LIW33 
 
 nn't^Mi.s- OF 
 
 
 
 # ;^; 
 
DA 
 L1W33 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 mewrg KJ, Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 Li%n\. iiUhs. 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DA 670.L1W33 
 
 Annals of a quiet valle; 
 
 3 1924 028 009 086 
 
A Cornell University 
 
 f Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028009086 
 
THE 
 
 ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY 
 
,M J/.:, y .//-/, 'Z/^. 
 
THE ANNALS 
 OF A 
 QUIET 
 VALLEY 
 
 I 
 
 By 
 
 A Country Parson 
 Edited by John Watson, F.L.S. 
 Author of " Sylvan Folk" 
 " Nature and Woodcraft " 
 &c. &c. 
 
 LONDON: Published by J. M. Dent and Company 
 at Aldine House in Great Eastern Street, E.G. 
 
 MDCCCXCIV 'i- 
 
K-"}^-]^ 
 
J. & M. T. 
 
 TWO WORTHY YEOMEN 
 
 MY FIRST AND LIFE-LONG FRIENDS 
 
 IN THE DALE 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Head of the Valley . . . Frontispiece 
 I CHOSE MY Wife as she did her Wedding- 
 Gown Page 4 
 
 The Parish Clerk . 
 
 The Spinning-Wheel .... 
 
 An Old Three-Decker .... 
 
 The Old Church 
 
 The Yeoman and His Watch 
 
 Sundial, with Clerk announcing Sales 
 
 The Lich-Gate 
 
 The Bride 
 
 An Old Horn Lantern .... 
 
 A Quiet Valley 
 
 An Old Chimney-Place .... 
 
 Carved Chest 
 
 At the Hiring-Fair .... 
 
 17 
 
 25 
 
 38 
 46 
 
 54 
 55 
 56 
 70 
 
 75 
 Si 
 89 
 
 91 
 98 
 
Vm LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Children at the Gate ... . Page no 
 
 The Pillion m 
 
 Among the Rocks and Scauks . . . „ 124 
 
 A Fair Friend , 144 
 
 A Quaker Couple ,, 146 
 
 Sheep Shearing „ 176 
 
 Knitting Stockings , . . . . „ 190 
 
 Old Carved Oak „ 191 
 
 The Favourite Beverage 194 
 
 An Old Fern-Gatherer , 203 
 
 Sledding Peat „ 217 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 "^HE contents of the following pages mainly 
 concern a single valley in the English 
 Lake District — a dale which need not, perhaps, 
 be further particularised than is done in the 
 text. The valley of the book is, however, a 
 compound of several originals which form one 
 general watershed, and, geographically, are not 
 widely separated. 
 
 Perhaps these pages may reflect the lives 
 and doings of one of the most interesting 
 classes in the North — the race of yeoman, or 
 'statesman, a remnant only of which remains. 
 The History of the Northern Yeoman has 
 yet to be written, and these " Annals " have 
 no pretension to set up any claim to stand 
 in the place of that prospective work. My 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 small contribution only plays round the fringe 
 of the subject ; it does not aspire to more 
 than this. I know and have known one charac- 
 teristic dale intimately, and having loved it, 
 this is my tribute. The great mountains still 
 hem it in, but the old fell-folk are gone; 
 comparative strangers have taken their place. 
 With every appreciation of these, I cannot 
 think the change is for the better. It may not 
 matter economically, but the old sentiment has 
 utterly vanished — gone with those whose re- 
 mains now fill the little churchyard. The church, 
 too, has changed, and the parson — everything, 
 in fact, but the illimitable mountains that 
 shape the valley. So great has been the re- 
 volution, that a stranger driving up the moun- 
 tain road would hardly recognise the dale 
 as the one I have described. But there it is, 
 and there it will remain. It is unknown to 
 tourists, and they will be long in discovering 
 it. Not that I am jealous of their intrusion — 
 far otherwise — but the dale lies out of the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 beaten track. There is a way into it, but no 
 way out — unless you know ; and even then you 
 must cross the wild moorlands to get back to 
 civilisation. 
 
 But such as it is, or was — its people, its 
 traditions, and its homesteads — I have tried 
 to set it down. In conclusion, I must acknow- 
 ledge my indebtedness to a local tract by " An 
 Antiquary " for many of the more interesting 
 facts especially concerning the home-life of the 
 yeoman. 
 
 A Country Parson. 
 
THE 
 
 Annals of a Quiet Valley 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 T WAS born in a primitive parsonage among 
 the hills, and all our surroundings were 
 as primitive as the old lichened house in which 
 we were bred. My father was literally the 
 " pore persoun " of the dale, as his father and 
 grandfather had been before him. Although 
 his stipend was small, he had a deep religious 
 feeling anent the office to which he was called, 
 and often expressed himself to the effect that 
 his lot in life was precisely what he wished. 
 " For drawen folk to heven by fairnesse and 
 good example was his bisinesse." He held 
 with Seneca, too, that those are the best 
 instructors who teach in their lives and prove 
 their words by their actions. In fact we had 
 A 
 
2 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 a motto worked in wool above the chimney- 
 place to this effect, and upon the exemplifica- 
 tion of it we often had little moral sermons. 
 My mother was a notable woman in her way, 
 and was come of a long line of " statesmen " 
 or yeomen, but curiously enough (from my 
 father's standpoint) she was a Quakeress. 
 Her own kin had been followers of Fox since 
 that memorable man preached from a haystack 
 in the fold of one of their hill farms." I have 
 heard it said that my mother was quite before 
 her time in the matter of book learning, and 
 I remember her to have held very broad and 
 charitable views on whatever subjects interested 
 her. As became her, she went with my father 
 to church after their marriage, but there were 
 two points on which they agreed to differ. 
 These were " infant baptism " and the holding 
 of the 37th Article. She had the strong 
 opinions of her sect on the question of War, 
 holding it incompatible with every precept of 
 Christ. She urged that it was impossible to 
 wage war on Christian principles, that Christian 
 testimony against it was no cause of shame, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 3 
 
 and encouraged us to faithfulness in the matter. 
 My father respected my mother's sentiments, 
 but stoutly stuck to his " Article " nevertheless. 
 This was the only cause of dissension in our 
 family, but when the subject came up it was 
 treated with becoming spirit on both sides. As 
 I shall frequently have to speak of my mother, 
 I will only repeat here that she was an 
 admirable woman, and my father's opinion of 
 her may be gathered from the following episode. 
 Soon after my return from Oxford I received 
 the appointment to the smallest church and 
 the smallest living in England, and about that 
 time I was on the lookout for a wife. I talked 
 with my father on the subject, and he had but 
 one advice to give. He referred me to the 
 seventh line of the first page of his edition of 
 Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield where I found 
 marked the following words, " I chose my wife 
 as she did her wedding-gown, not for a fine 
 glossy surface, but for such qualities as would 
 wear well." He continued that he had acted 
 upon this advice, and had never had cause to 
 regret it. 
 
4 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 Among my first recollections was the being 
 allowed to go to church for the first time — 
 the church of which my father was clergyman. 
 
 This was a rude, barn-like building, and would 
 have been difficult of identification as an eccles- 
 iastical structure had it not been for the bell, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 5 
 
 the yew trees, and the few graves that sur- 
 rounded it. Outside was a massive porch 
 with seats, and (this I learned in after years) 
 a " stoup " for holy water, a relic of pre- 
 Reformation times. Inside, the church re- 
 sembled a whitewashed barn, and the rafters 
 were festooned with cobwebs. Smooth blue 
 flags from the bed of the neighbouring stream 
 covered the floor, and in winter a thick layer 
 of straw was laid as a protection against damp 
 and cold. The large square-backed pews were 
 so deep that upon the visit of which I speak I 
 was completely buried, and could see nothing 
 of what was going on about me. What im- 
 pressed me most was a pair of swallows that 
 flew in and out of the open windows, and fed 
 their callow young up somewhere among the 
 dusty beams. My behaviour was so restless 
 that I was not taken to church again for some 
 time. Upon subsequent occasions my know- 
 ledge of church matters was widened. I was 
 more favourably placed than at first, and in 
 proportion as my range of vision was widened, 
 so my interest increased. The pulpit from 
 
6 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 which ^my father preached was what is known 
 as a " three-decker," and this was surmounted 
 by a sounding board. Upon its quaintly 
 carved oaken door was the date 1698. Within 
 the Communion rails were a couple of spinning 
 wheels, and heaped up by them several piles 
 of carded wool. It was here that for eight 
 hours each day my father kept school 
 and taught, seated by his wheel the while. 
 This, however, was only the case in summer, 
 for in winter no school was held. The snow 
 usually lay deeply in the valley, and travelling 
 not only became difficult but dangerous. Keep- 
 ing school in the way I have said was not 
 begun by my father, it was so kept by my 
 grandfather, and maybe before his time. 
 
 My grandfather I have only as yet casually 
 mentioned. He was born in 17 19, and being 
 the youngest of twelve, and sickly, was, ac- 
 cording to custom, bred a scholar. His 
 " living " amounted to £4^ ; but this he 
 eked out in many ways — all of them honest, 
 if not dignified. He tilled the glebe, laboured 
 for the neighbouring farmers, spun and knitted 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEV. 7 
 
 the wool of his herdwicks, made wills, and con- 
 ducted the limited correspondence of the whole 
 parish. On the "lot" near to where we were 
 bred was a small mere which contained grey- 
 trout and char, and I have heard it said that 
 my grandfather taught the people to net the 
 tarn, receiving by way of toll a half-penny for 
 each draught of fishes. In addition to these 
 offices, he added to his glebe a portion of 
 ground which he rented, and did all the drudg- 
 ery its working demanded. He also reclaimed 
 a patch of mountain ground, kept a couple of 
 cows, and had right of pasturage on the Com- 
 mon for a flock of fell sheep. At busy times, 
 of washing the sheep in the fell becks, of 
 shearing, and of haymaking, he went out to 
 assist his neighbours, and in this way added to 
 his income "in kind." Those of his parishioners 
 who lived nearest gave a certain quantity of 
 hay for each day of labour, while those further 
 away contributed fleeces. The collection of 
 these was left to the least busy part of the 
 year ; and in my grandfather's excursions 
 among the hills he was always accompanied 
 
8 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 by an old white galloway, upon whose back 
 the fleeces were carried crosswise in panniers. 
 In all these matters in which he assisted, the 
 old clergyman was more dexterous than his 
 neighbours. My grandfather was possessed of 
 great industry, but as I wish to be a veracious 
 historian I must here set down one incident of 
 his life which had a considerable bearing on it. 
 After attaining the ministry of his native dale 
 he married a wife with a fortune of ;^40, byt 
 neither appears to have demoralised him, for 
 he remained in those habits of thrift and hard 
 industry in which he had been long schooled. 
 
 I am sorry to have to say that this good man, 
 unlike my father, refused absolutely to have 
 dealings with the people called Quakers, be- 
 cause, as he expressed it, that stiff-necked 
 generation "have some out-of-the-way and 
 inconvenient notions anent the propriety of 
 paying church dues." For the most part, 
 however, he was charitably disposed, though 
 in spite of this his economy was as wonderful 
 as his industry. He supplied messes of broth 
 to those who came to attend service from a 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 9 
 
 distance on Sundays, and he sold them ale. 
 In this matter he discriminated as follows : — • 
 That which was drunk in the vestry was 
 charged at the rate of 4d. a quart.whilst the 
 same swallowed on the road or in the church- 
 yard was only 3d. This selling of ale may 
 seem a strange inconsistency to the leading of 
 a godly life, but the ale entailed much honest 
 labour in the brewing, and the demand for it 
 was, maybe, owing to some extent to the 
 isolation of the mountain district. But all the 
 quaintnesses of my grandfather came to an end 
 in 1 8 1 2, for in this year he died at the age of 
 ninety-three, having lived among the same 
 people for sixty-six years. He left behind 
 him ;£'2000, besides a large quantity of linen 
 and woollen cloth, all of which was made 
 during his teaching hours within the Com- 
 munion rails of his little church. 
 
 Here is a picture of the old man written by 
 one who visited him at his house during his 
 lifetime, and I am told it is a faithful one. " I 
 found him sitting at the head of a large square 
 table, such as is commonly used in this country 
 
lO THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 by the lower class of people, dressed in a coarse 
 blue frock trimmed with black horn buttons, 
 a checked shirt, a leathern strap about his 
 neck for a stock, a coarse apron, and a pair 
 of great wooden-soled shoes plated with 
 iron to preserve them, with a child upon 
 his knee, eating his breakfast. His wife 
 and the remainder of his children were 
 some of them engaged in waiting upon the 
 others, the rest in teasing and spinning wool, 
 at which trade he is a great proficient ; and, 
 moreover, when it is made ready for sale he 
 will lay it by i6 lbs. or 32 lbs. weight on his 
 back, and on foot, seven or eight miles, will 
 carry it to market, even in the depth of winter. 
 I was not much surprised at all this, as you 
 may possibly be, having heard a great deal of 
 it related before. But I must confess myself 
 astonished with the alacrity and the good 
 humour that appeared both in the clergyman 
 and his wife, and more so at the sense and 
 ingenuity of the clergyman himself" 
 
 After my grandfather's death many strange 
 stories were told which the parishioners had 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I 1 
 
 not cared to relate whilst the old clergyman 
 was living. As I verily believe, many good 
 and excellent qualities were interred with his 
 bones, but if the evil which he did lived after 
 him, I am constrained to the opinion that it 
 was hardly worthy to be called by that name. 
 For instance, upon one occ'asion, he refused 
 to obey the mandate of his Bishop, though 
 I believe the refusal was due rather to his 
 strong common-sense than to any want of 
 respect for his spiritual superior. It came 
 about in this wise. There had been a long 
 period of drought, which had not only dried 
 up the fell becks, but had burned the grass of 
 the hill pastures to its roots. Rain was greatly 
 needed, and unless it came soon the barn loads 
 would be light. All nature drooped for want 
 of water, and man and beast and land were 
 parched alike. It was this state of things that 
 moved the then Bishop of the diocese to request 
 his clergy to offer up the prepared prayer of 
 Mother Church "for rain." This my grand- 
 father, after looking in what quarter the wind 
 was, refused to do — or rather he simply 
 
12 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 omitted it. Some time subsequent to this 
 the Bishop happened to be in our mountain 
 parish, and mentioned the matter to the 
 clergyman, though quite in a loving spirit. 
 My grandfather replied that the Hard- Knott 
 winds were not the rain-bringing ones, that 
 it was no use offering up the prayer "for 
 rain" so long as the winds blew from that 
 quarter, and that he had no belief in flying 
 in the face of Providence. The drought, he 
 continued, was intended to teach us those 
 lessons of dependence which we were far too 
 apt to forget, and that the rain would come 
 in its good season. And as the parishioners 
 strongly upheld this view of the question, the 
 matter was allowed to drop. 
 
 It was this same Bishop that years after used 
 his influence to have my father appointed to a 
 then vacant See in the north, the outcome of 
 which was the following letter, addressed to 
 him : — 
 
 " Regarding not so much your private interest as the 
 interest of religion, I did what I could that the bishopric 
 might be secured to you ; and the first character I gave 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 3 
 
 of you to the king has, I doubt not, had some weight 
 with his Majesty in his promoting of you to that See ; 
 which, not to mention the honour of it, will enable you 
 to be of the utmost service to the Church of Christ. I 
 am not ignorant how much rather you choose a private 
 station ; but if you consider the condition of the Church 
 at this time, you cannot, I think, with a good conscience, 
 refuse this burden, especially as it is a part of the King- 
 dom where no man is thought fitter than yourself to be 
 of service to religion. Wherefore I charge you, before 
 God, and as you will answer to Him, that, laying all 
 excuses aside, you refuse not to assist your country and 
 do what service you can to the Church of God. In the 
 meantime, I can inform you that by the King's favour 
 you will have the bishopric just in the condition in which 
 
 Dr left it ; nothing shall be taken from it, as hath 
 
 been from some others. Wherefore, exhorting and be- 
 seeching you to be obedient to God's call herein, and 
 not to neglect the duty of your function, I commend 
 both you and this whole business to the Divine 
 Providence," &c., &c. 
 
 Notwithstanding the pressing nature of this 
 letter, it was without effect, for my father 
 returned thanks, but decHned the bishopric. 
 Seeing that he considered his whole income 
 in no other light than that of a fund to be 
 managed for the common good, the emolu- 
 ments attached to the oifered See were no 
 
14 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 inducement to accept it. As he himself ex- 
 pressed it, he " was best acquainted with his 
 own weakness, and knew-4iimself unequal to 
 the office." 
 
 Church life in the north at the time my 
 grandfather held his " living " was of the most 
 conservative description. At this early period 
 the poor of the parish were entirely dependent 
 upon their own township. And so it fell out 
 that upon the application of a destitute family 
 to one of the churchwardens a meeting was 
 hastily called, and the family was " let out " to 
 the highest bidder. As a rule there was great 
 competition for the strong lads and lasses, and 
 as these were " put up " the bidding grew quite 
 animated. If hay or salving time happened to 
 be at hand there was but little difficulty in dis- 
 posing of the whole family. 
 
 Tithe was paid " in kind," and my grandfather 
 was wont to stick a green branch upon each 
 tenth sheaf of wheat, to mark that which was to 
 be secured to the " tithe barn," which stood near 
 his house. In the old church chest there was 
 a " terrier," which sets forth the manner in 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 5 
 
 which tithes were to be paid in kind. In addi- 
 tion to the tithe of wheat there was also one of 
 wool, and the manner of tithing it was this : — 
 
 The owner lays his whole year's produce in five parcels 
 or heaps. The vicar, or person employed by him, chuseth 
 one of the five heaps, which he pleases, and divides 
 the same into two parts, of which two parts the owner 
 chuses the one, and leaves the other to the vicar for the 
 tenth part. Also the tithe of lambs in their proper kind 
 throughout the parish, and the custom concerning them 
 is this. If a person's number is one he pays a penny, if 
 two he pays twopence, and so on until five, then he pays 
 half a lamb ; if six he pays a whole lamb, the vicar 
 paying back fourpence ; if seven threepence, if eight 
 twopence ; if nine a penny ; after the vicar hath a lamb 
 complete. And in like manner for every number above 
 ten. And if a man's number is under fifty, the tithe taken 
 is this : The owner takes up two, then the vicar takes 
 one, next the owner takes nine, then again the vicar one, 
 and so on until he hath taken the number due to him. If 
 they are fifty or upwards they are put into a place to- 
 gether and run out singly through a hole or gap ; the 
 two first that come out are the owner's, the third the 
 vicar's ; then the owner has the next nine, then the vicar 
 one, and so on until the vicar has his number. And 
 if sheep are sold in the spring, the tithe of lambs is 
 paid by the person with whom they are lambed, whether 
 seller or buyer. The tithe of geese throughout the 
 parish, taken up about Michaelmas yearly, in the same 
 manner as lambs, except that where a penny is paid on 
 
1 6 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 the account of each odd lamb, a halfpenny is paid for each 
 odd goose. Also the tithe of pigs throughout the parish 
 in like manner ; also the tithe of eggs about Easter ; 
 two eggs for each old hen and duck, and one egg for each 
 chicken and duck of the first year ; also by each person 
 who sows hemp is paid annually one penny ; also for 
 each plough is paid yearly one penny ; also for every 
 person keeping bees is paid one penny ; also an oblation 
 of sixpence for every churching of women. . . . Also for 
 every person of age to communicate, three-halfpence due 
 at Easter. There is also due to the parish clerk for every 
 family in the parish keeping a separate fire three-half- 
 pence yearly, and for every proclamation in the church- 
 yard twopence. 
 
 It will be seen that almost everything which 
 the dalesfolk possessed was subject to tithing, 
 but I am bound in justice to my grandfather 
 to say that he was charitable in the levying of 
 it, and in many cases only insisted upon the 
 payment of such a small portion as to secure 
 his right to collect. There are one or two 
 matters in this list which I should hke to 
 mention, and I may also say that the " terrier " 
 which sets forth the above, we one wet after- 
 noon disinterred from a parcel of musty manu- 
 scripts in an old oaken chest which had long 
 stood in the vestry of my father's church. " It 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 7 
 
 will be seen that part of the limited income of 
 the clerk was obtained by the various proclama- 
 tions he was accustomed to make from the 
 church porch. He told of sales of peat and 
 
 
 
 Kfeffe 
 
 bacon, of farming stock, and of all those 
 matters information of which is now furnished 
 by notices on the church doors. The parish 
 clerk was a great man in old church times, as 
 B 
 
1 8 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 I shall shortly have to set forth. One of my 
 grandfather's clerks happened to be a country 
 shoemaker by trade, and he invariably brought 
 to church a capacious blue wallet in which to 
 collect " repairs." And it was not unusual to 
 see the old clergyman sitting on a tombstone 
 before service commenced, conning over these, 
 and suggesting a " speck " here and a " patch " 
 there, or whatever seemed best. The repository 
 for these was a hollow oak which stood at the 
 bottom of the churchyard ; this was blown 
 down in a storm on a Christmas day fifty 
 years ago. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 TF we happened to have had a good hay 
 harvest, and the mows filled the barns to 
 bursting, we were allowed to play in my 
 father's church on wet days or when snowed 
 in. It was upon one of these occasions that 
 we discovered in the vestry the massive oaken 
 chest, which we found to contain a great pile 
 of parish documents. Many of these were 
 old and weather-stained, and dated back 
 centuries. The chest was carved out of the 
 sojid trunk of an oak, and the yellow parch- 
 ments could not have been in safer keeping. 
 These documents gave us almost a new 
 interest in life, and subsequently we spent 
 many wintry afternoons in deciphering their 
 contents. It was from among these that we 
 came to know of the manner of tithing when 
 tithe was paid in kind. This has already 
 been set forth. In addition to the levying 
 
 "9 
 
20 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 of these there were " Easter Dues " to pay 
 according to the following table. It will 
 be seen that the article comes first in order 
 then a contraction of the same in Latin, and 
 lastly the amount : — 
 
 Smoke, fum., id. ; garden, hort, Jd., and a gentle- 
 man's, id. ; apples, pom., id. ; bees, apes, Jd. each 
 swarm till the fifth, then is. 6d., is. lod., and in like 
 proportion ; milk, lac, i^d. ; calves, vit., \A.. each till 
 five, then as in order above ; plough, arat., id.; plough- 
 ing for hire, 2d. Item, for a sermon on Ascension Day 
 
 from the Chamber of B , yearly, los. ; hemp, canal, 
 
 \A. ; flax, \ linum, id.; mire mezdow, /cenum, id. per 
 acre ; geese, ans., 2d.; colt, pul., id. till five, then as 
 above ; chickens, pul. gal., id.; and eggs in kind ; 
 swine, pore, id. each till ve, then half a pig gd., and a 
 whole pig in like proportion, &c. 
 
 Documents which we were unable to under- 
 stand we were wont to take into the house 
 to have their contents explained, and it was 
 then we first learned that our mother neither 
 approved the paying of tithes nor Easter 
 dues — that her people had always resisted 
 them, and had borne their testimony against 
 them. She would not allow that a tithe 
 upon the produce of the earth and upon the 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 21 
 
 increase of the fields was a divine institu- 
 tion, at least in our time, and without cavil- 
 ling or casting reflections upon any she lost 
 no suitable opportunity of supporting her 
 testimony to my father that tithes were an 
 anti-Christian yoke. Easter dues she pro- 
 tested against in like manner, as demands 
 originally made by the Church of Rome, but 
 continued for services which, speaking for 
 herself, she could not accept. The views 
 which my mother took on these subjects are 
 strongly impressed upon my memory, and 
 with good reason. For anything in the nature 
 of a disagreement in our home was so rare, 
 that certain occasions stand out vividly from a 
 rather colourless background. At these times 
 my mother was most becoming in what she 
 said and in her manner of saying it ; but she 
 was a woman of such strong convictions and 
 quick intellect that she always spoke out 
 clearly and well what she thought at the 
 time. My father again had much sympathy 
 with her, but still went his way, as became a 
 clergyman of the Established Church. Indeed, 
 
2 2 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 he had reason to sympathise with her, as she 
 had borne much for him. I say this because 
 the Society of Friends have a deep-rooted 
 objection to marriage by a priest, thinking 
 it inconsistent with their testimony to the 
 true nature and character of the marriage 
 ordinance. From this it will be seen that 
 from the view of the early Friends my mother 
 in her marriage committed a double fault, 
 for she was not only married by a priest, but 
 to a priest. She told me in after life that 
 she well knew what she incurred by so doing, 
 but that still she married my father advisedly, 
 and that the latter's love and kindness to 
 her during their time of courtship had only 
 proved an earnest of what she had experienced 
 through her life. The last admonition she 
 had before entering the church in her simple 
 Quaker costume was from Isaac Wilson, an 
 old friend and an elder. He said, "Whilst 
 people differ in religious views, they stand 
 disunited in the main point — even that which 
 should increase and confirm their mutual happi- 
 ness, and render them helps to each other." 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 23 
 
 As yet I have only spoken of the primitive 
 church life in the valley, and have said but 
 little of that of the people. The living of 1780 
 presented a striking contrast with that of 
 to-day. It was then that a great revolution 
 in the manners and customs of the people 
 took place. Much that was singular and 
 characteristic among them vanished at the 
 opening of the turnpike roads. These afforded 
 them opportunities for the purchase of objects 
 of comfort, even of elegance, and produced 
 results which soon spread to the more secluded 
 mountain dales. The tracks of the pack horses 
 were difficult for travellers at all times, and as 
 a rule they were ill kept. Personal intercourse 
 with the southern portions of the country was 
 then difficult. We speak lightly now of the 
 will-making of our fore-elders before starting on 
 a long journey, but to them this was a matter 
 of no small consideration, and those whose 
 business took them from home settled their 
 worldly affairs before starting. Many of these 
 were small manufacturers of woollen goods, 
 having small mills on the mountain streams. 
 
24 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 Their goods they sometimes travelled to sell, 
 conveying their merchandise on the backs of 
 pack-horses. With the macadamised, roads 
 the strings of pack-horses began to decline, 
 and post-chaises were introduced. Soon after 
 this carriers' carts and wagons came in, and 
 a tale began to be told in the dales by one 
 who had seen it, that a stage-coach had begun 
 to run from Edinburgh to London, passing 
 the foot of the valley on its way, and the 
 marvellous part of the story was that this 
 " flying machine " took but fourteen days for 
 the journey. Older people shook their 
 heads doubtingly at the enterprise, and some 
 of the learned doctors warned people from 
 travelling by the wild and whirling vehicle, 
 as the rate at which it went would 
 bring upon them all manner of strange dis- 
 orders, chief among which was apoplexy. 
 This was only the beginning, however, of 
 many and rapid changes. Then, spinning 
 wheels were in every hill farm, and the cloth 
 which the dalesfolk wore was homespun. Out- 
 side the domestic circle a few hand - loom 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 25 
 
 weavers wove cloth of duffel grey for the men 
 and russet for the use of the women. Finer 
 wool for finer work was carefully combed 
 within the settle nook, but almost all for 
 domestic use. The woolcomber was a great 
 
 man in those days, and the itinerant who 
 tramped the country and turned wooden dishes 
 and such - like articles was always received 
 kindly. These men were the news carriers 
 of the times, and it was from among them, 
 some years later, that our neighbour, Mr 
 Wordsworth, drew the character of his im- 
 
26 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 mortal " Wanderer.'' The produce of the 
 flax-field yielded material for holiday attire, 
 and it was in great request amongst women. 
 In those days the travelling tailor went from 
 house to house in search of employment, and 
 in the larger of them was sometimes detained 
 for weeks. He worked for daily wages, and 
 amply paid for his meat and drink by the 
 news he brought. Although the home produce 
 was large, money was scarce, and the earnings 
 of the servants were paid " in kind." The 
 girls received shifts and gowns and aprons ; 
 the men shirts and coats, with sometimes a 
 little wool and corn. In money the annual 
 wages of a man - servant would have been 
 about £s, of a woman £2. In our old hill 
 church there is a fine mural monument to 
 Dame Gylpine, of the Hall. I have before 
 me an account of "the holle yeare waigs of 
 
 all her servants at S ," and these amount 
 
 to 290s. for eight men and nine "maydes." 
 In the days of Dame Gylpine (about fifty 
 years before the time of which I am speaking) 
 a thorough knowledge of domestic art was 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 2"] 
 
 considered necessary to fit a lady for the 
 duties of wife and mother. Where one woman 
 can knit a pair of stockings now there were 
 a hundred then, though in the matters of 
 music and philosophy the proportion is re- 
 versed. And in these bygone days, even the 
 country gentle-folk deemed it no degradation 
 to manage their own affairs down to the 
 minutest details. 
 
 I am glad to say that my mother encouraged 
 us, especially my sister Rachel, in all the little 
 home arts, and we proved proficients in many 
 of them. Our work with the wool I shall have 
 to speak of later, and it was this that provided 
 our chief indoor labour and employment during 
 the long winter evenings. 
 
 From what I know of the old parish chest 
 already mentioned, I cannot but think that 
 there is much valuable history like to that 
 which it contains which has not yet seen the 
 light. I am bound to confess that in times 
 past the clergy were very careless of these 
 treasures, and did nothing to preserve them. 
 Their worst enemies would seem to have 
 
28 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 been mice and damp. Fortunately, those in 
 my father's church were in the bowels of an 
 oak tree as it were, and have not suffered 
 much. Then the walls of the church were 
 of such extraordinary thickness that damp 
 could never penetrate them, and I am pleased 
 to say that most of the chest documents can 
 be easily deciphered. Of these I intend to 
 say a little here, and also to give some 
 specimens. I have already set forth several of 
 these ancient manuscripts on tithes and Easter 
 dues, and the manner in which they were 
 levied. Among the more interesting docu- 
 ments were the churchwardens' books. It 
 appears from entries in these, that upon the 
 occasion of the " letting out " of a family the 
 churchwardens spent not stintingly in liquor. 
 They also " loosed goods out of pawn," and 
 I find an entry of two shillings for " seeing 
 Ann Andie through her confinement," and 
 another of ninepence for " cloggs for Aggie 
 Todd's bastard." This last entry reminds me 
 that illegitimacy was one of the commonest 
 evils in the dales a century ago, and was 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 29 
 
 perhaps owing to the very imperfect domestic 
 arrangements, more especially in farm houses. 
 
 Another entry in one of the books is to 
 the effect that John Wilson be paid at the 
 rate of ;^5 for his first two years of mole- 
 catching, and £2 annually afterwards. The 
 number of ravens' heads for which the church- 
 wardens paid is great, as many as twelve 
 having been received at one time. These 
 were fastened to the door of the church, as 
 were the feet of the marten, weasel, otter, 
 badger, stoat, foumart, carrion crow, &c. The 
 vicar paid 3d. for the head of a raven, 6d. 
 for that of a fox or a badger, 3d. for that of 
 a marten, and id. each for the smaller vermin. 
 Another frequent item in the books is that of . 
 strewing the floor with rushes, 2s. 6d. "Ringing 
 the year " seems to have been a regular institu- 
 tion, this being done at Christmas and Easter. 
 A penny is the price for making and setting 
 the dial post, remains of which still exist in 
 the churchyard. A " constable " received 
 annual payment, and needy wayfarers were 
 frequently relieved. At the "hanging of the 
 
30 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 belle" much money was spent in liquor, and 
 the clerk's wages amounted to sixteen shillings 
 a year. Other contents of the chest are wills, 
 of which there are many, some of them 
 strangely curious as to their contents. The 
 one following, dated 1 542, is that of a tanner. 
 Tanning, even three centuries ago, was almost 
 the only trade of a neighbouring valley, and 
 it was practised by a few families just at the 
 estuary of the Greenwash. Here is the v/ill of 
 Edmunde Persone — 
 
 In Dei nomine, Amen. The xxjth daye off Decembre, 
 in the yere off oure Lorde Gode a thousande fyv hun- 
 drethe forty and two, I, Edmunde Persone, off the 
 
 parishynge off C , tannere, hoi of mynde and off 
 
 gud remembrance, seke and craiysed . . . and wote 
 not when God will call me to his mercye, maketh my 
 laste wylle and testamente in maner and fourme folow- 
 ying. Fyrst, I gyve and bewhethithe my sowle unto 
 Almighty God, and to oure blessed Ladye Saynte Marye, 
 and to all the holy company of hevyn, and my body to 
 
 be buried within my parish churche of B , before the 
 
 ymage of our Ladye. Also it is my wylle that the said 
 churche shall have all it duties accustomede. Item ; I 
 give and bewheth mye hole tityll and tenandright of my 
 howse and farmhold with all the appurtenannce thereto 
 belongynge in W , aftere my decesse, unto Thomas 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 3 I 
 
 Borrowe, sone into mye doughter Mabelle, with my 
 barkhouse and the instruments thereto belongynge. 
 Also I wylle that Edwarde Borrowe, brothere to the 
 saide Thomas, have his father's place lying at the 
 Storthe, with the licence off the lorde, after the decesse 
 of my saide doughter Mabelle. Also it is my wyll that 
 such a sowme of goods as I have named unto Sire 
 
 Richard Dykonson, vicare of the said B , Sir Henry 
 
 Ayraye, Richard Bradegate, Waltere Kendalle, and 
 Edwarde Symson, shal be geven unto a stokker at 
 my saide parishe church, towarde the fyndynge off a 
 preste for to teche a free scole, and to praye for my 
 sawle and all christen sawles. Also it is my wyll that 
 iiij. nowbills of the sayd sowme shal ne geven to praye 
 for my sonnes saule, Miles Persone, and other iiij. now- 
 bills of ye same sowme, to be for the saule off Robert 
 Newbye to be prayed for also. Also it is mye wyll to 
 make the cost off the mason warke to the supportacione 
 
 and makynge of a brigge at the end of M . Also I 
 
 gyve to the mendynge of the cawsere betwix S and 
 
 brigge. . . . Also I gyve unto the mendynge of the 
 gutture in Melood chancelle, vjs. viijd. Also it is my 
 wylle . . . siche guds as I have gevne to a stoke to ye 
 fyndynge of a preste at the chapell of our Lady on ye 
 
 ... in ye W , shal remayne to the same porpose 
 
 forever. Also I ordeyne and maketbe my right . . . 
 full Ladye Anne Aeshton, Petere Crosfield, and Waltere 
 
 Kendalle my hole executors, and Edward , all the 
 
 reste off my goodes that doth remayne from . . . 
 whethes and gifts shall be disposed at the sight and 
 discretione of my said executors, for the helth of my 
 
32 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 sawle. Also I wylle that the said Edward Symson and 
 Thomas Borrowe resave the said sowme gevyn to . . . 
 
 stak at B by me and shall receive it at my hande 
 
 and be orderers and as hids for me and latters furth of 
 the same, as is more largely shewed in a writynge bering 
 
 date hereofe. Item, I make John Martyndalle 
 
 Masborowe the supervisors of this my last will and 
 testament, to se yt it be well & truly fulfilled an kepid 
 . . . true intent. The witnesse heroff. Sire Richarde 
 Dykonson, Sir Henry Ayraye, Richard Bradegate with 
 other mo, & specially William Peper & Thomas Grubye. 
 This is ye Inventarye of the goods of Edmunde 
 
 Persone of W , latlye decessed, on whose saule God 
 
 have mercye, seyne & prised by John Matyndales, 
 Thomas Peper, William Peper, & Thomas Grubye, on 
 the iiijth day of Januarye in the xxxiiijth yere of the 
 reygne of Kynge Henrye the vijth. Fyrst, so many 
 sheipe olde and zinge as cometh to ye valew of v. marks. 
 And by farther knawlege we fyndmo yt cometh to the 
 valew of xiijs. iiijd. Also we fynde shepe of ane other 
 ... to ye valew of xUjs. iiijd. Also we have seyn such 
 beddying and insyght as was in the howse and an olde 
 horse yt cometh to ye valew of xxxiijs. iiijd. Also so 
 muche ledes in ye lymme pytts as draweth xix marks, 
 vjs. viijd. Debeia qua ei debentur. Primis, Maistres 
 
 Curwen, when sche was widow at H , xls. Item, 
 
 Jamis Robynson of Crostewhat, xlvs. Item, Mils Sym- 
 kynson, xxxvs. viijd., and my will is yt he be easelye 
 dalte with all. Item, William Crossfelde, vjs. viijd. 
 Thomas Banke, xiijs. Edwarde Kylners wyf, iiijd. 
 Thomas Banke xiijs. Edwarde Kylners wyf, ijs. Miles 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 33 
 
 Deconson, xxvs. Henry Sherman, vs. iiijd., which he 
 
 tok up at M . Nycolas Crathom, vs., whiche the 
 
 said Heniy Sherman toke up. Thomas Browne, xixs. 
 
 vijd. Miles Knype, xijs. George Mason of D , 
 
 xxviijs. iiijd. Leonarde Waller, xls. James Striclande, 
 
 iijs. One Bone of L , vjs. viijd. Also there was 
 
 spendyde at his buryall, to ye church dutye, to the 
 priests and clarkes, and for the dinner, xls. Also ye 
 expenses at was made in his house, while he layde, 
 and at his wawke, xvjs., whiche the saide Edmunde 
 saide shulde be paide with his awn gudes. Also vjs. 
 viijd. to Jenette Loremere late his servante. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 T REMEMBER two parish clerks in connec- 
 tion with our old hill church, which is a 
 privilege not given to most men. These im- 
 portant items of parish rule are generally long- 
 lived, and how I come to have known two is 
 that one of them was a very old man when I 
 was a boy, and he lived to a great age. Dales- 
 folk invariably do. Upon this I would remark, 
 that although Italian skies might prevail gener- 
 ally, our poor hill parish seemed to be per- 
 petually under a cloud. And yet, in spite of 
 life being spent in cold mists, the dwellers in 
 the dale attained to a ripe old age. This was 
 peculiarly so with parish clerks. In their 
 number of days these worthies seemed to 
 treat the orthodox threescore years and ten 
 with a lofty contempt, and some of the people 
 openly expressed themselves to the effect that 
 this was a mistranslation. To attempt to de- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 35 
 
 scribe these ancient pieces of anatomy would 
 convey but general ideas. In the dales even 
 now they are occasionally met with, and seem 
 to be carved out of the tree of life. Many of 
 them live years beyond their share, and a few 
 can recount the history of a century. To come, 
 however, from a class to an individual : — 
 
 The Bible says the age o' man 
 Threescore and ten perchance may be. 
 He's ninety-eight. Let them wha' can 
 Explain the incongruity. 
 He should ha' lived afore the flood, 
 He's come o' patriarchal blood, 
 He's some auld pagan mummified, 
 For further continuity. 
 
 In short, a young parish clerk is as rare as 
 a Quaker baby. Those known to us boys 
 were old, very old. At least they always 
 seemed so, and I do not think that it ever 
 once struck us that they were once young like 
 ourselves. By some strange combination of 
 circumstances, the parish clerk was either a 
 shoemaker or a tailor. And yet he was never 
 modest. Matthew Mould was a ■ shoemaker ; 
 but then he always kept the " little shop," was 
 
36 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 postmaster, registrar, and chief constable. He 
 
 used to stumble over the personal names in 
 
 the Psalms in a manner that was alarming, 
 
 but no one ever suggested that he was ignorant. 
 
 His predecessor, R. G., " surgeon, parish clerk, 
 
 and schoolmaster," 
 
 " Reforms ladies and gentlemen that he draws teeth 
 without waiting a moment — blisters on the lowest terms, 
 and fysicks at a penny. Sells Godfather's cordial, cuts 
 corns, and undertakes to keep anybody's nails by the 
 year or so on. Young lades and gentelmen tort their 
 grammer language in the neatest possible manner ; also 
 grate care taken of their morals and spellin ; also sarme 
 singing and teaching the Ho, boy, cow Tillions and other 
 dances tort at home and abroad. Perfumery in all its 
 branches. Sells all sorts of stationery wares, black balls, 
 red herring, and coles. Scrubben brushes, trecle, mouse 
 traps, and all other sort of sweetmeats ; taters, sassages, 
 and other garden stuffs ; also frute, hats, ballits, novel, 
 tinware, and other eatables. Turnner sarve, corn sarve, 
 and all hardwares. He also performs fleebottomy in a 
 curious manner, old rags bought and sold here, not any 
 ware helse, and new-laid eggs ^ery day. ... P. S. I 
 teeches joggrefy and all them outlandish things. N.B. 
 A bawl on Wednesday." 
 
 Matthew Mould, my father's clerk, rose above 
 his contemporaries in the matter of learning. 
 He knew everything, and was' consulted by 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 2,^ 
 
 everybody ; and in the person of this worthy 
 was carried about the unwritten history of the 
 place. Like another Toby Wilt, he was on 
 friendship with the bells, and, we used to think, 
 with the bats and owls that frequented the 
 belfrey. Once daily for fifty long years he 
 climbed the stone steps to wind up the quaint 
 clock in the tower, and, like the famous 
 prisoner of Chillon, he has left his footprints 
 on the stairs. In church, Matthew occupied 
 the lowest tier of the "three-decker," which 
 was surmounted by a sounding board. Before 
 service commenced he used to hang out" a 
 blackboard over the edge of the gallery, on 
 which was inscribed the number of the psalms 
 we were to sing that day. Then, as service 
 progressed, he gave out the psalm from the 
 desk. He held a pitch-pipe in his hand, and 
 blew a sepulchral note out of it, as the key-note 
 of the tune. As one of the worshippers has 
 said; this was done with a dismal sort of 
 flourish to the nasal monotone in which he 
 read out the words, for the sake of illustration 
 running as follpws : — 
 
38 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 O, 'twas a joyful sound to hear 
 Our tribes devoutly say — Too, Too. 
 
 The singers took up the note and off they 
 went, with bassoon and clarionet accompani- 
 
 ment, to one of those grand old tunes which 
 requires the last two lines to be sung in frac- 
 tional parts, and ends in a comprehensive 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 39 
 
 bang, in which everybody, vocalists and instru- 
 mentalists, come in together at the finish. 
 They had parted company early in the proceed- 
 ings. Excruciating melodies those tunes were, 
 the composition for the most part of parish 
 clerks. At the hill church the Nunc Dimittis 
 used to be sung to an arrangement of " O Lady 
 Fair," with variations only as regarded time. 
 There was also a version of " My mother bids 
 me bind my hair," as a common measure, 
 with quite ingenious alliteration. Although 
 the parish clerks of the hill churches were 
 ignorant, they were by no means modest, 
 for once when the minister had lost his 
 way in the Communion Service, he was 
 called to order by the clerk vociferating, 
 "Ye've missed 'pistle." Upon occasion it has 
 always been, and is even now, in winter, 
 customary in time of snow to have a short 
 service if there be only four or five worship- 
 pers, and then to adjourn to the vestry, where 
 there is usually a turf fire. At these times 
 parish affairs are discussed, and the men-folk 
 have sometimes gone so far as to have the 
 
40 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 added comfort of tobacco. It was rarely, 
 however, that service was altogether aban- 
 doned, and the ecclesiastical procedure set 
 down below is perhaps without a precedent. 
 It happened in one of the hill dales, and 
 the church in which it occurred is located 
 to this day. Upon one memorable occasion 
 the clerk gave notice to the assembled 
 worshippers to the following effect—" There'll 
 be nae service in this church for m'appon a 
 matter o' fower weeks, as parson's hen is 
 sitting in t' pulpit." 
 
 I have said that one of our parish clerks 
 among his other offices held that of chief 
 constable. There was but little of ill-doing 
 in the dale, but when a rare malefactor was 
 taken in his wickedness it fell to the lot of 
 the clerk to convey his prisoner to one of the 
 northern gaols. He was always charitably 
 disposed, however, and to show this, and his 
 topographical knowledge, he invariably con- 
 ducted his prisoner about the town, so that 
 he might not lose his way when liberated. To 
 his lot upon another occasion it fell to exe- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 4 1 
 
 cute a writ of fieri facias on a doctor. The 
 latter spied him coming, and, like Penn of 
 old, barricaded the premises. Finding per- 
 suasion and cajolery of no avail to gain 
 admission, he tried the strength of legal 
 authority. " I demand," cried he, " admit- 
 tance under the Act of the Fiery Furnace." 
 How far the terrible threat succeeded is not 
 known. The same clerk never passed the 
 communion rails without bobbing his head, 
 just as the old women who came to church 
 always curtesied in the same act. Everybody 
 turned to the east at the creed, though not one 
 of them, including the clerk, exactly knew why. 
 There was one custom in these old 
 church days which had a strong hold 
 upon the people, and which lingers in the 
 hill parishes yet. All the female part of 
 the- congregation who came to afternoon 
 service carried their prayer books (they were 
 innocent of print) in their handkerchiefs. In 
 addition to this they had a bit of "suttering 
 wood," and a small packet of strong mint 
 lozenges. They would as soon have thought 
 
42 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 of attending church without these fetishes as 
 without their Sunday gowns. 
 
 I well remember a university friend being 
 brought to book by our parish clerk. My 
 father had invited the former to take part 
 in the service, as was his wont when clerical 
 friends visited us. If I remember aright, it 
 was one of the first occasions my friend had 
 officiated, and in his nervousness he gave out 
 the wrong day of the month before singing 
 morning psalms. This the old man detected 
 immediately. He looked up and said, " Nay, 
 parson, yer wrang howiver, it's t' day after." 
 Matthew always spoke in the broadest dialect, 
 and before service, after sounding on his pitch- 
 pipe, he would walk up the aisle, repeating, 
 " Let's begin t' worship o' God wi' singin' 
 t' Morning Hymn ; " and the choir, worshippers, 
 and clerk would bang away at "Awake my soul 
 and with the sun," &c. 
 
 I have already said something of the quaint- 
 ness of the parish clerks of our own church and 
 of those belonging to the neighbouring valleys, 
 but if these were characters in their own way, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 43 
 
 they were admirably kept in countenance by 
 many of the old clergymen who were my 
 grandfather's contemporaries. In a certain 
 northern coast village, for instance, it was 
 the custom to despoil the wreckage when 
 vessels were driven ashore. Here upon the 
 beach there stood a quaint old church 
 which often served as a morgue, for the 
 drifting sandbanks of these seas were a 
 Charybdis to the coast mariners, and as many 
 as twenty-five bodies have been laid out in 
 the little church at one time. During service 
 there rushed in one Sunday morning an excited 
 parishioner with the news that a well-laden 
 vessel had been driven ashore. The members 
 of the congregation were immediately on their 
 feet and rushing towards the doors, when their 
 pastor appealed to them in solemn tones : 
 " Brethren," said he, " let's start fair," and with 
 that he bolted out of the vestry door. I have 
 heard it said that this parson and his flock 
 almost lived on wreckage, and were by no 
 means particular as to how they caused it. 
 The church here was entirely without drapery, 
 
44 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and the parson's surplice hung over a desk 
 where he had last doffed it. The graves in 
 the churchyard were in clusters, and those 
 buried were of almost every nationality. To 
 pass on to a practice which prevailed in the 
 same district — not in the hill country, but at 
 a then fishing village — not long ago either, it 
 may be mentioned that it was the wont of the 
 clerk to announce, just before the Litany, the 
 sales of agricultural produce which were likely 
 to take place during the current week — a bit of 
 ritual likely to alarm latter-day worshippers. 
 In fact, I am afraid these announcements were 
 of as much importance as the sermon to some, 
 and of more to others. But our old church 
 folk are fast dying out, and with them their 
 practices ; so that the descendants of the hill 
 parishes to-day, instead of proclaiming these 
 mundane things from the second tier of a 
 three-decker, simply affix a notice to the like 
 effect on the church door, the said document 
 often consisting of words and phrases fearfully 
 and wonderfully made. 
 
 A parallel to my grandfather in some 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 45 
 
 respects — though I am afraid more worldly- 
 minded — was a stout hill clergyman who was 
 a great authority on cattle. He was a regular 
 attender and one of the best known figures at 
 the fortnightly fair, and here he might be seen 
 poking cattle in the ribs, and valuing them. 
 Upon these occasions he was dressed in a long 
 black coat, drab breeches and gaiters, and he 
 invariably carried a big stick. Later in the 
 day he might be seen in the village alehouse, 
 surrounded by his brother bucolics, smoking 
 a long clay pipe, and drinking beer. Being 
 asked once how he found time to compose his 
 sermons, he said that he had never made one 
 out of his own head for thirty years. " I give 
 my folk Tillotson," said he, " and what can 
 you find better.? " He was a learned antiquary, 
 however, as was the case with many of the 
 old country clergy, and it is said that he could 
 recite the title to every estate for miles around, 
 and knew the parish boundaries to an inch. 
 The old man died many years ago of a cold 
 caught on the wintry moors in crossing to visit 
 a dying woman. This reverend man being (and 
 
46 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 of necessity) much interested in farming pur- 
 suits, it is not extraordinary that one Sunday, 
 before commencing service, he leant over the 
 edge of the pulpit and said to a parishioner 
 in a loud whisper — " Have ye seen owt o' two 
 hill sheep o' mine ; they're smitten i' t'ear like 
 yours, but deeper i' smit ? " This man was 
 one of that class of clergy who had to farm 
 their glebe land so as to make both ends 
 meet, and being in a hill district had a run 
 for sheep upon the common, which was 
 then without fences and unenclosed. A neigh- 
 bour of ours, a clergyman, who was somewhat 
 eccentric, but who possessed strong common 
 sense, found upon one occasion when he had 
 mounted the pulpit that he had forgotten his ser- 
 mon. He felt in all his pockets for his missing 
 manuscript, but failing to find it he said that 
 if the people did not mind he would read them 
 a chapter from the book of the prophet Job, 
 remarking that this was worth at least the 
 best six sermons that he had ever written. 
 No one objected, and the good old man read 
 the chosen chapter to the good of all. Miss 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 47 
 
 Martineau was fond of relating an anecdote 
 of a hill parson who could get through the 
 church service in a shorter time than any of 
 his neighbours. He would give any living 
 clergyman a start as far as some portion, 
 which he indicated, and then he would beat 
 him in the end. 
 
 For many years the church at L was 
 
 without a door, with the consequence that in 
 rough weather the cattle used to take ad- 
 vantage of it as a " bield " or shelter, by 
 reason of which it was not unfrequently pol- 
 luted. To prevent this a large thorn bush 
 was dragged into the doorway. After service 
 (the parson of course leaving by the vestry 
 door) it was generally understood that the 
 last who left the church was to place the 
 thorn in situ, the parson going round to see 
 fair play, and to act as referee if necessary. 
 
 At the church where this took place, from the 
 terribly severe hills among which it lies, service 
 was probably more frequently omitted than 
 elsewhere in the whole of the Lake group 
 of mountains. And if the snow happened 
 to be exceptionally heavy, and there were 
 
48 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 but few present at the administration of the 
 Holy Communion, the clergyman used ■ to 
 whisper to those kneeling at the rails, " Drink 
 gayly deep ; there's not many o' us this 
 morning." Where this occurred the clerk had 
 the strongest pair of lungs in the country- 
 side; he could not only drown the parson's 
 voice, but that of the assembled congregation, 
 and he did it too. Here it used to be the 
 custom to hold wrestling matches in the 
 Church Field, and to indulge in various 
 games of prowess. When the bell had tolled 
 for the " last time," the young yeomen 
 would don their coats, jump over the wall, 
 and come filing into church, spitting on their 
 hands to smooth down their rebellious hair. 
 
 In a neighbouring parish, one Annas 
 Jackson, for some sin of her frail nature, had 
 to do penance in her girlhood by walking 
 barefoot through the church in a white sheet. 
 This garment was afterwards suspended behind 
 the vestry door, and was once put on by a 
 stranger clergyman who had come to officiate. 
 Remarking its soiled appearance to the clerk, 
 he was told to take it off, as it was " old 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 49 
 
 Anna's penance sheet." In still another dale 
 the inhabitants were in the habit of going out 
 hunting on Sundays. Their Sabbath breaking 
 and lawlessness became so flagrant that the 
 parson openly denounced them from the pul- 
 pit, and said, " O, ye wicked of W , if you 
 
 go a-hunting any more on the Sabbath day, 
 I'll go with you," and the clergyman, being as 
 fond of hunting as the rest, kept his word and 
 went. Parish feeling runs strongly now-a-days, 
 but not more so than in old times, as the 
 following incident will show. An impres- 
 sive sermon was preached, and all were 
 moved to tears, except one old man. Upon 
 being remonstrated with, he said he didn't 
 cry "because he didn't belong to the parish." 
 This church lore is of a past order of 
 both men and things, only I have thought 
 it well to preserve some of the healthiest 
 anecdotes concerning them, and these may 
 not prove uninteresting. Wrestling, spell and 
 knur, pitch and toss, are now no longer played 
 at the church door, and nearly all things in this 
 connection have improved. 
 D 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ANYONE who had visited our old hill 
 church might have found what in Athens 
 Diogenes sought in vain — an honest man, or 
 at least the record of one. The graveyard was 
 a strange, tumbledown place, and the stones 
 scattered about were with homely rhymes and 
 shapeless sculpture decked. The slab to which 
 I particularly allude covered the sod where- 
 under lay the remains of one John Taylor, a 
 yeoman. And anent it we are told — 
 
 One truth o'er these remains below, 
 More lasting honour will bestow 
 Than lineage, weaUh, or grandeur can — 
 Here lies interred an honest man. 
 
 Down in a corner of the ground was a mound 
 overgrown with docks and nettles. These 
 covered the remains of a poor wayfarer whom 
 we found one Christmas time on the fells dead 
 and half buried with snow. He had nothing 
 upon him by which he could be identified, and 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 5 I 
 
 we buried him as decently as we could in the 
 mountain churchyard, having to dig through 
 the hard frosty ground to make his grave. 
 Nobody cared for him in his new resting- 
 place, and nature soon obliterated the spot 
 with a covering of kindly mantling green. 
 None of the surrounding stones were of 
 much interest, though inside the church 
 was a mural monument to Dame Gylpine, of 
 the Hall, done in white marble. There was 
 also one which bore the following curious 
 epitaph : — 
 
 A man I was, wormes meate I am, 
 
 To earth returned from whence I came. 
 
 Many removes on earth I had, 
 
 In earth at length my bed is made ; 
 
 A bed which Christ did not disdaine, 
 
 Ahhough it could not him retaine, 
 
 His deadlie foes might plainly see. 
 
 Over sin and death his victorie. 
 
 Here must I rest till Christ shall let me see 
 
 His promised Jerusalem and her felicitie. 
 
 These lines were carved over the remains of 
 a truly remarkable man, whom Sir Walter Scott 
 has immortalised otherwhere. At the west 
 
52 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 end of the old church is the following inscrip- 
 tion in a large wooden frame, in black 
 characters on a gold ground : — 
 
 Here lyes Frances, 
 
 late wife of Jacob 
 
 Dawson, gent., who 
 
 departed this life 19 
 
 June 1700 ; in ye 25th year 
 
 of her age. 
 
 Who by a Free, and chearfull 
 
 resignation of herselfe 
 
 (even in the midst of 
 
 this world's affluence) 
 
 Has left us just grounds 
 
 to hope she is 
 
 now happy. 
 
 This epitaph has given rise in the dale to a 
 witticism, used sometimes as a toast on par- 
 ticular occasions of festivity, viz., " May we 
 all live as Jacob Dawson's wife died." The 
 last inscription which I shall give as being 
 of any general interest is that on' a brass plate 
 within the Communion rails, and is probably 
 unique. It runs as follows ; " Herevnder 
 Lyeth ye Body of Mr Ravlph Tirer, Late 
 
 Vicar of , Batchler of Divinity, Who Dyed 
 
 the 4th Day of Jvne, Ano ; Dni : 1627." 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 53 
 
 London bredd me, Westminster fedd me, 
 Cambridge sped me, my Sister wed me. 
 Study taught me, Living sought me. 
 
 Learning brought me, K caught me, 
 
 Labour pressed me, sickness distressed me, 
 Death oppressed me, and grave possessed me, 
 God first gave me, Christ did save me, 
 Earth did crave me, and heaven would have me. 
 
 I shall leave this remarkable epitaph (which, 
 as might be supposed, was written by the 
 reverend gentleman himself) and pass on to 
 other matters connected with our little church. 
 To return to the graveyard, there was, standing 
 slightly off the path, a quaint sun-dial, of a 
 strange and curious make. This, however, 
 was broken and tumbled, and had been super- 
 seded many years by the silver watches owned 
 by the farmers. These were huge pieces of 
 mechanism, and were carried in their owners' 
 " fobs." They had also many dependent seals 
 and curiously contorted scraps of metal attached, 
 all of which gave dignity to the wearer. It was 
 a sight to see these stalwart yeomen dive down 
 into their capacious pockets and bring up 
 watches. It entailed a struggle and a whole 
 
54 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 series of evolutions. The body was drawn up, 
 the head thrown a Httle aside, whilst the great 
 rubicund face twitched in every muscle the 
 
 wjaile. But all this exertion went for some- 
 thing, for, once the watch was outside, the 
 yeoman held it at arm's length before him, 
 

56 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and gazed upon it with a slow appreciative 
 intelligence lasting several minutes, and when 
 he had fathomed its meaning he let it drop 
 slowly down again to its depths. Near the 
 sun-dial was a large flat-topped blue cobble 
 from the stream bed, from which the sales were 
 announced by the clerk ; and a " mounting- 
 stone " of a like nature stood just outside the 
 churchyard gate. In my grandfather's day 
 pillions were in use, and although some of 
 these survive among the lumber of the old 
 barns, they are now rarely or never used. 
 
 Over the churchyard entrance was, and 
 
 n.'— 
 
 still is, a " lich-gate." Many of the older 
 country churches retain these, and by them 
 hangs a history. They are remotely connected 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 57 
 
 with the plague which ravaged these parts at an 
 early period. No ancient document furnishes 
 much concerning them, but one I found in 
 the parish chest contained the following : 
 
 " Plague was in P and K 1554" (these 
 
 being neighbouring parishes). From other 
 sources, however, we know that .this epidemic 
 periodically devastated certain parts of the 
 North, and that it visited this parish in 1384. 
 Nearly two hundred years elapsed before 
 another attack occurred, but in 1 597 the terrible 
 scourge again visited the dales, and almost 
 depopulated some of them. In one parish 
 alone, certainly a large one, 2500 of the in- 
 habitants perished. In support of this the 
 inscription here set down is confirmatory : 
 "A.D. 1598, ex gravi peste quae regionibus 
 
 hisce incubuit obierunt, apud P , 2,260, 
 
 K ,2,500, R , 2,200, C , 1,160. Posteri 
 
 vortite vos et vivite (i)." Now, it will be seen 
 that during an infectious pestilence of this 
 nature, personal communication between dwel- 
 lers of different parts would be almost cut off. 
 At first probably but few deaths occurred, and, 
 
58 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 to prevent contagion, corpses, instead of being 
 taken into the church, were deposited on biers 
 beneath the " lich-gate," where the service for 
 the dead would be read. (Lich is the Saxon 
 litsh, a dead body, a corpse. A "lichwake" 
 was a watching near the dead ; and " lichfield," 
 the field of the dead bodies ; the lich-owl was 
 superstitiously s_upposed to foretell death.) At 
 the period to which I refer, lich-gates were 
 probably introduced, and have since been so 
 called. Beneath them the corpses of those 
 who had died in the plague were laid so as to 
 incur less chance of spreading the disease by 
 introducing them within the church. From 
 that day they have come down to our own, 
 and are even now common. The people who 
 died of the plague were not buried in the usual 
 burial grounds — the number precludes that idea. 
 In the hill parishes there was not room for 
 them, nor were there those to undertake the 
 task. Whole families were carried off together, 
 and the streets of the country towns remained 
 silent. The sick were left to die unaided. 
 Country people whose parishes had as yet 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 59 
 
 escaped the plague hardly dared to venture 
 within the precincts of the towns, and left 
 the provisions which they brought to places 
 agreed upon, whence they could be taken 
 by the townspeople. The money with which 
 these were purchased was deposited in a stone 
 trough, containing some disinfecting liquid, and 
 not until it had undergone this process would 
 the farmers receive it in payment for their 
 goods. But where in the parish was this 
 burial place of the vast numbers who had 
 died .'' For years I had been interested in the 
 matter, and had tried hard to discover it, when 
 one day, talking to an old dalesman, he referred 
 to one of his inclosures as " Barrow Field." 
 Here, I thought, was a clue, for the name alone 
 was suggestive. " Barrow " signifies a burial 
 place — a tumulus raised as a depository of the 
 dead, a custom of the Saxons. From these 
 early people the name " barrow " had been 
 handed on and on, even to my old parishioner. 
 One afternoon I walked there to view the spot, 
 and found it in the last belt of cultivation, and 
 half way up the fell side ; it was also a con- 
 
6o THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 siderable distance from the road — probably for 
 protective reasons. The grass was green over 
 all, and there were no extraordinary indica- 
 tions. The wall which surrounded it, however, 
 had at some time remote been immensely thick, 
 and there are remains of an ancient gateway. 
 I thrust my stick into the turf, and everywhere 
 met stone. Parts of the fence, which is roughly 
 triangular, are peculiar, and unhke the sur- 
 rounding one. Then we dug down, and found 
 what we thought to be burnt clothing, and 
 that is all we could ever find ; nor is it likely 
 that anything of importance will be further 
 discovered. 
 
 Of the oaken chest in the vestry I have 
 already spoken. So interesting are its quaint 
 contents that it is really difficult to get away 
 from them ; and next to the Churchwardens' 
 books, maybe the most interesting are the 
 Parish Registers. These yellow-stained parch- 
 ment documents constitute a form of literature 
 I could never resist. In all the old churches of 
 the hill valleys you may find them, for the most 
 part in chests such as I have described — heavy 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 6 1 
 
 and hoary with age. Wipe away the dusts of 
 antiquity, and they contain a record of for- 
 gotten things — many of them wisely so — and 
 transport you to a past existence which you 
 have but dimly dreamed of in this. If you 
 would take the advice of one who has grown 
 grey in their research, you will "let the dead 
 past bury its dead." Never invade a parish 
 register in this north country otherwise than as 
 a curiosity of literature. You are young, and 
 dream that blue blood runs in your veins ? Be 
 it so. Or there is some vast fortune about to 
 accrue to you, and you wish to gather up the 
 scattered links ? You have infinite faith in the 
 respectability of your family.' Then let that 
 faith be an abiding one. But don't, we beseech 
 you, seek to verify these things through a parish 
 register. If you do, you will find that it con- 
 tains one terrible moral — that we are essentially 
 of the earth, earthy ; that our fore-elders were 
 like us, "but more so." After this fair warning, 
 should you be so indiscreet, your dreams will 
 be rudely shaken. You go to the register to 
 clear up some little crotchet of family history. 
 
62 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 You have taken it as an acknowledged fact, and 
 make pretty sure of your ground in the pedigree 
 as far back as your grandfather. It is possible, 
 even, you may find your great-grandfather with- 
 out further tripping. A generation back and 
 you are getting a little muddled. The names 
 cross curiously and become strangely confusing, 
 until, turning over a few more leaves, you find 
 yourself in a mighty maze and all without a 
 plan. You vex your brain, and just in pro- 
 portion as you do this you plunge further and 
 further into the slough of despond. If you are 
 of a candid nature, you frankly admit that one 
 or more of your male ancestors never had a 
 corporeal existence, and that those of which you 
 had made sure have become strangely mixed 
 with the plebeian throng. And what does it 
 matter .' For it is only a case of time, when 
 we, like they, will sink with the passionless host 
 and float down in obscurity's tide. You may 
 fancy that this is caricature; but the utter abyss 
 of confusion produced by parish registers, the 
 utter void of that abyss when you plunge into 
 it after one simple family fact, defies caricature. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 63 
 
 You examine a page, for instance, as here before 
 me, and find that out of the six entries five are 
 illegitimate. And in the neighbouring parishes, 
 past morality has been at about the same ebb. 
 There are other untoward omissions in parish 
 registers. And this especially refers to Cumbria. 
 Many of our forefathers, instead of dying in an 
 orderly and peaceable manner in their beds, as, 
 indeed, becomes Christians living in a Christian 
 country, often died in less pleasant and conven- 
 ient places. A neighbour of mine acquaintance, 
 whose family has been established in the valley 
 for generations, assures me that until a com- 
 paratively recent period hardly one of his male 
 ancestors died decently. " Put to death by 
 order of the Warden of the Marches," " Killed 
 by Robert Howard's men," " Hunted to death 
 by dogges in the mosses," " Ordered that his 
 head should be stuck on the walls of the Tower, 
 and all such like unto him," — these and other 
 similar pleasantries were the only early records 
 that he could ever find of the way in which 
 the various members of his line went out of 
 the world. Still he boasts of his pedigree. 
 
64 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 " The grand old gardener and his wife smile 
 at the claims of long descent ; " and, it appears 
 from the foregoing facts, so does dame Nature. 
 Tennyson's deduction from all this is that 
 " 'tis only noble to be good," that " kind hearts 
 are mere than coronets, and simple faith than 
 Norman blood." And the world lives to prove 
 the truth of this philosophy every day. 
 
 In most hillside parishes, I regret to say, the 
 registers and other documents have been more 
 or less carelessly kept. Many of them, too, are 
 lost ; but so far as these are extant, copies are 
 now deposited in the mother church of the dio- 
 cese. In many cases where they remain, modern 
 safes have been obtained for their better keeping ; 
 and consequently the less secure, though more 
 characteristic, arks and chests have been rele- 
 gated to the aerial regions of cobwebs, bats, 
 owls, and bells. Since many occasions have 
 arisen to prove the legal value of these ancient 
 documents. Parliament has decreed their greater 
 accuracy and protection. Official and ruled 
 forms have now to be filled in, and there is little 
 reason to fear that in future vestry fires will be 
 lighted upon occasion with parish history. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 65 
 
 I have already mentioned a tragic death, and, 
 as might have been expected, such events are 
 rare in the annals of the valley. And yet there 
 is a somewhat parallel case which had so far 
 slipped my memory. The story is shortly told 
 by a stone in a retired part of the churchyard, 
 and reads as follows : — " Erected by an afflicted 
 father to commemorate the memory and death 
 of our only son, who . . . upon his return from 
 
 K was waylaid and shot dead by a daring 
 
 assassin, and his money taken from him, in a 
 solitary lane not far from his own door. . . . 
 He was cut down as a flower in the thirty- 
 second year of his age. By his loss an endear- 
 ing wife and three children were bereft of their 
 kind parent. What is now unknown the judg- 
 ment day will reveal." Fortunately such tales 
 as this stone unfolds have been rare. The 
 murderer, I believe, was never brought to 
 justice, though a man living in the neighbour- 
 hood was long detained on suspicion. He 
 had upon the night of the murder borrowed 
 a double-barrelled gun from a neighbour. 
 
 Anent this incident I append from my note- 
 E 
 
66 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 book a scrap of homely tragedy. It runs as 
 follows : — " None but those who have been 
 caught in them can form any idea of how 
 terrible are mountain snowstorms. Blinding, 
 bewildering, both men and animals quickly 
 succumb to them. Clouds and banks of snow 
 rush hither and thither in opaque masses ; the 
 bitter hail and sleet seem to drive through 
 you. A few moments after the storm breaks 
 every wrap at command is soaked through, 
 the cold is intense, and a sense of numb- 
 ness soon takes possession of the whole 
 body. Twice have I narrowly escaped death 
 when out on the northern mountains in winter, 
 suddenly finding myself at the close of a short 
 afternoon enveloped in a blinding storm. Once, 
 after long exposure, I owed my deliverance to 
 a search party of shepherds ; on the second 
 occasion I was saved by the intelligent fidelity 
 of a brace of foxhounds. Those who have been 
 overtaken in this manner have not always been 
 so fortunate ; and some terrible deaths have 
 occurred among the higher hills in winter. Half 
 way down this grey stone wall on its near side 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 67 
 
 is a sad green spot, and beside it we have tiirown 
 up a loose cairn. The snow had fallen thickly 
 for many days; all the deep holes were filled 
 up, and the mountain road was no longer to be 
 seen. The wall tops stood out as white ridges 
 on the otherwise smooth surface. Only the 
 crags hung in shaggy snowy masses, black 
 seams and scaurs picking out the ravines. 
 Nature was sombre and still ; it seemed as 
 though her pulse had ceased to beat. The 
 softly winnowed snowflakes still fell, and not 
 even the wing of a bird of prey moved in the 
 cold thin air. It had gone hard with the sheep. 
 Hundreds were buried in the snow, and would 
 have to be dug out. They sought the site of 
 the old wall and fell into deep drifts ; but the 
 hardy goat-like herdwicks instinctively climbed 
 to the bleak and exposed fell tops, and in this 
 was their safety. To relieve the sheep that had 
 as yet escaped, hay was carried to the fells, each 
 shepherd having a loose bundle upon his back. 
 It was thus, with three dogs, that we toiled up 
 the gorge by an undefined trail parallel to the 
 buried fence. Soon it began to snow heavily. 
 
68 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and the sky suddenly darkened. The dogs that 
 were in front stopped before some object. They 
 whined, ran towards us, and gave out short, 
 sharp barks. With a kind of instinctive dread 
 we followed them as they led us towards a 
 granite boulder, and on its lea side lay some- 
 thing starkly outlined against the snow. 
 ' Dead ' — we whispered to each other. There 
 was no trace of pain over the features — nothing 
 but rigid quiet. The icy fingers grasped a pen- 
 cil, and on the snow lay a scrap of paper. It 
 contained only two words — ' This day ' — then 
 stopped. We buried the body next morning in 
 the little mountain cemetery. Whence he came 
 or whither he was going none ever knew. A 
 few of the dead man's belongings, trifling 
 enough, are thrust in a hole in the old barn 
 for her whom we still expect to come for them 
 one of these days." 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TN recording these annals, I have as yet 
 spoken only of those things which centred 
 about the church, and have so far left out the 
 many incidents in the lives of the statesmen 
 and yeomen. But these were neither few nor 
 (at least some of them) of little import. There 
 were frequently occurring matters of pleasantry, 
 or grave or gay, which formed pleasing inter- 
 ludes in our otherwise quiet life. And although 
 these were always welcomed when they arrived, 
 yet the honest labour in the dale, and the 
 willing efforts put forth to make the valley 
 yield up its fruits, was that which was produc- 
 tive of the most lasting and real happiness. 
 Marriages in country churches to-day are 
 little more than solemn civil contracts ; but 
 in the dales a century ago they constituted 
 occasions of general festivity. If the mountain 
 church boasted a bell (and some of them pos- 
 
 69 
 
JO THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 sessed three) it rang out right merrily. The 
 couple were escorted to the church by a group 
 
 
 of laughing neighbours, all decked out in pretty 
 homespun, and bedizened with ribbons. But 
 the bride herself! What shall be said, or not 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 7 1 
 
 said, of her ? She resembled Goldsmith's Bet 
 Bouncer, and had cheeks broad and red as a 
 parson's cushion. She had large true-blue 
 bows across the full of her breast, lessening 
 by degrees till they reached the waist. There 
 was no " forsaken green " about the glad throng, 
 nothing but bright blue, and white, and red. 
 The parson always gave good advice to the 
 couple after the wedding, telling them that 
 they would go through life together, and that 
 the great secret of happiness, was that they 
 should pull together. After the ceremony the 
 bell rang more merrily than before, and there 
 was loud kissing, and romping, and laughing. 
 The native blush of the girls' cheeks was 
 heightened to the colour of the hill heather, 
 and the young men seemed strung on wire. 
 Everybody and everything was full of lifeful 
 activity. And now was practised a quaint 
 custom which has long since died out. When 
 the wedding party was well outside the church 
 a dozen youths would pull off their shoes and 
 stockings, and reveal the fact that their legs 
 were begirt with parti-coloured ribbons. They 
 
72 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 would then range themselves in line, until a 
 word from the bride started them off to her 
 house in what was among the yeomen " a race 
 of kisses." The conipetitors rushed away to 
 the encouraging shouts of the spectators, the 
 victor returning to meet the bride and blush- 
 ingly ask for his prize — a kiss and a ribbon. 
 Festivity was kept up until daybreak on the 
 following morning, when all would separate 
 to their homes. It must be remembered that 
 these primitive festivities were held in a valley 
 that at the time of which I write was practically 
 cut off from the world, and when it was said 
 that but one chaise had been known to visit it. 
 And yet almost perfect contentment was en- 
 joyed here, where everything grew in the 
 minds of the dalesfolk and became a necessary 
 part of them. One simple philosopher was 
 wont to say, " My father, grandfather, and 
 great-grandfather farmed and fished yon tarn, 
 and I would not leave the place for the world." 
 Time out of mind, almost, the country children 
 had been taught to dance, and the dancing- 
 master was as important a personage and 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 73 
 
 much more common than the schoolmaster. 
 This popular art was taught in the spacious 
 barns of the yeomen, and the elders, who stood 
 aloof as spectators, were as much interested 
 in the proceedings as the children. They 
 ranged themselves round the barn, and watched 
 with evident delight. Hornpipes and cotillons 
 were the dances most in repute, but, of what- 
 ever kind, they were incomplete without the 
 strains of a fiddle, which in many cases was 
 played by the dancing-master himself. Most 
 of the barns of the farmers had suspended in 
 the centre a wooden hoop, with tin sockets for 
 candles, so as always to be ready of an evening 
 for a dance. Although these people loved their 
 festal days, there was a meritorious spirit of 
 industry among them, and the women spent 
 most of their time in knitting and spinning. 
 Coal was not as yet used in the country dis- 
 tricts as fuel, nor is it now to any extent ; but 
 when turf had been brought from the moor- 
 lands the women carted it into the neighbour- 
 ing villages to sell in the shape of peats. 
 
 With' regard to dress I have already referred 
 
74 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 to homespun ; but I should hke to mention 
 the ironshod shoes, called " clogs," which were 
 very generally worn half a century ago. The 
 parson's and the yeoman's children invariably 
 appeared in them at church on Sundays. 
 These clogs proved terribly injurious to the 
 wearer's stockings, and careful housewives used 
 to smear the heels with melted pitch and dip 
 them immediately in the ashes of a turf fire. 
 Fixed in the woollen texture, the mixture 
 became both hard and flexible, and was well 
 adapted to resist friction. Flax has long 
 ceased to be grown in the field ; there is now 
 no hempen cloth, and the old methods of spin- 
 ning have gone out. Into some of the northern 
 valleys, Mr Ruskin — striving after an unattain- 
 able ideal of pastoral peace and happiness — 
 has re-introduced spinning wheels ; but the 
 whirr of them speaks most of his own eccen- 
 tricities. Among the simple manufactures of 
 the northern valleys were yarn hose, horn 
 lanterns, and coarse druggets ; but they have 
 long ago been supplanted. Even among the 
 poorest there is an inclination to turn their 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 75 
 
 backs on honest homespun, and they now 
 trick themselves out in webs of draggled em- 
 broidery. The old 
 " stuffs " are gone, and 
 materials with greater 
 gloss and less substance 
 are fast taking their 
 place. 
 
 But to return to the 
 old - fashioned yeomen. 
 Before the opening up of the turnpike roads, 
 everything in the dales was of the most primi- 
 tive' description ; for the most part of the farms 
 lay along the sides of the more fertile valleys, 
 and often a dale was " self-contained." The 
 yeomen grew their own food, spun and wove 
 the wool of their sheep into coarse cloth, and 
 even completed its manufacture into clothes. 
 The people rarely migrated from one valley 
 to another ; they had few wants ; and of them 
 it might be said that there the richest were 
 poor, and the poor lived in abundance. It is a 
 remarkable testimony to the practical shrewd- 
 ness of northern farmers that, whilst a century 
 
76 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 ago their farming was of the most primitive 
 description, the depression in agriculture to-day 
 is less felt among them than perhaps in any 
 other part of the country. 
 
 Theirs was the " old system " of husbandry. 
 When grass land was broken up it was sown 
 with black oats, all the available manure of the 
 little " estate " being bestowed upon it for the 
 succeeding barley crop. The third year the 
 land was laid down again to fallow with a 
 second crop of oats, but always without grass 
 seeds, so that the future herbage came no one 
 knew exactly how. In such a case, however, 
 nature seemed to let loose most of her ubi- 
 quitous weeds, and soon a green mantle over- 
 spread the fallow. One of the early improve- 
 ments upon this state of things was the 
 application of lime to such lands as were wet 
 and moss-grown. This was universally ridi- 
 culed until the result was seen, when limekilns 
 sprang up everywhere. Although spring wheat 
 was cultivated in the northern counties as early 
 as the sixteenth century, green crops as food 
 for cattle are of recent date. As to pot-herbs 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 'J'] 
 
 and the produce of the vegetable garden 
 generally, a century ago they were nearly un- 
 known. Oat bread, dressed barley, and onions 
 constituted the more cooling diet of the com- 
 mon people, with very little variety. By the 
 middle of the eighteenth century, however, 
 common-gardens were laid out in the environs 
 of most north country towns, and at about the 
 same time the culture of fruit trees became 
 general. This was an important step ; for 
 not only did it supply a much-needed article 
 of diet, but it was the beginning of a new 
 industry. The more hardy fruit trees were 
 peculiarly suited to the humid valleys of the 
 north, and in time yielded enormous crops. 
 
 As yet the art of fattening cattle was but 
 little understood, and the first experiments 
 were tried on sheep in winter. This raised 
 great hopes in the minds of breeders, for as 
 yet the winter supply of animal food had 
 proved wholly inadequate. The stock which 
 was fed in autumn was killed off by Christmas, 
 and with the exception of veal, scarcely any 
 fresh meat appeared in the markets before the 
 
78 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 ensuing midsummer. This dearth the more 
 substantial yeomen and manufacturers pro- 
 vided against by curing a quantity of beef at 
 Martinmas, part of which was pickled in brine, 
 the rest dried in the smoke of the capacious 
 chimneys. On Sundays the farmers' wives 
 boiled a huge piece of meat from the brine 
 tub, which on that day was served hot. From 
 that time as long as the joint lasted it came 
 up cold, relish being given to it by the addition 
 of oatmeal pudding. Hogs were slaughtered 
 in great numbers between Christmas and 
 Candlemas, the flesh being converted into 
 bacon, which, with dried beef and mutton, 
 afforded a change in spring. The only fresh 
 provisions of winter consisted of eggs, poultry, 
 geese, and ill-fed veal, the calves being then 
 carried to market when two or three weeks 
 old. In some of the northern rivers salmon 
 was very abundant, and sold at twopence a 
 pound. 
 
 I must now go on to speak of the dale 
 dwellers. I need hardly say that at the be- 
 ginning of the present century these belonged 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 79 
 
 to the yeoman class, characteristic of the 
 dales, but which is fast dying out. Looking 
 round among our neighbours, I am almost 
 startled to see how few yeomen remain — only 
 a remnant of the original stock. At the period 
 mentioned they almost wholly occupied the 
 hill districts of the north, and what is more, 
 they owned and farmed their holdings. They 
 had all the virtues which attach to dwellers in 
 a hill country. They tilled their grain patches, 
 and the mountains were dotted with sheep. The 
 farms were small, most of them ranging in value 
 from ^40 to £60 a year. Many of them had 
 been held by one family for generations ; I am 
 sorry to say, however, that but too often as they 
 descended from father to son they became 
 heavily burdened with charges to the younger 
 members. Mortgages and interest accumulated 
 until the case of the statesman became hopeless 
 and he was glad to find a purchaser for his little 
 demesne. A series of bad seasons, loss of stock, 
 or a prolonged winter would not unfrequently 
 prove the last straw ; or it sometimes happened 
 that the yeoman's family became too large to 
 
8o THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 be sustained by the estate. The natural result 
 of this was that the small holdings were gradu- 
 ally merged into the larger ones, until now the 
 process of assimilation may be said to be almost 
 complete. The few that have survived have 
 done so by consolidating small holdings where 
 family interests were identical. In this way 
 there are now numerous small farms worth one 
 or two hundred pounds annually ; whilst a very 
 few more extensive ones bring in a rent of from 
 ;^300 to ;£'soo. Some of the larger sheep farms 
 now embrace whole valleys, and are from one 
 to five thousand acres in extent. A number of 
 small farms from £$o to £70 remain; but these 
 are comparatively rare. 
 
 The old-fashioned statesman was essentially 
 conservative. He lived along the sides of the 
 dales, a mountain stream rushing through his 
 rich meadows immediately below. His house 
 and barns, built primarily with a view to 
 shelter, were composed of rocks and boulders 
 from the fell slopes, and were more like 
 productions of nature than of art. The home- 
 steads were generally planted at the base of 
 
THE ANNAI,S OF A QUIET VALLEY. 8 1 
 
 the mountains, as there the soil is richest 
 and deepest. The valley bottoms make pro- 
 ductive meadows ; and although the fell sheep 
 often graze them far into summer, they yield 
 abundant crops of grass in July. In these 
 remote dales, however, the summer months 
 are often wet ones, and the hay harvest is 
 
 sometimes very much delayed. Taking our 
 stand by the margin of the valley stream 
 we have, first, the meadow slip, then the 
 " intack '' or fell-side pasture, the grassing 
 head, and, finally, the mountains. Many of 
 the enclosed hill pastures are fringed with 
 shaggy underwood and bosky dells, vestiges 
 F 
 
82 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 of the old forests. In the limestone caverns 
 and recesses of the hills the remains of bears, 
 wild boars, and wolves are found ; while on 
 one of the fells there still roams a herd of 
 wild red deer. In most cases the statesman's 
 holding was a sheep farm. He had right of 
 "heaf" for 400 or 500 sheep upon the 
 common. The times of lambing in spring, 
 of washing in the fell dubs, and of shearing 
 in late June, were among the events of the 
 year. These sheep were of the hardy herd- 
 wick breed, climbing to the bleak fell tops 
 at the coming of snow ; and in this lay their 
 safety. They were rarely buried in the drifts, 
 and were clever at scratching away the snow 
 to get at the hidden herbage. 
 
 At the time of which I speak the internal 
 communication of the northern counties was 
 bad indeed. The roads were so narrow that 
 only pack horses could travel along them, 
 and in this way the meagre traffic of the dales 
 was conducted. Carriage roads there were 
 none, and it was probably owing to this 
 fact that, just as the yeomen spun their 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 83 
 
 own wool, so they grew sufficient grain to 
 last them through the year. Marks of the 
 plough are often to be seen on the commons 
 and moorlands ; and in these marks may be 
 read one reason of the rapid decline of the 
 statesman class. About the beginning of 
 the present century thousands of acres of the 
 lower-lying commons were enclosed. The 
 continental wars then raging had sent up all 
 kinds of grain to a price unknown before. 
 The yeoman reaped a rich harvest ; fresh land 
 was broken up, and some of it yielded 
 enormously. Every available bit of land was 
 ploughed, and corn crop after corn crop was 
 taken off. These were flush times for the 
 statesman, and lavish habits were contracted. 
 Peace came, and brought with it its natural 
 consequences. 
 
 The life of the fell folk must have been 
 very lonely in winter. They rose and went 
 to bed with the sun, their only artificial lights 
 being made from rushes and mutton fat. 
 Among the shippons in winter the candles 
 were carried in old-fashioned horn lanterns. 
 
84 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 which were manufactured by themselves. 
 There were no markets for their milk and 
 butter, and so the former was converted into 
 cheese, mostly of a very low quality. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 T HAVE tried to set down a description of the 
 lives of the " statesmen " who dwelt in the 
 valley. And although the conditions of life 
 might seem hard and everything primitive, yet 
 it must be borne in mind that the class of fell 
 folk next below that of the yeoman knew little 
 of their comforts, and scarcely anything of 
 their luxuries. At this period the labouring 
 classes were badly housed ; they subsisted 
 chiefly on porridge of oatmeal, or dressed barley 
 boiled in milk, with the addition of meal-bread, 
 butter, and a very small quantity of salted 
 meat. This diet told terribly upon the poorer 
 population in spring ; for ague set in with 
 painful regularity. As the culture of esculent 
 vegetables became more common, however, 
 salted provisions fell into disrepute, and potatoes 
 began to be generally though sparingly used. 
 The cultivation of this root told healthily upon 
 
86 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 the inhabitants, and made them much better 
 off than when they were wholly dependent 
 upon grain. As the use and virtues of tea, then 
 a foreign luxury, became better understood, 
 neatly turned cups and saucers of wood made 
 their appearance, these being commonly used in- 
 stead of porcelain. The consumption of wheat 
 became greater and more general after the 
 introduction of tea, though at the beginning of 
 the century wheat was never seen in the cottage 
 of the northern labourer, and except on festal 
 days but rarely made its appearance on the 
 tables of the middle classes. Frugal housewives 
 evinced their attachment to economy on these 
 occasions by making their pastry of barley 
 meal, which they veneered with a thin cake of 
 flour. A curious custom survived until recently 
 that shows the estimation in which wheaten 
 bread was held by our ancestors. A small 
 loaf was thought a fitting gift from the dead 
 to the living, and every person who attended 
 a funeral received one at the door of the 
 deceased, and was expected to carry it home. 
 The increased demand for wheat encouraged the 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 87 
 
 hill farmers to pursue the modern methods 
 of cultivating it ; and though the experiment 
 has everywhere since succeeded, thin cakes of 
 oatmeal without leaven are yet daily eaten 
 in quantities in almost all the houses of the 
 mountain dales. It is upon this and oatmeal 
 porridge that the famous wrestlers of the north 
 are reared, and there seems but little likeli- 
 hood of its disuse. 
 
 But perhaps the best idea of the early fell 
 folk may be had by looking at their domestic 
 life. And in this connection it must be said 
 that their houses were ill-contrived and hardly in 
 keeping with modern notions of decency. The 
 water-supply was of course indispensable, but, 
 instead of digging a well or conducting water 
 to the houses, the homesteads were invariably 
 built by the sides of the fell becks. Conse- 
 quently, many of them stood in damp situations, 
 and occasionally in autumn foaming torrents 
 tore up the folds and washed away the out- 
 buildings. These, like the houses, were low ; 
 a man of ordinary height could not pass the 
 lintel without stooping. The floors were below 
 
88 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 the level of the ground without, and entrance 
 was made by a descent of one or two steps. 
 The basement was divided into three apart- 
 ments ; the " buttery," which constituted the 
 general larder ; the common hall, or kitchen, 
 which formed the living room ; and a slightly 
 raised chamber, in which the master and mis- 
 tress slept. The whole was either rudely paved 
 with cobbles from the river bed or had a floor 
 of flattened loam. There was no fire-grate, nor 
 is there yet in many of the farmhouses of 
 the mountain dales, and the peat or wood 
 fire was laid on the hearth. The fires were 
 " raked " at night, and some are known never 
 to have been extinguished for half a centurj'. 
 " Raking " was easier than having to rekindle 
 the fuel with the aid of a flint and steel, and 
 was the universal practice. The chimney-place 
 was one into which a cart might have been 
 driven, being 12 feet or more in width, and open 
 in front. In the funnel were hung joints of 
 beef, mutton, and pork, while sometimes a 
 dozen hams were smoking in the chimney. A 
 long and sooty chain ending in a crook went 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 89 
 
 up from the fire to a beam above, and this bore 
 the heavy iron pans of the period. Many of 
 these were supphed with a funnel by which 
 to let the steam escape ; and as there was 
 nothing in the shape of ovens, all food was 
 cooked by their aid. At every season of the 
 
 year streams of sooty water trickled down 
 the wide chimneys ; and the members of the 
 household sat and went about their domestic 
 duties with covered heads. In other instances 
 the second storey of the house, called the loft, 
 was open to the rafters, and constituted the 
 sleeping apartment of the women and children. 
 
90 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 In most cases there was but one chamber un- 
 divided by partitions ; and here the dependents 
 were lodged — the men at one end, the women 
 at the other, as already mentioned. Beyond 
 a rope stretched across,— upon which coats and 
 gowns, articles of both male and female attire, 
 were hung promiscuously — there was no division 
 whatever. In the houses of some of the states- 
 men of the provincial towns, where the custom 
 was to provide lodging for journeymen as" well 
 as apprentices, matters were even worse. 
 
 The furniture of these northern homes was 
 both rude in design and execution, but it 
 was useful and homely, and eminently in 
 keeping with the houses that contained it. 
 The only quality they seem to have striven 
 after in all their domestic utensils was service- 
 ableness. Almost everything was of wood, 
 pegs of the same substance invariably supply- 
 ing the place of nails. Wooden latchets were 
 fixed to doors and gates; indeed, iron was 
 almost unknown in domestic architecture. 
 One great feature of the country houses was 
 their arks and chests. These were curiously 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 9 1 
 
 and quaintly carved, with carvings " all made 
 out of the carver's brain." Coleridge lived 
 in a district where the work of the home- 
 bred carver was everywhere to be seen, and 
 
 doubtless the above line in Christabel was 
 so suggested. In the arks were kept oaten 
 cake, malt, meal, preserves, and dried meats. 
 These stores were largely drawn upon for 
 
92 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 bridal dowries. Old "china," pieces of dress 
 material in flowered silk and satin, and a 
 few pieces of plate — family heirlooms, — these 
 found a place in the chest. The huge bed- 
 steads in use were of massive oak, with testers 
 of the same material. The chairs were 
 generally made of clumsy wainscot, but some 
 of them were fashioned from the trunks of 
 hollow trees — the carpenter completing what 
 time had begun. For table, there stood in 
 the common hall a board of from three to 
 five yards in length ; this rustic board being 
 furnished with forms or benches along its 
 sides. Upon these the family and its guests 
 were seated at meal times. Maple trenchers 
 supplied the place of plates, and liquids of 
 every description — milk, broth, beer, — were 
 served in wooden vessels made with staves 
 and hoops. Cold and wind, which freely 
 found their way into the common hall by 
 the chimney, as well as by the badly jointed 
 doors and windows, were provided against by 
 a screen placed in front of the turf fire. In 
 the centre of the hearth stood a square upright 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 93 
 
 staff, having a row of holes along one of its 
 sides, and its lower end fixed in a log of 
 wood. This simple contrivance supported 
 the candlestick, which was thrust at a con- 
 venient height into one of the holes. In the 
 warm though smoky retreat of the settle-nook, 
 the family spent the long winter evenings in 
 knitting, spinning flax, combing wool, and 
 in other home industries. The conversation 
 at such times, especially that of the elders, 
 had one result, in perpetuating the credulity 
 of the times. The talk constantly turned 
 upon apparitions, omens, workers in witch- 
 craft, and more innocent fairy tales. But 
 at the beginning of a new era these things 
 obtained less countenance, and a general 
 change began. Provincial newspapers were 
 started, and wonderfully enlarged the narrow 
 world of country readers. Innovation came 
 steadily from the south, and the rude artisans 
 were ousted. Old handicrafts were sub- 
 divided ; the cabinet maker invaded the 
 province of the carpenter, the worker in 
 metals that of the maker of wooden platters, 
 
94 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and the great army of itinerants rapidly 
 declined. The transformation during the 
 period indicated exceeded that of any century 
 that had preceded it in the history of the 
 north. 
 
 In describing the lives and homes of the yeo- 
 men, I remarked that their sons and daughters 
 went out to service. This spirit of honest in- 
 dependence contributed much to their success, 
 and was one of their chief characteristics. 
 And because it was so I am constrained to 
 describe more at length the virtues of these 
 hard-working sons and daughters, and to hold 
 them up (at least in agricultural matters) for 
 imitation and respect. The lives of this class, 
 except by being bettered, have changed less 
 than those of their superiors, and I shall 
 endeavour to describe them as they exist 
 pretty much to-day, not as they existed in 
 times gone by. All our bread, all our wealth, 
 comes from the land, and sometimes I am 
 afraid we are apt to under-rate those who by 
 their labour win it from the soil. 
 
 The farm labourer of the dales, then (and he 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 95 
 
 is more often than not the son of a small 
 farmer or yeoman), is nothing akin to his 
 southern brother. And it is probably no 
 exaggeration to say that he is superior to 
 him in every way in which comparison is 
 possible. The southerner seems unable to lift 
 himself above his surroundings, whilst the 
 northerner almost invariably strives to do 
 this, and not unfrequently succeeds. Much 
 of this is probably owing to the fact that 
 he is early sent to school, but at fourteen 
 leaves home to earn his own living. He 
 has been well schooled, in a way, and looks 
 forward to " service." At the half-yearly 
 hiring — Whitsuntide or Martinmas — after he 
 has attained his "first majority," he goes to 
 the nearest country town and stands in the 
 market-place. He is attired in a brand new 
 suit, with a capacious necktie of green and 
 red. These articles he has donned upon 
 the memorable morning, and as a gift from 
 his parents they constitute his start in life. 
 The country barber has left his head pretty 
 much as the modern reaper leaves the stubble, 
 
96 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and has not stinted him of grease for his 
 money. As an outward and visible sign of 
 his intention, the lad sticks a straw in his 
 mouth and awaits the issue. For the first 
 hour or so he keeps his eyes bent to the 
 pavement, as though to read the riddle of 
 his life there, but presently gains confidence 
 to look about him. After waiting a greater 
 part of the morning and seeing many of 
 his fellow-men and maid-servants hired, he 
 is accosted by a stalwart yeoman, who in- 
 quires if he wants a " spot " — a place, a 
 situation. The lad replies that he does ; 
 that he is willing to do anything; and that 
 he will engage for £i, the half-year — "if it 
 pleases." A bargain is soon struck, and the 
 stalwart urchin from the " fell-heads " marches 
 off to lose himself in the giddy gaiety of 
 the Fair. If ultimately he likes his "place," 
 and is well and kindly treated, we may not 
 see him again at hiring for a couple of years. 
 During this time he has made himself 
 generally useful, has become a good milker, 
 and has shone conspicuously at hay and 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 97 
 
 harvest. He has proved himself a "fine 
 lad," and has had his wages raised by way 
 of reward. At sixteen or seventeen he is 
 stalwart enough to hire as a man, and now 
 his wages are doubled ; he asks and obtains 
 ;£'i2 for the year, or even ;£'i4 if entering 
 upon the summer half The farm servants 
 of the dales " live in," and have all found. 
 They are well fed, well housed, and have 
 their meals at the master's table. But if well 
 fed they are hard worked, and in summer 
 they often rise as early as three or four in 
 the morning. In these parts, which constitute 
 a vast grazing district, the labour of the 
 farm servant is much more general and inter- 
 esting than that of his southern brother, 
 where the land is arable. Physically, the 
 northern man is much the superior, and is gen- 
 erally an athlete. He is come of that stock 
 which so stubbornly fought the Border wars, 
 and now excels in wrestling, mountain racing, 
 and following the wiry foxhounds among the 
 hills. Of course these opportunities are only 
 presented during the scant holidays in which 
 G 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 he indulges, or in mid-winter, when there 
 is httle to be done beyond the tending of 
 stock. It is necessary that the northerner 
 should be a big sturdy fellow, since the 
 ground which he has to work is rough, and 
 he has not many helps in the way of machines 
 to aid him. A few years ago, during the 
 flourishing times of agriculture, the northern 
 labourer obtained from ^35 to £40 per 
 annum, still, of course, 
 " living in " ; a few picked 
 men could even command 
 ^45. Now, however, that 
 we are come upon times 
 of depression, the best 
 men are glad to work for 
 the first-named sum. In 
 proportion, the girls are 
 much better off in the 
 matter of wages than the 
 men. There is probably 
 less competition among 
 them, owing to the fact that there is a 
 great temptation for country girls to migrate 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 99 
 
 and enter service in provincial towns. Here 
 they are not so hard worked as in the farm- 
 houses, and have the satisfaction of being 
 engaged in what they esteem a much more 
 " genteel " occupation. 
 
 Many of the men, when about thirty years of 
 age, are able to take small farms of their own. 
 Nearly all the statesmen's sons do this, and 
 probably without any outside help ; for, as a 
 class, these labourers are not only industrious 
 but thrifty. I knew a man who had saved 
 ;^I20, which sum he had divided and deposited 
 in three banks. This was his whole wealth, 
 and he told me he did not want to lose his 
 hard - earned savings if the banks should 
 "break." His object was to acquire a small 
 farm, and he has now succeeded. 
 
 From the fact of "living in," as nearly all 
 the valley servants do, it need hardly be said 
 that early marriages are rare. All the better 
 men look forward to the time when they can 
 have a farm of their own ; and when they obtain 
 a holding, they then look out for a wife. This 
 fact alone speaks well for their thrift ; but it 
 
lOO THE ANNALS OF -A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 has its dark side. How far the two things are 
 connected may be a matter of speculation ; but 
 it is notorious that the number of illegitimate 
 children in the north is far above the average, 
 and most of these undoubtedly are born of 
 the agricultural classes. The registers of the 
 country churches abundantly prove this. Still, 
 it is pleasing to be able to record the fact that 
 in the dales, sooner or later, those who have 
 been wronged ''are made honest women of" 
 by marriage. 
 
 In the remoter dales the most primitive 
 manners and customs still prevail, and the farm 
 servants are as conservative as their masters. 
 Not only are they so in politics, but in their 
 agricultural implements and their whole sur- 
 roundings. At one time of the year the 
 " sledding " of the peat constitutes a consider- 
 able portion of the work. Nothing but sticks 
 and turf are used as fuel ; and the peat has to 
 be first graved, then stacked, and finally brought 
 from the moorlands on sledges. This is done 
 in autumn. Spring is occupied in tending the 
 mountain sheep, the time of lambing being a 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEV. lOI 
 
 particularly busy one. Sheep washing is a 
 busy time, and shearing, a month later, brings 
 quite an annual festival. The " clipping," where 
 the holdings are sheep farms, is one of the 
 great events of the year. Before the days of 
 "clipping," "salving" the sheep came in late 
 autumn, and brought a time of terribly hard 
 work. The process was slow, and sometimes 
 a thousand sheep had to be got through. To 
 enable them to do this the men had candles 
 fixed in their caps, and worked both early and 
 late. Now salving is superseded, and a thing 
 of the past. Half the time of the northern farm 
 labourer of the hill districts is taken up in 
 connection with the sheep. 
 
 Whenever northern farmers go south they 
 endeavour to graze more and plough less land, 
 and so follow the lines in which they have been 
 reared ; and it is generally admitted that they 
 are successful. Just now many of them are 
 obtaining southern farms which have almost 
 gone out of cultivation, and some of them have 
 already shown what can be done in this way. 
 They pay but little rent, and will doubtless 
 
I02 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 do well with their bargains. In short, the 
 northern farm labourer, wherever he appears, 
 drives his brothers out of the field, and has 
 already left his mark upon southern grass 
 lands. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 '"pHE education of the people of the dales 
 has always been of a fairly high standard. 
 This is probably owing to the prevalence of 
 good grammar schools in the neighbour- 
 hood. It is doubtless to these schools that 
 we owe a host of worthies who have sprung 
 from the hill districts, — men who have 
 made names for themselves, and who have 
 been a power in the land. I might mention 
 many such, four or five of whom have sprung 
 from our own dale. The men who were at 
 the head of these schools had each received a 
 good classical education, and also knew some- 
 thing of the mathematics. Free schools were 
 in almost every parish, and this in addition to 
 the parochial school, which usually stood near 
 the church. These latter were endowed with 
 a stipend for the maintenance of a master, who 
 instructed children however poor, if only they 
 
I04 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEV. 
 
 chose to attend, in English, Latin, and Greek. 
 The nature of the estabhshment entitled the 
 preceptor to nothing more than his salary ; but 
 the parents of his pupils thought proper to 
 reward his diligence by an annual gratuity at 
 Shrovetide, called a cock-penny to this present 
 day. John Dalton has recorded how a singular 
 donation was made to Wreay school by a Mr 
 Graham, gentleman, about which it may be 
 interesting to inquire. This donation consisted 
 of a silver bell, weighing two ounces, upon which 
 was engraved "Wreay Chappie, 1655, to be 
 fought for annually on Shrove Tuesday by 
 cocks." About three weeks previous to that 
 day the boys fixed upon two of their school- 
 fellows for captains, whose parents were able 
 and willing to bear the expense of the 
 approaching contest ; and the master, on 
 entering school, was saluted by the boys 
 throwing up their caps, and the exclamation 
 " Dux, dux ! " On Shrove Tuesday the two 
 captains, attended by their friends and school- 
 fellows, who were distinguished by blue and 
 red ribbons, marched in procession from their 
 
THte Annals of a quiet ValLeV. 105 
 
 various homes to the village green, where each 
 produced three cocks, and the bell was ap- 
 pended to the hat of the victor, in which 
 manner it was handed down from one success- 
 ful captain to another. In 1836 the cock-fight- 
 ing at Wreay was suppressed by the Rev. R. 
 Jackson, and in its place there is now an annual 
 hunt. The noted bell of 1655, a parochial in- 
 stitution for 217 years, was stolen a few years 
 ago from the house where the convivial meet- 
 ings used to be held, and where it had so often 
 graced the hats of " cocking champions," or 
 the white rods of sham mayors. This custom 
 was continued at most of the dale schools 
 until a very late period, and was presided 
 over by the schoolmaster. Many of the 
 famous cockpits even now exist, but they 
 are grass - grown and unused. It may be 
 added that in many of the endowed schools 
 as much as half the master's salary had, by 
 arrangement of the founders, been made to 
 depend on the cock-pennies. With regard to 
 the actual fighting, the plucky birds were 
 supposed to set an excellent example to the 
 
I06 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 virtuous youths, and to stir them to noble 
 emulation in fighting the Gallic or any other 
 wide-throated cock that dared to crow defiance 
 and flap his wings. This barbarous sport and 
 others have passed away before the diffusion of 
 knowledge and feeling, and the higher intel- 
 lectual and moral culture of the people. It 
 may be questioned, however, whether the step 
 of substituting the hare for the pitting of two 
 gamecocks against each other tends to prove 
 a higher degree of civilisation. But, be this as 
 it may, hunting in the hills is enjoyed by rich 
 and poor alike, and is the chief out-door winter 
 pastime of the statesmen and yeomanry. And 
 Mr Wordsworth has asserted, when speaking 
 of the independent spirit of the dalesmen, that 
 when the hounds were out " not a soul in the 
 village '' would remain for want of leisure to 
 enjoy the sport. It is said that the plan of 
 tuition here described answered two purposes of 
 unequal importance, for it handed down the 
 favourite diversions of the country from father 
 to son, and furnished every hamlet with its 
 scholar, who was prepared on all occasions to 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. lOj 
 
 contend for the palm of erudition with the 
 learned of other townships and distant parishes. 
 True it is that many men who were really 
 famous sprang from these mountain dales — a 
 cardinal, an archbishop, a half-dozen bishops, 
 eminent travellers, and a general, as well as 
 several scientists and men of letters. 
 
 The above has reference to the higher of the 
 two classes of schools which existed at one time. 
 The parochial and village schools almost con- 
 fined their attention to the teaching of writing, 
 reading, and " the science of arithmetic." Con- 
 temporary with these schools, however, were a 
 number of travelling tutors — itinerant scriveners 
 or writing-masters — who went on circuit and 
 had regular customers. These men had a strict 
 sense of honour in keeping to their own ground, 
 and in their search for pupils they were fre- 
 quently hired into gentlemen's families for 
 weekly wages. It is said that many of them 
 were ingenious men, and were generally wel- 
 come at the " great " houses of their patrons ; 
 but as education came to be looked upon more 
 seriously, the occupation fell gradually into dis- 
 
Io8 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 repute. One change in the two systems of edu- 
 cation which the advancing progress of the 
 times brought with them was, among others, 
 a peculiar one. Classical scholars were no 
 longer to be found among the husbandmen ; 
 for all that received any education were put 
 to agriculture or trade, with the exception of 
 the few that were intended for one or other 
 of the learned professions. The good sense of 
 latter-day country education appears in few in- 
 stances more conspicuously than in the atten- 
 tion that is now paid to female education. It 
 was formerly thought necessary to teach a girl 
 the art of reading, that she might peruse the 
 Bible for herself. The daughters of better 
 families also learned to scrawl a hand which 
 was not always very legible ; but the advan- 
 tages of arithmetic were reserved for the boys. 
 This practice created a great disparity of in- 
 tellect in the two sexes ; for it was not an 
 uncommon thing in former days to find an 
 illiterate woman married to a yeoman who 
 could read the Testament in Greek, and who 
 was acquainted with the best writers of the 
 Augustan age. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I09 
 
 In a previous chapter it was remarked that 
 the oldest inhabitants of the valley talked to 
 the day of their death of the first chaise which 
 had invaded it. I have also said that the dale 
 was gorge-like — there was a way into it, but 
 none out. So embosomed was it among the 
 mountains, so hemmed in, that to strangers its 
 entrance might have proved a puzzle. The 
 valley is about five miles in length, and just 
 as you emerge from it a fine turnpike road 
 presents itself — a road passing over the fells, 
 it is true, but once used by the Romans — 
 made by them perhaps — and constituting, at 
 the time of which I write, the well-used coach 
 road ; so that if there was but little travelling 
 in the dale, there were plenty of travellers to 
 
 M- be seen passing at the foot of it. Children 
 
 < were promised that " sometime " they should 
 
 ^4, go to " Dale End," and many of them looked 
 
 'forward to this for years. Speaking generally 
 
 of the hill district, wheel carriages were very 
 
 little used for private intercourse or trade. 
 
 Persons of both sexes made short journeys on 
 
 ^ horseback, women being commonly seated on 
 
no THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 pillons behind the men. Very few people made 
 long excursions from home, except the manu- 
 facturers of the small contiguous country towns, 
 and many of these travelled on foot in quest of 
 
 orders for their worsted stockings and linsey 
 woolsey. Carriers did not employ waggons, but 
 drove gangs of pack-horses, each of which was 
 preceded by a bell-horse, and the owners 
 reckoned a woman equivalent to half a pack 
 in lading their beasts of burden. The predi- 
 
I 1 2 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 lection for transporting all kinds of commod- 
 ities on horseback was so general that even 
 the fuel consumed in the small country towns 
 was conveyed in this manner. Greytown 
 lies to the south of our valley, and so impor- 
 tant were its principal manufactures, that 
 two hundred and ninety-four pack-horses en- 
 tered and left the town with merchandise. 
 Although I have spoken of a " turnpike," along 
 which these trains of men and horses went, 
 the road proper has only been made in compar- 
 atively recent times, — before the horses had 
 merely followed ill-defined tracks. Waggons had 
 not as yet come in, and the few coals which were 
 burned at the great houses were conveyed in 
 sacks on the backs of galloways. For convey 
 ing turf and peats from the mosses "halts" 
 were used. These were a pair of strong wicker 
 hampers, joined by a pack saddle, and hung 
 across a horse's back ; they were put to various 
 uses in husbandry — to those offices which are 
 now performed by carts. Of course the use of 
 coal in outlying districts is of comparatively 
 recent date, as no mention is made of it in 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I 1 3 
 
 accounts of household expenses of early times. 
 Before peats were cut from the mosses wood 
 was the principal fire-elden. The next pro- 
 gression in travelling was the substitution of 
 carts for halts. But these were ill-contrived, 
 the wheels consisting of two circular boards 
 immovably fixed, without spokes, to the ends 
 of a cylindrical axle. This arrangement re- 
 quired the axle itself to revolve beneath the 
 cart, where it was kept in place by two pairs 
 of parallel wooden pins that projected down- 
 wards from the frame bottom. But with the 
 opening up of the turnpike roads an epoch 
 in the travelling of the country came about, 
 and I have already mentioned the commence- 
 ment of the coaching times, and the effect 
 which these had upon the dalesfolk. 
 
 H 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 AAY father had two hobbies, to which he 
 was about equally attached. He was 
 a great entomologist in his way, and wrote 
 tracts on " Temperance." So far as I know, he 
 was the first and only one of our family that 
 had advocated total abstinence from fermented 
 liquor. It was certainly not because he was 
 morally weak that he adopted this principle, 
 but rather to set a good example to his 
 parishioners. Intemperance was not one of 
 the prominent weaknesses of the dale, but it 
 must be confessed that one or two of the 
 yeomen came home tipsy as certainly as they 
 visited Greytown on market day. As to the 
 entomology, there was always abundant proof 
 of this at home. In summer and autumn rare 
 moths and butterflies were pinned to the 
 dining-room curtains in very great abundance, 
 to our infinite delight and our poor mother's 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I15 
 
 slight irritation. My father, I believe, added 
 two or thcee insects to the then known British 
 species, one of which was new to science. This 
 was called after our name by one of the great 
 scientists, and we all felt very proud at what 
 we thought the distinction conferred upon us. 
 I am bound to say, however, that I have never 
 yet seen the name in print, nor have my 
 brothers, although we have often tried to find 
 it. One of our red-letter days was when a 
 copy of the Transactions of a learned society 
 arrived. at our home, and contained a list of the 
 insects of our valley, written by my father. 
 We all of us were very proud, as in assist- 
 ing him we felt that part of the distinction 
 belonged to us. We read the learned paper 
 with its hard names many times over, and 
 especially a little postcript attached to it by 
 the editor of the Review. This learned man 
 remarked that the list was an exceedingly 
 complete one ; that it was evidently from a 
 district rich in insect life; finally he held 
 it up for imitation, urging upon others to do 
 conscientiously for their districts what my 
 
Il6 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 father had done for ours, and concluded by 
 pointing out that in this way thq cause of 
 science could best be served. There was only 
 one thing to damp our pleasure, which was, 
 that, instead of appending his name, my father 
 had merely written his initials. As I have 
 said, we were disappointed, and told my father 
 that the list, so far as the signature went, 
 might have been compiled by anyone, and 
 that he had robbed himself of half the honour. 
 He answered that in what he had written he 
 had endeavoured to add his mite to science, 
 and in this he had his reward. And so we 
 were silenced. Loving natural history as he 
 did, my father encouraged each of us to take 
 up some branch of it. He impressed upon 
 us, too, the necessity of close and accurate 
 observation, and said that, if we were to excel 
 our fellows, we ought each to have a specialty, 
 and pursue it with a great ardour. 
 
 I do not think the farmers set much store 
 by our studies in natural history ; and I believe 
 some of them held us in rather slight contempt 
 for pursuing them. What practical good could 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. II7 
 
 come of it ? Was it going to bring us our 
 bread ? And because our neighbours could 
 not find answers within themselves to these 
 self-imposed questions, our pet projects were 
 both mercilessly reviewed and summarily con- 
 demned. We were illustrative of types of 
 mental weakness out of which no good things 
 could be expected to come. In after years I 
 knew exactly what they thought of us, for I 
 found their very ideas incorporated in The In- 
 goldsby Legends. And when I read them, I saw 
 our own pictures start up vividly before me. 
 
 Still poking his nose into this thing or that, 
 
 At a gnat, or a bat, or a rat, or a cat, 
 
 Or great ugly things, all legs and wings. 
 
 With nasty long tails armed with nasty long stings. 
 
 Or take this other description of the popular 
 verdict against us, for it is even more succinct : 
 
 He would pore by the hour o'er a weed or a flower. 
 Or the slugs which came crawling out after a shower ; 
 Black beetles and bumble bees, bluebottle flies, 
 And moths were of no small account in his eyes ; 
 An industrious flea he'd by no means despise ; 
 While an old daddy longlegs, whose long legs and thighs 
 Passed the common in shape, or in colour, or size, 
 He was wont to consider an absolute prize. 
 
Il8 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 But this scant justice which our early studies 
 obtained did us little harm. My father was 
 always ready to lend us his ready sympathy 
 and knowledge, and my dear mother expressed 
 herself pleased that we seemed to have such 
 a fondness for nature. Nothing but good 
 could come of it, she thought ; and I well 
 remember her saying she could not understand 
 how anyone with a deep love of the works of 
 the Creator in his heart could ever become 
 quite depraved. The members of our family, 
 however, were not the only naturalists that 
 the valley had produced. So rich was it in 
 natural objects, that I am fully convinced 
 most of the yeomen were naturalists themselves 
 without knowing it. Although they never set 
 anything down on paper, they were keen ob- 
 servers, and I have heard them describe in 
 the most interesting way the various traits of 
 the live creatures they met, But two or three 
 had been born in the dale, at long intervals, 
 who had afterwards distinguished themselves in 
 science. One of these was John Wilson. Wil- 
 son was born and lived in the dale, and we were 
 very proud to think that he wrote the first 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. IIQ 
 
 great work on English botany. This worthy 
 man came upon the scene when botany, in its 
 best sense, had made but little progress. He 
 was one of those naturalists who did much to 
 place the science on the broad scientific basis 
 upon which it now rests. His predecessors had 
 mostly comprehended the subject as it taught 
 them of the herbs and simples of the wood. 
 
 Rue, cinque-foil, gill, vervain, and agrimony 
 Blue-vetch and trilium, hawk-weed, sassafras, 
 Milkweeds and murky brakes, quaint pipes and sundew. 
 
 Like his predecessors he clung fondly to 
 the old English names, and loved to wrap 
 about the flowers the attributes his fathers 
 had done. This knowledge of " herbalism " had 
 been profound, but he would have none of it. 
 Wilson was a truly remarkable man ; and 
 although there is all that intenseness and sim- 
 plicity anent his dealings with nature that 
 there had been in connection with the old 
 workers who preceded him, yet his work is of 
 an eminently scientific character. They were 
 not always infallible observers, and frequently 
 tripped in their facts. Wilson rarely did so. 
 
I20 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 He found botany as a science a veritable maze, 
 all without a plan; but at his death he left 
 it somewhat systematised. I have said that 
 Wilson was born in our valley, and may add 
 that he came of pious yeomen folk, who were 
 poor enough, except in the possession of many 
 stern virtues. The primitive dale must have 
 proved a very paradise to him, as it was so 
 secluded, and certainly had never been invaded 
 by science prior to his coming. This pleasant 
 environment did not last long. In the fulness 
 of his boyish enthusiasm he roamed over the 
 hills like a partridge. The very isolation re- 
 ferred to, which was a merit in one way, 
 rendered the people a prey to the grossest 
 superstition. Our botanist made long, lonely 
 journeys, often at night, among the hills and 
 woods, and by the sea. The fell folk said that 
 the nightly calling which took him so far 
 afield might be honest ; but they shook their 
 heads, and some even ventured to say that he 
 was a " wise man " — a dealer in mysteries, 
 and given to dark sayings. It was probably 
 this evil repute which gathered around him, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 121 
 
 and the want of books, that caused him to 
 leave the dale and go to a small market town 
 about ten miles off. And, maybe, this enforced 
 migration was well. He had studied long 
 and hard in his native valley, and there had 
 had abundant and rare material. At home he 
 had only an old " Herbal," which he well knew 
 was as full of inaccuracies as superstition. 
 Now he had good guides, and found himself 
 within reach of the best books on the subject, 
 and came into connection with those who had 
 like interests to himself Some of these were 
 really remarkable workers — workers who stood 
 out far above the common run of men. They 
 put before Wilson the then standard works of 
 his own pet subject, and of the contents of 
 these, with his already acquired knowledge and 
 native understanding, he quickly made himself 
 master. But none of the works to which he had 
 access were so good as the one he was himself 
 destined to write. They were styled "scien- 
 tific " ; but the first law of science is order, and, 
 as yet, there was only chaos. Our botanist 
 was the great mind born to perceive and ex- 
 
122 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 hibit such order from the then ascertained 
 elements of botany so far as collected. I need 
 only further say that Wilson laboured hard 
 for many years, working at his book the while 
 he pursued his trade. When it was published 
 it came out in English, and not in Latin. The 
 author had set out with a well-defined plan, 
 and executed it in an admirable manner. It was 
 a strong and original work, a very monument 
 of accurate observation and the genius of hard 
 work. The botanist's early wanderings among 
 the fells were stamped upon every page, and 
 Wilson was wont to say that he never could 
 have succeeded without that early life which 
 he loved so well. And so one of our 
 worthies produced his Synopsis of British 
 Plants. 
 
 I have already said something of our studies in 
 natural history, and also of the desire which my 
 father had that we should each take up some 
 specialty instead of working indiscriminately. 
 He knew from experience how many a keen 
 intellect had rusted, shut out as it was among 
 the isolation of the hills. If ever that fate 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY, 1 23 
 
 should be ours, as it had been his, he felt 
 that, by encouraging us in some scientific study, 
 he had done what he could to guard against 
 the breeding of ennui, and that science, which- 
 ever branch we might take up, would teach us 
 the habits of close and accurate observation. 
 My father knew little of birds, but in his 
 diary he kept records of the arrival and 
 departure of the rarer summer visitants; and, 
 speaking for myself, it was these entries, 
 and the observations which they suggested, 
 that first interested me in ornithology. From 
 that time I have always taken an intense 
 interest in birds. I propose to set down here 
 a very short account of those that visited our 
 valley, and I must also sketch one or two of 
 its main physical characteristics. These are 
 essential to the better understanding of the 
 subject. It is hemmed in on three sides, 
 and on the south sweeps away and loses 
 itself in the undulations of a wooded plain. 
 An arm of the sea touches upon the con- 
 fines of the plain, and thus it will be seen 
 that the district includes tracts of a very 
 
124 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 diversified nature. It is probable that this 
 makes the woods, and streams, and meadows 
 of the valley so rich in bird life, and the 
 fact of the quietude of the spot being rarely 
 broken. 
 
 Owing to the close proximity of the hills, 
 the Raptores have always been the most 
 
 ; prominent birds 
 '' of the valley. 
 They are not so 
 common now as 
 formerly, though the 
 sparrow-hawk may 
 still be seen in the 
 woodlands, and the 
 ./'■ kestrel holds its own 
 
 among the rocks of the 
 scaurs. The beautiful circling 
 kites have left Gled Hill, and the merlin 
 falcon has flown, never more to return. 
 Occasionally an osprey visits the still moun- 
 tain tarns on migration, and ravens cross 
 from moor to moor, uttering their dismal 
 " Croak, croak, croak ! " The old dismantled 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 25 
 
 Hall has its pair of screech-owls, and the 
 tawny owl makes night mournful by her 
 hooting in the stiller woods. The more rare 
 long-eared and short-eared owls are occasion- 
 ally found on the lower-lying mosses which 
 skirt the waters of the brackish creek. The 
 great grey shrike, or butcher-bird, visits the 
 copses which are likely to provide food for 
 its larder, and I have found the red-backed 
 species among the hedges which encircle the 
 moat of an old lichened ruin. The spotted 
 and pied fly-catchers come to us as our first 
 summer visitants, the former being much 
 more common than the latter. They establish 
 themselves everywhere along the trout streams, 
 obtaining food from the insects of the over- 
 hanging boughs. The pretty white-breasted 
 dipper, or water-crow, haunts our rocky stream, 
 and early builds its nest along the Greenwash 
 tributaries. Companion of the ouzel is the 
 brightly-plumaged kingfisher, with its metallic 
 tints. You hear its whistle far down stream ; 
 it comes through the old ivied bridge, darts 
 past, and is gone — gone to the dripping 
 
126 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 moss by the waterfall, where the female 
 halcyon is hatching her eggs. The song- 
 thrush is everywhere, and often in spring 
 several may be heard at once, filling the 
 whole glade with their warblings. Of the 
 other thrushes, the "orange-billed merle" 
 floods the copse with its mellow song on 
 summer evenings. The blackbird stays about 
 our hedgerows the whole of the year, as 
 does the missel-thrush ; while the fieldfare 
 and the redwing come to our holly-berries 
 in winter from the pine wastes of Norway. 
 The ring-ouzel still holds its own among 
 the fell becks, and there trills out its 
 weird and not unmusical song. The hedge 
 accentor, the redbreast, and the redstart are 
 common, the last coming to us in April to 
 rear its young. It is quite the most beautiful 
 of the warblers, and its brilliant plumage 
 shows well against the sombre hues of the 
 limestone. 
 
 It is now that so many other of the Sylviadm 
 come — the soft-billed warblers of the wood- 
 bird kind. Among these are the stonechat, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 27 
 
 whinchat, and wheatear. The first, a shy 
 bird of the common, builds its nest among 
 the gorse ; the second in like situations, or 
 among broom or juniper bushes ; while the 
 wheatear lays its pale blue eggs in some 
 old crannied wall. Then come the willow, 
 wood, and garden warblers— the white-throat, 
 the sedge-bird, and the blackcap. The sedge 
 and willow warblers have their nests among 
 the aquatic plants of the tarns and meres, 
 and their game preserves in the stalks and 
 leaves of the swaying grasses. Sweetest of 
 wood-birds are the warblers, and sweetest 
 songster of the choir the blackcap warbler. 
 This bird is sometimes called the " mock 
 nightingale," and we have known persons 
 listening, as they believed, to Philomela 
 when the blackcap was the only bird under 
 the night. The nightingale has never ex- 
 tended its northern haunt to our valley, 
 although it is difficult to ascertain why this 
 should be so. The whole of the warblers 
 and white-throats may be found in our 
 more sheltered woods, where they breed after 
 
128 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 the first weeks of May. The old Honeybee 
 Woods are the chief haunt of these deHcate 
 songsters. 
 
 Owing to the number of larch and fir planta- 
 tions which border the slopes of our valley, the 
 family of tits has always been well represented. 
 The first of these is the golden-crested regulus, 
 the smallest of British birds, though by no 
 means the rarest. The crested wren, the great, 
 blue, cole, marsh, and long-tailed tits are all 
 of them common. This miniature family of 
 acrobats disperse themselves over their breed- 
 ing haunts in summer, nesting for the most 
 part in holes in trees, but in winter scour the 
 woods in companies in search of food. Often 
 they may be seen, hanging head downwards, 
 abstracting the seeds from the hardened cones. 
 Flocks of Bohemian waxwings are sometimes 
 shot during the severity of winter, and occa- 
 sionally chattering crossbills appear among the 
 pines at the same season. The pied and grey 
 wagtails stay with us throughout the year; 
 while a third species comes to our creeks in 
 April, and thence proceeds inland. The 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 29 
 
 meadow and tree pipits we have, the latter in 
 autumn leaving the vicinities of farmsteads, 
 where it breeds, for warmer climes. In sum- 
 mer the skylark is everywhere common, and 
 the sweet-singing woodlark rare. The snow- 
 flake, or mountain bunting, is a little northern 
 visitor which comes to our fell slopes in winter. 
 The common and yellow buntings have their 
 nests among the tangled herbage of the road- 
 side, and the black-headed bunting, or reed- 
 sparrow, is everywhere common in the vicinity 
 of water. Owing to the better cultivation of 
 the valley "intacks" the goldfinch has become 
 almost extinct. The bullfinch, the greenfinch, 
 and the chaffinch are common everywhere, and 
 more than half the bird-sounds one hears in 
 summer are due to the last named. The 
 beautiful mountain finch, or brambling, is rare. 
 Linnets and siskins go through life together, 
 ranging the fields in search of cress and wild 
 mustard seed. In summer they are among the 
 broom, in winter among the fallows. At the 
 same season we frequently find the lesser red- 
 pole among the nut-tree tops, though its 
 I 
 
130 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 relative, the twite, keeps to higher ground. 
 The peregrine and the carrion-crow are much 
 more rare than formerly, as is also the hooded 
 crow ; their haunts, too, are getting farther and 
 farther away. Rooks, jackdaws, and magpies 
 are everywhere on the increase, though this can 
 hardly be said of the jay and the wryneck. 
 The garrulous blue jay is confined to a few oak 
 copses, and the wryneck to one belt of wood. 
 The little mouse-like creeper and the wren have 
 protection in their diminutiveness, and conse- 
 quently abound. The hoopoe is also . an 
 occasional visitant, and has been more than 
 once taken. The lap of May brings that 
 wandering voice, the cuckoo, which has been 
 preceded, a few days, by the sweet birds of 
 return — the swallows, martins, and swifts. The 
 night-jar, or goatsucker, follows a few days 
 later, and flies immediately to the coppice 
 woods, preferring those where huge slabs of 
 limestone pave the ground, as on these the 
 birds love to bask, and between their crevices 
 they lay their eggs. The ringdove and the rock- 
 dove haunt the woods, though the turtledove 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 131 
 
 comes but rarely. The semi-domestic pheasant 
 flourishes only under protection, though the 
 more hardy partridge has her oak-leaf nest 
 under the glowing gorse bushes in every con- 
 genial situation. The indigenous red grouse is 
 common on the moors, the blackcock rare. 
 Occa.sionally the timid quail rears her brood 
 amid the long summer grass. The bittern has 
 ceased to boom in the bog, but the gaunt 
 heron still pursues his solitary trade. The 
 beautiful golden plover stays with us on its 
 way to the more northern hills ; and the 
 common green plover, peewit, or lapwing, 
 breeds everywhere over the fallows. The 
 curlew still gives out its weird whistle on the 
 fells, and hovers around the farm lights on 
 stormy nights. The rare ruff and the green 
 sandpiper occasionally come to the mosses by 
 the Greenwash ; and here in winter may be 
 heard the wild clangour and cries of innumer- 
 able sea birds. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 /^^LOSELY connected with the valley, 
 either by ties of friendship or by reason 
 of its natural productions, were two remarkable 
 men, of whom I should like to speak. These 
 were John Gough and John Dalton. The first 
 was born just outside the dale, the other in a 
 more distant valley among the Cumbrian hills. 
 Both visited at our family house, and I have 
 heard many interesting reminiscences in con- 
 nection with these visits. Dalton's early career 
 was commenced at Greytown, where Gough 
 was born, and the two were bound to the valley 
 in many ways. Dalton was pupil to Gough. 
 It may be well to speak of the latter first. 
 
 Gough was closely connected with Man- 
 chester, with its learned societies, and many 
 of its famous sons. By Dr Kitto and other 
 writers he was generally styled the " blind 
 philosopher." Dalton was president of the 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 33 
 
 Manchester Philosophical Society, and no 
 fewer than fourteen papers, mostly on ex- 
 perimental philosophy and natural history, were 
 read by Gough before the society, of which his 
 former pupil was president. Wordsworth was 
 a personal friend, and speaks of him in the 
 following lines : — 
 
 Methinks I see him — how his eyeballs rolled 
 Beneath his ample brow, in darkness paired ; 
 But each instinct with spirit, and the frame 
 Of the whole countenance alive with thought. 
 Fancy, and understanding ; while the voice 
 Discoursed of natural and moral truth 
 With eloquence, and such authentic power. 
 That in his presence humbler knowledge stood 
 Abashed, and tender pity overawed. 
 
 Gough became blind when a little over two 
 years of age, so that his knowledge of outward 
 objects must have been exceedingly limited. 
 Having stated this fact, I should like to 
 say something of his studies in practical 
 natural histoiy, and to indicate the manner in 
 which this knowledge was acquired. It was 
 related by him in after life, as an instance of 
 his retentive memory, that he could minutely 
 
134 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 describe the form and contortions of an earth- 
 worm shown him by his father as it crawled 
 over a flower-bed in the garden. Gough was 
 come of the old Quaker stock of the north 
 country, his father being Thomas Gough, a 
 skinner and glover of Wyresdale, in Lanca- 
 shire. His mother was the daughter of a 
 well-to-do yeoman, who owned a valuable 
 estate on the banks of Windermere. Our 
 future philosopher was born in 1757, and the 
 first few years of his life must have been 
 dark indeed. But it may be readily under- 
 stood that the senior Gough, a devoted and 
 pious Friend of the old school, did everything 
 in his power to make the time pass less heavily 
 with the blind lad. In a simple, homely way 
 his education was now commenced. It con- 
 sisted at first in submitting to his touch every 
 object that might be safely handled, and in this 
 way he gained some idea of external form and 
 other qualities. But brighter days were at hand. 
 In the spring and summer he was led abroad 
 in the fields, and about this time a flood of 
 light rushed upon him. Nature, by that 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 35 
 
 wonderful law of compensation, quickened to 
 a marvellous degree the senses which were 
 left to him. As he sat among the grass and 
 flowers the sunlight glinted down upon him, 
 the warm wind brought on its breath the 
 sweet smell of flowers, and it seemed as if 
 to him the birds sang, and the squirrels 
 chattered. At this time he would examine, 
 in his own sinjple way, such specimens as his 
 guide brought to his hands. His first actual 
 lesson in botany seems to have been given 
 by an old weaver, at whose house he was 
 wont to visit. He was attracted to a window 
 by the sweet smell of flowers, and groping 
 his way thither he examined some plants 
 contained in pots. The differences he found, 
 and which his fine sense of touch enabled 
 him to detect, showed at once that here was 
 a wide field for investigation. From this time 
 botany became one of his favourite pursuits. 
 And now it was that a curious coincidence 
 occurred, which served to confirm an early 
 impression. He was lying upon a bank whilst 
 his father angled, when the latter submitted 
 
136 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 to him a worm. With a cry of delight he 
 immediately recognised in the soft - bodied 
 creature the likeness in form to the one he 
 had seen in the garden. This incident, slight 
 as it may appear, gave a further impetus to 
 his studies, and from this time he became 
 deeply interested in zoology. And now he 
 was lifted from darkness, his ways henceforth 
 were ways of light, for nature seemed to 
 have taken him to her broader bosom. Do- 
 mestic animals he knew, as it were, by heart, 
 but was surprised beyond measure to learn 
 that there were thousands of others which 
 roamed in a state of nature. Gough listened 
 with rapt attention to the popular descriptions 
 of these creatures read to him by his father, 
 and when the announcement was made that 
 a large travelling menagerie was about to 
 visit Greytown, his manifestations of delight 
 were almost beyond control. Previous to its 
 coming he neither ate nor slept, and when 
 it actually arrived he entered the cages of 
 the quieter animals, examining each in turn, 
 passing his fingers over them, his face beaming 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 37 
 
 the while. Of the larger carnivora, however, 
 he knew nothing, beyond hearing their low 
 mutterings and growls, or the thuds as they 
 bounded about the cages. He went home 
 interested, but disappointed. Once there no- 
 thing could restrain him; he urged, he peti- 
 tioned, he pleaded, and he had his way. 
 Father and son returned to the menagerie, 
 and his case was laid before the proprietor. 
 The extreme danger was pointed out ; but 
 the lad pleaded his own cause and triumphed 
 — he was to examine the lions, tigers, and 
 leopards, even the polar bears. He entered 
 every cage save that of the hyenas, and, as 
 may be supposed, the time so spent was 
 never forgotten. 
 
 Shortly after this, when Gough was about 
 six years of age, he was sent to the Friends' 
 school at Greytown, of which a Mr Bewley 
 was then master — a man whose mind was not 
 only stored with a vast amount of classical 
 and scientific knowledge, but one who was 
 passionately fond of natural history. "Like 
 master like scholar," and from this time 
 
138 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 Gough's life was shaped. At school he was 
 taught Latin, with which he made rapid pro- 
 gress ; but the study of plant life he loved best, 
 and about this time we find him writing as 
 follows : " My progress in botany proved very 
 slow for a long time. It is true I never 
 desisted from the pursuit, for every plant that 
 fell in my way became an object of careful 
 scrutiny. I treasured up in memory the forms 
 of a multitude of vegetables, so as to afterwards 
 recognise many of them, when I came to read 
 their descriptions." 
 
 In his thirteenth year Gough was informed 
 by his father that two Greytown men had 
 written of plants, at which the young naturalist 
 expressed surprise, not knowing that botany 
 had been treated of in books. He set to work, 
 however, and by hard reading and examin- 
 ing specimens soon made himself master of 
 John Wilson's Synopsis of British Plants 
 and Hudson's Flora Anglica. He then studied 
 more advanced works, formed a botanical class 
 among his schoolfellows, and made an her- 
 barium. Hudson followed the old method of 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I39 
 
 Linnaeus, and this was the one best adapted 
 to Gough. The classification depended much 
 upon the number of stamens in a flower, which 
 Gough easily determined by inserting the tip 
 of his tongue between the petals. His delicate 
 fingers ran with lightning-like rapidity over the 
 specimens brought to be named from far and 
 near, and if the flower or plant happened to 
 be a rare one, his face beamed as he told its 
 name, its natural order, and not unfrequently 
 added a scrap of interesting folk-lore. And 
 he was rarely mistaken; he pronounced quickly, 
 and skilful botanists never questioned his 
 verdict. Indeed, Dr Withering, with whom 
 he was in frequent correspondence, " informed 
 his blind contributor that he would accept his 
 habitats and remarks without reserve, and 
 without any more specimens for verification." 
 Gough was loved by all about him, and though 
 many friends tried good-naturedly to puzzle 
 him, none ever succeeded. A plant once seen, 
 or rather felt, he never forgot ; and though the 
 flower submitted to him might have its home 
 among the Alps or in the Tropics, so well 
 
140 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 acquainted was he with our own flora that 
 he invariably referred it by analogy to its 
 right natural order. Strange as it may seem, 
 the colours of flowers he could determine by 
 touch ; and on this subject we find him, in after 
 years, writing a scientific essay. Gough and 
 Wordsworth were intimately acquainted, and 
 throughout the works of the latter frequent 
 allusions are made to his blind friend. It 
 happened once that the bard of Rydal and 
 Coleridge were walking among the mountains, 
 when the conversation turned upon Gough. 
 They were approaching Grisedale Tarn, when 
 one of them plucked a bit of Silene acaulis 
 (Moss campion), which, being rare, it was pro- 
 posed should be submitted to Gough, with the 
 avowed object of puzzling him. It was sent, 
 and when put into his hand, he said, " I have 
 never examined this plant before, but it is 
 Silene acaulis" The fact is, that the blind 
 philosopher had heard read some beautiful 
 elegiac verses written by Wordsworth upon his 
 brother John, in which this little mountain 
 flower was vividly described. The description 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I4I 
 
 had so lived upon him that he immediately 
 recognised it after a lapse of twelve years. 
 Another trick devised to deceive Gough is 
 worth recording. If rarer flowers failed to 
 puzzle him, he might be deceived by abnormal 
 specimens of commoner ones. Accordingly 
 a plant was put into his hands which had 
 been contorted and twisted. His fingers and 
 tongue were quickly brought into requisition 
 as he ran over the parts of the flower. A 
 quiet smile of triumph played over his 
 features as he quietly remarked, " I'm puzzled 
 now, unless this be a potato flower." Gough 
 was right, and his questioner turned away 
 abashed. 
 
 Although, as I have said, John Dalton was 
 born among the Cumbrian hills, yet upon his 
 removal to Greytown he became a pretty 
 frequent visitor to one or two houses in the 
 valley. Like Gough he was a Quaker, and it 
 may have been through the former that he 
 came to know some of the families in the dale. 
 This was in his young days, whilst he was still 
 a schoolmaster, and before he removed to 
 
142 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 Manchester. From these isolated visits sprang 
 a deep love of our valley, and an acquaintance 
 with many of its treasures. It was here that 
 Dalton collected various natural history speci- 
 mens, and also conducted a number of his 
 earliest meteorological experiments. He had 
 come from his quiet Cumbrian home to join his 
 cousin, George Bewley (together with Jona- 
 than, his brother, as assistant), in teaching the 
 Quaker school at Greytown. What we hear 
 nowadays about Dalton is all as a great chemist 
 — as the author of the Atomic Theory. There- 
 fore, to mention the way in which the young 
 philosopher came to the scene of his first 
 labours may not be uninteresting. He started 
 from his humble thatched home with an ex- 
 ceedingly tiny bundle of personal comforts. 
 These he supplemented on the way by an 
 umbrella — a piece of extravagance, it has been 
 urged, for such a poor philosopher. The dis- 
 tance from Eaglesfield to Greytown was 
 forty-four miles, and the road lay through 
 the heart of the beautiful Lake country. The 
 long journey was accomplished in a single day, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 43 
 
 and when Dalton reached his destination he 
 found it a grey, old-fashioned town of about 
 10,000 inhabitants. These same inhabitants 
 had always been somewhat in advance of the 
 times in the matter of book learning and 
 general culture, and hence knew the value of 
 a good education. The straggling borough, 
 with its ancient charter and many rights, based 
 its broad foundations upon Quakerism. Most 
 of its leading people were Friends, and as the 
 members of this quiet sect were mostly engaged 
 in trades which they themselves had built up, 
 the little place was quite one of manufacturing 
 activity. Woollens constituted the staple trade, 
 and by their motto on the town shield the 
 people asserted that wool was their bread. 
 Although, as I have said, there were but 
 10,000 people in the place, the Friends' meeting- 
 house provided for 1200 of them. This was 
 a large, plain building, eminently satisfactory 
 as to its foundations, and withal fairly comfort- 
 able. If it was not always filled at the ordinary 
 meeting for worship, it was filled to overflowing 
 on "Quarterly Meeting" days. Upon these 
 
144 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 occasions Friends came in from all the out- 
 lying country meetings — from the dales and 
 the fell-heads — and created quite a quiet kind 
 of excitement in the 
 town. They wore their 
 quaint attire in sombre 
 brown, or grey, or drab, 
 or fawn, the wealthier 
 women Friends in soft 
 silks or satin, the yeo- 
 men's wives in more 
 sober homespun. Just 
 across the way from the 
 meeting-house was the 
 school in which the 
 children of its members 
 were taught, and it 
 was to this that Dalton came as teacher. In 
 1785 his cousin, George Bewley, the then head- 
 master, retired, and the brothers Dalton an- 
 nounced their intention of continuing the 
 school, " where youths will be carefully in- 
 structed in English, Latin, Greek, and French ; 
 also writing, arithmetic, merchants' accounts, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 45 
 
 and the mathematics." Whether boarders had 
 previously resided in the school I do not know, 
 but now the brothers offered to take these on 
 reasonable terms, and their sister Mary came 
 from Eaglesfield to act as housekeeper. The 
 young Daltons had an amazing capacity for 
 hard work. They increased their income by 
 " drawing conditions," collecting rents, making 
 wills, and by constituting themselves notaries 
 public. During the period of this struggle 
 Joseph and Deborah Dalton visited their 
 children in Greytown, and brought with 
 them cakes, cloth, and other home produce. 
 Upon these occasions they tramped the forty- 
 four miles on foot, caring for no personal 
 fatigue, so long as their children's wants were 
 supplied. In the following year to which 
 this refers the brothers issued a second 
 circular, which comprehended a curriculum of 
 the very widest description. This somewhat 
 remarkable document embraced everything 
 that was taught in the highest schools, 
 together with every subject that could be 
 comprehended under the head of Natural 
 K 
 
146 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 Philosophy, and there was a postscript to the 
 effect that the brothers would give private in- 
 struction in the use of the globes after school 
 
 hours ; that they could conveniently teach a 
 considerable number of scholars more than 
 at present ; and that parents might rely on 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 47 
 
 their children being carefully instructed. But 
 in spite of the circulars, it is said that, whilst 
 truly zealous in their calling of schoolmasters, 
 the brothers Dalton were neither gainly nor 
 genial in manner, and somewhat deficient in 
 the art of winning the pleasant regards of 
 their pupils: The bucolicism of Eaglesfield 
 still clung to their natures, and manifested 
 itself outwardly in their upright coat-collars, 
 broad-brims, and an unbending fellside 
 Quakerism. As schoolmasters they were 
 severe disciplinarians, exacting silence, order, 
 and a faithful adherence to prescribed rules ; 
 the gentlest prating of the little girls, or the 
 smallest blot on a page, called forth rebuke. 
 Admonition was the fact of the hour, and if 
 this did not suffice, the cane or the "tawse," 
 consisting of short leather thongs, was applied 
 to the palm of the hand, and, in worse forms 
 of punishment, to the bare back. Jonathan 
 was looked upon as principal of the school, 
 and was the severer taskmaster. John's more 
 youthful sympathies saved him from so much 
 juvenile reproach ; yet my information, derived 
 
148 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLrY. 
 
 from their pupils, tends to show that he was 
 far from conciHatory in method, or prone to 
 educe the kindlier parts of his scholars. 
 Their teaching was much more elementary 
 than their curriculum of study indicated. It 
 is said that in the midst of thirty or forty 
 scholars, and all their noisy doings, John 
 found minutes of leisure at his own desk to 
 work out the higher mathematics ; if so, he 
 possessed a fifty-schoolmaster-power of abstrac- 
 tion, along with a rare intensity of applica- 
 tion. 
 
 And so these early years of Dalton's life were 
 spent in Greytown, teaching his Quaker 
 school, and mixing almost wholly with those 
 of his own sect. It was during these twelve 
 years that his frequent visits were made to 
 our valley, all of which took place before his 
 removal to Manchester. There were various 
 inducements for him. In the dale he had 
 fast friends. There were many treasures to 
 be collected, and here his meteorological ex- 
 periments could be indulged without much 
 fear of ignorant interference. Among the 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 49 
 
 treasures to which I have referred were 
 plants, and Dalton's knowledge of botany 
 would seem to have been considerable. Pro- 
 bably the best testimony to this fact is found 
 in a Hortus siccus, comprised in ten volumes, 
 and now in one of the reference libraries at 
 Manchester. Many of these plants were 
 gathered in our valley, and to me the re- 
 miniscences conveyed with them are most 
 interesting. I well remember, too, how they 
 had also interested someone else ; for, com- 
 menting upon the fact that Dalton had written 
 beneath a specimen of the lady's slipper orchid 
 the words, "presented to me by Nancy Wilson," 
 this " someone else " had contributed a note to 
 the effect that over this ilower hangs a sweet 
 little veil of romance. "'Ah ! " he exclaims, 
 " and who was Nancy Wilson .'' Under what 
 circumstances placed in his (Dalton's) hands .■' 
 Did it come as an outward and visible sign 
 of something more than 'lute can tell' — 
 something more than a cypripede ? Eighty 
 years ago, depend upon it, this poor little 
 embrowned blossom was not a blossom only. 
 
150 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 But there it is, like the tomb of Cecilia 
 Metella at Rome, and we shall never know 
 any more." I think I could add a little 
 more, but then the tale would be foreign to 
 my subject. 
 
 Dalton's life went on much in the same quiet 
 course until his removal to Manchester. He 
 worked hard at school, he lectured, he prac- 
 tised his philosophical experiments, but made 
 few friends. His friendship with the blind 
 Gough, however, was an important, and to 
 him, advantageous one. They had like 
 pursuits, and these often took them afield 
 together. And to nothing did they look 
 forward with such pleasure as a long visit 
 to the dale which I have so frequently 
 mentioned. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 T HAVE already told of some of the more 
 notable folk which the valley produced, 
 but as yet I have refrained from giving 
 specimens of the characteristics which caused 
 them to be above the common herd. One 
 of our dalesmen, a yeomen of repute and 
 some standing, was a minute philosopher, and 
 enjoyed the friendship of Mr Wordsworth. 
 Like Gilbert White, he was in the habit of 
 setting down what he saw going on about 
 him ; and all his observations are of the most 
 interesting description. He was essentially 
 an outdoor observer; and as he took his facts 
 at first hand from nature, there was always 
 a fascinating freshness about them. One of 
 his more ambitious essays at writing was a 
 sketch, entitled " The Fisherman : a Character^' 
 a production at once quaint and accurate. 
 After describing the varied charms of the 
 
152 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 valley, its sweet stream, and the way in 
 which he used to ensnare its crimson-spotted, 
 golden-sided trout, and adding that he must 
 not be tempted to dwell on these reminis- 
 cences, he goes on to say, " My present 
 object is an attempt to describe a quaint 
 character whom I met with lately on a 
 morning walk along the road that skirts the 
 aforesaid stream. I had stayed my steps as 
 usual to contemplate, with ever new delight, 
 the features of the valley, when I observed 
 moving down the stream, from just opposite 
 to where I stood, a certain individual who, 
 though not strictly an angler, may be denomi- 
 nated a fisher of the first magnitude. I had 
 not seen him till he moved, but he had seen 
 us, and shifted his position about a hundred 
 yards down the brook, by the side of which 
 he again planted himself. I have known him 
 long, but not intimately ; for he is of shy 
 habits, and very chary of all familiar inter- 
 course. I could not but admire his handsome, 
 tall figure as he stood on the bank of the 
 stream, looking into it, 'as if he had been 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 53 
 
 conning a book.' He was arrayed in his 
 constant garb — a durable sort of dress, the 
 colour of dingy white, or rather approaching 
 to a pale blue. The cut or fashion of this 
 costume he never changes, nor does he often 
 renew it — not oftener, I believe, than once a 
 year, when he gets a new suit. 
 
 " Your angler is somewhat of an enthusiast, 
 and pursues his gentle craft with an absorbing 
 interest ; but then it is only as a pastime and 
 at suitable seasons, when the weather is 
 favourable, when the spring rains have raised 
 the brooks, and dyed- their waters with the 
 precious ale colour, and the wind breathes 
 from the mild south ; and yet, after all, alas ! 
 how often does he return with an empty 
 pannier. It is different with my hero. His 
 sport depends not on the fickle seasons ; at 
 least he pursues it in all weathers — in the 
 bright sunshine, or when the face of heaven 
 is overhung with clouds ; in the hot days of 
 summer, or when the wind blows from the 
 biting north, and the ponds and streams are 
 bound over with plates of ice ; he is still at 
 
154 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 his work fishing, evermore fishing. Indeed, 
 it must be confessed his very living depends 
 upon it. How often have we pitied him in 
 winter — in a severe winter. It is hard to live 
 upon nothing but fish, and, moreover, to have 
 to catch them before you can dine. It is hard, 
 indeed, to be confined to one dish, and to 
 have no other resource, for if that fail, where 
 are you .? It is like the Irishman with his 
 potato — when that rots there is famine. But 
 it has been hinted that my friend is not 
 entirely confined to fi.sh, and that he can 
 occasionally eke out his scanty repast with 
 frogs. I shall not deny it. It is probable 
 enough. It is consoling to have such a 
 resource. In this he but resembles the 
 Frenchman. 
 
 " I have said that the angler is an enthusiast, 
 much carried away by his imagination. I 
 have known two or three of this gentle tribe, 
 buoyed up with the hope of sport, set off 
 from our part of the country, walk all the 
 way to Bracken Bridge to try the waters of 
 the silvery Greenwash, and return the same 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 55 
 
 night, after fishing all day, a distance of forty 
 miles, but perhaps not much encumbered by 
 heavy panniers. But if the disciple of Walton 
 is patient and persevering, and takes long 
 rambles in pursuit of his pleasures, I think 
 he is exceeded in every respect by the subject 
 of my description. I believe there is not a 
 tarn or lake, still water with sedgy shore, or 
 running brook with sandy bottom, or even 
 dyke or ditch within a radius of ten miles 
 from his home, that is not well known to him, 
 and in which he has not pursued his solitary 
 sport. 
 
 " I have been somewhat puzzled whether to 
 class him as gentleman or poacher, for he par- 
 takes of the character of both — a kind of hybrid 
 betwixt the two, neither selling his game, nor, 
 after serving his own needs, disposing of it in any 
 other way, except feeding his children when he 
 happens to have any, and then only while they 
 are of tender age, for they are soon turned out 
 of the parental shelter, and compelled to seek 
 their own living in the world at large, like him- 
 self, by fishing. So has it been with his pro- 
 
156 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 genitors, so will it be with his posterity till 
 the end of time. As in the East with the 
 Hindoos, and in a degree, with other wanderers 
 like himself, as gipsies and potters, his family 
 seems not to have got beyond the system of 
 caste, which, it must be allowed, shows but a 
 low degree of civilisation. But still, as he 
 sells not his fish, or stoops to any kind of 
 vulgar labour, so far I must rank him as a 
 gentleman. On the other hand, however, as 
 he cannot be called the owner of a single 
 rood of land or water, and yet presumes to 
 sport wherever it suits him, on the property 
 of gentle or simple, yeomen or squire, with- 
 out condescending to ask leave of any man, 
 I fear, therefore, as far as this goes, I must 
 consider him a poacher. Moreover, like too 
 many of that lawless profession, he is 
 wretchedly poor, and, laying nothing up for 
 a wet day, he must be often, as we hinted 
 before, sorely beset with his wants. There 
 is something in his looks that makes this 
 too probable, the same lank, meagre figure he 
 always was. Let >the season be ever so genial. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 57 
 
 fish ever so plentiful, it makes no difference 
 in his personal appearance ; he is as thin 
 and spare as ever, with scarcely an ounce of 
 flesh on his bones. He is emphatically one 
 of Pharaoh's lean kine, seems far gone in 
 consumption, almost like the figure of Death 
 in the old pictures. It was this thin and 
 haggard appearance that led a fanciful French 
 naturalist to describe him as the very type 
 of misery and famine. I suspect, however, 
 that Mons. Buffon was a little out here, and 
 that our hero has more pleasure in life than 
 he was aware of His patience and per- 
 severing efforts must procure him many a 
 savoury meal, and though they do not fatten 
 his ribs, they at least keep him in good 
 working, or rather sporting, order. I trust 
 he will long remain so, and continue to en- 
 liven our valley with his presence. Poacher 
 though he be, I respect him for his love of 
 freedom and independence, of nature, and of 
 fishing. We are certain, however fortune may 
 frown upon him, to whatever straits he may 
 be reduced for a living, that rather than 
 
158 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 seek shelter in a union workhouse he would 
 die of famine. 
 
 " I have said nothing of his method of fish- 
 ing. How various are the arts by which 
 cunning man contrives to circumvent the 
 finny tribe ! With all deference to honest 
 Izaak, it must be allowed that the whole art 
 of angling is based upon deceit and imposture. 
 Therefore our sportsman rejects it, we suppose, 
 on that account. And then as to the use of 
 nets, it has doubtless been copied from the 
 villainous spider, who weaves a web from his 
 own bowels, and hangs it before the door of 
 his lair, in which he lurks, ready to pounce 
 upon the unwary victim entangled in its 
 meshes. He will have none of this. Nor 
 does he adopt the more simple and straight- 
 forward scheme of the schoolboy and otter, 
 by dragging his speckled prey from under 
 the banks and braes of the populous brooks. 
 No ; he has a method of his own. Armed 
 with a single spear-shaped weapon of about 
 six inches in length, woe to the unhappy 
 trout or eel that comes within its range. It 
 is transfixed with the speed of lightning. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 59 
 
 " There is no history of an individual from 
 which a moral lesson may not be drawn. 
 Why not, then, from the character of our 
 hero ? In a poem of Mr Wordsworth's a fit of 
 despondency is said to have been removed by 
 the patient and cheerful bearing of an old 
 man whom the poet met with on the lonely 
 moors gathering leeches. I have sometimes 
 amused myself in running a parallel betwixt 
 the character I have attempted to describe 
 and the brave old leech-gatherer depicted by 
 Mr Wordsworth. There is no slight resem- 
 blance. Botti silent and solitary in their habits ; 
 both models of patience and perseverance, and 
 of contentment with the calling allotted to them 
 by Heaven ; both wanderers ; both haunters 
 of ponds and moors, 'from pond to pond he 
 roamed, from moor to moor.' Yes, and on 
 much the same errand, too ; for I believe 
 my hero could gather leeches upon occasion 
 (indeed, I durst back him for a trifle were I 
 in the habit of laying wagers) against the old 
 man, both for quickness and tact in that 
 employment. I have, however, no wish that 
 
l6o THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 the poet had substituted our hero for his in 
 that noble poem, for I would not alter a line 
 or word of it. I only beg that my fisher 
 may be placed side by side as a teacher of 
 ' resolution and independence ' with the im- 
 mortal leech-gatherer. My sketch has reached 
 a greater length than I had intended, and yet 
 I have only touched on the character of an 
 individual. Perhaps I may be pardoned a 
 few words more on the tribe to which he 
 belongs. Like that of the gipsies and other 
 nomadic races its origin is involved in much 
 obscurity. The probability is that it came 
 from the East, but of its first introduction 
 into Europe I believe history is silent, and the 
 most learned are at a loss on so mysterious a 
 subject. I think, however, it is pretty certain 
 that this wandering tribe had spread widely, 
 and was, perhaps, more numerous than at 
 present, before the barbarians from the North 
 had overrun the Roman Empire. 
 
 " Nay, if I might hazard a conjecture, they 
 are so ancient that they date even from beyond 
 the pyramids. Not, however, to indulge in 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. l6l 
 
 disquisition, but to confine myself strictly to 
 the historic period, I find abundant evidence 
 that they were firmly established in our island 
 during the middle ages, and held in much 
 higher respect than they are at present. Not 
 only were they often present with the baron in 
 his field sports — especially that of hawking — 
 but not seldom in the ancient pastime played 
 a very active part. A still stronger proof of 
 the regard in which they were then held was 
 that, when the lordly baron entertained his 
 numerous followers on grand feast days, the 
 dinner would have been thought very incom- 
 plete had they not been present, and then not 
 at the lower end of the long table among the 
 poor retainers, but at the upper part with the 
 most honoured guests. Like the Jews, the 
 people we speak of live in little knots and 
 communities, but not, like them, confined to 
 some dirty quarter of a city, where they can 
 practise the money-making arts. On the con- 
 trary our purer race avoids all towns — nay, like 
 the Arab of the desert, they view them with 
 unmingled fear and horror. Never is there one 
 L 
 
1 62 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 seen there, unless it be some poor captive, pining 
 away his life for want of fresh air and freedom." 
 
 Any account of the simple annals of the 
 valley would be incomplete without some de- 
 scription of the hunting in which the people in- 
 dulged, and I am therefore constrained to give it. 
 One of the great annual hunts took place the 
 day upon which was also held the " Shepherds' 
 Meeting," one of the oldest institutions of the 
 hill districts. This meeting is one which 
 sprung out of the sheep-farming, of necessity. 
 I have before mentioned the fact that there 
 exists at a certain farm in each parish a book 
 setting forth the marks, smits, and ear-slits 
 peculiar to the sheep of each holding in the 
 township. This was in the keeping of some 
 responsible person, and was used as a re- 
 ference book in case of dispute. It sets forth 
 the name of each farm, the number of its 
 sheep, a rough definition of their range, and 
 the account of each flock is illustrated by cuts. 
 This shows, to take an example, "J. T." on 
 the near shoulder, a red smit down the flank 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 63 
 
 and the left ear slit down the middle. The 
 slits and smits are essential, for although the 
 initials of the owner may, and frequently do, 
 become blurred and indistinct, the former 
 are lasting, and in case the animals have 
 strayed, they may at once be identified. With 
 the enclosure of the commons, however, this 
 " Smit - Book " is now rarely used, and 
 there is no recent version. If all means 
 of identification failed, the " unkent " sheep 
 were taken on a day to the top of one of the 
 wildest passes in the district to the " Shep- 
 herds' Meeting." This was held annually upon 
 the broad summit of High Street, and after 
 the stray sheep were returned to their rightful 
 owners, the day became a festive one. Business 
 done, the shepherds amused themselves with 
 wrestling, racing, leaping, and fox-hunting on 
 foot. And it was at one of the hunts I am 
 about to mention that a man named Dixon 
 fell from an overhanging precipice of about 
 three hundred feet in height, and though 
 terribly bruised and almost scalped, he broke 
 no bones, and recovered from the shock. In 
 
164 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 falling he struck against the rocks several times, 
 but unconscious the while ; immediately on 
 coming to the ground he sprang to his knees, 
 and cried out, " Lads, t' fox is gane out at t' 
 hee end ; lig t' dogs on, and I'll cum syun " ; 
 then fell down insensible. The place has since 
 borne the name of " Dixon's Three Jumps." 
 
 Two packs of hounds are usually present 
 at the meeting — one of harriers, one of fox- 
 hounds. A memorable hunt many years 
 ago was on a glorious day, — the roads ice- 
 bound and the mountains snow-covered. The 
 fields were crusted with hoar-frost, the lakes 
 and tarns with a thin coating of ice, and 
 the fell birds were driven to the valleys. In 
 progressing to the " meet " a beautiful and 
 curious phenomenon was witnessed. On one 
 side Dunmail Raise the sun shone gloriously, 
 whilst on the other a dense mist prevailed. 
 This on its edges was brightened by what 
 resembled a series of rainbows, and the 
 whole effect was one of singular beauty. 
 Upon the side of one of the high-lying 
 valleys the hounds were thrown off, and 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 165 
 
 soon obtained a quest. Puss had been down 
 in the night to feed in the rectory garden, 
 and the hounds told with no uncertain 
 sound how, after quitting the parsley sprays, 
 she had gone through the meadows, out of 
 the fields, across the high road, and into a 
 fir plantation. Being roused from her hiding 
 place among a clump of rushes, she stole 
 quietly out of the wood. But now the 
 voices of the hounds began to rend the thin 
 air with their varied cries, and dashed away, 
 at the same time rousing the echoes of the 
 hills. Knowing well where her strength 
 lay, puss made for the uplands, but being 
 hard pressed, began to retrace her steps. 
 Soon she was back to the plantation which 
 she had so lately left, and three of the lead- 
 ing hounds came topping the fence not far 
 behind. And now, having tried all her 
 devious windings and doubles, " she pants 
 from the place from whence at first she 
 flew." In terror she flies, and is chased by 
 the hounds in full view across the fields, 
 and into an adjoining shrubbery, where she 
 
1 66 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 is run into, and killed. Poor puss ! one can- 
 not help but exclaim, as her mangled remains 
 are pocketed by a labourer who has been 
 first in at the death. "She'll dae for Sunday 
 dinner, an' I reckon nowt o' jugged hare 
 unless it's been well chowed be t' dogs," — 
 and so the first hunt ends. After having 
 ale at an inn, generously distributed by the 
 master of the hounds, the whole assembled 
 company again set out and ascend into the 
 region of snow. There is a sprinkling of 
 women and girls, and one or two females 
 belonging to the gentlefolk. From the 
 elevated region, which is soon attained, a 
 glorious prospect presents itself Lying be- 
 low is the village of Grasmere, with all its 
 associations. Upon the opposite steeps are 
 Silver Howe and Helm Crag, upon which 
 lie the "lion and the lamb." Easedale and 
 its silent tarn dip between the two heights, 
 and Dunmail between Steel Fell and Seat 
 Sandal. The sun shining upon the snow- 
 clad hills throws up an exquisite rosy flush, 
 and, this being reflected to the valley below, 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 67 
 
 all nature seems bathed in a soft golden 
 light. Here is the ridge of Helvellyn, and 
 we are above the snow line. The hounds 
 have previously been thrown off into a 
 plantation at Fairfield's base, and the hunts- 
 man has to use all his skill to prevent the 
 pack from dividing and going off after two 
 diverging hares. And now ensues one of 
 the longest runs of the season. Right along 
 the breast of Fairfield — no shifts or doubles, 
 but straight ahead after the manner of a 
 fox. The hare leads over Fairfield, along 
 the steeps of Nab Scar to Rydal Head, 
 and down into Rydal Vale. The quick 
 ascent over the snow-clad hills from the 
 neighbouring valley has put to the test the 
 stamina of the straggling followers, and three 
 only reach Nab Scar. Here, whilst the hounds 
 are bringing puss back from beneath us, we 
 stop to breathe. Away to the south stretches 
 Windermere with its brown slopes and shaggy 
 copses ; Rydal and Grasmere lie below us, 
 whilst over yonder are Esthwaite and Coniston 
 Water ; then Easedale, Elterwater, and Blen- 
 
1 68 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 ham Tarns. Far to the south, like a flood 
 of molten fire, stretches Morcambe Bay, with 
 its surrounding hills rolled and lost in cloud. 
 Soon the hounds recross the craggy top, 
 and return in one long line, presenting a 
 pretty picture against the snow. As they 
 take us back along Fairfield many of them 
 are visibly fagged, and the line becomes 
 longer and more straggling. Here a raven, 
 roused, flies off croaking to the nearest glen. 
 The tracks of the hare and hounds are 
 sharply marked against the snow, and 
 something may be read from them. Here 
 puss has run in a circle, and then made 
 a long leap at right angles to her course ; 
 but all in vain. The hounds are only 
 baffled for a second, and soon take up the 
 quest. Then the descent begins, and the 
 hare makes back to the woods ; and here, 
 to our delight, the dogs are whipped off", 
 everyone agreeing that such a hare is worthy 
 of life, and I only hope that she may never 
 have such a like experience. 
 
 Whilst luncheon is getting ready we take a 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 69 
 
 walk through embosomed Grasmere, which 
 naturally leads us to the side of Wordsworth's 
 grave. There it is, just a plain grassy mound, 
 with its simple inscription of name and date 
 of himself and wife. Near to lie the remains 
 of Hartley Coleridge. The churchyard is green 
 and fresh even now in December. The full 
 Rothay flows just past it, and the yew trees 
 are there as of old. From the churchyard 
 we pass to the church. This contains a bas- 
 relief bust of Wordsworth, with the following 
 inscription : — "To the memory of William 
 Wordsworth, a true philosopher and poet, 
 who, by his special gift and calling of Al- 
 mighty God, whether he discoursed on man 
 or nature, failed not to lift up the heart to 
 holy things, tired not of maintaining the cause 
 of the poor and simple, and so in perilous 
 times was raised up to become chief minister 
 not only of noblest poesy, but of high and 
 sacred truth. This memorial is placed here 
 by his friends and neighbours, in testimony of 
 respect, affection, and gratitude." 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 A LTHOUGH open-air pastimes are, and 
 have always been, few, this does not hold 
 good of those which were enjoyed indoors. 
 From what has been said in recording the 
 annals of our quiet neighbourhood, it will 
 have been gathered that when days were 
 short and nights long, the wits of the young 
 folk must often have been exercised as to 
 how to make the long evenings pass more 
 pleasantly. So far as the inner life of the 
 people has been revealed it will have been 
 seen that the domestic affairs of the dales- 
 folk, especially in the past, were managed with 
 the greatest economy. Although this is very 
 generally true, all suggestion of parsimony 
 vanished when any occasion of festivity came 
 round. Of these occasions Christmas was 
 perhaps the greatest of all. Then the treat 
 in old times circulated from house to house ; 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 171 
 
 and anent this it is striking how little festive 
 occasions have either lapsed or altered. In 
 these early times only the elements of cookery 
 were known, but these elements were often 
 concentrated upon one table in a glorious 
 culmination of dishes. If these would not 
 suggest profusion now, they did then, and 
 prominent among them were several sorts of 
 pies and puddings. Ale " possets " and " fig 
 sue " constituted items of delicacy, and were 
 in great repute among the men and women 
 alike. These things usually formed the chief 
 dishes at supper, although upon great occasions 
 they were given to strangers for breakfast, 
 before the introduction of tea. They were 
 served in bowls, called doublers, into which 
 the company dipped their spoons promiscu- 
 ously, for the simplicity of the times had not 
 yet seen the necessity of accommodating each 
 guest with a basin or soup plate. The posset- 
 cup held the important place of the champagne 
 cup of to-day. In the better houses it shone 
 as an article of finery. It was made of pewter, 
 and was furnished with two or three lateral 
 
172 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 pipes, through which the liquid part of the 
 compound might be sucked by those who 
 did not choose the bread. The repast was 
 moistened with malt liquor, which the guests 
 drank out of horns and wooden cans. Cards 
 and conversation constituted the amusements 
 of the elders, whilst the young men entertained 
 the company with exhibitions of maskers, 
 amongst whom the clown was the conspicuous 
 character ; and this was yaried by parties of 
 rapier dancers, who showed their dexterity in 
 the innocent use of the small-sword. Those 
 more juvenile still conducted themselves noisily 
 in " hunting the rolling pin." This was rather 
 an indelicate amusement (or probably it would 
 be voted so nowadays), and those engaged in it 
 squatted on the floor in a circle, their legs up- 
 right, and keeping their hands below their 
 knees. By this arrangement a covered way was 
 formed round the ring, in which the rolling pin 
 moved quickly from hand to hand, being struck 
 frequently against the ground to inform the 
 hunter of its place, who continued running 
 round the circle in pursuit of the flying object. 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 73 
 
 At the time when these things were in 
 vogue, the country was divided into " latings," 
 from a north country verb " to late " — to 
 seek, to Invite. When a death happened, 
 the heads of the houses within the dis- 
 trict met to condole with the friends of the 
 deceased, and the younger members watched 
 the corpse through every night until the day 
 of interment. The mistresses of the family met 
 upon the birth of a child, and the occasion 
 was made a festive one. No expense, however, 
 was thrown upon the household, most nearly 
 concerned, this being defrayed by the contri- 
 butions of those present. These two customs 
 are dying out, but even now remain in the 
 more isolated dales. Doles were given to poor 
 persons when a death occurred in a family, 
 and these were not unfrequently sufficient to 
 pay all the funeral charges. Another custom 
 has been referred to in connection with death, 
 which shows the high estimation in which 
 wheaten bread was held by our ancestors. At 
 one time it was considered in the light of a 
 parting gift from the dead to the living. Every 
 
1 74 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 person invited to a funeral received a small loaf 
 at the door of the deceased, vifhich it v^^as ex- 
 pected would be carried home. This was a 
 custom of the greatest antiquity, for the 
 people called the loaf arval bread — its Latin 
 appellation. The joyousness of a marriage 
 ceremony in old times has been referred to — 
 its being attended by the whole " lating," the 
 cavalcade to church, the race for the riband, 
 and all the rest of the innocent fun. The ex- 
 pense of this, again, was not allowed to fall 
 on the newly-married pair, but was willingly 
 paid by the guests. Then the bride sat in 
 state, and an interesting ceremony commenced. 
 Contributions of money and household utensils 
 were set down before her, which she was asked 
 to accept. So numerous were these gifts, that 
 they frequently constituted almost a start in 
 the new sphere of life upon which the married 
 couple were entering. In connection with 
 these same ceremonies, it ought to be men- 
 tioned that it was usual in the dale for guns 
 to be fired over and round the festive house. 
 I have spoken of one of the customs as it 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 75 
 
 used to be, and in a certain vale there 
 exists a remnant of it to-day. Here, for 
 social purposes, the valley is divided into 
 three biddings or latings, corresponding to 
 its three hundreds ; and as before these are 
 specially observed in the case of funerals. 
 It is still customary to invite all persons in 
 the " bidding," whether rich or poor ; but 
 in the dale dinner is provided at the inn. 
 This repast is certainly not of a funereal 
 character, for roast beef, plum pudding, spiced 
 ale, and other substantial dishes, are provided 
 and freely partaken of. 
 
 One of the great festivals of to-day is at 
 sheep-shearing. I have already told how the 
 hill holdings are sheep farms, and that hundreds 
 and sometimes thousands of sheep are grazed 
 oh one " heaf " At the washing and shearing 
 of these the dalesmen lend mutual assistance. 
 With almost every dweller in the dale to assist, 
 the ''clipping" sometimes lasts a couple of days. 
 After the shearing a feast is given at the farm to 
 which it pertains, and all and sundry are invited 
 to partake of the teeming hospitality ; and after 
 
176 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 this jollity finds its height. There are put in 
 circulation trays of tobacco, ale, spirits, and 
 a series of most inspiriting ballads. Those 
 who do not care for this kind of entertainment 
 in the spacious barn, make to the fell side, and 
 there indulge in athletic sports — wrestling, foot 
 racing, and leaping, the best wrestler being 
 rewarded with the finest fleece of the clip. An 
 Auld Wives' Hake is another festivity once 
 common in the fell districts, and usually held 
 on Chri.stmas Eve. At one time it was observed 
 by matrons only ; and the evening was spent 
 in drinking tea, "telling stories of dark com- 
 plexion," and much gossip and scandal was 
 indulged in. Where such festivities are held 
 nowadays the young folk have broken in, 
 and the character of the entertainment is 
 modified. In these dancing and singing would 
 seem to form the principal items. The herb- 
 puddings which it is customary to eat at 
 Easter may be reminiscences of Easter tansies. 
 All the villagers attend the hill churches on 
 Easter Sunday, and take with them garlands of 
 such wild flowers as are " out." " Nut Monday 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 77 
 
 is another holiday — a recreation in which 
 most young people delight, being a merry 
 harvesting play, that leads away to the bosky 
 hill slopes, where on either side, between the 
 overhanging rocks, the hazels grow heavily 
 laden, bending to the stream. It leads 
 away to the woods where meeting hazels 
 darken under 'stately trees whose dense 
 foliage is all aglow with the most gorgeous 
 tints that nature's matchless pencil can 
 impart ; where the squirrel, prettiest of 
 wood-land creatures, elfin lord of the hazel 
 bushes, resents the intrusion upon his 
 domains, and from the summit of his 
 watch tower — a tall oak — looks down on 
 the intruders with scintillating eyes, and 
 perks his ears, and stamps, and cries aloud. 
 All true lovers of nature, indeed, squirrels, 
 dormice, monkeys, and men, like nutting. 
 Wordsworth, nature's high priest, tells us 
 that the day on which, when a schoolboy 
 at Hawkshead, he sallied forth, 
 
 " Tricked out in proud disguise of cast-off tweeds. 
 With a huge wallet o'er his shoulders slung, 
 
 M 
 
178 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 A-nutting, crook in hand, 
 
 Was like many another day he thus employed — 
 
 One of those heavenly days that cannot die. 
 
 " They have always fine weather when they go 
 a-nutting — poets and people of that ilk. Look 
 at plump and pleasant Miss Mitford, what a 
 lucky lassie was she .■' For the day on which 
 she sallied forth might hdve been made 
 for the purpose, being one of those delicious 
 autumnal days when the air, the sky, and 
 the earth seem lulled into a delicious calm. 
 Well might she exclaim, 'Oh, what an enjoy- 
 ment nutting is.' Who wouldn't have liked 
 to have been with her when, as she tells us, 
 she doffed her shawl, tucked up her flounces, 
 twisted her straw bonnet into a basket, and 
 gathered and scrambled the thick- clustering 
 brown leemers, while her favoured com- 
 panion hooked down the bushes. It is a 
 wonder he didn't hook her ; for she was fat 
 and fair, and if half so rich as her writings 
 and her nut-basket what a prize she must 
 have proved ! But, content with her name 
 and her fame, her village, her flower garden 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 79 
 
 and filbert groves, she chose the better part, 
 and, considering with the Apostle that though 
 it might be good to marry it was better not, 
 remained in single blessedness through all the 
 happy Nut Mondays of her life." 
 
 Only those who have themselves lived in an 
 isolated dale can form any idea of its loneliness. 
 This, however, refers more to the dark days of 
 winter, than to the brighter ones of summer. 
 Whatever the time, the sheep claim the atten- 
 tion of the farm workers. Yesterday I went 
 to the Hall, where I saw the cream from 
 twenty-three cows being converted into yellow, 
 fragrant butter. But such a number of mil- 
 chers is altogether unusual. The Hall farm 
 happens to lie at the head of the dale, and 
 much land about it has been reclaimed from 
 the wide-spreading beck. The river-bed has 
 cut deeper, and by liming and draining the side 
 strips, a number of meadows have been won 
 to the farm. This work was done a few years 
 ago, and with liberal treatment the fields have 
 yielded fodder abundantly. But this state of 
 things is quite exceptional, and usually only a 
 
l8o THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 few milch cows are kept. As I have frequently 
 repeated, the hill holdings are sheep farms. The 
 yeomen talk of sheep, and everywhere aboui the 
 farms various objects testify to their presence. 
 The heaf-going sheep at the Hall farm number 
 1500 to 2000, a somewhat larger number than 
 belongs to the ordinary steadings. The breed 
 of sheep which find food upon the mountains 
 are either herdwicks or small black-faced, which 
 are said to be peculiar to the district. The story 
 of the introduction of a kind of sheep which so 
 well suits its environment is a somewhat curious 
 one. It has reference to the herdwick. It is 
 said that a great many years ago a strange ship 
 stranded upon the Cumberland coast, and the 
 only living things upon it were a flock of 
 sheep, of a kind which before had not been 
 seen. These either swam or were brought 
 ashore, and some of the yeomen of Wastdale 
 Head drove them up the sides of the fells. 
 When winter and the snowstorms came, these 
 sheep, instead of making to the sheltered 
 spots, immediately sought out the exposed 
 peaks of the bleak fell tops, where, the wind 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. l8l 
 
 driving hard, the snow was unable to lodge. 
 As the sheep had always this resource, they 
 were but rarely buried in the drifts, and 
 proved themselves peculiarly appropriate to 
 the mountains. The herdwicks are probably 
 much older in the hill districts than this 
 legendary story which introduces them. One 
 of the valuable characteristics of the breed 
 is that it has what the farmer calls a "jacket 
 and waistcoat" — a layer of soft thick wool 
 close to the body beneath the longer staple 
 of the fleece. This, then, is the variety of 
 sheep which is found in the valley and 
 is peculiar to the hill ranges around. By 
 selection, the special characteristics which fit 
 it for its elevated home are reproduced again 
 and again, until now they have become fixed. 
 At one time — before the enclosure of the 
 commons — it was necessary that the sheep 
 belonging to a certain farm should be local- 
 ised upon their own allotment ; but now that 
 the commons are enclosed this is no longer 
 necessary. This was insured by a tenant, 
 on giving up his farm, leaving (say) a fifth 
 
1 82 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 of his sheep of the old "heaf," these being 
 purchased by his successor at a fair valua- 
 tion. If the whole flock was allowed to 
 remain on like conditions, so much the better 
 for the incoming tenant. 
 
 It is the tending of the sheep then that is so 
 closely associated with the life of the states- 
 man. About his farm are quaint stone folds in 
 which the sheep are penned when they are 
 brought home on any particular occasion 
 during the year. Even in winter they 
 can scrape a precarious existence from the 
 bare fells, but when it is practicable they are 
 moved to lower levels at the coming of the first 
 snow. When this cannot be accomplished, hay 
 is taken by the shepherds upon their backs, 
 and the sheep are foddered on the fells. If 
 this is imperative the winter life of the shep- 
 herd is a hard one, both for himself and dogs, 
 and the farmers often suffer considerable loss. 
 With the exercise of all their instinct, the 
 sheep — both herdwick and black-faced — not 
 unfrequently become buried in the drifts, and 
 have to be dug out. Under these circum- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 83 
 
 stances they can live for a considerable time, 
 and have been known to be rescued alive after 
 a fortnight's entombment. At the digging out 
 of a number of sheep at which I was present, 
 the poor creatures were in a terribly weak and 
 exhausted condition, and had eaten the wool 
 off each other's backs. It is marvellous, how- 
 ever, how these goat-like creatures survive win- 
 ter and come out of it in even fair condition. 
 It is when winter is unusually severe, and the 
 snow Hes long on the hills, that the greatest 
 casualties occur. In one case, two years ago, 
 1500 sheep died on the hills out of a flock 
 of 6000. But in time spring sends its genial 
 influences abroad, and the snows begin to 
 melt. The mist caps rise from the peaks, and 
 the foam of the fell becks sparkles as it leaps 
 among the rocks. As the snow recedes before 
 the warm sun, the turf comes green beneath it 
 and daily gains in growth. If the sheep be 
 observed, it will be seen that their heads are 
 all turned towards the skyline, and they seem 
 to nibble as though for very life. The voice 
 of the shepherd and his dogs is now heard 
 
184 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 daily upon the fells, and there is a joyousness 
 in the warm air. The boulder-strewn slopes 
 are at this time enlivened by the return of the 
 mountain birds, and the first spring flowers 
 begin to respond to the sun. As April passes 
 into May the sheep have much improved in 
 condition, and by the end of the month, if 
 the weather be seasonably warm, the washing 
 of the flocks is taken in hand. The critical 
 lambing time has passed by June, and the 
 lambs and their dams are together enjoying the 
 sweet green grass of the slopes. On the day 
 prior to that on which the washing is intended 
 to take place, the shepherd goes to the hills 
 with his full complement of canine helpers. 
 Every nook and cranny of the ghylls and 
 crags is sought by the nimble collies, and not 
 a sheep is left behind — or rarely so. Although 
 the slopes may only show scattered sheep here 
 and there, it is seen how the numbers gain 
 and the flock grows as it becomes concentrated. 
 When the gathering is completed, the sheep 
 are driven slowly down dale, travelling so as 
 not to tire the lambs, and that they may pick 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 85 
 
 their way unhurt over the sharp stones. The 
 very foot of the valley has to be sought, as 
 here the large deep dubs of water are found 
 in which the grey fleeces are to be whitened. 
 The sheep washing is quite a primitive and a 
 pleasant festival. Rude folds are constructed 
 by the stream side, and a " washer " wades 
 into a deep pool. One by one the sheep are 
 thrown in by a couple of stalwart dalesmen, 
 and each sheep in turn is thoroughly soused 
 and rinsed. When all the foreign matter has 
 been abstracted from the fleece the dripping 
 animal is allowed to swim ashore. This is 
 slow and heavy work, and often two or three 
 long summer days are taken to accomplish it. 
 The sheep dry quickly, and afford a pretty 
 sight as their whitened fleeces pick out the 
 tender green of the grass. There is a great 
 bleating between the lambs and their dams, 
 but this gradually dies away. If the sheep 
 have been washed upon their own ground, 
 they are not driven back to the higher runs, 
 but are allowed to climb out to the fell-tops 
 themselves. This they soon accomplish, and 
 
1 86 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 next morning the sheep walks present their 
 usual appearance. A month goes by and 
 the warmth increases. The wool becomes 
 an encumbrance, and a long summer night 
 of " gathering " again takes place. There are 
 only about a couple of hours of darkness, when 
 the collecting must cease ; and now the shep- 
 herds wrap themselves in their plaids, and 
 munch some refreshment under the side of a 
 boulder. With the first faint streaks of light 
 both men and dogs are again busy, and once 
 more the flocks converge upon the mountain 
 road. When the men and their flocks arrive at 
 the farm they find all their neighbours arrived 
 to help with the shearing, and soon the metallic 
 click of the shears is heard far down dale. I 
 have, however, already described the " clip- 
 ping," and now we must come to its close, when 
 the sheep are once more driven to the fells. 
 It is then that is seen one of the prettiest sights 
 which the day affords. Turned into the long 
 lanes, the white fleeceless flock presents an in- 
 describable picture of pastoral beauty. Every 
 sheep hangs upon the hazel-clad slopes, stretch- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 87 
 
 iiig its quiet neck to the tender herbage. Not 
 a foot of the bank seems unoccupied — two 
 long lines of sleek, browsing sheep reaching 
 away until a bend in the road hides them. 
 The babel of sound which was heard a few 
 minutes ago becomes less general, then it 
 ceases, and a strange stillness fills the lane. 
 We do not see the flock again until autumn, 
 when a new fleece has grown, and the sheep 
 are brought down to be " dipped." 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 f^ F the many changes between " then " and 
 " now," there is one even in the dales 
 which is most marked. The horse which the 
 hill farmer brings to market has changed, so 
 have his cattle, and not least so himself. But 
 his womenkind, his daughters, have changed 
 more than all. And I will here set down what 
 I have observed in this relation, though having 
 more general application than to the narrow 
 boundaries of our valley. Domesticity among 
 English girls is probably at a lower ebb now 
 than it has been for a couple of centuries. 
 Many of the home arts, which once formed an 
 important part of domestic daily life, are fast 
 decaying, or have died out. This is perhaps 
 less so in the country than in towns, but 
 even in the former female manners have much 
 changed of late. There is little of that sim- 
 plicity which was so characteristic of the past 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 89 
 
 century girl, which made her life a reflex of a 
 pure yet healthy animalism. She was essen- 
 tially " homely," had homely ways and used 
 homely phrases. Her pleasures were mostly 
 indoors, and her pastimes of a profitable nature. 
 There was scarcely an article of wear of which 
 she was not architect and constructor ; and it 
 just as frequently happened that the original 
 material was partly manufactured by her own 
 hands. Then spinning wheels were in every 
 country house, and every yeoman and farmer 
 was a small manufacturer. One of the great 
 indoor employments of winter evenings was 
 this spinning within the ingle nook. Of course, 
 the wool had to be first combed, and it was 
 then piled in snowy heaps to feed the raven- 
 ous spindles. At the times of which I write, 
 fields of flax were part of every northern 
 demesne, the hemp being spun and made into 
 skirts and shirts. Yarn hose and coarse 
 druggets were also articles of common manu- 
 facture, but these have long gone out. In 
 short, spinning of whatever kind is lost as a 
 domestic art, the whole female population 
 
190 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 having turned its back on honest homespun. 
 Nearly every past century country house of 
 the north contained quaint oaken arks and 
 chests, the contents of which invariably testi- 
 fied to the ability and worth of the women. 
 They were stored with quantities of linen and 
 woollen cloths, all the produce of home industry. 
 
 In nearly all cases a portion of this formed the 
 bride's only dowry, and lucky was the young 
 yeoman who secured a wife with " a chest of 
 fine linen cloth." The mistress of a great house 
 possessed a thorough knowledge of all the 
 domestic arts, as well as the designing and 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. I9I 
 
 working of artistic tapestry. Every female 
 from nine to ninety — and longevity was one 
 of the great characteristics of the fell folk- — 
 was a wondrous knitter, and the northern " out- 
 
 put " of blue-grey stockings was enormous. 
 These were carried by pack-horses to the large 
 southern towns, and formed a staple article 
 of industry. 
 
 The Arkwrights of the period produced the 
 innumerable rudely-carved arks and chests 
 
192 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 which are so characteristic of northern houses. 
 In these the home manufactures were de- 
 posited, and they contained many things 
 besides. They were intended for the preser- 
 vation of conserves, oaten cake, and dried 
 meats. These latter were an important part 
 of the food supply which, taken throughout 
 the year, was altogether inadequate to the 
 demands of the community. The feeding 
 and fattening of cattle was but little under- 
 stood, for the stock fed in autumn being 
 killed off by Christmas, very little fresh meat 
 appeared in the markets before the ensuing 
 midsummer. The yeomen and manufacturers 
 provided against this inconvenience by curing 
 a quantity of beef in autumn, part of which 
 was pickled in brine, the rest being dried in 
 the smoke of the capacious chimneys. The 
 pickling was performed by the women, and 
 successful preserving was one ot the great 
 arts of the time. Cooking, however, was at 
 a low ebb ; each family boiled sufficient salt 
 provision on Sunday to last for the week, 
 and this and oatmeal pudding constituted 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 93 
 
 the chief meal of the day. The women were 
 great adepts at making oaten cake, which was 
 made in large circular layers. Two or three 
 days were specially set aside for this work, 
 and sufficient was made to last the family 
 for twelve or thirteen weeks. All these things 
 were stored in the before - mentioned arks. 
 The female portion of the household attended 
 to the poultry, geese, and calves, these, with 
 the addition of eggs, constituting the whole of 
 the fresh food for winter. Poached salmon 
 was sometimes added, but as this was out of 
 season it was insipid and watery. The veal 
 was ill-fed and ill-favoured, the calves being 
 carried to market when only two or three 
 weeks old. About this time tea found its 
 way to the north from the metropolis, 
 being brought by the woollen merchants. 
 In spite of opposition by the men, it soon 
 became the favourite beverage. Its qualities 
 and preparation were at first but little under- 
 stood. One old lady — and she a dame of 
 standing — received a quantity from her son 
 in London, which she smoked instead of 
 
 N 
 
194 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 tobacco. Another housewife converted a 
 present of a like nature into a herb-pudding 
 of considerable dimensions, which, not proving 
 palatable, she dressed with such spices as she 
 possessed, but failed to subdue its bitterness. 
 Porcelain followed the introduction of tea, 
 
 displacing the neatly turned cups and saucers 
 of maple ; and wheaten flour was rarely seen 
 except in the houses of the rich. 
 
 The yeoman had few of the objects of ele- 
 gance and ease which the same class- — where 
 it exists — has to-day. They were a practical 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 95 
 
 people, but their practice has not come down to 
 their descendants. Our women and girls have 
 rushed to the other extreme. The ordinary- 
 arts of knitting and sewing are being year 
 by year lost to general womanhood. Their 
 qualifications for the offices of wife and mother 
 are few, and it is deplorable to have to believe 
 that they are becoming fewer. 
 
 One of the great institutions of the 
 valley was the country carrier. With his 
 slowly rolling cart and old horse, he was an 
 all important individual, and performed a 
 multitudinous number of offices. It was 
 perhaps because he could neither read nor 
 write that he had such a marvellous memory, 
 and this was essential to his compound trade. 
 He made journeys twice a week to Greytown, 
 and upon these occasions carried commissions 
 from nearly every one in the dale. These 
 ranged from strings of beads to sacks of flour, 
 and from pins to new gowns. There was 
 nothing which might be required that the 
 carrier could not bring, and with his many- 
 sided character he had a marvellous power of 
 
196 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 pleasing everybody. In many cases the carrier 
 brought the whole of the groceries for the year, 
 and a hundred things besides. It mattered not 
 of how great a number of items his individual 
 orders consisted ; he always rendered a faithful 
 and accurate account upon his return. And 
 even his enemies had to admit that he could 
 do this even when often otherwise than sober. 
 These would relate how sometimes they had 
 seen the carrier's legs only visible over the front 
 of the cart, his upper three-fourths at the time 
 being sonorously dreaming among sacks of 
 flour, beer barrels, and a hundred other 
 miscellaneous articles. But then, as I have 
 said, these were his enemies, and, if there was 
 truth in the statement, it was somewhat strange 
 that no mishap ever occurred, and that after 
 these rumours the carrier always appeared with 
 his honest, serious face, looking very innocent 
 through all its russet bluffness. Dobbin, the 
 carrier's horse, was almost as wonderful a 
 compound as the carrier himself, and the 
 enemies already referred to even asserted that 
 Dobbin was endowed with a higher intelligence 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 97 
 
 than its master. Of course, this was a gross 
 libel, though they asserted, by way of confirma- 
 tion, that upon occasions when " Willum " had 
 slipped down between the horse and cart, the 
 sagacious creature had stood stock still until 
 some passer-by had dragged him out and 
 replaced him upon the front of the cart. 
 However this may be, I know " Willum " 
 himself had infinite faith in the old horse, and 
 he has told me how on dark winter evenings, 
 when the snow lay thickly in the dale roads, 
 he has given Dobbin his head and let him 
 plough through the deep drifts home, and 
 how he always succeeded in doing this 
 without mishap. When by himself, Dobbin 
 could open all the gates with wooden latches 
 and let himself through, and in this capacity 
 he sometimes brought " Willum " into wordy 
 collision with his neighbours on account of his 
 lax notions of meum and tuum. The old horse 
 had a fatality for opening gates of fields which 
 contained pasturage better than his own, and 
 seemed quite unconcerned whether the same 
 was intended for haygrass or no. But the 
 
198 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 time when the carrier and his cart were most 
 characteristic was when they were met on the 
 road. The latter was covered in with a huge 
 canvas dome that served to keep off both rain 
 and sun. The heavy rolling cart was invari- 
 ably enveloped in a cloud of dust in summer, 
 and a cloud of moisture in winter. There were 
 two accompaniments to the cart which were 
 never absent. One of these was an old-world 
 horn lantern which swung beneath it, the other 
 a large dog which kept faithful watch and 
 ward when " Willum " was asleep or over- 
 come by drowsiness. But the old carrier has 
 turned off the road to another bourne, and such 
 are the innovations of the time that there is 
 none to succeed him. 
 
 The dalesmen go to market much more 
 frequently than of yore, and it would some- 
 times appear that they go because it is 
 market day and by no means of necessity. 
 Time was when attending Greytown was quite 
 an event — at least to the younger members 
 of the family ; now it is unusual if they stay 
 at home. These facts will suggest that the 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 1 99 
 
 houses of the yeomen are changed in their 
 economy, which is true ; and the change is 
 probably for the better. They have many 
 creature comforts, which cost but little, and to 
 which they were once strangers. They are 
 brought somewhat nearer to the world of life, 
 too, and know something of what goes on 
 there. And, best of all, they have been made 
 acquainted with books, which more than all 
 tend to enliven and refresh their lonely lives. 
 There is one other "institution" which was 
 connected with the dale, though he could 
 hardly be said to be of it. This was the 
 postman. He did not actually come into the 
 dale, but brought the letters to the foot of the 
 valley, and left them either in a hollow tree or 
 at the smithy. In proceeding from Greytown, 
 however, he blew a horn at the lane ends to 
 call the country folk if there happened to be 
 any communication for them. By this arrange- 
 ment the postman was saved the trudging of 
 many a weary mile, and was enabled to keep 
 pretty much to the beaten highway. He could 
 sound a blast on his horn which would be 
 
200 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 heard nearly over the parish, and the signal 
 proved a most effective one. And then he was 
 rarely kept waiting. A letter was an important 
 arrival, which often constituted an era in itself, 
 and the postman's horn occasionally sent con- 
 sternation through a family ; and well it might, 
 for a letter was a letter in those days. Such 
 epistles were not penned lightly. Writing a 
 letter was not a thing to be taken hastily in 
 hand. The task was often talked about for 
 many days ere its accomplishment, and its 
 contents were the outcome of many heads. 
 And this will be better understood when the 
 subject of such letter writing is known. 
 Nothing but a birth, a marriage, or a death 
 could induce a sturdy yeoman to reduce the 
 facts of the same to paper, or to convey some 
 rough, honest sympathy to those who had 
 to bear the brunt of affliction. Even such 
 occasions as these, when the people were poor, 
 were not always productive of a letter, and the 
 friends outside their little world were not made 
 cognisant of sad or joyous facts until long 
 months after, when perhaps some accident 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 20I 
 
 revealed it. Under these circumstances it will 
 not be difficult to understand that the better- 
 class yeoman sometimes received a letter each 
 week, whilst others could only boast that 
 number in a year. This office of postman, 
 with all its importance, is deeply impressed 
 on my memory from the fact that I once filled 
 it. During the summer vacation, when the 
 loneliness of the dale became even painful to 
 me as a very small boy, I was not unfrequently 
 thrown on the back of an old cart mare, and, 
 with only a halter for trappings, was sent from 
 the head to the foot of the dale once a week 
 to see after letters. If two or three were to 
 be found at the smithy, or, higher, in an old 
 oak, I rejoiced exceedingly, and turned the 
 head of the mare homewards very much 
 conscious of the fact that I constituted at the 
 time "Her Majesty's Mail." In many cases 
 the letters received were ranged upon the 
 chimney-piece to .show, in some measure, the 
 importance of the family. 
 
 Two other characters who frequented the 
 valley, but were not of it, were a pedlar and 
 
202 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 an old fern gatherer. The first was a type of 
 a class of men once common but now nearly 
 extinct. They carried packs on their backs, 
 and spent months in tramping the country, 
 and in going from farm to farm to show their 
 wares. The pack contained a very miscel- 
 laneous assortment of small things likely to 
 excite the interest of the women and girls 
 especially, and the pedlar was always a 
 welcome guest. He was newsman, too, and 
 told to the credulous dalesfolk all that was 
 happening in the outside world, and a great 
 deal that was not. He stayed at the farm 
 where night happened to find him, though 
 there was sometimes competition for his 
 company. Of course he was garrulous, but 
 at the same time he was fairly honest ; and it 
 was from a compound of this class of men that 
 Wordsworth drew the life and character of 
 his immortal " Wanderer." 
 
 In spring and summer the boulder-strewn 
 slopes of the valley were everywhere covered 
 with beautiful and rare ferns ; and the old fern- 
 gatherer came to collect them. He was as 
 
204 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 constant in his coming as the pale green 
 fronds of the ferns themselves, and his presence 
 was always welcome. He used to carry ham- 
 pers full of ferns to his home in Greytown, 
 and there he put them into pretty rustic 
 baskets made from the lesser hazel boughs. 
 In autumn he gathered nuts and cresses, all 
 of which he turned into money. The old 
 man was a fairly good naturalist, and the 
 pursuit he had chosen we always believed 
 came from a strong love of nature. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 TT was rarely that anything occurred in the 
 valley to arouse the dwellers out of the 
 even tenor of their way ; and looking back over 
 a long life not more than two or three such 
 incidents suggest themselves. I have already 
 stated that the vale was but rarely invaded, 
 and at long intervals. Among these invaders 
 were rambling botanists, and sometimes a 
 geologist armed with his hammer. These 
 visitors were generally looked upon by the 
 dalesfolk as harmless individuals, though as 
 lacking something mentally. The great Prof 
 Sedgwick often visited the dale in summer, 
 and upon one occasion a gentleman presented 
 the genial Professor with a shilling, being, as 
 the stranger expressed it, such an " exceedingly 
 intelligent old man." 
 
 Everywhere dotted among the hills are 
 small mountain tarns, each a veritable paradise 
 to the wandering botanist and angler. In the 
 
206 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 neighbourhood of the valley one can rarely 
 walk far without coming across them in the 
 hollows of the mountains ; and as I have had 
 occasion to mention them so often, and they 
 form such a characteristic feature, I may be 
 excused if I set down somewhat minutely a 
 description of one of them — one which I 
 almost look upon as my own possession. 
 
 At the base of Breeda is a shimmering 
 lakelet, nestling at the foot of the great green 
 hills. And around the mere is my mountain 
 garden. To the hundred wild denizens the tarn 
 must prove a veritable summer paradise ; and 
 those hills beyond are surely the Delectable 
 Mountains. The marsh-plants and bog-birds 
 have chosen well their haunt, and even 
 now revel in the wealth of summer. The 
 tarn is done in a setting of pale green reeds, 
 these again by waving rushes. The cool 
 leaves of the waterlilies float on every tiny 
 wavelet. Myriads of delicate bank-swallows 
 cling to the giant rushes, whose slender stems 
 bow beneath their weight ; then one just 
 touches the water and leaves a sweet com- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 207 
 
 motion in ever widening circles long after 
 it has flown. 
 
 In those dark-green depths a shoal of silvery 
 roach is falling and rising in the warm sun- 
 light, and here a pike rushes off through the 
 reeds. The waterhen leads out her brood 
 among the lilies, and black coots call from 
 the lush summer grass. A pair of swans, 
 whose whole existence seems spent above 
 their shadow, have built a rude structure of 
 a nest, and soon the brown cygnets will take 
 possession of the tarn. The green glint of 
 the "water-wolf" shows as it makes for the 
 deeps. A pair of sandpipers, or summer- 
 snipe, run over the pebbles and drift-stuff, 
 and then with tremulous wings make across 
 the mere. That restless, delicate reed-warbler 
 has its nest and its game-preserves among 
 the rushes, and ceaselessly runs up and down 
 the stalks of the bog-plants. Its beautifully 
 domed nest is interwoven with and supported 
 by four reed stems, and sways gently in the 
 wind. Sometimes it even touches the water 
 but the brown eggs are safe in their soft 
 
2o8 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 setting. Another bird of this wild weed 
 garden is the garrulous little sedge-warbler — 
 a veritable mocking-bird, that seems to spend 
 its existence in imitating the birds of the 
 marsh. 
 
 But the bog-plants — the exquisite floral 
 denizens of the tarn. There, deep down in 
 the flags, are the sinuous roots of the water- 
 buttercup. Its star-like flowers float on the 
 water — delicate white crowns set in gold. The 
 yellow and purple irises tower over all, their 
 great sword-like leaves the haunt of myriad 
 dragon-flies. These are everywhere sailing 
 above the warm water in vesture of blue and 
 gold. Pretty spiral shells, just half immersed, 
 are dotted over the mere, and constitute the 
 freshwater nautilis of their mountain home. 
 Set everywhere along the marge are tufts of 
 woodruff, which emit an aroma as of newly- 
 mown hay. The tiny white flowers are tinged 
 with pink, and are "sweetest when crushed." 
 Growing in close communion is the rose- 
 coloured marsh - orchis and pink valerian. 
 Where an old wall runs down to the tarn there 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 209 
 
 is a great golden patch of globe-flower — a 
 rare and cultivated plant in many districts, 
 but here growing wild. Even now a group of 
 laughing school girls are returning from the 
 mere garlanded with the golden flowers. A 
 bunch of blue vetchling lights up the bog, 
 and this mare's-tail takes us back to an old- 
 world fossil flora. The blue marsh vetchling 
 is rare in its beauty, and blooms side by side 
 with the Grass of Parnassus. Shadowing the 
 sundew and pimpernel is the elegant bog- 
 asphodel with its star-like flower. These 
 were formerly used by ladies for dyeing the 
 hair yellow. Its companion, the curiously 
 fringed sundew, is one of the few British insec- 
 tivorous plants — a vegetable fly-trap. Not only 
 are the insects held fast by a viscid substance 
 which covers the leaves, but its sensitive hairs 
 quickly close upon any unfortunate victim, and 
 do not relax their hold until death ensues. 
 Everywhere over the bog, cotton-grass waves 
 its snowy plumes, and a dozen species of 
 sedges toss their bearded heads to the breeze. 
 Resting on our oars, a blue heron flaps slowly 
 O 
 
2IO THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 over the mere, and takes its sentinel stand 
 on the further side. 
 
 The loveliest marsh plant, however, of my 
 mountain garden is the frosted buck-bean. 
 Its cluster of blossoms, before fully expanded, 
 are rose coloured, and when open the petals 
 are covered with a silken, plush-like fringe. 
 It is the " flower of liberty " of the Danes, 
 though their idea that it is found only within 
 their own country is quite an erroneous 
 one. 
 
 There, half in the water, are the brilliant 
 blue petals of the germander speedwell, 
 and close by its little cousin, veronica 
 montana. Glistening among the reeds are 
 the brilliant corollas of the blue brook- 
 lime, or water-purpie, as the Scotch love 
 to call it. Pushing our old slimy punt in 
 among the rushes, we disturb a pair of reed- 
 sparrows which have their nest deep down 
 in the flags ; and a few yards further on 
 a pair of wild ducks get up heavily from 
 the tarn, and make off with outstretched 
 necks. Stepping out a yard from the punt 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 2 1 I 
 
 is a great bunch of dusky cranesbill, and 
 lesser tufts of eye-bright— a plant with 
 high virtues according to the herbalists. 
 Beautiful to our eyes is the little scarlet 
 pimpernel, — poor man's weather-glass, or 
 shepherd's barometer. All these names are 
 appropriate, for not only do its flowers close 
 at the approach of rain, but open and close 
 both morning and afternoon with the great- 
 est regularity. The pimpernel is one of 
 the only two scarlet British wild flowers, 
 and is extremely beautiful. It is a low 
 creeping plant, and here runs out from the 
 edge of the marsh into the cornfields as 
 though to cultivate the acquaintance of the 
 scarlet poppy. Returning to the tarn, all 
 the water plantains are here ; the family 
 of the duck-weeds, and, upon a mass of 
 tangle, is the floating nest of a coot. The 
 curious aloe-like water-soldier is here ; and 
 were not anacharis the principal food of 
 the swans and their cygnets it would soon 
 fill the tarn. 
 
 So many rare or beautiful plants grow in 
 
212 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 my mountain garden as to be almost in- 
 numerable. Just where a tiny stream joins 
 the mere the evening primrose grows in 
 great luxuriance. Its old name of wine- 
 trap it has from the fact of its being, at 
 one time, used as an incentive to wine- 
 drinking, as olives are to-day. Brightening 
 up the edges of the bog are great golden 
 tufts of marsh-marigold, which has bloomed 
 since spring, and will continue right on to the 
 end of summer. The lilac valerian is here, 
 the horse-tail, and the bugloss. Floating 
 in the shallower parts of the tarn are the 
 large white clustering blossoms of the frog- 
 bit. The crumpled petals are just tinged 
 with pink, their satiny surface looking like 
 mother-of-pearl in its iridescent hues. As 
 a setting for the flowers are the cool, glossy 
 leaves on their long floating stalks ; and it 
 is perhaps on this account that the older 
 botanists called the plant lesser water-lily. 
 The delicate rose-coloured flowers of the 
 pretty bog pimpernel peep from the marsh 
 turf, and the likeness of its flowers to tiny 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 213 
 
 fragile rock roses is quite striking. This 
 and many of the plants of my mountain 
 garden are among the gems of our valley 
 flora ; but most curious among them all is 
 a tiny floating water-weed — the bladder-wort. 
 This is a subtle fish-poacher, the true char- 
 acter of which has only lately been detected. 
 Along its branches are a number of small 
 green vesicles or bladders, which, being 
 furnished with tiny jaws, seize upon the 
 little fish, which are quickly assimilated into 
 its substance. 
 
 Sandwort, bog-rush, and stitchwort elbow 
 each other for existence, and everywhere 
 the flutter of wings shows that birds love 
 the tarn as well as plants. The quaint 
 water-avens look like hooded nuns in their 
 curious brown petals, and show as one of 
 the prettiest and most prominent flowers 
 of the tarn. Last of all is the Grass of 
 Parnassus, with its handsome cream-coloured 
 flowers marked with darker veins. With 
 nothing grass-like about it, it rears its 
 graceful head to the soft summer breeze. 
 
2 14 THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 
 
 and is perhaps the most beautiful of all 
 the floral denizens of my mountain garden. 
 
 * # # # * 
 
 The making of provision of fire-elden for 
 the winter was perhaps one of the dalesfolks' 
 most important occupations. Peat constituted 
 the general fuel, for coal was inaccessible. 
 Nature was lavish in her provision, and the 
 moors above the valley abounded in it. The 
 beds were in immense thickness, and this and 
 the purity of the brown humus attested the 
 presence of primitive forests. Many of the 
 hill ranges are still forests in name, but 
 vestiges of timber are but sporadic and sparse. 
 Peat is, of course, of forest growth. Twigs and 
 branches of birch, oak, and alder are plain 
 among the layers ; and it is so good a mummi- 
 fier that you can even trace the venation of 
 the leaves, while the great trunks of blackened 
 oak dug from the bogs are still so sound that 
 the yeomen use them for beams and other 
 offices where strength and durability are 
 essential. Acorns, too, and beech-mast and 
 hazel-nuts are all found in comparative fresh- 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY. 2l5 
 
 ness ; and therewith remains of races that 
 have passed away— the bones of wolves, of red 
 deer, fallow, and roe, and vanished species 
 of birds, the tusks of wild boars, and sometimes 
 a stone implement — a relic of primitive man. 
 The peat grows abundant crops of heather for 
 the grouse ; while the plateaux are grazing for 
 young cattle in summer and for sheep through- 
 out the year. Here, too, the hill-fox feeds her 
 young, and fattens them on grouse and plover ; 
 and here the naturalist finds his happiest 
 hunting grounds. 
 
 Just as every sheep-farmer has right of 
 "heaf" upon the fell, so has he right of 
 " turbary " on the moor ; and this quite 
 irrespective of ownership or tenancy of turfy 
 parts. Cutting — or "graving" — the peat is 
 done in early summer. It is hard work, but 
 the farm hands like the change. They go out 
 in the morning and come back late at night. 
 The grass and the bents are first stripped 
 from the turf in layers of considerable 
 thickness, which are used for roofing out- 
 houses, cartsheds, and sheepfolds. The spade 
 
2t6 the annals of a quiet valley. 
 
 called a "slane, " has one-half of the cutting 
 part bent at right angles to the other, and the 
 peat is cut inversely to its line of deposit or 
 cleavage — a method that admirably reveals 
 the manner in which it has been deposited. 
 The richest is squared into rectangular blocks, 
 eight by four inches, and two inches thick. 
 A stalwart Westmerian can " grave " a con- 
 siderable quantity in a day ; but graving is 
 not all. The rough blocks have to be shaped 
 and stacked to insure a thorough drying. The 
 stacks are so built that the air circulates freely 
 about and through them, and at a distance 
 they look like so many huge dolls' houses. 
 As summer passes, the shepherds look at 
 them as they happen to be their way; and 
 when they are dry, then " leading '' begins. 
 The peat cannot be brought from the moor 
 in carts, but is led in rude and primitive 
 sledges. There is nothing to prevent these 
 from over-running the galloways harnessed to 
 them, but accidents are rare. The moorland 
 slopes that lead from the " lots " are exceed- 
 ingly precipitous, and sledding, as the men 
 
THE ANNALS OF A QUIET VALLEY, 217 
 
 call it, is rough work. When the peat has 
 all been brought down it is again stacked, 
 this time in outhouses. A " stick-heap " is an 
 invariable accessory in the fold, with a huge 
 
 log whereon to chop the coppice-wood poles 
 into lengths for the fire ; and the ring of the 
 axe from the farmyards is a characteristic 
 and cheerful winter sound. 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
 TURNBULL AND SPEARS, 
 
 EDINBURGH.