AGENTS IN AMERICA
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

First Edition July, 1905
Second Edition October, 1908

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION 1

CHAPTER II

BY STEAM YACHT ON WINDERMERE 9

CHAPTER III

BY WORDSWORTH’S ROTHAY 30

CHAPTER IV

RYDAL AND GRASMERE 36

CHAPTER V

ESTHWAITE WATER AND OLD HAWKSHEAD 49

CHAPTER VI

CONISTON WATER 60

CHAPTER VII

THE MOODS OF WASTWATER 79

CHAPTER VIII

THE GLORY OF ENNERDALE 98

CHAPTER IX

BY SOFT LOWESWATER 106

CHAPTER X

CRUMMOCK WATER 116

CHAPTER XI

BUTTERMERE 124

CHAPTER XII

THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER 137

CHAPTER XIII

BASSENTHWAITE 156

CHAPTER XIV

THIRLMERE FROM THE MAIN ROAD 165

CHAPTER XV

HAWESWATER AND THE BIRDS 178

CHAPTER XVI

ULLSWATER, HOME OF BEAUTY 185

CHAPTER XVII

MOUNTAIN TARNS 203

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. A Misty Morning, Newby Bridge, Windermere Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

2. Furness Abbey in the Vale of Nightshade 4

3. Windermere from Wansfell (sunset) 8

4. Swan Inn, Newby Bridge, Windermere 12

5. Near the Ferry, Windermere: Skating by Moonlight 16

6. The Old Ferry, Windermere 20

7. Old Laburnums at Newby Bridge, Windermere 24

8. Windermere and Langdale Pikes, from Lowwood 28

9. A Glimpse of Grasmere (evening sun) 30

10. Wild Hyacinths 32

11. Dungeon Ghyll Force, Langdale 34

12. Dove Cottage, Grasmere 36

13. Skelwith Force, Langdale 40

14. Sunset, Rydal Water 42

15. Grasmere Church 46

16. Esthwaite Water: Apple Blossom 50

17. An Old Street in Hawkshead 52

18. Sheep-Shearing, Esthwaite Hall Farm 56

19. Dawn, Coniston 60

20. Charcoal-Burners, Coniston Lake 62

21. Brantwood, Coniston Lake: Char-fishing 64

22. Coniston Village: the Old Butcher’s shop 66

23. Moonlight and Lamplight, Coniston 68

24. An Old Inn Kitchen, Coniston 70

25. The Shepherd, Yewdale, Coniston 72

26. Stepping-Stones, Seathwaite 74

27. Winter Sunshine, Coniston 76

28. Daffodils by the Banks of the Silvery Duddon 78

29. A Fell Fox-hunt, Head of Eskdale and Scawfell 80

30. Wastwater, from Strands 82

31. Wastwater and Scawfell 84

32. Wastdalehead and Great Gable (towards evening in autumn) 86

33. Wastwater Screes 88

34. Wastdalehead Church 90

35. Nearing the top of Styhead Pass, Wastdale 92

36. Wastdalehead, Wastwater 94

37. Ennerdale Lake at Sunset 98

38. The Pillar Rock of Ennerdale 100

39. Loweswater 106

40. The Old Post Office, Loweswater 108

41. Crummock Water, from Scale Hill 116

42. Crummock Water and Buttermere 120

43. Head of Buttermere 124

44. Honister Pass and Buttermere 128

45. The Borrowdale Yews (evening) 132

46. Lodore and Derwentwater (a summer’s morn) 136

47. Derwentwater, from Castle Head (a bright morning) 138

48. By the Shores of Derwentwater 142

49. Grange in Borrowdale (early morning) 144

50. Crosthwaite Church, Keswick 148

51. Druid Circle, near Keswick (moonlight) 150

52. Falcon Crag, Derwentwater 152

53. The Vale of St. John, near Keswick 154

54. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite Lake, from High Lodore 156

55. Bassenthwaite Lake (a breezy morn) 160

56. Bassenthwaite Lake and Skiddaw 162

57. Raven Crag, Thirlmere 166

58. Thirlmere and Helvellyn 168

59. Haweswater 178

60. Shap Abbey 182

61. Ullswater, from Gowbarrow Park (a sultry June morn) 186

62. Ullswater, Silver Bay 188

63. Ullswater: the Silver Strand (afterglow) 190

64. Hazy Twilight, Head of Ullswater 192

65. A Mountain Path, Sandwick, Ullswater 194

66. Brougham Castle, Penrith 198

67. Angle Tarn, Esk Hause 204

68. Dalegarth Force, Eskdale 206

69. Blea Tarn and Langdale Pikes 210

70. A Sudden Shower, Blea Tarn 212

71. Kirkstone Pass and Brothers’ Water 214

72. Stepping-stones, Far Easedale, Grasmere 216

73. Little Langdale Tarn 218

74. Elterwater and Langdale Pikes 220

75. Seathwaite Tarn, Duddon Valley 222

The Illustrations in this volume have been engraved and printed in England
by the Hentschel Colourtype Ltd.

THE ENGLISH LAKES

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

The present book, it must be understood, treats the English Lakes rather apart from various other elements comprised in what is known as the Lake District. There is so much to say of the waters and their immediate surroundings that no space has remained to describe mountain, pass, and tarn in the manner their beauties merit. Other limits to the book are due to the writer’s promiscuity of taste. I am interested in most things—antiquities, fauna, flora, sports, geology, entomology, and the like; but in not one of these subjects have I that erudite knowledge which might render my work of profit. This book is written to interest those who love out-of-doors without claiming any particular study there. Of the paintings—I can only commend them to notice. In my humblest manner I assert that only an artist who feels the beauty of his environment thoroughly could produce work so stamped with the innate character of our Lakeland.

Of the history of the English Lakes little need be said. We are in a backwater, so to speak, of events; only the outer edges of great affairs have touched us. The mountains have been the last home of the invaded after their defeat in the field and their banishment from the accessible level lands. Druidical, and perhaps more ancient, remains are plentiful, along with relics of Roman, Norseman, and Saxon; but these at best only evidence sparse occupation. So far as history shows, no really great campaign has been fought out in our wilds—the battlefield of Dunmail (and only legend fixes that) is almost the only extensive one within the heart of the fell country. Great religious changes—the Dissolution of Monasteries, the Reformation, the rise of Nonconformity—have been far more striking in their results than ever were the fortunes of war. The mountains of Lakeland and Scotland stand blue on a common horizon, and the alarms and reprisals of Border feud were not unknown. But the hardy warriors from nor’ward did not often risk operations here, where conditions were so unfavourable to their feverish but unsustained method of warfare. The Civil War brought strife between the squires, but no great action was fought, yet in outlying districts the name of Cromwell is not forgotten in weird tale. Though the land of the Lakes has been free from war in the sense of great happenings, it has been far from a peaceful country.

Our lakes are fifteen in number, ranging from the lordly Windermere and Ullswater, ten and a half and nine miles long respectively, to Loweswater and Rydalmere, which hardly exceed the larger tarns in area. Our mountain ranges contain the most elevated ground in England—Scawfell Pike, Scawfell, Helvellyn, and Skiddaw being over three thousand feet in height, and several others approaching that level. About thirty minor waters are scattered over the area known as the Lake District; but I must not make a guidebook of my volume.

My story of the Lakes will be told in the manner it has discovered itself to me. I do not claim originality of method, nor will my reader find much savouring of literary symmetry and style within these covers. My wanderings cover a long series of years, and my recollections are as disconnected as they well can be. I have kept no diary of things seen, and scarcely regret the omission. There is no pile of data to confuse me; trivial impressions have passed away, leaving a harvest of perfect pictures to describe. And if I fail in putting these to paper, my attempt has at least been sincere.

Much has been written of the dalesmen. Some writers deprecate everything we have, from our mountains, the faces of which they hardly know and the mysteries of which they have never dreamt of, down to our social customs, which often they have neither witnessed nor studied. To these nothing need be said, but to our over-laudatory friends I must say that “to gild the lily” is not kind. Dalesman though I am, our faults are quite visible to me, and “don’t pinch us” for them. I meet the dalesman on equal terms. With him at “dipping” eve I have slept, star-embowered, on the open fells. Many curious yarns of the uplands are believed only by the wandering tourist: inner lore of the mountain life is reserved for the home-sanctum. Where, in my wandering story, I feel myself competent to introduce the men of the land, the pictures are as faithful as I can make them. They have a store of stories, yet unprinted, in the wilder glens: stories of weird things, of splendid heroisms among the flocks and fells.

We have two classes of tourists: “The Strenuous Life” and “The Lotos Eaters,” I divide them by their tastes. Others call them “Visitors,” “Tourists” and “Trippers.” The first they adore—they take a “cottage furnished” perhaps, and anyway are profitable in a staid, comfortable manner; the second they tolerate—he is a man of hotels and boarding houses, here to-day, and to-morrow “away ower t’fell,” but, by reason of his plenty, worthy attention; the third they despise; many seem to think that the day-visitor ought to be put down—by violence preferably.

To revert to my own division of our visitors, I feel that my tastes join me in both types. I like the peaceful vales and lakes where the “lotos-eaters” idle the summer hours away, and perhaps the detailed descriptions of so many days of ease may incline the reader to believe that I care nothing for the fells. But I love the breezy uplands, the miles of free moor, the peaks and the crags.

A few words about accommodation and routes of travel are unavoidable. There are huge hotels with fashionable prices, smaller ones that are as comfortable or more so, at a fifth of the cost, and boarding houses in large numbers. But sometimes in August there are more tourists than can be comfortably put up even in our village-towns. However, the Lake District is small, and, if Ambleside be thought full, there is Grasmere not far away and Bowness within five miles. All three places are unlikely to suffer from excess of visitors at the same time. Of the remoter dales let me tell you a story. Two young men wandered into a certain dale-head where there are but two homes for tourists. At the first they asked for a couple of rooms. “We haven’t one to spare.” The way had dealt hardly with them, and at the second they moderated their request to “two rooms, but if quite necessary we don’t mind sharing one.”

“Why, bless thee, my lad,” said outspoken old Mother, “ther’s three to ivvery bed, an’ two to ivvery table awreddy. But mappen I can put you up in t’ barn with them others.” The barn across the yard had been pressed into service as a bedroom; but at the prospect these townsmen shivered, thanked the good lady, and walked wearily towards the dale-foot three miles off (where the excess of tourists was still great, though not so marked). The moral is, if you intend to make any place a centre for your journeys engage a room there, but—I was just preparing for repose when a knock came to my door. “Hello,” I answered. “Please, sir, there’s another lady just come in, and will you give up your bedroom for her?” I slept in less comfortable quarters that night, with half a score others who, by chivalry or improvidence, were without rooms.

Three railway systems touch the Lake District. The London and North-Western runs up one side with its main line, and casts a branch from Oxenholme to Windermere, which is a very popular way to reach the Lakes. From its terminus regular lines of coaches run to Coniston, Ullswater, and Keswick, as well as to Bowness, Ambleside, and Grasmere. A new company is putting on more motor-cars to cope with the traffic between the terminus and Ambleside and Grasmere. The main London and North-Western line at Shap is near Haweswater, an area growing in renown among tourists. At Penrith it is near Ullswater, and regular coaches connect with the steamers there. A company has exploited motor-traffic from Penrith to Patterdale, partly for passengers, partly to carry the output of the Glenridding lead mines.

The Furness Railway is the railway of the Lake District. From Carnforth, where it connects with the London and North-Western main line and with the northern arm of the Midland Railway, it sweeps round Morecambe bay to Ulverston. Here it throws branch the first to connect the steam-yachts on Windermere with the outer world. By means of these tourists are poured into Bowness and Ambleside in great numbers. A line of coaches connect Ulverston with the foot of Coniston Lake. The main Furness line passes through warrior Barrow to the Duddon, where branch the second goes off winding through the hills to Coniston. From Coniston there is coach connection with all parts of the Lake Country. The main line has not yet, however, finished with the Lakes. It crosses the Duddon and swerves round the foot of Black Combe to Millom of the hematite beds, then away through a beautiful district between the fells and the sea to Ravenglass and to Seascale, where a good road leads up to Wastwater. At Sellafield another branch is thrown through Egremont, within a few miles of Ennerdale Lake. The London and North-Western comes on to the scene again here, a branch bearing southward from Carlisle and tapping a district rich in iron ore, but fringed with lovely valleys.

The Lake Country is also served by the Cockermouth, Keswick, and Penrith line, as important for the north as the Furness line is to the south. It connects the London and North-Western at Penrith with the Furness at Whitehaven, passing by Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite. At Threlkeld it is nearest Thirlmere, at Troutbeck it is nearest Ullswater, while from Cockermouth the tourist may easily reach Loweswater, Crummock, and Buttermere.

The North-Eastern and Midland Railways both come into Penrith, which is an important junction for the Lakes, and an interesting town in itself.

It is not my intention to give any space to a description of the internal traffic of the country—it is plentiful and good.

CHAPTER II
BY STEAM YACHT ON WINDERMERE

From its foot at Newby Bridge to the circling beach at Waterhead, Windermere, the largest of our Lakes, is full of interest. Not a bay on either bank fails in variety of scene, while from mid-lake the surroundings are ever changing. The ideal way to see Windermere is from a small boat; the journey, coasting every bay and yet not losing the broader views of mid-water, should not take less than two long summer days. Of course few can spare so much time to the pleasant task. By steamer in a short afternoon and at a moderate expense it is possible to make the tour of the lake. The visitor, however, can taste some of the pleasures of the ideal if he spare an evening for boating. From Bowness steer past the corner of Belle Isle; then as you near the Furness shore, turn right or left as fancy directs, coasting under larch-hung bluffs toward the Ferry, with Belle Isle on the left, or passing alder-fringed meadows past Rawlinson’s Nab for Wray. The Furness shore is rather the more diverse, and your rowing there at the close of day does not disturb the many anglers who frequent Millerground. From Lakeside the boat can be turned in any direction. Many wish to see the Leven leaving the lake: it is but a half-mile away. Paddling quietly beneath Gummers Howe is delightful; but the person with a taste for detail in light and shadow may decide that the opposite shore, with its view of the fell across the clear water, has even more charm.

By steamer the great majority see Windermere. The boats are large, and, though at some hours crowded, fairly often carry quite a few passengers. At mid-afternoon I have sailed from Bowness to Ambleside, a solitary passenger,—and that during the height of the touring season. From the deck of the steamer as it lies berthed at Lakeside there is a glorious view. The steep side of Gummers Howe, green in summer with bracken, golden with the young tendrils in spring, and in autumn russet with fading glory, rises opposite. Like a wide river the lake winds further and still further as your eyes turn toward the mountains. Yes, there they are, blue with distance—sharp peaks limning strongly against the sunlit sky. At present the lake is still as a mirror; drippings from the oars of passing boats make little glittering ripples. But though the views are so beauteous, it is well for a contemplative person to sit near the gangway and watch the throng which the latest train has brought from the outside world. There are two tall ladies, evidently school ma’ams, with much luggage and the power of looking after it without fuss; the stout old gentleman there has come this many years for a sojourn by the shore of Windermere. I don’t know his name, but his portly person is frequently seen on board the steamers. ’Cute chap that, say the lakemen; he has a season ticket and takes out full value. Now there is a quiet whirring of the screw; the captain, a white-bearded man with many years’ service on the lake, sounds the whistle for the last time, and the echo dies away among the hazels and coppices around. The water, with a quiet churning sound, parts in front of the boat and we are well away. Don’t look back, unless it be to catch a glimpse of where lake finally narrows into river.

The boat speeds past one or two wooded islets: in spring the undergrowth is blue with wild hyacinths. The afternoon sunlight glints upward from the calm water as from a mirror. By Finsthwaite the woods are rich green. Of cultivated land we see but little: here a cornfield between woods and lake; there, evenly hoed patches of turnips and potatoes, or more often meadows where rich grass is mantled in the white and yellow of ox-eyes and buttercups. Peeping between green bowers of sycamore and ash are one or two farmsteadings. Old and weathered, built of blue-grey stone, they harmonise well with their surroundings. Do our eyes, accustomed to these from birth, feel in this hoariness of theirs a rare beauty which is purely imaginary? We almost hate the sight of a modern-built villa, trim without, healthy and comfortable within. I make no pretension to the artistic temperament: subordinate the villa to its surroundings, and I am content; but stick a horror of brick and red tiles in all its nakedness on a commanding hillside, or right on the edge of a beautiful mere, and the wanderer is above human whose temper is not tried at the sight. Pretty bungalows, for occasional occupation, are springing up on the shores of Windermere; they are welcome, be the woodlands around them sere or green.

When not watching the glorious picture unfolding as the steamer passes bay and creek, headland and rocky cove, there is to me much interest in observing other people on the boat. For the deck of a Windermere lake yacht has often as cosmopolitan a load as a cheap emigrant or “special tour” steamer. True, there is little distinction of nationality in dress; but the voices are often without disguise. Frenchmen, Swiss, and Germans are not unusual, while Americans are frequent. Here let me defend our friends from across the Atlantic. They are seldom the loud, almost vulgar critics of our lake scenery they are popularly supposed to be. Most of our visitors are readers of Wordsworth, of Ruskin, and our other poets in prose and verse, and know what to expect. A Yale man I once accompanied from Windermere to Keswick stated: “It is the breathlessness of Lakeland which surprises me. Here there is a memory of De Quincey or Coleridge: next moment there is a story of Christopher North. I lift mine eyes suddenly from the pastoral scenes of Wordsworth to the blue skies and mountains of Ruskin. Your country-side is breathless with lore: America has no place to compare it with.” I am not a “hail-fellow” person, preferring to be seen, not heard, and as the boat glides along I silently piece together, from external evidence, the little stories of my co-passengers. To-day there is a young man pacing the boat amidships. He is no chance visitor, I judge, by the anxious way he keeps looking ahead. There is some point he evidently does not wish to miss. Presently I hear a movement of his arm: he has drawn out his handkerchief and is waving it. Every eye turns to find out where he is signalling. In a moment we catch an answering flutter: there is a lady in white blouse and dark skirt on the shingles beneath the wood. Something in the message heartens our fellow-passenger; a load of anxiety has left him. Again and again he signals—ever there is an answer. Then a lithe dark figure springs into a path from the shore, and runs out of sight among the bushes. A child is hastening to give some one the news that the desired steamer is passing. Now, from the front of a bungalow, hardly to be seen for larches, another signal begins to jerk. Our passenger answers this also till the yacht sweeps out of the bay.

The promontory of Storrs now pushes out, and here the steamer will stop. The call of the syren, like an enormous flute, rings full and sonorous over the water, and dies in tuneful cadences, each softer and more sweet, through the green ghylls and swelling hills. The road to the pier runs close to the lake: a cyclist is rushing along vieing our boat in speed. The signaller has seen him, and smiles. In a minute we are past the narrow stone embankment with its small summer-house, and are purring alongside the newer wooden pier. The cyclist speeds into sight through an avenue of trees, and dismounts close by. The gangway is thrown aboard—the signaller is the first ashore. The cyclist exchanges a word, and they walk from view together. A story of joy and peace and love is maybe working itself out before us, and the whole while, seated on the opposite seat, a lady has been gloating over the theatricalities of miserable “life” as depicted by Marie Corelli. Better advised is the one who patrols the deck with a volume of the best carefully tucked under his arm. That book will be digested presently when lamps are lit and night like a velvet pall descends over lake and mountain.

Storrs Hall—now an hotel—was occupied a century ago by Mr. Bolton, who, a man of literary tastes, thought noble friendships a boon. He communed with Wordsworth, North, Sir Walter Scott, De Quincey, and many others who were attracted to that great coterie of genius. In these days the poetry of the Lakes school is often sneered at. The men with their simple tastes and pleasures are despised, but, leaving their work aside, never in history has a group of men so able, so high-minded, so far in advance of their day and generation, been so intimately associated. They had their weaknesses, their vices, but conducted their worst hours without impairing the morality of their surroundings. Their influence was wholly for good, wholly for an upward trend of thought.

As the Swift threads through the reefs above Storrs, we enter a new reach of the lake. In front Belle Isle’s tree-shaded level seems to close the water; to our left is the Ferry; on the right green fields and filmy woods, with, beyond and above, the mountains clustering round the vale of Troutbeck. A faint blue ruffle travels along the lake toward us, a catspaw of wind that sends a yacht which, sail-slack, had been drifting, bowing and dancing through the water. At the landing-stage our steamer has to wait till the tank-like cable-boat has completed its journey. Down the hill opposite comes the road from Kendal to Hawkshead, and about this point, from time immemorial, the lake has been crossed. Various sorts of craft have been used: in the time of the Lake poets the conveyance was a large and almost flat-bottomed boat, pulled along by sweeps. Christopher North was wont, on a Saturday morning, to come down from Elleray to steer the market-folk across. On one of these occasions he noticed a flurry in the water, as of a struggling fish. The boat’s course was diverted, and a landing-net used. Two pike, each of about six pounds weight, had been fighting. The victor had seized his antagonist by the head and endeavoured to swallow him whole. But, as an American has sagely commented, “he had bit off more than he could chew.” When North’s landing-net lifted the pair, his jaws were still locked round the victim’s shoulders, though the biter had drowned. Though badly mauled, the other fish was still feebly alive. In his fishing reminiscences of the Borders Sir Walter Scott told a similar story. Near the Tweed one day, seeing a commotion on its banks, he asked a laddie what the matter was. “I dinna ken exactly,” was the reply, “but there’s a muckle fush wi’ twa tails i’ t’ watter.” Anglers—and more veracious folk—have similar stories to tell. The version I have given above of Christopher North’s experience is not, I am aware, the accepted one: it was given me, several years ago, by a dales dweller, one of whose parents had witnessed the incident. There are legends to tell of this Ferry. The most sinister is of an awful voice which on wild nights began to peal across the turmoil—“Boat!” Once a bold ferryman answered the call, put off his boat and rowed into the storm and darkness. Half an hour later he returned, with boat swamping and without a passenger. The boatman’s face was ashen with terror; he was dumb. Next day he died. Stories there were of demons carrying off their spoils of witched souls, and even the bodies of dead saints, across the lake. No boatman, after this incident, could be prevailed to put off in darkness, so a priest was summoned from the Holy Holme. With bell and book he raised the skulking demon—at midday there was the voice of storm in the air, though, mindful of the call of the Master on Galilee, the water fell calm. Voices argued with the priest, whose cross planted firmly by the edge of the lake was surrounded by terror-struck lakemen. At the end of a long altercation the demon released from thrall the soul of the boatman, and craved for mercy. For its peace, the priest laid the evil thing in the depths of Claife, there to remain until “dryshod men walk on Winander, and trot their ponies through the solid crags.”

At least once the ferryboat has been wrecked: the records of Hawkshead Church show that a wedding party was drowned, about a dozen lives in all being lost. The tank-like servant of the cable now against the shingles has shown sea-like jauntiness. One Whit Saturday morning, when laden with strength and beauty going to Kendal hirings, she broke both hawsers and at a majestic pace drifted down the lake. In half an hour she touched one of the islands, from which her passengers were shortly taken off. In these times of watertight compartments, there is little chance of a disaster occurring.

The hotel in front of which our Swift is floating presents a gay appearance on yacht-racing days. The lawns are occupied by a well-dressed throng, and a small but excellent band plays appropriate music. The line of red-flagged buoys marks start and finish: some of the races are round the lake, about twenty miles; others are fought out in the northern or southern basins only. The needs of the racing have developed a special type of boat. The quest for speed dictates no great displacement of water, therefore the craft are built shallow; but the frequent and violent squalls of wind from the mountains make some stability and weight essential to prevent capsize. Windermere yachts carry heavier keels than is usual to their sail area, and there are other minor variations between them and sea-going or conventional river and lake boats. With a good breeze the yachts are very fast: they are handy too, frequently “going about” in narrow quarters. At times, when the air is dead calm, a race may degenerate into a drifting match: the lakemen say that on one occasion the yachts were over ten hours in covering as many miles. The locally developed design is eminently suited to its work. Mr. Fife, the great draughtsman, some years ago built a yacht on the Clyde for this lake. He came to see it compete, but the local boats quickly showed their superiority over the new design.

The engines are now re-starting, and our steamer cleaves toward Curwens’, or Belle Isle, which for long has seemed to close the way. Now, however, narrow channels open to both right and left. The yacht bears right away past two small holmes. One of these, a cluster of trees and a level sward, is ofttimes used for kennels for the puppies of the Windermere harrier pack. Here they are quite at liberty and yet out of mischief, a remarkable circumstance in a puppy’s career. Often I have laid on the oars to watch the little hounds romping and playing, under the blinking superintendence of an elder. Then their game would stop, and a pell-mell of puppydom charge to the shingles and bay its infantile delight. Belle Isle is the only island of Windermere on which a house is now standing. In the long ago a branch of the Philipsons of Calgarth held it. During the Civil War this family was Royalist. One, a major in the king’s Northern army, was shut up in Carlisle by the Roundheads; another was here beleaguered. For several weeks the men of the Parliament tried to carry the island by storm, but failed. The major had been apprised of his brother’s peril, and immediately the siege of the Border city was raised he came south with a troop and dispersed the Roundheads. Now to the daring Robert came the hope of reprisals. The island was fully relieved at Sunday dawn; three hours later Royalist horsemen were on their way to Kendal. Colonel Briggs, the Cromwellian commander, attended divine service regularly. Robert accordingly made straight into Kendal Church. Though the building was crowded, he galloped through the tall doorway and up the aisle. Sword in hand he rode to where his antagonist usually sat, but Briggs was not at church. The townsfolk rose, and Robert was forced to gallop down the other aisle to prevent being overwhelmed by numbers. The doorway to the right is lower than the central: Robert’s head struck the arch, and he was thrown. His steel helmet received most of the concussion, and Robin was on his feet again in a moment. One townsman caught his horse; the saddle girth had broken when the rider had been hurled backward. Robert instantly threw the saddle across his charger’s back and leapt into it. Suddenly and cruelly spurred, the horse reared up and jerked the rein from its detainer’s hand, while the intruder clove him to the chin. Without further interruption, the Cavaliers rode back to their island fortress.

The steamer has been bearing us through the narrow channel to Bowness Bay. The scene here is usually a busy and a pretty one. The public fore-shore is narrow, and rowboats are crowded toward it. The steamer-pier and two long jetties make the narrowness still more emphatic. But Bowness Bay, with the Old England hotel to our left, looks perfect. Beyond the short promenade, laid out in trees and terrace-gardens, the ground rises to rocky Biskey Howe, whence is a glorious view of the lake. Quite close at hand is Windermere parish church, with some stained glass removed here from Cartmel Priory at the Dissolution. The walls were at one time decorated with texts, but the Lutherans rebelled against these and hid them beneath ignoble whitewash. But what the sixteenth century despised, the twentieth reveres, and the old Scripture paintings have been carefully restored. The village of Bowness presents little noteworthy except its attention to visitors: its reputation in this respect is thoroughly justified.