again, and so along the smooth surface of the Cockermouth
road, till in less than no time St. Kentigern’s ancient church at
Crossthwaite confronts us and calls for something more than a
passing allusion. For this is in fact the old parish church of
Keswick, though lying a long half mile away amid the quiet
fields and woods. One of the largest and most important in
the whole Lake Country, it has its roots in the early British
Christianity of the Strathclyde period, before Angles, Danes and
Norwegians filled this region with their “ wicks and thwaites,”
and “ thorpes ” and “ bys,” their paganism and their strenuous
blood. Whatever building or buildings marked the sacred
spot through these dark centuries, the massive tower of this one,
looking almost as old as Skiddaw itself, which frowns behind,
makes an impressive picture set thus in the very bosom of so﻿CH. IV
TIIE REFORMATION
93
sweet a vale. The body of the fabric is of Perpendicular style
and generous proportions, and beneath its roof, among other
things, is the marble effigy of Southey before referred to, and a
monument to John Radcliffe Earl of Derwentwater, reminding
one of the time before the ’fifteen, when that unfortunate
family lost their mountain kingdom in no ignoble if mistaken
fashion.
The wide-spreading churchyard too, whose heaving turf and
battalions of grey tombstones suggest such a store of local
memories, is not surpassed for charm of situation by many
churchyards even in England; and here also are the poet and
the painter, the traveller and the brief sojourner, whom grim
death has caught perhaps unawares and sent to lie under the
shadow of Skiddaw among the burghers and statesmen whose
names so unmistakably proclaim them natives of the soil in
which their bones are mouldering.
Even in the time of Elizabeth, Crossthwaite still possessed
quite a valuable collection of plate and vestments, due in part
no doubt to the fact that no great landowners would have
ventured here, where the statesmen’s interest was so strong, to
rob the church of its valuables, as was done elsewhere. Bishop
Barnes, of Carlisle, however, in 1571 ordered both plate and
vestments to be sold, and part of the proceeds applied to
purchasing the simpler accessories required for the Protestant
ritual. The Reformation fell with peculiar hardship on these
two north-western counties, the people lost everything, and
gained almost literally nothing. The “ Rising of the North,”
with the restoration of the ancient faith as a leading object,
instigated by Leonard Dacre, and known as “ Dacre’s raid,”
had just been suppressed, as, thirty years before, “ Aske’s
rebellion,” or the “ Pilgrimage of Gracef in which the two
counties joined with Yorkshire, had similarly failed. The
gentry, who had been such great gainers by confiscated Church
lands, could hardly be expected to risk their heads for mere
sentiment, but among the people generally the same hatred of﻿94
SOME ANCIENT MISDEMEANANTS
CHAP.
the new order of things smouldered as in Wales. Clergymen
and churchwardens were enjoined to special strictness, and to
make presentments against all offenders in their parishes.
Here are some specimens from the Court of High Commission
at Carlisle.
“ William Smyth, curate of Edenhall, presented to wear his
hose lowse at the knees.
John Dockher, for playing on his pipes when the curate was
at evening prayer.
Anna Harrison, widow, suspected of witchcraft.
Maria Hutton, a widow lady, for wearing beads.
John Taylor, for suspect of sorcerie for that he had knyt in
cows taile staves, salt and herbes.
Thos. Hodgson, for ringing a bell at the last flood to
provoke people to prayer.
Agnes Watson, for keeping a dead man’s scalpe.
Hugh Askewe, for burying a quick nowrt and a dog and a
quick cock.”
Others, again, refuse to learn their Catechism, curse their
father and mother, their ministers and their wives, scold their
husbands, practise usury, “are medicioners for the waffe of
an ill winde and for the fayryes,” while one audacious
individual is reported to have cast his glove down in Irthington
Church, and offered to fight any one that would pick it up.
Such were the peccadilloes, real and imaginary, of a Cumbrian
parish in the days of Raleigh and Spencer.
The Derwent murmurs gently now between flowery meadows
and waving hay-fields, and hedgerows laden with the snowy
blossoms of the May. They are thin enough now, these amber
streams, that swish between the arches of the bridge which lifts
us over into Portinscale; but there are seasons in the Vale of
Keswick when the channel of the Derwent is quite inadequate
for the demands that two big lakes—for Thirlmere and the
Greta come this way, and a score of lusty tributaries—make
upon its space. Portinscale is one of those names that suggest﻿IV
THE VALE OF NEWLANDS
95
the expulsion of the Celt, and the lodgment of the Norseman,
with a force sufficient to pierce the most indifferent ear. Other-
wise this prosperous suburb, if it may so be called, of Keswick
is chiefly notable for its big hotel with gardens stretching lake-
wards, where visitors of leisurely habits, and a good deal of
luggage and gastronomic proclivities, seem at all times to fore-
gather in great abundance, and small blame to them.
In five minutes we are crossing the mouth of the Vale of
Newlands, and the well-known beck which drains it is rippling
beneath the road in low* and murmuring fashion. We may
bestow a reminiscent thought perhaps as we cross it on the wild
spot that gives it birth, where the traveller, after surmounting
the crest of Buttermere Hause, sees a silvery thread trailing from
the summit of a grey precipice; and let no man lingering in
these parts neglect the ascent of this ever charming Vale, as we
are forced to do. It is narrow enough even here at its mouth ;
and at the farther side the village of Braithwaite nestles beneath﻿g6
AN ANCIENT VILLAGE
CHAP.
the fells, as old-fashioned and self-absorbed looking a place
as if its people spoke another language and worshipped other
gods from those of the tourists who have raised its dust
for the last hundred years. Here, among other places, is still
held a manorial court, where the curious rights of the old border
tenure are jealously watched over as matters not of sentiment
but of some practical importance. A first-class coach-road
bears us smoothly onward through the hamlet of Thornthwaite,
The Vale of Newlancis.
and away down past the old Swan Inn beloved of anglers to
the margin of Bassenthwaite. The Vale of Keswick, with the
meandering Derwent glistening through green marshes into
the lake head, spreads upon our right to the foot of Skiddaw,
while upon the left Barf mountain and Thornthwaite fell
shut out the higher and wilder hills behind.
And now, for four miles, the lake’s full length, we slip along
with scarcely a rise or fall, through almost unbroken woodland,
and, but a stone’s throw distant, the water glimmers and twinkles﻿IV
BASSENTHWAITE
97
through a screen of freshly opened leaves. But once in a while
the woods open and expose to view the whole shining surface
of the lake, with the groves and parklands that adorn its further
shores, and the majestic pile of Skiddaw, with its storm washed
and buttressed sides, and its bold crest towering above all
Nor is it borne in upon one with much insistence that a railway
runs along the wooded bank between road and lake, so hidden
for the most part is its track. At long intervals there is a rattle
and a brief commotion, a cloud of smoke, a stampede of wood-
pigeons, a scuttle of rabbits, and the horrid thing is gone, and
there is peace for the next hour or two. But now in June,
saving always Whitsun week, there is very little traffic of
any kind even here. This shore road is quiet, and the leaves
rustle and the water laps softly on the rocks below, while a
falling rivulet, born in the fells above, splashes now and again
through moss and ferns on to the road side, and burrows its
hidden way into the lake beneath us. The thorn and hazel
undergrowths are alive with song : rooks are hoarsely noisy in
the tall tree tops. The May-fly is not yet up on this latest of
Cumbrian lakes to hatch it, but duns of various shades strag-
gling even this far from their watery haunts,
Try their thin wings, and dance in the warm beam
That waked them into life.
There are more trout in Bassenthwaite than there used to be
and fewer pike; a blessed reversion of the usual order of
things, which I am told is due to recent mine washings having
affected the spawning beds of the latter to the obvious advan-
tage of the others. This long western shore of Bassenthwaite is
moreover unbroken, or nearly so, by human habitation. Above
us, though mostly unseen, are the fells, around us the woods.
As the road turns round the lake end, at Peel Wyke a British
camp will be found by the curious in such things upon a hill top
near the water, while hard by it stands that snuggest looking
of small hostelries, the Pheasant Inn.
H﻿g8
THE BOUNDARY OF LAKELAND
CHAP.
This is the last hotel in the Lake Country. As we turn the
corner and run along parallel with the wide end of the lake
we are on the very limit of tourist enterprise. Just beyond
the railway and small station a broad highway swings to the
left, and a milestone somewhere about proclaims that Cocker-
mouth is six miles distant. I have a notion that very few
tourists ever go a furlong beyond the foot of Bassenthwaite.
A properly constituted Keswick hack driver would, I think,
almost refuse to set his horse’s head towards a region so unor-
thodox and insignificant. I have more than once, in answer
Skiddaw from the Cockermouth Road.
to inquiries as to route or distance, been earnestly besought
by venerable inhabitants of the lake shore not to waste time
and energy on a region so utterly devoid of “anything to see.”
If one does go to Cockermouth the only conceivable reason
from the laker’s point of view would be to see the house
where Wordsworth was born ; and I have here to admit that
I went to Cockermouth, and spent two hours in the Castle,
and never once remembered this other “ point of interest.”
I confess I do not much care for inspecting houses that are
merely connected with a poet in his pinafore period; and﻿IV
COCKERMOUTH
99
Wordsworth left Cockermouth very young, his father, who was
agent to the first or “ the bad ” Lord Lonsdale, dying pre-
maturely. In these blessed days of bicycles, however, when
it is much less than an hour’s run over an admirable road, I
would advise the reader by no means to omit the pilgrimage.
There are two ways of making it, the one just mentioned,
and another by a rougher and hillier road down the valley of
the Derwent, which river, after breaking out of Bassenthwaite,
pours a noble volume of water through a winding vale that in
other regions would enjoy much distinction for scenic beauty.
To go by the first road and return by the second is the obvious
thing to do. The former carries you in gentle undulations
through pleasant grass farms, where the meadows are well
forward, and the clover fields already ruddy with blossom.
Shorthorns are fattening on the pastures; and big Border
Leicesters, sweltering in their heavy fleeces, look a strange
contrast to the nimble little Herdwicks so lately left behind.
Solid Cumbrian homesteads, with their grey roofs and white-
washed walls and black window borders, stand grouped about
amid protecting groves of sycamores, while small streams
gurgle shyly amid the lush grass and the fells which gave
them birth, rise near at hand, and roll away southwards,
behind Embleton, smooth, vast, green and solitary.
There is not much to be said of Cockermouth. It has seen
better days, and been a place of some importance, and is not
without quaint characteristics. The broad and turbulent
streams of the Derwent beat against its back doors for a long
distance, recalling for a moment Llangollen and the Dee.
The Cocker, still noisy with the music of the fells, clatters
through its centre, bearing quickly onward the clear waters
that were so lately sleeping in Buttermere and Crummock.
Its main street is wide, and for some distance bordered
with young trees, giving a further look of repose to an evi-
dently drowsy place. But Cockermouth Castle is not only
proudly placed above the town and the Derwent, but well
H 2﻿IOO
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
CHAP.
worth seeing. The towers and outer walls of grey lime-
stone are still fairly perfect. Portions of the building have
been kept up for habitation by the Wyndham family, the pro-
prietors, and were for a long time and till comparatively recently
the chief abode of some of them, to the joy and advantage
of Cockermouth. Over the great gateway is the blue lion of
the Percies, who when Earls of Westmoreland counted this
among their strongholds. Hither, too, was brought Mary
Queen of Scots when she crossed the Solway to throw herself
Cockermouth Castle.
with such sadly misplaced confidence on Elizabeth’s mercy.
She landed at Workington, some eight miles hence, now a busy
centre of coalpits and ironworks, whose smoke and chimneys
are only too visible against the western sky, and was entertained
by the Curwens of Workington Hall, who are still its owners
and accounted the oldest family in Cumberland.
No one indeed would wish to go beyond Cockermouth.
Over the Derwent which sweeps in noble curves through park-
lands at our feet, and beyond the nearer woods and hills into﻿IV
GENERAL WOLFE’S FIRST LOVE
IOI
which it disappears on its seaward journey, the summer sky is
charged with horrid clouds that come neither from the moun-
tains nor the sea. So having looked down the most gruesome
of dungeons, seen the underground chapel and listened to the
inevitable civil war siege, let us away back to the shores of
Bassenthwaite by the longer and rougher road which follows
the Derwent valley. And on the way I shall stop for a moment
at Isell, not only because it is a fine specimen of an embattled
Peel tower manor-house and beautifully placed on wooded
slopes above the Derwent, but also for another reason altogether
that plays no part whatever in local guide lore and seems to be
not generally known. Isell now belongs to Sir Wilfrid Lawson :
a hundred and fifty years ago it belonged to another Sir Wilfrid
Lawson, and it was from this remote grey manor-house, old
enough even then, that the lady came who laid such hold upon
the affections of the famous General Wolfe as to cast quite a
shadow over several years of his too short life.
The story is not without pathos, though it ends like an Ameri-
can novel in both hero and heroine going their own way without
any apparently sufficient reason and each dying unmarried.
The Miss Lawson of Isell of that day was maid of honour to
the Princess Charlotte, and the hero of Quebec was a gallant
major, a most precocious youth of twenty-one, and a veteran of
six years’ service in the French wars. They met in London,
and Wolfe formed an attachment to the lady of so ardent a
nature as to prove destructive to his peace of mind for an
unconscionably long period. It is difficult to tell from his
letters to what extent the attachment was mutual. His mother
was so determined that he should marry an heiress, pressing
upon him more than one from aldermanic quarters, and was so
hostile to the Lawson project, that it seems likely she actually
came between them. At any rate she said things about the
maid of honour’s health which were harmless and perhaps
true, and she said other things neither harmless and certainly
not true, which caused the only approach to a quarrel which﻿102
WOLFE AND MISS LOWTHER
CHAP.
Wolfe, who was a devoted son, ever had with his mother. The
disconsolate lover went on garrison duty for some years in
Scotland, and never again set eyes upon the beloved object.
His disappointment cut him to the quick, and he frequently
alludes to it in his correspondence. Years afterwards the mere
sight of her picture hanging on a wall took away his appetite for
dinner, so he tells us, though this is not perhaps a romantic
way of expressing so delicate a situation. He regarded his heart,
in this respect, as dead, which in the case of a man of his
deep feelings was probably no affectation. At any rate, for the
remaining ten years of his life, though a lover of society, there
is no hint of his losing it, nor yet of matrimony till his engage-
ment with Miss Lowther, just before he sailed for Quebec.
But this was a much less ardent affair, so far as one may judge
from scanty evidence.
Miss Lawson died early and unmarried. Miss Lowther, by
a curious coincidence, for Wolfe had no connection whatever
with these two counties—was a neighbour of the General’s
early love, being a sister of that same Lord Lonsdale for whom
Wordsworth’s father acted, and whose financial eccentricities,
to put it mildly, threw the Wordsworth children in so un-
just a fashion upon the charity of their relatives. This lady
became Duchess of Bolton and lived to a green old age.
From the little one hears of her it seems probable that what-
ever good things might have been reserved for Wolfe, had he
survived his glorious victory, matrimonial felicity of a high
order was not one of them. The manor-house too, whence
came Miss Lowther, though dropped this long time to a farm-
house, is still standing. Meaburn Hall is far enough out of
the beaten track, lying as it does between Appleby and Shap.
But for the sake of the old oak staircases, the wainscoted
rooms and the Lowther associations that still cling to it, some
few local antiquaries and an occasional traveller yet find their
way there. I myself, not alone perhaps on that account,
but partly on Wolfe’s, have made the pilgrimage from Penrith﻿IV
ON ISELL BRIDGE
103
with much satisfaction, for the house is a most beautiful
specimen of the Peel tower manor.
But we must linger no more at Isell, not even on the
old bridge by the Vicarage, beneath which the Derwent rushes
so finely, spreading out below into such a breadth of shining
rapid as it washes the foot of the lawn and goes roaring off
into the woods beyond. Salmon run up here freely, travelling
through both Bassenthwaite and Derwentwater, affording a
Skiddaw from the foot of Bassenthwaite.
little sport to the rod hereabouts, and a good deal of unseason-
able fish meat later on to the farmers and quarrymen at the
head of Borrowdale. But faster even than a salmon, and
much faster than we should travel in the flesh over the rough
and hilly road, we niust ourselves get back in fancy to the
shores of Bassenthwaite.
Now the Castle Inn marks the homeward turning point in
the drive round Bassenthwaite, and lies in the opposite corner
of the lake end from the Pheasant, though much further﻿104
BELOW SKIDDAW
CHAP.
removed from the shore. To reach there we have a mile or
two of level going, more or less overshadowed by the woods
and plantations of Armathwaite Hall, between whose foliage
we may here and there get charming peeps up the whole
length of the lake, with the mass of Skiddaw on the left and
the mountains of the Armboth and Helvellyn ranges beyond
Keswick filling in the background. At this same Castle Inn,
a small but notable house of call, our road turns sharp to
the right and up the lake again for Keswick. Here also
two other roads diverge, but going, so far as the Lake tourist
is concerned, into the wilderness, one to Carlisle, the other
to Caldbeck; we shall have reason to follow them both
later on.
Skiddaw assumes a most imposing shape as we approach its
northern slopes, the points of its supporting spurs springing
heavenwards with surprising boldness, and making a beautiful
picture, framed in the arching tree tops which fringe our road.
On this side, too, there is quite a wide strip of country be-
tween road and lake. We are lifted well up for the most
part, and get fine views of the fells which culminate towards
Buttermere in Robinson (of dreadful name!) and Grass-
moor, in Causey and High Pike, while homesteads and country
houses lie all about us, stretching away towards the heathery
wilderness that lies at the back of Skiddaw.
The shadow of the great peat mountain, however, is soon
upon us, though it is a pleasant enough country this Hundred
of Underskiddaw, this strip of foothill by the lake shore facing
the south-west; an old abiding place of virile stocks, whose
members, for lack no doubt of scope and elbow room, went out
often into the world, to the East and West, to the North and to
the South, making fortunes for themselves, and leaving names
not unknown to fame. The Brownriggs of Ormathwaite and
Millbeck, now extinct, seem in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries to have been most conspicuous among these people,
and to have occupied or owned most of the farms in Under-﻿IV	OLD FAMILIES OF SKIDDAW	105
skiddaw. A learned doctor of this clan had enough distinc-
tion in the world of science to attract Benjamin Franklin as a
guest to Ormathwaite Hall, when the two savants successfully
experimented with oil on the troubled waters of the lake. The
face of Underskiddaw has altered much since the days when
its own natives were the only dwellers on the soil. Fine wood-
lands have grown, old houses have been furbished up, muddy
and rutty lanes have given place to the admirable highway on
which we are now travelling. Villas, though mellowed here-
abouts, it is true, by the woodland growth of quite a reasonable
period, have sprung up, and stand by the roadside or lie tucked
away under the mountain foot, awaiting their August occupants,
while Skiddaw dominates all, with sides as precipitous as those
of a mountain can well be which is almost devoid of cliff and
crag.
Millbeck, some three miles short of Keswick, and just off the
high road, is a spot no one should pass. A mountain stream
here issues from a gorge in the breast of Skiddaw amid a
wealth of old timber and orchards, and an ancient hamlet,
white and grey and mossy, sleeps beneath their shade. Chief
among its buildings is Millbeck Hall, a diminutive Elizabethan
manor-house of the statesman class, lived in by many
Brownriggs, but built and owned by one Nicholas Williamson,
who, if he had no armorial bearings, was determined to follow,
so far as he could, the quaint conceits of his superiors, and in
this case particularly those of the Blencowes of Blencowe. For
here we may read over the door the same inscription that
looked down on us from above the portal of the statelier manor-
house near Penrith :—
1592. QVORSVM, N. W.
VIVERE-MORI—MORFVIVERE
NICHOEAS WILLIAMSON.
These aforesaid Brownriggs too founded a family in Ireland,
who achieved the distinction of a baronetcy, and, for aught I﻿io6
SOUTHEY ON MILLBECK
CH. IV
know, may be flourishing in Wicklow still. The beck plunges
joyously now before the door, splashing as it passes the mossy
roots of sycamores and oaks, while the noisy clamour of three
or four score Herd wick wethers down from the fell, with the
yapping of their canine warders fills in the measure of the rustic
chorus. There are some cottages too in Millbeck whose
appearance almost justifies the fabulous tales told of their
antiquity, and they have been the joy of generations of artists.
A much less romantic object is that of the long disused woollen
mill higher up the stream, though even this is not without
some special interest as having been the occasion of a remark-
able diatribe by Lord Macaulay, of which the unfortunate
Southey was the victim.
The then Poet Laureate, in his “ Colloquies on Society,” had
drawn a vivid contrast between these ancient dwellings and a
row of cottages erected here for the workers at the mill.
“The old cottages,” he writes, “are such as the poet and the
painter equally delight in beholding, substantially built of the
native stone without mortar, and their long low roofs covered
with slate ; if they had been raised by the magic of some
indigenous Amphion’s music the materials could not have
adjusted themselves more beautifully in accord with the
surrounding scene. The ornamented chimneys, round or
square, less adorned than those which, like little turrets, crest
the houses of the Portuguese peasantry, and yet not less happily
suited to their place, the hedge of dipt box beneath the
windows, the rose bushes beside the door, the little patch of
flower ground with its tall hollyhocks in front; the garden
beside, the bee-hives, and the orchard with its bank of daffo-
dils and snowdrops, the earliest and profusest in these parts,
indicate in the owners some portion of ease and leisure, some
regard to neatness and comfort, some sense of natural and
innocent and healthful enjoyment. The new cottages of the
manufacturer are upon the manufacturing pattern, naked and
in a row. How is it that everything which is connected with﻿A Sketch of Southey from Life, by A. T Paget, July, 1836. In the possession 0/
Charles E. Paget, Esq.﻿io8
MACAULAY ON SOUTHEY
CHAP.
manufactures presents such features of unqualified deformity ?
From the largest of Mammon’s temples down to the poorest
hovel in which his helotry are stalled, these edifices have all
one character. Time will not mellow them; nature will
neither clothe nor conceal them; and they will remain always
as offensive to the eye as the mind.” Thus moralised Southey
seventy years ago among the leafy bowers of Millbeck and
Applethwaite in the adjoining glen. “ Here is wisdom! ”
thundered Macaulay, when he read it. “ Here are the prin-
ciples upon which nations are to be governed ! Rose bushes
and poor rates, rather than steam engines and independence.
Mortality and cottages with weather stains, rather than health
and long life with edifices which time cannot mellow. Mr.
Southey has found out a way, he tells us, in which the
effects of manufactures and agriculture may be compared.
And what is this way ? To stand on a hill, to look at a
cottage and a factory, and see which is the prettier, Szc.” ....
While upon the subject of Southey, and as we are traversing
the easy three miles between Millbeck and Keswick, I will
turn over the pages of an old manuscript diary which happens
to lie before me, because it is that of my own grandfather.
The diarist was then archdeacon in a northern diocese, and
in June, 1831, seems to have been on a visit to the Curwens
of Workington, lately mentioned, and to have taken the oppor-
tunity of calling, not apparently for the first time, on Southey
at Greta Hall. Three or four closely written pages preserve
a part, at any rate, of the conversation that took place in
Southey’s library on this occasion, partly on politics but chiefly
on theology, and of no great moment here; but it may be
worth noting that the poet struck his visitor as “ very much
of a ivhite man, i.e., white coat and trousers, white hair, and a
white face, a semicircular profile, very Roman nose, an
expression of remarkable shrewdness, shaggy eyebrows, with a
quick and severe eye.” “ Whenever the conversation became
animated,” says the archdeacon, “ he rose and paced the room﻿IV
DERWENTWATER
109
(which was filled with books, as were also two other rooms) in
various directions, so that he was sometimes behind me while
I was speaking to him.” Among other anecdotes that passed
on this occasion, Southey mentioned a delusion of Robert
Hall’s, the famous preacher, who was subject to them, to the
effect that the angel Gabriel had fitted him with a crown a
size too small! The two girls are noted in the journal as
kind, courteous, and pretty ; Mrs. Southey as stout and
contented looking.
I am quite sure that the citizens of no town in all England,
to say nothing of the passing sojourner, have such a promenade
for the enjoyment of their post-prandial tobacco as have the
good folks of Keswick in that leafy walk which borders the
Derwentwater boat landings and ends at Friars Crag; whether
the sun is still drooping in fiery splendour to the rim of the
overhanging hills, or has sunk behind them, leaving its trail
of glory and tender afterglow upon land and water, this lower
end of Keswick’s enchanting lake is not easily surpassed.
Like Ullswater, so Derwentwater in its somewhat differing
style holds a place of its own among English lakes. There
is not, to be sure, quite the wildness or solitude of Ullswater—
certainly not on a fine summer evening off Friars Crag, when
humanity plays an active part in the bright and everchanging
scene. For boats are then gliding between the wooded islands
and promontories, and bright patches of colour flit over
waters, here black beneath some upstanding crag, there quiver-
ing in the sun’s trail like molten gold. Song and laughter
blend not inharmoniously with a scene so instinct with light
and form and colour; and, behind all, the silent mountains,
piled up one above the other, yet close at hand, complete a
picture that is not given to many English townsmen for con-
templation of a summer evening within a gunshot of their doors.
A hundred and thirty years ago, before the era of the tourist,
and when Keswick was but a small place, the poet Gray stood
upon this very spot, and has told us how he watched “the﻿no
FROM FRIARS CRAG
CHAP.
solemn colouring of the night draw on, the last gleam of sun-
shine fading away upon the hill tops, the deep serene of the
waters, and the long shadows of the mountains thrown across
them, till they nearly touch the hithermost shore; at a distance
were heard the murmurs of many waterfalls not audible in the
day-time. I wished for the moon, but she was dark to me and
silent.”
But we have been looking here across the lake only. From
Friars Crag proper at the end of the walk, a rocky promontory,
furnished with some ancient and stately fir trees, it is given one
to see right down it, to its upper end three miles away, where
the rugged outlines of the “Jaws of Borrowdale ” seem to be
always dark and frowning, however serene the atmosphere and
however bright the sky. But I really cannot describe Der-
wentwater. It is more familiar to me than any English lake,
and the better one knows it the more futile does such an
effort seem. To catalogue the crags and hills and mountains
in whose bosom it lies, is but a barren business, and brings one
no whit nearer to the conception of their infinite beauty and
wonderful grouping. To enumerate the leafy islands that seem﻿IV
BOATING
hi
to float upon the lake’s bosom, and descant upon the nature of
the woods which in such profusion and with scarcely a break
deck the shores, would be an idle waste of words. Are not all
these things written in the many excellent works devoted to the
local topography ? one of which, at any rate, I trust the reader
who likes to have his peaks in order, for private use, as I confess
I do, and his islands clear in his mind, will not omit. Let it be
mine rather to recommend him merely to take boat, if the day
be kindly, and paddle leisurely about, and judge for himself if he
thinks there can be anything upon earth more fair. And there
is no better lake anywhere for boating than Derwentwater. It
is hardly large enough to often put up seas, in summer time at
any rate, that are dangerous. There are no steamers to knock
you about, nor yachts to run you down, nor anything like the
number of craft that ply on Windermere. It abounds in leafy
bays, in snug coves where the water laps against rocky promon-
tories on which pine-trees murmur and bilberry bushes covering
the ground give completeness to a foreground that carries one’s
fancy away for a moment to far Canadian lakes. But not in
Canada certainly, nor anywhere oversea, is there that velvety,
that mellow perfection of foreground such as only a British
atmosphere acting on a British soil seems able to produce. Nor
do I know of any other land where mountains of such modest
altitude are so boldly fashioned and so assisted by the kind
delusions of soft skies as to be well able to challenge com-
parison with many beside whom they are but pigmies.
There are perch in the lake too in plenty for those who affect
this peaceful branch of sport, and one so admirably adapted to
family use. There are pike for the more vigorous and unsociable;
while for the really serious angler the Derwentwater trout,
tolerably numerous, exceedingly capricious, but when captured of
most admirable size and quality, afford much scope for skill and
patience. I do not think many strangers go to Derwentwater
to catch trout, and in this they perhaps exercise a wise dis-
cretion. Not but what there are plenty of them; short, thick,﻿112
THE MAY-FLY SEASON
CHAP
lusty, well-fed fellows too, the best probably in all the Lake
Country—though it would not do to say so to a Windermere
man—and they will average moreover something like a pound
apiece. They commence their somewhat fitful attentions to
the artificial fly in early April, while their ardour culminates of
course with the advent of the May-fly, called here the “ Drake.”
After this dissipation they refuse to have anything more to say
to flies of any kind, and sulk about the lake bottom amid the
admirable provender with which nature has in Derwentwater
provided them, and with such a lavish hand. The local
enthusiasts, however, are quite numerous; and any May day
when there is a breeze you will see half-a-dozen boats at
least drifting slowly before it in the upper reaches between the
lead mine on the western shore and Lodore upon the other.
The Keswick fly fishers, who largely consist of local tradesmen
enjoying a well-earned retirement, are as industrious as any
company of Waltonians I have ever met. I do not think they
ever miss a possible day from the beginning of the season to the
end; and when the good moment comes, and the Derwentwater
trout makes up his mind to leave the toothsome things below
and shoot up through the clear water for a change of menu, the
faithful Keswick angler is quite certain to be there, and he earns
his meet reward. His two or three brace of fish weighing per-
haps half-a-dozen pounds, will carry him over with contentment
several days of scantily rewarded toil. And when in the first
week of June the May-fly puts in an appearance, better results
are confidently and with some justice looked for. During that
high festival you may see fifteen to twenty boats every morning
drifting in slow procession, and in a row, where the wind listeth :
and in each boat there will be two sportsmen, one standing up
at either end, and each sportsman will be armed with a two-
handed rod, from fifteen to twenty feet in length. Indeed there
will be such an amount of energy and back work going on,
that a Southerner might well suppose that twenty-pound salmon
were the object of pursuit, not one-pound trout. Most people﻿IV
THE ILL-FATED RADCLIFFES
113
nowadays fish lakes with little ten or eleven feet one-handed
rods. But the Keswick angler is a prodigious Tory, and has a
belief in his grandfather’s weapon that no argument could shake.
No one at least can say that he does not toil hard for his sport
—working down a salmon pool, for reasons obvious to the
initiated, is indeed child’s play to it. I have myself both
caught and eaten Derwentwater trout, and whether on the end
of a line or on a plate want nothing better. There are beyond
a doubt too half hours when the May fly is well on that will
bear comparison for pleasure and profit with brief periods on
almost any water.
In no way do I regret, however, many hours spent on the
bosom of Derwentwater, that, so far as trout went, were often
blank ones, when the neglected flies trailed aimlessly on the
ripples, and the ripples sang with soothing monotony against the
keel. It is not easy to have too much of a good thing, and
the surroundings of this Keswick lake form a very good thing
indeed.
I wonder too how many of those who take their pleasure on
Derwentwater in their various fashions ever give a thought to the
gallant but unfortunate family who were once its lords. At a
remote period the Radcliffes seem not only to have owned the
lake and valley below it, but a large amount of territory stretching
towards Cockermouth, which afterwards passed with one of their
ladies into the Dacre family. The somewhat shorn Radcliffe of
that day then more than made up for the loss by himself marry-
ing the heiress of those great Northumbrian and Durham estates
that dwarfed his patrimony about Keswick, and made his
revenue in 1700 larger, it was said, than that of the Electorate of
Hanover ! They still, however, kept their mansion on Lord’s
island yonder, now but a mass of foliage, with small traces of
the old house ; and from here the last Countess of Derwent-
water is asserted, though with doubtful accuracy, to have
journeyed to London to intercede for her gallant but injudi-
cious husband, lying under sentence of death for his leading﻿A PERSISTENT LOVER
CHAP.
114
share in the rebellion of 1715. No other family, I fancy, lost
its head (in both senses) in each of the two risings. The last
and third Lord Derwentwater was twenty-six years of age when
he joined Forster of Northumberland in that rash and luckless
business. His younger brother Charles, fresh from a conti-
nental education and close association with the exiled Stuarts, was
with him heart and soul, if not indeed the more fervent of the
two. Both the young men showed conspicuous gallantry, and
were throughout opposed to those fatal and vacillating councils
that ended, not merely in failure, for that was inevitable, but in
the capture of the leaders at Preston. Nearly a hundred of
the rebels suffered death ; Lord Derwentwater alone of them
all being granted the distinction of dying by the axe. His
brother Charles was several times respited, but kept in
close confinement at Newgate. Getting tired at last of his
prison life and feeling doubtful of ultimate pardon, he
escaped one night during a feast given by his fellow prisoners,
and after eluding his pursuers for some time in London,
managed to slip away to the Continent, where he lived at the
French Court on an allowance made by his nephew, who had
succeeded to part at least of the estates, though the title had
lapsed.
As an instance of Charles Radcliffe’s tenacity of purpose a
story is told of how, after proposing sixteen times to a well-
dowered widow, Lady Newburgh, and denied further access to
her presence, he descended the chimney of her apartment, and
making his seventeenth appeal won her admiration and her hand
by the novel audacity of his method. On the death of his
nephew he assumed the title of Comte de Derwentwater, but
when over forty years of age he seems to have been unable to
resist the temptation of visiting old scenes and friends in Eng-
land, though still under severe proscription. No doubt he came
to Derwentwater, but he lay perdu for weeks in the neighbour-
hood of Gilstone, and haunted at evening and after dark its
now deserted and neglected grounds, being taken by the﻿IV
THE GHOST OF GILSTON
n5
natives for the ghost of the decapitated Earl, and left in con-
sequence most severely alone. Charles Radcliffe seems indeed to
have been something of a humourist, and to have much enjoyed
his ghostly character. On one occasion he chased a bailiff,
who fled from him in such terror as to strike his head against
a branch and drop unconscious to the ground : the bailiff, when
he came to himself, swore the dead earl had thrown his head
at him, and petitioned for his recall; whereupon another was
sent, who vowed he would put a bullet through any ghost that
crossed his path. The chance of proving his courage was
soon offered him, for the supposed phantom met the bold bailiff
crossing a ford, and taking his horse by the bridle hurled him over
backwards into the water. This settled the question wholly in
the ghost’s favour; and the terror grew such on the Gilston
manor that no one would come near the place, and the tenants
even refused to till their lands. A party of soldiers was then
sent down, and as Charles Radcliffe at that very time took
advantage of a favourable opportunity for crossing to Holland,
they got the credit of laying the uneasy earl’s ghost.
Radcliffe then entered the service of the French king, and
when the ’45 broke out drifted naturally into the movement,
but was captured with his eldest son and others at sea by
a British frigate and sent to the Tower. Here he was kept for
a year, the difficulty being that he was a French officer; and
so long as he persisted in refusing the name of Charles Rad-
cliffe, and speaking of himself only as the Comte de Derwent-
water, it would remain with the government to prove that he
was the same man who had been convicted thirty years
previously. Witnesses had at last to be brought from Gilston,
who swore to his identity to the satisfaction of a jury, and he
was finally sentenced to death. His demeanour throughout his
captivity and trial was haughty and contemptuous. Just four
months after the famous executions following on Culloden, this
last Earl of Derwentwater, if we may so call him, was led
brilliantly apparelled through lines of life guards and executed
1 2﻿ii6
EXECUTION OF THE GHOST
CHAP.
with great solemnity on a platform wrapped in black cloth.
He died with unflinching courage, as became his situation, in
the fifty-third year of his age, professing with his last breath the
utmost devotion to the Catholic faith, to Louis XV. and the
first Pretender. “ I am but a poor man,” said he, as he handed
the executioner ten guineas, and begged him to do his work
well. The latter earned his fee, for the axe went through the
neck at the first blow and stuck in the block. The present
lord of the manor of Castlerigg and Derwentwater is a
member of the Marshall family, whose wide interests in the
Lake Country we took note of when at Ullswater.
The humours too, if you may so call them, of my boatmen
have sometimes in idle half hours upon the lake, when all
hopes of trout have temporarily fled, caused me no little enter-
tainment.
I asked a clear-eyed long-limbed young dalesman who was
out with me one day whether he often rowed foreigners about.
To which he replied that he took a “gey few of them” on the
lake. I then asked him how he liked Americans. He said
he liked them well enough ; but countered my query by asking
another as to the fishing in America, and then went on to say
that he supposed the waters there must be either choke full of
fish or else that there were none at all.
“ What makes you think that ? ” said I. “ Well, sir, because
whenever I take a party of Yankees out they get in a tur’ble way if
they don’t catch a fish about every two minutes. So I supposed
they had either never had a rod in their hands before, or else
were accustomed to catching fish as fast as ever they could
haul ’em in.”
I discovered also the interesting fact that only a week or two
before this, Hercules had been engaged for several days by a
French family straight over from Paris. I asked him if they
could speak English.
“ Aye,” said the young waterman drily, “ they cud gabble
what they ca’d English.”﻿IV
INTERNATIONAL AMENITIES
117
“ Did they talk to you ? ” said I.
“ Aye, they crack’d wi’ me a bit.”
A little more encouragement and I was favoured with some
of the conversation, which must have been of an entertaining
nature, and have given the Parisian matron, her son and
daughters, who made up the party, a rare notion of Cumbrian
amenities. To shorten matters as much as possible, it appears
that this good French lady had conceived the notion that the
British working class were what is called pro-Boer to a man.
“ She asked me,” said Hercules, “ if I wasn’t sorry for the poor
Boers—dom’d if she didn’t. I told my lady that if I had the
handlin’ of the business I’d cut t’ last one of ’em into little
pieces, and wouldn’t leave one o’ t’ dirty blackguards above
ground.”
“ And what did they say to that ? ”
“ Oh, well, t’ young leddies tittered like, and the old ooman
looked a gey bit queer. They then axed me,” said Hercules,
growing communicative, “whether I wouldn’t like to live in
France, an I tould ’em that maybe I’d like t’ country better
nor t’ people ! ”
“ There was a young chap too, a civil enough feller, but jest
a lile nipitty Frencher like, an’ he thought he could pull an
oar, and was for ever teasin’ o’ me to row a race wi’ him. Lor,
I wasn’t goin’ to fash myself racin’ wi’ such as ’im (Hercules,
I may remark, is the champion sculler of the lake); it ’ud be
like stannin’ up to wTastle wi’ a lile gal. However, he kept
botherin’ me, so I said t’ last mornin’ I’d give ’im a ’alf mile
spin. Lord, it ain’t worth talkin’ about. I left ’im stannin’ still
a ’corse; an’ then I asked ’im if he’d had enough, and told ’im
that a Frenchman couldn’t no more row than he could fight.
All ’e was fit for was to holler and make a noise.”
“ Well,” said I, “ I shouldn’t think you saw much more of
your party after that ? ”
“ Oh, aye, I did tho’. The very mornin’ as they went away, the
lady come down to the boat landing, and asked the governor﻿n8	MIMIC SEA FIGHTS	chap.
to send for me; and she thanked me for my attention and
give me three ’alf crowns, and said if all Englishmen were as
obstinate as I was she was not surprised as Lord Roberts was
getting nigh Pretoria.”
I don’t think Hercules, who is a really admirable and
trustworthy young man, had any notion that he had been
discourteous. I think too that forgiving French lady must
have been worth knowing.
From the upper reach of the lake too Lodore, when
swollen by rain, shows finely as it leaps from its woody height ;
and its hoarse roar rising and falling with the breeze is a
pleasant accompaniment to the gentle gurgling of the ripples
beneath the drifting boat’s keel. The sprouting ferns and the
brilliant green of the all-pervading bilberry bushes give the
nearer hills upon the Catbell side a delightful freshness
beneath these June suns; and in the woods the oak leaves still
wear the golden flush that precedes their full maturity, and
show curious patches of almost autumnal colouring amid the
rampant greens of sycamore and beech. Nor are there many
woodlands in the Lake Country that show their foliage to
more exquisite advantage than those which spread upwards
from Barrow Bay, enveloping the cataract of that name to
the foot of the noble ridge of grey cliffs which find their
summits in Wallow and Falcon crags.
A hundred and odd years ago, in the earlier part of the long war
with France, the inhabitants of Keswick and its neighbourhood
used to amuse themselves and nurse their martial ardour with
mimic sea fights upon the lake. Islands used to be taken and
retaken by flotillas armed with muskets and artillery, and an
immense amount of gunpowder consumed, while the elite
of the neighbourhood applauded the actors from rows of gay
marquees pitched upon the shore. A contemporary account of
one of these naval functions lies before me, and would, I think,
amuse the modern reader if space allowed such inconsequent
quotations. There were “ terrible cannonades and dreadful﻿IV
COUNTRY LIFE IN THE OLDEN TIME
119
discharges of musquetry, which filled the ear with whatever
could produce astonishment and awe, and impressed on the
awakened imagination the most lively ideas of the war of
elements and crash of worlds.” One can well believe this
when the local chronicler goes on to tell us that the noise was
heard at Appleby, thirty miles away, and through two or three
ranges of high mountains. It is pleasant too to know that what
was left of the combatants and the spectators were capable of
dancing till the small hours of the morning in a ball-room erected
for the purpose ; and Keswick streets resounded in the dawning
day to the clatter cf chariots bearing the exhausted families of
squires and leading yeomen towards the rutty roads which led
to Cockermouth and Carlisle, to Ambleside and Penrith.
Country folk in those days were contented for the most part.
There were no feverish longings for distant splendours, or at
least not many. Their horizon was practically fixed, and
within it they no doubt succeeded in extracting as much
enjoyment out of life as their railway travelling descendants. I
would undertake to say that winter in the Vale of Keswick was
livelier in 1780 than it is in 1900.
Mr. Fisher Crosthwaite, who has told us much of old Kes-
wick, gives us a vivid picture of the excitement caused there
during the early years of Elizabeth’s reign by the advent of a
large number of German miners, whom the enterprise of the
thrifty queen had imported to open up the minerals of the
country. Two German experts were given a free hand on all
the royal manors,and “the best copper in England” was reported
to Secretary Cecil, after a year or two of investigation, as
having been found in Newlands. It seems that three or four
hundred of these foreigners were brought into the district, with
the inevitable result of a conflict with the natives. Even the
gentry seem to have viewed the movement with suspicion ;
the Derwentwater family doing something more than stand aloof
from it, while the Earl of Northumberland had great disputes
with the queen, who seems to have worked his land as well as﻿120
QUEEN ELIZABETH’S GERMAN IMMIGRANTS ch. iv
her own without so much as a “ by your leave ” or a hint at com-
pensation. Her Majesty’s policy however prevailed, and beyond
a doubt brought much prosperity to a poor country, in spite ot
the racial jealousy that most naturally found vent in blows, in
a region whose chief trade was war. The Germans, however,
eventually settled down ; and our authority, besides giving us the
after history of many of these families, a matter only of local
interest, gives a long list, which he says is but a fraction of
the German names upon the Crossthwaite registers, the word
“ Dutchman ” being written after each entry.
But we have idled away already so much time on Derwent-
water there is none left to say a word about Saint Herbert and
his isle. For we must get back to the boat landing, consult
one of the many weather prophets there, who surely ought to
be sound ones, seeing they have such ample leisure for studying
a very capricious type of it; and so back to Keswick, with a
view only to leaving it.
Vale of Newlands.﻿Crummock Lake.
CHAPTER V.
I would advise no one whose legs and lungs are adequate
to the task to omit the ascent of Skiddaw. It is rather the
fashion of some guide books to sniff at this noble mountain,
because the accomplishment of its ascent is such an easy matter.
I can understand a cragsman taking up this attitude, as I do not
think it would be possible to break your neck anywhere on
Skiddaw; but to the ordinary climber who follows the ordinary
route, no mountain in England presents any difficulties worth
mentioning, and their relative degrees of simplicity do not seem
to me to be very much to the point. The view from its summit
at any rate will compare with that from any other mountain
top, while the outlook towards Scotland and the Solway is not
unnaturally the best of all. For the same reason Skiddaw
possesses a distinction when seen from Carlisle or Dumfriesshire
that I do not think Helvellyn or Scafell with their unquestion-
ably finer details of outline enjoy from any distant point. Skid-
daw forest too, which spreads away from its farther or western﻿122
UP THE BANKS OF DERWENTWATER
CHAP.
skirts, a wild wilderness of open grouse moor dark with
heather, is a feature not characteristic of many mountain views
in Lakeland, and one that has a peculiar charm when bathed
in sunlight, and looked down upon through a veil of whirling
mist.
I purpose in this chapter to compass the journey to
Buttermere, which, though but fourteen miles away, lies over
the roughest and steepest pass that the coaches surmount
anywhere in the north. But first we have to traverse the
length of Derwentwater as far as the mouth of Borrowdale by
the lakeshore road, which, though charming from a scenic
point of view, is as deficient in others as are most of the
Cumbrian highways. Westmoreland by the way prides itself
on being much ahead in this respect of its neighbour; but both
seem to observe the vexatious custom of deferring their repairs
till May and June, and executing them even then with such un-
compromising completeness that not so much as the width of
a plank is left for the hapless cyclist to pilot his machine
along.
After passing over the Lodore beck and within sight and sound
of its famous falls, we run almost into the grounds of the fine
hotel which for choice of situation has to my thinking an
advantage over all others in this region. The wooded cliffs and
crags that overhang the spot are in themselves so beautiful:
from their readily accessible summits such a gorgeous
panorama of Derwentwater and its surroundings can be en-
joyed, while over the mountain plateau beyond, of which they
are the outer wall, such numerous expeditions suitable to every
grade of physical capacity can be so conveniently under-
taken.
But I shall never pass the other hotel, a little further on at
the mouth of Borrowdale, without recalling a most delightful
Irish waiter, whose presence contributed no little to our
entertainment while quartered there for a few days. It was at
a time when most hotels were empty, and Pat had nothing﻿V
AN IRISH WAITER
123
like enough to occupy an all-consuming energy, which found
vent in strange performances. He was very big and very
stout, and sleek of face, and was clad of course in the ortho-
dox uniform of his profession ; but he was a Tipperary boy
and country bred, and the ruling passion of the Irishman was
so strong within him that you might hear betimes the rush, as
of a whirlwind, past the window, and if quick enough might
catch a vision of white socks and flying coat-tails and streaming
hair as our fifteen-stone patriot, clinging to the bare back of an
unemployed omnibus horse, sent him down the stony road at a
murdering gallop.
A patriot I have called him, for he was an ardent Home
Ruler, though who was to do the ruling was problematical, seeing
that priest, landlord and politician were all equally taboo in his
scheme for the Irish millennium. He was very eloquent,
however, when encouraged to debate. But his professional
gifts were what called forth my special admiration, and caused
it to be borne in upon me for the hundredth time how
magnificently superior the Irishman can be, when he so
chooses, to any other white man in this capacity : at any rate,
how infinitely more acceptable, how cheery, how imperturbably
good-natured, how smilingly tolerant of criticism on soup and
fish, that the average waiter resents, in his face at any rate,
knowing the fault to be none of his ; how lavish of small
attentions that are not perhaps necessary but pleasant to
receive. No one surely in these accomplishments can touch
the capable Irishman (who has not been in America) as a
table attendant. That very familiarity, which is part of his
solicitude to make you happy and comfortable, is so wholly
inoffensive, while the smiling philosophy, which receives the
sixpence with the same demonstration of gratitude as the half-
crown, challenges one’s admiration.
Pat was a past master in all this ; and when a coachload of,
from his point of view, most unpromising lunchers turned up,
I used to take note of how his good-humoured assiduity never﻿124
“ME BROTHER, SORR”
CHAP.
for a moment flagged. And he had no interest in the house
whatever, being in fact but a stopgap waiter. He was not,
I believe, regarded as such a treasure behind the scenes ; and
it is certainly true that when not riding the ’bus-horses, or talking
politics, or fetching something for somebody, or cleaning his
plate, he used to tinkle on a fearsome instrument that I had
never seen or heard before and do not remember the name of,
not being a musician. He was gifted with a powerful imagina-
tion too, for one day during the distractions of dinner, he found
time to slip a small cutting from the morning paper on the
cloth by my plate in mysterious fashion, with a stage whisper,
“ Me brother, sorr ! ” I found on examining the slip that it
contained a list of some troopers of a Colonial corps who had
been wounded in attacking a Boer post, and was sorry to see
underlined in pencil the name and initials of a youth of my
acquaintance in that regiment. The name was a not uncom-
mon one in both England and Ireland, and it happened to be
Pat’s. I did not, however, give him away.
He disappeared amid the convulsions of joy with which
Keswick very properly celebrated the relief of Mafeking, and
was never heard of in Borrowdale again. His brother’s
presence in the victorious army and his sufferings in Britain’s
cause no doubt made Pat himself the unique combination of
Parnellite and Imperialist he seemed to be. Long life to him !
He was a very first-class waiter, and much more.
But I did not come into this country to talk about Irish
waiters, and by the same token we are now well round the corner
and through the gateway of Borrowdale. The broad level pas-
tures through which the Derwent ripples gently for a mile or
so above the lake, and in wet weather sometimes submerges,
narrow down where the first bridge crosses the river, and the
ancient hamlet of Grange with its little church stands at the
entrance of the gorge. One can well understand why the
eighteenth century writers fling their most strenuous epithets
at Borrowdale, and speak of it, though with much ignorance﻿V
THE JAWS OF BORROWDALE
125
and poetic licence, as a land of unknown terrors and fearful
possibilities. Gray positively declined going any further. He
had already crept along from Lodore in silence lest the crags
above should fall and crush him; and here he gave his shaken
nerves repose in a farmhouse whose owner entertained him
with an account of the annual destruction of eagles’ nests which
was then a part of the regular programme of the Borrowdale
farmer. Beyond Grange the rugged hills draw together, and
through the narrow vista of rock and wood ahead of you,
The Bridge at Grange.
the upstanding cone of Castle crag rises against a dark
and high and mysterious background of mountains made
grimmer in June by lingering patches of snow. Birch woods,
tender, fresh and graceful, clothe the steeps upon our left in
exquisite profusion : upon the right the river, pent in a narrow
channel, frets upon its rocky bed or slumbers just long
enough in some deep pool by the road side to show the infinite
transparency of its waters, even in a land where all waters are
clear. A mile or two further and the passage opens, the over-﻿126
“THE GREAT DEED OF BORROWDALE”
CHAP.
hanging heights fall back, the river leaves us, and we are in a
tract of level meadows hemmed in on every side by mountains
and drawing rapidly towards the hamlet of Rossthwaite. “ A
truly secreted spot is this,” says old West, writing in the time
of the French revolution and twenty years after Gray, “ com-
pletely surrounded by the most horrid romantic mountains that
are in this world of wonders.”
Borrowdale must indeed have been an outlandish place in
ancient times; a cul de sac, without any outlet at the back
save by rough pony tracks over wild mountain passes. This,
perhaps, would have no special interest but for the fact that
some of its yeomen families have lived here upon the same
lands, so far as the most competent judges can tell, since a
period prior to the Norman Conquest. The manor, which
included most of the district, was granted by a Derwentwater
to Furness Abbey, and at the dissolution fell to the Crown, in
whose hands it remained till James the First, doubtless after his
great quarrel with the border tenantry, sold it to two Londoners.
These gentlemen, however, and with somewhat significant
alacrity, parted with their rights, for less than a single year’s revenue,
to the occupants. The list of those who, from holding under
border or customary tenure, thus became freeholders in 1613
is practically the same as that which appears a hundred years
before on the roll of Furness Abbey tenants, and thanks to the
labours of a Keswick antiquary lies before me now. The main
addition is that of a small group of gentlemen headed by Sir
Wilfrid Lawson of Isell and Lamplugh of Lamplugh, who figure
in the contract (known as the Great Deed of Borrowdale) on
account, no doubt, of mining rights that they had acquired in
the Elizabethan “ boom.” Birketts, Youdales, Fishers and
Braithwates are the most prominent names, and all of them still
flourish in the district. Some are in Borrowdale itself even yet,
and there can be no doubt have lived in it since time is worth '
taking any account of.
All the world knows that the last half-century has seen quite﻿DALESMEN PAST AND PRESENT
127
V
a debacle among the Cumberland and Westmorland statesmen.
The reasons are as varied as they will be obvious to any one
who gives a thought to the matter. These small properties,
mostly between 30 and 300 acres, were not divided at death,
but went to the eldest child, boy or girl, often charged for .the
benefit of the rest of the family. The origin of this custom
was in the obligation of each small property to provide one or
more men-at-arms, according to acreage, for service against
the Scots, and subdivision would have caused endless compli-
cations. An over fondness for ardent spirits is reckoned among
the causes of this decline, while the rise in land, often in
this country to a fancy price, before a steady inroad of wealthy
buyers for fancy purposes, added to unprecedented opportuni-
ties for engaging in commerce and going out into the world,
made a change from the old conditions inevitable. It was a
picturesque and happy state of society, however, this old one._
The farming freeholder with a fairly generous holding and at-
tached by blood to the soil, goes to make perhaps the ideal rural
community. Besides the holdings, too, there were the great
common lands on the mountains where sheep and in those days
stunted cattle also roamed free. But you could not keep such
men on the land nowadays. Primogeniture for such a class
would be of course ridiculous. Yet once begin charging or
dividing small estates, you create intolerable burdens on the one
hand, or reduce them on the other to peasant holdings which,
are quite another affair. Great numbers of statesmen’s descend-
ants, it must be remembered, are now living as tenant farmers
either upon or adjacent to the lands their forbears once owned,
and the nature of this ownership and their relationship to
the Lords of Manors varied so much as to be best left
severely alone in a work like this.
I spoke just now of James the First and his quarrels with
the border tenantry. The fact is, that after the union of the
two Crowns in his illustrious person, the over-canny monarch,
thinking with some justice that the terms of military service﻿128
KING JAMES AND THE DALESMEN
CHAP.
against the Scots, by which the border tenants held their lands,
would be no longer necessary, fancied he saw an excellent
chance of turning an honest penny. Now the Crown tenants
were very numerous on the western border, and the King gave
out that all holding their estates from him were to surrender their
titles, and that fresh ones would be issued, subject, of course, to
money fines and rents. A roar of indignation arose throughout
the country from Morecambe Bay to the Solway. Men whose an-
cestors had fought for their farms for generations, in this once
wild and lawless country, could little understand the equity
of paying a money rent, more particularly since, unlike the King,
they suspected that their fighting days were by no means yet
over. At any rate, they mustered to the number of 2,000 at
Ratten Heath, between Kendal and Stavely, and there passed a
unanimous resolution to the effect that “ they had won their lands
by the sword and were quite able to retain them by the same.”
They then bound each other by such strenuous oaths to resist the
imposition to the very last drop of their blood that the King
was alarmed and dropped the scheme like a hot coal.
The rudeness and simplicity of life in regions like Borrow-
dale till quite recent times must by all accounts have been
astonishing. A great measure of independence and obstinacy
among mountaineers bred in this fashion, and dwelling for
centuries in what was practically a democracy, was inevitable.
A parson who had gone from the South as a young man to an
adjoining dale some thirty years ago put the matter one day
in a laconic but complete fashion. He had been viewed, he
said, with much suspicion on his arrival, as a stranger and
potential innovator. “You can’t drive dalesmen,” screeched an
old dame to him in significant fashion on his first parochial
visitation. “ Oh ! ” said the other, not greatly moved by so
familiar a platitude. “ And you can’t lead ’em,” she shouted
after a brief pause and in still more strident and menacing
tones. “ Ah ! ” said the new vicar taking a more serious but
still hopeful view of the situation. Five and twenty years of﻿V
BORROWDALE LEAD MINES
129
effort to do one or the other, he went on to declare, had con-
vinced him that the old lady had never said a truer word in
her life, for you could do nothing with them at all by ordinary
and recognised methods !
But this small group of stalwart Borrowdale yeomen have
sent out many successful men into the world, even if those
who remained at home are somewhat conspicuous for their
toryism. The managership of a mine, for instance, is the
last situation in which you would look for continuous heredity,
but in Borrowdale even this phenomenon might have been found;
for in the famous black- lead mine at Seatoller I am told that the
Dixon family had at no distant date held that position from father
to son for 150 years ! This lead, I may remark, is reputed the
finest in the world for pencils, and tradition says that it was
beneath the roots of a great ash torn up by the wind it was
first discovered. The mine was first worked in Elizabeth’s
reign, and by the end of the eighteenth century had grown so
valuable that a special Act of Parliament was passed to make
the picking of wad from the dump-heaps a felony ; for Jews
were in the habit of coming to Keswick for the special
purpose of dealing with these pilferers. The mineral was all
carried direct to London in a six-horse waggon guarded by an
armed escort and sold monthly at the company’s warehouse.
A building too was erected over the entrance of the mine in
which guards slept at night with firearms beside them.
Even this sequestered spot was not free in the Civil War from
the tramp of armed men. Sir Edward Radcliffe, of Derwent-
water. was up for the King, and Borrowdale contributed its
quota to his troop. Sir Wilfred Lawson of Isell headed the
Parliamentarians, who stored their munitions of war on St.
Herbert’s Island, destroyed the Radcliffe mansion on Lord’s
Island, and among other exploits, rode up Borrowdale and
over Stake Pass to Rydal, where they sacked Rydal Hall, even
tearing up the floors in seach of treasure.
It is only fitting that the cuckoo should call merrily from
K﻿130
ROSTHWAITE
CHAP.
more than one hill side as we enter the ancient hamlet of
Rosthwaite, for a legend runs that the dalesmen of old were
so simple as to believe that the spring would last for ever if
only they could keep its winged minstrel in their valley, and
with this in view they actually commenced to build a wall at the
mouth of Borrowdale, whose remains I have no doubt could
be produced if sufficiently insisted upon. We must not, however,
linger at Rosthwaite, with its old-fashioned nooks of ancient
cottage masonry and grey moss-grown roofs, its barking collies
Honister Pass.
and soft, swishing sound of travelling sheep ; though the snug
hotel beyond, set in a charming garden above the Longstrath-
beck may well tempt us to do so. Rosthwaite is an admirable
centre for hill walking and climbing. The Stake and Sty-head
passes are handy to it. The Scafell and Great Gable group of
mountains can be readily ascended and can be seen as we
continue our road. Glaramara towers close at hand : Thirlmere,
Grasmere and Dungeon Ghill may all be reached by mountain
routes that give the moderate walker a long day of such scenes﻿V
OVER HONISTER
131
and such air and altitude as he would wish for. But we, who
in this narrative, at any rate, have to stick for the most part to
the road, are bound for the Honister pass and have yet, near a
thousand feet to climb before we are over it. And Seatoller here
may be accounted the foot of the actual ascent; a cluster of old
buildings whose remarkable grouping against an overhanging
background of tall trees, illumined by the flashing of a moun-
tain torrent, is one of the best bits of the kind in the Lake
Country.
Once through the wood above Seatoller, our way, enlivened
by the almost continous cataracts of Horse Gill, emerges upon
the wild fell and a road that is rarely rideable winds up the
deep mountain hollow to the summit of the pass. It is not
well that rain should fall while making this ascent, for there is
nothing bigger than a bunch of rushes in the way of shelter ;
but it is well perhaps that it should have lately fallen and filled
the fountains of the hills and stirred into activity the slender
cataracts that hang like silver ribbons against the grey face
of the mountain, upon our right and left. You will often turn
in the toilsome climb to get breath and at the same time to
look back over Seatoller and Rosthwaite to the Armboth fells,
and the fine mass of Helvellyn towering in the background.
But the wildness that of right belongs to the top of the pass is
somewhat qualified by the sheds connected with the quarry
which has riven the savage face of Honister Crag into shapes
that in gloomy weather rather add perhaps than detract from its
natural grandeur.
As we begin a descent so steep as to make the journey from
the other side almost impossible for vehicles, one of the most
striking scenes in the Lake country bursts into full view.
For Honister Crag, a rugged and gloomy mass of precipice and
screes, fills the whole foreground to the left, soaring up to a
height of near 2,000 feet. Between this and the opposing
shoulders of Dale Head we may look down through the nar-
row vista to the Buttermere road, trailing along a wild valley
K 2﻿I32
BUTTERMERE
CHAr.
far beneath us. The descent with a cycle is tiresome in the
extreme, while it causes timid females on the top of a coach to
grip each other in spasmodic fashion and wish themselves well
home again. But the steeper the grade, the quicker, after all,
one is down, and we may sail away over an unfenced moor-
land road, with a beck roaring and growing beside us for
a couple of miles, till Buttermere spreads its shining surface
across the narrow valley and another mile or so of easy road
through the charming woodlands that fringe its banks lands
us at the hamlet itself.
This last consists of a farmhouse or two and numerous
outbuildings, a diminutive church, though larger than its pre-
decessor, a parsonage and three inns, two of which are com-
paratively modern, while the third, appropriately called the
Fish, is quite a venerable tavern and of some note in early
Lakeland travel. These buildings cluster chiefly upon the neck
of land which divides the head of Crummock from the foot of
Buttermere, amid a pleasant network of meadow and pasture
through which the little river connecting the two lakes prattles
merrily. It is a quite ideal spot, and gives a greater sense of
seclusion from the world than any haunt of tourists we have
yet been in. There is, of course, no escaping from the fact that a
certain number of vehicles, every single week-day during the
summer, make the twenty-four mile round from Keswick, coming,
as we have done, by Honister and returning over Buttermere
Hause and the Vale of Newlands, undoubtedly one of the finest
and probably'the heaviest coach drive in England. But except
for the midday hours, largely occupied by visitors in feeding,
and I daresay for the August holidays, Buttermere is a marvel-
lously quiet spot considering its fame. I have myself been, in
May, the only visitor at the three inns, which is equivalent to
saying in all Buttermere, and again, in mid-June, but one of a
small company of cheerful but unsuccessful fishermen.
Now Buttermere and Crummock lakes, together with the strip
of land that parts them, completely fill a narrow, trough-like﻿V
ITS MOUNTAIN WALLS
133
valley of something like five miles in length, and not often over
half a mile in width. On the hither side only, where runs
the road, a narrow fringe of fenced enclosures and belts of
woodland straggle a short space up the mountain foot or hang
above the lake. Upon the further or the western side, for
nearly the whole distance of both lakes, the mountains, in
various shapes and clad with varied natural growths, fall almost
abruptly to the water’s edge. Above Buttermere particularly is
this the case, High Crag, High Stile and Red Pike all 2,500
Crummock Lake.
feet or thereabouts, forming a stupendous wall of green, not
very rugged such as can be seen of it, but none the less imposing
from the very vastness of the natural curtain that catches the
sun so early on its downward course. The fine effect of
this silent, overhanging steep, too, is greatly heightened by the
cataract of Sour Milk Gill which for hundreds of feet falls like a
thread of shimmering light, with sound unheard, but in-
stinct with life and movement. It is immediately opposite the
village, leaping suddenly into sight from the rim of a lofty﻿134
RED PIKE
CHAP.
ledge, and you would almost guess from the look of the hollow
between the summits of High Stile and Red Pike that the
stream issued from a tarn within their shadow, as is, in fact, the
case, its source being in a lonely shallow lakelet full of ill-fed
trout, and but a few hundred feet from the summit of the range.
No sojourner at Butter mere should by any means, if favoured
with good weather, neglect to ascend Red Pike, since the climb,
though steep, can be quickly made, as it springs sharply from
the lake shore and pauses nowhere.
Looking up Buttermere.
Buttermere too, like the other lakes we have seen, has its
own characteristic charms. A single country house, buried in
luxuriant and long planted woodland on the eastern shore, is
almost the only touch of outside humanity about it.' It is wild
and natural without being savage like Wastwater. In still weather
the marvellous purity of its waters, the clean silvery nature of
its strand and bottom in the shallow bays ; the dry, white
shingle of its shores contrasting with the bright verdure, not only
of bordering strips of meadow but of the reflected mountains.﻿V
WEATHER EFFECTS
135
give Buttermere, to my thinking, at any rate, a character all
its own. Yet I am not sure if a quiet dull day after a stormy
season, when the immense green walls between which the narrow
lake sleeps are all spouting with white waters hurrying down-
wards in strange contrast to the motionless and glassy surface,
is not as good a moment as any for loitering by its shores.
Honister Crag, so prominent an object, is, beyond a doubt, best
suited to a gloomy sky. The rocky heights above the lake-
head known as the “ Haystacks ” match well, too, with a sombre
background. When I recall, however, the look of the valley
as it appeared to me one sunny morning in June last from the
lower ledges of Red Pike a thousand feet above it; the brilliant
blue of the lake ribbed by the light breeze and catching the
shadows of the passing clouds, the green woods of Hassness
blowing along the further shore, the bold heights of Robin-
son and Buttermere Moss, of Whiteless Pike and Grassmoor,
shifting their moods every moment with the changing sky ;
when I recall the infinite beauty of that scene, and in the midst
of it the peaceful cluster of old buildings, embowered in foliage
with its carpet of green meadows spread around it from lake to
lake, I am inclined to repent and think the mood that would
favour the gloomy sky is the least happy one, and that the
most complete and enduring enjoyment is after all to be found
in the other, and the sunnier aspect. Yet I am sorry, too, for
the lover of nature, if there be any such, who is insensible to
the influence of her more sombre or more savage moods.
Nowhere is one more forcibly reminded than at Buttermere,
particularly when one wants to get out of it, of the “ starfish ”
nature of the Lake Country formation, and of how much road
travelling in proportion to the actual area has to be accom-
plished before every main valley has been exploited on wheels
of any kind. Ennerdale for instance, lies just over the high
ridge before us, an hour’s walk perhaps for an active youth,
but to get round there by road means a circuit of a dozen or
fifteen miles. Wastdale, further on again, can be easily﻿A MOUNTAIN WALK
CHAP.
I3b
reached on foot in three hours by mountain paths, but to get
there on wheels means a circuit of half Cumberland. I shall
venture, therefore, by way of variety, to take a day in the
mountains, and gossip for a few pages along the steep track
which leads from the head of Buttermere over Scarf Gap into
Ennerdale and thence over Blacksail to Wastwater, wildest
of lakes. This is a matter of some four hours each way taking
things very easily, which in a long summer day leaves ample time
for rest and refreshment at the inn at Wastdale Head, and even
for deviations from the track should such seem tempting. This,
indeed, is one of the most striking walks in the Lake region, and
though from start to finish traversing a perfect solitude, need
have no terrors for any but the hopelessly short-winded.
You may save two miles, moreover, at the beginning and end
of the day by riding up the shore of Buttermere and leaving
your machine at Gatesgarth beneath the shelter of Mr. Nelson’s
roomy waggon sheds.
The homestead and enclosures of this farm, somewhat
famous in Herdwick genealogy, fill what is left of the narrow
valley beyond the head of Buttermere. A typical mountain
sheep farm it is too, reaching out upon every side to the limit of
vision, or, in other words, to the rugged crests of High Stile and
the Haystacks, of Fleetwith Pike, Dalehead and Robinson
which form a horse-shoe round it. Many a prize ram and
ewe has been bred upon these fells, and such sprinkling as you
may see of the three thousand and odd sheep now carried on
the run will no doubt possess some measure of the blood of
a long line of cup-winners. Plantations of beech and oak and
larch, screen the homestead from the north-west winds that are
said to rage up the narrow lakes in winter with tremendous
fury. A beck courses through the yards beside the grey
farm-buildings of unmortared stone with cheerful and harmless
prattle under a June sun; but as the present occupant once
observed to me, if the builders of these old homesteads had
only realised what a tyrant a beck could at times become,﻿V
A MOUNTAIN SHEEP FARM
137
they would, even at the sacrifice of some convenience, have
gone a little further from their banks and a little higher up the
hills. Through the flat of fenced enclosures that forms the
floor of the narrow valley, the infant Cocker and the Warnscliffe
beck hurry to the lake amid unmistakable traces upon either
bank of their propensity to misbehave. An oat-field or two,
some meadows promising a late hay crop, some fresh sown
turnips just entering on their struggle with the fly, a few milk
cows and some playful colts comprise the home industries. But
the important part of Gatesgarth’s live stock are away now on
the Fells, some of them you can see flecking the velvety slopes
of Fleetwith, others are cropping the short turf of Hindscarth,
some are lying in the shadow of rocks and boulders beneath
Fligh Crag. An inevitable few again will be huddling in remote
nooks and crannies under the torture of the relentless maggot,
while the small force of the farm men and dogs with shears
and salve pots are probably at this moment hunting for the
patients over the ten or fifteen square miles of their wild and
rugged holding.
When you have climbed under a hot sun, and by a rough
path, to the high shoulder of Scarf Gap, you will have stopped
many times to look back, over the glassy stretch of Butter-
mere, lying so beauteously in the bosom of the hills; but you
will have been glad also to take breath and perhaps even to
mop your face. And when the thousand or so feet are accom-
plished it may perchance be borne in upon you that this is but
a little fraction of the hill farmer’s daily task in busy seasons,
in winter snow or summer sunshine, in rain or storm, in youth
or age. And when you have reminded yourself that the com-
pensating picturesqueness and romance of the business is the
creature of your imagination and has little part in his, the
thought may possibly occur whether with wool at Sd. and fat
wethers, at such late season as mountain sheep are ready, at
thirty shillings the hill-farmer’s life is all that poets and summer
tourists paint it,﻿133
A CURIOUS USAGE
CHAP.
The Gatesgarth fells are no longer “ stinted pasture ” or
common land. The landlord, here again a Marshall, has
fenced the boundary, a not uncommon proceeding nowadays
and of infinite convenience to the farmer. For though the
mountain sheep on commons like the Helvellyn and Matter-
dale ranges acquire an hereditary instinct for keeping to
their own beats that is wholly marvellous, a certain amount
of straying is inevitable. This very custom of a common
grazing ground, to which each valley-farm has a recognised but
unrecorded right to send up so many sheep, has maintained,
and indeed necessitated, a usage that is quite unique in
England—namely, that of the flock being the landlord’s
property; a fixture, in fact, of the farm, and calculated in the
rent paid, if not, indeed, the principal factor. The origin
of this is that only sheep bred upon the mountain know the
range. A strange flock would give such trouble for so long a time
that an incoming tenant would be almost compelled to purchase
of an outgoing one. Hence the sheep, by a natural process,
become part of a property that without them is useless. They
are valued to the tenant and periodically appraised, the differ-
ence at his death or outgoing being due from the one party
to the other. The farmer, therefore, under this system, is in
literal fact a shepherd working on the profit system with his
landlord, though the annual payment in the shape of rent is a
fixed one. Gatesgarth, though now fenced in, is held upon
these lines, the father of the present occupant having been
a noted breeder and prizewinner. So curious a custom will
interest, I think, any one connected with country life, and to
those of my readers who are not, I offer my sincere apologies
for the digression.
I will only add that these boundary fences, such as the one
we have now to go through on the ridge of Scarf Gap, with a
very necessary request posted on it to shut the gate behind
us, consist of iron posts let into the rock and connected by
strands of plain wire. They have sometimes to climb the summit﻿V
DOWN INTO ENNERDALE
139
of the loftiest mountain, and to traverse the brink of the most
savage cliffs. And even with the efforts made to give them
stability, it is astonishing to see how in exposed spots at great
altitudes the wires have been torn away and crumpled up by the
winter gales, and lie about in tangled heaps among the rocks,
droning dismal airs to the touch of the summer breezes which
play among them. There is indeed little other sound up here
on the fells but the plash of the rill just broken from its boggy
spring which leads our path-way down into the head of
Ennerdale.
The greatest enthusiast on Lakeland will not deny the
remarkable absence of bird life among its mountains. We
sadly miss the cluck of the startled grouse, the wild whistle of
the curlew, the plaintive cries of the lapwing. There are no sky-
larks here even in the valleys, and the white-backed wheatear
with its chirruping note is the only bird whose company we may
safely count upon. The ring ousel, the crag starling as it is
here called, that shy haunter of high places, that lover
of lonely glens and silent uplands, sometimes gives us
a pleasant surprise as he dashes with startled cry from some
stunted rowan tree on whose future berries he has set his heart.
The stone-chat, for which one might fairly look, I have never to
my knowledge seen here. But turning for a moment from lesser
to greater things, eagles were common enough in Ennerdale, as
in Borrowdale, at the close of the eighteenth century, and the
destruction of nests was a regular spring function. The same
rope that was used in Borrowdale and kept there, says a local
writer, was passed on, when needed, to Ennerdale and Wast-
water, these three localities containing the most precipitous
cliffs in Lakeland.
Indeed we are already face to face with some of the most
notable ones. As a faint track through rocks and bog grasses
leads us down into Ennerdale, we see beneath us a wild trough-
like valley untouched by civilisation, and threaded by the
windings of a silver stream. At the head of it the Great﻿140
THE PILLAR ROCK
CHAP.
Gable closes the outlook, while away down to the right the
waters of Ennerdale Lake gleam between the thrusting shoulders
of the hills. But immediately in front, forming, in fact, the
opposite wall of the valley, is the pile of screes and crags and
precipices which prop the long back of the Pillar Mountain.
Though the brilliant sunshine seems to flood everything else, it
wholly misses at this hour the savage northern face of the
Pillar which lies wrapt in deep shadows that are all the
gloomier and the more sombre from the contrast. Though much
less than a mile away, the details are so effectually shrouded as
to give the whole face of the mountain the appearance of a
vast and gloomy precipice. The outline of the famous Pillar
Rock, though right in front of us, is literally undistinguishable
against the shadowy background, while wandering rays of sun-
shine that here and there succeed in kissing some outstanding
crag add further mystery to the contrasting gloom.
The Pillar Rock enjoys much reputation among cragsmen,
for by a false step you may achieve an unbroken fall of something
like seven hundred feet. There are numerous routes, too, up
the face of it, involving various degrees of peril, as one may
well believe from its appearance. Young men of more
ambition than experience have been compelled ere now to
spend the night on the summit from their inability, or want
of nerve, to face the descent. The sad story of the elderly
clergyman who twenty years ago was found dead near its foot
on the morrow of his seventieth birthday is no legend but a
comparatively recent fact. The old gentleman, a Dalesman
bred, I think, lived at St. Bees and used to come once a year
on his birthday, to climb the Pillar. On thisjast occasion the
physical strain is supposed to have proved too much for him ;
for on being missed and searched for, he was found lying
dead underneath the cliff, not from a fall, as is sometimes
related, but from exhaustion or heart-failure after achieving the
descent in safety.
Nqw no one can have been in Keswick, Ambleside, or any﻿V
A WOULD-BE CRAGSMAN
141
of the Lake towns without admiring the great number of really
beautiful photographs upon a large scale of the surrounding
scenery. Among these the most difficult, or at least the most
notable, crags which the serious climbers affect are always
prominent, the Pillar and the Needle Rock, which is near
the Great Gable, being the most familiar in shop windows.
The latter, as usually photographed, with figures clinging
to the side or perched on the narrow summit, has a truly awe-
some appearance and is calculated to make one’s very blood run
cold. A young townsman who is an expert and somewhat of a
leader in this crag climbing business told me an amusing
incident bearing upon it. It so happened that an American,
by no means in his first youth nor yet slim in the waist,
was fired with ambition to attempt some of the ascents he
had heard of in Ennerdale and about Wastdale head, and
applied to my informant to superintend his maiden efforts.
While a plan of operations was being discussed, the two walked
round one of the photographic studios, the Englishman
pointing out those particular views which bore in any way upon
the subject in hand. The stranger’s zeal, his companion noticed,
grew unmistakably cooler as the inspection proceeded, and
when at length they stood before the Needle rock, which, I have
before remarked, is as usually depicted a really gruesome
looking thing not unlike a Cleopatra’s needle with a crack or
two across it, the stout American remained mute for a long time,
apparently fascinated by the prospect before him. At length
he broke silence :
“ What’s that thing ? ”
“ The Needle Rock,” replied the other.
“ And who in thunder’s that d—d fool on top of it ? ”
“ That’s me,” replied his proposed conductor.
“ Christopher Columbus ! ” according to my informant, was
all the American said, but a world of meaning may be thrown
by an American into the mere name of the discoverer of his
country, when fervently invoked.﻿142
T’ GIRT DOG OF ENNERDALE
CHAP.
The matter, it is needless to add, went no further.
We have to follow up the lonely valley for quite a distance,
before a deserted cabin, the only sign of man, within it marks
the spot where an almost invisible track up a craggy ravine
leads to the summit of Black Sail Pass, whence a long and
steep descent drops down to Wastwater. Ennerdale, like most
of the country round belonged in ancient days to Furness Abbey.
In the eighteenth century it was a deer forest, and one is not
surprised to hear that even in September the desire for better
fare made the stags so bold that they would raid the harvest
fields in the lower valley before the very eyes of the farmers
and carry off the oat sheaves from the stooks. This is
favourite ground too of the Fell foxhunter, and is within the
radius of a pack that is kept in Wastdale and of another at
Foweswater. But the most exciting sport that was probably
ever known in Ennerdale was in pursuit neither of fox nor stag,
but of a wild dog whose career reads more like some weird
German legend than a simple narrative of English pastoral life.
Sheep-worrying dogs have, of course, been for all time one of
the terrors of the sheep farmer, but the performances of
“t’girt dog of Ennerdale” in 1810 puts everything else of the
kind that I ever heard of entirely into the shade. The late
Mr. Dickinson, the well-known writer on Cumbrian life and
character, published a full account of the incident some forty
years ago, carefully collected from contemporary evidence, added
to his own personal recollections. We have nothing like space
here to do justice to an incident which, told in detail, is about
as thrilling a chapter of sport and mystery as in modern days
ever stirred an English country-side, but here, at least, is the
outline of it.
The leading figure in the drama was a large, smooth-coated
dog, of a tawny colour, with dark, tiger-like streaks upon his
hide and supposed to be a cross between a mastiff and a
greyhound. He first appeared in Lower Ennerdale, from
whence no man knew, in May, and was not killed till September.﻿V
A VERITABLE VAMPIRE
143
For nearly the whole of the intervening period the ravaging brute
was the object of unremitting pursuit by the inhabitants of the
entire district, with horse, hound, gun, and every artifice that
the mind of man could conceive; the sole subject of
conversation in cottage and farmhouse, the wonder of the old,
the terror of the young.
No sooner had he appeared than the mysterious stranger began
operations. The true sheep-worrying dog is rarely considerate
enough to kill a single animal and make his meal off it, but
mangles maybe half-a-dozen, taking bites out of the living sheep
and drinking the warm blood from the jugular vein. The Enner-
dale Vampire in his long debauchery of rapine, surpassed his
kind in wanton devilry and fiendish epicureanism as much as
he did in strength and cunning.
The ordinary proceedings usually followed in such cases
were useless, for the strange dog never attacked the same flock
on two successive nights, and the range of his depredations
spread over miles both of low country and fell. He hunted,
as a rule, by night only, lying low by day, and was never known
to utter any kind of sound. With the skill of a butcher, he
picked the plumpest sheep from every flock, and none that he
touched was ever known to recover. He was once seen at
early dawn to run down a fine ram, which is not usual with
his kind, and without killing it, to tear out and swallow lumps
of living flesh from the hind-quarters of the tortured animal as
it crawled forward on its fore legs.
The shepherds often saw the brute and chased him with their
collies, but this was futile, for no ordinary dog dare touch him.
One day he would be disturbed in a ditch at Lowes Water,
another in a wood at Lamplugh : the mysterious beast seemed
positively ubiquitous. Men with guns lay round by dozens on
the fells at night, but the object of their search, with surpassing
cunning, always managed to snatch his bloody supper at the
one point that had been left unguarded. The men, says Mr.
Dickinson, got worn out with night watching. The women﻿144
A REIGN OF TERROR
CHAP.
grew tired of cooking meals at all hours for stray parties who
were out on this protracted and futile dog hunt. The children
feared to go to school by day, or to pick flowers in the fields,
and shook or screamed with terror at every sound which broke
the night lest it should be “ t’ girt dog.” But this diabolic
fiend pursued his remorseless course in spite of every effort to
get even with him and nothing else was talked of at the church
door or in the market, by the fireside or on the road. Many
of the farmers kept a hound or two which they clubbed
together for fox-hunting. This scratch pack was laid on to
the sheep-killer several times but it laughed at them, running
before them till it had had enough and then quietly facing the
foremost of the long straggling pack and giving it such a
lesson that it fled limping and howling back, to the intimidation
of those behind. Poison was tried, but was quite useless, for
the brute was much too fastidious to dine off cold meat. It
had taken its meals smoking hot for weeks and continued to
do so. Ten pounds reward was now offered by a wealthy
absentee sheepmaster to the man who should kill the dog, and
every one who had a gun took to the hills, including many a
lazy loafer to whom such work was thoroughly congenial,
particularly as a further fund was raised to supply refreshments
to the pursuers. One Willy Jackson, of Swinside, had in the
meantime a great opportunity of earning both the fame and
the money, for as he was walking, like everybody else in the
country at the time, with a loaded gun in his hand, the
vampire suddenly appeared within thirty yards and gave him
an admirable shot. But the gun, as rustic guns a century ago
were apt to do, missed fire, and the brute careered away with
his charmed life, to perpetrate further ravages.
June and July passed away, and it was calculated that over
two hundred sheep had already fallen victims to the scourge.
On one occasion the dog was surrounded in a field of corn by
thirteen men with guns, and running out within five yards of
one of them Will Rothery, so frightened him that he forgot to﻿V
SOME MEMORABLE RUNS
145
fire, and leaped out of the road crying “ Skerse, what a dog ! ”
A deaf old man too, named Jack Wilson, was gathering sticks
near by in blissful ignorance of the excitement around him,
when the quarry bolted between his legs, which were notoriously
crooked. The veteran turned a somersault and to his dying
day swore it was a lion that had upset him.
One of the regular packs of hounds was now brought into
the country as a supreme effort to put an end to the terror,
and if they did nothing else they had some amazing runs.
The details of several are given at much greater length than we
have space for. One morning, for instance, two hundred men
turned up with the hounds on Kinniside Fell above Ennerdale,
started the quarry there and ran him to Wastwater and thence
through Calder to Seascale on the coast, where night stopped
the pursuit. Another time he carried them twenty miles to
the Derwent. On a third occasion he was viewed away on a
Sunday morning from the high fells, and the chase went
thundering down past Ennerdale Church during service, sweep-
ing with it as a matter of course the congregation, including, it
is said, the Reverend Mr. Ponsonby, who followed as far, we
are told, as his strength would let him. This run ended near
Cockermouth in a storm. The pursuers got a sad drenching,
but the dog escaped. On another occasion this phenomenal
beast actually carried the chase from Ennerdale Lake to St. Bees,
where he hid in a garden and was seen trotting quietly away
after the weary hounds and hunters were well started on their
long road home.
At last, on the 12th of September, he was marked into a
cornfield : a large muster of guns and hounds was rapidly
collected, and the beast wounded by a lucky shot. This en-
abled the hounds to keep on level terms with him when he
broke covert, but not one of them durst tackle him. When
the huntsmen caught them up again the dog was coolly bathing
in a pool in the Ehen River near Stockhow Hall, and the hounds
splashing about at a respectful distance, afraid to come to closer
L﻿146
DEATH OF THE SHEEP WORRIER
CHAP.
quarters. A man named John Steel was the first up, but durst
not fire on account of the hounds, and the exhausted quarry
making a last effort dashed from the river and headed for
Eskat Woods. Here after much halloing and beating, Steel,
whose gun was loaded with small bullets, got a near shot at the
vampire, bowled him over, and became the hero of the day,
and, still more, the winner of the ten pounds reward. The
campaign had lasted over four months, and no dog out of fiction
Buttermere frojn near Gatesgarth.
has ever perhaps caused so much and such continuous agitation.
The carcass weighed eight stones, and the hide was stuffed and
set up in a museum at Keswick with a collar round the neck
inscribing the sanguinary achievements of “ t’ girt dog of Enner-
dale.”
The rough ascent by the side of the torrent to Black Sail
Pass out of Ennerdale has been the subject of much exciting
description. One cannot help thinking that the “hardy pedes-
trian” sometimes writes himself down as a most verdant andmelo-﻿V
“THE HARDY PEDESTRIAN”
147
dramatic person, or that the author of some guide books must
regard him as a most prodigious old woman. It was not till I
had walked over from Buttermere to Wastdale and back for
the first time that I became aware from perusing a well known
work on the Lakes that I ought to have taken a guide with me !
As a matter of fact, and by an accident, I had not even a map,
but by taking the bearings from one before starting I found no
difficulty whatever in keeping the track of what is certainly as
delightful a walk as it is a wild one. Indeed, twice traversed
once in May and once in June of the past year, I did not meet
or even see a human being between Buttermere and Wast-
waler. It was therefore surprising to find that “ the hardy
pedestrian with very minute directions might succeed in
finding his way over the mountains, yet every one who has
crossed them will be aware of the danger of the attempt
and of the fatal consequences attending a diversion from
the right path.” The hardy pedestrian to whom death was
the penalty of losing the track on Black Sail would be
something more than an old woman—he would be a suicidal
maniac, for he would have to climb the Pillar or Kirkfell
mountains, which rise on either side of the pass, for the
precipice needful to the tragedy. Even in the worst of thick
weather he would hardly do this, while the path down Mose-
dale into Wastdale is very plain and easy, offering grand views
of the precipitous sides of Scafell with the smooth steep slopes
of Yewbarrow on the right and Wastwater sleeping in the
hollow beyond. For a novice to get befogged on the summit
of, say, the Pillar, the Great Gable or Scafell mountains is of
course both unpleasant and dangerous. But really in the valleys
and passes of this country, so long as streams run down hill, it
would require something more than ordinary stupidity to come
to very much grief. However, I . have before me a printed
letter from two gentlemen who declare that Black Sail should not
be crossed without a guide, giving as the reason that they had
the preceding day done so in a north-east wind and rain
L 2﻿i48
CRAGSMEN
CHAP.
storms, and owing to the delay in picking out the track grew so
benumbed that death seemed imminent, and nothing in the
writers’ opinion saved them but an opportune flask of brandy !
These gentlemen must surely have been tender plants. A wild
day’s grouse shooting on the hills or loch fishing in fierce
weather would by such standards have finished either of them,
and Black Sail should not on that account be credited with
such imaginary terrors.
If the skies are clear it is in truth a delightful walk along
the broken and extended ridge leading to the summit of the
Pillar Mountain, which is but just under 3,000 feet. From
here you may see to much advantage the precipitous heights of
Great Gable, Scafell and Scafell Pikes, all close at hand, and
behind these again the savage outline of the Langdales. All
about here is the region most beloved by the amateur crags-
men. These daring souls foregather greatly at the inn down
at Wastdale head, which is a convenient point whence to
attack “ the best bits of work.” Here, too, I am credibly in-
formed, you may listen to a jargon as mysterious to the un-
initiated as even golf was in the times when there were any un-
initiated and the acrobatic feats of the day are illustrated, they
tell me, by ardent souls at night, on the smoking room furniture
amid a most conspicuous absence of whisky and tobacco. The
late Mr. Gwyn Jones, who was killed in 1S99 on the Alps, has
written an admirable book on climbing in the Lake country
which will interest even those who have no mind to follow in
his perilous steps.
There is more, however, to be seen from the Pillar Moun-
tain than these noble haunts of the cragsmen, since you
may look away to the sea and the Solway and to much besides ;
and in descending to Ennerdale on your homeward route to
Buttermere you may save a long tramp and indulge in a little
mild excitement by clambering down the screes, near the Pillar
rock, keeping a sharp look out always that such stones as you
may loosen in the descent leave their resting place before and﻿V
RISKS OF SOLITARY CLIMBING
149
not behind you. For there is one thing the traveller who
climbs alone amid these mountains out of the holiday seasons
will do well to remember—to wit that a broken leg, or even a
sprained ankle, may possibly be worse than a broken neck.
Except on two or three of the more frequented mountains, a
crippled and helpless mortal might shout and whistle to the
passing wind for all such help as he would be likely to secure
from a fellow wanderer, within a reasonable period.
burncss Abbey﻿Approach to Buttcrmere.
CHAPTER VI.
In the old Fish Inn once dwelt Mary Robinson, the famous
“ Beauty of Buttermere,” and I use the epithet advisedly, for
Mary is no faked-up heroine enlarged and embroidered for the
tourist appetite. Indeed she was no heroine at all in the literal
sense of the word, but the victim rather in a somewhat tragic
story with which all England at the opening of the last century
rang fora brief space and remembeied for some time. If Mary
had not been a village belle of something more than village
notoriety, and if the villain of the play had not been a very prince
among his kind, it is probable that the incident would have been
but a nine days’wonder in the county of Cumberland, its details
being of a time-honoured and familiar description. As it was,
however, the Press of all England rang with and revelled in
the story which appeared in dramatised form on the boards of
more than one theatre. Wordsworth celebrated it in verse,
and De Quincey has left us an account of it in prose. The
former, in addressing Coleridge on one occasion, reminds him﻿ch. vi	THE HONOURABLE AUGUSTUS	151
of the “ Artless daughter of the hills, wooed and won in cruel
mockery,” and of how greatly they themselves had been
“ stricken by her modest mien ” or in plain English, by her
good looks, for De Quincey tells us that the two poets admired
her prodigiously. He himself, who also knew her well, is more
critical, analysing her claims with much precision and wholly re-
jecting her title to any remarkable beauty. Large and fair, with
a fresh colour and regular features and a touch of distinction in
her carriage, sums her up according to the prose writer, and he
ridicules the notion of her being comparable to many women
he could mention in the matter of beauty. But Buttermere,
and the world that visited Buttermere, agreed that Mary was
a beauty, and if, as De Quincey hints, she was not quite so artless
as the poet fancied, this is of little consequence, for her virtue
at least was beyond reproach.
The drama opened at Keswick in the summer season of
1805, when a handsome travelling carriage drew up with a flourish
at the door of the “ Royal Oak,” and deposited a sufficiently good
imitation of a man of rank and fashion, who seemed to clinch the
matter by writing himself down, on his visiting cards and else-
where, as the Honourable Augustus Hope, M.P. This was fol-
lowed by a candid admission of the soft impeachment that he was
a brother of Lord Hopetoun. The distinguished visitor soon
showed that he had come to stay. He was delighted with his
quarters, with the scenery, and with the people, while the
latter were equally pleased with him, visiting cards and atten-
tions of all kinds being showered upon him by local society,
whose members fairly tumbled over each other in their eager-
ness to do honour to the Honourable Augustus. Not quite
all of them, however. Here and there a doubt was expressed
that he was a little too dashing, a little too affable. Coleridge
said that even his grammar was at times shaky, but
when it was known through the post office that he franked
letters, unworthy suspicions vanished, for forgery then might
mean death, and after all it was not an unprecedented thing for﻿152
A VILLAIN AND IMPOSTOR
CHAP.
even the brother of a peer to be deficient in taste and careless
of elocution. At any rate, such subtleties were far beyond the
discrimination of a village maiden of nineteen, however versed
she might be in innocent flirtations with passing tourists, or in
the more uncouth badinage of rural swains. For the Honourable
Augustus came in due course on a fishing excursion to Butter-
mere and the innkeeper’s daughter who waited upon the guests
found such favour in his eyes that he prolonged his sojourn
for several weeks, and laid regular siege in open and honour-
able fashion to the lovely maiden’s heart. Who could doubt the
result ? Whether he won her heart or not, he won her hand,
and I have no doubt that the fair Mary’s vanity as well as that of
the parish of Buttermere, saving always its eligible swains, was
greatly flattered.
So the happy day was fixed, and the smallest church in
England with its single bell did tire best it could under the
circumstances to ring out the triumph of the Beauty of Butter-
mere. The knot was tied as fast apparently as Church and
State could tie it. Admirable excuses were forthcoming for
the absence of the remainder of the noble house of Hopetoun
at the ceremony. What the many ardent friends of the
Honourable Augustus in the Vale of Keswick, one of whom,
De Quincey relates, had christened his son and heir after
him in wholesale fashion, thought of his matrimonial enterprise
history does not say. But it was quite evident that the happy
bridegroom was in no hurry to introduce his rustic wife to
that world of fashion in which he was accustomed to revolve,
for the newly-married pair do not seem to have extended
their honeymoon rambles very much further than Keswick.
Suddenly, however, like a bolt from the blue, the law swooped
down upon Augustus and carried him off from Mary’s arms to
Carlisle gaol, there to be tried on a charge of forgery, which,
alas ! turned out to be but the least heinous of his many sins.
Far from being Lord Hopetoun’s brother, he proved to be a
person of plebeian though respectable birth, son, in fact, of a﻿VI
HUNG AT CARLISLE
153
Devonshire tradesman named Hatfield, and the Hopetoun fable
had commended itself from the fact of his lordship being
stationed abroad. But I must here condense what is in fact a
long and somewhat thrilling story of fraud and trickery. Mary
proved to be but the last of several victims, mostly her superiors
in station, whom with singular adroitness and cunning the
prisoner had treated in similar fashion. Coleridge, among
other people, had a. sight of the villain’s papers and read the
letters from these despairing and only half-disillusioned women,
wives as they thought or had recently thought themselves.
“ The man,” wrote Coleridge under deep emotion, “ who, when
pursued by these heart-rending apostrophies, and with this
litany of anguish sounding in his ears from despairing women
and from famishing children, and yet found it possible to
enjoy the calm pleasures of a Lake tourist, must have been a
fiend of that order which fortunately does not often emerge
amongst men.”
Hatfield was prosecuted on the forgery charge by the Post
Office, condemned, and left for execution, his heartless
treatment of Mary Robinson and villainous former record
putting all thoughts of the recommendation to mercy by that
time usual on the part of juries in forgery cases of a minor
kind.* Mary went back to the Fish Inn, from which indeed she
had never wandered far, and to her former duties. If she had
been an object of passing interest before, she became now an
object of pilgrimage. Compared, however, with her unrecorded
predecessors in Hatfield’s affections, her cross was a light one.
She had no children; her rustic neighbours never thought of
the word shame in connection with her misfortune, and the
world came to gape at her as a sort of melodramatic heroine.
There is some evidence that if her heart had been much
engaged in the business the wound was effectually healed by her
indignation. She ultimately married a respectable farmer of
Caldbeck, away East of Skiddaw Forest, and her dust now
* Hatfield was hung at Carlisle.﻿154
EARLY SUMMER IN BUTTERMERE
CHAP.
reposes in the same picturesque graveyard as that of a
neighbour whom accident too, in a different fashion, has made
still more famous, namely, John Peel of foxhunting renown.
Buttermere is still as sweet a spot as there is in all Lakeland,
and enjoys a natural seclusion of which even that nightmare of
Lakists, a light railroad, could scarcely rob it. Save for a couple
of modest inns and a diminutive new church, it is practically
the same spot as that in which the villain Hatfield wooed the
Maid of Buttermere, and Wonderful Walker, during his early
ministry, spun wool and taught school within the altar rails.
Only in the holidays and on high days, at the hours when the
passing coaches dump out their loads, will the Solitary have any
cause to complain of the pressure of his fellow creatures.
Indeed I doubt if the whole parish could furnish fifty spare beds.
The outlook over the valley from a few hundred feet up the
rugged breast of Red Pike, which forms its western wall, is, on
a sunny morning in May or June, one of extraordinary charm
and infinite peace. The little hamlet itself with its old barns
and farm buildings and big shade trees and stretch of meadows
laced with hedge-rows lying between the lakes, looks so
unconscious of its celebrity and so wholly indifferent to the
outer world. Even the two inns at such a moment might
almost be suspected of cultivating a philosophic resignation to
the absence of the tourist. Men come and go at Buttermere
in their thousands, but in the long intervals between whiles the
relapse of this happy valley into its pristine quiet is complete.
The stroll through the meadows, too, from the Fish Inn to
Crummock Lake on such a day is delightful. Herdwick ewes
with their comical black and white lambs are everywhere in
evidence, bleating back defiance at bustling, yapping collies who
go about their duties with a conscientious energy and a desire
to give satisfaction that is so very human, and indeed so very
superior to the average humanity. An old foxhound or two,
summer boarders from a neighbouring pack, look on at the
hubbub in contemptuous apathy, and callow puppies whose﻿VI
CRUMMOCK
i55
feet have not yet pressed the wintry fells upon a fox’s scent
sprawl about in the paddock.
How charming too is the clean gravelly shore at the head
of Crummock when you get there, visible so far out beneath
the lake’s pellucid waters, and the cheery voice of the beck
as with one final plunge over the stones it ceases from
troubling in the quiet depths it feeds. And you will do well to
have the key with you of one of the boats that lie moored
here beneath the gnarled, stunted oak trees, and pushing off
Crummock in Stormy Weather.
into the sunny ripples that dance outside the shelter of the
little bay, paddle at your leisure down the centre of the lake.
Many people, though to be sure they are mostly fishermen and
prejudiced, maintain that this is the best vantage point for a
true appreciation of the valley as a whole : looking as one
does from here right up the heart of it, over the long trough
where Buttermere, though unseen, lies sleeping, and away
beyond to the rugged heights of Honister and the Haystacks.
Crummock itself is nobly guarded by commanding heights,﻿CRUM MOCK TROUT
CHAP.
156
by Whiteless Pike and Rannerdale Knotts on the east, and Grass-
moor, with its precipitous sides, washed red and bare a hundred
and fifty years ago by a long-remembered waterspout. On the
western side the descending ridges of High Stile and Red Pike
leap up again to the two crests of Mellbreak, and in wild weather
when the fountains of the hills are loosed, the thunder of Scale-
force with its hundred and sixty feet of sheer fall can be readily
heard upon the shore.
Though holding pike, these two lakes have always been noted
for their trout and char. The “ laudator temporis acti,” however,
is much in evidence just now, and that either the trout are not
there in such numbers or they do not rise so freely as of yore is
the prevalent opinion of old habitues with whom I have cursorily
talked or fished. That very poor form of amusement, night
trolling, seems more successful than the fly, and I have seen
more than one trout over a pound taken this way after dark by
sportsmen who have flogged the lake all day with fly under pro-
pitious circumstances with much less result. On Buttermere only
one boat is allowed ; on Crummock the inns have several: but
there is really nothing to choose between the lakes. Three to
the pound is the average weight, and I am afraid three fish to the
day is not far off the average catch, though there of course will
be notable exceptions. These lakes are quite famous for char,
but the char lurks and feeds in very deep water and is caught
only by deep trolling. As to the trout, it seems a pity that the
riparian rights of netting are still exercised in this country by
lords of manors and innkeepers. They cannot be of great
value, and if the practice does not cause serious depletion, it
is a shocking bad example to poachers and potential poachers,
who cannot be expected to regard the netting of trout so
seriously as in a district where the act itself is tabooed among
owners.
The natural proceeding for the visitor coming to Buttermere
as we did is to return to Keswick by Buttermere Hause and
the Vale of Newlands ; another wild mountain pass and another﻿VI
LOWESWATER
157
beauteous valley at its foot. The native, however, when the
calls of business or pleasure take him into the outer world,
finds his natural outlet by the longer course of the Cocker
which drops down from his own lakes through the delightful
Vale of Lorton to Cockermouth, there to mingle its waters with
the broader streams of the Derwent.
But for us there is no call to scramble back to Keswick; we
have to break out of the mountains to the sea-coast so let us
take the easier of these two routes and slip along the level
road which skirts the shores of Crummock. After rounding a
few obstructive craggy headlands and then trending inland
through meadows and growing crops, we turn sharp to the
westward at the lake foot where the fresh loosened Cocker goes
roaring through the hanging woods of Scalehill. Birch and
larch, oak and ash, sycamore and beech, mingle here in fine
confusion the fresh glories of their June dress. On the breast
of a leafy ridge we leave behind us with some compunction
the snug hotel, more attractive in itself, perhaps, than those
at Buttermere. A mile or two of undulating road and we
are skirting Loweswater, as we skirted Crummock. A warm
west wind is ruffling its sunny surface, and whitening the rich
woodlands which mantle upon its further shore and climb
the green foot of Carling Knott. A charming little lake is
this, lying so snugly in the lap of hills and woods ; famous for
big pike and holding trout too, as a couple of boats drifting
rapidly along the further shore bear witness to. At the lake
head a long and weary climb brings us to the top of the ridge,
whence we may pause for a moment and regard with lingering
admiration the vista of hill and wood and water so lately
traversed. With interest of another sort we may look down
on the low country as to the eastward it rolls away towards the
sea past Cockermouth and Workington, where tall chimneys
and hovering wreaths of smoke stand out against the distant
glitter of the Solway.
Here we must leave our highway to descend into prosaic﻿A LONELY ROAD
CHAP.
158
lowlands, and ourselves turning southwards strike out along a
lonely looking byway that keeps the ridge and leads, so says
both the map and quite a spruce finger-post, to Lamplugh. It
is going of the best, though a lonely looking road as well as
a lofty one. In a moment, as it were, we are off the track
of the tourist and as much outside Lakeland, though we are
treading on its very heels, as if we were in Durham or York-
shire. The grey, untravelled, limestone road shoots forward
in long straight undulations between straggling hedges, thickly
dashed with the white blossom of the May and waving, wild,
uncared-for locks of bush and brier in the riotous sea wind.
Cold snipy-looking commons prolific of rushes and the wild
cotton flower alternate with pastures not long reclaimed,
where the bird life, so silent on the mountains breaks out
once more in the clamour of the pewit and the lone cry of the
curlew. Rusty wires hum on black peaty banks and strips of
pine wood roaring loudly as we pass give out their tribute of
startled cushats. The green fells stretch away inland on our
left, to terminate in the familiar mountains we have just
been climbing, while on the right there is nothing but the soft
sea wind, beating on the ragged foreground, for no glimpse of
the low country is permitted to us here. More luxuriant con-
ditions, however, greet us as we run down into Lamplugh, a
place that, having been already mentioned, might therefore be
supposed to enjoy some measure of outside fame. On the
contrary, I do not suppose that any guide book does more
than note its name, if that. But in purely local annals and in
a homely racy fashion Lamplugh is a place not without repute.
I had certainly myself read its praises, not, I fear, in the
polished metres of Wordsworth, Southey or Coleridge, but in
the rollicking vernacular of one of those local bards who painted
the Cumbrian rustic as he was in everyday dress, not as he
ought to have been and in his Sunday best.
“ Lampla’ an’ Loweswater, lang men an’ lean
Hos roags an’ thieves fra Bran that’ an’ Dean.”﻿VI
LAMPLUGH CLUB
159
This is enigmatical and not over complimentary. But it is a
fragment of a poem which was written at any rate with know-
ledge and humour, ingredients for which we may be thankful
when the Cumbrian peasant is the subject of a theme. There
is a fine stone gateway opposite the church, which banishes the
libellous jingle for the moment, for on the arch, together with a
coat of arms, is inscribed the name of John Lamplugh and the
date, 1591, commemorating another relic of Tudor building
activity. Through the iron gates may be seen an ancient
manor house now evidently fallen in the social scale. I know
not when the race of Lamplugh of Lamplugh became extinct,
but its doings, matrimonial and otherwise, are thick upon the
Cumbrian chronicle for long after this old gateway was
built. While trying vaguely to recall some of their doings
which are not perhaps important enough to inflict upon the
reader, we come suddenly upon the Lamplugh inn standing
alone at a cross road a mile or so beyond. Here the
traveller of simple tastes, who like ourselves is bound for
St. Bees, would do well to refresh himself, and here, too,
a large hand-bill crackling in the wind proclaims the fact
that the morrow is the annual festivity of the Lamplugh
Club. Now Lamplugh Club day is an almost classic event
in the local calendar, being much more than a century old,
and has been celebrated in prose and verse of a highly
entertaining and realistic kind. Indeed if you happen to be
familiar with that notable prose idyll of Dickinson’s, “ Lamplugh
Club,” you will find yourself regarding the modest interior of
the inn while discussing its homely fare with some interest
though with doubtless small inclination to order Lamplugh
pudding, a delicacy composed of biscuit soaked in hot ale,
with seasoning and spirits according to taste. Though the time-
honoured revelry, with which various cases piled high by the
door, threaten for the morrow, may be but child’s play to
what it was in the time of the third George and of Oald Jobby
o’Smeathat, and Banker Billy and Johnny Bray that there is still﻿160	A LIBERAL PROGRAMME	chap.
no lack of innocent diversion out of doors, as is evident from
the programme.
It has been given to me while on my travels at this season of
the year to peruse the play bills of a score or two of such
Cumbrian gatherings displayed upon the walls of post office or
public house. There is nothing like them in the South for
comprehensiveness. Imagine a rural meeting that begins with
a welter handicap and ends up with a waltzing competition ! I
was once rash enough to indulge in some gentle banter
regarding so singular a combination while being ministered
to at a country inn upon the Solway. But the young person,
who on that occasion was the ministering angel, bridled greatly,
intimating that this particular event, the waltzing match, I mean,
was her special perquisite. Every taste and every form of
activity is here catered for, and with, I think, much good sense.
Horse racing on the flat and over hurdles, pony races and
trotting matches are on the card of events ; sprinting for young
men and old men, races for girls under ten and women over
fifty, with wrestling, of course, and tugs-of-war. A hound
trail is usually a feature, and as I have said, a waltzing com-
petition with various entertainments of a similar kind that
have slipped my memory. It would be interesting to know
if any country side in the world can show so liberal a spirit
in the matter of its outdoor entertainments.
The good folks of Cumberland and Westmorland have been
ardent sportsmen since time began. In the days of the Merry
Monarch, the country squires were wild about racing. The
Sandford MS. tells in quaint language of a great match on the
“ famous horse course ” at Langwathby between the “ Earle of
Morrayes wily horse ffox,” and an English horse called Con-
queror. But “the Conqueror conquest him and won the
money though the night before ther was the terriblest blast
ever blowen ; churches towers, trees, steeples, houses all feling
the furie of the furies thereof. The devil a stir whether of
England or Scotland I cannot tell but the English horse got﻿VI
CUMBRIAN SPORTSMEN OF THE OLDEN TIME 161
the prise. The great stores of woods was so blowen done
across the way as we had much adoe to ride thorow them yet
not so bad a blast as usurping Oliver had when the devil blew
him out of this world, God knowes whither.”
A Cumbrian antiquary who has concerned himself with
this important phase of country life in bygone days gives a
long list of local racecourses in full use in the seventeenth cen-
tury, Langwathby or “ Langanby Moor” being always the
premier gathering. Among other things, the Sheriffs were
excused from entertaining his Majesty’s Justices of the Peace
on the condition of presenting a fifteen pound plate to be run
for in the county. The programme for the coming racing
season seems, in fact, to have been officially arranged at
Quarter Sessions, where Penningtons, Musgraves, Lawsons,
Hasells, Briscoes, Huddlestones, xA.glionbys and a host more,
whose names are still familiar in the land, represented the
justices, who formed, as it were, the Jockey Club of Jacobean
Cumberland. “ Brave gentile gallants and justiciers, great
gamesters, never without two or three running horses, the best
in England.”
Some, we learn, “galloped themselves out of their fortunes.”
But Mr. Joseph Thwaites of Ewanrigg Hall, seems to have
combined business with pleasure, caution with frolicsomeness,
to quite a wonderful extent; for he was “ one of the wittest
brave monsieurs for all gentile gallantry, hounds, hauks, horse
courses, boules, bowes and arrowes and all games whatsoever;
play his ^jioo at cards, dice or shovelboard, if you please, and
had not above £200 per ann., yet left his children pretty
porcions ; and dyed beloved of all parties.”
Stag hunting too was much in vogue in bygone Cumberland,
and even before the Restoration there was a club known as
“The Cumberland Gallants,” who conducted “a hunting
progress,” or, in modern parlance, met at the chief deer
preserves in turn.
M﻿162
A DISFIGURED COUNTRY
CHAP.
It is near a dozen miles from Lamplugh to St. Bees, and for
nine of them, as far that is to say as Egremont, the road
traverses a brick red country, greatly scarred by the working of
iron ore. There is no need to linger over the dreary rows of
sordid houses that chiefly compose the little towns of Arlecdon
and Frizzington, of Cleator Moor and Egremont. Every man,
we are assured upon all sides, is in full work at seven shillings
a day. The cottage interiors in this fine summer weather are
in full evidence : so are all the population who do not actually
labour in mine or quarry or smelting works. And one may be
permitted perhaps to wonder why the standard of domestic
comfort, taste and cleanliness among these people is so much
lower than that of their neighbours in the hamlets of our
recent journeyings, who look so trim and tidy on half the income.
It is not poverty, that is very certain, or over-crowding, that has
made slatterns of them. For the breezy open country is all
around, though disfigured here and there by tall chimneys, or
huge dump heaps, or the uncouth outlines of machinery.﻿VI
MINERS
163
The backs of the Lakeland mountains are rolling parallel
with us as we travel south, and the mouth of Ennerdale, where
the green fells part to let out the river Ehen, seems close at
hand, while upon the west we are trending nearer and nearer
to the sea. Here and there a pugnacious looking dog scowls
on the roadway, or a basket of carrier pigeons is being borne
to the station, while the public-houses have everywhere an
unmistakable air of prosperity, thick as they stand. Rabbit
coursing, too, is a leading pastime in these communities, and the
passing traveller would assuredly draw the inference that
neither church nor meeting-house was the factor here that
they are in Welsh or Cornish mining life. Irishmen, as is
natural, flock hither in considerable numbers, and another
importation is that of Spanish ore, which is largely taken for
smelting along this coast. There was a great exodus of miners
to the Transvaal between 1894 and 1897, their families for the
most part remaining in Cumberland. Such men as these,
unaccustomed even at home to look beyond the moment, and
who in South Africa were getting big wrages paid out of Euro-
pean capital, were used, it will be remembered, very freely as
witnesses by those whose interest it was to minimise the
grievances of the Uitlander. If this strip of iron ore country,
running into coal as it nears Whitehaven, is a sad blot upon
the land from an artistic point of view, it has, at any rate, been
of immeasurable service to an otherwise backward region, for
many a fortune has been dug out of it, and thousands of human
beings have here made a good living for the better part of a
century.
The ruins of the famous Castle of Egremont rise grimly up
amid the somewhat murky atmosphere of an unattractive
though ancient little town. It was a Norman fortress
originally, passing by death and marriage through many
illustrious stocks. The de Lucy’s owned it when the incident
occurred which gave rise to Wordsworth’s poem “ The Hern of
Egremont Castle.” This notable instrument, it will be remem-
m 2﻿164
THE HORN OF EGREMONT
CHAP.
bered, hung over the Castle gate, and was so deeply saturated
with the honour of the de Lucy family that it refused response
to any lips but those of a rightful Lord of Egremont. When
the owner and his younger brother, however, were away on a
crusade, the latter was overborne by a desire to own the family
property, and hired some rascals to drown his brother in the
river Jordan. Believing the nefarious job completed, he hurried
homeward, and took possession of the broad estates appertain-
ing to Egremont Castle, prudently refraining, however, from
any attempt to play upon the family horn. But soon after
this, while celebrating his succession by a great banquet, he
suddenly and to his horror heard the loud blast of a horn at
the gate. The usurper did not wait for further developments,
but fled incontinently out of one door while the rightful
owner entered at the other. Years afterwards he returned to
Egremont to crave forgiveness of his injured brother, which
obtaining, he retired into a convent to repent him of his sins.
It is now but three miles to St. Bees ; and it is singular
how abruptly one leaves the smoky belt of Cumberland﻿VI
ST. BEES
165
behind, for in ten minutes we are running smoothly down a
red lane, deep sunk in a rich hollow, fair and fresh, warm and
green as South Devon. Precocious crops of potatoes and
grain are flourishing upon ruddy hill sides, and a merry brook is
tinkling by the roadside, amid a perfect carpet of bluebells, or
playing hide and seek among lush thickets of alder, willow, and
briar rose. Out again in the open, and the sea-breeze hits us in
the face as the road goes dragging up through bleak pastures to
a bleak skyline. The windy ridge surmounted, St. Bees shows
plain below us, a straggling, grey-roofed town, in a narrow valley
opening to the sea. A queer old-fashioned place it seems, too,
as we descend upon it, cut off to all appearance by high ridges
of treeless pasture from the outer world. As a matter of fact,
however, a small railway wriggles in here from the south by
the coast line, and wriggles out again through the hills to
Whitehaven.
St. Bees is very emphatically a village, though a large and
attenuated one. It might be a thousand miles from coal and
iron; some travellers given to metaphor might say from any-
where. Its single long street comes climbing out to meet the
approaching visitor, and carries him gently down through half
a mile of plain, old-fashioned cottage houses to the level mea-
dows in the valley, where amid an oasis of stately timber may
be seen those venerable buildings which have endowed the
place with such measure of fame as it enjoys. Perhaps it was
the contrast with the mining villages so recently traversed, but
St. Bees struck me on a first acquaintance as the most delight-
fully drowsy place for one that claimed to be almost a town
I had ever seen. I was labouring at the moment, too, under
a trifling misconception, which may have somewhat unduly
emphasised this seeming repose.
For, like everybody else of ordinary acquaintance with such
matters, I had all my life been familiar with the name of St.
Bees as a prolific nursery of north country parsons, and as the
best known perhaps of all those gateways to the Anglican﻿A FRUITLESS QUEST
CHAP.
166
ministry which are somewhat invidiously known as “ back-
doors ”; I had in fact come there on purpose to see the famous
College. On riding down the village street I marvelled greatly
not so much at the absence of all sign of student life, since
that might readily be accounted for, term-time though it should
have been, but at the dejected air of so very small a place,
which for several generations had been in its way a University
town. I looked long for any signs of life, till after a while a
tired-looking individual, smoking a pipe near an open door,
broke the solitude, and of him I inquired the way to the
College.
“ T College ! Thear’s nae College here.”
“ Well then, the University.”
The native looked vacuous, and shook his head.
Then the light of intelligence gleamed from his eyes, and
he waved his pipe northward.
“I racken ye means t’ grammar schule.”
“ No, I don’t; I mean the College.”
“ Thear’s nae College here.”
This was too much; and I rejoined, with some heat, that it
was the only thing there was there. But at this moment an
imperious demand from a red-armed lady in the adjacent
doorway broke up the interview prematurely, and my friend
vanished.
There was no one else in sight, so I pedalled slowly down-
wards.
A baker’s cart then drove rapidly by, and a sudden thought
struck me.
“ Is this St. Bees ? ” I shouted to the whirlwind as it passed.
The man of loaves was probably taken aback by the absur-
dity of such a question, and if he answered at all it was when
out of range. This was certainly the quietest University town
by a very long way I had ever seen.
A trustworthy looking matron now came along carrying a
pie, and to her I applied for the whereabouts of the College.﻿VI
A VANISHED COLLEGE
167
“There’s no College here, sir.”
“ Well, then, the University.”
“There’s no——” At that moment there was a loud clangour
of bells and a small cloud of scorchers dashed down on us out
of the solitude. We ran for safety, and when the turmoil was
over the lady with the pie had vanished.
A small urchin was playing on the side walk
“ Look here, my boy, is this St. Bees ?”
“Aye.”
This was at once reassuring and perplexing, but the little
railway station now hove in sight, so I made straight for it,
discarding several possible sources of information on the way.
Here at least this exasperating conundrum would be finally
solved.
The daily train was evidently due, and the little station was
quivering in anticipation of it with a crowd of a dozen
passengers and all astir. The stationmaster was of course much
in evidence, and now at any rate I should know the worst.
“Stationmaster,” I said, “would you be kind enough to direct
me to the College ? ”
“ The grammar school, I suppose you mean, sir.”
This was worse and worse ; it was impossible that one could
have been the victim all one’s life of so monstrous a hallucina-
tion.
“ Look here, stationmaster,” I said, “ I won’t detain you a
moment, but you have got an establishment here that has been
turning out parsons with blue hoods by the hundred since
a long time before you and I were born. Now, where is it,
please ? ”
The stationmaster looked at me, I fancied pityingly, for a
brief moment, when suddenly up went one arm above his head,
and the other with his whistle to his mouth, and he was across
the line in a moment. Fate was against me ! The train was
approaching.
There was still a porter on the near platform, but I was now﻿AN OLD GRAMMAR SCHOOL
CHAP.
168
in no humour for long speeches. “ Porter,” said I, ‘‘haveyou
got a College here, and, if so, where ? ”
The porter was a very sharp man, and did not seem pressed
for time, and from him I learnt at least the bare fact, familiar
doubtless to many of my readers, to wit that the College
had collapsed some three years previously. There was
nothing surprising in such an incident escaping the notice of
an uninterested layman in the far South. But that an institution
so comparatively venerable, and, to judge by the number of its
alumni that one meets not only in the North but all over the
Whitehaven.
world, so prolific, should have suddenly snuffed out was quite
outside ordinary calculations.
I had much cause, however, to be thankful for the mistake
that had brought me there, for St. Bees is well worth seeing.
The ecclesiastical settlement in which all its interest is
centred stands out by itself on the further side of the little
valley. The old buildings of the grammar school, which has
taken out a new lease of life and is doing good work, are quite
charming, and form three sides of a square. They suggest
at first sight certain Cambridge Colleges in miniature, though
their ruddy tint comes from stone in this case, and not from﻿VI
AN ACADEMIC ATMOSPHERE
169
brick. Just across the road, amid a grove of ancient trees
murmurous with the congenial clamour of a rookery, other build-
ings of academic aspect cluster round the beautiful old abbey
church of red freestone, presumably occupying the site of the
original foundation of the Celtic saint, St. Bega. The aloof-
ness of the neighbourhood itself from the world, and the
further isolation of this group of venerable buildings from even
such life as throbs here, takes hold at once of the imagination.
Whether the movement which gathered divinity students here
for nearly a century was desirable or not for the Church of
England is no concern of ours. But he would be a dull dog—
and many such no doubt came here—-who was insensible to the
peculiar fitness of such a place for such a purpose. From an
artistic point of view one can have nothing but regrets that it
no longer serves it. As at the Welsh St. David’s there is some-
thing peculiarly suggestive of the early Church about the whole
atmosphere of St. Bees, and student days spent there must, on
minds receptive of such things, have left cherished and lasting
impressions. The academic spirit certainly broods amid
the shade of the limes and sycamores that wave their tops
over the beautiful roof and massive tower of St. Bega’s spacious
church, and the now deserted lecture halls and other relics of
its eighty years’ collegiate existence. Pleasant walks wind
about amid the shade, and the mellow red freestone of the
ancient walls shows to much advantage between the scaly trunks
of the sycamores, the moss-green columns of the limes, the
shining pillars of the beech. The sough of the sea comes
faintly from the shore not a mile away, and mingles with the
stir of leaves above. A deep clangour of bells from the hoary
tower strikes down through the green flickering roof; an
answering note sounds from the clock tower of Archbishop
Grindale’s grammar school; and the rooks, as if they too by
long association shared in the daily programme of the settle-
ment, grow clamorous, and give a finishing touch to a scene
that is wholly charming.﻿170
OLD ST. BEES
CHAP.
At the distribution of Church property after the Reformation
one Thomas Chaloner received a grant of the cell, manor, and
rectory of St. Bees. Though a descendant, we are told, of the
seventh noble tribe of North Wales, what was very much more
to the purpose, even in those days, he was a wealthy mercer of
the City of London, and took his name from his trade. He
rose to great distinction as a courtier and diplomat in Eliza-
beth’s time, and, like all the new owners of Church and Crown
lands near the border, had much friction with his tenants, who
had been accustomed to regard themselves as legal fixtures,
and forced their new overlords in the end to come down to
their point of view. The Chaloners seem to have been glad
in no long time to dispose of their manors to a Wyberg, who,
being presumably a native, understood better what he was
about, though the Wybergs in due course gave way to the all-
absorbing house of Lowther, who endowed the College with
the living. What there was of St. Bees Church settlement in
th,e ninth century was burnt by those Danes who, with the
Norwegians, came in by the west coast and got a permanent
footing. Mr. Ferguson has clearly shown too how strong and
at the same time how distinct from the other was the Nor-
wegian element in Cumberland ; the latter, as the Norse place
names, the innumerable thwaites and garths, show, settling for
the most part among the hills; the former, as similar evidence
attests, squatting in the valleys. The present church of St.
Bees commemorates the Benedictine Priory founded by William
de Meschines about 1130.
From St. Bees itself, a short mile of grassy valley leads you
down to its little bay, whose north side is sheltered by the bold
headland which also takes its name from St. Bega; the only
high bit of coast in fact between the Solway and the southern
Esk. It is a cheerful cove-like little bay, marking the site,
geologists tell us, of a submerged forest, but, what is more to
the point, displaying firm clean sands, on which all the chil-
dren apparently of St. Bees, bare-legged and rejoicing, disport﻿VI
BY THE SEA SHORE
171
themselves. Its only noticeable claim to be considered a water-
ing place is a solitary hotel of dazzling whiteness, and severely
simple but comfortable construction ; a rigidly nautical building,
in short, owing nothing whatever to shore-going fripperies. You
crunch up to its doors on deep sea-side shingle, and a full-rigged
marine flagstaff completes its character. To ardent lovers of
salt water it should appeal as suggesting residence in a light-
house or a coastguard station, without their disadvantages—
for it is not only clean and fresh, as I can testify to, but most
comfortable withal.
Egremont from a distance.
But we have dawdled too long in this sleepy hollow ot the
coast, and must get back to the village and climb the long
hill once more towards Egremont, turning sharp to the south,
howrever, before touching either that town or the mining belt.
Hence it is some six miles to Calder Bridge, through a pleasant
undulating country, devoted apparently to the breeding of
Cheviots and border Leicesters and the grazing of shorthorns,
though big, thrifty, dark-coloured Galloways here and there
form a pleasing variety upon a soil that looks everywhere
admirable. An old stone bridge carries us across the Ehen﻿172
THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND
CHAP.
River, which, fiery with the tint of iron works, tumbles with
much commotion between bosky banks. A venerable native
is lounging against the parapet, and on slight provocation
develops a talent for reminiscence that has doubtless but few
opportunities for display. The time-honoured lament over the
change of times, and above all the passing of land from its
former owners, both squires and statesmen, are the burden of
his talk. These things are not without their attraction in the
original with the help of a pipe and the accompaniment of a
rushing Cumbrian stream, but they do not lend themselves to
reproduction. So travelling still southward and leaving
Beckermet, which means in Norse, I believe, “the meeting of
the waters,” on the right, a broader and more travelled road
leads us at a higher level towards Calder Bridge. From up
here we have a far wider outlook. To the right over a strip of
green rolling country, sparsely sprinkled with homesteads, the
Irish Sea lies blue and sparkling beneath the touch of a light
breeze and the glow of a summer sun. The little watering
place of Seascale, where bathers and golfers congregate in
moderation, can be just seen breaking the long and somewhat
unknown shore line with a touch of the outer world, and the
white puff of a train is slowly crawling through the fat and
peaceful pasture land towards St. Bees. To the left the fells
of Lakeland, between Ennerdale and Wastwater, roll their
rounded shapes along our route, all aglow in the bright sun-
shine, while straight ahead of us, but still far away, is Black
Combe, which seems to spring with amazing suddenness from
the hitherto level coast line and fill the sky with its huge
humpy form.
The woods hereabouts bear ample evidence to the fury with
which the winds lash this western slope of Cumberland; for
the beech and sycamore plantations that here and there brush
the road crane their tops eastwards so low as to form a thick
flat roof of interlacing leaves from which startled birds break
with most untoward commotion. A sharp descent now drops﻿VI
CALDER ABBEY
173
us into Calder bridge, where an imposing gateway opens up an
imposing avenue. The stag’s heads which surmount the pillars
recall the fact that this was the home of the Cumbrian
Stanleys, who, if memory serves me right, came in the first
instance from a small manor in Eskdale. A charming village
is this of Calder, expanding outwards by degrees in two rows
of irregular old-fashioned buildings, till there is space between
them for a rustic green, and beyond this again a fine old
Calder Abbey.
freestone church looks down on the clear streams of the
Calder which churn below amid rocks and leaves.
An old-fashioned hostelry, the “ Stanley Arms,” across the
bridge, completes the picture, and does something more than
a roadside business. For a mile or so up the narrow valley of
the Calder stand the ruins of the famous abbey, which, next
to Furness, was of chief importance in north-western England.
What is left of this beautiful Cistercian house, founded in the
twelfth century by Le Meschin, son of the founder of St.
Bees, now adjoins a small country house which is in no way﻿174
MONASTIC PEACE
CHAP.
out of harmony with its more venerable and long dismantled
neighbour. Of this latter, the beautiful pointed arches
supporting the central tower, and the walls of the south transept
and cloisters are still in a great measure perfect. And a
wealth of ivy and creepers has clambered up the ruinous
walls, till it mingles with the spreading tops of beech and ash,
whose leaves flutter where a high-pitched vaulted roof once
echoed to the notes of chaunting monks. The warm red
stone of arch and pillar and cloister wall shows in charming
contrast to the green lawns from which they spring so grace-
fully, and form an ideal framework for the glimpses of
woodland, fell and sky that show between. The hawthorns in
the park too are a blaze of pink and white, the chestnuts in
the splendour of their bloom. The silence of a summer
afternoon could hardly brood over a spot more eloquent of
monastic peace. The neighbouring house is empty, the garden
quiet, and there is not a sound in the air, save the cawing of the
rooks in the tree tops, and the plash of the Calder, which but a
stone’s throw distant, comes tumbling from the wilds of Cope-
land forest over red limestone boulders and glittering through
avenues of over-arching woods.
From a retreat so snug it is natural enough that we can only
escape by the same road we entered it, and joining the main
highway again at the village, there is an easy run over the un-
dulating country between sea and mountain to Ravenglass.
Gosforth is passed with its ancient cross, Holmbrook with its
winding streams, the outlook upon every side assuming in the
meanwhile a grander phase. The Scafell group looms wild
and high in the west, and the dark fells beyond Muncaster and
the Esk look us in the face as we drop down into the small
harbour at Ravenglass, where the last named river, together with
the Irt and the Mite all meet the tide amid a waste of tossing
sand-hills.
The cyclist who is indifferent to brake or pedal will be
precipitated into Ravenglass with much velocity by the steep﻿VI
RAVENGLASS
175
country road which rushes down past a handful of modern
villas and cottages under the railway arch, and terminates
apparently in the water itself. Indeed, if you are not duly
careful in shooting the arch you will be very apt to finish your
journey in the harbour instead of the town. But these are
grand words--there is not much of a harbour and very little of
a town. The bar has silted up since the days when large
Roman fleets rode here at anchor, and but a few small boats
laden with manure and such like now crawl up with the tide
to what is left of a once famous place—to wit, a single street of
slate-roofed white-washed but mostly ancient houses that, lying
just above high-water mark, mutely tell as plain a tale of vanished
consequence as you may wish to read. Ravenglass during the
Roman occupation was the chief port in north-west Britain.
The inland and the sea-coast road from Chester to Carlisle met
here : many acres of buildings clustered where now there is
green meadow, and large fleets gathered in the then ample
harbour. B it it can scarcely be the glamour of the Roman
period which causes the modern map-makers to write Raven-
glass in such big capitals, to the unfeigned surprise of the few
strangers who drop in there, and to the undoing perhaps of
some of them. Not, by the way, that there is any lack of﻿176
A PLACE WITH A PAST
CHAP.
homely accommodation, for the inn is I believe excellent. The
general air of the place, however, is that of having out-
lived its mission in life and its hope of usefulness. No doubt,
every soul inhabiting the double row of queer old-fashioned
tenements is usefully and worthily employed, in some way
or other, but not, I take it, after the manner of their pre-
decessors, for smuggling is writ large all over Ravenglass, and
it has a delightfully wicked appearance, though it does nothing,
I believe, more reckless nowadays than gather mussels.
Its reputation as a haunt of lawless and irregular characters
was in former days considerable, and even in its respectable
and reformed old age one might well fancy that there yet
lurked here some persons of original and primitive habits. It
looks twenty-five miles from a railway station, though it is not
in fact two hundred yards. It has no architectural pretensions
whatever, but only a wealth of expression and much pathos in
its quiet, bygone, passed-over and forgotten look. It would
stimulate the fancy, I think, of a writer of marine fiction, who
might spend a week here profitably among such stray artists
who rummage in obsolete harbours and love the skeletons of
old boats, the shimmer of wet sand and the white wings of
sea-fowl.
Once upon a time a church dignitary from the far south,
who was spending his holiday in the lake country, came over to
take the Sunday service at Ravenglass. It was a case of good
nature in a sudden emergency, and the reverend gentleman,
gauging Ravenglass, like the rest of us, by the measure of its
type upon the map, took with him a sermon suited to the mayor
and corporation, to the black-coated and top-hatted, to the
befeathered and befurred intelligence of a thriving provincial
town. His surprise was great when he found himself in the
ancient little church, so charmingly set amid the Muncaster
woods, which serves the worshippers of Ravenglass, It was still
greater, and was not unmingled with embarrassment, when his
unaccustomed eye looked down upon the score or so of Raven-﻿VI
A COLONY OF GULLS
177
glass natives who on that occasion and at that particular season
made up his temporary flock. One thing at least was quite
clear, and he folded up his manuscript with much deliberation,
put it in his pocket, and when sermon time came met the
emergency in extemporary fashion to the best of his ability and
no doubt with success.
Now, no one passing through Ravenglass in the early summer
should omit to visit the gullery, as the spectacle is not one to
be seen everywhere nor every day. The stranger will do well
too to seek the guidance of the veteran boatman Farrands,
whose two boats lie off the spot where the far end of the village
street jumps into the water, and constitute, so far as my obser-
vation goes, the mercantile marine of modern Ravenglass. It
is well to follow this course, not merely because the quickest
route is by water, but on account of the venerable pilot him-
self, who is highly intelligent, and has a good knowledge of
everything that flies over the sea or swims in it. The little
estuary, by which the three mountain streams which mingle
their waters here in the harbour escape to sea, is about a
a mile long, dividing as it were two vast sand barrens. The
one upon the north side stretching towards Drigg, and nearly
cut off from the mainland by the tidal portion of the Irt, is
some two or three miles long, and perhaps one in width. A
large portion is the breeding-ground of thousands of gulls and
terns, protected from molestation by Lord Muncaster’s keepers,
who have charge of the rabbit warren adjoining it. The birds
return regularly to lay their eggs and rear their young amid the
bent-clad sand-hills. The ground seems to be divided out
between black-headed gulls and terns, and the border line
more or less accurately observed. It would be an experi-
ence, I think, to most people and something of a revelation
to walk for half a mile or more, literally picking their steps
among the dark forms of half-fledged gulls scuttling like young
chickens or pheasants in every direction, while a vibrating
canopy of shrieking parents turns you giddy with the ceaseless
N﻿178
TERNS
CHAP.
movement of their wings, and almost drowns the sound of your
companion’s voice with their ceaseless and strident clamour.
Nests lie in clusters, half a-dozen together, amid the bent
grass. At this season some few still contain unhatched eggs.
In others the shells lie around recently broken, and the late
inmates scuttle like fluffy balls around our feet, while the earlier
hatched birds race up the sand-banks and through the grass
like coveys of running partridges. The whole ground over many
acres seems literally alive with them, till passing out of the gull
colony with its deafening clatter, we emerge on the domain of
the terns, whose sharp cries and scantier numbers give, by com-
parison, a sense of almost silence. The tern will be recognised
as the graceful hawk-shaped member of the gull tribe, pure white
in colour, swift and nimble as becomes a bird of prey. They
are later breeders than the black headed gulls, and though the
nests, full of bright coloured, deeply blotched eggs, are as thick
upon the ground as those of their neighbours, scarcely any
young birds are as yet hatched out. The tern will tolerate no
busybodies, and will savagely attack any winged intruders,
striking them with its sharp beak upon the head with singular
accuracy. My guide related how he had himself seen them kill
partridges in this fashion with a single blow, who had ventured
within their territory. Passing out of this sandhill country of
the terns on to the barer flats, some oyster catchers, an odd
sheldrake or two and a few plovers disport themselves at a
respectful distance from their neighbours; though by the same
token it may be remarked that the bays and estuaries of this
west coast are nothing like so well furnished with wild-fowl
proper as the shores of Northumberland and Durham on the
North Sea.
As we paddle back over the half-mile or so of flowing tide
toward Ravenglass we listen to the nowtoo-familiar tale of scarcity
of salmon, and the decrease in the numbers of fish which with
the summer floods ascend the Esk. We fall into gossip, too,
concerning the mysterious ways of the king of fishes, and our﻿Vi	THE SALMON AND THE BUTLER	179
boatman tells how, on six occasions during a long life spent on
the mouth of a salmon river, fish have jumped spontaneously
into his boat. On four of these the latter was lying empty,
moored to the bank; on the other two he was in it himself.
The memory of one incident even yet causes the old gentleman
much amusement, though he lost his fish. For it so happened
he was one day rowing a party of servants, chiefly females,
from a big house in the neighbourhood near the spot we are
now travelling over, and a salmon of some twelve or fifteen
pounds leapt into the lap of the butler, who was on the cross-
seat facing the boatman. This functionary was so intimidated
that, instead of throwing himself upon the slippery visitor, he
pitched backwards, heels up, into the arms of his fair friends
in the stern, causing much emotion and very nearly a disaster,
while the equally astonished fish, giving a vigorous kick, flopped
over the side of the rocking boat into his native element again.
On the River Leven.
N 2﻿Ravenglass.
CHAPTER VII.
Sloping gradually upward from Ravenglass is the block of
high and broken land which divides the valleys of the Esk and
Mite. The whole western or seaward end of this ridge is
clothed with the luxuriant woodlands, or green with the lawns
and glades of Muncaster, the most beautiful country seat in
Cumberland, where Penningtons have lived, so far I can learn,
since time began. At the lower edge of the demesne, long before
its beauties reveal themselves, and in fact but a stone’s throw
above Ravenglass, is the site of the Roman town that over-
looked the harbour, where big ships, as ships then went,
freighted with the produce of the far south, lay at anchor off
its wharves.
But I do not think I should linger by what is now but a
bare pasture,—old Ravenglass having been mostly built out of
these Roman ruins,—save for the immediate presence of a
solitary relic which I rather fancy is a unique specimen of
its kind. We have excavated Roman villas in plenty all
over England, but I do not know of any that have defied
the elements above ground, and at the same time survived the
depredations of the local builder and road-maker, save this one
at Ravenglass. It stands even yet some twelve feet high, and is
fashioned out of that red freestone which the Romans got out
in such quantities from the quarries at Gosforth. As a matter
of fact, it was assumed with surprising carelessness, till no great﻿ch. vii	A ROMAN VILLA	1S1
while ago, to be a mediaeval fortress of some sort, and is even
yet known locally as Walls Castle. But when the archaeologists
got to work upon it the matter was soon placed beyond all
doubt. An elaborate system of hypocausts was laid bare by
slight excavations, and glass with other material was found in
the debris. The sills and sides of the windows are even now
fairly perfect, and there is a niche for a bust or image, while
over the inside of the walls may still be seen a coating of rose-
coloured plaster.
Now, as a mere subject for the play of fancy, I do think a bit
of Roman architecture, standing above ground like an ordinary
Norman keep, is much more stimulating than any amount of ex-
cavated work. The fragment of the basilica wall at Uriconium,
near Shrewsbury, the white city of Llywrch Hen, destroyed by
the early Saxons, always seems to me so much more suggestive,
looming thus mysteriously above the stubbles and turnips of a
Shropshire landscape, than all the acres of excavated buildings
sunk in the ground around it. How much more then does
this Roman dwelling house, perhaps the sole survivor of that
wonderful, almost inconceivable epoch of our island story, stir
one’s fancy to vain endeavours to picture it. Chancellor Fer-
guson, who if special knowledge can give value to such retro-
spective tableaux most assuredly possessed it, paints one for us
here, and asks us to recall the spot as it was in the year 300
a.d.—with its great fort, its row of officers’ villas on the terrace
above, its extensive suburbs full of farmers, tradesmen and
hangers-on of the garrison. Out of the fulness of his know-
ledge he touches the deserted harbour with magic wand and
fills it with vessels from the Mediterranean and the Bay of
Biscay, all busy loading and unloading cargoes, while Spanish
and Italian sailors crowd the wharfs bending beneath loads of
olives, anchovies, sardines, great amphorre of wine and other
luxuries which the Romans loved and had taught the Britons
to love. Outgoing cargoes were here, too, of a far different
kind awaiting shipment: large sporting dogs and dejected﻿MUNCASTER
CHAP.
182
natives, some going as slaves, others as recruits to fill the
wasting ranks of legions on Continental service. The garrison
on this coast, all authorities seem to think, were, as regards the
rank and file, largely composed of Moors and Spaniards and
of other races from the remoter shores of the Mediterranean.
But we must leave the sleepy Ravenglass of fact and the
lively Ravenglass of historic fancy alike behind us and push
on, either by private drives through the deer park or by the
public road as opportunity offers, to the higher ground and the
Muncaster Castle.
green woods of Muncaster. The castle itself lies behind the
ridge, perched finely on its southern slope with a commanding
outlook both up and over the valley of the Esk, and from the
level of the stream below appearing to spring out of a very sea
of foliage. From this point indeed it makes a noble picture,
though the great square tower is I think the only really ancient
portion of the building. Art and nature have indeed had
opportunity for combination here that is not often given even
to the famous country seats of England. There are woods as
fine, and glades as green, and dells as deep no doubt﻿VII
IN THE CASTLE GROUNDS
183
elsewhere. There may also be broad terraces of velvet
turf winding round steep slopes clothed with everything that
can be coaxed to bloom and blow in this soft western climate.
Granted that such foregrounds, beautiful though they are, may
readily be matched, it is not likely that they can often form the
setting and the frame for such a landscape as may be seen
through every break in the foliage, through every opening in
the woods at Muncaster. For the whole of Eskdale, with its
rich lowlands, its wild bordering fells, its shining stream, opens
out to the west; and against the sky just far enough to give
From the Terrace, Muncaster Castle.
the glamour of distance, but not so remote as to dwarf
their altitude, the mass of the Scafell mountains lies nobly
piled.
Muncaster, like so many ancient seats, has its special heir-
loom, for Henry VI., when a fugitive from the field of Hexham
and a benighted wanderer, was found by some shepherds upon
the crest of yonder fell, where a chapel now points its gables
heavenwards in pious memory of the event. The hapless
monarch was brought down to the castle by his humble
rescuers, and there tended till returning health or prudence﻿184
INTO ESKDALE
CHAP.
allowed of his departure. As a token of his gratitude he left
behind him a glass cup which the Lords of Muncaster still
cherish, and on whose preservation an ancient legend says the
good fortunes of the house depend.
A pleasant and well-kept road leads from the foot of the
Muncaster grounds up the northern side of Eskdale, but it is
private and sometimes locked. So the passing traveller who
would see the lower part of the valley must take the public
road on the southern bank of the river, and this is not only
the worst in Cumberland, but, having regard to the physical
simplicity of the route it follows, its roughness takes one
wholly by surprise. Perhaps it is of no great importance, still
I am sorry for the farmers who live upon it; and those I
encountered in my first and only struggle with its ruts, rocks
and gates, seemed fully conscious that some meed of sympathy
was due to them. As a matter of fact most tourists enter Eskdale
higher up by the road from Miterdale, and this implies
not only a considerable detour from Ravenglass, but also
the loss of the fine retrospective views of Muncaster that
so greatly enrich the scenery of the lower reaches of the
river. Tourists however rarely visit Ravenglass, but cling
for the most part to the mountains, coming down from
YVastwater and doubling back through Upper Eskdale over
Hardknott, on which toilsome path we ourselves are bound
The little mineral railway, too, which runs up Miterdale from
Ravenglass and into Eskdale, where the dividing barrier
drops for a moment as it were to let it through, is often
used, and with it comes the main road, which those on
wheels of any kind most usually follow. When this point is
reached, the sorrows of the cyclist from Ravenglass by the
valley road will be over for a time, and he may drown their
memory if he likes at that attractive and old-fashioned hostelry
“ The King of Prussia.” Even in these dales the indomitable
Frederick, the ally of Pitt, the hero of the Seven Years’ War,
was a name to conjure with, no doubt, and to be exalted to the﻿BY THE BANKS OF ESK
VII
i§5
highest honours that a country-side once famous for its thirst
could offer to a popular character.
From here to the foot of Hardknott, the most rugged pass
that wheels attempt in the Lake Country, is six miles. Till
this is reached there is nothing for the cyclist to complain of,
and the charms of Eskdale, which are exceeding great, may
be enjoyed without let or hindrance. Upon the right is the
rugged wall of a wild moorland country which carries grouse
and heather, and contains the lake of Devoke, where the most
excellent of trout abound, stretching away to the Duddon
valley. On the left is a greener, but more broken mass
of fells, that roll away on either side of the gloomy tarn of
Burnmoor to Wastwater and the forest of Copeland. Farms
and small hamlets with foliage in abundance, both of wood and
hedgerow, form a cheery foreground to the surrounding
heights, which grow in stature and in sternness as the valley
narrows. The river twists and babbles merrily through sun and
shade, growing feebler in its note as its junction with each trib-
utary stream is passed. The sun is bright, the air is warm,
and fleecy clouds are moving with slow and stately steps from
the east, as far to all seeming above the highest mountain tops
as the last are above us. June can be as kind in Lakeland as
in Kent or Essex, and when you catch her in such humour it﻿RAILROAD OR BEANFEASTER
CHAP.
186
is a treat not to be forgotten lightly. Thrushes and linnets pipe
in the thickets ; the cuckoo’s loud note sounds along the fern-
clad foothills, and the corncrake grinds out its harsh but
seasonable cry from lush and flowery meadows that await the
scythe. Among the most delightful of Cumbrian valleys,
Eskdale may assuredly be numbered, and to it belongs the
further distinction of bearing its charms unpolluted and almost
undiminished to the sea.
A new hotel of some pretension seems the only evidence in
the valley that the touring world has a fancy for making any
stay in it, while further on the old “ Woolpack,” a wayside
inn of local note, lies snugly set amid shady trees. Some-
where too in the valley the little narrow-gauge railroad is
winding its way along, for yonder to the left is its terminus,
which rejoices in the euphonious name of Boot. • Much
pleasantry is indulged in concerning the mild adventures of
tourists who take the good intentions of the little line, which
after all was built to carry minerals and not men, too seriously.
But to the natives of the valley, who no doubt understand its
humours, it must be of great service. And from an aesthetic
point of view, moreover, it seems to me so entirely unobjec-
tionable. An industrious steam threshing machine would be
a fiend by comparison as a disturber of the rural calm. I
must confess some inability to sympathise with the indis-
criminate uproar that every mention of a new railway in a
picturesque country calls out. Neither a railway train nor a
stream of beanfeasters on wheels harmonise to be sure with the
beauty or repose of nature. I am not sure, however, that I
don’t prefer the former evil. The tumult is at least all over in
a moment and there is peace for an hour or more, probably
for more by a great deal between Boot and Ravenglass. But
the beanfeaster, to use a southern term for convenience, is with
you on the turnpike much longer and much oftener. He
hurts much more too, for not only does he actually throw
his dust upon you, but his choice and merry jibes as well, if﻿VII
THE CHOICE OF TWO EVILS
187
he is very full of beans—or beer. He at any rate does not
come to these parts “humbly, Wordsworth in hand,” which
was the sole condition, said a leading luminary among Lakers,
with some surprising lack of humour, on which he would
welcome the alien. Now a railway it must be admitted relieves
the road traffic immensely • sometimes it even restores
it to that elementary and peaceful condition which in our
selfishness as lovers of nature we cannot help rejoicing in.
At the expense of a shriek and a rumble at long intervals it
creates a peace where otherwise there would be no peace from
the noisy clatter of chars-a-banc and brakes. The Holyhead
road, for instance, through the vale of Llangollen enjoys
moderate immunity from any disturbing kind of traffic, but it
would be intolerable if the Great Western did not whisk the
swarming tourists westwards under mountains and through
woodlands, which lose, as I have good reason to know, little of
their beauty and seclusion by the process. There is surely
nothing in the actual track of a railroad, particularly if it be a
single one, more intrinsically offensive than in the artificial con-
structions of Macadam ! To the eye of the eighteenth-century
recluse, who may have felt as we do on such matters, I have
no doubt the wide metal coach road, walled up here and
blasted out there, seemed an abomination. Nowadays the
very people who grow hysterical at the bare mention of a new
railroad, almost cherish the turnpike and are even tolerant or
apparently so of the beanfeaster. Such is custom and its
subtle but prodigious power. Let any one, in all candour,
with a cool head and without prejudice, consider whether the
railroad from the aesthetic point of view is not the victim of
much ill-considered and unjust abuse. The cunning rabbit,
the timorous hare, the suspicious pheasant will tell you I think
that for their part they prefer it any day to scratch or scrape
or dust themselves up on, to the everlasting hubbub of the
turnpike.
Having said so much I feel I have laid myself open to the﻿A ROMAN FORT
CHAP.
188
suspicion of holding a brief for the perpetration of some
monstrous outrage on the Lake Country—a railway up Scafell,
or round Derwentwater ; though I am bound in fairness to
say that Snowdon has not suffered and thousands have beheld
the finest mountain outlook in Britain who could not otherwise
have done so.
But we are now mounting a track which is altogether too
much for the kind of traffic which carries the beanfeaster and
the tripper. The last farm is left, the last gate closed, and we
are fairly breasting the open fell with the pass of Hardknott
some thirteen hundred feet above sea level before us. It
Near Boot.
seems difficult to imagine that this steep, tortuous track,
striking out so relentlessly for the high and lonely fells, was
once a great Roman thoroughfare. But before going far
one is very forcibly reminded of its old importance by the well
marked remains of the fortress which defended it upon the
western side. The lines of this same fort, about a hundred
yards square, are yet most plainly to be seen, with the traces of
a tower at each angle, much of the stone being from the Gosforth
quarries. I need not say that most of this has long been carried
off to do duty in neighbouring walls and farmhouses, but the
mound where stood the tower for signalling up and down the﻿OVER HARDKNOTT
189
VII
valley remains, and the two acres or thereabouts of green which
was the parade ground is plain enough to see near a large cairn
about a quarter of a mile off. Experts have been here on and
off during the past century and found many curious things,
among which were leaden pipes that brought the water from a
spring in the hills a mile away. There were bricks too, and
tiles baked in the kiln, which with smelting works then
existed near Ravenglass—nails, glass, pottery, iron hooks, and a
carved stone which seemed to fix the date as that of Calpurnius
Agricola, 162-9. The officer in command up here must in
truth have had a dreary time from the Roman point of view.
Yet this north-west frontier was no doubt the place to see what
active service there was going, and one is apt to forget that
Hadrian’s Wall was something more than a remarkable piece of
defensive masonry, and that it meant a busy line of stations
and a constant movement of masses of men and merchandise.
Cumberland, at any rate in Roman times, was a busy and a
stirring country compared to the barbarous wilderness of many
centuries later.
But we must hurry over Hardknott with our pen as no man
ever hurried over it yet upon his feet or in the saddle, unless
indeed it were flying smugglers with the gaugers on their heels
for this was the natural route by which the illicit plunder of
Ravenglass went inland. What constitutes, however, the real
terror of the crossing is the fact of its being a double ridge.
For when you have climbed near 1,300 feet it is but to descend
again for half that distance with a view to surmounting
another ridge beyond of equal height. In the intervening
hollow we cross the head-waters of the Duddon, the Duddon
of Wordsworth’s sonnets, and of much fame for its exquisite
scenery, and may see it winding down to Seathwaite, where
for most of a long life dwelt a character that has acquired,
owing in the first instance to Wordsworth, much fame in
Lakeland lore. This was the Rev. Robert Walker, or “Won-
derful Walker,” though probably the point of the story is﻿196
WONDERFUL WALKER
CHAP.
that neither he nor his parishioners saw anything wonderful
whatever in his performances. Hence the interest of the
man, not as an average type perhaps, but at least as an
extreme one of an old-time dale parson. To those who
have a mania for labelling and docketing every creation of the
novelist and the poet, Walker will chiefly appeal as the man
whom Wordsworth had in his mind when he drew the some-
what idealised pastor of “ The Excursion.”
The subject of this unavoidable parenthesis was born in 1709,
the twelfth son of a Seathwaite yeoman. Being the weakest of
the family he was “ bred a scholar,” and went through the
usual Cumbrian programme of village school-teaching to holy
orders, followed by a combination of both offices at Butter-
mere, where there then stood the smallest church in England.
In 1736 he was appointed to Seathwaite, then worth about
£$ per annum, where he lived and worked for the remaining
sixty-six years of his life. He married early a wife with a
dower of ^40, the principal of which was never touched. He
raised a large family, educated them all well, and left ^2,000
and a vast amount of woven cloth to be divided among
them. Those who write articles in newspapers upon the
problem of how to live on what is now called nothing a year
might well feel abashed at the relation of such a performance.
Indeed, the reader going only on the above bare facts might
fairly object to being trifled with by an arithmetical absurdity.
But this dexterous and indefatigable cleric left no means
untried of turning an honest penny. He took out a licence
in his brother’s name, and turned the parsonage into an ale-
house, a proceeding which, on the face of it, does not sound
well in modern ears. But its dubious morality seems to
have been more than atoned for by the reverend publican’s
own abstemiousness and his uncompromising attitude towards
drunkenness in his scant customers. He taught school for
eight hours a day, working his spinning wheel unremittingly,
and making a desk of the communion table, while the﻿Vii	ANOTHER STRENUOUS PARSON	191
children sat around him within the altar rails. Every spare
day he toiled in the fields as a labourer for wages, besides
filling the post, so common then to the clergy of these moun-
tains, of will maker, accountant, and general scrivener to
the neighbourhood.
He worked hard, too, at his divinity studies, often till the
morning hours in a fireless room, visited the sick assiduously,
and even relieved the needy. The family at the parsonage
only tasted meat on Sundays, when, with a boiled joint and a
mess of broth, the good vicar entertained between the services
those of his parishioners who came from a distance. He always
preached himself, and that to a full church, and during the
whole period of his ministry there was not a Dissenter in the
parish. The only relaxation this phenomenal divine allowed
himself was an occasional rubber of whist on winter evenings,
and I think upon the whole it will be allowed that his epithet
of “ wonderful ” is justified by something more than alliteration.
Many of the old-fashioned Cumbrian clergy added to their
pittances by turning regular farmers and dealers. Mr. Sherwen,
the rector of Dean, who only died in 1870, was a notable
example; he was accustomed to walk immense distances to
market, and drive home his bargains, generally good ones, on
foot. Like the excellent Walker, “hewaseconomical,” itwas said,
“ in small matters that he might be liberal in large ones.” And
among his prudent habits was that of retiring to a shed to
put on his trousers inside out when about to dive into the
sheep-pens at market. He made up for his lay avocations in
the week by preaching inordinately long sermons on Sundays,
and on one occasion, when the phrase occurred “And what
shall I say next ? ” a wag in the congregation called out “ Amen.”
He would go any distance “ to visit the sick, set out a drain,
or knock out a bullock’s wolf-tooth; ” a person in short
of all-consuming energy. But the inevitable hour arrived
when even he had to depute another, his nephew in this
case, to fill his pulpit, while he himself played the part of﻿192
OVER WRYNOSE
CHAP.
listener, calling out “ Hear, hear ! ” with some vigour, it is said,
when sentiments in his young relative’s address seemed to
deserve such encomium.
It was another sheep-farming parson of the same type, Mr.
Sewell, of Troutbeck, who when once preaching at the
little church at Wythburn before its restoration, and when
the rickety pulpit yawned away from the wall, dropped his
sermon into the crack. After vain endeavours to extract it
he gave up the hunt and faced the congregation with this
manly apology:	“T’sarmont’s slipt down i’ t’ neuk and I
T routbeck.
can’t git it out; but I’ll tell ye what—I’se read ye a chapter
o’ the Bible’s worth ten of it.”
After crossing the infant Duddon the second ridge is ap-
proached by a tortuous valley known as Wrynose, and near
its summit the three counties of Cumberland, Westmoreland
and Lancashire meet. The spot is marked by the “ three shire
stones.” Hence a two-mile descent brings us to the farm-
house of “ Fell Foot,” which, with its yew trees, makes a well
known landmark. On the right the mass of Wetherlam
dominates our road; on the left is Pike o’ Blisco, while﻿VII
A MUCH INSPECTED COUNTRY
193
ahead of us and down below is the Brathay valley, with
Wansfell and Illbell showing in the far distance.
But I am here confronted with a sore dilemma in the shape
of a network of roads that wind about amid a rare and
beautiful confusion of wood and hill and water. This broken
and comparatively lower country, which, roughly speaking, lies
between Coniston, Windermere and Rydal, and is watered by
the Brathay, is more familiar and more trodden perhaps by
visitors of all degree than any other part of Lakeland. Roads
and paths twist about in all directions and finger-posts are
everywhere indicating the proximity of waterfalls and spots of
interest that more especially appeal to the capacity of that
great majority of tourists who like the four square meals a
day, which modern British custom has adopted, and like
them all at the place of their abode. I would not advise
the cyclist to venture overmuch on these by-roads; the
distances are short and he will save himself some vexation
if he leave his machine at home. There are fine high-
ways, however, along the valleys of this limited region, as is
only natural where wheels of every kind, from the aggressive
char-a-banc to the private landau or Victoria, roll thick enough,
even in June and July. It is all very charming this lake-head
district. There are tumbling waterfalls and slow-creeping
stretches on the rivers—rocky rapids and sedgy lakelets,
full of reeds and water lilies, which last, though well enough
in Surrey, seem somewhat inharmonius here. There is
foliage, too, of every kind and colouring, for the outside world
have not only been thronging through here this hundred years,
but building houses and planting woods. It would not be true
or fair to say that they have caused serious injury, while the ever-
lasting hills, which no man can disfigure except by quarrying
or planting pine woods, loom ever behind in continuously
changing outline, as you wind about the bosky glades below
and catch their forms at various angles through the opening
boughs. What is a poor prose-writer to say about a region
o﻿194
THE BRATHAY VALLEY
CHAP.
of such beautiful confusion ? One cannot go on perpetually
painting landscape on foolscap. It is a country for the artist
and the sonnet-maker or for essays upon Wordsworth,
who lived long enough to see this, his own immediate
neighbourhood, become a fashionable haunt. Yet with all the
beauty of this region I confess to feeling just a little stifled
in it. If it seems to wear a look of being too continually on
show, that is doubtless due to a distorted fancy which one
cannot expect every one to share, but only wonder how many do.
The villa, the shrubbery, the high wall and the planted woods,
the regulation pathways and painted gates seem to me too much
in evidence. However, it wrould be ridiculous to quarrel with
the inevitable, seeing how beautiful the whole thing is even yet.
For myself however I candidly confess I would much sooner
be by the Derwent or the Esk than the Brathay or the Rotha.
The atmosphere is more natural and more fresh. The
woods are not quite so self conscious, the scanty fish, to put
it another way, not so accustomed to being stoned by light-
hearted cockneys from northern towns.
If I had my way, however, I would turn sharp to the left at
Fell foot before reaching this soft and sensuous country, and
follow the road that climbs above Blea-tarn and under Ling-
moor, and so down into the head of Langdale. There is
nothing over luscious or stuffy here in all truth, for many
people, and with some justice, regard it as the gem of the
whole Lake country. It is always better to ascend a valley
than to drop in at the head of it. But once down on the flat,
green sward of meadows, through which the wayward Mill beck
goes casting its gravel and debi'is on either side, the method of
approach may be forgotten, for the Langdale valley does not
shrink and climb, and narrow to a green gorge after the usual
fashion when it penetrates the hills. But so far as traffic is con-
cerned it ends abruptly in a cul de sac of most noble propor-
tions, the valley itself being of ample breadth, and a fine carpet
of meadow spread across its level floor. An old homestead or﻿VII
LANGDALE
195
two, with some fine grouping of ash and sycamore timber, gives a
further touch of lowland peace and plenty to this sequestered
nook, while in striking contrast lofty mountains of a wild and
savage character spring high into the air on three sides, and
seem literally to overhang the verdant fiats below. On the north
the famous twin crests of Langdale, rugged, knotty, and
fierce of aspect, for the higher half at any rate of their 2,600
feet, dominate the valley. The west is wholly filled by the
great masses of Bowfell and Crinkle crags and Pike o’ Blisco,
which sweep round on the south to the lower but still lofty
ridge of Lingmoor. The time of day to be here is without
doubt when the sun is drooping westward, for then the
rugged majesty of the Pikes is illumined from summit to
base by a search-light they can gloriously sustain, while
the opposite steeps of Bowfell and Crinkle crags are infinitely
increased in majesty by the mysterious mellow shadow that
enwraps them and intensifies their dark and broken outlines
against the fiery splendour of the western sky.
But I want to get on to Hawkshead by way of Coniston.
And there is a road which leads thither also from Fellfoot,
turning sharply to the right and travelling by Tilberthwaite and
down the secluded vale of Yewdale—a journey of perhaps four
miles over an indifferent road, but through charming scenery.
How insistent are these Norse names in this north-west corner
of England. The Celt, who was the first to print his tongue
upon the district has been curiously displaced in this particular.
To mention Crinkle crags (Kringle, a circle), Tilberthwaite,
Stang End, Yewdale, which has given such a familiar surname
to the country, and Berk Howe is merely to take the nearest
names that meet the eye. Every gill and beck and thwaite and
even tarn, which is, I believe, the Icelandic for tear-drop,
recalls the thrusting Norseman and the sore straits of the
Strathclyde Britons, who fled in such numbers to their kinsmen
in North Wales. The local vernacular abounds in words that
are used to this day in the Scandinavian countries. Many living
o 2﻿196
DANISH AND CUMBRIAN
CHAP.
Cumbrians too, remember, when “Kurkgarth” was freely used
for churchyard, and the word “ gard ” in its various forms,
being the Norse for enclosure, is found of course in every dale.
Ness and force tell the same story, while ffause is everyday
Icelandic. The Danish word “toft” for farm buildings was
continually used till quite recently in daily speech. A colt is
still called a stag, from stiga, to mount, while the weakly member
of a brood, flock, or family still goes by the name of “ Reck-
ling,” which is the Norse for “ Outcast.” Mr. Ellwood, a great
authority on Cumbrian folk-lore declares that on his first look
Coniston from across the Lake.
at the Danish language he could read whole verses of their
Bible with scarcely any recourse to a dictionary, from his
knowledge of the Cumbrian vernacular.
We strike the head of Coniston Lake, in former days called
Thurstone (Thor’s stone) water, at its upper end, close to the
village of that name, which, like Boot, is connected with the
sea-shore by a branch line. It was at Coniston that Craig
Gibson, after giving up his practice at Lamplugh, spent the
next few years of his life, and the last that he was to spend in
his native district. And who may Craig Gibson be ? ninety-nine﻿VII
CRAIG GIBSON
197
out of a hundred readers will most assuredly demand. His
portrait figures in no shop windows, nor can his biography in con-
centrated form be purchased for a penny at the local stationer’s,
nor is the house he occupied an item in the round of the enter-
prising char-a-banc. Poor Gibson, in short, is not reckoned
among the immortals of the Lake Country, by outsiders at any
rate, but unlike all of these except Wordsworth, he was a native
of it and a product of the soil. Gibson was, in fact, a country
doctor, whose practice carried him far and wide through hill
and dale, among all classes of people. He had a wonderful
knowledge of the country folk, among whom he laboured till
he was over forty, and a vast fund of sympathy and humour,
which endeared him to all. With this he combined a passion
for dialect studies, and some genius for writing poems both of
a humorous and pathetic nature. No man who ever lived had
such a mastery of the varying dialects of Cumberland and
Westmorland, or better knew the inner character and the
humour of their rugged people.
The last twenty years of his life were spent at Bebington in
Cheshire, where he was prominent in all historical and archaeo-
logical movements. There he died nearly thirty years ago, and
a granite monument in the churchyard commemorates his
supremacy as an interpreter of Cumbrian life, and folk-lore.
Gibson was a great admirer of De Quincey, but as was perhaps
inevitable in a shrewd, observant man to whom the vices and
virtues, the everyday life of the dalesman was so familiar, he
held up to some ridicule the ideal peasants of the gentle Words-
worth, who had but little inside knowledge of the humble folk
above whose holdings he wandered and dreamed. Now there
was an old lady among Gibson’s patients named Betty Yewdale
who lived in a solitary spot above the world in Little Langdale,
and is the heroine of several stanzas in the 5th book of
the Excursion. The wanderer, it may be remembered by those
who have read through that moumental poem—(Ah ! how
many are there nowadays ?) gets benighted upon the fell, but﻿198
WORDSWORTH’S BETTY
CHAP.
is eventually guided by the light of a lantern to the neighbour-
hood of an isolated cottage.
A house of stones collected on the spot
By rude hands built with rocky knolls in front.
Backed also by a ledge of rock, whose crest
Of birch-trees waves above the chimney top.
The lonely female is holding the lantern as a guide to her
husband, who is due home from his work in a distant quarry.
The wanderer enters, and is simply and hospitably entertained
by the worthy couple for the night. The husband is away
before cock-crow in the morning, and the guest is thus apos-
trophised by his childless, but resigned helpmate :—
“ Three dark winter months
Pass,” said the matron “and I never see,
Save when the Sabbath brings its kind release,
My helpmate’s face by light of day. He quits
His door in darkness, nor till dusk returns,
And through Heaven’s blessing thus we gain the bread
For which we pray and for the wants provide
Of sickness, accident, and helpless age.
Companions have I many ; many friends,
Dependants, comforters—my wheel, my fire,
All day the house-clock ticking in mine ear,
The cackling hen, the tender chicken brood,
And the wild birds that gather round my porch.”
Thus speaks Wordsworth’s Betty Yewdale—the Doctor’s
Betty of real life now comes upon the scene. There had been
a big funeral near Coniston, to which all the country had gone,
and Betty’s husband, sad to say, had remained away all night!
It was Betty’s nearest neighbour that told the Doctor the story,
for it was to her that the forlorn one came burning with indigna-
tion against her truant spouse, and in no good temper with her
friend when she found that, though a fellow sufferer in the same
degree, she took her affliction with most provoking calmness.
“Won’t you laid (seek) him ?” asked the heated Betty.
“ Nay,” said the neighbour.﻿VII
GIBSON’S BETTY
199
££ Ye ma’ due as ye like,” replied the other; “ but I mun
bring mine whoam as he will.”
Betty then set off for Coniston, and this is her friend’s account
of her return.
“ On i’t’ efternen she co’ back drivin’ Jonathan afoar her wi’
a lang hazel stick, an’ he sartly was a sairy object, His Sunda’
cleeas leuk’t as if he’d been sleepin’ i’ them ont’ top of a dirty
fluer. Tie of his neckloth had wurk’t round till belat ya lug
an’l lang ends out hung o’er ahint his shoulder. His hat had
gitten bulged in at’ side, an t’ flipe on’t was cock’t up beeath
back and frunt o’ togidder, it wod ha’ been a querely woman
body at wod ha’ teean a fancy till Jonathan that day. Says I,
£ Ye hev fund him then.’ £ Fund him ! ’ says she ! £ ey, I fund
’im. I knot whar ut lait ’im. I fund him at t’ Black Bull wi’
yower meeaster and a lot meear o’ t’ seeam soort. They war
just gan to git ther girt pan o’ beef steeaks set on t’ middle
o’ t’ecable. I meead t’ frying pan an’t’ beef steeaks flee gay
merrily oot o’ t’ door, an’ I set on an’ git them sic a blackin
as they will’nt seeune forgit. Then I haillt Jonathan oot fra
among them, but when I had gitten him out wi’ me I shamt
ut be seen on t’ roads wi’ him. Sike a pictur ye niver see
the like of. We hed to teeak t’ fields for ’t an’as it warn safe
to let him climm the t’ walls, I meead him creep t’ hog hooals
(the openings under the stone walls), an’ when I gat him in, his
heead in an’ his legs out, I dud switch him.’ ”
Many of Gibson’s ballads were set to music and are still
familiar in Cumberland. He could also wiite and speak the
dialect of the Ecclefechan part of Dumfriesshire, whence came
his mother’s people, and Carlyle wrote of his folk-lore ballads in
language which, for that caustic sage, was positive enthusiasm.
There have been indeed quite a number of native singers, some
gentle but mostly humble, in the Lake Country. Miss Powley,
of course, Avho died not long ago at a great age, every
Cumbrian knows, and her dialect poem, ££ The Brokken
Statesman, ” is quite a classic on the border. The tragic fate of﻿200
SOME NATIVE POETS
CHAP.
Sanderson, again, has been told of by Wordsworth. How he
lived alone in a cottage, which catching fire burnt up all his
manuscripts and fatally injured the unhappy author. Lying
under a tree near the burning cottage, he learnt the fate of his
works and expired with the remark that he wished to live no
longer, and might well have quoted, had he strength, a verse of
one of his best poems :—
And blest are you in early graves,
For age is but protracted pain,
A longer strife with winds and waves
Upon a wild and stormy main.
My lot has been to linger here
Till every earthly joy has fled,
Till all is gone the heart holds dear,
And gathered sorrows bow my head.
Miss Blamire, Miss Gilpin, and Mrs. Wheeler, all long dead,
were celebrated for their dialect songs and sketches, while
Robert Anderson was among the most prolific. The blind,
fiddling, rollicking Stagg, who flourished early in the century,
was in some ways the most spirited and realistic of all. His
locally famous poem, the Bridewaine, as well as Rosley Fair, are
as perfect specimens of graphic description in vigorous
vernacular as could be found.
The first treats of the old-fashioned Cumbrian wedding, the
summoning of the country side, the race to church, the mad
gallop back again, the feasting and dancing afterwards, the
wild orgie of fighting and drinking, and the gradual return of
the neighbourhood to its normal sanity after three or four days
of revelry.
At last ’twas gitten wheyte fuor days
The lavrocks shrill war whusin’
Wheyte yen by yen, wheyte dairy’d an’ deylt
O’th rwoard t’wards heame are wrustlin
Some heads an’ thraws war stretch’d i’ th’ nuik,
An’ loud as brawns war snouran ;
Others wi’ bluid an’ glore a’ clamm’d,
War leyke stick’d rattens glowran﻿VII
CONISTON
201
The fiddlers they i’ th’ parlour fought
An yen anudder pelted,
Tom Trimmel leyke Mendoza fierce
Poor Tommy Baxter welted
Reeght sair that neeght.
After skirting the upper end of Coniston for a considerable
distance, and mounting afterwards a prodigiously steep hill
through the thick woods of yet another charming seat of the
Marshall family, a fine backward view down the whole length
of the lake, most amply rewards the labour. No mountains or
The School House, Hawkshead.
hills of magnitude press near upon the shores, or form from
this point any appreciable item in the outlook; no visible
islands or bold promontories relieve a certain tameness from
which Coniston by comparison with its sister lakes is held to
suffer. But no sheet of water six miles in length lying in the
lap of English woods and hills, can be otherwise than beautiful:
and, after all, this is the wrong end from which to look on
Coniston. Any one who would do justice to the Lancashire
lake (for we have been in the County Palatine since leaving
Fellfoot) must take boat and drop down towards the lower﻿202
HAWKSHEAD
CHAP.
end. Thence across the broad stretch of dancing ripples he
will see as fine a mountain background as any English lake
could wish for, with Coniston’s particular mountain, “ The
Old Man ”—another vulgarism of a Celtic name (Allt-Maen)—
showing amid the foremost and the boldest.
The four miles of road from Coniston to Hawkshead are
remarkable for little but the perpendicular nature of the
grade. We are now in a tamer country, but the little town
itself is well worth a visit, if only for its quaint architectural
Newby Bridge.
features and its eloquent suggestions of a bygone state of
things, social and economic. Hawkshead boasted once of a
great wool market, whither all the wool grown on the sur-
rounding mountains was brought for sale, and of a flourishing
grammar school, where the sons of statesmen, parsons, and
tradesmen prepared themselves for college or the world. Here
Wordsworth was educated, as everyone knows, and the outside
of the house wherein he boarded is much inspected from the
street by the indiscriminately curious. But the ancient part
of Hawkshead is a place to loiter in to much advantage.﻿YII
WINDERMERE
203'
Around the old wool-market are a great store of quaint angles
and archways and narrow wynds and courts, all fashioned in the
rude stone and slate which served so well the old-time builders
of this Lake Country. There is an ancient church too, set
nobly with its green graveyard on a ridge above the town, as
becomes the centre of a parish whose boundaries are so large,
and whose history is so rich in local interest as that of Hawks-
head.
Windermere, or Winandermere, as the old name went, though
narrow always, is narrowest at its centre where a steam ferry
available for all kinds of traffic plies busily. The road thither
Windermere.
from Hawkshead is not remarkable, though for the mile or so
that it skirts Esthwaite there is all the charm that water spread-
ing between green pastures and summer woods can give. At
the Ferry a road turns to the right, and the actively disposed
with time upon their hands might well be tempted to follow it
to the foot of Windermere, and so back upon the further bank
to Bowness, whither we are now bound, and can, moreover,
reach in ten minutes if we so choose. But I would urge them
rather to explore the beauties of the lake’s lower end by
water. For though it may seem strange that no highway
follows the course of this half of the most famous and most﻿204
THE FERRY
CHAI>.
frequented sheet of water in England, this is practically the
case, for the road, which starts from the Ferry in such promis-
ing fashion, carries you through an almost continuous screen of
woods, and by steep gradients that for this reason you
climb to no purpose. I speak feelingly, having once made
this mistake and, though the details of this secluded road have
escaped my memory, being in truth somewhat monotonous,
the regrettable state of mental heat in which I found myself
at Newby Bridge has not. The road back to Bowness
upon the other side looks beautiful upon the map: but
the lie of the country and the earlier struggles of this same
highway to grapple with it which are very conspicuous from
across the lake, would certainly confirm me in recommending
any one to see the beauties of lower Windermere by boat'
Perhaps one ought to know better, but there is something par-
ticularly irritating when your object is to circumvent a beautiful
sheet of water, and you are thrust inland and set to toil up and
down perpendicular lanes, between high hedges or buried amid
unpenetrable timber, and hopelessly cut off from the object of
your journey. In wild lakes, hemmed in by mountains, you ex-
pect no artificial assistance and are thankful for such facilities of
transit that are offered, but amid the soft and peaceful and much
visited environs of Windermere you do expect some kind of lake
shore road and take the omission in no good temper. At the
ferry there is an admirable hotel with pleasant lawn sloping to
the lake and much frequented by yachting folk on regatta days.
For just off here the competing yachts make their start, and a
fair sight it is on a bright summer day, the snow-white sails of
a dozen cutters flapping or bulging against the wall of green
woodland and wooing the fitful mountain breezes with cunning
and skilful manoeuvres.
Above the ferry, as we cross the half-mile of water, the large
wooded island of Belle Isle seems to close up the lake, so
narrow and invisible is the passage it leaves on either hand.
While downwards for a six-mile stretch between wooded hills of﻿VII
A GLIMPSE OF THE LAKE
205
moderate height, the water gleams and glistens to its lower end.
White-winged yachts are crawling listlessly on even keels, and
two or three steamers plough still whiter furrows through the
surrounding calm, their decks crowded with day trippers, for
the excursion train takes no reck of the London season or the
school vacation. Row boats with brightly clad passengers are
wobbling irresponsibly to and fro, and the unsociable angler,
though the mayfly is over, may be descried by the experienced
eye drifting sadly along the wooded shore.
From the ferry-landing to Bowness is but a step, and once
A Street in H awk she ad.
there, the road leads us for a further two miles of gradual
ascent, between hotels and lodging-houses, shops and villas to
Windermere railway station, and Riggs’ famous establishment,
so finely perched three hundred feet above the lake. The
right thing to do is to stay here, whether for a meal or for a
month, and in either case to make your way up another four or
five hundred feet to Orrest Head, and there enjoy one of the
noblest prospects in the Lake Country. I will not bore the
reader with a list of the summits that on a fine day imprint their
varied forms upon the wide horizon away beyond the glittering﻿206
WILSON OF ELLERAY
CHAP.
length of Windermere. Half the mountains in the two
counties may from here be seen, and much that is not
mountain, but is beautiful to look upon.
It is nearly a hundred years ago since this spot caught the
fancy of a young Oxford undergraduate, who, by purchasing
some land here, became Wilson of Elleray, and famous to
posterity as “Christopher North.” Son of a prosperous Glasgow
merchant,youngWilsonwentupto Oxford in 1803 as a gentleman
commoner, richly endowed with good looks, high spirits, health,
brains, and physical strength, and weighted only with a some-
what unpromising love affair. An Admirable Crichton was he,
in truth, if ever there was one. The lady novelist might
almost plead him as a precedent for her Double First, who, in
his moments of leisure, wins the cricket match and the boat
race for his University, and, a much greater feat, makes breaks
of three figures on country house billiard tables.
Wilson won the Newdigate, and a most brilliant First-class in
the final schools. There were no “ Blues ” in his day, but he
used to jump the Cherwell, and walk to Fondon in a day
against time, for sporting wagers. He fought cocks with much
avidity, and when his boisterous spirits attracted the notice of
the Proctors, he dumbfounded them, we are told, by impassioned
extracts from the Ancient and Modern classics. He had
bought Elleray during a vacation, as a passing fancy, and when
he left Oxford the final collapse of his love affair seems to have
turned him from any definite ambitions, and towards a
residence in the Lake Country. He built a house, now re-
placed by a later one, on his property, took up his abode
there and became very much of a personage in the breezy
country life of the district, as well as an intimate of the
more secluded circle of thinkers and writers who had so
curiously forgathered there. Rich, popular, full of life and
energy, he raced yachts on Windermere ; fought cocking mains,
not only in public places, but in his own dining-room, which he
had floored with turf for the purpose ; wrestled with the local﻿VII
A MEMORABLE REGATTA
207
champions; danced vigorously at balls and routs, and finally
married the belle of the county, who proved herself worthy of
his choice. He shot and fished with equal ardour. Indeed,
what angler but knows that, if he knows nothing else of Christ-
opher North ; and with all this he was the intellectual equal and
valued friend of the galaxy of famous men who, each in their way,
led such astonishingly different lives from his. Wordsworth, De
Quincey, the Coleridges, Southey and old Bishop Watson of
Calgarth. What a man he was, and what an abiding object
lesson for prigs!	“ He made others happy,” says Miss
Martineau, who was then living at Ambleside, “ by being so
intensely happy himself, so that when he was mournful none
wished to be gay.”
Ten years later his fortune was swept away through the
fault of a trustee. With such a brain and such energy as his,
Wilson, still a young man, was at no loss for a living, though
hitherto he had produced little but poetry. His loss proved,
even to himself, not wholly a misfortune, and, to the world at
large, perhaps a blessing in disguise. He went to Edinburgh,
and, as every one knows, his brilliant articles were for long the
prominent feature of Blackwood, and at the same time he
filled the chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. In half-a-
dozen years he was back at Elleray again, enjoying himself as
much as ever, though in less exuberant fashion, and for the
space only of his vacations. At an ever memorable regatta he
figures as Admiral of the Lake, heading a gay procession of
fifty boats, and doing the honours to Walter Scott, Lockhart,
Canning, and other visitors. One may fairly assume that such
a man, in his youth at least, was not averse to a practical joke.
I have heard or read somewhere of his playing one on an entire
bevy of Lakeland luminaries : the scene of which was the
parlour of the little inn at Wythburn. Wordsworth, the
Coleridges, De Quincey and himself were resting there one
evening, previous to returning over Dunmail Raise into Gras-
mere. The landlord had just come in from shooting, and, after﻿2oS	THE PROFESSOR’S PRACTICAL JOKE	chap.
a custom not uncommon in muzzle-loading days, had deposited
his unemptied gun in a corner. Wilson, taking advantage of the
darkness of the room, got hold of it, unknown to the rest, and
pointing the barrel up the chimney pulled the trigger, with an
effect that may readily be imagined on a room twelve feet square,
and full of people, glass, pewter pots and plate. When one
considers, too, the amount of high-strung nerves therein collected,
the point of the joke seems sharpened into positive cruelty.
Wordsworth, though no lover of guns, was too equable in
temperament and too physically sound, no doubt, to be seriously
Hawksh end—Misty Morning.
affected. But poor little De Quincey, after an all-night seance
with his laudanum decanter, must have been a sad subject for
the perpetration of such pranks, while the Coleridges could have
been but little better fortified against so violent a shock. Little
Hartley, so runs the tale, was buried beneath an avalanche of
soot, which the outraged chimney precipitated into the room.
Yet Hartley, one might perhaps hazard a guess, was the only
one to laugh.
There is not much that I can say of the village of Winder-
mere except to note its beautiful situation. It grew out of the﻿VII
A MUCH FREQUENTED HIGHWAY
209
old hamlet of Birthwaite, whose inhabitants, could they rise
from their graves around the much restored old church, would
certainly have some cause for wonderment. There are trains
which run to Manchester in not very much over the hour, and
this perhaps has greatly contributed to giving Windermere the
air of the cheerful suburb of a large town. It is not merely a
favourite resort in summer nowadays, but an abiding place all
the year round of quite a number of people, and if they like
the climate, which has both virtues and vices, one cannot
wonder at their choice.
The lake shore road from Windermere to Ambleside (six
miles) is one of the best and the most travelled in all this
region. The traffic along it, though relieved somewhat by the
lake steamers, is even at midsummer considerable and in the
holiday season prodigious. It is periodically threatened with an
electric tramway, and the threat as regularly produces a perfect
storm in the correspondence columns of the newspapers.
Any one unacquainted with the district might well imagine
that the solitude of some romantic and little trodden byway was
the object of the invading monster, instead of a somewhat
congested artery very much alive indeed with the most
aggressive form of wheeled traffic. A plain man might be
permitted to wonder if a road over which char-a-bancs and the
like have rioted in endless procession for the last two
generations can suffer very calamitously from the advent of an
electric coach which at any rate raises no dust. We can
readily imagine there being objectors to the innovation, but the
vehemence of their language, when applied to the case of this
very much frequented highway, must strike any one as a trifle
overdone. Even in June the cyclist riding it has not too much
time to look about him, and this one would fain be doing, for
every yard of the way is leafy and pleasant, and here and there
are charming glimpses of the lake.. The hand of man has
naturally been busy here, and enviable residences set back in
well timbered grounds fringe the road for some distance beyond
p﻿210
BISHOP WATSON OF LLANDAFF
CHAP.
the village. Nor are all of them by any means of recent date.
Yonder, for instance, standing in large grounds near the lake
shore, is a roomy house near a century old, surrounded by well-
grown and choice timber. And so it should be, for here dwelt
the great tree planting Bishop Watson of Llandaff, who by
somewhat curious logic held his energy in that particular, to
atone, and something more, for his remissness in certain other
quarters.	*
Now I have always known Calgarth, vaguely, as an occasional
passer-by knows it, but the bishop is an acquaintance, speaking
historically, of later years formed in quite another part of Britain.
Everybody in Wales knows Bishop Watson by repute, and yet it
is a popular tradition that no Welshman of his day ever set eyes
upon him. The Georgian bishops of the Principality are not
remembered by the manner in which they fulfilled their duties,
for they fulfilled them rarely, but by the various fashions in
which they shirked them. Some lived in their diocese for
the apparent purpose of absorbing to themselves and their
friends and relatives a large portion of its meagre endowments.
Others lived mostly in England, and the Bishop of Llandaff
holds the record as the most consistent and unblushing of the
long roll of absentees. Indeed, I was filled with something
akin to emotion when 1 ran my old friend of other days and
other climes to earth in a place so long familiar to my sight.
He is known to fame in Wales merely as “ the Bishop who lived
in "Westmorland,” the precise details of his residence being
naturally a matter of indifference to the present generation in
Glamorganshire. Here, however, was his perch, and a most
delightful spot his Right Reverence had chosen as the scene of
his long and leisurely discontent. For strange as it may seem,
he laboured under a perennial grievance, holding that as he
voted steadily for the Whigs, or rather did not vote against
them, for he seldom troubled himself to go up to London, a
fuller share of honours was his just due. I regret to say
I was till quite recently unaware that this maltreated cleric﻿VII
A NOTABLE ABSENTEE
211
was further immortalised by two volumes of biography and
correspondence edited by his family, and that his lordship
is regarded as a contemporary gossip of some interest. I lost
no time, however, in atoning for my shortcomings, not so much
for the sake of his episcopal philanderings, but from a genuine
curiosity to know how he accounted for his continuous absence
of thirty years from the scene of his duties, and whether, in
short, he had aught to say for himself. A perusal of these
volumes will make it clear to any one that the bishop remained
to the close of his life in quite delightful unconsciousness that
any justification was required, unless, indeed, a preference he
expresses for the climate of Windermere is worth noticing. On
the contrary, his letters harp rather upon the text of how scant
is the reward of virtue and fidelity to duty as illustrated in
his own person. They constitute, indeed, a most interesting
revelation of the point of view presumably understandable a
century ago, and are well worth reading for that alone.
Dr. Watson was the son of a village schoolmaster in
Westmorland. An aptitude for mathematics secured him an
entry at Cambridge, where in due course he came out a high
wrangler. Quite early in life he was appointed to the chair of
Chemistry, though without any knowledge of that particular
subject. This deficiency he easily made up for, and indeed
as a scientist in early life he was a marked success. There,
however, his intellectual ambition and energy ended. All his
efforts in future were directed to the improvement of his
fortunes and he had certainly a genius for getting everything
for nothing. He secured the professorship of Divinity, for
which he had small qualifications, though this fact was of little
consequence, as he had no intention of burdening himself
with its duties. He succeeded, however, in raising the
stipend to j£i,ooo a year, ^300 of which he paid to a
substitute and enjoyed the balance for the greater part of his
life, and he was now only thirty-five. His next triumph was
the bishopric of Llandaff, and this achieved he went to live in
p 2﻿212
AN EPISCOPAL JOKE
CHAP.
Westmorland by way of being handy to his duties in South Wales,
bought Calgarth, married a county lady, and settled down to the
pursuits of a country gentleman. Here he calmly awaited the
further promotion which he sincerely thought he was earning
by a consistent profession of Whig sentiments and a steady
support of the Whig Government by his vote on those few
occasions when he took his seat in the House. Unfortunately
for Llandaff, that promotion never came, and the South Wales
diocese was saddled with this insatiable Cambridge don for
the rest of his life, which did not close till he was nearly
eighty. It is commonly said he never saw it. But there is
one account at least of a visit there given by himself with a
most unmistakable sense of having performed a thoroughly
meritorious action. The entertaining part of the business is
that the bishop posed before the Glamorganshire squires who
then entertained him as a neglected person whose conspicuous
services were slighted by an ungrateful world, or in other
words an ungrateful Ministry. The Glamorgan folks, he de-
clares, sympathised with him—no doubt the Welshmen wished
as ardently as the bishop himself for his promotion. His
lordship, however, was an unconscious humorist of a high
order, and this, I think, gives much of their value to his letters.
His crowning jest, perhaps, was the issuing of a circular
mandate to his clergy on the evils of absenteeism, and warn-
ing the truants back to their posts. There is no symptom in
his own account of this affair that a single muscle of the
episcopal mouth twitched as he perpetrated this enormous
joke—dre was beyond a doubt in dead and solemn earnest.
De Quincey, who was, of course, a neighbour and knew him
well, declares that though he was quite uninteresting as a man,
pompous and heavy-minded, as a character he was a really
interesting study from his extraordinary valuation of his own
deserts, and his inability to regard his career from any other
point of view but that of material advancement. Through his
entire correspondence the note of wailing at ministerial﻿VII
A UNIQUE CAREER
2I3
neglect sounds loud. In his applications for advancement, even
in letters addressed to ministers, there is never a suggestion of
“ enlarged sphere of action,” or a call to higher work or anything
of that sort. There was no humbug, at any rate, about Bishop
Watson. His income, his estate, the just expectations of his
family, his position in the county (not Glamorgan !) and his
steady admiration for the Whig party —these were the burden
of his importunities.
He had lectured for a short time on chemistry at Cambridge,
and written a volume of excellent essays on science, and one
or two other books. He had no social claims, for he was a
village schoolmaster’s son. Yet he enjoyed an income of
^5000 a year all told, for most of which he gave no value
whatever, and a fine position in his native county where he
spent his time in sociability and tree planting. “All his
public, all his professional duties,” says Ue Quincey, “he
systematically neglected. He was a lord in Parliament and
for many a year he never attended in his place; he was a
bishop and he scarcely knew any part of his diocese by sight,
living three hundred miles away from it; he was a professor
of divinity holding the richest professorship in Europe —the
weightiest for its functions in England—drawing by his own
admission one thousand per annum from its endowments, and
for thirty years he never read a lecture or performed a public
exercise ! ” And in spite of it all as evidence of what querulous
importunity could do in those days, he actually came within
an ace of being Archbishop of York ! Lady Holland told
Wordsworth that Charles Fox and Grenville had quite decided
to offer him that exalted post, which promised to be soon
vacant. But the failing occupant of the See just outlived the
Administration, which was prematurely dissolved. “Yet what
an Archbishop ! ” says De Quincey. “ He talked openly at his
own table as a Socinian; ridiculed the miracles of the New
Testament, which he professed to explain as so many chemical﻿214	“THIS IS THE OLD COCK”	chap.
tricks of legerdemain, and certainly had as little devotional
feelings as any man who ever lived.”
The banks of Windermere at least have much to thank the
bishop for, and I should feel constrained to apologise for
having given his lordship such an amount of space if he were
not in his peculiar way an historical character and a notable
example of what was possible of accomplishment for men of
nerve in the brave days of old..
Before, however, dismissing the bishop, who seems to have
been a kindly host and well liked among his neighbours, I
cannot forbear the relation of a local incident of which his
lordship was, in effigy, at any rate, the hero. Among other
property that he had bought in Ambleside was an old tavern
called “ The Cock.” The landlord thinking that some extra
distinction might attach to his inn if it were known that the
bishop owned it, pulled the old signboard down and renamed
the house “ The Bishop.” To complete the business, he had
the new signboard illustrated with a rude portrait of his lord-
ship in all the glory of shovel hat and episcopal wig. In the
meantime, a new inn was started over the way which appro-﻿VII
ROBIN THE DEVIL
2I5
priated the discarded name of “ The Cock,” and to such purpose
that it attracted no small share of its older neighbour’s custom.
The owner of the latter, growing seriously alarmed at the turn
things were taking, hoisted up another signboard underneath
the portrait of the bishop, beneath which, with more of an eye to
business than to the fitness of things and a proper regard to
church dignitaries, was inscribed, in luminous characters, “ This
is the Old Cock.”
But Calgarth had a history long before Bishop Watson built
his new mansion there. Every one knows the legend of the
skulls of Calgarth which no mortal power could banish from
their niches in the wall. Wherever they might be thrown,
whether into deep lake or black wood, they always, by some
supernatural means, reappeared, to resume their grim watch over
the fortunes of Calgarth Hall. The Phillipsons reigned in
those days along the banks of Windermere, a wild, dare-devil,
race, if all one hears be true. One of them in particular, an
ardent and reckless cavalier in the Civil War, is well remembered
and was known as “ Robin the Devil.” One Colonel Briggs of
Kendal, when the Parliamentary party got the upper hand, was
very zealous in enforcing Puritan tenets on a somewhat unwilling
people. Phillipson, who wras a malignant of malignants, swore
hf would tolerate such insolence no longer, and rode over one
Sunday to Kendal at the head of a troop of horse with the
intention of killing the obnoxious colonel in church. The
Roundhead officer, fortunately for himself, was not there, but
“ Robin the Devil ” swaggered about the church brandishing
his naked sword and causing immense excitement and con-
fusion. The incident is preserved in a local jingle :—
“ The door was wide and in does he ride
In his clanking gear so gay,
A long keen brand he held in his hand
Our Dickon for to slay.”
The casque of this ruffling gallant is still to be seen in Kendal
church, and Scott alludes to it in “ Rokeby.”﻿2l6
LOWOOD
CH. VII
At Calgarth, too, we cross theTroutbeck brook on its way to
the lake, from the village and the valley of that name, which is
so familiar in all Lakeland annals. Hitherto we have been
thrust considerably backward from the water, getting occa-
sional glimpses of it only through screening woods; but now
the road bends downwards to the shore, and at the “ Lowood ”
hotel, dear to generations of honeymooners, a most lovely scene
—with the upper reach of the lake in the foreground and all
the Coniston and Scafell and Langdale mountains behind—-
unfolds itself. One might almost as well try to say some-
thing original of the “Star and Garter” at Richmond as
of this famous haunt on Windermere : so without seeking for
inspiration we will pursue the last mile of road, which, running
close to the shore, lands us at the busy scene of Waterhead and
in sight of Ambleside.
The Mountains at Collision.﻿Windermere.
CHAPTER VIII.
Now Waterhead at the top of Windermere is a very cheerful
place, foe steamers and coaches here meet each other in
connection with the round trips in which the vast majority of
Lake tourists so industriously engage. But the animation which
on a fine summer’s day distinguishes the spot is not, as
may be readily imagined, well attuned to Wordsworthian
associations, nor to the fastidious eye in harmony with the
sublime nature of the background.
So let us on to Ambleside, but a short mile away, and
passing between serried ranks of lodging-houses, mount up to
its still tolerably old-fashioned and characteristic market place.
One might, no doubt, write a whole chapter, perhaps many
chapters, on the things that have been done in Ambleside, the
things that are to be seen there and near by, and the celebrities
who in modern times have shed lustre upon the little town by
their presence. But Ambleside does not take my fancy as a place
to linger in with this intent: and I shall turn at once to the left,
along the Grasmere and Keswick road, and enter the lush and
somewhat airless arcadia of the Rothay valley. I know that
these two miles from Ambleside to Rydal should be an object
of admiration, and in a modern sense are classic ground.
I confess, though not without trepidation, that to me even﻿218
AMBLESIDE
CHAP.
walking through the meadows there seems to be something
of the atmosphere of a glorified people’s park, gravel paths
and wicket gates and notice boards are so very much in evidence.
There is even a suspicion of orange peel about, and ginger beer
bottles may be occasionally seen navigating the tortuous currents
of the Rothay. Villas of the dark grey stone of the country
and dating from every period of the nineteenth century, though
well embowered in foliage, are almost too numerous. As
you crawl along near the wall of the well kept but none too roomy
road, heavy-laden mammoth conveyances roar by, emblazoned
with the objects of their pilgrimage, which are here largely of a
personal nature. How incredible the good Dr. Arnold would
have thought it that the scene of his Rugby vacations would
ever decorate the panels of stage coaches. But all this is
inevitable and really of no consequence. There are a score of
valleys in the two counties as beautiful in their foreground
details as the Rothay, where there is neither orangejpeel nor
ginger beer. And as for the mighty fells above, Red Screes
and Scardale, Fairfield and Dove Crag, they are quiet enough
and silent, this time of year at any rate, while even the
accessible charms of Loughrigg on the west, with its modest
thousand feet of altitude, seem in no way sensible of any
overdue attention.
The literary associations of the Lake Country, one need
hardly say, cluster most thickly about this head of Windermere.
Mrs. Hemans, Miss Martineau, Wordsworth, the Coleridges,
De Quincey and Dr. Arnold were all here within a short walk
of Ambleside. But what can I say in brief of these illustrious
folk that is not familiar, and to enlarge further upon their lives
and works is neither within the scope of my work nor to the
purpose. There are books upon the English lakes having a
special view to the interpretation of their beauties by Words-
worth. There are other books whose titles do not immediately
suggest that purpose, but which practically amount to essays on
his poetry. Then again, the patriotic local writer is apt to scatter﻿VIII
RYDAL AND WORDSWORTH
219
Wordsworth indiscriminately over his pages, and I presume it
is a truism that if ever there was a great poet who required to
be used with care it is the bard of Rydal. But some of his
admirers appear to me to do him poor service by the random
way in which they cull from his abundant store. Happily, the
great man was of a self-complacent turn of mind, and according
to his friends, not very keenly alive to the unevenness of his pro-
ductions. Otherwise he would be oftentimes turning in his
grave and vainly calling to be saved, not from his discerning
friends who handle him with skill and consideration, but from
a number of less judicious writers who seem to use him on the
principle of a trump card at whist, and “ when in doubt ” to
<! quote Wordsworth.”
I confess with trepidation to having been sometimes seized with
an impious yearning after this country before it had any “ literary
associations”—when Gray first saw it, and West first wrote of
it, and its unknown beauties first provoked the Muse of Richard
Cumberland. This, however, is little short of flat treason under
the very shadow of Rydal Mount, for yonder are the gables of
Wordsworth’s modest house of grey stone standing out amid
the trees above the road. We have just passed Rydal Hall too,
beautiful in its stately timber, the ancient seat of the Flemings,
who are there yet. This old manor, set amid what was once a
republic of shepherds, is a pleasant survival among what is now
in great part a land of villa-residents.
Wordsworth lived at Rydal Mount for the last forty years of
his life, and surely no man of note ever reached four-score so
nearly scatheless from all everyday worries and cares. It
would almost seem as if Providence took exceptional measures
to procure immunity from the ordinary troubles of life for the
gentle dreamer. She provided him with two women, very
literally a Martha and a Mary, who worshipped him and made
his happiness the object of their lives. She supplied him with
sources of income ample for his simple needs, and that drew
neither upon his time nor strength, though as a young man﻿The Mill at Ambleside﻿CH. VIII
THE POET’S APPEARANCE
221
Wordsworth’s prospects had in fact looked tolerably dismal, for
he was unpractical enough, and had no mental wares suitable for
the market. The poetic note he struck so early, and clung to so
tenaciously, not only brought in little money, but for years
scarcely any credit. Admiring friends, however, stepped into the
breach, as they had a way of doing for poets in those days. The
family money too, which had been alienated, was restored and he
got his share. Then came the office of stamp distributer, worth
several hundreds a year, the duties of which were performed by
a clerk, and this made him well off for life. It was so late in
the day when his poems became sufficiently appreciated to
sensibly increase his income as to be scarcely worth mentioning ;
but the point is, that his means were ample for his simple
tastes without the necessity for seriously connecting his art and
his purse.
And yet at thirty-nine Wordsworth looked sixty ! He was
travelling in a public conveyance, says his friend and near
neighbour De Quincey, and conversing with an elderly gentle-
man on the opposite seat, when the latter, alluding to some
possible event in the not very distant future, remarked to
Wordsworth that at any rate they two were not likely to witness
it. The poet bridled somewhat at this, and asked the stranger
how old he took him to be. The latter after careful scrutiny,
gave it as his opinion that Wordsworth would never see three-
score again, and appealed to the other occupants of the coach,
who all of them practically agreed in this surprisingly erroneous
estimate. Doubtless when the poet was sixty he looked no
more ! He seems to have had a somewhat ill-knit, awkward,
unathletic frame, with rather stooping shoulders, which was
strange for a man who spent his life walking in the open air.
His complexion, which had been olive, turned ruddy and
weatherbeaten with advancing years. A near relative of the
writer’s, who as a young man met the poet at Foxhow in his
seventieth year, recalls very vividly the first impression made
by his appearance in the room as that of a farmer.﻿222
WORDSWORTH’S DAILY LIFE
CHAP.
But what a curious life was Wordsworth’s. Surely unique in
his passion for rural life, coupled with such complete indifference
to the occupations and amusements that one regards as almost
inseparable from it, and that the greatest minds with rural tastes
have in some form or other always felt the spell of. Wordsworth,
though he lived his whole life among a population who shot and
fished and ran foxhounds with much ardour, cared not a jot for
any of these things. This fact alone is, perhaps, not worthy of
remark ; but what does, I think, seem remarkable is that in all his
poems these luminous phases of country life are studiously ignored.
If the poet had been a Southey, a Coleridge, or a De Quincey
in his personal habits ; if he had hugged his fire and his books
and, like most poets and literary men of that period, at any rate,
taken his constitutional walk as a matter chiefly of relaxation
or of health, the silence on such topics would be conceiv-
able. But we have De Quincey’s testimony that books
were a secondary matter with Wordsworth. He had not a
great many, and was careless of those he had. Reading for
him was a matter rather for wet days and evenings. Nature
was his book. He was out of doors, broadly speaking, the
whole of every fine day. Every rural sight and sound—the
crowing of a cock, the bleating of a lamb, the scratching of a
mouse—has, we all know, been dwelt upon by the poet with
a minuteness that is the joy of his detractors. But if I re-
member rightly, the note of hound and horn so familiar then as
now up on the fells finds no mentions in his descriptive poems.
One would have supposed too that even a poet who walked over
sheep pastures and sang of them all his life would have been
drawn into a little amateur farming or sheep-breeding—that he
would have shared in some form or other the pursuits of his neigh-
bours, one would have thought inevitable in the course of so
long a life spent wholly in their midst. Nor w^s it his
lot either to minister to them, or doctor them, or to buy
and sell with them, or deal out justice, nor was he greatly
given to chaffering or joking or gossiping with them or getting﻿VIII
SOME LOCAL ESTIMATES
223
at their hearts and humours after the fashion of men who have
a turn that way. Wordsworth dreamed past them mostly, I take
it, or looked upon them through coloured spectacles. The
peasants of his creation would certainly arouse the suspicions
of a country-bred man who had never been north of the Trent,
and he would not, I think, require the aid of Craig Gibson’s
banter to confirm them when he got to Westmorland. Words-
worth’s fame, however, does not rest upon such lines as these,
ft was from nature pure and simple that he drew the inspira-
tions by which he earned it. And if the Lakeland peasant was
a somewhat glorified personage as seen through the Words-
worthian spectacles, it is amusing to get glimpses now and
then of what his humble neighbours in their turn thought of
the poet. His well-known habit of spouting his poetry as he
walked, with a view to polishing and elaborating it, was a most
natural cause of wonderment. “ Well, John, what’s the news ? ”
said the over-sociable Hartley Coleridge one morning to an old
stone-breaker by Rydal Lake. “ Why nowte varry particlar, only
aid Wudsworth’s brocken lowce ageean.” “ These mutterings
and mouthings of the poet,” says a contemporary, “were taken
by the poor people as an indication of mental aberration.”
On another occasion a stranger, resting at a cottage at Rydal,
inquired of the housewife whether Wordsworth made himself
neighbourly among them. “ Well,” said she, “ he sometimes
goes booin’ his pottery about t’ rooads an’ t’ fields an’ taks na
nooatish o’ neabody ; but at udder times he’ll say good morn-
ing, Dolly, as sensible as oyder you or me ! ”
De Quincey who had, of course, exceptional opportunities
for observing Wordsworth’s character, dwells with great
emphasis on the poet’s “ extreme, intense, unparalleled one-
sidedness.” Of his range of reading, for example, he says,
“Thousands of books that have given rapturous delight to
millions of ingenious minds, for Wordsworth were absolutely
a dead letter—closed and sealed up from his sensibilities and
his powers of appreciation, not less than colours from a blind﻿224
A SORE POINT
Ctt. VIII
man’s eye.” The egotism and self-complacency which in a
higher form was so invaluable to Wordsworth during the years
of neglect which his work suffered at the hands of the public,
took on at times an irritating turn in the small affairs of life.
To quote De Quincey again, who was an enthusiastic admirer
of his friend as a poet, he had traits which seemed almost to
forbid complete and perfect friendship. Southey, as we know,
till late in life, liked his poems much better than their author.
One grievance under which Wordsworth’s friends smarted is not
without humour, yet surely should procure them our unbounded
sympathy; for it seems that the great man would tolerate no
opinion favourable or otherwise of a landscape in his presence
except from members of his immediate household, who, by
some mysterious process, were supposed to have assimilated his
magic power of vision. He treated all such expressions, De
Quincey tells us, with pointed and contemptuous silence, some-
times going even so far as to turn his back on the speaker as
if to emphasise his presumption. One can very well understand
that to the author of the Ancient Mariner, and to the greatest
stylist of his day, both of whom, though essentially book men,
found for years their whole relaxation in Lakeland scenery,
such an attitude on the part of a friend whom they held in
high regard must have been extremely galling. This same
one-sidedness prevented Wordsworth, no doubt, from doing even
in a small degree for north-west England what Scott did for his
native country. It would be unreasonable to expect so peculiar
a genius as his to have travelled out of its groove except for
the fact that his personal connection with his own region was
so long and so unbroken, his opportunities so very great. One
may be permitted, I think, some disappointment that Words-
worth seems to have been almost indifferent to the moving
pageants of history, the passions, the humours and the pathos
of olden days. It is nothing that he wrote a few unremarkable
poems on such subjects, or published a guide-book which
deals chiefly with landscape detail and breaks ultimately into﻿Rydal Church.
Q﻿226
WORDSWORTH'S POETRY
CHAP.
verse. Nor will the few notes he has left on manners and
customs seem of much moment when compared with the ampler
evidence of local antiquaries and historians. How much is
Wordsworth read nowadays ? if such a question in such a spot
is permissible. How many of the younger generation have
worked conscientiously through the Excursion 1 It might
be said that this would be something of a test for the middle
aged and elderly who were nurtured when the popularity of
Wordsworth was in its zenith. It is not in the least strange
that wherever in the Lake Country you find a native man
or woman of literary tastes you find an enthusiastic disciple
of the Rydal bard, but their pious belief that such devotion
is common to all Anglo-Saxondom is more noteworthy. It
is almost pathetic, and arises perhaps from being in such
constant view of the streams of curious tourists who gape at
Rydal mount and pay their sixpence to look inside Dove
Cottage. The Americans, moreover, are held in Lakeland
to be staunch disciples. It may be so ! I have never myself
gathered that impression in America, but that is nothing. I
should fear, however, that it is only the greater industry
exhibited by our cousins in “ seeing the whole show ” when on
their travels. The majority of these enthusiasts, I venture to
think, like most of their English fellow-travellers, know just so
much of Wordsworth as is quoted in the guide-books, have
never read a page of the Excursion or even heard of The In-
timations. The precise measure of Wordsworth’s present popu-
larity would, in truth, be no easy estimate. Happily, it is no
business of ours to form one.
From Wordsworth’s house we are carried along the margin
of Rydal Lake with its feathery islands and its quiet surface,
for no boats may ply on it. We pass Nab Cottage, where poor
Hartley Coleridge lived for so long, and at the head of the
little lake rise up above the wooded dell through which the
Rothay comes hurrying on its short journey from Grasmere
Lake. Looking back from here, there is a charming view over﻿VIII
A HELM WIND
227
Rydal, but it is not for the purpose of descanting upon this
that I would linger for a moment, but because the spot
recalls a wonderful spectacle I once witnessed from it, no less
indeed than that of a very well-developed specimen of a
“ Helm wind.”
All regions have their special peculiarities, but I know of no
other in England that creates hurricanes purely for local
consumption. The phenomenon gets its name of Helm from
the cloud that is supposed to hang as a cap or covering
above the scene of its wrath. It had its hat off when
I saw it and that perhaps accelerated its mad rage. These
Helm winds usually occur in late spring, and it was the middle
of May when I dropped in for mine. They come from the
eastward and the first stage of their manufacture takes place
upon the Durham and Northumbrian moors. For the warm
winds blowing from the German Ocean across the eastern
lowlands of these counties grow warmer, till mounting sud-
denly on to the moorlands they whistle over some thirty
miles of an almost unbroken waste of spongy, boggy upland
cooling rapidly, so the scientists tell us, in the process. That
passed, they have arrived at the western ramparts of the
Pennine ridge and from the summit of Crossfell, which the
rustic will tell you is the parent of the Helm wind, are looking
down over the valley of the Eden. Here the warm breezes of
the west are suddenly encountered and the conflicting tem-
peratures create a rare confusion. Out of the hurly-burly as
its product a ready made Helm wind rushes down upon the
western slopes of the Eden Valley, bounds up skywards from
the impact, and then with a shriek of rage and redoubled force
plunges into the valleys of Lakeland. And during all this
time the rest of the kingdom may be wrapped in a profound
calm !
As I was saying, it was in this case a bright May day which
from the morning onward grew windier and colder but no darker.
In the afternoon a hurricane was blowing. 1 had to journey
Q 2﻿228
A BRILLIANT SPECTACLE
CHAP.
from Grasmere to Ambleside and took a cycle with a view to
using it when before the wind. This last was lateral in the open
valley, but having been twice blown against a stone wall,
I took a hint from the other folks I met in like plight and
walked tamely beside my “ Swift,” hoping for better times and
marvelling at the fury of the storm at such a season and
beneath so blue a sky. At this entry here into Rydal, where
the Lake opens out to the road, the gale struck me in the face
and with such fury that all thought of further struggles with it
Rydal.
was abandoned. I was glad enough, indeed, to crouch under
the lea of a wall and look over the top of it at the really
wonderful sight that there met my eyes. For it is not too
much to say that at times the whole surface of Rydal Lake
was entirely hidden beneath clouds of driving spray. The
agitation of the actual surface was of course great, but that was
quite a secondary matter; for it seemed as if the gale in its
violent and spasmodic rushes scooped up tons of water into
the air and then dashed them with headlong force in glittering
and scintillating clouds across the lake from "shore to shore.﻿VIII
AN ENIGMATIC ANSWER
229
The brightness of the sky, the brilliancy of the sunshine, the
blueness of the lake, immensely heightened the effect. Some-
times the whirling masses of water were flung in showers back
to their element, like the play of some vast fountain, flashing
rainbow colours in the sunshine as they fell; at other times,
these great spray clouds were driven high over the banks and
scattered far and wide amid the woods behind.
An old man was breaking stones under lea of the same wall
that sheltered me, and to him I naturally made some comment
on the belated nature of so fierce a storm, for it was as cold as
March.
“ I racken it’s a Helm wind,” said the veteran.
Not knowing at the time what kind of a breeze that might
be, I thought that the old gentleman was merely expressing
himself with undue emphasis upon the ferocity of this one. My
landlord, however, when I returned to Grasmere, put the matter
beyond all doubt, and introduced me formally to the Helm wind
as an institution. That it comes from Crossfell is a popular
truism. The theories regarding its manufacture there, which I
noted on the preceding page, are those advanced by meteor-
ologists. I may add, in connection with this particular Helm
wind, that when the papers came to hand the next day they
told of steady and heavy rain in every part of England except
this north-west corner.
On emerging from the short wooded gorge that connects the
two lakes, the vale of Grasmere opens out all its beauty. The
little lake with its single grassy isle fringes the road and its
waters lap against the stony strand beneath a screen of oaks and
alders. On the further shore, but a few hundred yards away are
the wooded slopes of Red bank, from which vantage point may
be enjoyed one of the most exquisite and justly celebrated
views in Lakeland. You can breathe in Grasmere, there is plenty
of light and fresh air. Though surrounded by hills, they stand
well back, and boldly show themselves from their woody feet
to their craggy summits. Snugly set between lake and meadows﻿230
GRASMERE
CHAP.
is the village itself, and the old grey church tower, with the
upstanding mass of Helm crag that splits the head of the
valley, rising finely up a thousand feet behind it. The
southerly supporters of Helvellyn are all about us on the right:
on the left, are woods and steeps and crags, that lead away and
upward to the Langdale Pikes and the Scafell wilderness. As
a centre for walking, there is probably none better than Gras-
mere, as a mere glance at the map will show. The hotels are
good, the charming gardens of the Rothay and the outlook
from them would give attraction to a much less comfortable
house, while those who like the sound of wavelets beating on
the shore beneath their windows, will find the “ Prince of Wales’ ”
much suited to their taste upon a windy day. But though
there is plenty of accommodation at Grasmere, one cannot in
truth say the charm of the spot is seriously impaired. There
are, to be sure, more villas (to use a comprehensive term) of
recent date than there are memorials of the original inhabitants.
They are mostly fashioned, however, of the slate-coloured stone
of the country. And though I have myself no great fancy for
this at close quarters, or for the prevailing method of construc-
tion, much preferring the red free stone and more massive
mortared masonry across the mountains, it must be admitted
that the typical house of the country has the merit of un-
obtrusiveness to a very high degree. The Lake poets and their
friends were accustomed to say, sixty years ago and more, that
Grasmere was spoiled, but the term after all is relative. The
situation is not only beautiful, but has much character in its
air of snugness and aloofness from the outer world, though this, of
course, has small significance as applied to the present, since a
fine coach road runs right through it. But in the past this
isolation must have been very real indeed, and Grasmere as it
was in the eighteenth century is a picture I should extremely
like, by the aid of some magician’s wand, to have a peep at.
Mr. Wilson, whose painstaking excursions into the past of his
native country have afforded me both instruction and entertain-﻿VIII
IN THE OLDEN TIME
231
ment, tells us that in the Stuart period there were thirty-nine
statesmen in Grasmere holding direct from the Crown, and
that by the beginning of the eighteenth century the number had
dropped to twenty-six. At the present day there is, I think,
only one, and with that cheery survivor I have had many
pleasant “ cracks.” I have already expressed an impious yearn-
ing for some good picture of this country before it had any
literary associations; for even the local antiquary is apt to
break off at his most instructive moments, and quote Words-
Grasmere looking towards Dunmail Raise.
worth in a fashion vexatiously irrelevant to his subject. Gray,
to be sure, passed through Grasmere in its virgin state, “ not a
single red tile,” he says, “ no gentleman’s flaring house or garden
breaks in upon the repose of this little unsuspected paradise ;
but all is peace, rusticity, and happy poverty in its neatest and
most becoming attire.” But Gray merely cast an academic
glance and passed on.
Wheels had never entered Grasmere at that time. A pack-
horse track over the top of White Moss was the only outlet to
Ambleside, and over this the bells that now hang in the tower﻿232
THE GREAT PLAGUE
CHAP.
of the village church were dragged on a sledge ; one is reminded,
too, that the statesmen, who had mostly large families, could
hardly have supported them on their small holdings without the
surplus produce of the spinning-wheel and the hand-loom,
selling, in fact, a good deal of homespun cloth, and being, as it
were, manufacturers as well as farmers. In the same way, the
north Welsh farmers of former days sold vast quantities of
woollen stockings—the men, like the rest, knitting in their
spare moments, just as the northern statesmen spun or wove in
the intervals of out-door work. “ When the great plague,” says
Mr. Wilson, “ raged in Keswick and all intercourse was sus-
pended, the Grasmere statesmen carried their cloth to
Armboth Fell on the further banks of Thirlmere and laid it
out on a large stone, where the traders met them and transacted
their business. The rock in question is to this day known as
the “ Webb stone.” The introduction of machinery and rise
of the manufacturing towns seems indeed to have been one of
the many causes of the decay of the statesmen class, as it
left them without profitable employment for their leisure hours.
Everything too in the shape of food or clothing was
produced at home. As to the first, the statesman lived
abundantly. Oat-meal cakes, porridge, cheese and milk, were
the accessories rather than the main support, as in Scotland,
for meat was generously used, sheep for home consumption
being freely killed in the autumn, and hung to cure in the
enormous chimneys that were then in vogue. We are shown
the women in their linsey woolsey petticoats, long-tailed bed-
gowns, blue linen aprons, great scuttle bonnets and wooden
clogs, and have it on good authority that the first statesman’s
daughter who appeared in the dale in a printed calico dress
created an immense sensation. The men too, of course, wore
homespun, usually undyed, in which black and white fleeces
were mixed. They had big brass buttons on their coats and
on Sundays and high days were resplendent with bows of
ribbon at the knees of their breeches and silver buckled shoes﻿VIII
OLD BUILDINGS AND IMPLEMENTS
233
instead of clogs upon their feet. Houses were then built leisurely
and in massive fashion, being intended to last. Only heart oak
was used, and in lieu of nails wooden pegs held beams and
sashes and doors together. Lime was dispensed with as hard to
procure, and an amusing story is told of the first consignment
of it that went into Borrowdale ; the bearer carrying it across
his saddle bow in a bag. A thunderstorm coming on, however,
the lime began to fizzle. Upon this the astonished rustic
dismounted and poured water over it, the effect of which so
alarmed him that he thought the devil was in the sack and
throwing it into the beck, rode for home as fast as his horse
could carry him. The stipends of the clergy too, who served
these dale churches, or chapels, as they were called in olden
days, look quite incredible on paper, averaging about five
pounds a year. It has to be remembered, however, that most
of these men were peasants bred, that they got their “ Whittle-
gate ” or board free from the statesmen of their parish, and
furthermore, as we have already seen, followed some trade,
such as that of cobbler, or waller, to say nothing of school
teaching when they were capable of it.
The schedule of a farm sale in Grasmere, in the year 1706,
lies before me, and I think the phraseology of the catalogue
would sufficiently astonish a modern auctioneer, while some of
the prices are significant of the change in markets and in the
value of money. Dubblers, Daw tubs, Throwen chairs,
fflawing spades, Gimlocks, Tarr kitts, Gramaces, Gavelocks,
Sihreenges, Wimbles, Backshaves, and ffishing pitches are a
few of the articles from the list. And from the same source
one learns that the approximate value of a cow in Grasmere at
that time was about ^3, a heifer £2, lambs about half-a-crown
apiece and fat wethers six shillings ! It is somewhat surprising
too to find the French particle still in local use, above all at
such functions. For among the purchasers of these mysterious
articles we find Braythwayte de Wrey, Newton de Gillfort, John
Jackson de Wythburn, a little comic, perhaps, this last !—and﻿234
GRASMERE SPORTS
CHAP.
so forth. There is one quite sonorous entry on the account,
“ Christopher Cowpthwayte one fifat cow,” and it has some
further interest as a Cowpthwayte (Copperthwaite) is still very
much a power in Grasmere, being no less than the proprietor
of the two chief hotels.
Grasmere church, though of no architectural merit, every-
one, of course goes to see, if only for the Wordsworth graves,
which could not be exceeded for their charm of situation amid
leaves and running water and over-hanging mountains. Near the
Grasmere Church.
church, too, is the field where the chief athletic meeting of the
Lake Country is held every August. From what I have already
said of these characteristic gatherings, it will been seen that the
Grasmere meeting, though very fashionable, is quite a genuine
affair and a true expression of the Cumbrian sporting character,
not a survival of half-moribund pastimes for the benefit of
strangers or quasi-residents or gate money, as is sometimes
supposed.
Dove Cottage is an object of perennial interest to visitors﻿VIII
DOVE COTTAGE
235
at Grasmere, and no wonder ! For surely no modest cottage
ever sheltered two such occupants in succession, the greatest
poet and the greatest prose writer of their day. Wordsworth
was here for six years, De Quincey for twenty. Son of a well-
to-do Lancashire merchant whose widow had a comfortable
home at Chester, De Quincey opened his eccentric career by
running away from Manchester Grammar School, rather from
a feeling of boredom, it would seem, than for the usual conven-
tional reasons. On a guinea a week he wandered about North
Wales indulging his imagination in that romantic country, and
fraternising with all manner of queer folk. Shunning his home
for no very serious reasons, he then threw himself more or less
penniless upon London, concealed his whereabouts from motives
of boyish pride from his mother and guardian uncle, and
experienced the lot of a homelesss and almost starving outcast
in its dreary wilderness. But who that has read The Experi-
ences of an Opium Eater,—and who indeed has not ?—can forget
his account of those extraordinary months and the strange﻿236
DE QUINCEY
CHAP.
companions of his self-imposed misery ? Discovered and
rescued by his friends, he was sent up to Oxford in 1803.
Careless of the honours or emoluments to be gained there by
the orthodox course of study, he plunged deeply into philosophy
and English literature, and left Oxford after four years with a vast
store of learning, but no further forward in his equipment for
practical life, and no scheme for earning the necessary
livelihood. De Quincey then ran across Coleridge, by that
time sunk into a morbid, irresponsible wanderer, consuming a
tumblerful of laudanum a day, but still possessed of that
magic power of conversation which took every one captive.
The presence of Coleridge’s family at Keswick with Southey
was the means of turning the young De Quincey lakewards,
and eventually cementing a friendship between himself and
the Wordsworths, and keeping him in the Lake Country as a
permanent resident. The increasing family and improving
circumstances of the Wordsworths had just caused them to vacate
Dove Cottage for Allan Bank prior to the later move to
Rydal, De Quincey now, in 1809, took their late humble
abode and there led for the next twenty years his extraordinary
life.
Small, thin, and nervous, a martyr to chronic pains, induced
possibly by the superfluous hardships he had undergone, and
possessed of phenomenal brain-power, the young philosopher
had a poor start in life from a physical standpoint. He was
now twenty-four, and already on the high road to that opium
slavery he has so lucidly described. He had begun the habit
as an undergraduate as a remedy for internal pains, and before
he had been three years at Grasmere was drinking the insidious
liquor to the measure of five or six wine-glasses a night—a
deadly dose in itself to the unseasoned. The decanter of
laudanum behind De Quincey’s tea-pot is a sufficiently familiar
picture wherever English is read, and he drank it, in his own
words, “ as other men drink Madeira.” When it was not
laudanum it was tea, and yet this frail little creature with the﻿VIII
A HARASSED LIFE
237
big head and bigger intellect lived to be seventy-four.
Harassed always by money cares and more often than not in
the clutches of the fiend that gave him such gorgeous hours at
the expense of such fearful awakenings, De Quincey’s life at
Dove Cottage, outwardly so humdrum, must have been a
tempestuous one enough mentally.
Admirable in every other relation of life, and second only to
Coleridge in conversation, De Quincey had no lack of friends,
and the quality of those who were then his neighbours needs
no further telling. At thirty he found a most excellent woman
to marry him, the daughter of a yeoman, Simpson of Nab
Cottage. Even with her aid, however, his struggles with the
laudanum decanter were only intermittently successful, and an
increasing family brought increasing cares; for under such
conditions of health and isolated residence his earnings were
in no way commensurate with his commanding talent. In
1830, necessity compelled him to leave Grasmere for some
more central sphere of work, and the whole family removed to
Edinburgh, where, incredible as it seems, this tortured,
worried weakling lived for nearly thirty years more, fighting
his old enemy on and off till nearly the end and just contriv-
ing to keep the wolf at a reasonable distance from the door.
De Quincey, however, was fortunate in his family, and the
last period of his otherwise melancholy life was passed in
tranquillity at Lasswade.
For the traveller on wheels there is but one outlet from
Grasmere, namely, by the well-known coach road which leads
over Dunmail Raise to Keswick. The second of the two
horns into which the Helm crag ridge splits the valley is
Easedale, and this, though much dwelt in and much walked
in, is a cul de sac for all but the pedestrian.
Of the six mountain passes in Lakeland available for wheels,
Hardknott, Honister, Kirkstone, Newlands, Whinlatter, and
Dunmail, the last is by very far the least, being just 800 feet,
above the sea. It is more of a thoroughfare too than the others,﻿238
OVER DUNMAIL RAISE
CHAP.
forming the main artery of travel between the northern and the
southern, the Keswick and the Windermere, sections of the Lake
Country. It is three miles to the summit of the pass and one of
these at any rate it would be prudent to walk. Nor indeed is there
much hardship in this; but only the better chance for looking
back down the narrow valley to where Grasmere, all aglow with
the bright colouring of its meadows and foliage and its glittering
lake, lies in the bosom of the hills. And in the meantime the
Rothay plunges down the hollow on our left, dwindling in im-
portance as woods and meadows are left behind, till it plashes,
a mere moorland beck, by the side of our highway, now for a
brief space on open moorland road.
It is wonderfully quiet and impressive up here in the
intervals of passing traffic. We have brushed the feet of
Fairfield, and Seat Sandal in our zigzag upward course, and
taken note of the track which clambers up between them and
finally descends upon the further side to Ullswater. Upon our
left is the battlemented summit of Helm Crag, the rugged sheep
pastures of Gibson’s Knott, and the loftier crown of Steel Fell,
which with Seat Sandal opposite forms, in fact, the gateway of
the pass. The county line too is traced here by a wall, and
near the road side is a great flat cairn, which is supposed to com-
memorate a fierce and decisive battle fought in the tenth century.
Tradition says it was here that Dunmail, the last king of
Cumberland, was defeated and slain, and those who care for such
things may like to be reminded that in 924 the Kings of the Scots,
the Northumbrian and Strathclyde Britons, had submitted to
the Overlordship of Edward, the West Saxon. Twenty years
later, however, they became insubordinate, and the Saxon King
Edmund took an army into the country and on this spot
defeated the men of lower Strathclyde (roughly Cumberland),
killing, as I have said, their prince. Edmund then handed the
country over to Malcolm King of the Scots, on condition that
he should be his “fellow worker by land and sea,” or in other
words his ally in resisting those invading Norsemen who had﻿viii
THE NORSEMEN
239
been so long the curse, as it seemed then, of both. This fight
on Dunmail Raise, made Cumberland for over a century, till
the time, in fact, of William Rufus, a dependency of the Scottish
Crown. There is a strong impression too that it was a leading
factor in the despair which drove the Celtic population of
Strathclyde to that second emigration into North Wales, though
the Welsh chronicle places the incident somewhat earlier. It
was during this period, at any rate, that the Norse influence
acquired such distinct predominance over the Celtic and made
Cumbria in the main a Norseman’s country.
One shrinks in a work like this from the very edge of so
vast a subject. But one’s thoughts, mine at any rate, seem
somehow to roll backward more readily in such a land as this
than amid the low stubbles and turnips and sandhills of Danish
East Anglia. The old world seems nearer as you look on this
side up the long slopes of Helvellyn, and upon that over an
ocean of rugged upland on which a thousand years have scarce
placed a mark. Some stunted oak woods may have vanished
from hill sides as in Wales. Cloudbursts, or riotous becks, may
have cut a rent in steep slopes here, or there again old scars
have doubtless healed and redraped themselves in crisp turf
beneath the sheep’s light tread. But the sheep and the turf
and the crags were all much as now and the becks played the
same music when the din of battle sounded here on the Raise
and the Cymric remnant went down for good, and Cumbria
became Scottish land. How few of us too remember that the very
men who were then swarming into Cumberland were at the same
time clustering quite thickly upon the virgin coasts of Iceland, a
land one is apt in careless fashion to think of as outside the habit-
able globe, and wrapped in six months of night and almost
eternal snow. Yet what a mine there must be among the seventy
thousand folks who inhabit Iceland for the delver in old stocks,
both of language and of race ! Just think of a work compiled
about the same time as our English Domesday Book, and which
may now be read, giving precise particulars of the 4588﻿240
ICELAND OR BRITAIN?
CHAP.'
Norwegian heads of families who settled in Iceland from the year
874 onwards, the places they settled in, and yet more than this
concerning many of them. There is a list, too, in this
wonderful “ Landama Bok,” of all the speakers of Parliament
beginning with the first. Mr. Elwood, who again comes to our
help with Mr. Eric Magnusson, the Cambridge Icelandic
scholar, tells us among a host of interesting things that many
of these Icelandic pioneers were not merely the friends and
relatives of those that steered their long ships southwards, but
in many cases had themselves beyond a doubt tried their luck
on the more temperate but less hospitable shores of Britain. It
may seem strange enough to us nowadays that an emigrant
should hesitate between the banks of the Solway and the coast
of Iceland, but when it is remembered that the first had to be
won and held by the sword while the latter was a virgin country,
such hesitation will seem less singular.
The exile of some of these adventurers seems to have been
induced by political reasons. For at the close of the ninth
century, the Landama Bok tells of the sailing for Iceland
of “ Thorolf son of Ornolf who dwelt in Most-isle, was called
Mostbeard and was a great man of blood offerings and believed
in Thor.” “ He emigrated to Iceland on account of the tyranny
of Harold the Fairhaired, and sailed by the southern part of
the land, but when he was come west, off Broadfirth, he threw
overboard the high seat posts, whereon Thor was carved. And
he prayed, therefore, that Thor should come to land where the
God wished him to settle, and he promised that he would
dedicate all the land of his settlement to Thor and name it
after him. He took land on the south side near the middle of
the firth. There he found Thor cast ashore upon a point of
land which is now called Thorsness on that account.”
Here is another settler :—
“ That summer when Ingolf and his companions went to
settle in Iceland, Harold the Fairheaded had been King of
Norway for twelve years. At that time had passed from the﻿VIII
THE “HIGH SEAT POSTS”
241
beginning of the world 6,073 winters,'and from the Incarnation
of our Lord 874 years. They sailed together until they sighted
Iceland, then they separated. When Ingolf saw Iceland he
threw overboard his high seat posts for good luck and took a
solemn oath that he would there build, where the high seat posts
should come to shore. He passed the third winter at
the foot of Ingolfsfell on the west of Olfuswater. This year
his men found the high seat posts near the Ern-Knoll beneath
the heath. Ingolf went in that spring down across the heath
and he took up his abode where his seat posts had come to
land. He dwelt at Reykjarvik and his high seat posts are still
in the eldhouse.”
These high seat posts upon which the Norsemen so strangely
staked the future of their race were the pillars of the great chair
upon which the head of the family sat, and were invested with
special dignity and fashioned after the figure of the god Thor.
It is not likely that this custom of casting Thor overboard was
greatly followed by the Norsemen when descending on British
shores ! The Piet the Briton and the Saxon already in
possession would have had much more to do with the shaping
of the invader’s course than any piece of drift wood, how-
ever sacred. What gives Iceland a greater interest to the
Cumbrian folk-lorist than other Scandinavian countries is the
unchanged character of its language and place-names. Many
hold that the so-called Druid circles are but duplicates of the
Norse “ Doom rings ” or judgment rings, within which the
Scandinavian law courts were held; but this is contentious
ground indeed !
We descend the hill beyond the watershed cautiously, for
the road is steep and tortuous and the stone walls on either
side of it are not inviting to try conclusions with. Fairfield
and Seat Sandal are left behind and Dollywaggon now towers
over our right shoulder with the broad flank of Helvellyn, an
uninspiring looking mountain from this western side, drawing
close upon us. What havoc somebody has played with these
R﻿242
MISCALLED MOUNTAINS
CHAP.
old Norse and Celtic names, and what bathos they have some-
times been reduced to ! Our English mountains of a truth make
a poor show in this particular by the side of those of Donegal,
Carnarvon, or Inverness; Causey, Robinson, Fairfield and Dolly-
waggon, to go no further! What a quartette of names for four fine
mountains. They might all be in Bedfordshire, and yet they
started well too, no doubt. Fairfield is, I think, conceded to be
a corruption of Far-fell, Far being the Norse for sheep.
Thirlmere.
Dollywaggon, I have no doubt, has received due attention from
the etymologists. At any rate, it begins with a good Celtic
monosyllable—but what a continuation ! It is held too, I think,
by some that Skiddaw, which sounds Norse-like, is in fact
Celtic and a corruption of Cadair, the Welsh for Seat, and
furthermore that Saddle-back—the commonplace appellative
with which Blencathara has been outraged—is a lapse from
Cadair bach; extremely plausible if Blencathara, so obviously an
original Celtic word, did not stand in the way of the theory !﻿VIII
WYTI-IBURN
243
It is only a few minutes since we lost sight of Grasmere
twinkling to the southward, and now to the north and beneath
us the blue waters of Thirlmere lie deep sunk and narrow, in
the hollow of mighty hills. The Armboth Fells, a fine patch-
work of green and grey and wildly rugged of aspect, rise finely
from the western shore of the narrow lake, and from up here
we may clearly mark how lonely an upland it is that stretches
away to Borrowdale and the heights over-looking Derwent-
water. Every one dallies more or less at Wythburn at the
foot of the pass and a mile short of the lake ; for the “ Nag’s
Head ” is a famous little inn and was notable as a trysting
place long before Christopher North fired the gun up the
parlour chimney and so shook the nerves of his brother poets.
It is whitewashed outside and homely within, as an old
wayside tavern should be. If you are not thirsty, you loiter
on the threshold for a bit and pass the time of day with
mine host or the ostlers hanging about with buckets in expec-
tation of the Keswick or Ambleside coach, or you sit in the
sun on the wall of the churchyard across the road and smoke
a pipe and if you have never done so before take a peep inside
the little church which, though much restored, is still a charac-
teristic specimen of the diminutive buildings which served
the dalesmen in former days and indeed often do so still.
In olden times there was a rival inn at Wythburn called
the “Cherry Tree,” whose venerable hostess used to boast
that she had seen sixteen landlords in and out of the other
establishment, which at this day enjoys so complete a monopoly.
Now there is bound up with my edition of West several
sheets of A Fortnight in the Lake Country, of date 1792,
by one Budworth. That gentleman (they got up earlier in
those days, when Prime Ministers held interviews between six
and eight) came down to the “Cherry Tree” for breakfast,
having ascended Helvellyn from Grasmere, and paid seven-
pence, he tells us, for all the luxuries of the country ! Perhaps,
however, his dinner at the “ Red Lion ” at Grasmere is still more
r 2﻿244
THIRLMERE
CHAP.
tantalising in the matter of charge. Fish, fowl, veal cutlets, and
ham, peas, potatoes, gooseberries and rich cream, with various
etceteras, all for tenpence ! Wythburn, I may further remark,
is one of the bases from which to attack Flelvellyn, though I
fancy more people come there after than before the performance
of this not very remarkable exploit.
Every one knows that Thirlmere is now the property of the
city of Manchester and constitutes its water supply ; but it must
not be supposed it has suffered on this account to any extent
Hclvellyn from Thirlmere.
worth mentioning from the somewhat grimy-sounding connection.
It has been dammed at its narrow outlet, and fills the gorge in
which it lies more fully than of yore, but this perhaps is an
improvement. Its new owners, too, have made a good road
along its further or western shore, in the place of the old pack-
horse track, an innovation which no one will quarrel with.
Thirlmere is the most river-like of lakes, being scarce any-
where more than a quarter of a mile in width though over three in
length. The Keswick road for more than half this distance﻿VIII
GHOSTLY ASSOCIATIONS
245
skirts the eastern shore, and lifted well above it so that, travel-
ling one’s self along the foot-hills of Helvellyn, one can enjoy the
striking fashion in which the Armboth Fells, with all their
rugged grandeur, their gorgeous colouring and their silvery
cascades, dip down into the deep water.
Everything to-day is fair. But one can well fancy that
Thirlmere, when the wind is north and the skies are black and
snow lies on the fell, can look stern enough, and worthy of the
spectral horrors with which superstition has peopled its shores.
As our road mounts a steep hill, preparatory to leaving the
lake, the old manor of Dalehead lies below upon the water-side.
It belonged to the Leathes family from the days of Elizabeth
till Manchester bought them out, and indeed Thirlmere used
to be known at one time as Leatheswater. The Dalehead
ghost does not haunt the mansion but the high road above, and
represents the restless spirit of an erstwhile denizen of the place,
who, returning home one night with a tempting sum of money
in his pocket, was robbed and murdered, his naked body
being afterwards found in the lake, with a deep gash on the
forehead. An ill-conditioned neighbour was suspected, but no
proof forthcoming, there could be no punishment save such as
the conscience of the guilty man meted out to him and the
black looks and cold shoulders of his neighbours. These in
the end proved of themselves too powerful for the wretched
culprit, and flying his fellow men he resorted to a cave in
the hills, which still bears his ill-omened name, and there, let us
hope, repented him of his sordid crime.
Armboth Hall is another ancient abiding place, and lies just
across the narrow lake from Dalehead, nestling in charming
and secluded fashion amid woods and strips of meadow beneath
the fell foot and by the water side. Jacksons seem to have
lived here alongside of the Leathes and for the same three
centuries. But what these respectable statesmen can have
been about to invest their old manor house with such a grizzly
reputation in former days, history does not say. There is﻿246
THIRLSPOT
CHAP.
something about a midnight marriage and a murdered bride, I
gather from the local historians. But not so very long ago I
am assured that the few people who were abroad here in winter
nights used to see sights and hear weird noises when
the lonely house was known to be unoccupied; lights
flaring in every window, and the sound of wassail
and revelry sounding loud across the cold waters of the lake.
Among other gruesome guests at these entertainments the
Calgarth skulls are supposed to have put in an appearance,
being back in their niche no doubt before morning, when
Bishop Watson came down to breakfast. I should imagine
that the very idea of the Mayor and Corporation of Man-
chester would be enough to lay any self-respecting ghosts
(meaning nothing personal, of course), and since Armboth Hall
came to such practical ownership all has, I believe, been quiet.
Before Thirlmere was enlarged it was so narrow and shallow at
this point that a bridge crossed it of unique and curious
structure. My own recollection of it is shadowy, but it was sus-
pected of being, like one in Wales, of Celtic origin and there
was much just lamentation when the raising of the waters
destroyed so ancient and curious a landmark.
The lower part of Thirlmere can be best seen from the further
shore, for at Dalehead, as I have mentioned, the coach road
swings away to the right and downwards towards the Vale of
St. John. In a very few minutes, however, an old fashioned inn,
the “ King’s Head” at Thirlspot, with every claim that Wythburn
has, invites inspection. No properly educated local horse would
pass this genial spot. The cyclist may do so if he likes.
Early in the century a noted character and humorist reigned
here, one John Stanley. And a composition of his own used
to hang under the old sign which is still kept in the house:—
“ I, Stanley, lives here and sells good ale
Come in and drink before it grows stale.
John succeeded his father Peter,
But i’ th’ old man’s time ’twas never better,”﻿VIII
BACK TO KESWICK
247
The foxhounds come much into this Legberthwaite country,
and many generations of the Blencathara pack, after a run over
the rough Armboth Fells or the smooth slopes of Helvellyn, have
made free with the bar parlour or shambled through the old
passages or basked on the door-step in the free and easy fashion
of Cumbrian hounds. It is six miles to Keswick by the coach
road, while another follows the infant Greta to the right down
the beautiful vale of St. John, the scene of “ The Bridal of
Triermain,” and comes out near Threlkeld. After crossing the
Greta, there is much laborious collar work upon our route
without any special reward till it emerges upon the steep hill-
top overlooking the town, when Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite,
the Vale of Keswick, Skiddaw, and the whole galaxy of
mountains whose acquaintance we made when here before,
burst with a grandeur indescribable upon the ravished sight.
On Thirlinere.﻿Hesket Newmarket, near Caldbeck.
CHAPTER IX.
“D’ye ken John Peel with his coat so gray
Who hunted in Caldbeck once on a day ? ”
Yes, indeed ! Who does not ken John Peel wherever English
is sung or spoken ? He is as well known as Wordsworth
himself, his antithesis. If Cumbrian sportsmen claim John
Peel, as they well may, for their patron saint and the song that
has immortalised him as their particular anthem, they are
very far indeed from possessing a monopoly of that famous
character. Wherever Anglo-Saxons for the last half-century
have been gathered together, not in the three kingdoms only
but in America, Canada or the Antipodes, it would be hard to
pick out an individual who could not shout the chorus at any
rate of John Peel. Yet I have been idly gossiping about
Cumbrian bards and have forgotten, nay, not forgotten, but
deferred, the mention of Woodcock Graves. Poor Woodcock
Graves ! like the reverend author of “ Not a drum was﻿CH. IX
A CLASSIC STRAIN
249
heard,” the singer, so far as the world is concerned, of but a
single song. Not a very great composition in itself, perhaps,
but possessed of a simple pathos which, together with the
swing of the music, has touched the foxhunter and thousands
who are not foxhunters in a manner that no other ballad of
the kind can pretend to. Songs of the chase are legion,
swinging and polished verses too, by men of talent as well as
of mettle, set to music by notable composers and celebrating
famous hunts and famous huntsmen. But where are they all
when contrasted with the ever-green notoriety of “ John Peel ” ?
—by comparison at first sight a mere nursery rhyme. And then
again have there not been “ John Peel ” waltzes, gallops,
polkas, and quadrilles that three generations of youths and
maidens around the circle of the globe have followed with
eager foot? To a majority of these, the hero of the ballad and
the strain is, I fancy, a semi-mythical personage. Only men of
a sporting turn, and by no means all of these I am inclined to
think, quite realise the actuality of the famous Caldbeck
yeoman.
The superior person may say and think what he pleases, but
I do not mind confessing that a pilgrimage to Caldbeck, long
projected but only recently achieved, excited my fancy no
little and stirred within me many pleasurable emotions. Upon
my map too, the undertaking seemed a very simple affair, a
high road of yellow-ochre and generous breadth running the
entire circuit of the Skiddaw uplands from the foot of Bassen-
thwaite, round again to Threlkeld, taking Caldbeck, so to
speak, in its stride. But the real road proved very different
from the paper one; nothing indeed could be more unlike.
We have already in these wanderings had occasion to pass
by, and to make mention of, the “ Castle Inn ” set at the foot of
Bassenthwaite and some seven miles from Keswick. Two
roads at this point go rambling off the tourist track, the one to
Carlisle, and the other, as a finger post denotes, to Caldbeck,
adding the further fact that the distance thither is nine miles.﻿250
SKIDDAW FOREST
CHAP.
It was with a light heart that I turned this corner one day in
the beginning of July. The landscape, it is true, glowed with
that peculiar brilliancy which in Lakeland is apt to be the
presage of a wet jacket, but nine miles under average
conditions is no very formidable stretch to place between
one’s self and shelter before storm clouds have so much as even
fringed the blue curtain of the sky. The road, which started
with a flourish, as if with some serious intention of living up to
its paper character of a great national highway, quickly tumbled
to the role of a Cumbrian byway—and Cumbrian byways are
proverbially vexatious. After a mile or two one could under-
stand why the rabbits sat up in the middle of the track and
regarded one with as much confidence as surprise, and why the
grass in some parts threatened to assume the proportions of a
moderate hay-crop. Large stones were broadcasted loosely over
the surface, which was mostly of a perpendicular nature, and I
was forcibly reminded of that otherwise delectable part of
Devonshire known as the South Hams.
After all, if one had to take it easy, there were great
compensations, for Skiddaw, I think, looks its very best
from this northern side, while the far-stretching heather-clad
uplands of Skiddaw Forest, with their green flanks spouting with
becks and flecked with fresh shorn sheep, lay all the time upon
my right hand. In the narrow vale between were homesteads
nestling beneath groves of trees, and the little lake of
Overwater twinkled pleasantly amid the verdure of woods and
meadows. Here, as elsewhere on the outskirts of Lakeland, one
might be miles away from all sign of travel. To-day, at
any rate, I had the rugged road wholly to myself. The gorse
glowed, and the dog-roses bloomed in the high, ragged, spindly
hedges on either hand and the pewits cried on drubbing
wings behind them and the curlews called on the long slopes
of Binsey Fell.
I wonder, by the way, if people ever ascend this same Binsey
Fell ? I felt myself irresistibly impelled to the enterprise on this﻿IX
BINSEY FELL
251
occasion, in spite of threatening signs in the south-west, and did
not regret it, though the delay cost me a wetting. Binsey Fell
has no particular nobility of outline and is not more than fifteen
hundred feet or so above the sea ; but then again, it is the
outlying sentinel, as it were, of all these Cumbrian mountains and
stands out so finely into the low country that the outlook over
North Cumberland, and the Solway and into Scotland is almost
as fine as from Skiddaw itself and very much more certain of
realisation. It was the calm before the storm on this occasion,
and a score of villages showed their roofs and church towers,
and sometimes, unhappily, their tall chimneys, with ominous
distinctness on the rich lowland that stretches from Carlisle to
the Solway mouth. The valley of the Derwent starting at our
very feet traced its wooded and winding course towards the
sea. Away beyond the broad sheen of the Solway the glint of
homesteads on the Dumfriesshire hills came and went among
the shadows that were now slowly creeping over land and sea.
In short, I would strongly recommend the ascent of Binsey;
not many hills return so much for so little exertion.
Where the road tops the ridge at the further foot of Binsey
Fell it divides, and taking the right hand and most unpromising
of the two forks I steadily descended several hundred feet
by a narrow lane, to where the somewhat forlorn looking
village of Ulldale rises on the further bank of a stream that
comes tumbling down from Skiddaw Forest to the plain. It
was now raining hard. If Ulldale had possessed average
attractions, I might never have reached Caldbeck, and in such
case had only the qualified satisfaction of seeing the place
where John Peel spent his closing years and died, his chief bit
of property and his final home, Ruthwaite, being near the
village. But Ulldale was quite hopeless, and though the stony
road shot straight up the hill beyond with unmistakable
indications of facing the open and the moorland, I elected
happily to press forward over the five miles which an unkempt
matron informed me lay between us and Caldbeck. A gate﻿252
IN PEEL’S COUNTRY
CHAP.
across the road above the village was prophetic, as such gates
always are, of the roughest travelling. After some climbing I
found myself upon a high exposed common over which for
several miles, with gentle undulations and Roman directness, ran
an unfenced, stony road. Happily, the grass upon either side was
tolerably smooth or the pace would have been lamentable, and
there was now not a speck of blue left in the heavens. The
west was inky black, the east was grey. Rain was falling
briskly, and the thunder, which for some time had been mutter-
ing afar off, was now crackling overhead or booming in the
gorges of Skiddaw Forest. The lightning, no doubt, was in
actual reality quite a respectable distance off, but it seemed to
me to be playing in unpleasant fashion about the very handles of
my bicycle. Beautiful pasture land lay on either side of the
open road where Herdwicks and Cheviots, just lightened
of their fleeces, with hundreds of hardy piebald lambs, raised
clamorous voices to the storm.
I remembered that this must have been the very road over
which John Peel’s funeral cortege travelled in 1854 when he was
brought from Ulldale to the Caldbeck churchyard. If his spirit
had been of the restless kind and of the wild huntsman type,
from which I should imagine it was far removed, this would have
been the very day for such ghostly enterprise, over the fells
and pastures which Royal, Ranger, Bellman and the other
canine immortals of the song must so often in life have led the
veteran huntsman. And a fine hunting country of the cold,
upland sort it seemed too all about here; grass everywhere,
fenced and unfenced, drained and undrained, open fell and
hard sheep sod, big ox pastures skirted by ragged fences or
straggling walls. Windy homesteads, solid and solitary, crowned
the ridges at long intervals, gleaming white against the inky back-
ground of the skies ; unsheltered and exposed, and facing the
storm with philosophic unconcern. High Pike, Great Calva,
Carrock Fell and the other giants of Skiddaw Forest had hidden
their heads in banking clouds and away on the left, shutting﻿IX
CALDBECK
253
out the plain of Cumberland, the lower and greener slopes of
Caldbeck Fells opened and shut in the lightning flashes. At
Greenrigg, the last farmhouse in the open before the road drops
down again to the enclosed country, John Peel was born, and
there an aged daughter of his still lives, while another survives
in the adjoining homestead which abuts upon the road at the
point where a final gate divides this long stretch of high
common from the country below.
A mile or so of soaking lane and I was in the village street of
Caldbeck, where a gentler rain was falling upon as old-fashioned
Market Place, Hesket Newmarket.
and characteristic looking a collection of habitations as even
fancy could have conceived for the environment of so
picturesque a personage. And by this I do not mean that
there were any architectural gems, such as you may see in
some ancient villages in the south, nor would such things
have been in keeping with the genius of the place. It was
the old-worldness of the north that brooded over Caldbeck,
of heavy stone fronts that make their character felt, even
through fresh coats of whitewash, of low eaves and old slate﻿AT TIIE VILLAGE INN
CHAP.
254
stone roofs and heart oak timbers. I must again remark, with
renewed apologies to the superior person, that, wet as I was, I
felt my blood coursing somewhat quicker as I rode into this
remote village, so unknown in itself, and so curiously and
fortuitously famous, so familiar by name to me, at any rate
as far as memory could go back. There was no doubt about
the village inn ; it stood alone in the middle of the wide turf-
edged space, and looked down towards the church and rectory,
while the Caldew sang unseen below. It was just such an
inn as I should have asked for and expected at Caldbeck.
Snug and comfortable, yet sufficiently primitive, and with no
apparent consciousness of the touring public, which a few miles
away were such an item on the highway.
A big fire was roaring in the kitchen, for it was ironing day,
and I was glad enough to leave the front parlour for later use,
and dry my upper garments, at any rate, by the cheerful blaze,
while a middle-aged hostess and a more venerable dame dis-
coursed to me on the subject of my pilgrimage. Only the
elder lady knew the famous huntsman well, as he died in ’54.
They were, I think, his connections in some way, as probably
were most folks in Caldbeck. “ He was just a plain ordinary
man,” they protested, “ one of ourselves.” This of course
many of us have known well enough, but modern hunting is a
conventional pursuit, and we are a conventional people. If
John Peel’s grey coat and simple habit are overlooked by the
vendors of patent stable mixtures, whose artists are accus-
tomed to depict him in the gorgeous panoply of a fashionable
M.F.H., it is quite likely that he thus vaguely figures in the
fancy of many who crown festive occasions with paeans in
his honour.
It seemed quite fitting that a portrait of the local hero should
face me as I discussed the homely lunch provided in the inn
parlour. It was not a work of art, perhaps, but at the same
time had an air of fidelity, which was much more to the
purpose, and was painted in oils over a generous space. It﻿IX
A PORTRAIT IN OILS
255
represented a oenign looking old gentleman, with a longish
unwrinkled face, blue eyes, and a most beautiful pink com-
plexion. He wore a very tall and rather wide brimmed beaver
hat tilted back on his head, a loosely knotted blue or birdseye
handkerchief round his neck, and a long tail coat of brown or
grey, while his hand grasped a long-lashed hunting whip. I am
quite sure the Hanging Committee of the Royal Academy would
not have given that picture a second’s consideration, but from my
point of view it inspired some confidence, and I need not say
much interest, and I drank the health of the original in a
bottle of Workington ale, as seemed fitting, for Woodcock
Greaves, if I remember right, was a Workington man.
John Peel was not a fell foxhunter such as those we have
come across in earlier chapters. Nor yet was he an ordinary
low country M.F.H., but something betwixt and between.
He hunted a small pack of his own for, roughly speaking, the
whole of the first half of the nineteenth century, over the upland
grass country which lies between the mountains and the lowland,
and as the song implies, rode his own horses behind them.
He hunted for his own amusement and according to the
Caldbeck folks who remember him was out nearly every day
in the week and always, like the fell hunters, at daybreak. His
“ fields ” were of course composed of his immediate friends
and neighbours, when they chose to go with him. Mine hosts
at the inn talked much, too, of his son, who was known as
“Young John Peel” and died at the tender age of ninety not
very long ago.
But I was strongly advised to go and see a venerable
individual known as “ Willie Peel,” a nephew of the illustrious
John, who had known his uncle well and as a grown man
been a good deal with him. This veteran would be delighted,
so I was assured, to draw upon his memory for my benefit.
And the more so, since what time there yet remained to him
was his own and he was “ gey fond of a crack.” So as the
rain had now ceased, I lost no time in seeking out this﻿256
A REMINISCENT NEPHEW
CHAr.
reminiscent member of the house of Peel, who lived with
relatives in a roomy cottage beyond the confines of the
village, and found him all that had been described—and
more.
It was a plain old-fashioned room into which I was genially
welcomed by the veteran’s married daughter, and I confess to
some satisfaction at finding that my errand was a novelty to
both. There was a big open hearth in which a turf fire
smouldered, and before the hearth was an oaken settle upon
which we sat and talked, or rather my host did, of the days of
old. Nothing from an artistic point of view could have been
more admirably attuned to the spirit of the theme than this
interior, and to sit here in converse with a man still active for
his years, as I was to discover, who had hunted with John
Peel, I really felt was something of a privilege. I was quite
thankful for the presence on this important occasion of a third
party of a younger generation. In an early chapter of this
book I referred to the lucidity of the Cumbrian tongue as
usually encountered in these days.	If I did not make
reservations I should have done so, and John Peel’s nephew
may stand for one of them. He spoke the olden tongue in
all its purity, of that I am quite sure. Though by no means a
stranger to northern vernaculars, he had the better of me
again and again though both ears were eagerly cocked, and I
was genuinely thankful for an interpreter. If the reader
should get a chance to cast his eye over the verses of Anderson
or Stagg or Dr. Gibson, he may perhaps get an inkling of what
a fearsome tongue old Cumbrian is to the uninitiated when
spoken in its pristine ruggedness. I must not linger long
over such personal recollections of John Peel as passed on the
oak settle by the turf fire. My informant when a young man
used to help his uncle in the kennel rather than in the field,
and though full of ordinary incidents there is not much to be
said in a paragraph or two about a man who hunted nearly
every day in the week except Sundays for most of his life.﻿JOHN PEEL’S HOUSE
251
tx
When he wasn’t hunting “ he was aye drinkin’,” said the free-
spoken nephew. But lest I should be accused of smirching
the character, even at second hand, of the immortal John, I
must hasten to remark that such an implication amounts to
nothing in relation to a Cumbrian statesman of a century
ago.
John Peel died at the ripe old age of seventy-eight, and was
going nearly to the last; and, if like all his neigbours, he was
of a convivial turn, we must confess he carried it well. His
active career as I have said extended roughly over the first half
John Peel’s Home.
of the century. He was very well-to do as a statesman, owning
land which seems to have brought him in from three to five
hundred a year in rent, if not more; for, unlike the majority
of his class, he did not farm much himself, which perhaps,
under the circumstances, was just as well.
Peel spent many years in Caldbeck, and his nephew pro-
posed we should go and see the house where he lived and
kept his hounds. This, I need hardly say, had been my fixed
intention all along, but I was glad of so well qualified a guide.
So we set off for the village again, the old gentleman carrying
his four-score years with remarkable agility. The headquarters
s﻿258
WOODCOCK GREAVES
CHAP.
of the famous sportsman turned out to be a modest house of
whitewashed stone by the roadside that I had already passed,
and consisted of two small rooms some twelve feet square,
above and below, with a ‘ lean-to ’ behind. I gathered from the
good lady who now inhabits it that I was by no means the
first stranger who, doubtless to her vast surprise, had made
this demand upon her courtesy. The house has not been
materially altered, I was informed, since Peel lived in- it. The
two diminutive low-raftered rooms, one on either side of the door
represented the limitations of the celebrated yeoman’s indoor
life, and an adjoining wash-house has equal interest as the
place where at one time those much-sung-of hounds of his
were kennelled. His horses, so said his nephew, were stabled
in some buildings still standing across the road. Woodcock
Graves has himself told the tale of how the song was written;
while as for his own story he was the son of well-to-do people in
Workington, and came to Caldbeck as the owner or part-owner
of a small wooden mill, situated in a romantic glen of the
Caldew, near the village which eventually ruined him. He
was notable as a raconteur, a facile maker of verses both
humorous and pathetic, and a hard-riding sportsman. For
many years he was John Peel’s intimate companion. Long
afterwards, alluding to his business affairs at Caldbeck, Graves
wrote—“ I was cheated, robbed, and gulled to such an extent
by those who ought to have been my friends, that I resolved
to go to the farthest corner of the earth. I made a wreck of
all; left machinery, book debts, &c., in the hands of a friend
to provide for two daughters, while with the four other
children and ^io I landed in Hobart Town, Tasmania, in
the year 1833.”
Here the sporting poet lived to see his family take root and
prosper, himself dying at an advanced age within recent
memory. Indeed, I very well recollect—and this, too, by way
of testimony to the universality of the ballad—reading of his
death in the local paper of a remote American town. And﻿IX
HOW THE SONG WAS WRITTEN
259
by an odd chance a Tasmanian was of the company, and of
course had much to say upon the subject, which I have long
forgotten. Here, however, is what Graves himself wrote
from Hobart Town, not long before his death:—“ Nearly
forty years have now wasted away since John Peel and I sat in
a snug parlour at Caldbeck; we were then both in the heyday
of manhood, and hunters of the old fashion, taking the best
part of the hunt in the morning, the drag over the mountains
in the mist, while fashionable hunters still lay in the blankets.
We had met one night to arrange about earth-stopping and so
forth. Large flakes of snow were falling. We sat by the fire-
side, hunting over again many a good run, and recalling the
feats of each particular hound, or narrow breakneck ’scape,
when a flaxen-haired daughter of mine came in, saying,
‘ Father, what do they say to what Granny sings ? ’ (Granny
was singing to sleep my eldest son, now a leading barrister in
Hobart Town, with an old rant called ‘Bonnie Annie.’) The
pen and ink for hunting appointments were on the table, and
the idea of writing a song to this old air forced itself upon
me, and thus was produced, impromptu, ‘ D’ye ken John
Peel?’ Immediately afterwards I sang it to poor Peel, who
smiled, and a tear or two ran down his manly cheek. ‘ By
Jove, Peel,’ I said, in jest, ‘you’ll be sung of when we’re
both run to earth.’”
The music of the song was subsequently elaborated by a
Carlisle musician, if I remember aright, and was first brought
to public notice, some twenty years after its composition,
by the fact of its popularity among Cumbrian sportsmen. My
Peel proved an active as well as reminiscent cicerone. He
took me to the Glen of the Caldew, where a modest bobbin
mill, almost hidden amid a really striking scene of foliage and
tumbling waters, still hums on the site where Woodcock Graves
sunk his money near a hundred years ago in bigger operations.
We then worked round again to the village, passing the house
s 2﻿26o
PEEL’S GRAVE
CHAP.
where the Beauty of Buttermere, whose woes were recited in
an earlier chapter, spent her married life, and followed the
stream down to the churchyard, where I paid my respects to
the grave of the local hero. This is marked by a plain upright
stone upon which is carved a whip, a horn and a hound and a
simple inscription stating that it covers the remains of John
Peel of Ruthwaite (his farm near Ulldale), who died on
November 14th, 1854, aged 78. As we walked back to the inn,
my companion pointed out some farm buildings by the road-
side where Peel’s hounds were kennelled at the time his funeral
cortege passed down this road to the church. I was assured
by my guide, who ought to know, as he was himself a mourner,
that as the hearse passed the doors the orphaned dogs within
broke into a chorus of canine lamentations and that the village
was filled with awe at the nature of the coincidence if, per-
adventure it was nothing more.
It was full late when I succeeded in getting away from
Caldbeck and its entertaining inhabitants, only one or two of
whom it has been necessary to introduce here. But the days
were long, and I elected to go home round the far side of
Skiddaw Forest and Saddle-back, and thus complete the circle
to Keswick, I had lost all faith in the paper road, though on
the map it continued its triumphant course, regardless of hills
and streams and gates and ruts. There is no doubt an excel-
lent road to Penrith, the metropolis, whither the folks of this
district in the main no doubt resort. But at Hesket a quaint
decayed wool market near Caldbeck, over which “ Fuimus ” is
written in the largest letters, I bid good-bye, to my sorrow, to
the Penrith road, and after many miles of tortuous wanderings
on rocky or sticky byways, where neither finger-posts nor other
travellers nor friendly road-side houses appeared to solve one’s
frequent doubts, I struck familiar ground at Mungrisdale.
Here, beneath the shadow of the eastern slopes of Saddleback,
this delectable hamlet sleeps by the upper waters of the Glen-﻿IX
HOME BY MUNGRISDALE
261
dermakin, but two miles from the Keswick hnd Penrith road
and twice as many from Threllceld. A neat but rustic inn
stands above the brawling brook, and suggests a fitting retreat
for some solitary who would be in the Lake Country but not of
it, in touch with its beauties yet removed from the haunts of
men and well off the route of travel.
Road to Keswick.﻿The Castle and Eden Bridge, Carlisle.
CHAPTER X.
By those who are not indifferent to everything but the
actual face of nature, the old capital of this western border
land should by no means be left out of any scheme of travel
in Cumberland. In former times a tiresome railway journey
was inevitable to this achievement. Since the advent, however,
of the blessed cycle, it is a simple undertaking as well as a
pleasant one to run there from Keswick or from Penrith over
admirable roads. The one is about thirty, the other some
eighteen miles. Amid days of walking on the mountains or
riding on the rougher roads that intersect them, such an
expedition makes a pleasant interlude with the railroad too, so
handy should strength or weather or machine break down.
For myself, I must say that I do like to approach a town, and
above all a town of character and high tradition, upon the road-
way ; to first behold it perhaps from afar, and to watch the country
gradually attuning itself to the neighbourhood of its capital;
to mark the old inns and the many still surviving landmarks
that in former days cheered the approaching traveller, whether on
the coach-top or in lumbering chaise, or on his ambling nag, with
saddle bags and holsters; to note the seats of ancient stocks,
vanished or still prosperous, whose names are writ large for
centuries on the stone of fortress or cathedral or civic hall.
When, with such pleasant if inconsequent reflections you
have thus passed from country into suburb, and from suburb﻿CH. X
ROAD OR RAIL
263
into market place, or wherever the pulse of your town most
loudly beats, you feel already to know something of it, to be in
a better mood at least to learn something, than if you had been
dumped out of a railway train you know not where, amid a
militant crowd of busmen, cabbies, hotel-porters and gamins.
From Penrith it is a fine run to Carlisle over the old North
Road by Plumpton and High Hesket with the Petteril on the
left and the Eden on the right, both hurrying to their junction
Near High Hesket.
beneath the city walls. But as we have wandered back to
Keswick, it is the longer route we must here pursue, though of
a truth in the briefest fashion, as I want to get to Carlisle as
quickly as may be.
Then let us without more ado, and by way of the familiar,
but ever charming road down the Vale of Keswick and over-
looking Bassenthwaite, transfer ourselves to that same Castle
Inn near the foot of the lake which witnessed our start in the
last chapter for the classic pastures qf Caldbeck- Having﻿264
DOWN TO THE LOW COUNTRY
CHAP.
there selected the northward of the two routes branching from
the coach road, and which leads, so the mile-posts say, to
Carlisle in twenty-one miles, let not the traveller be discouraged
by his experience of the first four. They are little used, for
local reasons which matter nothing here. They are as lonely
as the road to Caldbeck, and the abounding coney gambles
on your path as confidingly as upon the other. Big pastures,
scantily fenced, sweep away on the left to the ledges above the
Derwent valley, and on the right trend upward to the fir-crowned
ridges of Whitless Scaur. Bothel seems to be perched on the
last step of the descent into the plain of the Solway, which lies
spread below us, fair and rich as we pass out of the quiet old-
fashioned village. Yonder, just in front of us, is Sir Wilfrid
Lawson’s house of Brayton, conspicuously set upon a leafy
slope, with every window glittering in the morning sun. Many
another place of note, town and village, hall and church tower,
can be marked amid the bright tints of woods and parks, fields
and fallows which roll away towards the shining Solway. At
Bothel too we strike the main road from Cockermouth to
Carlisle, and may bowl merrily along a highway as good as one
may reasonably look for in Cumberland, which as a county
does not shine in the art of road construction. The generous
fields of wheat and barley, just heading out and rippling in the
breeze, have a strange look after the cramped enclosures and
broken foreground of the mountain valleys. The hay is
mostly carried from the big meadows and on the long red
drills of ribbed tillage land, the turnips are showing in
green and vigorous lines. Shorthorns, are browsing in the
pastures and heavy Leicesters share the croppage with the
small and more shapely Cheviots. It is a fat country for the
most part, this upper lowland. The modest grey and white,
homestead of the hill yeoman is no longer much in evidence.
Large buildings of red sandstone here and there face the
highway, but at such intervals as show that a weightier type of
occupant is on the soil. Of red sandstone too are the﻿X
AN UNEXPECTED CARILLON
265
labourers’ cottages, one-storeyed and massive like those in
Scotland, with low eaves and a square window of diamond
panes on either side of the door.
We pass the Waver and the Wirger rivers, and leave the
market town of Wigton just out of sight upon the left. A
carillon comes wildly sounding on the breeze, of a tone and
quality most wholly unexpected in such a locality. Bruges,
Antwerp, and Ypres rise for a moment to the memory,
for such music sounds strange among English fields, and
stranger still when of a sweetness such as this. A timely
countryman, however, solves the mystery, which is merely that
a neighbouring landowner of wealth and discretion has brought
these fine chimes from Belgium and hung them in a
private belfrey of his own, to the great delectation of his
neighbours. Indeed, a farmer in the neighbourhood assured
me that his annual holiday was no longer an unmixed joy, so
greatly did he miss the cheery music that at home rang out
the passing of his busy hours. We cross the east shore rail-﻿266
BY CROFTON AND THURSBY
CHAP.
road at Crofton and pass the gates of Crofton Hall, where
Briscoes have lived this many a long day. Now we are
running through Thursby, with a passing thought of the awe in
which the great and shaddowy Norse deity was once held along
these coasts. Now Ualston (not to be confused with Dalton-in-
Furness) is left behind, just off our road (where Romney the
painter was born), and further back upon the right lies the
present residence and historic stronghold of the bishops of
Carlisle. It was early in the fourteenth century that a bishop
had urgent reasons for getting the king’s leave to fortify Rose
Castle, for it was the sanguinary period following the Bruce
wars. But as we cannot visit that stately episopal pile upon
the Caldew it is idle touching on its story.
The entry to Carlisle by this Wigton road is not particularly
attractive. The city was of no great account in the mere
matter of population till modern times, and its modern
features are of an industrial kind and intrude themselves in
unromantic fashion on the notice of the traveller from the
south-west. But in visiting Carlisle it will be well to forget
all this and push straight on to the Castle, and there climb up﻿x	A STIRRING PAST	267
and take our stand upon the lofty ramparts. With an average
imagination and a reasonable acquaintance with British
history, border and otherwise, we shall have from this vantage
point the best of what Carlisle has to offer, and that best to
my thinking is very good. For the old city has played a part
more strenuous by far than any other town of note in England,
and this distinction, one need hardly say, is due to geogra-
phical reasons, and the geography of Carlisle as seen from its
castle walls is significant enough to stir the dullest dog. We
have seen it again and again during this little tour; the
Solway, the Scottish hills, riven with once hostile glens, the
fat Eden valley, and the plain of Cumberland, and here above
them all the rock around which the tide of battle and the
passions of race hatred surged for centuries and the red walls
of Carlisle Castle, on which in fancy we have taken our stand.
How placid have been the lives of most English towns, how
meaningless their Norman castles, when rated by the standard
of Carlisle. Shrewsbury and Chester almost alone can claim
something of a kinship in stirring record ; but the Welsh March,
as such, ceased from troubling three hundred years before life
and property was really safe outside the walls of Carlisle. Be-
sides the Cathedral, whose sore vicissitudes of fortune give it an
interest like the Castle and a pathos all its own, there is not in
truth very much to be seen here. One fancies perhaps a stern
hard look about the older streets, as if life for them had been
too serious for the arches and gables and mouldings that artists
and antiquaries love—just as the corner boys and more
demonstrative part of the population are said to inherit a
special strain of turbulence from the rude past. But one really
does not need to hunt about for Roman arches or the relics
of nunneries or Tudor houses in Carlisle, if time is limited, as
one might do in cities richer in these things, but poorer
infinitely in such records as make it the main story of the
Border capital.
We are facing the north, as is only fitting for such a re-﻿268
ROMAN CARLISLE
CHAP.
trospect as I am about to indulge in. Below us, through
green meadows, somewhat trimmed and ornamented for the
outdoor needs of a modern city, winds the broad and stately
Eden. Hurrying from the south to meet it, and thus placing
us in the angle of two streams, come the recently united waters
of the Caldew and the Petterill, whose infant gambols among
the hills which bore them we have looked at in a former
chapter.
Before recorded history, says Bishop Creighton, a tribe of
the Brigantes had built their huts upon this sandstone bluff,
which Nature had so obviously intended for the secure abode of
man. But this the reader will no doubt resent, being more
than he bargained for. One cannot, however, ignore all
mention of Roman times, seeing what a conspicuous part the
land of Carlisle then played. It was Agricola with his legions
who, about eighty years after Christ, first broke upon the
barbarism of these northern forests, and there was nothing
tentative or half-hearted in the manner of his settlement.
Henceforth the real frontier of Britain was here, and for three
centuries the Solway slope hummed with a life more bustling
and more organised, and certainly far more cosmopolitan,
than would have been found there a thousand years later.
The Roman town of Lugubalia arose therefore on the site of
the old Celtic Caer Lywelydd. Agricola built a line of fortresses
from the Solway to the Tyne, and forty years later came
Hadrian, following the same course with his famous wall, and
including in that monumental structure his predecessor’s forts.
One knows too that a second frontier was formed in somewhat
similar fashion from the Firth to the Clyde; but its efficacy was
fitful and life between the two walls so precarious that the Tyne
and Solway, and the “ Roman wall ” we know so well, may for
practical purposes be regarded as the Roman frontier.
Everything indeed connected with Roman Britain seems to
require a mental effort. But let us make one brief endeavour
to form some idea of this va.st defensive work.﻿X
HADRIAN’S WALL
269
Its course was about seventy miles. It was eighteen feet
high and eight feet broad, but its actual height was greatly
increased by a ditch of fifteen feet in depth on the north side.
On the south, a rampart and a wide foss followed the course of
the wall as a protection to its rear, in case an enemy should
perchance break through. Every three miles, speaking broadly,
there was a fortified station garrisoned by 600 men ; at intervals
of less than a mile were big square towers, with gateways
occupied by detachments, while every three hundred yards
stood watch-towers manned by sentinels. The civil population
that a permanent garrison of 15,000 troops would gather round
it must have been very great for the period, speaking rela-
tively, and afforded, no doubt, a strange contrast to the solitude
through which one may now trace what remains of Hadrian’s
Wall. It crossed the Eden on a bridge, just beneath the
walls of Carlisle, and it was down yonder at Stanwix, rather
than at the town above, that the Romans had their military
station. But it was not alone the western end of the great
wall that made this “ country of Carluel,” as it came to be called,
so busy. For the coast of Cumberland was low and exposed
beyond the point where the wall touched the Solway, and was
thickly sprinkled with Roman stations as far as Ravenglass—
at which spot, as well as on the cold stations of the North-
umbrian uplands, Frisians, Batavians, Spaniards and Gauls
shivered in the inclement air. A network of roads covered
the country, four passing through Carlisle alone, along which
must have rumbled continual convoys laden with the products
of the south. Experts have, beyond a doubt, much justification
when they tell us that this was for a time one of the most
populous parts of Roman Britain.
It was when the Romans had gone that Carlisle assumed
some fresh and peculiar importance as a border stronghold, for
it was here that the half-Romanised Britons rallied and fought
Scots, Piets and Saxons, for a long, vague period in vague and
doubtful conflict. With the Arthurian legend we need not con-﻿270
OUTSIDE THE DOMESDAY SURVEY
CHAP.
cem ourselves. It flourished in the land of Carlisle, as in Wales
and Cornwall. But the Strathclyde Britons, stretching roughly
from the Ribble to the Clyde, had for a time their centre at Dum-
barton, till the Northumbrian Saxons drove a wedge through
their centre and cut off Carlisle and its people from their northern
kinsmen. Egfrith, the Northumbrian king, seems indeed to
have dominated the Cumbrians, while his pious sister, Elfred,
founded the monastery in Carlisle and gave the town its eccles-
iastical distinction. This same influence seems also to have
greatly weakened in Cumbria the old British Church in favour
of its Latin rival. But Egfrith in turn was overthrown by the
Piets and Britons, while in due course the invading Danes
added to the confusion. In 875 they burnt and sacked
Carlisle, leaving the district almost uninhabitable. This ended
the long period of Carlisle’s earlier supremacy. For nearly
eight centuries she had been predominant on the north-western
border land. First under the Romans, then as the capital of
Strathclyde, and even afterwards, when under Northumbrian
influences, her ecclesiastical supremacy had remained un-
questioned.
We took note when crossing Dunmail Raise of how, after
the British defeat upon that mountain pass in 945, the land
of Carlisle was granted by the Saxon conqueror to Malcolm,
King of Scotland. As an appanage of the northern kingdom
it ceased for a time to be a border town, and lost its import-
ance. When Domesday Book was compiled, Carlisle, with
Cumberland and part of Westmorland, found no place in it,
not being English ground. It was William Rufus who put
matters right again, and this with little apparent detriment to
the reigning King of Scotland. For Cumbria was then in the
virtual power of an independent chieftain, one Dolphin, who
ruled over a ruinous town and a district thinly peopled by a
polyglot race, in which Norse blood was the prevailing strain.
Rufus expelled Dolphin, brought fresh settlers into the wasted
country, and built the castle at Carlisle, putting a strong﻿X
SCOTTISH HOLD ON CARLISLE
271
garrison within it. Henry I. created it an earldom of the
Welsh Palatinate type—but this was soon abolished as a
system of defence not always salutary for the Crown, and
the Crown officers introduced. Henry, however, did much
more than this. He introduced the Augustine Order and
started the struggling Church with various endowments of
fisheries, mills, and parish titles. Glasgow and York had
hitherto contended for the ecclesiastical overlordship of Carlisle.
The King now set the matter at rest by making it a bishopric,
and including in the new see most of the present counties of
Cumberland and Westmorland. During Stephen’s troubled
reign Carlisle once more became semi-Scottish, for David of
Scotland seized it in the confusion and made peace with
Stephen on condition of retaining it as an earldom for
himself.
It now became a base for Scottish ravages against England,
an intolerable state of affairs which the vigorous Henry II.
put an end to once and for all, a proceeding made easier by
the youth of Malcolm, his contemporary on the Scottish
throne. It remained however for the third Henry to finally
extinguish all Scottish claims upon Carlisle, and this he did in
peaceful fashion by granting various private manors to his
rival of Scotland to be held direct of the English Crown.
Though ravaged during this contentious period again and
again by the Scots, there was now no longer any question
about Carlisle and Cumberland being wholly English ground.
The precise line of the border, however, above the Solway
estuary was quite another matter, and one can well understand
how little precedent there was for fixing it. It was not like
the case of Wales, where Welshmen and Englishmen were of
a different race and speech. Who was an Englishman and
who was a Scotsman on either bank of the Esk, and
precisely what either term meant, would have been a problem to
the wisest head in the reign of Edward I. And in the mean-
time Carlisle was burnt almost to the ground by a terrible﻿272
EDWARD I. AT CARLISLE
CHAP.
conflagration, 1,300 houses and the newly-built choir of the
Cathedral being destroyed.
Out of its ashes, however, the border city was to rise to
fresh importance, for the strenuous Edward now came upon the
scene, who by striving to make all Scotland that was worth
fighting for English, settled the matter in unexpected fashion.
For the fierce passions he aroused determined for good and
all who were Scots and who were English, and created a
mutual animosity that it took centuries to cool. One may
question the object of the great Edward’s statesmanship or
deplore the bad fortune that cut him off before its fulfilment,
but what chiefly matters here is that Carlisle became for
a long period the base of great operations, the scene of
martial and courtly splendour : and after Edward’s dead body
had been carried thither from Burgh-on-Sands, and the
barons of England had sworn fealty to his feeble successor,
it suffered for it. A bloodier time was beginning for the border
than it had ever known, which was saying much. u Carlisle,”
says Bishop Creighton, “ had suffered much for Edward the
First, but for a great object; she was now to suffer more.”
It was fortunate the city had already acquired the beginning
of civic and ecclesiastical life. In future they could make but
little headway, for Carlisle, became first and chief a great
garrison town, and the surrounding country, so far as the eye
can range from its lofty ramparts upon both sides of the Solway,
became the abode of men who for generations lived for arms
alone.
How tell of the dreadful wars of Bruce and Balliol
and the stormy period of the third Edward, when again and
again the border city was the royal headquarters ; of the
sieges it stood, and the bloody havoc that raged past it, up
the coast to Ravenglass or up the Eden Valley to Appleby?
Every man became a soldier, every house that was not a
mere peasant’s hut a fortress. The independence of Scotland,
it is true, was in course of time formally recognised ; but the﻿X
BORDER FEROCITY
273
number of English barons who held property there of the
Scottish king, to say nothing of the irrepressible fighting
instinct of the period, offered a veritable premium on dis-
turbance. But these formal international wars were after
all punctuated with quite respectable periods of truce, and in
these periods the borderers, lest their blood, perchance, should
cool, fought against one another. So fierce and turbulent grew
the people and so local the spirit, that mere national hatreds
faded into those of tribe and name. The difference between
the men on the Annan and those on the Eden might have had
interesting distinctions for a student of folk-lore or vernacular,
but for all practical purposes they were the same people—a fact
which, no doubt, intensified their local hatreds. The borderers be-
came, in time, a thorn in the side of their respective governments.
If England and Scotland were united in nothing else, they
were cordially at one in contriving restraints and framing codes
for these turbulent subjects, whom no ordinary laws could
touch; and Carlisle represented all that there was of law
and order in this corner of the world, as well as forming the
main barrier against Scottish aggression.
Among the many differences in detail between the North-
umbrian and the Cumbrian marches was the power of a great
earldom, a great feudal house, the Percies, on the east; where-
as, upon the west, Carlisle under a Crown officer and a minor
bishop was in direct touch and under the direct control of the
King. In a former volume of this series I had to relate how
the Northumbrians marched under the Percies to the bloody
field of Shrewsbury. But though the Cumbrians were as
strong partisans of the second Richard as their neighbours,
Henry, through his officers at Carlisle, had no trouble in over-
awing them. The wars of the Roses, again, which gave the
mass of Englishmen then living their first sight of blood spilt
in serious action, was a mere change in the venue of the war-
seasoned borderers, though they were the means of bringing
Richard of Gloucester to the north, as we noted at Penrith.
T﻿274
THE LAWS OF THE MARCHES
CHAP.
He was also governor of Carlisle for some time and warden of
the marches, about which famous office and its duties a few
words are necessary.
Both kingdoms, as I have said, were at one as to the urgency
of some special laws for the marches, and a system was devised
that would almost suggest to us, in its ceremonial, the days of
the Druids, and indeed the local civilisation was perhaps well
suited to the primitive forms of that dim period. Three
wardens were appointed upon either side to preside over the
eastern, middle and western marches respectively : the weight-
iest men that could be found. In war time their duties were
obvious, as they represented their sovereign and had almost
absolute power. In time of peace however they were more
curious and delicate, the chief of them being to confer with the
warden of the opposite side and make the customary arrange-
ment for the redress of grievances. They appointed a day for
a court to be held, to which all who had grievances were
invited to resort, and these complaints it is needless to remark
were mostly in connection with four-footed stock. All intend-
ing litigants, however, had previously to lay their charges
before their warden, who forwarded them to his fellow official
across the border ; the day of meeting being in the meantime
posted up in all market towns upon either side.
The rendezvous was usually at a cairn on the open moor-
land in that strip of country which had been long claimed by
both nations, but at length by tacit consent was regarded as
belonging to neither, and was known as the “ Debatable land.”
It lay just north of the Solway, extending to the junction of the
Liddell and Esk, and was for long regarded as an international
grazing ground between the hours of sunrise and sunset,
though at a later period it became the haunt of ruffians and
outlaws of every type ; it was moreover only distant some eight
miles from the walls of Carlisle. Hither in solemn procession
upon the day appointed rode the two wardens. The Buccleuch
perhaps from the Scottish, and a Dacre of Naworth from the﻿X
THE WARDEN’S COURT
275
English side, attended by a great retinue of knights, gentlemen
and commons. At their respective edges of the “ Debatable
land ” both parties halted, and four English horsemen pricked
out across the neutral territory and demanded from the
Scottish warden an assurance of peace till the next day at sun-
rise. This granted, four of the Scottish party performed a like
service for their own warden, and then the two great men
moved forward to meet each other at the head of their people,
lifting up their hands as they drew near in token that all was
well. Proclamations were then made to both parties warning
The Market, Carlisle.
them to abstain from those acts of violence which must have
been sorely tempting to many a fiery soul, thus brought in close
contact with some hated, personal enemy. Six Scots were then
chosen by the English warden and six English by the other,
to form a jury. The wardens and their clerks then examined
the cases presented and decided on the order of proceedure.
The method of trying cases seems to have been cumbered with
difficulties. Space does not allow of our entering here into these
mysterious rites. It is sufficient to say that a complainant
got no satisfaction unless he could produce a witness of the
opposite nation—no easy matter, and it is needless to add that
T 2﻿276
THE VERDICT
CHAP.
the jurors, unless the testimony was overwhelming, “ went solid ”
for their own people. The warden himself might acquit a man.
“ Clear, as I am being persuaded upon my conscience and
honour” he might write upon the bill, which was sufficient.
In the case of a conviction the warden was responsible for
producing the culprit, and had to deliver up a servant of his
own as hostage to be ransomed by money if the guilty man
was not forthcoming.
When the business was completed the wardens made procla-
mation of their several verdicts : “ We do give to wit that the
Lord Wardens of England and Scotland, and Scotland and
England, have very well agreed, and agreeable to the laws of the
marches have made answer and delivery foul or clean of all the
bills enrolled.” Then naming another day of truce within
forty days they parted with great ceremony.
But these efforts were spasmodic and depended wholly on
the will of the wardens. It was not indeed till the time of
Elizabeth that really strenuous efforts were made to cope with
the disorder in a legal fashion.
Yet when the border was in a mood to be law-abiding it
stood on its dignity with immense tenacity. The great case of
“ Kinmont Willie ” has rung down the ages in prose and verse,
and no better spot than Carlisle Castle for the recalling of it
could of a surety be imagined.
The time was that of Elizabeth, whose zealous new-fangled
servants, when there was a really good chance to catch an
offender, were apt to be regardless of ancient ceremonial.
Though we are anticipating a little in our story, border warfare
had by now degenerated into cattle lifting on a lordly scale,
and the Armstrongs, who could put 3,000 horse into the field,
were conspicuous at this distracting work. Prominent among
them was the redoubtable “ Willie of Kinmont ”—and, perhaps
from mere bravado, he put in an appearance at a warden’s court
at Ivershopeburn in 1596, where in perfect security he could
thoroughly enjoy the black looks of his many victims from the﻿X
KINMONT WILLIE
277
English side. But he did not know Elizabeth’s “ new brooms ”
and counted without his host. For when the meeting was over
Kinmont Willie was incautious enough to separate from the
Scottish following, and, though by every sacred law of the
warden courts secure from molestation, since he took a
road on Scottish soil, the temptation was too great for some of
the English when they saw such a notorious marauder at their
mercy. So a party of them stole away, and after a smart chase
captured the redoubted raider and brought him to their deputy
warden at Carlisle, who in his turn could not bring himself to turn
loose upon the world again so notorious an offender, and Willie
was tucked away safely in the dungeon immediately beneath our
feet. But Sir Walter Scott of Buccleuch, Keeper of Liddesdale,
glad enough as he doubtless would have been to see this curse of
the border brought to the halter by orthodox means, was furious
at such an outrage upon border custom, and his soul burned
within him. He bridled his choler, however, and wrote curtly
to Salkeld of Corby, the deputy warden, demanding Arm-
strong’s release. Salkeld referred the matter to Lord Scrope,
chief warden, who told Buccleuch that the case of such a
notorious offender must be referred to the Queen. Here was
a departure from time-honoured traditions that boded well or
ill according as men looked at it ! To Buccleuch it seemed
outrageous, and he appealed to the English Ambassador
at the Scottish Court, who advised Armstrong’s release, as
did also the Scottish King. But the haughty Queen who
had refused her liberty to Mary of Scotland was not likely
to soften towards a common bandit ; moreover, she had
her eye on this border country with a view to its reformation,
and she seems to have treated these petitions with contemptuous
silence.
Buccleuch then made up his mind to a venture which was as
audacious as to all appearances hopeless. And that he had no
personal interest in Kinmont Willie—quite the contrary—shows
the depth of the border reverence for its code.﻿278
“THE KINMONT FREED SHALL BE”
CHAP.
Let a justly famous ballad on an episode matchless of its
kind relate Buccleuch’s sentiments and intentions :
Now word is gane to the bauld keeper
In Branksome Ha’, where that he lay,
That Lord Scrope has ta’en the Kinmont Willie
Between the hours of night and day.
He has ta’en the table wi’ his hand,
He garr’d the red wine spring on hie.
‘ Now Christ’s curse on my head ’ he said,
‘ But avenged of Lord Scrope I’ll be.
Oh ! is my basnet a widow’s curch,
Or my lance a wand of the willow tree,
Or my arm a ladye’s lilye hand,
That an English lord should lightly me ?
And have they ta’en him, Kinmont Willie,
Withouten either dread or fear,
And forgotten that the bauld Bucclcuch
Can back a steed or shake a spear ?
Oh, were there war between the lands,
As well I wot that there is none,
I would slight Carlisle Castell high,
Though it were gilded of marble stone.
I would set that Castell in a low
And slaken it with English blood ;
There’s never a man in Cumberland
Should ken where Carlisle Castell stood.
But since nae war’s between the lands
And there is peace and peace should be,
I’ll neither harm English lad nor lass
And yet the Kinmont freed shall be.’
Having thus, according to the poet and in language that
leaves nothing to be desired in fire and force, relieved his
feelings, Buccleuch proceeded to take action. He ordered
two hundred and ten of his most trusty followers to meet him
just before sunset at Morton’s tower in the “ Debatable land,”﻿X
“ BUT TWENTY SCOTS AND TEN ”
279
about ten miles from Carlisle. There scaling ladders and
breaching tools were braced on spare horses, and in the darkness
of the night the whole band crossed the Esk, and avoiding the
notice of the Grahams of Netherby, who were the watch-dogs
on the English bank, approached Carlisle with much caution,
arriving beneath the castle walls about two hours before day-
break. The ladders proved too short, so the pickaxes were
produced and a breach made in the wall by the postern gate.
All this was done without arousing the garrison, and the
sentinels were not alarmed till some of Buccleuch’s men had
squeezed through the rent and were breaking open the postern.
It was then too late. Buccleuch, with part of his men, guarded
the approaches to the castle, while the rest rather intimidated
than overpowered the garrison by blowing trumpets and raising
a great commotion, with a view of creating an impression that a
Scotch army had descended upon the castle. Information had
been previously gained through spies of the exact place where
Kinmont Willie was confined. The door of the dungeon was
soon found and as quickly forced, and the celebrated cattle-lifter
was borne off in triumph with his fetters still hanging to his legs.
The whole party, indeed, got clear away and were riding at full
speed for the Scottish border before the men of Carlisle had
fully realised the situation.
They thought King James and a’ his men
Had won the house wi’ bow and spear ;
It was but twenty Scots and ten
That put a thousand in sic a steer.
As there was no time to knock the fetters off the prisoner s
legs, a stout moss-trooper named Rowan was deputed to carry
him on his back.
Then shoulder high with shout and cry
We bore him down the ladder lang,
At every stride Red Rowan made
I wot the Kinmont’s chains played clang.﻿28o
BUCCLEUCH AND QUEEN ELIZABETH
CHAP.
Oh many a time, quo’ Ivinmont Willie,
I have ridden home baith wild and worn,
But a rougher beast than Red Rowan
I ween my legs have ne’er bestroon.
And many a time, quo’ Ivinmont Willie
I’ve pricked a horse out o’er the furs,
But since the day I back’d a steed
I never wore sic cumbrous spurs !
The passage of the Eden was disputed by some of the
townsmen, but the mist of morning lay thick on the meadows
and the Scots again were able by shouts and clangour of
trumpets to create the impression of a strong force. They
rode at a great pace through the Grahams’ country without
spreading the alarm, crossed the Esk, and by two hours after
daylight were on Scottish ground. The blacksmith’s house
between Loughton and Langholme where Willie’s fetters were
knocked off was shown to Sir Walter Scott when in the
neighbourhood.
It was a great performance, and not a drop of blood had
been shed. But Elizabeth when she heard of it set no bounds
to her wrath, and gave the Scottish Government the choice
between war and the surrender of Buccleuch. After lengthy
negotiations the bold warden was induced or compelled for
the sake of peace to give himself up to her. When he
appeared before the angry Queen, a story runs that she asked
him how he dared to venture on so audacious and desperate an
undertaking. “What is there that a man dares not do?”
proudly replied Buccleuch. The wrath of Elizabeth, it is
said, was melted by so brave an answer, and turning to her
attendants she remarked, “ With ten thousand such men our
brother of Scotland might shake the firmest throne in Europe.”
Once launched, however, upon the sea of border song and
story, one might run some risk of remaining up here on the
walls of Carlisle Castle indefinitely and forgetting how nearly
is the tether of our space run out.﻿X
A DESOLATING WAR
281
With Henry VII., who gave his daughter to the Scottish
King, a brief season of comparative quiet fell upon the border,
and to this time some good authorities have attributed much
of the minstrelsy which in such quaint but stirring language
tells the story of perennial strife. The Scots appear to have
been most prolific in this type of song, but such supremacy might
partly be accounted for by the fact of the north side of the
border having contained more habitable country and carrying
a larger population.
After Flodden, where the men of Carlisle did doughty work
under a Dacre, Scotland was smitten hip and thigh. Henry
Dacre Castle.
VIII. offered her peace if she would abandon her old and
vexatious French alliance. But she refused, and the King,
who had treated Wales with the highest statesmanship, turned
in fury upon Scotland and swore he would make the marches
harmless by depopulation if other means failed. Carlisle
became more than ever a place of arms and the normal hatred
of the men of Cumberland for their northern neighbours was
stirred to frenzy by the King’s violent measures. A frightful
period of strife and devastation, conducted with devilish energy
and method, set in, and the reprisals were of a like nature.
The English Government was now sowing the wind, and was
to reap the whirlwind. Bad as they had been before, the marches﻿282
“A STARK MOSS-TROOPING SCOT WAS HE”
CHAP.
now became in this sixteenth century, when England at large was
growing peaceful and domestic, more miserable than ever. The
old clans or tribes were swollen by refugees from justice;
outlaws and broken men of all sorts who ranged themselves
beneath the battle-cries of Scott or Armstrong, Elliot or
Grteme. All semblance of respectability was erased from
border strife. Dacre, who with a handful of men had repelled
a Scottish army of 15,000 from the walls of Carlisle, rode with
2,000 men against the Armstrongs, but was defeated. The
Scottish warden then attacked them with no better fortune. They
became the terror of Cumberland and mustered 3,000 horse.
The Duke of Northumberland was now appointed “warden
general,” a new office. The measures he took show the
desperate state of affairs, for watches were now kept day and
night along the frontier, as in the days when Roman soldiery
held Hadrian’s Wall against the Piets. Every district had to
furnish its own quota; while elaborate laws were laid down for
the blowing of horns and the lighting of beacons. Every man
who crossed the border had to account for himself. No
Englishman might speak to a Scot without permission, nor
might any Scot live in Carlisle, or even walk the streets,
unaccompanied by a native, and, more durable than these
fitful and passionate enactments, miles of thorn hedges were
planted to hamper the raiding of stock.
Sir Walter Scott in his spirited and inimitable style has
given us a graphic picture of the borderer of the Tudor period :
A stark moss-trooping Scot was he
As e’er crouched border lance by knee.
Through Solway sands, through Jarra’s moss,
Blindfold he knew the paths to cross,
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy’s best bloodhounds.
In Esk or Liddel fords were none
But he would ride them one by one.
Alike to him was time or tide,
December’s snow or July’s pride \﻿X	EMIGRATION OF BORDERERS	283
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime:
Steady of heart and stout of hand
As ever drove prey from Cumberland.
It is a frightful picture, and yet this was a bit of Tudor
England, the same England that contained the Devonshire of
Raleigh and the Warwickshire of Shakespeare ! Carlisle was so
continuously in the thick of battle it is hopeless to attempt
here any serious relation of its exploits. Once it was attacked
from the south, for in that futile protest against the conditions
created by the Reformation known as the Pilgrimage of Grace
8,000 men of Westmorland, under a Musgrave, rose, and
regarding Carlisle as the nearest centre of a Royal authority,
marched against it. But the soldiers and citizens of Carlisle
were more inured to war than the men of Westmorland, and
shattered them utterly, hanging over seventy from the city
walls as a warning to reactionaries in general. But, in regard
to the border clans, hanging the worst offenders and levelling
their peel towers was not the only method of quieting them.
Emigration to Ulster, which James I. was busy planting,
was largely resorted to, and indeed under the new regime of
law and order the mere plundering borderers were by no means
loth to go. Armstrongs, Grahams and Johnstones flocked
over by hundreds, and many a family famous to-day in Ulster
has sprung from them, while the wars in the Netherlands and
those of Gustavus Adolphus carried away a still greater share
of this superfluous and turbulent humanity.
One of Carlisle’s greatest triumphs too was of this date or
thereabouts, when the garrison and townsmen drove back
with slaughter and confusion an army of 10,000 Scots,
hundreds of the fugitives perishing in the waters of the Solway.
Of grief and this disaster the last King of Scotland died,
leaving an infant daughter a week old, the famous Mary Stuart,
who in after years when flying from Scotland, as we know, came
to this very castle of Carlisle in her rash resolve to throw﻿CIVIC LIFE
CHAP
2S4
herself on Elizabeth’s hospitality. Yonder, in the south-east
angle of the castle, remnants of the tower yet stand which
was her dwelling for many weeks. Down there in the meadows
below she went hare-hunting or hawking or watching football
matches almost daily, being, with her followers, so amazingly
well mounted that, as her discontent and distrust increased,
her custodians were in constant fear lest the young Queen some
fine morning should show them a clean pair of heels and gallop
off to Scotland again.
But it must not be supposed that Carlisle was so wholly
given over to blood and iron that commerce and religion had no
place. On the contrary the merchants did a thriving business,
particularly in leather, not being particular, it is said, from
which side of the border the hides came or to whom they
belonged; while a mayor and aldermen on great occasions
went to church in state at the Cathedral as in more common-
place towns. Carlisle took the plague too very badly, and lost
nearly a quarter of its population. With the union of the
Crowns, fresh efforts were made to civilise the borders, and
there is some grim humour in the fact that as King James
crossed the eastern march on his way to mount the throne of
England a force of Scotsmen simultaneously crossed the
western border and raided down the Eden valley as far as
Penrith.
But it was King James, after all—or at any rate men acting
vigorously under his orders—that put an end to the old border
conditions, as we have endeavoured thus briefly to depict them.
It was not of course the mere Eliminations that he issued to
his subjects in what was no longer politically a border country
that had this effect, nor his futile attempt to rename Cumber-
land and Northumberland the Middle Shires, nor even a
successful haul of Scottish moss-troopers and a liberal use of
halters at Carlisle, which celebrated the first year of his reign.
The gentry of the border would have paid but scant attention
to the King’s commands to pull down their peel towers, or to﻿BELTED WILL
285
his platitudes on the utility of agricultural pursuits, if un-
accompanied by pressure of a more insistent kind. And this
was brought to bear, not violently and of a sudden, but
patiently and with a strong hand, by Lord Howard of Na-
worth, who had married an heiress of the great house of
Dacre.
“ Belted Will ” is of course one of the heroes of border
history and fiction. But the character of a heady, merciless,
hard-riding, iron-fisted administrator, with which legend and
Sir Walter Scott have invested him are wholly fanciful, and
partly due, no doubt, to the wild deeds of the Dacres,
whose honours and estates he inherited. The real Lord
William was a scholar, book collector, and antiquary; a
grave and learned person, and, above all, a high-minded
gentleman, with an inborn hatred of all that was base or
ignoble. He and his lady, the younger of the two heiresses
who merged in their husbands the great house of Dacre, had
a passion for country life, and Lord William a great talent for
rural administration. But his work was done entirely in legal,
orderly fashion. Above all, he kept a sleepless eye on those
entrusted with authority, and promptly rebuked any sign of
weakness or connivance with offenders. The chief raiding
clans fought long against these innovations. But gradually
the better classes began to call the avocation of the moss-
trooper by another name. No fortified houses except those
belonging to the nobles and gentry were any longer permitted.
Public opinion turned against the old order of things ; and in
the seventeenth century the business of looting and cattle-
lifting was confined to predatory bands of outlaws and broken
men, who found little sympathy and possessed no prestige.
Lord William, moreover, introduced bloodhounds for tracking
marauders, and, among other innovations, made the gentry
responsible for the behaviour of their tenants.
When Taylor, the Water-Poet, passed through Carlisle and
into Scotland in the seventeenth century, he reflected the views﻿286
A CONTEMPORARY PICTURE
CHAP.
of the day in many lines descriptive of the anarchy that had
so recently existed in these parts, and winds up with the
unqualified opinion—
That whoso then did in the Borders dwell
Lived little happier than those in Hell.
But “ now ” he goes on to say—
Since the all-disposing God of Heaven
Hath these two kingdoms to one Monarch given,
Blest peace and plenty on them both have showered,
Exile and hanging have the thieves devoured,
That now each subject may securely sleep,
His sheep and neat, the black and white, doth keep.”
In this last expression of opinion the excellent Water-Poet
was a little too optimistic even still perhaps.
But with this elimination of the border by the Union, and
the repression of border habits which followed it, Carlisle
dwindled sadly in importance and population. It had always
indeed been poor, and of a somewhat rude appearance in the
eyes of southerners. In 1634 the Cathedral gave the
impression to three strangers of “ a great wild country church.”
It is needless to say that in the civil war Carlisle and Cumber-
land stood for the King. It sustained a memorable siege of
eight months by its old enemies the Scots under Leslie, and
after being reduced to the verge of starvation only surrendered
at the battle of Naseby.
Three years later it had the remarkable and not very palat-
able experience of being garrisoned and defended by a force of
Scots, then fighting on the King’s side, but was surrendered to
Cromwell, who placed there two large regiments of horse, one
to secure the city, the other to put down the moss-troopers who
had become active again during the war. Much of the Cathedral
nave and adjacent buildings was demolished by the Puritan
soldiers for repairing and strengthening the town defences.
I have dwelt so long on Carlisle, during the ages when in
varying fashion it stood unique and alone among English﻿X	CARLISLE IN THE ’45	287
towns, there is little space left for any of its later history when
this particular distinction had vanished.
Indeed, Carlisle had never before been quite so small and un-
important as the beginning of the eighteenth century found it,
though as a border capital, and a fortified as well as a Cathedral
town, mere numbers are not quite a fair test of consequence.
The first Jacobite rising, that of 1715, avoided the city, going
by way of Penrith to Preston, where we know the motley gather-
ing of Highlanders and Northumbrians met its fate. But in
’45 Carlisle played both an ignominious and unpleasant
part. A few hundred raw militia comprised the sum total of
its defenders when the Highland army arrived before the walls.
The Prince had just completed his investment, when news was
brought that Wade was advancing on him from Newcastle, and
he moved his force to Bramptcn, as a better position for
offering battle to the expected marshal. Bad as the situation
was within the city, it was not without its humours. For it
seems that a fussy grocer, named Pattinson, was deputy mayor,
and had given much cause for offence by his officious assump-
tion of authority in the hour of danger. He went so far as to
assume that his activity had frightened the Prince away, and
was injudicious enough to send a special post to London to
that effect.
Wade, as we know, never got to Carlisle. The roads were im-
passable for artillery, and this fact is instructive of how little inter-
course there was in those days between the east and west marches.
When Prince Charles heard that Wade was not advancing,
he marched back to Carlisle and sat down before it in real
earnest. The local militia, who were half-hearted, though under
a good officer, and sore at being left unsupported by the
government, refused to fight.	A few of the citizens
courageously proposed to garrison the castle alone, but the
lately active deputy mayor was very far from being one of
them. However, with the militia intractable, Colonel Durand
had nothing for it but to surrender. The mayor and corpor-﻿288
A GASCONADING GROCER
CHAP.
ation were summoned to Brampton, and there on their bended
knees delivered the keys of the city to the Prince, who on the
following day entered Carlisle to the shrill skirl of a hundred
bagpipes—an accompaniment which seems hard on the citizens
in the nervous condition to which anxiety must have reduced
them. No harm was done however by the garrison left there by
the Pretender while the main body went south, and some one
occupied the interval by immortalising the valiant deputy mayor
in a still familiar jingle—
Oh, Pattinson ! ohon ! ohon !
Thou wonder of a mayor !
Thou blest thy lot thou wert no Scot
And blustered like a player.
What hast thou done with sword and gun
To baffle the Pretender,
Of mouldy cheese and bacon grease
Thou much more fit defender ?
Quite early in our tour we recalled the scenes at Penrith
when the Highlanders a few weeks later retreated before
the Duke of Cumberland’s army toward Carlisle. Every-
body knows how the gallant Lancashire Jacobite Townely
remained with a trifling force to hold the city and face, so far as
he at least was concerned, almost certain death—a hundred
and twenty men of his Manchester regiment, twice as many
Highlanders and a few Frenchmen remaining with him. A
few days of bombardment sufficed to deliver Carlisle into the
Duke’s hands on his own terms. The Prince’s garrison were
confined in the Cathedral of all places, to the great indignation
of the clergy, but a fortnight after were taken south, the officers
mounted with their feet tied under their horses’ bellies, and
each horse fastened to the tail of the one in front. The
common soldiers marched two and two, roped together with
their arms pinioned ; as melancholy a procession of a surety
as ever tramped along the Penrith road !
For the three months preceding the battle of Culloden﻿X
GALLOWS IIILL
289
Carlisle was charged with the maintenance of a large garrison,
and great was the outcry from all classes. After Culloden, the
castle was packed tight for a long time with nearly 400
prisoners, who endured much suffering through the heat of the
summer months. Ninety-six of these were condemned to death
and the rest to transportation. The executions began in
October and were continued in batches. The grim ceremony
always opened in the castle-yard, where the prisoners
were pinioned and seated on a black hurdle beside the
excutioner. Then, at the demand of the sheriff, they were taken
out through the gateway over the drawbridge and escorted in
solemn procession to Gallows Hill outside the English gate,
where they were hanged, drawn and quartered, with all the
barbarity of detail then in vogue, the heads of some being
subsequently set on pikes above the Scotch gate, the last
instance of that time-honoured and gruesome custom in this
country. The story of Carlisle henceforth, how in humdrum
modern fashion it grew steadily in wealth and population, yet
full of its own humours, its racy northern spirit, its pride in
its exceptional place in history, its intense provincialism till
modified by the stir of converging railways and abounding
travellers—is all interesting enough, but quite beside our
object, even if I had not already run to such length of tether
on the subject as to put further gossip on it out of the question.
Indeed I should perhaps have been all this time conducting my
reader round the castle, which in the matter of dungeons, cells,
gateways, walls and towers, all teeming with memories, is
well worth seeing, instead of philandering on its past.
But for this purpose he will find an obliging and voluble
commissioner, whose conscientious eloquence I gladly bear
testimony to. Indeed I think it is some recollection of having
delivered myself over bound hand and foot, so to speak, at the
castle gate on my first visit that prompted me to rush my
reader up so breathlessly on to the castle walls. My man was
a new broom and swept every shred of sentiment from
u﻿290
A CONSCIENTIOUS CICERONE
CHAP
dungeon, keep and chamber as he trumpeted his way
along, reading mostly from his guide-book, for he had not yet
learnt his part. Indeed he began outside on the drill ground
most vigorously with myself alone for an audience, and I am
convinced he greatly tried the decorum of a squad of recruits
who were practising the goose-step with a view doubtless to
hunting De Wet later on in South Africa. So I really know
very little of the internal structure of Carlisle Castle, though
I confess that does not greatly distress me. Once out upon
the walls however, I was a free man again, and much enjoyed
myself. My ex-sergeant was a most worthy person, and has no
doubt by this time mellowed greatly as a cicerone, glib enough
at his part at any rate we may be sure, and perhaps even pass-
ing for an antiquary with bank holiday folk from Leeds or
Rochdale—more power to him.
But there is not a spot in England, as the late Bishop
Creighton, himself a native, has well said, that yields an outlook
so stirring of its kind, so rich in memories for those who love
to linger over a landscape for the tale it tells, as Carlisle
Castle wall, and this must be my plea. Nor have I left room
for more than a passing glance at the Cathedral, which, though
small, has like the town a moving story, and to this day carries
the scars of Roundhead volleys all over its outer walls. But
there is plenty of architectural as well as historical interest in
Carlisle Cathedral. Its western end is nearly eight centuries
old and was the original parish church, and with some later
additions forms the nave and transepts. It is built of local
grey stone, while the large choir, built and rebuilt in times of
stress and storm during the fourteenth century, is of red free-
stone. The older part is of pure Norman style, simple and
massive, though some of the arches are most strangely pressed
out of shape by a lapse in the foundation centuries ago, which
must have caused a world of terror at the time. The choir is
Early English and of fine proportions, but I must confess
what holds my fancy most within it are the quaint mould-﻿X
STILL NORTHWARD
291
ings of the capitals on the pillars that support the main
arches. On these are carved most realistic scenes from country
life. On one is a sower, on another a reaper, on another
a man gathering grapes ; but the masterpiece of all is a monk
sitting over a fire, on which a pot is boiling. The reverend
gentleman has taken off one boot, and is holding it out, as well
as his bare foot, to warm before the flame.
It would be asking almost too much of a visitor to Lakeland
that he should extend his operations beyond Carlisle. But
should these few pages of desultory gossip on the Castle wall
have stirred in any way his fancy or his curiosity a pleasant
half-day’s run over good and level roads to the northward
forms an admirable sequel to such a train of thought. For
from Carlisle to Gretna Green, across the Esk and the Scottish
border, is but eight miles. Thence turning eastward for half
that distance, you may run through the “ Debatable land ” and
the edge of Solway moss—and recrossing the Esk again higher
up at Longtown another eight miles will bring you back again.
It would not be easy in all Britain to find another twenty miles
so palpitating with strenuous memories. For myself I confess
that, as I crossed the Eden and passing through Stanwix set
my face towards the Solway, I felt my pulses stirring in no
sluggish fashion.
The sun was bright but tempered, and the skies were clear,
the wind blew gently, but in its breath was the exhilarating
crispness of the sea, as the great plain spread before me to the
grey hills of Scotland. A mile or so of long-drawn suburb, of
low stone cottages, slate-roofed and white-walled, of public
houses, ancient and modern, and the broad road parted. The
right hand sped away westward to Longwood, Langholme, and
the classic dales of Esk and Liddel. The other finger
pointed in laconic fashion to Gretna Green and Annandale, to
Lockerbie and Ecclefechan and other places famous in border
story—and this last was my outward route. Even those who
care nothing for tales of battle and murder, and sudden death,
u 2﻿292
THE ROAD TO GRETNA
CHAP.
for politics and princes, Romans or Piets, Normans, Danes,
or moss-troopers, or old, forgotten far-off things of any kind,
might allow themselves perhaps emotions of a gentler sort as they
press the dust which has whirled around the flying wheels of so
many generations of lovers. It is but some five miles hence to the
Border, and how the whips of the postillions must have cracked
over the smoking teams as the last stage of the great race lay
stretched like a white band across the plain before them. I
was surprised to find here even yet so lonesome a road and so
Gretna Green.
poor a land. Cultivation has come apparently with laggard
steps. Though no longer a moss, every bit of it tells the tale
of laboured reclamation. Even now great strips of heathery
bog land spread on either side of the straight highway; and
recently cut peats were drying in the summer sun as I passed
along. Pastures were pale, and growing crops were thin;
banks of sod, crowned with yellow gorse and flanked by
ditches of dark peaty water, traced themselves over the spongy,
sandy land, so well calculated to drink up the blood that so﻿X
FROM THE SOLWAY BRIDGE
293
often drenched it. Thick fringes of native fir woods, sombre
and lowering, spread along the middle distance, and over their
dark tops the pale grey forms of the Scottish hills rose in
curious contrast. Such dwellers as there were along or near
this classic highway seemed for the most part of the humble
sort, judging from the low-roofed cottages which with white-
washed walls crouched sparsely upon the heath or pine lands,
while the smell of pea. fires came pleasantly upon the breeze.
But all this soon changed : for in half an hour I was standing
on the high bridge over the Esk, near the point where it opens
into the Solway Firth, and I stood there long. “Westward
towards the sea stretched a waste of blue water and golden
sands twinkling with the white wings of countless sea-fowl
and the white crests of breaking wavelets, those cruel tides
before which the “ Laird of the Solway lake ” with his young
nephew, the last of the Redgauntlets, rode that wild night race
for life. Eastward a herd of cattle, standing knee-deep in the
river, still shallow and stony at the ebb tide, made up a fore-
ground that here at least was something ore than conventional.
Away behind them lay broad marshy meadows, through which
the gleaming river twisted, and beyond and everywhere to the
north the green Dumfriesshire uplands. From here too, though
near thirty miles away, Skiddaw rose boldly up against the
southern sky, while the wide gap the Eden makes between the
Lakeland mountains and the Pennine range marked that road to
England which for the Scottish raiders had such abiding
significance.
Before this bridge was built, some sixty years ago, the Esk
was crossed here by a ford only negotiable at certain periods of
the tide. Think of this further element of excitement and sus-
pense superadded to the mere question of pace-making when
the pursuit to Gretna after absconding or abducted maidens
wras fast and hot! The alternative then presented itself of
taking the road from Carlisle to Longtown, crossing the bridge
there and swerving back through Solway Moss for Gretna.﻿294
GRETNA GREEN
CHAP.
The course was four or five miles longer, and some cool
calculation and accurate knowledge of the tides was invaluable
to pursuers and pursued, or at least to their conductors. This
choice of roads added zest in every sense to these wild gallops
of honest lovers or shameless fortune-hunters, for the pursuers
were thus enabled at times to head off the chase by taking the
Longtown angle, while the truant couple stood chafing on the
wrong side of the fords of Esk, cut off completely by the
enemy from the goal of their desires and Gretna Green.
This famous village is yet two miles on, across the “ Debatable
land,” and stands at the top of a gentle slope at whose foot rolls
the Sark, a trifling stream, though now the actual boundary of
the two kingdoms. Gretna Green consists of a few old-
fashioned cottages of pleasant and leafy appearance clustering
round a four-cross road, a venerable looking kirk and a
small country house standing in its own grounds and known
as the Hall. It was at this last that very many of the
marriages were actually celebrated. Much legend has gathered
round a certain blacksmith, but as a matter of fact no creden-
tials nor experience of any kind were required of the officiating
functionary at a Gretna Green marriage, and almost any of its
limited inhabitants were available. Still certain people fell
naturally into the habit of being on the spot, and grew no
doubt a little glibber than others in the despatch and dignity
with which they united applicants and forwarded the necessary
documents to Edinburgh. The Hall was the place to which
couples of condition, if not pressed for time, would turn.
Pennant, however, in 1770 found an old fisherman in a blue
coat with a quid of tobacco in his mouth, the most active
matrimonial officer of that day. As fees were given, com-
petition was probably brisk, and in the humbler ranks, it is
said, a gill of whisky was occasionally considered adequate for
the amateur parson’s compensation. An Act of Parliament in
1857, making a three weeks’ residence necessary for all but
Scotsmen, knocked the brisk matrimonial trade that Gretna﻿X
A RELUCTANT HUSBAND
295
Green had conducted for about a hundred years completely on
the head, and left it high and dry with nothing but an im-
perishable sentimental interest to live upon. In the course of
a day spent in the neighbourhood, I found many people to
whom the memory of these times was of course fresh enough
and heard many stories whose narration would not be strictly
relevant here. One brief illustration from an eye witness,
however, to show that Gretna Green marriages were not
always incited by the sterner sex, may be given. My in-
formant was a Scotsman from Glasgow who had been bred at
Gretna, and he very well remembered, he told me, being
knocked up one morning by an uncle who among the rest
turned an honest penny by uniting runaway couples. He
was wanted as a second witness, and the amorous couple
proved to be a barmaid of the flashy and strong-minded type
and an elderly gentleman of education, and doubtless means,
but in a lamentable state of intoxication. The motive of the
marriage, money, was unblushingly obvious, and the more
backward party to the impending compact could not be
induced for some time to stand up, apparently because he
was unable. At last, howrever, the perpendicular condition
desirable for decency’s, if not for form’s, sake, was achieved
and the necessary question was put whether he took the
bespangled person beside him for his wife. “ Wife ? ” said the
happy but somewhat inarticulate bridegroom. “ Oh, come, I
don’t know about that! ”
“Oh yes, you do ! ” said the lady, stamping her foot. “You
just do as you’re told.”
And he did, and my informant’s uncle read a chapter of the
Bible over the blushing pair, a proceeding which was supposed
to give some semblance of decency to this monstrous abuse.
Leaving Gretna by the Longwood road, we are soon across
the Sark again and upon English ground. English now at least,
but of old that dark region which called no man lord and no
monarch king, and where no laws even professed to run—the﻿296
SOLWAY MOSS
CHAP.
home of outlaws, thieves and bandits, who, finding refuge in this
“ Debatable land ” acquired the name of “ Batables ” and were
abhorred and feared of all men. There was little enough, how-
ever, to indicate such sinister memories till the road dropped
down to Solway Moss, and there sure enough was the real thing.
Neither time nor change have touched those miles of rank
heather and quaking bog and sombre fir woods. My road ran
for a mile or so through the edge of it, raised above the peaty
ditches and shaded by the gloomy pines. As far as I could
see to the northward lay the pathless tract round which so
many centuries of strife and crime, such a wealth of legend,
song and story, have gathered. I crossed the Esk again at
Longtown, where with the rush of an inland salmon river it chafes
the arches of the stone bridge which leads into the border
town. I leaned for a few minutes against the parapet and
looked up the shining shallows of the river to the green hills
beyond which rise above the junction of the Liddel and the
Esk, and part the once turbulent dales they water. I gave a
thought of course to Dandie Dinmont and to young Brown
who passed up this way, to that memorable encounter with the
footpads, and to Kinmont Willie too, whose fetters were still
clanking on his feet and hands as the Buccleuch and his two
hundred men passed that misty morning through Longtown.
Hence to Carlisle, as I have already said, is a level run of some
eight or nine miles. I do not know that there is very much to
say about it, unless that in all likelihood it has been in days
gone by more trodden by the soldier and the war-horse than
any road in Britain. I had lunched near Gretna, and an old
copy of the Lay of the Last Minstrel was on the inn table. I
picked it up, and it fell open at the scene where Margaret, in
a love-sick dream on the walls of Branksome Castle, is startled
by the sudden lighting of the war beacons. As I rode
smoothly home to Carlisle through the gathering twilight and
the English hills rose in grey masses ahead of me, the once
familiar stanza kept jingling in my ears with an insistency﻿X
“THE BEACON BLAZE OF WAR”
297
that in such a place and mood I felt but little disposition to
resist:
Is yon the star o’er Penchryst Pen
That rises slowly to her ken,
And spreading broad its wavering light
Shakes its loose tresses on the night,
Is yon red glare the western star ?
Oh ! ’tis the beacon blaze of war.
Eskdale.﻿Kendal.
CHAPTER XI
In the course of this concluding chapter I have to cover the
five-and-forty miles that lies between Carlisle and Kendal.
This is not, however, quite such a formidable business as it
sounds, seeing that for the first stage of eighteen miles to
Penrith I shall leave the reader either to take the train or to
give himself over wholly to the material pleasures of a fast run
over a really fine and comparatively level road. As a matter
of fact, on this section of the Old North Road, there is not a
great deal to stop for, nor, if there were, should I venture to do
so, seeing how much more time I have already spent in the low
country than the title of this book may seem to justly warrant.
Still, though the route is outside the bounds I have had to set
myself, belonging as it does to the Pennine rather than the Lake-
land country, I would strongly recommend the traveller bound
for Penrith with time upon his hands to make the longer and
less comfortable journey up the Eden valley. The roads are
tortuous and not always good, but they lead through many
scenes that are beautiful and many places that are famed in
story, as any one may well believe who is not habitually asleep
as he passes over this section of the Midland Railway on the﻿CH. XI
KIRKOSWALD
299
road to Scotland. At Armathwaite, for instance, nine miles from
Carlisle, the Eden ceases for a time from troubling, and spreads
a broad unruffled surface below crags and overhanging woods
where stands the ancient castle of the Skeltons. The Nunnery
too, a venerable manor house a few miles further up the valley, is
justly famous for the beauty of its walks and woods and water-
falls. Nature, of a truth, has here lent herself in a marvellous
way to art, and art has exercised a tasteful and rare restraint.
The ancient village of Ivirkoswald, thick with memories of
border heroes and Scottish raids, and rich in green foliage and
red freestone, lies just beyond, between the moorland and the
river. Featherstonhaughs have been here since the Reformation
at any rate, in an ancient and mellow manor house that springs
from a monastic college, and still bears its name. On the slope
above too are the scant remnants of one of the greatest of the
Dacre castles. Indeed it was probably the greatest, “one of the
fairest fabrics,” says Sandford in 1610, though even then falling
to ruin, “ that ever eyes looked upon, the hall a hundred feet
long and the great portraiture of King Brute lying in the end of
the roof of the hall.” A Dacre had won Kirkoswald by the
audacious abduction of its heiress—a Mutton —from Warwick
Castle in 1300, just as two centuries later another Dacre secured
the barony of Greystoke by precisely similar means. It was
from hence that the Dacre of Flodden notoriety marched to
that victorious field in which the men of the Eden valley took
so forward a part. A beautiful church too of three aisles stands
in the meadows at the village end beneath an old rookery,
while a venerable freestone bell-tower perches alone upon the
green ridge above and contains a bell of which Kirkoswald is
justly proud.
I stood one summer evening on the roof of this same bell-tower
in company with the ancient sexton whose care it is. Heavy
thunderstorms had cleared the air and filled the Eden, which
rolled its brimming waters near bank high through the grassy
vale beneath. We looked over in the direction of Penrith and﻿3°°
A LOCAL PATRIOT
CHAP.
the Lakeland mountains, and even yet more particularly to the
green swell of the Pennmes close at hand upon the east, and
watched the evening shadows crawling over the long smooth
shoulder of Crossfell.
My companion was a stout local patriot, and did not seem
to think much of Lakeland and its mountains.—“a Kirkos-
wald man born and bred, and proud of it,” though a most
quizzical looking old gentleman of exceeding low stature for
this land of “ lang-men ” ; no “ new-fangled scholard,” but a
clerk and sexton of th£ good old sort, from the top of his
shiny head to the soles of his hob-nailed feet. “Now that’s the
mountain for me,” said he, looking at Crossfell, which I have
remarked elsewhere is for its height (2,800 feet) very much
the tamest hill in England, and lies against the sky like a
Hampshire down. “That’s the mountain for me,” he repeated
in a tone of unmistakable challenge to something I had let
drop about Skiddaw or Helvellyn.
“ You can ride horseback or drive a waggon on to the top of
that mountain.”
My thoughts were wandering. They had wandered in fact
across that very mountain to the scene of many youthful ram-
bles about the wild sources of the Tees and Wear.
“ When the last Maister Featherstonhaugh,” continued my
companion in a more emphatic key, “ came of age he roasted a
bullock whole on top of yon mountain.”
I could produce no such records as that to the credit of
Helvellyn and Skiddaw, so my guide put an end to any lingering
doubts I might be still supposed to have as to the supremacy
of Crossfell by a final clincher.
“ Old Mr. Marshall used to light a bonfire and give two or
three thousand folks beer and bread and cheese on top of yon
mountain when his man got in at the ‘ lection.’ ”
Nothing further could be said after that, and I descended
the ladder from the belfry, feeling that my standards of com-
parison would have to be readjusted.﻿XI
“A METTLED MAN”
301
Just across the Eden too, on the way to Penrith, is Lazonby,
once part of the great Inglewood Forest, but which Camden
tells us was “ deparkt in Henry the Eighth’s time, and one
Jack-a-Musgrave, a metled man, got a lease of a 100 years of it
and planted five of his sons at five several houses in it. This
Jack-a-Musgrave was so metled a man, as the country people
would say, that if they had a spirited boy he would just be a
Jack-a-Musgrave.” And there was plenty of scope for heady
characters in the Eden valley in the days of Henry VIII,
Great Salkeld.
as a reference to the last chapter will show. But Great
Salkeld, a little further on towards Penrith, with its massive
fortified church tower and pretty village of red freestone,
produced greater men and more eligible patterns to youth than
even Jack-a-Musgrave. For no less a couple than Lord Ellen-
borough and Dick Whittington were born here. They went out
however to adorn other spheres, while Musgraves still flourish
at Eden Hall close by.
The Great North Road pushes straight through Penrith.﻿3°2
SHAP
CHAP.
where we may join it again, and passing through scenes dealt
with in the opening chapter of this book, climbs steadily up to
Shap, which is 11 miles away and nearly 900 feet above the sea.
Not only the old coach road, but the London and North
Western Railway ascends this long pull to Shap, a place that
from many points of view deserves some special notice. Both
passengers and drivers in the coaching days knew Shap—or
rather the pass four miles to the southward and three hundred
feet higher up which bears its name—only too well, as the
The Road over Shap Fell.
wildest and coldest stage between London and Glasgow,
Regarded however as a village within the Lakeland district,
which it may just lay claim to be, Shap is a place to itself in
more senses than one and quite unique. Delightful otherwise
as are most places of sojourn in the Lake Country, they are all,
with scarcely an exception, set in a hole. No stretch of imag-
ination could maintain that any of them possessed in them-
selves a stimulating climate. For those who can get up on the
hills this is of little consequence. But such as who from age or﻿XI
PRINCE CHARLIE’S HOTEL BILL
303
inactivity must remain more or less upon the level, may be happy
and even healthy, but in summer and autumn they can scarcely
attain that desirable condition commonly spoken of as braced
up. Now at Shap you are on the very roof of the world, and
might well wax vigorous without stirring beyond the garden
gate. This monopoly of so huge an advantage has stirred Shap
up in the last twenty years—or I should more rightly say has
stirred the Lake-going world up to its obvious advantages, for
it does not appear to me that the straggling moorland village
has greatly risen to the occasion or has yet realised its mani-
fest destiny. Its inns have some venerable traditions connected
with coaching days, which people of sentiment like to en-
courage in passing, to the extent of a bottle of beer and some
bread and cheese or a chop perhaps. But for anything more
durable the glamour of ancient history is not enough, and
Shap struck me as somewhat doggedly conservative in this
matter. Some traditions too are highly bad ones. When
Prince Charles Edward passed through here on his way south
for instance, I have read in a local handbook that he com-
plained of the charges made and put a black mark against
Shap in his household book to the effect that his landlady was
“ a sad imposing wife.” It was no doubt a coincidence, but in
taking a passing meal at a Shap inn a hundred and fifty-five
years afterwards I had occasion for the first time I think in the
Lake Country to observe that the accommodation, though
respectable of its kind, was not quite in proportion to the price
charged. A passing cyclist, who also thought himself injured,
made more forcible observations than I did, and unlike myself
derived no consolation whatever from the above mentioned
highly interesting fact, of which I placed him in possession.'
For he remarked, and with much justice, that he was a member
of the C.T.C., while the Prince was not. The latter however, poor
fellow, had to walk on foot the whole twenty-seven miles from
Penrith to Kendal, a point in which we had very much the better
of him. But I should be sorry to take away Shap’s character﻿3°4
A BRACING ATMOSPHERE
CHAP.
on grounds so slight. I am told that in August it is full to
bursting, which is a good sign for its honesty. But a crowd
that would strain the accommodation of Shap would after all not
make much impress on the vast expanse of moor, fell and
mountain which sweeps away so delightfully from its homely
walls, and even in August solitude would not be far to seek.
What Cerrig y druidion is to North Wales so is Shap to the Lake
Country, save for the fact that it has a station at its door, which
Cerrig y druidion is very far from having. Like the latter, it is
Shap Abbey.
sometimes registered as bleak in guide-books. But in summer
time this often infers another and more attractive epithet.
For myself I think it must be delightful. There is a sense of
freshness and expansiveness about the outlook which has a
great charm to my thinking. Formerly Lakeland visitors did
not come on foot much east of the High Street range, and
Haweswater was the limit of the carriage folk. But from Shap
you may approach all this beautiful country just as readily and
start as well as sleep, upon a fine elevation. It stands, as it
were, upon a boundary, for the route of traffic from Penrith to
r»﻿XI
SHAP ABBEY
305
Kendal may fairly be said to divide the outer fringe of Lake-
land from moorlands that belong in character, though not
geographically, to Yorkshire and Northumberland.
There is a market in Shap and a quaint old market cross,
now used as a parish room. There are several very old houses
and a church too of the twelfth century in a commanding
situation, and enfolded in summer time in a mantle of sycamore
leaves. Altogether, as becomes a place that is a dozen miles
from anywhere and so near the clouds, Shap has a character
and originality all its own. Still more, it has the remains of a
famous abbey, the only abbey in Westmorland ; founded in
the twelfth century by a son of that Gospatrick whom Rufus dis-
covered lording it over Cumbria and kicked out so unceremon-
iously when he made it English ground. It was occupied by
white canons of the Augustin order, was well endowed by
Viponts, Cliffords, Lowthers, Curwens and others, and waxed
wealthier as time went on. It rhust have had a great human-
ising influence over this wild and stormy country. A large
block of the abbey church still stands amid the wreckage of
what time and predatory builders and wall-makers have left of
the main fabric. A mile from the village, poised in solitude
upon a slope above the infant Lowther, it yet remains a noble
relic of forgotten days, and gathers additional distinction from
the loneliness of its site.
Away down in the low country at the back of Shap,
eastward that is to say towards Appleby and the Eden, there
is a region rich in the relics of old times—-in manor houses built
long since by Armigers, but now the abodes of farmers, and in
churches raised before the days of Bruce. Crosby-Ravensworth,
Strickland, the two Meaburns, Morland, Bolton, Kirkbythore,
and many another spot lies down here that antiquaries at any
rate hold in high regard, while the bright streams of the
Lyvenant, which water all this region, give a further charm to
many an unnoticed and old-world nook as they hurry by.
But it is to the wild and high country on the west that Shap
x﻿3°6
II AWES WATER
CHAP.
chiefly sets its face, to Kidsty Pike and the High Street, and
the eastern ridges of the great deer forest that rolls away to
Ullswater and Patterdale. Swindale and Naddle, Mardale and
Haweswater are all within an easy walk; the last named lake,
though comparatively little known, being among the most
beautiful of northern waters. Some three miles long and
a bare half mile broad, it lies in the trough of hills that rise in
height as they near the lake-head, where is a picture scarce
less imposing, if on a narrower scale, than that of Ullswater.
Haiveswa ter.
This is the best trouting lake too in the whole country, if one
is not over critical as to size ; and so it should be, seeing that
it is strictly preserved by Lord Lonsdale. But the trout here
are really free risers, an admirable quality which the strictest
preservation cannot always ensure. Memories of a soft and
breezy June day spent upon Haweswater, and of its sporting
little trout, will remain with me for a long time. Indeed they
kept me so busy that if this had been my only visit to
the lake I should have but a confused recollection of dark﻿XI
THE KINGS OF MARDALE
307
wavelets rolling ceaselessly towards a wall of blowing wood-
land, and a vague vision on the other side of lofty fells and
the white gleam of a cataract breaking down them.
Mardale too, in the deep glen at the head of Haweswater,
is a hamlet unforgetable for the charm of its romantic beauty
and seclusion from the world. Here is a snug inn—the Dun
Bull—and an ancient church set among yew trees and of a size
suitable to a valley that can scarcely contain a hundred souls
in all. But there were kings in Mardale, as there were kings in
Patterdale for all that, till some fifteen years agone, when the
last representative of the reigning family, Mr. Hugh Holme,
died, and with him the dynasty. The first Hugh Holme came
to Mardale in 1209, and his descendants held the estate he
then acquired in direct succession till the other day. And
their kingship has been long undisputed. This is not quite so
long as the Lloyds of Cwmbychan, near Harlech, dwelt in
their savage mountain fastness, and the Welsh family, though
Armigers, had no subjects to rule over; but otherwise there is
something of a parallel. Near the foot of the lake too there
is Thornethwaite Hall, which recalls a novel that was very
famous when I was a boy, in which Anthony Trollope set
the whole novel-reading world asking each other whether they
could forgive a certain young lady or whether her folly was
unpardonable. Few novelists, I confess, appeal very strongly
to my topographical sentiment. Perhaps it is my fancy goes
out so strongly for the things that have been there, there is
no room left in the landscape for those that are creations of
the midnight oil, though, as Trollope wrote before breakfast
chiefly, the phrase is not a happy one. But as a staunch
admirer of Trollope’s I yield myself wholly to him in a
Wiltshire water meadow or on the slope of a Wiltshire down,
which on the part of a more than half native, is a strong mark of
confidence. He has steeped his people in its atmosphere so
thoroughly and yet with so little effort, so little vernacular, so
little landscape painting, much less with the clumsy encum-
x 2﻿3°S
TROLLOPE AT SHAP
CHAP.-
brances of glossaries and maps. But the creator of Mrs. Proudie,
and Archdeacon G:antly and Dr. Thorne would not take me a
yard out of my way in Cumberland. Trollope’s Vavasours
were a Cumbrian family, it is true, but they might have
lived in Wiltshire, at Bullhampton, for any local character
that envelops them. Trollope’s glimpse of Shap, however,
forty years ago is not without interest, as the glory of the
coaching period had recently given way to what for Shap
Near Bawpton.
was the depressing influence of the railroad. The coach
passengers, he remarks, stopped just long enough there “ to
thank Heaven they had not been born Shappites,” and he
pictures the place in his time as looking back with fond regret
to what it conceived to be the lustre of its past. Tourist
possibilities had not then dawned on Shap, and if all travellers
shared Trollope’s tastes they would still be in embryo.
After leaving Shap on our southward journey there are many
miles of undulating but gradually ascending road before we﻿
XI
A WILD OUTLOOK
309
top the watershed. Fine fresh moorland sweeps all about us,
and herds of small Highland cattle of every shade of colour
known to the bovine race roaming restlessly about, not yet
perhaps acclimatised to their change of scene, give a further
touch of character to the landscape. The broken uplands of
Shap Fell fill in the outlook to the right. Away beyond the
hollow on our left, where the railroad is struggling over the
apex of its long steep climb, the smooth crest of Crosby Fell
rolls away by Orton Scaur towards the valley of the upper
Looking IVest from Shap Abbey.
Eden, to Kirkby Stephen and the wild sheep-walks that look
out over Durham and Yorkshire. Down yonder too, near the
railroad, though nearly as high above sea-level as Shap village,
is Shap Wells, a solid, roomy mansion set amid an oasis of
fir woods by the banks of the infant Lune. This is a really
comfortable hotel, and you need not, of course, drink the
waters which provide the motive for its existence unless you
like. If a powerful taste is any test of efficacy in such cases,
Shap Wells should be a spot blessed among health-seekers, for
﻿3io
SHAP WELLS
CHAP.
the flavour of rotten egg is as well imitated by the natural
spring which bubbles up here in the wood as in any more
famous resort. But the moorland air here must be at least as
potent a restorative as the most nauseous water, and there is
certainly a charm and a repose about the place that must be
welcome to those whose health or fancy inclines them to take
life quietly. The moorland breezes murmur soothingly in the
pines. The fountains of the infant Lune sparkle beneath their
shade and prattle their childish songs upon the rocks. The
patient seeks his morning draught by bowery ways that wind
cunningly through sylvan glens, while all beyond the peace
and silence of the moorland reigns supreme. Life cannot be
wildly exciting at Shap Wells, though three score people in one
hotel are beyond a doubt capable of making it very hot indeed.
But such are not the type, I fancy, who haunt this substantial,
respectable and comfortable looking hostelry, which was
originally, I believe, a nobleman’s shooting-box. I have read
somewhere, in a local publication probably, that once a visitor
has tried Shap Wells he remains faithful to it unto death. I
have come across this trite remark before of course, and some-
times applied by local patriots to places of most forbidding
character. But Shap Wells, I think, merits much of the praise
its habitues bestow upon it, if only for the fact that so far as
I know Cumberland and Westmorland it is the only first-
class hotel in the two counties set in a bracing air and on a
high elevation. Personally I would sooner take the rougher
accommodation, which is all that at present Shap village four
miles away has to offer : for not only has it a railway station,
but it is handier to the districts over which a sound man would
by preference wander.
But to return to the Kendal road, from which Shap Wells is
removed by a long half-mile of byway. The greater portion
of what lies before us, main artery as it once was between
north and south, though now but little trodden, traverses as
wild a country as you could wish for. And something more﻿XI
OVER SHAP FELL
3ii
too, for after losing sight of Shap Wells the solitude takes
grand and striking shapes. Lofty fells fill the foreground
upon either hand, bold in outline and clad from base to sum-
mit with that crisp verdure which Britain alone of all the
countries of the earth can lay in such ample folds against the
blue of heaven. One feels instinctively that if the upstanding
hills, but little over two thousand feet any of them, showed
their steep sides to you, washed gray and barren by rains and
parched by fierce suns, and partly clad perhaps with hungry
pine-woods, the spell in which they now hold you would have
gone. You would hurry on your way and carry with you no
impression worth mentioning to be a comfort in the smoky
town or by the winter fireside. But these vast steeps of turf,
fresh with the moisture of countless springs, of constant mists
and nightly dews, and illumined with the suns of June, how
beautiful are they—how sensitive to every swell and curve of
the rock beneath, how quick to catch every passing movement
of the sky ! One might sometimes fancy the cloud shadows
actually pressed the turf as they passed over it, so instinct with
life and movement does it seem. With what admirable har-
mony too do the grey out-cropping rocks blend with the
varied greens ! How richly coloured are the sprouting brackens
on the lower slopes, how black the water-channels that cleave
the hollows, how white the water that leaps down them ! But
the Shap fells soon drop behind us. Wastdale and Yarlside,
Lordseat and Barnsdale, rise and fall upon the West, while
Rounthwaite and Whinfell, High Carlin and Greyriggs close in
the east in long procession.
Whinfell, by the way, was one of the half-dozen official beacons
of Westmorland in the old border days ; the next one being
Orton Scaur just across the Lune beyond Shap Wells. Among
the chief items of border service by which the statesmen of the
two counties held their lands was that of lighting the beacon fires
when the alarm was sounded. It was no “ red glare on Skid-
daw” as in Macaulay’s famous lines that “ roused the burghers﻿312
A LONELY ROAD
CHAP.
of Carlisle ” when the Spanish Armada was on the sea. There
would be too much cloud around the summit of these higher
mountains for reliable signal beacons, and moreover the nimble
horsemen from beyond the Solway would have covered too
much ground while the most agile mountaineers were climbing
3,000 feet, nor yet again was Skiddaw in the main route of
either soldier or moss-trooper.
The road is steep as well as solitary. Two or three farm-
houses at long intervals are the only signs of man. The sound
of falling water and the occasional bleat of a sheep alone break
the eternal silence of the hills. One wonders what some of
the cockney or Midland county passengers on the coach-top
thought of this country as they passed through it for the first
time. One knows the dread in which it was held in winter at
any rate. To our friends bound for Gretna Green it must
have been a sad trial at all seasons, for the road, though better
probably then than now, was not less steep. There was plenty
of movement along here too in the ’forty-five, and in the first
chapter of this book we saw the Prince’s army hurrying north
again by this route with the Duke’s close upon their heels.
As we break out of the high fell country into civilisation
again, and begin the gradual descent into the rich basin in
which Kendal lies, the outlook towards Windermere and the
Lancashire fells comes as a sharp contrast after so long bur-
rowing in the troughs of hills. Kendal is, I think, the
pleasantest of all northern towns, even to look down upon
from a height, a process trying to the complexion of any place
where several thousand human beings, Anglo-Saxons at any
rate, are busy making a livelihood. There is no disturbing
factor of any consequence to break the harmony of the
pleasant light grey tone which pervades the place as a whole,
and the smoke from its thousand roof-trees steals up in peace-
ful and delicate clouds, as if nothing of greater distraction
than the cooking of the family dinner, the dressing of May
flies and March browns, or the tying of casting lines, with﻿XI
KENDAL
3i3
which industry Kendal seems to be inseparably associated,
was filling the minds of the townsfolk. No belching chimneys,
no garish factories, nor any other industrial monstrosity thrusts
itself upon the artistic continuity of Kendal’s subdued tones.
And I think you like it as much on a closer acquaintance as
from a bird’s-eye view. It is an easy-going, well-to-do looking,
self-respecting county town, freshened up and kept cheerful
by a good outside income earned by the entertainment of
strangers and foreigners. Even the early history of Kendal
was comparatively uneventful, though Appleby was raided
again and again, and in the fourteenth century, that wretched
period for the border country, was so ruthlessly gutted that it
never really recovered. But the seat of its sister barony was rarely
attacked. The people round, however, were always liable to
border service and might be called at any moment to aid in
the defence of Cumberland. They had some fame too as
archers, and at Flodden did notable service under Dacre of
Gillsland.
The left-hand wing with all his route
The lusty Lord Dacres did lead ;
With him the bows of Kendal stout
With milke-white coats and crosses read ;
There are the bows of Kendal bold
Who fierce will fight and never flee.
Even in the Civil War Kendal escaped, while Appleby
sustained a long siege for the King. All the gentry, tenants
and statesmen of Westmorland went out willingly or un-
willingly in the Royal cause, and the list of fines for the
redemption of estates levied by Cromwell on the barony of
Kendal alone reached a goodly sum.
In the arts of peace too Kendal was energetic, being famous
in the Middle Ages for its woollen cloth, and doing a large trade
in printed cottons during the seventeenth and early eighteenth
century ; long strings of packhorses carrying the bales south
for shipment at Liverpool to the 'West Indies and North﻿KENDAL CASTLE
CHAP.
3H
American Colonies. It is worth noting that, on the
plantations of Maryland and Virginia particularly the negroes
hoed their corn and tobacco arrayed to a large extent in Kendal
cottons. The revolt of the Colonies and the rise of Yorkshire
together killed this industry, and then we are told that, just as
Kendal had built up a very large business in the supply of
knitted stockings to army contractors, the British soldier was
put into trousers and short socks to the complete discomfiture
of the Westmorland knitters. This is not the place however
to write up the commercial history of Kendal or enumerate
the many minor trades which even now make with other things
for its contented appearance. Let us notice rather the ruined
castle so proudly perched above the town, though to reach it
we must cross the Kent, whose clear and rapid streams wash
the outskirts of the ancient borough. One might weave much
romance about Kendal Castle. Its ramparts and scanty ruins
of grey silurian rock entirely cover the crown of the lofty,
isolated hill from which it dominates the town and overlooks
the vale below with rare significance—“ a stern castle
mouldering on the brow of a green hill ” Wordsworth calls it.
But as a matter of fact no particular tales of blood and
battle cling to Kendal Castle. Its history is but that of the
baronial families and English monarchs who have in turn
possessed it.
Founded or more probably rebuilt in some rude fashion
when Rufus annexed this country, the two towers and encircling
walls which yet remain are supposed to be the work of
Henry III.
To go through a list of the Norman houses of Taillboys,
Veteriponts, Rooses, and Lancasters, who by marriage,
inheritance, or royal grant held the Barony of Kendal in whole
or part would be an outrage here. It will be enough to say
that in the early fifteenth century it fell to the Parrs, and after
five descents the admirable Katherine was born here, who was
fortunate, not of a truth in captivating the fancy of Henry﻿XI
KATHERINE PARR
3i5
VIIL, but in being the last lady to do so, and thereby acquiring
immortality, without at the same time losing her head. She
had been twice widowed it may be remembered, and at the
age of thirty was just about to make a love match with
Seymour, whom she ultimately took for her fourth husband,
when the King pounced on her. She had spent much time
too with her Strickland relatives at Sizergb, where their
descendants still live, and was most intimately associated with
Kendal. Specimens of her fancy work, says Miss Agnes
Strickland, are still treasured there, and show that she was as
gifted with her needle as in her head and heart. Her lofty
character, her cheerfulness, her erudition and quick wit we
know succeeded in keeping the ailing and irritable King in
good humour, though enthusiasm for the new religion led her
into arguments with his Majesty which very nearly cost even
Katherine her head. For a breath of opposition on his pet
subject was what this pious monarch even in his most genial
moments could not tolerate. She married her old lover,
Admiral Lord Seymour, two months after Henry’s death, and
in a little over a year afterwards died at the birth of her first
and only child at the age of thirty-six. Surely as strange a career
as noble lady ever had ! But her vicissitudes were not over, and
continued after she had been centuries in the grave, beneath the
chapel at Sudeley in Gloucestershire, her husband’s property.
Some of my readers will perhaps remember the gruesome story
of the disinterment of her remains at the close of the eighteenth
century, and though not quite in order, I cannot resist touching
briefly on it here.
In the year 1782 a party of ladies were visiting at Sudeley,
and while exploring the ruined chapel were moved by certain
indications to excavate under the north wall.. Their curiosity
was rewarded by finding a leaden coffin within a foot of the
surface bearing an inscription to the effect that it contained
the remains of Katherine Parr. They caused the coffin to be
cut open in two places, and found within a body wrapped in﻿3l6
A GRUESOME STORY
CHAP.'
cerecloth. Lifting that part which covered the face, it disclosed
the features of the Queen in the most perfect state of preserva-
tion, even to the eyes, and this after the lapse of two centuries
and a half! The unexpected sight however seems to have un-
nerved the ladies, and omitting to replace either the cloth or the
lead covering, they hastily ordered the earth to be thrown back.
Soon afterwards, one, Mr. Lucas, the tenant of the ground on
which the ruined chapel stood, reopened the grave and exposed
the coffin. He moreover cut open the lid and discovered the
entire body wrapped in six or seven cerecloths and quite
uncorrupted. The flesh where he exposed it was quite white
and moist. Two years afterwards some unauthorised bucolics
took the body out of the coffin and laid it on a heap of rubbish
for all to see. An eye-witness assured Miss Strickland’s
friend, Miss Jane Porter, that the features remained even then
for some time perfect, showing distinct traces of beauty—that
a costly dress, not a shroud, was on the body, which was of
beautiful proportions, and shoes on the feet, which were
extremely small. The vicar somewhat tardily, and not before
decay had set in, caused the corpse to be restored to its grave
and coffin. Even then curiosity does not seem to have been
exhausted, for two years later another examination was made
though this time under scientific auspices, and a report pub-
lished in the Archceologia for 1787. The face had by now
gone, but the body, even to the hands and nails, was in good
preservation. The Queen must have been of low stature, since
the lead coffin was but five feet four inches long. After that
the poor lady was left in peace and has, I believe, been secured
this many a long year from further intrusion by the owners of
the property. Pity she had not lain in Westmorland among
her kin in Kendal Church and in the soil of which in life she
had owned so much and so greatly honoured by her virtue
and her talents. There, alongside (to speak broadly) of Cicely
Neville and Anne Countess of Pembroke, she would have
completed the trio of historic Westmorland dames, and﻿XI
KENDAL CHURCH
3i7
would have been saved at least from the neglect and
indignities her remains suffered in her husband’s country.
Kendal Church, which stands at the fringe of the town near
the bank of the river, would catch at once the attention of the
merest layman in such matters as something out of the
common, and the layman would be right. There is nothing,
I believe, quite like it in England, its prototype being generally
looked for in the Church of St. John Lateran at Rome. Its
great breadth, having no less than five aisles, together with the
height of the square tower which springs from its west end,
gives it a certain squat look which is not perhaps in strict
keeping with the rules of art. But one may well waive such
technicalities in a building so ancient, so spacious—for it is
among the largest parish churches in England - and so rich in
all that concerns the story of Westmorland.
The nave and two adjoining aisles seem to have been raised
about the year 1200 on the ruins of a much older church,
which had braved the centuries when Westmorland was a
shuttlecock of contending nations and a cockpit for warring
iaces. The remainder was added chiefly in the fifteenth
century and early Tudor period, and contains no less than
three private chapels—those of the Parrs, the Bellinghams,
once of Levens, and the Stricklands of Sizergh. Restoration
became urgent some fifty years ago, but the fine old building
seems to have come out of the trying ordeal unscathed and to
have successfully resisted all innovating tendencies. It was
happily, too, re-pewed before the craze for seating a church like
the top of an omnibus, or in other flimsy fashions, came into
vogue. I am not surprised that the citizens of Kendal take
infinite pride in their church. It is not many country towns
that possess a building at once so wholly striking and with so
many claims upon the affection of its people. There is,
moreover, in the tower a chime of ten bells which are
celebrated throughout the north for their sweetness, and owing,
it is said, to the position of the church tower and the contour﻿SOME OLD FAMILIES
CHAP.
3l8
of the surrounding country, their melody is echoed among
the hills by varying winds in remarkableJashion.
Beneath the private chapels and all about us lies the dust
of famous folks beyond count, famous at any rate in the north
country. All the earlier baronial stocks from the Castle
contributed their quota, no doubt, though swept away and
forgotten, while Parrs, Stricklands, Bellinghams, Rooses,
Howards and Thornburghs crowd thick in brass or marble
upon floor and wall.
Levens Hall.
The Bellinghams of Levens ran their course long since, and
Bagots now live in the beautiful old Tudor house, whose
topiary garden rivals that of Hampton Court, and is I believe the
only other survival of this curious taste. Levens lies some six
miles westward of the town upon the fine road which runs to
Milnthorpe and the sea coast, and passes on its way the old
turreted manor house to which the Stricklands have given
peculiar distinction by an unbroken occupation that has
hardly its like in England. They acquired the property in the﻿XI
STRICKLANDS OF SIZERGH
319'
thirteenth century by marriage with the Deincourts, and have
lived there uninterruptedly ever since, always playing a leading
part in the affairs of Westmorland, and often figuring on a
more conspicuous stage. They are moreover among those old
families of England that have retained the Roman faith. The
house, which displays a peel tower of imposing size, is almost
severe in its dignified simplicity and plain weather-beaten grey
walls. It stands in a park above the Milnthorpe road and
looks its part most admirably. The interior of such a house
with such unbroken traditions, as may be well supposed, is rich
in memories and in the things which awake them. To the
world in general its connection with Katherine Parr will prob-
ably be the most interesting of these associations, the room
she occupied and which still bears her name being in the main
tower.
Some two miles beyond Sizergh, the road dipping
suddenly to the Kent crosses the river on an old stone bridge
that no one with his eyes about him would fail to pause on.
The clear stream has by now gathered bulk and breadth and
rushes under the arches in all the dignity of a salmon river.
Stately timber and green park lands fringe its bank, and the
last time I stood here a herd of fallow deer were drinking in
the shallows within a stone’s throw of the bridge. For this is
Levens, and here touching the road are the famous gardens
with the pointed gables of the ancient Tudor manor house
rising behind them. Levens is as notable as Sizergh, except
for the fact that its ownership has been more broken. The
present proprietor, with most praiseworthy liberality it seems to
me, seeing the nature of the treasure, throws the garden open
to the public one afternoon in every week, and the opportunity
should not be missed. This topiary garden, the pride of
Levens, was laid out after the fall of the Bellinghanrs by
Colonel Grahame, who owned the hall early in the eighteenth
century. Beaumont, the gardener at Hampton Court, was
employed in the cunning task, and all the quaint conceits in﻿320
LEVENS■
CHAP.
box and yew, such as were common once but are now no
longer to be seen except as isolated specimens, have been
sedulously maintained. There, says Lord Stanhope in his
History of England, “ at the fine old seat of Levens, along a
wide extent of terraced walks and walls, eagles of holly
and peacocks of yew still find with each returning summer
their wings clipped and their talons pared. There a stately
monument of the old promenoirs—such as the Frenchmen
taught our fathers, rather I should say to build than to plant,
Milnthorpe.
along which in days of old stalked the gentlemen with
periwigs and swords, the ladies in hoops and furbelows—may
still to this day be seen.”
But it is not only this quaint company of cardinals’ hats and
lions, peacocks and umbrellas, pheasants, forensic wigs and
what not, that make the garden of Levens worth seeing ; but the
possession of so great a treasure seems to have inspired its
owners to unusual efforts to keep the rest of the garden and
the spaces between in harmony with the main features, while﻿XI
A TIME-HONOURED GATHERING
321
above it all rises the grey peel tower and the flanking gables of
the manor house.
A time-honoured custom still brings the mayor and
corporation of Kendal to Levens every 12th of May, the
primary excuse being the proclamation of Milnthorpe Fair.
Rural sports are held in the park, and the civic dignitaries, with
a host besides no doubt, are regaled with radishes and bread
and butter. Till recent times audit ale of great potency was a
feature of the entertainment. An old retainer of the House
has frequently described to me the ceremonies in connection
with this celebrated liquor that were punctiliously enacted in
days long gone by the jovial burghers of Kendal. The
uninitiated who aspired to the full honours of comradeship
were required to drink a flagon of the potent brew to the toast
of “ Luck to Levens while the Kent flows ” while standing
upon one foot, and a shilling fine was exacted each time the other
one touched the ground. But the peculiarity of this special
tap, and my authority is unimpeachable, was, that it went to
the legs instead of to the head. • In short, that the mayor of
Kendal himself, should he celebrate the occasion too
enthusiastically, might have to call in assistance to help him to
his carriage—might even be borne thither—but yet as regards
his faculties remain as sober as the judge he aspired to be. But
this part of the programme at any rate is ancient history now.
One may well feel tempted to wander further upon this admir-
able road, to follow it along the widening valley to where the river
spreads into its estuary and opens to the sea by Milnthorpe to
Grange and Morecambe Bay. For myself I would fain have
accompanied my reader as far as Furness Abbey, whose
beautifully situated ruins recall one of the most splendid
monastic houses in Britain, and by very far the greatest in
this north west corner of England. Indeed, I may as well
say at once that I had fully intended to tax, if it were per-
missible, the limits of this little book, to return in Autumn and
say something of this Duddon and Furness country, and so
Y﻿322
A FAREWELL
CHAP.
complete the circle of the outer fringe of Lakeland. But fate,
in the shape of an untimely accident, nipped all such good
intentions in the bud. Mr. Pennell happily was more fortu-
nate, and the famous ruins are perhaps even a fitter subject
for the artist than for the author. So here upon the old
bridge by Levens Hall, unless indeed he will bear me com-
pany back again to Kendal, I must take my leave of the long-
suffering reader. For I have dragged him over steep and
rough places and by tortuous routes which I could not avoid,
Furness Abbey.
and at other times have gratuitously led him further afield
and through regions that the orthodox Lake visitor takes no
account of.
In conclusion, it may seem futile to suggest that a world
which, from highest to lowest, sets out upon its travels at the
close of summer, should bestir itself at its more beauteous
dawn. But yet there are great numbers, beyond a doubt, who
are hampered in their movements neither by fashion nor by
business. And to such as are thus untramelled and would see
the best bit of England in its brightest garb and above all in﻿xr
A FAREWELL
its kindest humour I would say be there when the cuckoo’s
note fills the dales; when the Mayfly is fluttering over lake and
stream ; when fell and woodland still wear that incomparable
freshness which surely fades as June suns wax hotter and the
short summer night begins once more to encroach upon the
hours of day.
Levons Bridge.
|﻿﻿INDEX﻿


﻿INDEX
A
Aglionbys, the, 161
Agricola, 268
Aira force, 57
Allan Bank, 236
Ambleside, 83, 207, 209, 216, 217, 218, 228,
231
Angletarn, 60, 64, 67
Annandale, 291
Appleby, 20, 22, 305, 313
Applethwaite, 108
Armathwaite Hall, 104, 299
Armboth, 131, 232, 243, 245, 246, 247
Armstrong, the, 9, 283
Arnold, Dr., 218
Aske’s rebellion, 93
Askham, 30
Athelstane King, 70
B
Bannerdale, 59
Barf Mountain, 96
Barrow Bay, 118
Balliol, 19
Barnsdale, 311
Barton Kirk, 3T, 32
Bassenthvvaite, 82, 84, 96, 97, 98, 99, 101,
i°3, 247
Beauchamps, 69
Beaumont, 79
Bees, St. 145, 159, 164, 165, 166, 168
Bellingham. 317, 318
Bellisle, 204, 205
Binsey Fell, 250, 251
Birkfell, 56
Birthwaite, 209
Blacksail Pass, 136, 142, 146 147
Blamire, Miss, 200
Blea Tarn, 194
Blencathra, 18, 41, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 81
Blencoes, the, 70, 71, 105
Bolton, 305
Boot, 184
Borrowdale, 59, 80, 82, 122, 126, 128, 129,
i3°> I39> 233, 243
Bothel, 264
Bowfell, 195
Bowness, 203, 205
Braithwaite, 95
Brathay 193, 194
Brampton, 287, 288
Brayton, 264
Briggs, Colonel, 215
Briscoe, r6i, 266
Brotherswater, 52, 65, 66
Brougham Castle, 16 to 23
Brownriggs, 104, 105
Bruce, 272
Budworth, 243
Burgh-on-Sands, 272
Burnmoor, 185
Buttermere, 122, 134, 133, 136, 147, 151,
152, iS4, 156
Buttermere Hawse, 95, 132
C
Caldbeck, 153, 249, 251-260
Calderbridge, 172, 173
Calder, river, 145
Caldew, river, 254, 258, 259, 266, 268
Calgarth, 210, 212, 215, 246
Camden, 14
Canning, 207
Carling Knolt, 157
Carlisle, 23, 24, 263-291
Carlisle Cathedral, 272, 286
Castle Inn, 103, 104, 240﻿INDEX
Calchedicam, 42
Catterlan, 70
Caudale Moor, 65
Causey, 82
Charles Edward, Prince, 23, 287, 288, 303
Chester, 175
Chestnut Hill, 83
Cliburn, 30
Clifford, Roger, 18
Clifford, the Black, 13, 30, 76
Cliffords, the, 69
Clifton, 23-28
Cocker, the, 99, 137, 157
Cockermouth, 78, 92, 98, 09, too, 145,
157
Coleridge, S. T., 52, 89, 750, 151, 153, 207,
218, 236, 237
Coleridge, Hartley, 223
Coniston, 82, 202, 216
Copeland, 185
Creighton, Bishop, 268. 272
Crinkle Crags, 195
Crofton Hall, 266
Cromwell, 286
Crosby Fell, 309
Crosby Ravens worth, 30, 305
Crossfell,, 6, 227, 229, 300
Crossthwaite, 90, 92 '
Crosthwaite, Fisher, 119
Crozier, 77
Cumberland, Duke of, 25, 26, 288
Cumberland, Richard, 37
Cunedda, 9
Crummock Lake, 132, 154, 155, 156, 157
D
Dacre Castle, 68
Dacre Church, 70
Dacres, the, 69, 93, 283, 313
Dale Head, 131, 136, 245
Dalemain, 41
Dalston, 266
David, King of Scotland, 271
Dawes, the, 31
Debatable land, 274, 275, 278, 291, 296
Deincourts, the, 319
De Quincey, go, 150, 151, 152, 207, 208,
212, 221, 222, 223, 224, 233, 236, 237
Derwent, river, 94, 99, 100, 701, 103, 157,
251, 264
Dervventwater, 82, 84, 109, 110, 111, 113,
122, 243, 247
Derwentwater, Countess of, 113
Derwentwater, Lord, 114
Dickinson, 142
Dockwray Hall, 8, 13
Dollywaggon, 241, 242
Dolphin, 270
Dove Cottage, 226, 234, 236, 237
Dove Crag, 218
Erigg, 177
Duddon, river, 185, 186, 192
Dunmail Raise, 207, 237, 238, 239
Dyvoke, 185
E
Eamont, river, 16, 33, 37, 41
Easdale, 237
Ecclefechan, 291
Eden Hall, 301
Eden, river, 5, 227, 263, 267, 269, 280, 291
293, 299
Edmund, King, 238
Edward I., 271, 272
Edward II., 69
Edward III., 272
Edward IV., 14
Egfrith, 270
Eglemore, Sir, 44
Egremont Castle, 164
Ehen, river, 145
Elfred, 270
Elizabeth, Queen, 100, 276, 280
Ellenborough, Lord, 301
Ellwood, 240
Embleton, 99
Ennerdale, 135, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142
145, 146
Esk (northern), 271, 274, 280, 297, 293
293, 294
Esk (southern), 778, 783, 784, 785
Eskat Woods, 146
Esthwaite, 203
F
Fairfield, 49, 80, 218, 238, 241, 242
Featherstonhaughs, 299, 300
Fell Foot, 192, 794
Ferguson, Chancellor, 18, 62, 181
Fish Inn, 132, 150
Fleet with Pike, 136, 137
Flemings, the, 219
Fletchers, the, 71
Flodden Field, 313
Foxhow, 22t
Franklin, B., 105
Friars Crag, 109, no
Furness Abbey, 126, 142
G
Gatf.sgarth, 136, 137, 138
Giant’s Grave, 15
Gibson Craig, 196, 197
Gibson’s Knott, 238
Gilpin Miss, 200
Gilsland, 69
Gilstone, 114, 115
Glasgow, 277﻿INDEX
329
Glencoin, 45
Glendermakin, 73, 75, 260
Glenridding, 49
Goldrill, 52, 55
Gosforth, 174, 180
Gough, 53, 54
Gowbarrow, 43, 43, 57
Graham, Colonel, 319
Grahames, the, 279, 283
Grange, 124
Grassmere, 207, 226, 228, 229, 230, 231
232, 234, 235, 237, 238, 243
Grassmoor, 82, 135, 156
Gray, 45, 109, 125
Gray Crag, 59, 67
Gray, Lady Jane, 71
Great Gable, 147, 148
Great Salkeld, 301
Graves, Woodcock, 248, 255, 258, 259
Greenrigg, 253
Greenthwaite, 71
Greta Hall, 89, 108
Greta, river, 82, 83, 88, 89
Gretna Green, 291, 293, 294, 295, 312
Greyriggs, 311
Greystroke, 44, 69, 70, 71, 72
Grinsdale, 169
Grisedale, 49
H
Hadrian’s Wall, 17, 268, 269
Hall, R., 109
Hallsteads, 43
Haltons, the, 71
Hardknott, 184, 185, 189, 237
Hartsop, 59
Hasells, the, 41, 161
Hassness, 135
Hatfield, 153
Hawkeshead, 195, 202 ,203
Haweswater, 60, 304, 306, 307
Hayeswater, 60, 66
Haystacks, 135, 136, 155
Helm Crag, 237, 238
Helvellyn, 43, 46, 49, 54, 59, 74, 82, 131,
230, 239, 243, 245, 300
Hemans, Mrs., 218
Henry I., 271
Henry II., 271
Henry III., 271
Henry IV., 14, 273
Henry VI., 183
Henry VII., 19, 281
Henry VIII., 281, 314
Hesket, High, 263
Hesket Newmarket, 260
High Crag, 137
High Carlin, 311
High Stile, 134, 136, 156
High Street, 59, 67, 304, 306
Hindscarth, 137
Holme, Hugh, 307
Honeywood, Colonel, 25, 26
Honister, 131, 135, 155, 237
Horse Gill, 131
Howards, the, 69, 70, 71, 318, 285
Howtown, 41, 43, 59
Huddlestones, the, 41, 70, 162
Hutchinsons, the, 75
Huttons, the, 70
T
Iceland, 239
Illbell, 193
Inglewood Forest, 15, 70, 300
Isell, 101
J
Jacksons, the, 245
James, I., 126, 127, 184
Johnby, 71
Johnstone, Chevalier, 23
Johnstones, the, 283
Jones, Wynn, T48
K
Kendal, 5, 23, 24, 215, 298, 31a, 313, 314,
315, 3'6, 317
Kent, river, 314, 319
Kentigerin, St., 72
Keswick, 68, 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 90, 91, 104,
109, 118, 120, 146, 151,	156, 157, 232,
237, 238,,247, 249, 260, 262, 263
Kidsty Pike, 59, 67, 79, 306
Kinmount Willie, 276, 277, 279
Kinniside Fell, 145
Kirby Stephen, 309
Kirkbythore, 305
Kirkoswald, 69, 299
Kirkstone Pass, 47, 52, 59, 65, 237
L
Lamplugh, 158
Lancasters, the, 30
Langholme, 291
Langwathby Moor, 160, 161
Latrigg, 82
Lawson, Sir W., 101, 126, 129
Lawson, Miss, 101, 102
Lazonby, 301
Leathes, 245
Leslie, General, 286
Levens Hall, 318
Liddell, 274, 291
Lingmore, 194, 195
Lockerbie, 291
Lockhart, 207
Lodore, 112, 118, 122
Longstrath beck, 130﻿33°
INDEX
Longtown, 291, 293, 294
Longwood, 291
Lonsdale, Lord, 99, 102, 306
Lord’s island, 84
Lord’s seat, 31 r
Lortonvale, 157
Lovell, Mrs., 89
Low Hartsop, 66
Loweswater, 142
Lowther Castle, 26
Lowther, Gerard, t3
Lowther, Robert, 31
Lowther, Miss, 102
Lowthers, the, 16
Lucy, de, 164
Lune, river, 309
Lyvenant, river, 305
Lyulph's Tower, 44, 57
M
Macaulay, Lord, 106, ro8
Magnusson, Eric, 240
Malcolm King, 238, 271
Manchester. 240
Mardale, 60, 306, 307
Marshalls, the, 50, 138
Martindale, 59
Martineau, Miss, 207, 218
Mary Queen of Scots, 13, 100, 283
Matterdale, 73, 74
Mayborough, 400
Meaburn Hall, 102, 303
Mellbreak, T56
Meschin, Le, 173
Millbeck, 204, 105, 106, 194
Mill Fell, 73
Milnthorpe, 318
Mite, river, 180, 184
Morecombe Bay, 4
Morland, 305
Mosedale, T47
Mounseys, the, 46, 63
Muncaster, r74, 176, 180, 183
Mungo, St., 73
Mungrisedale, 72, 75
Murgatroyd, 21
Murray, Earl of, 25
Musgraves, 161
N
Nab Cottage, 226
Naddle Fell, 82, 306
Naworth, 69
Needle Rock, 141
Neville, Cicely, 14, 15
Neville, Henry, 14
Nevilles, the, 7
Newby Bridge, 204
Newlands, vale of, 95, 132, 156, 237
Ninian, St., 72
Norfolk, Duke of, 40, 69
Northumberland, Duke of, 282
O
Ormathwaite, T05
Orris Head, 205
Orton Scaur, 31 r
Overwater, 250
Owen Caesarius, 15
P
Parr, Katherine, 314, 315
Parrs, the, 314, 317, 318
Patrick, St., 72
Patterdale, 41, 46, 49, 52, 59, 64
Peel, John, 154, 251, 258
Peel, Willie, 255
Peel Wyke, 97
Pembroke, Anne, Countess of, 19-23
Pembroke, Earl of, 21
Pendragon, 20
Pennant, 294
Pennine Range, 5, r6, 300
Penningtons, the, 161, r8o
Penrith, 5-16, 24, 54, 84, 262, 287, 288, 301
Penruddock, 72
Percies, the, 273
Petterill, the, 263, 268
Pheasant Inn, 07
Phillipsons, the, 215
Pike o’ Blisco, 192, 195
Pikes, the, 65
Place Fell, 46, 59
Pillar Mountain, 140, T47, 148
Pillar Rock, 140, 141
Plumpton, 263
Ponsonby, Mr. T45
Pooley Bridge, 37, 41, 42, 68
Portinscale, 94
Powley, Miss, 199
Preston, 287
R
Radcliffes, the, 84, 93, 113, 114,115, 129
Rannerdale Knotts, 156
Ratten Heath, 128
Ravenglass, 174, 17s, T76 177, 178, r8o,
182, 184, 186, 272
Redbank, 229
Redgauntlett, 293
Red Pike, 134, 154, 156
Red Screes, 65, 218
Red Tarn, 53
Rest Dodd, 59
Richard IL, 7, 14, 273
Richard III., 8, 14, 273
Rigg’s Hotel, 205
Robinson, 82, 136
Robinson, Mary, 150, 151, 152, 153﻿INDEX
.331
Rooses, the, 318
Rosamond Fair, 17
Rose Castle, 266
Rosthwaite, 130, 131
Rothay, the, 194, 217, 218, 226,238
Rounthwaite, 251, 263
Rowan, Red, 279
Rufus, William, 239, 270, 314
Rurnney, 266
Ruthwaite, 311
Rutland, Lord, 15
Rydal, 129, 217, 223, 226, 227, 228, 236
Rydal Hall, 219
Rydal Mount, 219
S
Salkeld of Corby, 277
Sandfords, the, 31
Sark, the, 294, 295
Savage, 25
Scafell, 147, 148, 216
Scale Hill, 157
Scardale, 218
Scarfgap, 136, 137, 138
Scott of Buccleugh, 277
Scott, Sir W., 207, 215, 280, 282
Scrope, Lord, 277
Seascaie, 145
Seatoller, 129, 131
Seathwaite, 190
Seat Sandal, 238, 241
Sewell, the Rev., 192
Seymour, Lord, 315
Shap, 60, 302, 304, 305, 308, 309, 310, 311
Shap Fell, 23
Shelley, 83
Sherwin, Rev-, 191
Simpson, 237
Sizergh, 319
Skiddaw, 74, 80, 92, 97, 104, 105, 121, 242,
247, 250, 251, 252, 260, 293, 300
Skipton Castle, 20
Sockbridge, 30
Solway, 251, 264, 268, 274
Solway Moss, 291, 293, 296
Soulby, 68
Sour Milk Gill, 133
Southey, 89, 90, 93, 108, 109, 124
Stagg, 200
Stake Pass, 130
Stanhope, Lord, 320	y
Stanley, John, 246
Stanwix, 291
Steel Fell, 238
Stephen King, 271
Strathclyde, 238, 239, 270
Stricklands, the, 305, 317, 318
Stricklands, Miss Agnes, 315, 3X°
Stybarrow, 55
Styhead, 130
Sudeley, 315
Swan Inn, 96
Swhirrel Edge, 53
Swindale, 306
T
Tankards, the, 30
Taylor, Hr., 30
T.aylor, the Water-Poet, 285
Thirlmere, 82, 83, 232, 243, 244, 246
Thirlspot, 246
Thornburghs, the, 318
Thornethwaite, 307
Thornthwaite, 96
Threlkeld, 74, 75, 77, 78, 82
Threlkeld, Sir L., 18
Thursby, 266
Thwaites, 161
Tillberthwaite, 195
Townely, Colonel, 288
Trollope, A., 307
Troutbeck (Cumb.), 68, 73
Troutbeck (Westm.), 116
Tuftons, the, 23
U
Ulldale, 251, 252
Ullswater, 41-67, 84, 238
Ulpho, 44
Underskiddaw, 104, 105
V
ViPONTS, the, 17
W
Wade, General, 287
Walker wonderful)," 189, 190
Walls Castle, 181
Warnscliffe, 137
Warwick, the Keymaker, 15
Wastdalehead, 82, 135, 136, 141, 147
Wastwater, 134, 136, 139, 142, 184, 185
Waterhead, 217
Watermillock, 43
Watson, Bishop, 210, 211, 215
Watson, George, 20
Weber, river, 265
Welcome Inn, 33
West, 36, 37, 126
Wheeler, Mrs., 200
Whinfell, 19,311
Whinlatter, 8o, 237
Whiteless Pike, 135, 156
Whitemoss, 231
Whittless Scaur, 264
Wigton, 265﻿332
INDEX
Williamson, Nicholas, 105
Williamson, Sir J., 3, 22
Wilson Mr., 75
Wilson, Professor, 206
Wirger, river, 265
Wittington, 301
Woolpack Inn, 186
Wordsworth, 36, 37, 19, 5°. 52> 59* 7°. 9°>
98, 99, 150, 190, 194, 197, 198, 200,
202, 207, 208, 213, 218, 219, 221, 222,
223, 226, 236
Workington, 100. 157
Workington Hall, 100
Windermere, 203-217, 238
Wolfe, General, 26, 101, 102
Wrynose, 192
Wyndhams, the, 100
Wythburn, 192, 207, 243, 244
y
Yanwath, 31
Yarlside, 311
Yewbarrow, 147
Yewdale, Betty, 197
York, 271.
THE END.
k CLAY AND SON'S, LTD., BREAD St. IliLL, E.C., AN’D BtJN’GAV, SUFFOLK.﻿Bradley's English Lakes.
R.iR.Cferk,Li? Printers Edinburgh﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿