The English Lakes

Brothers Water, up a branch of the Goldrill, affords fair sport to the rod. Its shores the wandering kind would think, but erroneously, tame. No huge crag leaps up from it, but its surroundings are of singular ruggedness. The lofty, bristling front of Red Screes, and the purpled fields of broken crag on Kirkstone fell, face the nobbly Hartsop Dodd. The ridges are cut up by narrow chasms down which in flood-time, like hordes of wild horses, unbridled torrents fling. The glen above the tarn is given over to one of the largest sheep-farms in the district. Its acreage is counted, as its fleeces, by the thousand.

It is a far cry and a rugged way to Grisedale tarn, but the climb is worth doing. Up the ghylls you climb on your route to Fairfield; and when you reach the topmost ridge in sight, you find the deep narrow gulf of Deepdale lies between. You detour round the head of this glen. It is glorious wild country, this home of shepherd craft. There is no good path; you follow the wandering sheep-tracks where they serve, and leave them the moment you find their trend unfavourable. It is eerie when the mist suddenly wraps around. Then you may have to trust to dead reckoning for your safety. But, on a clear day, the vertical views from the narrow approach to Fairfield, into Rydal and Deepdale are charming: on either horizon is the flash of water—Windermere, Coniston, Ullswater. The ridge of Fairfield crossed, suddenly breaks a new glen into the mountain wall, and at the same time there is revealed to you a whirlpool of distant summits. Right below is the tarn of Grisedale. Seen on a dull day it is an abode of mystery: deep, so deep blue that one feels that it were a lower firmament; pure, so pure and fresh that it seems impossible that through it one might not journey to a fairy paradise.

This grand cleft in the mountain wall was haunt of the wild boar and of great eagles for long after less wild regions were cleared. To-day you see nothing sterner than the peregrine whizzing after towering larks. I well remember assisting to drive a flock across this upland basin. Of all scenes in dales life, few are prettier than well-driven sheep passing over open land. The collies, watchful, obedient to call or whistle of their master, follow the wings of the mob; the shepherd is behind the centre, and the broad front of grey fleeces and black faces, a thousand or more strong, steadily, readily, moves to pastures new, and the delicate green grass, with grey crags and darker stripes of moss, combines all into an idyllic picture.

From Grisedale, there is Helvellyn to climb on the way to Red tarn, and to a tiny pool beneath the northern screes known as Keppel Cove tarn. A tour further afield would be across the knife-like Edges of Saddleback to the lonesome tarns immured beneath their cliffs. We, however, journey over the ridge between Fairfield and Seat Sandal for Grasmere’s sweet vale. There are many views across the pass to Helm Crag, with its uncouth rocks on top, figures of monsters frozen speechless from the dim twilight of time.

From Grasmere there is a particularly fine mountain walk, with a ring of tarns as its objective. Starting from the tourist village one passes up Easedale, then begins to ascend the side of Sour Milk ghyll. Come when there has been rain and a tortured chain of water flies down four hundred feet of rocks, in a succession of gleaming spouts. But in the days of drought the rocky pathway is bare and almost dry, the rivulet drips noiselessly down the inclined rocks. At the head of the force you enter the realm of the fell properly. The true mountain moth flutters by; the moss beneath your feet is racemed with fox’s tail, least civilised of plants. The ring-ouzel, the blackbird of the fells, is often here—in the waterworn rocks are its nesting-places. The bracken throws off its sweetest scent. The tarn side is a peaceful scene under most conditions, but when a gale rages you see the water fly off in sheets. The scene is glorious, but the buffetings are tremendous. Easedale tarn is among the larger in size, its trout are more easily caught at hours and seasons when the tourist is unknown. At evening get out the boat and float toward the outlet. The weeds here are the nightly haunt of the best fish.

Our next tarn is Codale, perched on a shelf six hundred feet higher than Easedale tarn—a mere rock pool, but in situation most romantic. Fishing here—well, there are a few trout to be got by the lucky. “Codale tarn? Ah, we used to come at it after we had done Stickle tarn. Old Jonty knew it well. Once when I was with him—it was a blazing June day—he said he could get the fish in Codale. ‘How?’ I asked. ‘By minding my own business.’ He produced two lengths of line, and along them fixed the hooks and baits common to the lath. ‘Noo, thee gang that side o’ t’ tarn, ah’ll gang this.’ The line was between, and we soon dragged the narrow water from one to the other. There wasn’t a fish missed. One after another they swum up; what the baits were Old Jonty wouldn’t say—salmon roe most like, for he was a terrible poacher. We got four pounds of fish with the single drag, more than I had seen in a week of tarn fishing in that blazing weather.”

A few weird things are told of the wild upland where lies Codale tarn, stories as wild as the demon hunts of Dartmoor. Through the mists the wanderer often fancies a face distraught with pain and toil. It is the weird of a lost soul. The first time I was a-wandering in this region I was caught in a dense cloud, and, the stories still fresh in my mind, I felt rather nervous that some horror would come to light. It is wonderful what vivid imaginings come when one is astray in the mist. I have a great many times seen visions in the grey beards—so clear, so true, that once I hailed a comrade whose face I saw, though he himself was forty miles away. Codale tarn, to my mind, is the prettiest mere of all: stand back from its outlet and drink in the picture—the narrow dark band of water, the great pile of rock dabbed with spits of grass, seamed with moss-laces and with parsley fern. Above the crags, where a spot of snow oft lingers till June, is the azure sky, and the dots of winged things.

Over the hills and away to the tarn of Stickle. At clear midnight the hollow is at its finest—when the sky is gemmed with stars and over the jagged Pavey Ark the northern light pulses and flows, and the mountains swim in delicate folds of vapour. It is fairy time—the wee folk must survive in this abode of eternal peace. The crags overhanging the tarn are full of problems for the rock-climbing cult—one or two of the gullies are almost first-rate. The “shepherd’s path,” which few dalesmen ever use, is dangerous to any one not trained to this severe work—I mention this as a warning. The tarn holds trout of large size and exceptional quality. In winter this basin is an awesome place for a ramble. The great plinth which ends Pavey Ark rises almost without a patch of white—a pillar of darkness. Other parts of the fell are plentifully smeared with drifts. When the snow has lain for a week or two there is snow craft to be practised here, but things are better further afield on the Scawfell group.

From Stickle our wanderings should carry us down past the racing fosse, and away into Little Langdale where we pause at Blea tarn. This was the haunt of Wordsworth’s “Solitary,” chief figure in his poem, “The Excursion.” Little Langdale tarn, which lies somewhat further down the glen is a small weedy pool in a meadow-land. Its waters for long have provided little sport, for they are overstocked with tiny useless trout. A net used with judgment might improve the fishing here. But Little Langdale tarn has its own peculiar charm of quietness. It is a haunt of the heron and otter. And over it stands the grand barrier of Tilberthwaite fell, from the base of which, in solemn echoing blasts, “the quarried thunders ring.” The hillsides around are pitted with ugly little scars of abortive quarries. Still down the glen, we pass Colwith, where the stream makes a sudden leap into a lower country. It is a pretty enough spout, but on enclosed ground, and therefore few wanderers of the fells confess its beauty. The white farm at the cross road, as you turn into Great Langdale, of course has been an inn. One of its old-time landladies was wont only to brew when there was a prospect of sale. The water from the spring was good enough for her household, with milk if they felt dainty. Her customers chiefly came eastward over Wrynose pass. It was a long stretch, and a thirsty, from the last tavern in that direction. The landlady was not accustomed to waste material, so every morning when she judged that packmen from Whitehaven were due she walked up the hill above the farm to watch for their coming. If but few ponies appeared crawling down the steep, then the malt was stinted, but if the pass-head was, in her opinion, “black wi’ folk,” more ale was prepared. One morning a traveller, tired of the slow pack-train, pushed on ahead, and duly came to the inn. Ale he called for, and was informed: “Oh aye, ye can hae ale, but it’s rayther warm just yet.” The traveller had beaten the new brew down to Colwith.

To Elter Water the lane winds through dense coppice, and emerges into the open just before the village is reached. Here the chief industry is the making of gunpowder, with also slate quarrying and the production of the famous Langdale linen. John Ruskin it was whose teaching brought this craft back into being, and in a quiet way it is doing good to the valley. I wonder if the dales farmer will ever turn his attention to the cultivation of flax. At one time a plot of this staple was more necessary to a farmstead than a vegetable or even a herbal garden.

Elter Water is a larger picture of the elements comprised in Little Langdale tarn. Except that it is at the foot of the Langdales there is little to be said about it. The pike are so numerous that few perch even stay with them. Loughrigg tarn, which we visit before getting over the ridge to Grasmere, is of a different class to any we have yet met with. Christopher North described it as “a diamond set in emeralds,” and he was not wrong. Where are waters more sparkling, or meadows greener than these? In a secluded corner of the world, Loughrigg does nothing but look pretty: there is no message to the mind from its beauty save that of surpassing beauty in repose.

Coniston is a splendid place to start from for another journey. The nearest point is Gates Water, under Dow crags. The way is not particularly difficult, but the scenery is impressive. The great crag rising sheer almost from the water’s edge is a haunt of the raven, a bird yearly growing scarcer as the wildernesses become less wild, and as the shepherd gets more reliable fire-arms. But, says legend, there is one raven quite impossible to reach. It has dwelt on Kurnal Crag since the dawn of Britain’s history. Yet it failed its post. It was the Druid’s familiar, and when invasion rolled nor’ward it became a sentry over the settlement of Torver. “False bird,” cried the old Druid, when from the mystic holly circle he saw the Britons’ camp burning and the Roman legion pursuing the defeated remnant of his people, “and this is how thy promise of sleepless day and night is fulfilled. Thou wast to croak when danger threatened, and instead I wake to see thee join the invader’s rank.” “Nay, father Druid, I went to fight the yellow bird they carry in their van. It is but a bit of burnished bronze they hold up, and no bird, and I stayed too long surveying it.” “Venerable bird, venerable as myself and as old, I had it in my mind to condemn thee to die, but instead thou shalt live, live, live on the topmost crag of Dow, till another army sweep away the Roman, and the yellow bird is carried southward over sands.” The time came when the Roman legions hurried south, and the raven, well stricken in years, hoped for release; but it did not come, for the last legion, on a misty morning, became involved in a swamp on Torver moor, and standard-bearer and burnished bird were swallowed in deep mud. There they lie and moulder, and the old story is that unless they are found and the eagle carried south the raven of Kurnal Crag may not die. You can hear its aged, rumbling croak afar off, at times when thunder is in the air, and you linger in the gulf of Gates Water to hear the first echoing bellow of the storm.

From Gates Water the wanderer goes over the Old Man to Low Water, really one of the most elevated mountain waters. It is splendidly situated, screes and boulders from forbidding cliffs falling right to its shores. It is pleasant to be here at sunset and watch the gloom collect on the summits around. The tarn is credited with almost diabolically large trout, but no one catches them now, and anglers are sceptic. The hillside you traverse to reach Levers Water is almost honeycombed with the shafts of old copper mines. “Mines Valley” indeed was once the busiest haunt of men in the Lake Country. Its copper is now being exploited afresh, and the prosperity of sixty years ago may be repeated. Some of us would rather hear the skirl of the curlew than the roar of ore-mills, but if dividends are possible the lover of the untamed land will once again have to move on. There is no guarantee, save at Thirlmere, that an unspeakable hideousness of industry will not suddenly blot out our remotest haunt. From Levers Water the rambler climbs the ridge toward Seathwaite tarn, now a reservoir for the use of warrior Barrow. This tarn the lord of the manor had the exclusive right to net, and the annual occasion was always made a picnic. Nets were shot, and the finny spoil, char, trout and perch, drawn ashore. Then, as quickly as possible, a tithe of them was prepared and cooked at fires on the shingly strand. The merry-making was a splendid break in the silence of the year here. The tarn also has a small gullery, though miles from the nearest arm of the sea.

The charms of Tarn Hows I have mentioned in my chapter on Coniston Water; it is well worthy an afternoon’s ramble, though if the visitor can put off the hour till the last charabanc has rattled down the glen, he will be the more repaid.

My space limit has long run out, so I must only indicate the positions of a last knot of tarns. Devoke Water, within a few miles of Eskdale Green, holds pink-fleshed trout, the progenitors of which are said to have been brought by the monks of Furness Abbey from sunny Italy. Burnmoor tarn lies between lofty Scawfell and Wastwater Screes. The moor around is studded with Druid circles and other memorials of a vanished race. Then in Stye Head pass is a dark brooding tarn; on the fell towards Great End is Sprinkling tarn, near which is the famous rain gauge, where annually the highest English rainfall is recorded. In twenty minutes an inch of rain once fell here; I have had several quick-time drenchings in this neighbourhood. On the fells between Wastwater and Ennerdale are Scoat and Lowfell tarns, the former of which is reputed to contain a golden fish, and the latter a silvery one. Floutern tarn is the furthest away of the mountain waters, lying on the desolate fell between Buttermere and Ennerdale.

INDEX

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Accommodation, 5

Adventure in winter, 159

Aira Force, 197

Ambleside, 28, 30

Americans, 12

Angle tarn, 204, 214

Angler, 31

Anglers Crag, 103

” Inn, 100

Angler’s yarn, an, 130

Armboth House, 173

Autumn, 44

B

Badger, the, 56, 187

Bank holiday, 154

Barley-bread, 154

Barn Scar, 207

Barrow Cascade, 143

Bassenthwaite, 156-164

Belle Isle, 15, 18

Benn, the, 175

“Birds o’ passage,” 184

Bit-by-bit reform, 42

Blea tarn, 219

” Water, 212

“Bloomery,” 62, 72

Boating, 101

Bolton, Mr., 14

Borrowdale, 144

Botling, 91

Bowder Stone, 152

Bowness, 20

Bowness Bay, 20

” landing-place, 21

Bowscale tarn, 207

Brandlehow, 199

Brantwood, 69, 74

Brook trout, 180

Brothers’ Water, 207, 214

Burnmoor tarn, 223

Buttermere, 124-136

” after series of rainstorms, 128

Buttermere, fishing of, 132

” in winter mist, 132

” maid of, 125

” my first visit to, 127

Butterwort, 182

C

Calgarth, 24

” skulls at, 24

Carrier, country, 40, 57, 58

Carrion crows, 184

Castle Crag, 144

Castle (sham) which Manchester erected, 173

Catbells, 146, 151

Causeways, 52

Chant of profit, 146

Char, 26, 61, 66, 91, 101, 190, 192

” Dub, 101

” fishing, 26

” pie, 67

” potted, 66

Charcoal burning, 73

Cheese, home-made, 154

Civil war, the, 2

Claife, 53

“Clipping,” 114

Coach-road through Buttermere, 124

Coaches, 6

Cockermouth, Keswick, and Penrith Railway, 7

Cock-fighting, 57

Codale, 217

Coleridge, Hartley, 35

Collies, 215

Colthouse, 53

Colwith, 219

Coniston, 221

” Old Hall, 66

” Water, 60-78

Convention week at Keswick, 153

Copper, 62

Corpse-road, 183

Cottages, old, 152

” old-style, 191

Crosthwaite Church, 148

Crozier, John, 157

Crummock Water, 116-123

Cuthbert, 147

D

Dales, a youngster of the, 180

” dwelling, 37

Dalesman, a, 156

Dalesman’s Keswick, 154

Dalesmen, the, 3

Dancing, 109

Davy, John, 26

Deer, red native, 181, 186

De Quincey, 35

Derwent, the, 144

” Isle, 138

” vale of, 151

Derwentwater, 137-155

” Earls of, 140

Devoke Water, 207, 223

Dialect, Cumbrian, 155

Dipper, the, 130

“Dixon’s Three Loups,” 213

Dobson, Tommie, 79

Domesday, 49

Dotterel, the, 122

Dove Nest, 27

Dunmail, 2

” cairn of, 167

” pass of, 166

” story of, 167

Dunmallet, 200

E

Eagle, golden, 187

Easedale tarn, 217

Elter Water, 220

English Lakes, history of the, 2

Ennerdale, 98-105

Esthwaite mere, fishing in, 54

” Water, 49-59

F

Fairfield, 201, 215

Fences partly wall, 171

Finsthwaite, 11

Fir Island, 69

Fishing in Loweswater, 111

Fishing tackle, 20

Floating Island, Derwentwater, 143

Floutern tarn, 223

Fordendale, 181

Forest laws, 61

Fortune-teller, the dumb, 110

Forty-Five, the, 196

Foumart, the, 187

Fox How, 28

Fox-hunting, 45, 185, 212

“Fraternal Three,” 83

Friars Crag, 137

Frost flowers, 48

Furness Abbey, monks of, 223

” bluffs, 21

” railway, 6

Fusedale, 186

G

Gale (the wildest), on Coniston, 68

Gatesgarth, 131, 134

Gateswater, 61, 207, 221

German miners, 146

Glencoin, 197

Glenridding, 201

Goat hunt, 78

Goats, wild, 78

Golden eagle, 187

Gondola, 68

Gowbarrow, 197, 199

Grange, 145

Grasmere, 36-48, 216

” Lake, 43

Greycrag tarn, 209

Grisedale tarn, 207, 214

Gummers Howe, 10

H

Harrop tarn, 175

Haweswater, 178-184

Hawkshead, 50

” Church, burials in woollen, 50

Hawkshead Grammar School

” monks’ home, 50

” Old, 49-59

” Old Hall, 53

” two centuries ago, 50

Hay-making, 40

Hayes Water, 213

Hedge-parsons, 127

Helm Crag, 43, 166, 216

Helm wind, 187

Helvellyn, 175

Hemans, Mrs., 27

Hen Holme, 27

Herdwicks, 89

Heron, the, 35, 54, 102, 180

High Furness, 49

Hogarth, 25

Holme, Hugh, 182

Home-made cheese, 154

Honister Hause, 125

” Pass, 136

Houses, old, 50

Hung mutton, 51

Hunting, 79, 157

I

Ice roaring, 76

Inn stews, 66

J

Justice Stone, 173

K

Kendal, 208

Kentmere tarn, 210

Keppel Cove tarn, 216

Keswick, 153, 154

“King” of Mardale, 182

” Patterdale, 196

Kurnal Crag, raven of, 221

L

Lady Holme, 22

Lady’s Rake, 141

Lake Bank, Coniston, 73

Lakeland’s wealth of bypaths, 36

Lakeside, 9

Lambing-time, 158

Langdale linen, 220

Larch-tree and Wordsworth, 37

Launchy Ghyll, 173

Le Fleming, Sir Daniel, 66

Le Flemings, 32, 39

Levers Water, 222

Little Langdale tarn, 219

Lodore, 142

London and North-Western Railway, 6, 7

Loughrigg, 30

” tarn, 220

Low Water, 222

Loweswater, 106-115

” ancient farms, 108

Lowfell tarn, 223

Lowwood, 26

Lyulph’s tower, 197

M

Maggot, the, 90

Maid of Buttermere, 125

Manchester, sham castle erected by, 173

Mardale, “King” of, 182

” yews, 183

Martindale, 188

Martineau, Harriet, 30

Matterdale, 189

Measand, 180

Mellbreak, 106, 119

Midland Railway, 7

Millerground, 23

Miners, German, 146

“Mines Valley,” 222

Minstrels, wandering, 109

Monks of Furness Abbey, 223

Motor-traffic, 40

Mounsey, 194

Mountain accident, 135

” ponies, 32

” tarns, 204-223

Mutton, hung, 51

N

Nab Scar, 30

Naddle Forest, 179

“Nae land here,” 121

National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Natural Beauty, 199

“New brew,”219

Newby Bridge, 9

New Thirlmere, 172

North, Christopher, 15, 221

North-Eastern Railway, 7

O

Old Corruption, 42

” cottages, 152

” Hawkshead, 49-59

” houses, 50

” Man, 63

Old-style cottages, 191

Old Thirlmere, 165

Old-timers, 162

Orrest Head, 23

Otter, the, 112, 182

Ovens, 153

P

Parish clerk, 177

Parsons, miserably paid, 99

Patterdale, “King” of, 196

Pavement End, 46

Pavey Ark, 218

Pedlar, the, 111

Peel Island, 61, 73

Pelter Bridge, 32

Philipson, Robert, 19

Philipsons, 19, 24

Picnicking, 121

Place fell, 197

Point of view, 185

Postman, the, 117

Priest, the, 108

Priest’s Pot, 53

R

Radical reform, 42

Raven of Kurnal Crag, 221

Ravens, the, 119

Rawlinson’s Nab, 22

Red deer, native, 181, 186

Red tarn, 190, 206, 216

Ring-ouzel, 181

“Robert Elsmere’s dale,” 209

Rock, 102

Rock-climbing, 88

Rossett Ghyll, 205

Rothay, 28, 30-35

” legends of mighty trout, 43

Routes of travel, 5

Ruddle or native iron, 87

“Rush-bearing,” 46

Ruskin, John, 26, 30, 63, 64, 69, 220

Ruskin and Carlyle, 71

” and the gondola, 70

Rydal, 28, 36-48

Rydalmere, 40

Rydal Mount, 37, 39

” Park, 27, 31

S

St. Bee’s Head, 98

St. Bega, 104

St. Herbert’s Isle, 146

St. Kentigern, 148

Sandwick, 188

Sandys family, 50, 53

Santon Bridge, 95

Scale Force, 119

Scales tarn, 207

Scarf Gap, 131

Schoolmaster, the, 108

Scoat tarn, 223

Scott, Sir Walter, 16

Scottish raiders, 53

Screes, the Wastwater, 87, 95

” rockfalls in, 88

Seathwaite tarn, 61, 223

Sheep, 75, 154, 215

” “clipping,” 114

” thatch-eating, 177

” walks, 133

” washing, 113

Shepherding, 157

Shepherds, 89

Silver Bay, 200

” Howe, 35

” trout, 190

Skeggles Water, 209

Skidda’ hermit, 163

Skiddaw, 148

Skulls at Calgarth, 24

Small Water, 211

Smugglers, 98

Somnambulist, the story of the, 198

Sour Milk Ghyll, 129, 216

Southey, 150, 163

Sprinkling tarn, 223

Squall on a mountain lake, 139

’Statesmen, 106

Stews, Char, at inns, 66

Stickle, tarn of, 218

Stonechat, 179

Storm clouds, 138

Storrs, 13, 14

Striding Edge’s top, 189

Stybarrow Crag, 193, 194

Stye Head, 223

” ” Pass (at night), 82-84

” ” tarn, 83, 206

Sunrise, 64

Sunset, 74

Swallow, 181

Swarth fell, 200

T

Tarn Hows, 76, 223

Tarns, mountain, 204-223

Tennyson, 69, 71

Thirlmere, 165-177

” angling hardly permitted, 165

” New, 172

” Old, 165

Thresthwaite Cove, 25

Thunderstorm, 120

Tourists, classes of, 4

Travel, routes of, 5

Trout, great lake, 191

Troutbeck, 25

Trout-fishing, 101, 106

U

Ullswater, 185-203

” night on, 202

” yachts, 193

W

Walker, Steve, trail-hound trainer, 42

Walla Crag, 179

Wandering minstrels, 109

Wansfell, 26, 27

Wastdale Church, 84

Wastwater, 79-97

” in winter, 85

Watendlath, 152

Waterhead, 9

” pier, 37

Water-lily, 54

Watson, Bishop, 25

Wetherlam, 77

Whinfell tarn, 207, 208

White Moss, 40, 42

Wild fowl, 118

Windermere, 9-29

” char-fishing with plumb-line, 26

” farmsteadings, 11

” ferry, 15

” Ferry Hotel, 17

” parish church, 20

” spectral white horse, 24

Wishing Gate, 45, 47

“Wonderful Walker,” 126

Wood-owl, 181

Wordsworth, Dorothy, 197

” William, 14, 33-35, 38, 46, 50, 56, 57, 150

Wordsworth describes his “Waggoner,” 176

Wordsworth’s aversion to the larch-tree, 37

Wordsworth’s “The Brothers,” 99

” cottage, 33

” “The Daffodils,” 198

” home, 36

” “Solitary,” 219

Wray Castle, 26

Wrynose Pass, 219

Wythburn, 170, 175

” Head, 170

” old rector of, 176

Y

Yacht-racing, 17

Yeoman, the, bell-ringer, 177

Yewbarrow, 95

Yewdale, 77

” crags, 67

Yews of Mardale, 183

Youngster of the dales, 180