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 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THE 
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 THIS BOOK IS THE GIFT OF 
 
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Shap Fells 
 
 JOHN MORTIMER. 
 
 Reprinted p'rom the " Manchester Quarterly/ 
 April 190^. 
 
 Sherratt and Hughes 
 
 London and Manchester 
 
 1904. 
 
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 VI I 
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SHAP FELLS. 
 
 An Autumn Memory. 
 
 By John Mortimer 
 
 '1^0 the Quietist and myself the English Lakeland was, 
 in our more pronounced pedestrian days, a more 
 frequented paradise than it has been in the intervening 
 years. It was one of our early loves, and though we have 
 since wandered far and wide, in other directions, it still 
 possesses that charm of association with old delights which 
 will never fade as long as memory holds. We were 
 familiar with its valleys, and we called its mountains by 
 their names. In that period of youthful enthusiasm, 
 before the heyday in the blood grew tame, the loftiest 
 summits had an irresistible attraction for our restless 
 roaming feet, but we don't climb mountains nowadays, 
 finding it more in accordance with the gravity of years to 
 seek our pleasure among lower elevations. So it happened 
 in the autumn of the present year that our choice for a 
 little holiday fell upon a strip of covmtry on the Lakeland 
 border, extending northward between Kendal and Penrith, 
 and eastward, from the mountains which guard Hawes- 
 water, and UUeswater, to Appleby, with the beautiful 
 valley of the Eden lying between. It is a country dis- 
 playing every variety of landscape picturesqueness from 
 wild, untamed grandeur, through varying degrees to the 
 softest and sweetest expressions of pastoral loveliness; a 
 
l1 
 
 2 SHAP FELLS 
 
 country, withal, watered by many streams and with quaint 
 old towns and villages scattered over it, and rich, too, in 
 associations with border romance and chivalry, with its 
 ruined castles, baronial halls, and other forms of fortified 
 homesteads, reminiscent of ancient feuds, and raids, and 
 forays. 
 
 Over this delectable land we wandered at our own sweet 
 will, gaining many experiences, which cannot all be set 
 down here. Sometimes the sun shone, but oftener the rain 
 rained upon us, but we were never unhappy, so that from 
 these blended influences there has come a kind of rainbow 
 radiance in the restrospect. Recalling those September 
 days, as I sit by a December fire, many impressions come 
 back to the mind, but those which detach themselves from 
 the others most readily are centred about Shap, the village 
 standing high up among the fells, and known, if not other- 
 wise, to every traveller who passes by rail that way, as a 
 place of bleak exposure, whose inhabitants are largely 
 interested in the quarrying of granite. It is known, in a 
 more intimate way, by pedestrians, and seekers of the 
 picturesque, and at least one novelist has shown that he 
 was well acquainted with it, and its surroundings. At my 
 elbow, as I write, is a copy of Anthony TroUope's story, 
 " Can you forgive Her?" and turning to a chapter therein, 
 on " The Inn at Shap," I come upon these words : '" There 
 is a station at Shap, by which the railway company no 
 doubt conceives that it has conferred on that somewhat 
 rough and remote locality all the advantages of refined 
 civilization, but I doubt whether the Shappites have been 
 thankful for the favour. The landlord at the inn, for one, 
 is not thankful. Shap had been a place owing all such 
 life as it had possessed to coaching and posting. It had 
 been a stage on the high road from Lancaster to Carlisle, 
 and though it lay high and bleak among the fells, and was 
 
SHAP FELLS 
 
 a cold, windy, thinly-populated place — filling all travellers 
 with thankfulness that they had not been made Shappites, — 
 nevertheless it had its glory in its coaching and posting. 
 I have no doubt that there are men and women who look 
 back with a fond regret to the palmy days of Sliap." 
 TroUope, notwithstanding, I imagine that to many 
 travellers Shap is an acceptable place, for, to those who 
 require it, the air is bracing there, and has not that modern 
 guide-book writer, Mr. Baddeley, drawn attention to it as 
 an excellent starting point for a walking tour in the Lake 
 District? 
 
 It was at the " Greyhound," an old hostelry near the 
 station, and on the great north road, that the Quietist and 
 I found comfortable and congenial quarters during our 
 three or four days sojourn at Shap. Our inn, with old 
 dates to be found carved on it without and within, had 
 been a busy place in the coaching days, of which there 
 seemed still a remaining as well as a reminiscent flavour, 
 in the post-horses and carriages still obtainable there. It 
 was interesting, too, in view of some modern forms of 
 travelling, to learn from our landlady that this year, there 
 had come that way more pedestrians of the knapsack order 
 than for some time past. Good old knapsack ! companion 
 of one's youth one would be sorry to see you fall into 
 absolute neglect or disuse. 
 
 From the " Greyhound," with shady trees on the bit of 
 greensward across the way, the grey village straggles 
 northward, in an intermittent and desultory fashion, for a 
 considerable distance, and, from various open spaces on 
 the left of it, you get views of the outlying mountains 
 looming largely beyond the nearer walled pastures, and 
 the intervening undulations of the fells. Swindale lies 
 below there and to the right of it is Haweswater, hidden 
 from sight in its mountain-guarded recess. It was for the 
 
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 4 SHAP FELLS 
 
 new experience of approaching Haweswater from this side 
 that we had mainly come to Shap. Near upon five and 
 thirty years had elapsed since I looked upon it last, and 
 the occasion was a memorable one. As to an undiscovered 
 region, I started out alone to explore it, on an autumn 
 afternoon, in that year long gone by. Gaily strapping my 
 knapsack on my back at the railway station at Staveley, I 
 took my way along the Kentmere valley to the head of it 
 and so to the pass of Nan Bield beyond, which gives access 
 to the remote valley where Mardale lies. Night had come 
 on when I reached the summit of the pass, and I had met 
 with an accident in crossing a stone wall which left me a 
 limping pilgrim in a darkened and unknown land. The 
 mountains rose up all about the valley, giving it an air of 
 majestic gloom. Ilarter Fell, with its wild precipices, 
 towered above on the right, on the left were the crags 
 above Blea Tarn, and the ridges of High Street. Below, 
 far down in weird indistinctness, like " the misty mid- 
 region of Weir," lay Small Water Tarn, with its rocky 
 shore, and the shadows of the mountains reflected in its 
 sombre depths. Viewed in that mysterious light which 
 rests on the edge of dark, there was an awe-inspiring 
 grandeur about the scene, which I have never forgotten. 
 How, in the increasing darkness I descended painfully, 
 and with doubtful steps as to my destination, down that 
 rugged slope, and how when I had reached more level 
 ground, when least expected, a light shone across the way, 
 and I found myself safely at the " Dun Bull '" at Mardale, 
 I must not set down in detail here ; neither must I tell of 
 that further journey on the morrow, when, through the 
 mist, I limped over High Street to the pass of Kirkstone, 
 and so to Ambleside and to ultimate ease and rest. 
 
 It was but a partial view of the head waters of the lake 
 that one got on that occasion, but it was an impressive 
 
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SHAP FELLS 5 
 
 one, in the circumstances, and had remained a vivid 
 mental picture. Now we were to approach it in a securer 
 fashion, and make a more leisurely survey. Meanwhile 
 Shap Abbey had to be visited, with a little loitering there 
 among its shattered walls, dominated by the lofty ruined 
 tower, which, with the grass-carpeted pavements, are all 
 that remain of a once beautiful edifice, standing by the 
 swirling stream, at the edge of the sallow-featured fell 
 pastures. Thence by devious ways, that lead downwards 
 from Shap village, we traversed the intervening miles, 
 passing through Bampton, the village with its church 
 clustered there by the Lowther side, just then in spate 
 and with its water overflowing the banks. The foothills 
 and mountain slopes that rise about Haweswater were now 
 in immediate evidence, and entering thereupon we 
 passed, on the left, the considerable homestead known as 
 Thornthwaite Hall, where we had touch again with 
 Anthony Trollope. This house, a little withdrawn from 
 the roadway, and near the foot of the lake, is said to be the 
 Vavasour Hall of the novel already referred to. The 
 novelist knew this country well and has reflected it vividly 
 in his book, but one has some difficulty, topographically, 
 in reconciling the locality of the hall with some of the 
 scenes and stirring incidents with which it is associated. 
 
 Haweswater is one of the neglected beauties among 
 lakes ; it is Ullswater repeated on a smaller scale, with 
 wooded slopes where the trees come down to the water's 
 edge, and bare summits, and, at the upper end, lofty 
 mountains, which impart to it a certain wild grandeur of 
 environment. Along the road which skirts the lake we 
 walked, picking raspberries from the little cane-jungles by 
 the wayside, and having strange old memories stirred 
 within us by the sight of the parsley fern, and the wall 
 rue cropping out from the stone fences, until a storm of 
 
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6 SHAP FELLS 
 
 wind and rain, accompanied by remote reverberations of 
 thunder in the mountains, drove us back to Shap along tbe 
 way we had come. It was along these roads where the 
 mud is sticky and glutinous, that TroUope describes a 
 villain of his story walking to the same destination as 
 ourselves, in darkness, wind and rain. Says the novelist, 
 introducing here an autobiographic note, " Wearily and 
 wretchedly he plodded on. A man may be very weary in 
 such a walk as that and yet be by no means wretched. 
 Tired, hungry, cold, wet, and nearly penniless, I have sat 
 me down and slept among these mountain tracks — have 
 slept because nature refused to allow longer wakefulness. 
 But my heart has been as light as my purse, and there has 
 been something in the air of the hills that made me 
 buoyant and happy in the midst of my weariness." 
 
 From our comfortable inn we sallied forth in other 
 directions, but the most memorable of these walks was the 
 one which took us over the fells to Kendal, sixteen miles 
 away, on a grey, wet, and stormy day. The load is carried 
 high over those desolate spaces with their vast undulations 
 stretching out to remote distances. In any condition of 
 weather these fells have a fascination for me which I 
 should find it difficult to explain, save in some lines I met 
 with somewhere, in which the poet says : — 
 
 I love all waste 
 And solitary places, where we taste 
 The pleasure of believing what we see 
 Is boundless, as we wish our souls to be. 
 
 Un the way we met flocks of white-fleeced sheep being 
 driven marketwards by their shepherds, with attendant 
 dogs to keep the inevitable stragglers within the line of 
 march. This was not to be done without much bleatine 
 and barking, for it is of the nature of sheep to break 
 
SHAP FELLS 7 
 
 bounds and go astray ; we say so when in churcli we make 
 confession, and liken ourselves to them in this errant 
 disposition. When these had gone on their way and we 
 had reached a more lonely and exposed part of the road we 
 caught sight of a pedestrian moving towards us slowly 
 and like one who was footsore. He was comparatively a 
 young man, and as he approached us it was evident that 
 he was not a tramp, but undoubtedly a poor traveller who, 
 in his attire, showed that he had seen better days. He 
 would have passed on, but a question regarding the way 
 that lay before us brought him to a halt. A curiosity as 
 to the jjurpose of his travelling led to a further conversa- 
 tion and to the telling how he had once been a bank clerk 
 in a far-off city, but had gone wrong; how his friends 
 had sent him to an American ranch, but to no good pur- 
 pose, and how he was now making his way back to his 
 native place, in a worse plight than he had left it. With 
 a frank confession, confirmed by his looks, he said that he 
 had been sorely and deservedly punished for his misdoings, 
 and had suffered greatly during the last few days. Not 
 in the way of excuse, but as indicating some defect in 
 nature he remarked : " I come of people who are either 
 very good or very bad." In accepting a modest offer of 
 assistance which had to be pressed upon him, he said he 
 neither looked for nor expected any such help, and in 
 parting, as though to emphasise his sense of his own un- 
 worthiness, his last words were : " I assure you it is a very 
 undeserving case." 
 
 Undeserving from his point of view the case might be, 
 but I should be slow to believe that it was by any means 
 hopeless, in view of such evident self-upbraiding, and so 
 sitting by a December fire at the season whose spirit is 
 that of peace and goodwill to men, one has kindly and 
 hopeful thoughts for that poor wayfarer, who finds his 
 
II 
 
 * 8 SHAP FELLS 
 
 ^ place in that wide cliarity wliicli Tennyson expresses when 
 
 ' ! ' he says : — 
 
 \ Oh yet we trust that somehow good 
 
 Will be the final goal of ill, 
 To pangs of nature, sins of will, 
 Defects of doubt and taints of blood; 
 
 I can but trust that good shall fall 
 At last — far off — at last, to all 
 And every winter change to spring. 
 
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