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diff --git a/42139-0.txt b/42139-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..29f364f --- /dev/null +++ b/42139-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1203 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42139 *** + + [Illustration: WINDERMERE FROM ORREST HEAD] + + + + + THE ENGLISH LAKES + + DESCRIBED BY A. G. BRADLEY + PICTURED BY E. W. HASLEHUST + + [Illustration] + + BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED + LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY + 1910 + + + + + Beautiful England + + + _Volumes Ready_: + + OXFORD + THE ENGLISH LAKES + CANTERBURY + SHAKESPEARE-LAND + THE THAMES + WINDSOR CASTLE + + + + + LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + Page + + Windermere from Orrest Head _Frontispiece_ + + Coniston Lake 8 + + Rydalmere 12 + + Grasmere from Loughrigg 16 + + Thirlmere and Helvellyn 20 + + Kirkstone Pass and Brothers Water 26 + + Ullswater 32 + + Bassenthwaite Lake and Skiddaw 36 + + Derwentwater from Friars Crag 40 + + Honister Pass--Dawn 44 + + Head of Buttermere and Honister Crag 48 + + Scale Force, Crummock Water 52 + + + + +[Illustration: THE ENGLISH LAKES] + + + + +WINDERMERE AND CONISTON + + +The luxuriance of Windermere is of course its dominant note, a quality +infinitely enhanced by that noble array of mountains which from +Kirkstone to Scafell trail across the northern sky beyond the broad +shimmer of its waters. The upward view from various points in the +neighbourhood of Bowness, for obvious reasons of railroad +transportation, has been the first glimpse of the Lake District for a +majority of two or three generations of visitors, and this alone gives +some further significance to a scene in any case so beautiful. Orrest +Head, a few hundred feet above the village of Windermere, is the point +to which the pilgrim upon the first opportunity usually betakes himself; +for from this modest altitude the entire lake with its abounding beauty +of detail, and half the mountain kingdom of Lakeland, are spread out +before him. + +On the slopes of Orrest, too, is the house of Elleray, successor to that +older one in which Professor Wilson, by no means the least one of the +Wordsworthian band, led his breezy, strenuous life. Son of a wealthy +Glasgow merchant, winner of the Newdigate and a first classman at +Oxford, and scarcely less conspicuous for his athletic feats and +sporting wagers, young Wilson bought the land at Elleray while an +undergraduate and built a house on it later, after the passing of an +unsatisfactory love affair. As "Christopher North" every lover of the +rod with any sense of its literature knows him yet. Nor would all this +be worthy of record were it not that the brilliant little band who did +none of these things held Wilson of Elleray as one of themselves. Losing +his fortune ten years later through a defaulting trustee, he became the +brilliant supporter of _Blackwood_ and Professor of Moral Philosophy in +Edinburgh University, though always retaining his connection with +Windermere. In fact, when Scott made his memorable visit to the Lake +District, and with Lockhart and Canning stayed with the then owner of +Storrs Hall, now a hotel on the lake shore, we find Wilson doing the +honours of Windermere as commodore of its large fleet of yachts. + +Country houses, villas, and rich woods cluster thickly up and down +either shore; here and there perhaps a little too thickly. But the +general prospect up to Ambleside on the one hand, and down past Curwen +Island--named after one of the oldest of Cumbrian families--to Newby +Bridge on the other, is no whit blemished. One feels it to be a region +rather of delightful residence, which indeed it is, than of temporary +sojourn for the tourist, with the mountains beckoning him into the +deeper heart of Lakeland and to more primitive forms of nature. Shapely +yachts flit hither and thither, less alluring steamboats plough white +furrows, while the irresponsible pleasure boat is in frequent evidence. +Occasionally, too, there are winters when the great lake glistens with +thick glassy ice from end to end beneath snow-peaked mountains, and the +glories of such a brief period--glories of scene and of physical +exhilaration--shine out in the memory yet more luminously than the +unfailing pageants of summer; even the pageants of early June when the +lake is quiet, and in sequestered bays the angler, like his neighbour of +Derwentwater, celebrates the festival of the May-fly, the only one +seriously observed by the lusty and wily trout of these two waters. + +The personal associations of these opulent shores of Windermere are too +crowded for us here; but Dr. Arnold of Rugby had, of course, his holiday +home of Foxhowe near the Ambleside end, which is still occupied by his +daughter. + +Calgarth and its fine woods, just under Orrest, is the oldest and +perhaps the most notable place on the lake, partly because in ancient +times the well-known family of Phillipson lived there, though in a +former house, a dare-devil race in the Civil War period, one of whom, +known as Robert the Devil, did all sorts of heady things. The _skulls of +Calgarth_, too, which occupied niches in the old hall and could never be +got rid of, wherever flung to, always returning to their place on the +wall, are a treasured legend of the district. But the present mansion +and woods of Calgarth are little more than a century old, and are the +work of another Lakeland luminary of the Wordsworthian period. Bishop +Watson, officially of Llandaff but otherwise of Calgarth, is famous in +ecclesiastical history and of immortal memory in Wales, not for the +things he did, but rather for the things he left undone. For he was +bishop of Llandaff for about thirty years, and only once visited his +diocese in that period, preferring the life of a country gentleman at +Windermere. + + [Illustration: CONISTON LAKE] + +Precisely parallel to Windermere, a little more than half its length and +half its breadth, and four miles to the westward, lies Coniston, its +head in the mountains, its foot almost trenching on another, and +virtually lowland, country. There can be no doubt whatever about the +presiding genii of Coniston, the "Old Man" in the substance and Ruskin +in the shadow, if one may put it that way, having no rivals. The hills +crowd finely around their leader, the "Allt-maen" (lofty rock), at the +lake-head, as our artist well shows. As the lake shoots southward, +however, in a straight line, without any conspicuous curves or +headlands, and no heights comparable to those it leaves behind, one +feels upon thus looking down it that Coniston lacks something of the +fascination which never flags at any part of the other lakes. If +Windermere, too, trails away from the mountains, it does so in glorious +bends and headlands, curves and islands, and has an opulence of detail +and colouring all its own. But if Coniston, with its straight unbroken +stretch all fully displayed, and framed in a fashion less winsome than +Windermere, and less imposing than Ullswater, "lets you down" a little +on arriving at its head, looking upward from its centre it assuredly +lacks nothing, while the view from Ruskin's old home of Brantwood, +perched high among woods upon the eastern shore, commands all that is +best of it. After thirty years of intermittent residence here, Ruskin +was buried in the churchyard at Coniston, exactly half a century after +Wordsworth had been laid to rest at Grasmere. A generation later than +his great predecessor he has Coniston to himself. And if the points of +divergence between the two seers have been more than sufficiently +insisted upon, it is from the very fact, perhaps, that in intellect and +temperament they had so much in common. + + + + +THE HEART OF LAKELAND RYDAL AND GRASMERE + + +Those delectable little sister lakes of Rydal and Grasmere probably +suggest themselves to most of us as the heart of Lakeland. If we took a +map and measuring rule we might possibly be surprised to find, as we +should do, this vague intuition geometrically verified. How singularly +felicitous, then, one may surely deem it, that Wordsworth lived and died +here, and that the shrine of the sage and all thereby implied should be +thus planted in the very innermost sanctuary of the hills. + +The intrinsic charm of these two little lakes and all that pertains to +them lies in the delightful variety exhibited within a small compass of +wood and water, of rugged crag and fern-clad slope, of velvety park-like +meadow and stately timber. The blithesome Rothay unites the upper and +larger lake of Grasmere with Rydal Water by a short half-mile display +in meadow and ravine of every winsome mood that a mountain stream has at +command. The broken, straggling heights and skirts of Loughrigg Fell +fill most of the western side of either lake, and on a minor scale, like +the stream below, show every type of form and colouring, of drapery +primeval or man-made, from naked crag to bowery lawn, all within the +compass of three miles and the modest altitude of a thousand feet. + +Rydal Water has almost the air of being designed for the embellishment +of man's immediate haunts. With its occasionally reedy fringe, it +breathes the spirit of quiet, almost domestic beauty, and of the spirit +of solitude scarcely anything. Of Grasmere as much and as little might +be said. The atmosphere of seclusion that wraps at normal times so many +of the lakes seems here frankly absent. Nothing, indeed, is lost by this +sense of human propinquity; for all is exquisite. But the sign of +appreciative humanity, residential or transient, is more than commonly +strong. Yet Grasmere is a favourite haunt, too, of the serious +pedestrian, not merely because it is beautiful, but because it is +central. The lake tourist might be reasonably classified under four +heads: the crag climbers, the strenuous walkers, the saunterers, and the +roadsters. The first are a mere handful, for obvious reasons, and +greatly affect Wastdale Head. The second are not very numerous, and +seem on the decline. The third include a substantial number, whose +limitations are dictated either by lack of physical strength or an +indifference to the strenuous life; by a preference for the tennis +court, or croquet lawn, or a pair of sculls, with a further company, +always numerous among Britons, who have an unconquerable aversion to +missing a single one of the four conventional meals. Of the roadsters, +the cyclist may get a great deal out of the Lake country, and is +nowadays quite innocuous to others. As for the motor, it has proved for +all true lovers of this region an unmitigated curse. It is truly +pitiable to see these green vales half buried at times under dense +volumes of driving dust, or the same noisome clouds falling in heavy +masses on the fair surface and flowery banks of Rydal or Ullswater. The +roads, too, are often tortuous and narrow. There was a talk at one time +of prohibition within Lakeland, and there would seem in equity no +justification in this glorious holiday preserve for unlimited vehicles +roaring through it at twenty to thirty miles an hour. It lies on no main +highway. And for touring use within the district the motor has no single +point of sanity. One might almost as well thrash up and down Grasmere in +a steam yacht. Their exclusion, with a few exceptions for local purposes +or for genuine residents, would be an enormous gain, and any counter +plea ridiculously inadequate. I have here pictured Rydal Water as a +winsome summer lake, for this I am sure, before most of us who know it, +its image rises. + + [Illustration: RYDALMERE] + +But upon a spring day some years ago I watched it raging with abnormal +frenzy under the influence of a helm wind, cleaving diligently myself in +the meantime to a stone wall, lest peradventure I should be blown into +its seething waters. These hurricanes are idiosyncrasies of the Lake +country, and are formed by the contact of winds from the North Sea with +the warmer temperature they meet as they leap over the Pennine range, +like a wave breaking over a sea wall. The disturbance thus created +drives them down in narrow tornadoes upon Lakeland. I have never +experienced anything else like it in these islands. The waters of Rydal +on this occasion, now here and now there, were lifted high into the air +in the fashion of successive waterspouts and hurled in hissing volumes +of sleet at a great elevation against the woody foot of Loughrigg Fell. +The sun, too, was shining brilliantly, and every hurtling cloud of spray +glittered in prismatic colours. But above all are these two lakes bound +up with the name and fame of Wordsworth. From one or other of the banks +of them for nearly half a century the great nature poet--the prophet, +sage, and interpreter of Lakeland--of whose fruits the world will pluck +as long as these hills endure, set forth on his almost daily ramble. +Whether this or that generation decide that Wordsworth is among the +elect of their fleeting day is an altogether trumpery question. Didactic +and complaisant youth have tilted against many a classic and passed into +oblivion while the subject of their convincing satire remains immovable +as a granite rock. Wordsworth has struck roots so deep into this +glorious country, has so identified it with his own personality, that +even if he were a much lesser poet, immortal fame would be as surely his +as the endurance of Skiddaw or Helvellyn. But Wordsworth has a firmer +grip than that of mere atmosphere on unborn generations, though this +almost alone would endear him to all those with any sense of feeling who +love the Lake country, and of such it is inconceivable that future +generations will not each supply their ample store. It is pedantry to +hector every man or woman who feels the spirit of our British Highlands +so perfectly expressed as they are in this Lake country into +Wordsworthian enthusiasm. But let them alone, and as the Lakeland fever +begins to develop more strongly with each visitation, and as spring and +summer come round, if they have the sense of song at all within them +they will put their Wordsworth at any rate within reach, and the process +thenceforward to some measure of intimacy and delight is merely an +affair of time. + +Rydal Mount, standing embowered in foliage above the road which +afterwards skirts both lakes, is not accessible, but Dove Cottage on +Grasmere, where the poet, with his gifted sister and for a time with S. +T. Coleridge, spent the years preceding his long married life at Rydal +Mount, is open to the pilgrim, be he a devout or an indifferent one. It +will be hardly less interesting as the residence for twenty years of +that strange genius, stylist, and laudanum drinker, De Quincey. Apart +from the great literary obligations under which he has laid posterity, +the autobiographical volume which deals with this Lake country, and the +brilliant circle of which he was a member, is a book of extraordinary +interest. He married a local yeoman's daughter, and the domestic side of +his life, including a devoted and successful family, infinitely +alleviates the tragedy of his own long and indifferently successful +struggle with the fatal drug. The weak-willed but lovable and brilliant +Hartley Coleridge, too, who would dash off a sonnet in ten minutes, +lived at Nab Cottage, on Rydal Water, till he was laid in Grasmere +Churchyard, to be followed there by Wordsworth in the succeeding year of +1850. Wordsworth himself was never really in touch with his humbler +neighbours. He had not the temperament for that kind of thing, and +remained a continual mystery to most of them. + +"Well, John, what's the news?" said the rather too sociable Hartley +Coleridge one morning to an old stone-breaker. + +"Why, nowte varry particlar, only ald Wudsworth's brocken lowce ageean." +This had reference to the poet's habit of spouting his productions as he +walked along the roads, which was taken by the country folk as a sign of +mental aberration. On another occasion a stranger resting at a cottage +in Rydal enquired of the housewife as to Wordsworth's neighbourly +qualities. + +"Well," said she, "he sometimes goes booin' his pottery about t' rooads +an' t' fields an' takes na nooatish o' neabody; but at udder times he'll +say 'Good morning, Dolly,' as sensible as oyder you or me." + + + + +THIRLMERE AND HELVELLYN + + +Lying beside the familiar and continuously beautiful road from Grasmere +to Keswick, Thirlmere has happily lost nothing of its pristine beauty in +becoming the source of Manchester's water supply. An engine house at one +point and the big dam, only visible at the far end, are more than +counterbalanced in the raising for many feet of a lake that is three +miles long and only a quarter of a mile wide. That first delicious view +of it which greets the pilgrim on the downward winding road from the +pass of Dunmaile Raise, deep channelled between the rugged wall of +Armboth Crags and the northern shoulders of Helvellyn, with the pale +cone of Skiddaw rising over the hidden interval beyond, will be among +the most familiar memories of the lake tourist. These grey Armboth +steeps, falling from the wild moorish table-land above so abruptly to +the water's edge, and planting everywhere their knotted pine-feathered +toes in the deep clear water, with the little promontories and islands +wooded in the like fashion, give a character all its own to the narrow +but beautiful lake. As a road now skirts both shores, those denied the +physical joy of walking this country can get all that the banks, at any +rate, of Thirlmere have to offer. The best of this, no doubt, is the +prospect here depicted from the lower end, with Old Helvellyn looming so +near and filling up the vista to the southward. + + [Illustration: GRASMERE FROM LOUGHRIGG] + +The little inn at Wythburn on the highway near the lake-head where the +coaches halt, unpretending tavern in outward appearance though it is, +might yet be almost accounted as classic ground for the number of men of +note, from Scott and the lake poets onward, its modest walls have +sheltered. For it has not only been for all time a halfway +resting-place between Ambleside and Keswick, but for many either a +starting, or a finishing, point in the ascent of Helvellyn. It was in +the little parlour of this inn a century ago that Professor Wilson, the +athletic and breezy Scottish Intellectual, played an almost brutal +practical joke on his hyper-sensitive friends--the two Coleridges and De +Quincey--as they all sat resting here by the fire after a long walk one +winter night. Seeing a loaded gun in the corner, the Professor +introduced it stealthily into the group, and, pointing it up the +chimney, pulled the trigger. In the then diminutive bar parlour, hung +about with glass and crockery, the unexpected explosion on the +drug-weakened nerves of two, at any rate, of the brilliant trio must +have been almost more than the most hardened practical joker could have +wished for. + +This is, of course, the smooth side of Helvellyn, and you may ascend it +from virtually any point. Roughly speaking, it represents a huge mound +cloven half down the middle and the refuse carted away. After climbing +the steep smooth slope from the Thirlmere side to the top, you find +yourself suddenly standing on the edge of a precipice, almost of a +crater, with the farther side of course wanting, and in its stead +beautiful sweeps of glen and crag dipping gradually to the vale where +the blue coils of Ullswater lie sleeping. Needless to add, this is but +a fraction of the prospect from Helvellyn, and to relate what can be +seen from it on a reasonably clear day would merely be to compile a +chart of the entire mountain system of Lakeland, and for an +exceptionally clear one it would be necessary to make many and remoter +additions. + +To anyone in touch with these things, the summit of Helvellyn is an +inspiring spot, commanding in a single glance the entire dominion of a +race not merely homogeneous in breed, but till recently unique in +situation. Here were a people, ranging as individuals from peasant to +yeomen, to put it roughly; four hundred square miles, say, of freehold +farmers, who had never known a landlord since the Crown in the sixteenth +century held them as tenants on Border service; a complete democracy +among themselves, into whose lives the influence of an aristocracy, as +exerted everywhere else without exception in Great Britain, never +entered. For there was no such thing within all these wide bounds. These +primitive conditions passed away by degrees during the last century. But +it was such that bred the Lakelander much as you see him now, though +inevitably modified by the influx of large landlords who have bought him +out, of villa residents and countless tourists. But here he is still, a +type who till recently had virtually no experience of what social grades +and distinctions meant in his own daily life, though he dispatched from +his rugged stone homestead a steady stream of raw lads who rose to +power, wealth, and influence in the world. The Lakelander, too, like his +immediate neighbours, is of more definitely Scandinavian origin than any +other community in England. His country bristles with Norse place-names; +his genuine tongue is so full of it, that an expert in old Cumbrian, it +is said, can almost read the Norse Bible. His traditions give him an +easy and independent bearing. For two or three generations of more or +less contact with the outer world and its complications can only modify, +not efface, such things. He still remains a cheery, independent soul, +but absolutely one of Nature's gentlemen. + + [Illustration: THIRLMERE AND HELVELLYN] + +Now from Helvellyn you can see the Pennines, and across the Pennines +lies Northumberland. We have nothing to do here with the Northumbrian, +but as an immediate neighbour of these others it is interesting to note +that he has less Norse blood in him, and together with his Lothian and +Berwickshire neighbours is accounted the purest Saxon of any Englishman. +His place-names have the Saxon flavour. Here in Lakeland we have _fells_ +and _becks_ and _garths_ and _ghylls_; beyond the Pennines and the +Cheviots they are all _burns_ and _laws_ and _tons_. The Lakelanders +proper were not Border fighters as the word applies to their low +country neighbours and the Northumbrians. They were liable to service, +and frequently took a hand against the Scots, but their savage country +was not tempting to the Scottish freebooter nor worth the risk. Nor when +the tide set the other way were they accounted as actually of the +following of the great Border houses. When James I. ascended the throne +of a United Kingdom, and fondly fancied Border troubles were at an end, +that canny monarch thought to make some money by commuting the feudal +service nature of the Lakeland statesmen's holding to a money rent. +These military tenants of the Crown met to the number of two thousand +between Windermere and Kendal and swore that they would yield up their +lives rather than their title-deeds, which settled the matter. It +remained for the growth of national wealth, luxury, and what we call the +march of civilization to destroy by individual land purchase, assisted +by local conditions too complex to mention, the greater number of the +Lakeland freeholders or "statesmen". + +There are still some few left in possession, but otherwise the man +himself, though now a tenant, has by no means parted with his qualities +because his father or his grandfather parted with his freehold. + + + + +KIRKSTONE AND ULLSWATER + + +Kirkstone Pass looms always large in one's Lakeland memories. For one +thing, it is the ladder over which all traffic laboriously climbs from +the comparatively populous shores of Windermere into the long +sequestered trough of Ullswater, while for the walker it links the +eastern block of mountains to the Helvellyn and central group. It is, I +think, the highest road pass in England, touching the line of 1500 feet +where a lonely inn claims, by a natural inference, the uncomfortable +distinction of being the highest habitation in the kingdom. But whatever +may be the measure of its winter solitude, the cheery turmoil of the +shepherds' meeting in November, attended by some three hundred more or +less interested persons, must put heart into its occupants for the +ordeal. For on that great day, crowned by a gargantuan feast, the stray +sheep that have wandered from their rightful ranges and mingled with a +neighbouring flock are handed over, accompanied by ceremonies of +immemorial use. Then, too, a hundred or so of collie dogs settle such +disputes among themselves as may be of old standing, or more often +perhaps excited thereto by such unparalleled opportunities. A hound +trail usually completes the long day which begins betimes, for every man +upon these mountains is an enthusiast on the chase in its literal sense, +and knows as much of hounds and foxes as many an M.F.H. elsewhere. + +The steep descent into the narrow, verdant, stone-walled, thinly peopled +floor of the head of Patterdale, with its sprinkling of little +white-washed, scyamore-shaded homesteads, is not a theme for words but +for the brush; above all for the eye itself. Caudale Moor and Hartshope +Dodd loom largest above our right shoulder, shutting out the lofty +solitudes behind, while on the left Redscrees, Raven Crag, and Harts +Crag, and a fine confusion of rugged summits culminate in Helvellyn, +which upon this eastern side shows its nobler and precipitous front. +Brotherswater, though but a quarter of a mile in diameter, fills the +vale, and like a jewel catches every humour of these ever-restless +skies; gleaming betimes like molten gold, or on windless noons +reflecting the greys and greens of the overhanging steeps so vividly on +its glassy surface as almost to efface itself in its own shadows; at +other times, torn by the tempests that pour down from Kirkstone, into a +sheet of seething foam. For it is incredible to what a fury even a +little lake like this can lash itself, when exposed to the concentrated +volleys of two or three mountain glens. + +The memory of one of these spectacles on Hayswater, but a mile or so +distant, is suggested by the little hamlet of Low Hartsop at the mouth +of a lateral glen that comes in just where the valley widens somewhat, +bringing with it Hayswater beck to join the Goldrill, which last has run +through Brotherswater. Hartsop Hall is a plain, rugged old manor house +overhung with trees on the Kirkstone shore of the lake, long the abode +of sheep farmers, but possessed of the inconvenient disability of a +public right-of-way through the centre, now presumably lapsed. + +But till a few years ago a venerable champion of popular rights, or +perhaps merely a humorist with plenty of spare time, used to make an +annual pilgrimage here, and walk in at the front door and out at the +back without any ceremony. + +Low Hartshope itself is a group of some half-dozen mellow and mossy +homesteads, planted irregularly above the beck at any time within the +last five centuries. Fine old trees of sycamore, ash, and oak spread a +protecting mantle of foliage over this snug and ancient haunt of +dalesmen--a little patch of leafy opulence between the stern walls of +fell that rise sharply on either hand. One or two houses of the group, +representing, one might fancy, the proportionate decline of population +in the dales, are falling or have long ago fallen into ruins. Moss and +ferns, stone-crop and saxifrage, have seized alike upon both the +abandoned and the fallen, upon the sagging flagstone roof which covers +neither more nor less of the exposed weather-stained oak rafters than it +did ten years ago, upon the fallen stones of a more completed ruin +slowly sinking into the ground. Here may be seen, too, the deep, +oldfashioned spinning galleries thrust out from the upper story and +covered by an extension of the roof, invaluable not merely for the +summer air, but for the lack of winter daylight in those massive, +low-browed, small-windowed fortresses where the thrifty dalesmen dwelt. +Wordsworth has celebrated a pretty old tradition that the spindles ran +truer after the sheep had mounted the hill for their night's rest. + + Now beneath the starry sky + Crouch the widely scattered sheep, + Ply the pleasant labour, ply, + For the spindle while they sleep + Runs with motion smooth and fine, + Gathering up a trustier line. + +A mile or so up the glen, the higher part a steep climb, down which a +beck comes leaping in successive cataracts over black rocks feathered +with fern and rowan trees, lies entrenched between mountain walls which +rise some fifteen hundred feet above its three sides, the lonely lake of +Hayswater. Scarce a mile in length and narrow in proportion, the scene +is one in fair weather of delightful and impressive solitude, in wild +weather awesome to a degree bordering on the uncanny. The mountain +ridges all round are grey, stern, and rugged, while their green, +rock-strewn lower slopes fall for the most part sharply to the water's +edge. There is nowhere even a suggestion of humanity, but a rude boat +half full of water chained to a rock. So lonely a sheet of water of this +size, and thus nobly encompassed about and shut off from the world, +there is not in all Lakeland. On a tempestuous May day some two years +since the writer, underrating the measure of ferocity that the extra +elevation of a thousand feet adds to a storm, found himself a solitary +angler, beside these gloomy shores, amid as fine a prospect of the kind +as the somberer side of one's soul might wish for. The south-west gale +had found its way over the screes of the High Street ridge that closes +the head of the narrow valley of which Kidsty and Grey Crag form the +sides. Enraged apparently by opposition, it was coming down the full +length of the lake in intermittent bursts of rain-laden fury that made +even keeping one's feet no simple matter, and life altogether for the +moment a moderate sort of entertainment. The fact that in the brief +pauses, while the storm drew fresh breath, I could just keep my flies on +the water in the shelter of rocky points, and at the same time not +unprofitably, must be quoted in explanation of what might otherwise seem +a quite superfluous attendance at such a dismal pandemonium of the +elements. But these fortuitous encounters with nature in her most savage +mood, and in her grimmest haunts, are among the memories that for myself +I would ill spare, and none the less so because they so often belong to +the unexpected and the unsought. + + [Illustration: KIRKSTONE PASS AND BROTHERS WATER] + +The upper and more rugged half of the valley walls on this sombre +occasion opened and shut in veils of scudding mist, while their steep +green flanks, littered with black crags fallen in long ages past from +above, made a fitting frame for the white hissing waters that filled the +long and stormy trough. But the crowning feature of this particular +scene was at the foot of the lake, where it draws to a narrow point +between high rocky banks, and the out-going beck leaps towards the gorge +below through a gap in a stone dyke which otherwise closes the entrance. +For into this funnel the storm seemed to concentrate its fury, lashing +the waters after the fashion of a helm wind high into the air, and +hurling them far down into the ravine below. + +But I do not wish to keep the reader out in the wind and rain for the +whole of our sojourn in Patterdale, and I should be an ingrate indeed to +do so, for in many visits to this delightful haven in the Lake country +I am only too rejoiced to remember that sunshine has far outbalanced +cloud. And under such conditions the three miles of verdant vale from +Hartsop to Ullswater, by way of the hamlet and church of Patterdale +(named from St. Patrick) to Glenridding on the lake shore, is as +characteristic and charming a pastoral valley as there is in all the +Lake country. Cottages and homesteads, with their sheltering tufts of +foliage, have still even this much-visited country almost to themselves, +as they had it a century ago. The Goldrill, now a lusty stream, curves +and sparkles from farm to farm. The bordering fields terminate in +pleasant strips of woodland, or in bosky knolls of fern and rock, while +far above upon either side rise steep and high the everlasting hills. +And crowding round the head of Ullswater, which now spreads wide its +bright island-studded waters and ends the vale, are mountains piled up +everywhere. Place Fell and Birk Fell, lifting their untamed steeps of +crag and scree sheer up from the water along four miles of the eastern +shore, give that exceptional touch of wildness to the great lake which, +together with the fine grouping of Helvellyn and her satellites upon the +other side, justifies in the opinion of many its claim to pre-eminence +among its sisters. For myself, I frankly admit that the head of +Ullswater, and, for choice, a lodgment upon the Glenridding shore near +the edge of the lake, holds me more tenaciously when I get there than +any part of Lakeland. + +There was once a king in Patterdale. His name was Mounsey, and he died +in 1792, and the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for that year in its obituary +tells us all about him, facts confirmed, if such were necessary, by +local tradition. This was in the days of the "statesmen", before +outsiders came in and bought property and broke in upon the old Lakeland +democracy. Patterdale Hall has now this long time been a large country +house with a large estate attached to it. In the modest original +homestead, however, reigned the Mounseys, who from time immemorial had +been regarded as "kings" of the dale before the reign of the undesirable +and eccentric monarch who proved to be the last but one of them. + +This John Mounsey had an income of £800 a year, and the chief efforts of +his life, which lasted over ninety years, were directed to keeping his +expenses down to £30. In short, he was a miser of the most unabashed +type. He was endowed with immense physical strength, of which, unlike +his money, he grudged no expenditure in the pursuit of the +over-mastering passion of his life. He rowed his own slate and timber +down the lake to market, and toiled all day at the hardest manual tasks. +When compelled to visit Penrith or elsewhere on business, he slept in +neighbouring barns to save a hotel bill. He had his stockings shod with +leather, and always wore wooden shoes. He is reported on one occasion, +while riding by the lake, to have dismounted, stripped, and dived into +it after an old stocking that caught his eye. Rather than buy a +respectable suit for funerals, markets, and the like, he used to force +the loan of them from his tenants, who were also under agreement to +furnish him with so many free meals a year. Ever fearful of being +robbed, he used to secrete his money in walls and holes in the ground, a +practice which occasioned many exhilarating hunts for treasure-trove +among the idle. His last luxury was putting out to the lowest tender the +drawing of his will. The Patterdale schoolmaster, with a bid of +ten-pence, obtained the contract. His son, however, closed the dynasty +with honour, when the forbear of the present owner bought the royal +domain and a good deal more beside, and planted those beautiful wild +woods along the western margin of Ullswater that are the delight of +every visitor, and above all of those for whom mountain and lake offer +too strenuous adventure. + +Various glens of infinite beauty wind up to the heart and shoulders of +Helvellyn and Fairfield, which mountains display to the people of +Ullswater by far their finest qualities. Across the lake a fine +solitude of moor and fell, rising to 2600 feet, spreads far away +eastward to Shap, including Martindale, Boredale, Mardale, and the High +Street range, which carries the old Roman road to Carlisle (whence comes +its name, Ystrad) along its summit. The wild red deer still roam over +this wilderness as far as the shores of Ullswater, while as regards +foxes they are almost too plentiful everywhere. Nor is there any part of +England, no not Leicestershire, though in far different fashion, where +they fill a bigger place in the public eye. Of the four or five packs of +foxhounds hunted and followed on foot over the fells of Lakeland, one +kennelled at Ullswater is among the most notable, if only for its famous +huntsman. Every soul in Lakeland as far east as Crossfell, and every +frequenter of Ullswater, knows "Joe Bowman", who has just now completed +thirty years of such severe service as hunting a pack of fell hounds on +foot means. The mantle of John Peel (who hunted a lower country, +however, and rode to his hounds) has almost fallen upon him. His +stalwart form may even be seen, like that of John Peel's, outside the +cover of hunting songs in the windows of Carlisle music shops. If the +songs are not sung like the others round the world, the memory of their +subject will live among the dalesmen, I'll warrant, to their children's +children. For hunting here is actually, not theoretically, democratic. +When hounds throw off soon after daylight on a mountain side, and hunt a +slow drag for an hour or two till they move their fox, and the field +have to follow on foot as best they may, there is not much scope for the +dashing and the decorative side of the chase. The fell farmers are all +devoted followers, are on familiar terms with all the foxes, their +domestic arrangements, and their families, and their probable line of +action when pursued. They mostly know the hounds, and can recall their +fathers and their mothers and their grandparents, and are steeped in +hound lore. The very children about the head of Ullswater know many of +the "dogs" personally, and have played with them as puppies. For they +are mostly "walked" on the surrounding farms in summer, and when they +play truant, which is pretty often, and come trotting through the +village after a hunt upon their own account, it is quaint to hear them +affectionately invoked by name from window or doorstep as familiar +public characters. The necessity for keeping down the foxes gives, of +course, an extra zest to the chase in these mountains. There being +nothing to prevent and much to stimulate it in this country of late +lambs, hunting is carried on vigorously till the middle of May; April, +as a matter of fact, being for many reasons irrelevant here the most +active month, and the best for seeing the sport. It is glorious, indeed, +on an early spring morning to be perched, let us say, on one of the +lower shoulders of Helvellyn, with the joyous crash of hounds upon a +warming scent echoing from cliff to cliff. + + [Illustration: ULLSWATER] + +But let us turn to gentler themes, noting for a moment Stybarrow, the +foot of which is the subject of our artist's skill. There is very little +of the Border foray tradition in the heart of the Lake country. It was +obviously unprofitable as well as risky to the aggressor. But a body of +Scots did once, at least, make a dash on Patterdale and on Stybarrow, +which is in a sense its gateway, and met their fate. If the eastern +shore of the upper half of Ullswater is inspiring from its solitary +grandeur of overhanging mountain, its feathered cliffs and promontories, +its indented rocky coves, its western shore holds one's affections by +its gentler and more sylvan beauties. For after the picturesque +confusion of mossy crag and forest glade around Stybarrow, beneath which +the lake lies deep and dark, the two large demesnes--"chases" would best +describe them--of Glencoin and Gowbarrow slope gently down from the +back-lying mountains to the curving shore. Here are pleasant silvery +strands overhung with tall sycamores and oaks; there are rocky shores +fringed with hazel and alder, where the crystal waters of this most +pellucid of large lakes breaks sonorously when a gale is blowing. The +little becks come tumbling in too over the sloping meadows from the +fells--that of Glencoin of familiar name, and that of Aira of greater +fame for its waterfall, whose hoarse voice can be heard on still +evenings on the lake, and for the legend embodied in Wordsworth's +well-known poem. Here, too, behind the long grassy promontory with +pebbly shore that roughly marks the entry to this upper and more +beautiful four miles of lake, is Lyulph's tower. Not a very ancient +fabric, to be sure, but marking the site of that shadowy keep where +dwelt the sleep-walking, love-lorn maiden, who perished in the pool +below Aira Force in the arms of her errant knight, as he arrived only +just in time to drag her expiring to the shore. + + List ye who pass by Lyulph's tower + At eve how softly then Doth Aira + Force, that torrent hoarse, + Speak from the woody glen. + + + + +BASSENTHWAITE AND DERWENTWATER + + What was the great Parnassus' self to thee + Mount Skiddaw? In his natural sovereignty + Our British hill is fairer far; he shrouds + His double front among Atlantic clouds, + And pours forth streams more sweet than Castally. + + --_Wordsworth._ + + +Mercifully it is not our province here to pass a pious opinion on the +comparative beauties of Ullswater and Derwentwater. It is tolerably +certain that the one which held you the longer and the most often in its +welcome toils would have your verdict. The lake of Ulpho is a thought +wilder and grander and withal less accessible. Save on occasions, it +wears generally a more isolated and aloof demeanour. The other, too, is +much smaller and quite differently formed; its length, three miles and +odd, being little more than twice its breadth, but picturesquely +indented, and virtually surrounded by mountainous heights. Keswick town +almost adjoins, though nowhere trenching, on its lower end, and behind +Keswick the great cone of Skiddaw fills the north. Though of no +distinction in itself, not a country town in all England is so +felicitously placed. Within five minutes' walk of its extremity its +fortunate burghers can pace the shores of Derwentwater, or, better +still, the fir-clad promontory of Friars Crag, and look straight up the +mountain-bordered lake to the yet sterner heights looming at its farther +end, known as the Jaws of Borrowdale. Behind and to the north Skiddaw, +as related, joining hands to the eastward with more precipitous +Blencathara, otherwise Saddleback, lifts its shapely bulk. Through a +fair green vale between, the Derwent, joined by Keswick's own bewitching +stream, the Greta, urges a bold and rapid course to Bassenthwaite, which +completes the picture two miles below. Though not geographically +central, Keswick is nevertheless an admirable base from whence to +adventure the Lake country for such as trust to wheels of any kind, and +have no great length of time at their disposal. The _genius loci_ of +Keswick is of course Southey, and the plain red house where that +kind-hearted and industrious poet and brilliant essayist lived for most +of his life still stands above the Greta. Different in every personal +characteristic, as De Quincey their mutual friend so lucidly sets forth, +was Southey from Wordsworth, his successor in the Laureateship. The one, +elegant, reserved, modest, fastidious, business-like, a methodical and +indefatigable worker, but essentially a man of books; the other, +sprawly, almost uncouth in minor habits, self-centred to the verge of +arrogancy in social intercourse. Southey at Keswick earned by the +_Quarterly_ and other sources a quite substantial income, out of which +he maintained not merely his own family, but for long that of poor S. T. +Coleridge, whose haphazard existence consisted very largely of a +succession of extended visits to generous and admiring friends. +Wordsworth, on the other hand, ridiculed by most of the critics, made +very little out of his poems till quite late in life. But for once in a +way Providence, as represented by pounds sterling, seemed to recognize a +dreamy genius, with no capacity for earning bread and butter, and +showered upon him from all sides legacies, annuities, and sinecures that +made him probably a richer man than Southey, even apart from his belated +earnings. + + [Illustration: BASSENTHWAITE LAKE AND SKIDDAW] + +A striking picture, too, is this ancient church of St. Kentigern planted +in the level vale--the Derwent chanting in its rocky bed upon the one +hand, and Skiddaw lifting its three thousand feet upon the other, with +Bassenthwaite opening not far below its broad and shining breast. Fate +has laid the bones of many a man and woman of some modest fame in their +day beneath the heaving turf of this picturesque crowded graveyard, +caught unawares, some of them, while temporary sojourners in a country, +whose beauty drew hither two or three generations of pilgrims, before +facilities of transport made the achievement the simple one it is for +us. Within the church, however, a monument to John Radcliffe, the second +Earl of Derwentwater, father of that ill-fated young man who lost his +head and the vast estates of the family in the 'Fifteen, husband, too, +of Charles the Second's daughter by the Duchess of Cleveland, strikes an +earlier and more genuinely local note. The original nest of the +Radcliffes was on Lord's Island, one of those near the foot of the lake, +and its foundations may still be traced; but they acquired their chief +consequence through wealthy Northumbrian heiresses. The Keswick property +remained with them till the confiscation; but it is with the ruined +towers of Dilston, near Hexham, rather than the land of their origin and +their title that the memory of the Radcliffes will be chiefly +associated. So one must not linger here over the story, rather a +pathetic one, in fact, how the young peer of 1715, admirable in every +relation of life, with youth, a happy marriage, and an immense property +all to his credit, was drawn into the rising against his better +judgment, to become its chief victim. Forced by a train of circumstances +and by an almost morbid sense of honour, as a near relative of the +exiled house, to join the ill-concerted scheme, in which he had not even +been consulted, since his name only was wanted, his fate was a hard one, +and he was duly mourned on both the Western and the Eastern march. + + "O Derwentwater's a bonny lord, + Fu' yellow is his hair, + And glinting is his hawky 'ee + Wi' kind love dwalling there." + +Another historical character intimately associated with the Keswick +country was that "Shepherd Lord" celebrated by Wordsworth. This was the +only surviving son of the Black Clifford, whom, in the ruthless feuds of +The Roses, his mother, dreading the vengeance which might pursue the son +of such a father, sent to be reared as a shepherd's son on the slopes of +Saddleback. Nor till he was thirty did he emerge from this humble role +to take his place as a peer of the realm, to marry twice, and to acquit +himself reasonably well when called to public duties from the seclusion +of Borden Tower, still standing on the Yorkshire moors above the Wharfe, +where he lived a studious life. Indeed he marched to Flodden Field, +which must have irked such a peaceful soul, one might fancy, not a +little. + +It is at the head of Derwentwater that the Lodore beck makes that +sonorous descent into the vale, which, by a famous poet's frolic, as it +were, achieved a notoriety it only merits in a wet season. The mouth of +Borrowdale, however, down which the Derwent hurls its beautiful limpid +streams through resounding gorges to an ultimately peaceful journey to +the lake, is a place to linger in, not merely to admire in passing, and +two well-known hotels of old standing are evidence that the public are +of that opinion. If the heights of Borrowdale make an inspiring +background for the lake, as viewed from the Keswick end, Skiddaw, as +seen from Borrowdale, serves as noble a purpose. Then there is that long +array of heights right across the lake, and those behind them, spreading +away to Buttermere. + +The view from Skiddaw is well worth the long but easy climb. +Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, linked by the silver coil of the river +in the green vale, make a perfect foreground to a prospect which, like +that of Helvellyn, covers not only the whole of Lakeland, but the sea +coast and much more beyond. Skiddaw, however, stands sentinel, as it +were, at this northern gateway into the Lake country, and looks right +over Cumberland, with Carlisle in the centre of the picture, the Solway +gleaming beyond, and behind that again the dim rolling forms of the +Scottish hills. We have nothing to do with Carlisle, or the Eden, or +Solway Moss, with Eskdale or Liddesdale, or any of this classic +Borderland here laid open to the view. But one may be pardoned, when +perched thus in fancy upon Skiddaw's aerial cone, for a brief +reflection of how different was the past and how strangely different the +associations of this rugged romantic Lake country with its simple, +uneventful peasant story, quite obscured what there is of it by its more +recent literary associations, from that classic soil of Border story +spreading to the northward. "Happy is the land", says the old saw, "that +has no history"; and no part of England has so little, in the ordinary +sense of the word, as that which one looks back upon from the top of +Skiddaw. None, upon the other hand, has more than that once +blood-stained region, now spreading so fair and green and fertile to the +dim hills of Scotland, which share its stirring tale. + + [Illustration: DERWENTWATER FROM FRIARS CRAG] + +Immediately below and behind the mountain Skiddaw forest spreads--an +unusual sight in Lakeland--its heather-clad undulations, and beyond and +all around it is the green up-lying country, where John Peel of immortal +memory hunted those no less immortal hounds. A majority of persons, I am +quite sure, still think he is a mythical person, the burden of a fancy +song, a legendary hero. But, on the contrary, he lived down yonder in +Caldbeck, and only died in 1854. You may see his tombstone at any time +with his obituary, and a hound, whip, and spur carved on its face in the +village churchyard. Plenty of people still living remember him well. The +late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, whose home, and that of his forbears, is +easily visible from here, knew him well, and in his youth had hunted +with him. The last time I was at Caldbeck, ten years ago, two of his +daughters, old married ladies, were still alive in the neighbourhood, +and I spent several hours myself in company with his nephew, who, when a +boy, used to help him with his hounds. Peel was, in fact, a well-to-do +yeoman who kept a small pack of hounds, which he hunted when and where +he pleased for his own entertainment, and, incidentally, for that of a +few of his neighbours, one of whom, Woodcock Graves, the whilom owner of +a bobbin mill and his most constant companion, wrote the song, never +dreaming of it as more than a passing joke. Afterwards, when Graves, +having failed in business, went to Tasmania, where he died in the +'Seventies, Mr. Metcalf, of the Carlisle publishing house, arranged the +song, which fortuitously caught on in Cumbrian hunting circles, and has +now gone round the world. Graves has told us all about the writing of +it--tossed hastily off one evening in Peel's little house at Caldbeck, +which anyone may see to-day. The village is full of his relatives and +connections, and I have no doubt that the famous sportsman spoke an +archaic and forcible Cumbrian, that strangers who can understand the +ordinary fell farmer or peasant of to-day without difficulty would make +mighty little of. At any rate, his nephew Robert did! Peel was not a +fell hunter of the Ullswater pattern, but worked altogether a lower +country and rode to his hounds. He was an exact contemporary of the lake +poets, this other lion, and there is a spice of humour in the thought! +"When he wasn't huntin'," remarked his venerable relative to me, in a +heartfelt, reminiscent sort of tone, "he was aye drinkin'." His view +holloa, though said by those who remember him to have been the most +tremendous and piercing ever let out of mortal throat, obviously never +penetrated the barrier of Skiddaw and Saddleback and reached the ears of +the Lake poets "in the morning". + + + + +BUTTERMERE + + All nature welcomes Her whose sway + Tempers the year's extremes; + Who scattereth lustres o'er noonday, + Like morning's dewy gleams. + While mellow warble, sprightly trill + The tremulous heart excite, + And hums the balmy air to still The balance of delight. + + --_Wordsworth (Ode to May)._ + + +Buttermere in May or early June! The May of the poet, that is to say, +which smiles upon us twice or thrice in a decade, not the May of +actuality which is spent in overcoats and blighted hopes, and bad +tempers and east winds. But there are Mays even yet like those of the +invincible tradition, and just enough of them to save the face of the +poet. And Buttermere in the full flush of one of them stands always out +for me conspicuous in that long gallery of bygone summer pageants, which +are not the least of those pleasant fancies kindled by the cheery glow +of the winter fireside. Ullswater and Wastwater can turn almost any +atmosphere to account. They can grasp the glories of high June and +diffuse their radiance over shore and mountain to as much purpose as +any, or can turn savage in the storms and clouds of autumn with infinite +grandeur. + + [Illustration: HONISTER PASS--DAWN] + +Honister, too, though surmounted in many moods, I almost prefer to +recall in some such one as this, when the replenished ghylls are +spouting like silver threads down the dark mountain sides to the right +and left as you draw up from Seatoller, and the sombre crag itself is +thrusting up a rugged head against a background of whirling clouds. But +down in the long secluded vale of Buttermere, its narrowed trough for +most of the five miles it winds its beauteous length, filled with the +waters of two pellucid lakes, I would have it always June, or rather +that ideal, precocious May which has planted it irrevocably in the +chambers of my soul. + +Of all the better-known lakes or haunts in Lakeland, this one is perhaps +the most secluded. A dozen miles by steep roads and some fearsome hills +are made light of, it is true, by the coaches of the holiday season; but +at other times the valley is cut off from the travelling world dependent +on public transport, and its two or three small hostelries are then apt +to become very empty havens of peace amid the hills. Lying amid bosky +knolls upon the half-mile meadowy interval, through which the Cocker +sparkles from the foot of Buttermere to the head of Crummock, with the +steep green wall of mountain, cloven here and there by the white trail +of falling streams, rising sharply for two thousand feet above it, the +pose of this little group of cottages and homesteads scattered around +their diminutive church is perfection itself. The sense of snug +seclusion from a noisy and ever noisier world, and that, too, in a spot +familiar by name at least wherever the English language obtains, is +everywhere eloquent, and holds one's fancy above the common. And along +the steep western shore of Buttermere itself, following a sheep track on +the rough mountain side, amid the scent of thyme and freshly blooming +gorse, the hum of bees, with the flowers of the upland showing their shy +heads among the ragged moorland grasses, what a picture at such time as +I have in mind is this mile and a half of limpid water, fringed upon its +farther shore by mantling woods! For though only one residence of any +kind trenches upon the margin of either lake, this one of Hasness upon +Buttermere has been enfolded by time and taste in groves of larch and +beech and sycamore that extend half along the lake shore, and flaunt +their earliest foliage of summer upon the glassy water. While on the +rugged oaks mingled among them, self-sown, perhaps, some of them by +hardy stunted forbears, there still flares that golden tint in which its +bursting leaf so curiously forestalls the radiant decay of Autumn. + +And when the woods cease, what delightful natural lawns of crisp turf +sweep in little curving bays to the mere edge, where gently shelving +beaches of silvery gravel dip into the shallow waters, and show far out +into the lake their clean white bottom beneath its crystal depths! At +the head of the lake the Cocker comes prattling down through the meadows +of Gatesgarth, a typical mountain sheep farm, whose Herdwicks, running +to many thousands, count every mountain within sight as their own +traditional domain, to the summit of Honister and the Haystacks--a noble +pair of sentinels closing the gateway to the vale. + +Most notable valleys in the Lake country have their _genius loci_, as is +only natural in a region till quite recent times utterly removed from +the world's life. And they are often simple folk whose sorrows or +humours have acquired immortality from the very seclusion, the normally +unruffled calm of their environment. Mary of Buttermere and her +harrowing story, for instance, would long ago have been forgotten in +Hampshire. But no one reasonably versed in Lakeland lore ever, I trust, +crosses the threshold of the Old Fish Inn without taking off his hat, so +to speak, to the memory of that ill-used maiden. Her trials, however, +were after all comparative; well-looking barmaids suffer much worse +things, and men lose their lives over them in various ways once or +twice a year. But the sentiment attaching to the personality of this +mountain beauty, whom, like Phyllis, all the shepherd swains adored, and +yet further celebrated by such visitors as penetrated to this romantic +spot, including the Lake poets, made a stir in the world when the +villain was hung as high as Haman. The press rang with it, which meant +more in those days than in these, and the "Beauty of Buttermere" +appeared in various forms upon the stage of London theatres. + +The Old Fish Inn still stands a little way down the meadow from the +village, as it stood over a century ago, when the yeoman father of Mary +Robinson, the heroine, presided over it, and she herself ministered to +the hunger and thirst of his varied guests. The gentlemen visitors no +doubt turned her head a little, though Wordsworth, who had evidently +taken a social glass there with Coleridge, reminds him how they had both +been stricken with the modest mien of this artless daughter of the +hills. But one may safely hazard the belief that Wordsworth was more +artless in this kind of divination than the most rustic young woman who +ever poured out a glass of beer. De Quincey, who also knew her, bears +witness to the admiration the two poets had for her, and has a sly hit +at their romantic assumption of her ingenuousness. + + [Illustration: HEAD OF BUTTERMERE AND HONISTER CRAG] + +But if Mary broke rustic hearts and held her head a little high, she was +at least a young woman of irreproachable character, and it was in 1805 +that the distinguished stranger who gave her such fortuitous immortality +arrived in Keswick in a handsome turnout and took up his abode at its +chief hotel, entering his name as the Honourable Augustus Hope, M.P., a +brother by assumption, modestly admitted by the stranger himself, of +Lord Hopetown. One must endeavour, if it costs a mental effort, to +imagine the aloofness of this country and all such regions in the year +of Trafalgar, when one finds a very poor imitation of a fine gentleman +posing as the brother of a well-known peer, taking local society with a +big S by storm, and the "county" within reach of Keswick tumbling over +one another to do him honour. There was a sceptic here and there, to be +sure. He overdid his affability, and Coleridge even hints that his +grammar was shaky, which nowadays would possibly be a point in his +favour. But as he franked his letters, and forgery then meant death, the +unbelieving minority were temporarily silenced, and the Honourable +Augustus continued to enjoy himself very much indeed. Perhaps so +experienced a gentleman knew precisely when to stop, for in due course +he betook himself to Buttermere and to the Fish Inn, ostensibly to catch +char or trout, but the only record of his sport we have is the capture +of the heart, or at any rate the hand--for he wooed her openly and +honourably--of his landlord's daughter. What society in the vale of +Keswick, a member of whom had even christened a recently arrived son and +heir _Augustus Hope_, particularly matrons with marriageable daughters, +thought of the escapade of the Honourable Augustus, history does not +say. It has no occasion; we may be quite certain without being told. The +happy day was fixed. It arrived, and the smallest church in England +tinkled out the marriage peals with its single bell. The Hopetown family +were not represented at the wedding for one excellent reason, and the +aristocracy of the vale of Keswick for quite another one. The absence of +the former was easily explained away to so artless a gathering as was +here collected. That of the latter was only natural, and must have +provided even a spice of triumph for the victorious Beauty of +Buttermere. The honeymoon, of which London with the brotherly welcome of +a noble family and the smiles of a Court was to be the culmination, +extended very little farther than Keswick, when the minions of the law +swooped down upon Augustus and tore him from Mary's arms on a charge of +forgery, which proved the least of his many heinous crimes. In brief, +the man's name was Hatfield, son of a Devonshire tradesman, and Mary +was only the last of many victims, most of them her superiors in +station, whom with marvellous skill and cunning this accomplished +ruffian had deceived, abandoning them one after another in conditions of +distress, and some of them with children. He was hung at Carlisle, and +Mary returned to her father's inn and resumed her former position. She +had no child and bore no reproach, among her simple neighbours the most +fortunate, probably, but the most celebrated of the villain's many +victims. She eventually married a farmer from Caldbeck, and her grave +may be seen to-day, near by that one distinguished by the curiously +sporting tombstone beneath which lies the dust of John Peel of immortal +memory. + +Crummock is just twice the length of Buttermere, with about the same +average width of half a mile. Like the other, it is pressed between the +feet of steep mountains, and has the same charm at the open and upper +end of silvery strand shelving from meadowy banks, with the same +clusters of fir, alder, or gnarled oak grouped gracefully about the +grassy shore. Here, too, on still summer days the same crystal water +shows far out into the lake the clean, white, gravelly bottom on which +it lies. There are two or three boats, moreover, available on Crummock, +and it is out on the bosom of the lake that this whole beautiful vale, +above and below it, is displayed perhaps to the best advantage. The now +remoter heights of Honister and its companions fill the head. The steeps +of High Stile and Red Pike dip to the gorge near by, whence issues the +hoarse murmur of Scale Force making its sheer leap of a hundred and +twenty feet, and spraying with perennial moisture the ferns, mosses, and +feathery saplings that cling to its shaggy cliffs. Above the lower +heights upon the eastern shores rise the higher fells of Whiteside and +Grassmoor, the latter bearing the strange unhealed red scars where its +whole front was shaved away a century and a half ago by a tremendous +waterspout. + +A May morning out on Crummock, the fly rod laid aside in despair for the +moment with its capricious little trout, though the compensations forbid +so untoward a word; the boat drifting idly with gently gurgling keel +upon the faint ripples stirred by the very softest of zephyrs; the +distant murmur of the Cocker splashing toward the lake head; the faint +dull roar of Scale Force, and, above all, the silent throng of +overhanging mountains fairly pealing with the cuckoo's note, is a memory +always to be treasured. Another such morning, too, comes back to me, +when splashes of brilliant blue lay here and there upon the eastern +shore of the lake, disclosing to a nearer view great beds of +bluebells at the height of their glory. A moonlight night again, the +sequel of the same or another such effulgent day, is before me as, idly +trolling for the bigger trout, those prowlers of the night, one felt the +awesome black shapes of the mountains piled up on every hand, while the +slow, measured stroke of the oar struck molten silver as we crossed and +recrossed the moon's shining path. + + [Illustration: SCALE FORCE, CRUMMOCK WATER] + +Stern and wild enough under the shadow of night or beneath stormy skies, +Crummock thrusts its gradually narrowing point deep into richer scenes +of woody foot-hill, and radiant meadow, overlooked by the picturesquely +perched old hostelry of Scale Hill, familiar to generations of Lakeland +tourists. And here the Cocker leaps rejoicing and in fuller volume to +sparkle down the long, lovely vale of Lorton towards its junction with +the Derwent at Wordsworth's birthplace. A mile or so to the westward +Loweswater lies bewitchingly in the lap of fells, but overhung upon one +bank for its entire length by the opulent foliage of Holm Wood, and +lacking the more rugged features which dominate the others, seems to lie +somewhat aloof from them in quality as it does in fact. + +But one privilege of a sojourn in the valley is its easy access, over +the single ridge that divides them, to the famous but secluded trough +of Ennerdale, lying parallel to that of Buttermere. The prospect from +Scarth Cap before descending into one of the wildest valleys in all +Lakeland has a peculiar grimness, for the long array of precipitous +steeps and crags that confront one above the twisting thread of the beck +hurrying down to Ennerdale Lake turn their savage fronts so +uncompromisingly to the north. The more radiant the summer morn, the +brighter the summer day, the darker by contrast with the interludes of +spring verdure that no north aspect can quench are the impenetrable +shadows which mask all detail, and make fearsome precipices out of +rugged but accessible steeps. For above them the Pillar Mountain almost +touches 3000 feet, and the far-famed Pillar Rock springing from its +outskirts, whose naked walls need no black shadows for their +enhancement. But this is wandering from our immediate subject, and +involving us in the group of big mountains that cluster round Scafell. +Far down the valley the lake of Ennerdale, in size and shape resembling +Crummock, glistens at the fringe of civilization. If local genii count +for aught, that of this valley, though not nearly so familiar, should +surely be "t'girt dog of Ennerdale". + +The first notice of his appearance was in May, 1816, when carcasses of +three or four sheep killed and as many mangled were found in Lower +Ennerdale. Such mishaps were common enough, but the usual sequel, the +destruction of the dog within a few days, utterly failed here. Every +device known was futile before this formidable vampire. For a long time +no trace could be found of him, but in the increasing toll of victims +that greeted the shepherd's eye in ever-changing and unexpected +quarters. He never visited the same place twice within an ordinary space +of time, and the scene of some of his raids were twenty miles apart. He +worked entirely at night, laying low through the day in woods and +ditches. His bi-weekly or tri-weekly toll increased with his rage for +blood, and the hue and cry raised everywhere brought him into view +occasionally in the early mornings. But while men with guns were lying +for him in one place, he would be enjoying himself on some unsuspected +hillside ten miles away. The toll of victims mounted into the hundreds; +June and July passed away, and "t'girt dog" was still master of the +situation, the growing grain crops giving him ampler refuge. + +Half the men in the country spent the night afield with guns, and were +worn out with watching. Many idlers, tempted by the large reward +offered, seized the chance to join the chase, and the statesmen's wives +waxed weary of cooking meals for all and sundry by day and night. The +children were afraid to tread their often lonely paths to school, and +screamed in their sleep that "t'girt dog" was after them. The mountain +foxhounds were brought up and laid on. But the girt dog with his +greyhound blood ran away from them all, carrying the line on one +occasion from Ennerdale to St. Bees on the coast, and on another to +Cockermouth. The following, on this occasion, consisted of two hundred +souls. It was a Sunday, and passing Ennerdale Church during service in +full cry had added to the field the males of the congregation as one +man, including the parson. The humours of some of these exhilarating +hunts as told by a contemporary pen are delightful. Once, when +surrounded by guns in a cornfield, the ingenious quarry singled out the +least efficient sportsman, Will Rothbury, who, as the sanguinary beast +broke cover and ran past him within easy shot, leaped up in the air +instead of firing and cried out, "Skerse, what a dog!" The latter, +shaken for a moment out of his presence of mind, bolted between the +notoriously bandy legs of a deaf old man who was gathering faggots, +unconscious of the excitement. Not till the middle of September did the +girt dog succumb after a long chase. He was set up in Keswick Museum +with a collar round his neck describing his exploits. Such, in brief, +for much more might be told, is the story of "t'girt dog of Ennerdale". + + + * * * * * + + + Transcriber's Note: Obvious punctuation errors corrected. + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Lakes, by A. G. Bradley + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42139 *** |