The English Lakes

CHAPTER X
CRUMMOCK WATER

Two chief routes bring you easily to Crummock Water—the first to Scale Hill at its foot, the other to its head, over Newlands Hause. From northward, as you approach, the hills on either side the vale of Lorton rise to higher flights, to greater ruggedness. At Scale Hill there is a sudden glimpse up the lake, a silvery level stretching far into the mountain land. Your way has wound round a great tumulus of rock and larch and oak which chokes the vale, to bring you so quickly to this lovely view.

Wild and stern is Crummock. All is particularly gloomy and forlorn on an afternoon threatening snow. The hillsides start up grey and stark and desolate. The only sounds you hear are the occasional yelp of a sheep dog in the fields near by and the sulky croak of a raven, a black spot up there where a grim cloud is hovering, shutting out the life of day, and sending the weather-wise sheep cluthering to sheltered spots by ghyll and fence. Suddenly the grey firmament above drops on to the hilltops and smothers them. Then snow begins to flutter, first in single flakes, then in a small shower which grimes the nearer fields and paths. Finally the storm giant asserts himself and a continuous shadow of white falls around. That far-off mist-wall which showed the head of the vale is shut off; only a few yards of grey lake trembling and tossing into little waves as the north wind harries it. At such a time it is well to seek shelter, for the gale may be wild and strong as day dies, and the snow fall in winding sheets. Rather, then, turn indoors and listen to stories of stress—the shepherd can tell you of peril faced for the sake of his flock; the postman, of danger in his daily round: men as wild and strong and devoted in their way as pioneer-heroes in a cannibal land, and as deserving to furnish matter for stories of renown. Through rain and shine, when torrents brawl havoc, rending bridges like straws, when drifts hide even the tall tree tops,—

and the gritty postman, by one device or another, wins through with his mails to solitary farm or wild moorland hamlet. And they live long, despite their hardships, as witness one who, after a day’s wrestle with the unbanded elements, was asked how he fared.

“Why, man, it’s wild on t’ top. I tried to git ower t’ moor, but I couldn’t. I gat to that lile [little] black planting, hooivver, aboot halfway, and I rested a bit. Then I said to mesel, I said, ‘Noo, Wat, thoo’s faced it four and fifty year, thoo sureli isn’t gaen to gie in noo.’ And at that I set tull again, and I gat ower; but it was hard wark, mindst ta.”

By calm hearth the dalesmen tell their stories; the gale rumbles against the house, and the windows tinkle to the driving of snowflakes. By morning the storm has passed, the ground is deep in snow, sky and hilltops are clear, stars still shine down on a scene of quietness and savage peace. Soon dawn-beams fire the east, and the summits are touched with rose. With full day the greyness clinging to the mountain flanks disappears, revealing riven glens and beetling crags. A boat is being launched for an expedition to seek what wild fowl may during the storm have taken refuge on the lake, and on it we go. On the open water the cold is terrible; pulling with might and main would hardly relieve the numbness of hands and feet, but our game is wary and any incautious rattle of oars would send them beyond reach. For half an hour we put up with the discomfort, then find that the boat is leaking badly and that a baler has to be used freely to keep the floors from floating. We ask to be put ashore!

On the road, walking is less difficult than we had imagined. At one place is quite a hundred yards of wind-swept path, but at a gateway the soft snow is piled deep. It is hard work passing even occasional drifts where you wade waist-deep for yards. At places the road between cliff and lake is so blocked that we climb along the open hillside. Now from an outstanding crag above the road we have a view of the lake and its surroundings. The water lies in a huge trough, bounded by immense walls of mountain, hardly ever falling far enough back to allow an alluvial meadow to slip between. Mellbreak! What a mighty mass! White are the wide fans of scree, but black and frowning the tiers of precipice. Above in a grand sweep comes the head of the mighty monarch, from which the sunshine is striking a thousand frost spangles. The sky is deep blue overhead. Hark to the croaking of the ravens; they seem to have found some carrion—perhaps a dead sheep—in yonder ghyll, and down they come, one, two, three, in all six, a crowd for these unsociable birds. Some of the ghylls are choked with snow, but others show black, rocky rents in the snowfields. Particularly I look for the great ravine down which comes Scale Force, the highest of our waterfalls. Once I climbed that gorge on a moonlit night in winter. Never to be forgotten that scene! An opal sky streaming with faint beams of aurora, tall crags closing the chasms, the fern-like alders limned against the starry glow above, the water rolling in pearly waves over the rock-edge toward me, then falling through an unseen zone to trouble the darkling pool at my feet.

Part of our homeward route lies through woodlands, where we watch a busy squirrel visiting its cache of nuts, and where, among the snow-laden branches, scores of little birds flit and twitter. Once we hear a buzzard mewing high above, and a sparrow-hawk’s raucous voice, but neither bird is seen.

Crummock in midsummer is a dream of delight. Once lately, on a warm summer evening, I cycled up its shore from Scale Hill. The road is rather gritty and loose of surface, but quite ridable. The sun was dipping toward the mountain ridges, pouring a flood of glorious light into the valley. From the lake came the chunk-unk of oars; two heavy-laden boats were being pulled toward the foot of the lake, and soon a clear young voice rippled across the water to us the charming strains of “Killarney.” What a sublime scene! Lofty Mellbreak sheering from the water’s edge, Grassmoor and many another craggy giant sweeping up to invisible heights above us, the golden green of new bracken, the purple bloom of heather, here and there an emerald patch of larches. To me there is infinite change in a view over a wide lake. Those huge, irregular phantoms are the shadows of a cloud above: they sweep across the lake, then dull the mountainside; drop away into some deep glen, pass on to dim far-away summits ere they slide over the horizon. The emotions of the heavens are reflected in God’s mirror beneath. Should a thunderstorm gather, then the lake is cast in gloom, sable ripples heave and fall. To the roaring of heaven’s artillery and the blinding flare of lightning, the fury approaches, passes, and the water wimples and rejoices in the falling curtains of rain. After storm, how noble and sweet that restful bosom! With fresh sunlight the land renews life and hope. The down-bent harebell rises again to dance in the gentle airs that play about; the heather casts off its gleaming pearls—down the sinewy fronds of bracken runs a tribute to the thin soil. Birds burst forth in wild chorus: the throstle and the blackbird make the rowaned ghylls resound; wagtails, wrens, linnets, each pipe their tuneful parts. To these from on high joins in the ringing of the skylark—a wild song of defiance to the storm, of thanks for coming calm to the Most High. And the lake, ruffled with passing breezes, seems to rejoice as well. There is a fragrance of earth and air and land after a summer storm on Crummock Water.

Away across the lake, by the bouldery ness the torrent of Scale has driven into the mere, are two islets, and from one a smudge of smoke is travelling lazily. What more delightful than to have a foretaste of the joy of picnicing there? The road now inclines from the water, and we climb toward the village of Buttermere where a new series of views awaits.

Perhaps fewer people live by Crummock than by any other lake: the fells hem it in too closely for farms to be settled. There is much shepherding on the commons, where flocks wander unchecked over wide areas. It was in a scene similar to this that a touring Devonian ventured to tell his Cumberland host that he did not think much of this sort of country, for, he explained:

“Down in Devonshire we have land, we can grow apples, and we have green meadows.”

“Div ye mean ther’s nae land here?” said the Cumbrian, sweeping his hand toward jagged crag, sleeping lake, and boulder-strewn field. “Why, man, ther’s that mich land here that it hes to be piled togither, one farm on top o’ t’other. Why, man, ther’s eneu’ land to mak’ fifty farms i’ Benkle Crag theer.”

“Aye,” assented the Devonian grimly, “and enough waste water to till the lot there,” pointing to the shimmering lake.

The wild moorland above the lake is one of the few remaining English breeding-places of the dotterel. This is a migrant of the plover type from high latitudes; odd pairs are apt to stay all summer, and to rear broods. The nest is increasingly rare: for collectors will give long prices for a complete clutch of eggs, and the native shoots the bird on sight, for no more successful lure for trout exists than a fly made from the underwing of a dotterel. I have declined £5 offered to disclose the whereabouts of a nest. Once I undertook to show a naturalist a nest, but though I had marked the place ever so carefully I failed to give him “the sight of a lifetime.” There are great difficulties in the way of a non-resident again finding, in a maze of benks and boulders, ghylls and riggings, so small an object as a dotterel’s nest. Other summer birds of the mountains are the ring-ouzel, a white-throated blackbird, the peregrine, the kestrel, and the sparrow-hawk. The bittern no longer booms in the upper glens or by the lake; hen-harriers and their kindred are also gone. But the wailing of the curlew still rings in our ears, the plover is never at rest, and the sinister “dowk” or carrion crow gorges on every dead carcase on the uplands. Of lesser birds, by every rill you see the pretty dipper in his uniform of brown and white, and less often the bright metallic sheen of the kingfisher. Winter brings the fieldfare and redwing to the mountain valleys, with now and then a flock of snow buntings. On the lake too come the pochard and the golden eyed ducks from the frozen North, with rarer species such as the sheldrake, the wigeon, and the shoveller.

CHAPTER XI
BUTTERMERE

Buttermere is Crummock’s sister-lake, divided only by half a mile of level, swampish meadows. Doubtless, in early ages, the twain formed one long water, reaching from the foot of Fleetwith eight miles to the hill at Scale. In size the upper lake is much the smaller: even more than Crummock it is a mountain mere. The fells rising from its shores are among the lofty ones of the Lake Country: Red Pike and High Stile with their back views into Ennerdale, Robinson and Hindscarth facing the vale of Derwent and far-away Skiddaw, and Brandreth hiding behind Fleetwith. Buttermere is a solitary place: the presence of the hamlet, the sheep-farms, the small, dark woodlands, and the one mansion on a head driven out by the activities of a fell beck, almost accentuate its loneliness, for the bare pikes of mountain dwarf them almost away. It is the coach-road which brings the idea of modern life and relationships here. It runs close to the lake, and every day in summer and autumn a procession of vehicles passes along just before the luncheon hour. From Keswick they have started—coach, char-a-banc, wagonette, or more lordly landau, wheeled into lovely Borrowdale to the merry crack of the whip and gleesome blast of horn; with a long pull, they have been hauled up steep Honister Hause, with a brake-wrenching plunge they have safely negotiated the narrow shingle-shelf called a road. Timorous passengers have shrunk in terror as they gazed at awful depths below, but now all nerves compose themselves as the hooves rattle on the hard, undulating road by the lake-side. After a suitable rest the horses will draw the crowd away over Newlands Hause, where out of the green hillsides a road has been delved, to Keswick, and our dale and lake will forget disturbance till to-morrow. The eternal silence of a mountain-land will fall around and render rapturous evening and night and blithesome morning. To drive from Keswick to Buttermere and return is no mean item in a tourist’s day; it is a noble day’s work for horses, and only good ones can endure frequent journeys over these rugged passes. Even the “easier” slope of Honister is sufficient to “break many a horse’s heart.”

The villaget of Buttermere was apparently unknown to Roman, Saxon, and the building tribes of old; its only historic building is the lowly public-house where the Maid of Buttermere dwelt. Mary was the belle of the glen in good King George’s day—a blithesome Cumberland lass, bonny enough to charm a yeoman’s eye, wealthy enough in a modest way to bring his love and hand. But she was not for the dalesmen or the shepherds of the mountains. Her fate was ripe when one day a post-chaise brought to the little inn a grand gentleman from Keswick. His dress was fine, his looks noble, he had plenty of money. He gave himself out to be Colonel Hopetown, son of a peer and otherwise highly connected. Soon the guest condescended to woo the Beauty, and ere a short summer passed they were married. A few weeks later the “colonel” was arrested on a charge of forgery—“franking” letters with his “relative’s” name to pass the Post Office—and was proved to be the son of menial parents. Many other and viler frauds had he practised after leaving the South Country, but these he was never called to book for on this earth. Forgery was a crime involving death under the merciless penal code of those days, and the impostor duly suffered at Carlisle. Mary of Buttermere, so forcibly parted from her husband, did not repine him long, but married a neighbouring farmer and lived to a good old age. The small chapelry of Buttermere was, some time previous to the happenings mentioned, held by one of Wordsworth’s heroes, “Wonderful Walker,” the curate of Duddonside Seathwaite, whose life-story of labour and frugality was once so well known and esteemed. How he lived several years in his office here is almost a “wonder” in itself, for Buttermere allowed its priest no more than “whittle-gate” and twenty shillings yearly. (Some accounts aver that the remuneration was “clog-shoes, harden-sark, whittle-gate, and guse-gate”—that is, a pair of shoes clogged or iron-shod, a coarse shirt once a year, free living at each parishioner’s house for a certain number of days, and the right to pasture a goose or geese on the common.) Either scale would not be too luxurious for even a successor of the Apostles, bound to forswear the lusts of the flesh and the pride of life. The person who held Newlands chapel in the time of George II. was a tailor, a clogger and butterpat maker, and the Mungrisdale priest had £6 0s. 9d. a year. Such cures were often held by unordained persons—hedge-parsons with a vengeance.

The day I first came to Buttermere forms one of my fairest memories. Starting before midnight on the opposite edge of Lakeland, at daybreak I stood on Dunmail raise; by breakfast-time I reached Keswick; then I went up Skiddaw by way of Latrigg, descending by the same route—the only one I then knew of on that shoulder of the mountain; at noon I was on Newlands Hause, plodding on cheerily. Hot and grimed with dust, my eyes bleared with sweat and the glare, I wonder if I looked so disreputable, so much of a tramp, as I felt. A stripling of seventeen, not stoutly built, poor in dress and pocket (I left home with 1s. 9½d. and returned with but 3d. less), carrying on my back a satchel with food for my day, to be eaten in the open air and washed down with water; there would be little jauntiness of face or body or stride, I trow, after that forty-eight miles’ tramp. And this was not the end of the journey. Buttermere was only the Mecca, the turning-point, of my walk; after passing it I turned up rugged Honister for Borrowdale, and then by the Stake pass to Langdale, and so home. Perhaps it were unmannerly to boast, but eighty-five miles of road, mountain, glen, and pass, in twenty-five and a half hours, is not a feat of my every-day. As I entered the valley that day the clouds closed down, shutting off the beating sunrays and throwing a light, refreshing shower. Like the mountain daisies, the wanderer for a full minute raised a rejoicing face to the cooling raindrops. Then, like the sky, he felt a trouble. “Nay, nay, it’s nobbut cestin’ a shooer,” said an aged shepherd, and my heart was comforted. Not long before I had walked thirty miles through pouring rain, and found it no light matter. Like a soft slab of slate the lake stretched from the fringe of treetops before to the stony, scrubby hillside opposite. Save where coots and water-hens played by the sedges and rooty river-mouths, the surface was calm, the light rain merged into the water without splash or circle. The hillsides round Buttermere are furrowed into ravines, dark and gaping they split the festive green swathes of summer-tide. And down these hollows dash lively rivulets playing hide-and-seek, mazily threading through shadow of alder and rowan, by groves of flowering hawthorns, now lost in the depths of a ghyll, now spouting in lively haste over a ledge curtained with fern and bracken.

It is a rare pleasure to be at Buttermere after a series of rain-storms. From the rockrib wherefrom the church commands its little flock, you look into a great amphitheatre of crag-set mountains. Beneath the eye is the water; it seems to be palpitating with movement from the rich riot its tributaries are hurling down the steeps. See how it wimples beneath the farther shore—through a wide rent in the lake-bed untold gallons of water are being forced upward from the heart of the earth; that flat circle in mid-lake against which the creeping catspaw of wind in vain forces its feeble ripples shows another fountain swelling up in quiet power. The steep hillsides are seamed with threads of white; Sour Milk ghyll, in a shimmering veil, sways from skyline to lake-shore. Where often a hermit stream hides and glides behind crest of rock, beneath screen of bracken, now is all tearing, jumping, spreading fosse. Every fold in the hillside casts down its bounding cascade; there is nothing in the air so loud as this turmoil of waters, this joy-song of deeps bursting from dark prisons in bog and crag. Already, we are warned, the paths to Wastdale and Ennerdale are impassable; the floods are out at Gatescarth. Climbing would be a questionable pleasure to-day; “beck-dodging” is far more suitable. At first our road is dry, washed free from dust by the heavy rain; through wide culverts the floods rumble beneath. The wider becks are bridged: look up this tree-hung gullet and see how the waters wilder down. Not in waves do they come, but in great gush after great gush, green and white. How they crash against unseen rocks, throwing feathers of spray at every shock, till the stream shooting beneath the arch seems but a flying mass of airy, tortured foam! There comes the sprite, the winged spirit of the day, robed in brown and white—the dipper, our mountain water-crow. How it chirrups and revels in the tumult! how it flirts its tiny wings and dives through some curling gout of spray! how it scolds the volume roaring through the darkened tunnel beneath the road, causing it, O highly important fairy, to flight up like a mere blackbird, among the dripping plumes of larch!

“Boat ahoy!” we shout anon, and our friend afloat a field’s breadth away waves answer; in a minute the boat is grinding the gravel, and we are almost down the soaking field to reach it.

“What, tired of fishing?” we ask. He is a desperate keen one with the rod as a rule, yet his tackle is packed up.

“No,” he grumbles, “can’t catch anything.”

“Now I did think to-day would suit you. Good spates in the becks, a light breeze, and plenty of cool clouds,” I marvel.

“Now look here,” protested the angler wearily, “it’s no good talking like that. The floor of this lake is leaking upwards as though the steam was escaping by a thousand cracks in the ceiling of the nether regions and being condensed into Buttermere. Why, man, the lake bottom’s that lively that the trout and the char, the big pike down to the tiny minnow, are all having a job to hold the water at all. I bet every minute they’re expecting a geyser that’ll blow the whole lot of ’em over Red Pike to Ennerdale.”

When an angler relapses into this mood he is hopeless to cheer, so we silently respect his sorrows. Perhaps into that vigorous pulling he will throw some of his despondency. Now Fleetwith, flanked by the precipice of Honister, is frowning at us over the low fields. To the right, against a background of watery clouds, is limned rugged Scarf Gap; the path to it is white with rushing waters. The rocks everywhere glimmer with oozing springs: down Honister pass a wide torrent is foaming, attracting to it many a milky force from Robinson and Fleetwith-side. The scraggy stone-pines by the lake-head give a characteristic finish to this scene of sodden brae and spouting rill. Save for the sycamores round the farm of Gatesgarth, there is hardly a tree for shelter; the aspect is bleak and storm-riven. The boat is run on to the shingles beneath the Scotch firs that we may land. Not far away is the main road; we pass up the hillside beyond it. In the recess beneath Fleetwith we are conscious of a flood indeed. Much of the stony level is swamped; with difficulty the sheep have been brought from danger, and are flocked near the farmstead. The torrents rushing in at the head of the mere can be traced, first by white horses, then by dark, level-flowing currents, far down the lake. From this height we again feel that the great water is rocking in its cradle of mountains. The furrows of incoming rills give the peculiar idea of ever-changing level to the water. I have never yet seen the whole level to Scale under water—one lake of eight miles instead of two smaller ones—but viewed from these heights it must be a noble sight indeed. Our boat pushed into the in-dashing beck, rapidly rides to halfway down the lake, thence by carefully avoiding unfavourable currents we easily make our landing-place.

To my mind, the valley is hardly less interesting when a thick winter mist glooms it, when, for all you can see, there is no difference between Honister top, the crest of Robinson, and the stony fields round Gatescarth. Under such circumstances it is well to be afloat an hour, and allow impressions to establish themselves in your mind. Twenty yards out you lose the land: the boat glides along in a grey circle of moving fogbeards and rippling waters. Save for the sounds from bow and rowlock you are in a dead silence. Shortly, however, the ear catches faint echoes: the croak of the raven, the skirl of the curlew, ranging in clear upper air, with now and then the attenuated bleat or low or crow from the farmlands. In mid-lake there are few sounds of water-birds, though at an odd time a coot, traversing the width, may show, a scared patch of brown and white, inside your zone of vision. The lake-birds are cuttering softly close inshore, finding the curtain of cloud an effective cloak for feeding. An hour of boating thus, in gloom and rowk, will form an experience not to be forgotten.

The fishing of Buttermere is now in a few hands: sportsmen have leased the mere and devoted much attention to its re-stocking. The result is that few anglers outside this coterie come here, though on an occasional day the mountain becks are worthy attention. Most visitors here are active enough to relish rambles over the fells, and there are many routes to select from. Away from the narrow band of meadow-land touching the lake, there are few obstacles to free-and-easy wanderings. Sheep walks are divided by wire fences, but these are fairly negotiable, by climbing over at the “posts” or squeezing between the running strands where slackest. Stout folks find the latter the preferable method. To make the circuit of the glen of the lake is a fairly big task, but it can be divided into three moderate courses. You start by crossing the meadows and climbing Scale Force brow, then, left-handed, along Red Pike and High Stile (over bog and bracken, across ghyll and up steep, with a glimpse into Ennerdale here, a peep through Newlands at Derwentdale there, and always the moor in sight, with a clean, sweet breeze and, if the day be clear, a wedge of blue sea on the horizon), finally descending into Scarf Gap, the home of mists, where an easy return path ends course one. From Scarf Gap, into the back-o’-beyont country behind Haystacks, and to Brandreth with its legs into Buttermere, Ennerdale and Borrowdale, always keeping to the right, and ending the course over Fleetwith to Honister Hause. From Brandreth it is easy to pass over Green Gable to Great Gable, and so to gain Wastwater. Honister pass-head is the scene of a legendary battle between Britons and Picts, or between Angles and Scots—history hardly decides which. One party had been a-foraying in Borrowdale and hoped to withdraw over this pass with their spoil; their pursuers, however, cut them off and, after a wild resistance, recovered the cattle. From Honister Hause—it is a wild place of rocks and screes and untamable streams—the final stage carries the wanderer over Dale Head to Hindscarth, whence he descends by Robinson to Buttermere or to Newlands Hause.

Every one walks up Honister as a matter of course. What is it like on a bright July day, when the beating heat is tempered by a smart breeze? Every rambler should live with eyes open to nature; to-day will repay him his interest. Up in the brilliant blue ravens and hawks are hovering, crows and rooks are ever passing over the glen. From one wood to another the wild pigeon wings rapidly, the blackbirds in the hedges are busy at their nestage duties. Take note of the flowers, O man with seeing eyes. In the pastures are great purple spikes of loose-strife, amid the white waves of ox-eyes; round by the lake are belts of blue lobelia. The air is full of the scent of meadow-sweet, the honey-suckle here and there throws trailers, adorned with creamy bloom, along the hedges, and in great clusters blow the wild roses. Up the shady beck-courses you might find the blue forget-me-not and the still bluer birdlime, and in the mossy springs the violet-shaped butterwort. Butterflies and dragon-flies, softer moths and gaudy beetles, are attracted by the multi-flavoured feast spread about.

Now we come to Gatescarth, the largest sheep-farm within many a mile. A noted breeder of mountain sheep lives here, one who has done much to improve our semi-wild Herdwicks—much honour to him. The farmlands, even in the glorious to-day, look harsh and bare, though the soft, short sward is of the greenest. In winter there is often severe stress here; at times the shepherds are called upon to collect, in a day of storm, the flocks from far-off crags and ghylls. Long hours are spent battling the elements, collecting the unwilling sheep, and bringing them down. The wanderer here on a stormy winter night is not unlikely to see a light patrolling far up the hillsides—one of the belated shepherds patiently driving his sheep down from the danger of flood and drift and gale. The white cross which is attracting the eye, O inquirer, is erected to the memory of a young lady accidentally killed at that spot: “In the midst of life we are in death,” is carved on it. The incident is one to make every mountaineer pause and think. It was an everyday risk, alas! The lady descending a steep slope held her alpenstock straight in front of her; the point struck the ground, but the lady slipped, her chin caught on the butt of the stick and, such was the force of the fall, her neck was dislocated, causing immediate death. Such an accident is possible a score times in every day’s walk here. Now the great crag of Honister is frowning by our very side. Around its base the rambler will find broad tracts of alpine ladies’ mantle, while forked spleenwort and many a rare plant besides are among the screes and shelving rocks. Among the grass and boulders near our path are long fantastic growths of stagshorn moss, with more alpine ladies’ mantle, with wild thyme, the precious eyebright and yellow tormentil lifting their lovely heads in the desolate wilderness. Now we reach the passhead: Honister is the wildest of our passes, the place where the great thews of Nature are least hid. But the slate quarries make Honister less desirable to some eyes; great confusions of debris, railroads sweeping up into the bowels of the great crags; for nowadays men do not work here, as they did in Wordsworth’s time, hanging down the cliff in frail basket-chairs tapping and blasting the surface rock, nor do they carry down the slate on handsledges as they did two score years or so ago. The mining is more scientific—more reliance is placed on machinery than on men. The new railroad, carrying slates to Seatollar has improved one thing at any rate—there is far less of that penetrating screaming of brakes than when the loaded carts descended the pass-road. On a calm day the racket could be heard for miles.

CHAPTER XII
THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER

Proud Cumberland ranks Derwentwater as queen of the English Lakes; but I was born south of Dunmail raise, and feel at liberty to worship at other altars. To see the lake at its best one needs be afoot long before the coaches and motors appear. A road smothered in dust clouds, an atmosphere quivering with clatter, the fumes of petrol and the general unpleasantness of heavy traffic, detract from the most imperious beauty. At daybreak the town is almost silent: sweet mountain air has descended to dissipate the closeness of midnight; the songs of larks and throstles are wafted into the medley of houses and streets from the fields and woods; the murmur of flowing Greta is pleasant indeed. On Friars Crag you may meet an early visitor, and at the landings a boatman is cleaning up. As you stand there, in a pleasant but undeniable way the waters call. “A boat, sir? Certainly. Will you wait till I’ve finished here?” And you watch the man haste on his scrubbing and polishing. In two minutes he scrambles on to the pier, selects oars and cushions, sees you safe in your place, and gives a push off.

As yet no other boat is astir: you have the wide expanse to yourself. From Friars Crag scores of people in the summer watch the sun set. And at the close of a clear day the scene is glorious, even sublime. Around a hundred peaks, ranging from noble Skiddaw to humble Swineside and Catbells, the shafts of light fall and ebb. Here in the rift between two summits is a stretch of purple, there a patch of rosy light fades on a scree-seamed brae. If the sun sets in a flurry of crimson cloud the spectators will hardly take their eyes from the lake: the reflections of the sky are so charming, so magnificent. No painter could match the evanescent changes, the kindlings of the sky, the soft portrayal of each living flame on the shimmering water, the green gloom of overhanging mountains. What boots it if the fiery splendour is a presage of rain when so splendid a pageant is the forecast? To your left is rocky Derwent Isle. Fountains Abbey held it, before the Dissolution of Monasteries, as Vicars Isle; it has had half a dozen names since. Secluded, a fringe of trees hiding its narrow lawn, a house stands here which for sheer romantic situation would be hard to beat in the Lake Country or wide England. I would sit in an upper room there, on a day of April squalls. First in the grey nor’-east I would see the storm clouds gather darkly behind the cone of Skiddaw.

Derwentwater is lap-lapping merrily against the stony beaches beyond the green sward, every wave wearing a sunlit crown. The great hollows of the mountain range are now filled with battling vapour; from right and left round lower summits they move to desperate attack—dun curls of skirmishers in front, heavy phalanxes of infantry grey behind. Down the air comes a whisper of riot and war, and with soundless impact we see the two hordes meet, shock, and mingle. Jagged as with unseen artillery, the battle sways from end to end; then, like a bolt of Jove, over brawny Skiddaw hurls a deluge of rain-sodden grey, the strife ceases, a sharp, steady line of mists cuts off the seen from the unseen. Now a grey shadow steals over the land, the bubbling life is chilled from the waters, and they rattle black and harsh against the cobble-stones. But on Grange fell the russet bracken is bathed in ephemeral sunshine. The shadow in the air grows darker, the distance is obscured with the grime of rain. The nearer hills, the fields, the town, are blotted out ere the full fury of the squall shakes our window and shrieks among the island trees. Like crest of cruelly spurred horse, the waves toss high, the mad gusts catch the rising gouts, wrench them clear into the air and hustle them along to crash in resounding sheets far up the shore. No boat was, we recollect with pleasure, visible before the squall descended: it would go hard with such a one just now. One experience of a squall on a mountain lake is enough for the most daring. I remember my baptism in such manner vividly. The yacht had but one sail spread to the breeze, but maniac Boreas caught it, pinned us down while water poured into the well, wrenched and screamed and worried at the mast and gear till that went overboard with a crash, then, with a final paroxysm, spun the hulk round and passed away over a waste of churning, creaming waters. More comfortable to face the gale with thin glass in front than to fare like that. The trees bend like switches, but the gloom is now rising from north-east. In a minute a flood of sunlight is pouring down, waking to brilliance the flooded lawn, and making sparkle the drop-decked boughs. Look into the wake of the retiring storm. The lake is still leaping white and racing along; a dim film hides the crags above Grange: now it passes, so quickly as almost to make one start at the rapid change. It would be dowly living at Derwent Isle when fog dark and drear hid lake and town: one might feel lonesome when the blizzards whistled and fumbled against window and door, and the waves crashed without the snug retreat. But how joyous this morning, when the sun is aloft and day has risen refreshed from the bath of night and is newly beginning a pageant of song and life and changing colour!

Further up the lake is Lord’s Isle, where once lived the Earls of Derwentwater. On the attainder and execution of the last of the title the mansion fell into ruins: some of its stone was used in building Keswick market-hall. The last earl was much loved in Cumberland; he was staunch to the Stuarts, as were most Northern gentry, and intrigued widely to bring about their return. When the first Pretender landed, bringing such sorry allies and little promise beyond, the earl foresaw that insurrection would be useless and dangerous to the participants. He argued that, although the Stuart was in Scotland, no rebellion need be attempted in the North of England until the party there were better prepared. In the secret council the earl was held little better than a traitor; at home his wife accused him of cowardice, demanding his sword and horse that a Derwentwater, though a woman, might take the accustomed place in the battle for King James. The earl was no coward: he took the mocked sword from his wife, and cast himself into the turmoil of rebellion. It is history that the rising was crushed with ease, and that as a ringleader the earl was beheaded on Tower Hill. Powerful men at court sued unavailingly for the young noble’s pardon. Money was lavished on the king’s favourites in vain. To raise funds the countess came north to the island-home; the Cumbrians, incensed at her forcing the Earl into the plot to save his honour at her hands, gave her a chilly reception. Legend luridly asserts that her horses were stolen while she was on the island, and that she and her servants were threatened. At dead of night a boat was rowed to near Lodore, where the lady landed and escaped by way of the fells to Penrith and the south. With her she carried a large quantity of jewels, which were offered to save the young husband’s head. The ravine by which the countess climbed to the open moors is pointed out as Lady’s Rake. If it were my province here to examine the story in detail, I would find that it was hardly to escape the Derwentwater tenants that the lady left in such haste. She was, for her share in the late rebellion, marked for arrest, or at least observation, by the Hanoverian authorities.

Seven islands dot Derwentwater: on no other mere are islands the feature we see here. Instead of snags of rock sticking up from deep water, with trees keeping precarious hold in clefts and crannies, these are level, well-wooded places, standing behind ample shallows.

Having passed Lord’s Island, with its sorrowful story of a life risked and lost for a banished prince, Lodore is the next point. Every one knows by repute Southey’s poem-de-force describing the terrific rush of its waters. After heavy rain the old poet’s description can be tested—at the expense of a wetting. Down a wide stair from the moorland, bristling with crags and boulders and outstanding seams, come the waters—their frolic can often be heard at Keswick, though Greta is charging, headlong, noisily down its rugged course. The moment you enter the gully—should you desire to see the heart of its beauty—you are swathed in spray; never in flood-time can you see more than a few yards ahead; your eyes film with moisture; the air to your lungs is choky with mist; the day is gloomed with spindrift. You see a white front of water hurtling down from invisibility: it eddies at your side, then drops away in gathering water-smoke. Nothing can you hear at such a time but continuous liquid thunder. Say the luxurious, there is then but little to see except the watery path you are climbing? Once I climbed this ravine at flood-time. As I passed into the zone of water-smoke, there were blurred visions of tumbling cascades, shadows of huge rocks dimly seen across the ravine, dripping branches of shrubs and plants among the streaming rocks. Then, what a transformation! A flash of sunlight swept into the hollow way. An atmosphere of shifting jewels of rainbow hue above, around; strings and clusters of pearls and diamonds dripping down reddish crags veined and barred with gold and silver; grasses poising delicate racemes of turquoise; mosses adorned with tiaras of ethereal beauty, ruffles of ivory spray caressing the currents of rich emerald. The brief glow faded, and all became grey and black and dull green again. For a glimpse of another such fairyland I would face stress much wilder than greets one in the gap of Lodore.

Another ravine in the cliff near by possesses a beautiful waterfall, but Barrow Cascade is on private ground and the free rambler can hardly be brought to see it. The head of Derwentwater is so grown with weed that a path has to be cut to allow boats to reach Lodore landings. Near here the once wonderful Floating Island anchors. A mat of vegetable fibre lying on the lake-bed at times becomes inflated with natural gas and rises to the surface. In 1864 a second floating isle put in an appearance, and during that dry summer it seemed likely that many acres of adjoining lake-floor would follow suit. Floating Island shares fell to tremendous discount and have never recovered. The Derwent here enters the lake by two channels through ooze and tangled water-grass. Few lakes have so extensive shoals as Derwentwater: for acres hereabout you may look over the boat’s side through some feet of clear, amber water at the growing reeds, white spathes piercing the mud, green stems, and hasty leaves unfolding ere they reach the upper air, or thin waving threads linking a tuft of foliage on the surface with unseen roots beneath; all kinds of pond-life creeping and swimming about. Where the lake-bed lies fallow the eye rests on soft levels of mud, with a passing host of minnows, a red-necked perch, or even a trout or pike. Here and there rock-spines pierce the level floor, or perchance a bank of pebbles, large and small, set in smooth mosaic, blood-red of granite picked out with sea-blue slate, grey pebbles of volcanic ash intermingled with knobs of salmon sandstone, and conglomerate of every colour and shape. Watch the sunlines creeping and chasing and quivering as little ripples undulate the lake’s surface.

The narrow glen ahead is Borrowdale: its entrance guarded by heathery Grange fell to left and by Gate Crag to right, with Castle Crag uprising in the centre as though jealous of an opening secret. A century ago the world ended at Grange: hardy he who toured into the sunset land beyond. The dalesmen were simpletons—“men of Gotham,” who hardly knew the use of wheels or saddlery. Castle Crag presents a precipitous front; unknown hands have fashioned earthworks on its crest. As the lake is not low, the boat comes some way upstream towards Grange. Here, when Borrowdale was its possession, Furness Abbey had a barn for its harvests. Nothing remains of it, however—possibly it was a mere skeleton of wood which, when the Dissolution prevented the harvesting of the monks, fell into ruin and was annexed piecemeal by neighbours as required. Casual observers have remarked, anent this penchant of our forefathers in the Fell Country, that they took much trouble to steal, carrying great distances timber they might have felled at hand, stones which in bewildering profusion lay upon their farmlands. Our forefathers knew the toughness of the mountain oak and ash; to fell the trees was simple, but no tools for shaping planks and baulks were obtainable, while worked stone is still worth carting far in the dales. Not every boulder is fit for building stone, my kindly critic, and it is hard northern sense which prevents the products of labour lying fallow in grassy mounds.

Grange stands in one of the sweetest recesses of Cumberland: the wide bed of Derwent furrows the tiny level; in front and behind rise, pile on pile, the rocky fells, dotted above with grey fleeces, below with red and white and scanty black of milch cattle. I take it a fine sight to sit by the bridge here and watch the sun’s last rays spread golden raiment on rugged Eel crags and Maiden moor; down below a shadow of blue is sweeping over intakes and screes, night hastening on ere day has thought farewell. The boat now drifts back to the lake, and passes along the Catbells shore. The bays, with steep woods or brackened slopes rising out of them, are all sweet and pretty, fit places for an afternoon’s quiet thought. This is the tip of an old lead mine; the whole country-side is rich in unworked minerals, from once-precious wad or plumbago (from Borrowdale for years the chief supply of the world was drawn) down to tin and copper. In the days of Elizabeth a colony of German miners was imported to improve the craft; several leading lake families are descended in part from them. The foreigners were not loved by the fell-landers, and for generations scarce mingled with them. The success of a new process has opened the mines at Church Coniston—will the same occur here? In days when theological argument was common, a Lake Country Quaker frequently encountered, and sometimes worsted, a dignitary of the Church.

“You may best me,” said the cleric, “but you do not convince me yet.”

“Friend,” rejoined the other calmly, “if but the man was to convince, I could convince thee at once; but what man’s talk can pierce through that armour of gold thou renewest yearly? Forget thy church money, friend, for an hour, and I’ll convince thee.”

If the mines are opened and our lakes and rivers made pools and streams of mud, the glory of our hillsides wasted with metal-fumes, the pen of the writer will avail little against the chant of profit. The large island now at hand is St. Herbert’s—the most renowned of all. In the early days of Christianity, an acolyte of Holy Isle, off Northumbria, came here to spend his life in divine contemplation and communion.

The story of Herbert’s death forms our prettiest unassailed legend. Once a year the hermit left his island-cell and made a journey to his beloved Cuthbert, who remained on Holy Isle. Age did not prevent their tryst; and when eternal rest was nigh, the venerable Christians each prayed that his departure should not cause his friend to grieve. That petition, says Bede, was granted.

One afternoon Cuthbert, surrounded by students of God’s Word, suddenly ceased the lesson he was expounding; his aged face took on a joyous smile, and in a moment he was dead. A messenger set out to carry the mournful news to Derwentdale, but on the way he met one hurrying to tell Cuthbert that on a certain day his beloved friend had passed away. At the same hour they both had entered the portals of death. Centuries after Herbert’s death his memory drew pilgrims here from distant parts: at Portinscale dwelt a smith who sold the image of the saint in silver-alloy and lead. Some years ago his mould and fragments of his wares were dug up near an old landing convenient to the island.

There is no recognised ruin on St. Herbert’s Isle; the few worked stones scattered about may be remains of the chapel built during the pilgrimages. It was for long the custom of the good folks of Keswick to celebrate St. Herbert’s day by a procession of boats up to the island and a service in the open air to his memory. Opposite St. Herbert’s Isle is a belt of land touching the lake beneath and the open commons of Catbells above, now secured as a public pleasure-ground for ever. In this is Keswick blessed above all Lakeland towns. The striking of eight o’clock from some campanile in the town brings back the mind to prosaic human necessity. My back bends to the oars and quickly the boat comes to rest in the reflections of Friar’s Crag. For a modest fee indeed I have had three hours of Derwentwater at its best.

Another good way to see the beauties of the valley is to walk or cycle round. The road takes you to Crosthwaite church and over the meadows to Portinscale, then winds into the glen of Newlands. But just within, the way turns sharply, climbing up a corner of Catbells, running in a long slope down to Grange, Lodore, and so to the town again. Skiddaw, rather than Derwentwater, is the most prominent object as we leave Keswick northward. Just at present that mountain is empurpled with heather, its great flanks vivid with bloom and with the lighter green of bracken fronds. Latrigg, the fell nearest at hand, has been planted with larches; not so many years ago it was treeless as Skiddaw and as beautiful. Not far from the road is the home of Southey, poet and gentleman.