Crosthwaite church has been subject of many pens. The history of the present building goes back beyond the great Reformation. Somewhere near this point St. Kentigern of Strathclyde raised the cross when banished from his native court. The present building is doubtless the last of several which have successively weathered the storms of fourteen hundred years. Probably the first were built of willow wands and clay, like the daub huts still to be found in remoter Cumbria. With the Saxon still stronger in the land a house of timber would be raised. Foundations under the present building show an earlier stone edifice probably built just before the Norman Conquest, which in this stubborn region was not accomplished till almost two centuries after the fight at Senlac. The church stands out among the meadows, and in times of flood is sometimes cut off from its congregation. More than once within the recent past service has had to be suspended on account of rising waters. Present-day congregations may possibly be easily daunted, but I wonder how the friars of old used to manage when Derwent swelled across the meadows! The monks’ road was some feet below dale-level, and probably ran like a millrace. Did the old monks hold service in the belfry? Did they in a body shirk attendance at church, or was a boat hired to take down the votary whose turn it was to conduct worship, and the rest remain at home? We cannot tell now; but had the ancient records mentioned these things instead of others much less interesting to us, their study would attract more attention. Inside the church at Crosthwaite, apart from points of architecture valuable to those who understand, most striking is the effigy of Southey, done in white marble by Lough, the self-taught sculptor from Northumbria. The lines on it are by William Wordsworth. After the monument was in its place, the poet felt this tribute not sufficient for his dead friend’s merits: accordingly he rewrote some of the lines in loftier terms and had part of the tablet newly engraved. This too, remember, by that poet whom his contemporaries asserted to be without sympathy for the feelings of others!

Outside the church in the graveyard looking towards Skiddaw’s triple crown, is the grave of Southey: a plain stone tomb, with no highsounding phrases—fit memorial of him who found the name of poet linked with that of drunkard and libertine, and who exalted it in himself and his school of thought to glorious equality with that of gentleman. There is a font of great age in the church, and effigies and memorials of the Ratcliffe family, extinct with the last Earl of Derwentwater. Beyond the church the road passes between flowery meadows, across slow-flowing Derwent, and on through Portinscale the magnificent, with a glimpse of Derwentwater across its levels, and of course a succession of views of Skiddaw’s everchanging breast. Once there is a vision of Bassenthwaite, but greenery hides it almost as soon as seen. A turning here might carry one miles from sight and sound of twentieth-century life.

For a mile Swineside is fringed—a common whereon not long ago half-wild pigs were pastured; then we hover by the vale of Newlands with its splendid background of mountains. The road sways undecidedly on the watershed: through a tangle of treetops we see farms below; along a far-off hillside are the ruins of a long flume down which water was conducted to drive that tall waterwheel. The skeleton remains, a blur on the pastoral beauty, though watercourse and mine buildings are in indistinguishable ruin. At last, the road throws a branch between banks of meadow-sweet down to rattling Newlands beck; our way sweeps toward cone-fronted Catbells. Shortly we descend into a narrow glen, then zigzag up the flank of the fell. After a hard pull (the day is hot; the distant hills are swinging in vapour) we come to easier angles. The road is delved out of the hillside, the home of bracken and creeping stagshorn, with, by rills almost silent with drought, trees of hawthorn, alder and rowan. Below us—over spears of larch, over chevaux-de-frise of oak and ash and birch, over green and bronze cupolas of sycamore and beech, is the vale of Derwent, from Lodore to the furthest Man of Skiddaw. How sweet and dreamy the blue stretch of water, dappled with shades of high-floating clouds, with emerald islets scattered in bay and reach, with the swift launches and the slow march of oared craft glinting back the sunlight at the dip of every blade! To northward lush fields and verdant woodlands border the mere, with hillsides, soft green and swelling among the levels, but, opposite, sheer and bristling with crags they rise from the water, crowded in by the heathy moors. Then the town on a tousled plain between Derwent and Greta, and beyond, the hills giving place to mountains, Blencathra and Helvellyn, shadows wavering in August’s blue sky. From this corner of Catbells you curve slowly down to Grange; the road is ever fair, but he is an ardent cyclist who prefers to ride all along this incline of beauty.

From Grange it is easy to pass up to the jaws of Borrowdale, in autumn one of the best pictures of Lakeland, when the birches’ silvern bark is half seen, half hid in the thinning leafage; the river is flooding down too, not hiding in pools and filtering under long stretches of white pebbles. Of course you see the Bowder Stone if it is your first visit. It is by a quarry quite close to the foot of Castle Crag.

One can reach Watendlath by a mountain track from Rosthwaite. This is a shallow dip in the moorland, containing a pretty tarn and one or two small farms. Not many years ago a Cumbrian visitor put the following note in his diary: “I came to a village called Watendlath, the most primitive place I ever saw in Cumberland. I entered one of the houses. There was no fireplace, but only logs of wood and turf burning on the floor.” Not here, but still within the Lake Country, I stumbled upon a similar thing. My queries aroused the ancient dame’s curiosity. “You divvent mean to tell me you’ve nivver seen a hearth fire afore? Well, well.” I was eager to know how, minus an oven, she baked bread. The old eyes sparkled with amusement. “Why, I make it in t’ pan ower t’ fire.” I didn’t see the process, but I tested the quality of the product, which was excellent. A century ago ovens were rare in the dales; on baking day the dough was placed in a covered pan, which was laid on the hearth. Fuel was then heaped around and on top of the pan. When sufficient time had elapsed the housewife raked aside the burning embers, opened the pan and took out the baked batch. Had it been possible for any wandering reader to witness the bakery, I would have told the place; but five years after my discovery, wishing to see again the old-time oven, I visited the dale. Alas! the cottage was empty, falling into ruins, and a green mound in the church garth covered my aged dame. The tarn of Watendlath is fed mainly by a stream which comes down the desolate back of Armboth fells, passing through Blea tarn on its way. This beck it is that goes down the thunder-chasm of Lodore. It is an interesting ramble, giving some splendid views of Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, down to the Keswick road, by Ashness bridge.

But we are for Keswick, to recall briefly three scenes in its market-place beneath the old tower. Imagine, if you can, crowds of soberly dressed people passing in and out of this space—Convention week! How the dark clothes appal you as day after day passes! The streets have the air of devotion, but behind the houses the lanes teem with business. Another scene: the same streets are crowded, but the throng is of a wild gaiety—motley are the hues that press in and out. Not the steady, respectable murmur of conversation, but a wild medley of sounds, snatches of song, bursts of sound from uncouth unmusical instruments, shouts and laughter and much merrymaking. It is a bank holiday crowd, come to be entertained at all hazards. Five hours ago the town was peaceful as that morning when I rowed out on Derwentwater; shortly the crowd will have diminished, till by curfew-time many of the weary folks of Keswick will cast down their tasks to breathe something of evening’s calm.

My last scene is the dalesman’s Keswick, as I first saw it many a year ago. The square is filled with moving sheep: it is the great October fair day and a long flock is now passing toward the narrow Borrowdale road. How the air quivers to their plaints! and the grey walls echo the tumult—the sharp barkings of busy dogs, and the loud shoutings of the shepherds. We descend to where the farm-wives sit with eggs and butter, and one offers us barley-bread, that luxury now so seldom seen and appreciated outside rural Cumbria. Or is it home-made cheese we would buy? Tough as leather and white as milk, ’tis true Willimer. Strong jaws and patience enough has the man who can enjoy this. Outside the narrow market are cartloads of potatoes and turnips; further down a couple of loads of wheat are for public auction. The congregation of buyers and sellers is interesting: hard-featured dalesmen, their ruddy wives and daughters, neater-dressed town-dwellers bargaining with them. Here comes another drove of sheep—judged by Southron standards they are small, but their mutton is the sweetest to be had. There is little “silly sheep” about them. Intelligent faces, alert limbs, they have already learnt to sup on heather-tops when the grass is buried in snow, silently to endure the wild blizzards and the rainstorms, to avoid swamp and torrent and crumbling edge of cliff. In their train comes friend Jacob, from the Bassenthwaite side of Skiddaw. All through this series of descriptions I have wished to introduce one lake as seen by those who dwell close to it. Bassenthwaite, being out of the tourist route, offers excellently for the experiment. Jacob’s rich dialect would, however, be difficult for those who know not the North Country, and to give the literal English would be to destroy the extreme raciness of the speech. Therefore, a middle way is attempted, retaining where possible the Cumbrian construction of phrase, and idiom.

CHAPTER XIII
BASSENTHWAITE

Jacob is wary and needs some management. First we chat about the exceeding fine autumn passing. “Aye, it’s fine, hooivver.” Jacob is slow of idea and of speech: no duty in his varied life ever needs lightning thought or action; he is decisive enough, but never precipitate. A typical dalesman—tall and broad-shouldered, stooping somewhat. Until you have walked a few miles by his side, you think he is a slow plodder, but experience teaches much. Without the slightest exertion he makes his four miles in the hour, over smooth road, soft meadow, or rocky hillside alike. As you see him face an ascent, you marvel how a man so accustomed to the work should have such an awkward style. But, defiant of all rules of the climbing and walking cults, he works his way up, down, or across the slopes with ease. Three hours of his work on the mountain is enough to tire most casual ramblers who know him. Once I worked a long day collecting sheep with him, but the sense of exhaustion was too severe to make me wish to proffer help again.

“If ye’d a summer on t’ fell ye’d do varra weel,” was his comment as I wearied through supper afterwards.

“Ye want me to tell ye’r frend aboot Bassenthet?” he queries. “Nay, nay, ther’s nowt to tell. In summer it’s aw wark on t’ land, and in winter aw’s ter’bl’ dree. Nay, ther’s nowt at aw, man, as I can tell ye on. I’m net yan as talks mich. I’s leev’d aw me life aboot Bassenthet, as did me father an’ gran’-father afoor me. It’s nobbut a lile farm, but ther’s a fair bit o’ heaf-gang on Skiddaw. It gives us a lock o’ wark in summer, like at clippin’ an’ weshin’. What’s that, lad? Du I ivver gang tu laik? [My friend has asked if Jacob ever goes to the lake, but has been misheard.] Well, I’s no bairn, I’s leev’d in t’ reigns o’ three kings an’ a queen, but I deu like a bit o’ spooart. You should come and hev a hunt wi’ us. We hev grand runs noo an’ then. Mr. Crozier’s hoonds are rare uns. They’ll chase a fox five er sex times roond Skiddaw rayther ’n it sud git away. John Crozier’s dead noo; he was a grand un for t’ daels [dales]—a good gentleman. Then ther’s a few hares [the Cumbrian pronunciation of this word evades the science of print] in t’ boddems. But they’re nobbut babby-wark at best, fit for a day wi’ t’ sna on t’ tops. We used to hev a bit o’ cockfeightin’ yance ower, but t’ police er doon on it noo. But, hooivver, we mannish [manage] a main noo an’ then in spite on ’em a’, eh?”

“Ever do any fishing, Jacob?” I asked—my friend cannot get the old man from the fells to the lake.

“Nay, nut mich. T’ lads gropple us a fry when t’ beck’s lah [low], and on a wet day ther’s a few to gitten wi’ t’ worm. But I nivver caerd [cared] for booats, and hevn’t been across t’ lake in yan mair en a duzzen times i’ me life.”

“What do you think of the lake in spring?” asks my companion. Jacob is not deaf, but the tongue of a Southerner is as difficult to him as the accent of a Frenchman might be. Again he mistakes.

“Ther’s a gradely many, ower many springs,” he grumbles. “I think ef they’d nobbut get to wark an’ drain it ther’d be some fairish land underneath it. Mappen we woddent need to send oor sheep away t’ winterin’. It wod mak some bonny nice pastur’, eh? Mair like sensible than throwing [Cumbrian, thrahin’] brass away to mek gomerals o’ t’ bairns an’ fine gentlemen o’ t’ skulemaisters.”

“It’s gay bonny under Skiddaw in lambing-time, isn’t it, Jacob?” I interpose. The ancient is puzzling himself as to what my friend has meant; he is aware that he has again misunderstood, and is, I am afraid, becoming irritable.

“I don’t see mich to blaw aboot; there’s wark enow on t’ fell, an’ precious lile leet [light] for owt else. Then yan hardly knas [knows] when it is spring. Some days it’s like midsummer, an’ then next day it’s cald enough to flay yan alive. Auld Michael Fletcher, as leev’d up at t’ Yeds, ewst [used] to say, I mind him varra weel, when yan happened to eks [ask] him aboot t’ wedder: ‘Nay, bairn, I don’t kna. Yance ower we used to hae it mak’ o’ decent, rain an’ droot just as t’ land needed ’em. That was when God A’mighty hed t’ job o’ mannishin’ [managing], but noo that them dashed Americans hae gitten hod on’t yan hardly knas what mak o’ wedder we’re gaen to hae t’ next.’ But t’ years er better an’ warse wi’ us; this year t’ wedder was middlin’ nicish, but I mind lots o’ times when it’s been aboot as bad as it weel could be. Ther was yan year i’ particular. We hed aboon six hundred yows [ewes] to leuk after, and when it com a girt sna-storm ther was some dewins. We hed put a vast on ’em on t’ heaf, an’ we hed to gang roond wi’ hay to ’em, for t’ sna wur varra nar a yerd deep; t’ sheep hed gitten into varra nar ivvery okard spot on t’ yall fell. T’ sna was that thick as we hed to sled t’ hay, an’ t’ drifts wer that deep as we couldn’t hae t’ horses at aw ower many a yakker [acre]. Ther was yan ginnel where we hed some wark to git at t’ sheep at aw. T’ top was blockt wi’ a fair wall o’ sna, an’ t’ top o’ that hung ower like t’ thack on a stack. You couldn’t git doon at aw, an’ baeth sides wer as bad, what wi’ girt steep crags an’ mair sna. We tried to git intull ’t fra bela’, but that was war then baeth o’ t’ othern. Yan girt drift piled on t’ top on anudder. I began to think it wur gaen to be a bad job till lile Tommy Moffat, as hed leev’d amang t’ fells, com up.

“‘Why Jacob,’ he says, ‘tou mun git a raep tull ’em.’

“‘And what gud will a raep be tull ’em, tou Daft Watty? They’re nut likely to want any skippin’. Mappen a streaw raep wod dew, but it ud tak a bit ta wind enough for t’ lot on ’em’—ther was forty if ther was yan doon in t’ ghyll—’an’ then I woddent be reet weel sewer they wod kna as it was for ’em to it [eat].’

“‘Noo, Jacob, it’s thee as is Daft Watty. Send for as menny cart raeps as tou hes, an’ I’ll show thee hoo to git doon. We hae warse sna drifts an’ rougher ghylls ner these i’ Ennerdale.’

“Well, when we gat aw t’ raeps he set three on t’ farm lads to hod t’ end, efter he hed tied ’em aw togidder, an then he stuck a gavelock in t’ drift as far as it would gang.

“‘Noo, Jacob, I’s gaen ower t’ edge o’ t’ drift.’

“An sewer enough ower he went, an’ I clam along t’ crags as far as I could to watch. I tell ye it wor queer, he wor far enough frae me, to see him hingin’ away by that bit o’ threead-like. But efter a bit he gat on tull a foothod, and began to walk aboot t’ ghyll. What he was efter I didn’t see, but in a bit he come up again.

“‘It’s aw reet, Jacob, aw tou hes ta dew wi’ them yows is to thra plenty o’ hay doon t’ ghyll tull em. But tou mun thra it fra here’—an’ he marked a spot—‘else it ull catch on t’ crags, an’ the yows ’ll nivver git up tull it.’

“Well, that ud niwer dew, an’ for a week we fed them yows ivvery day be thrahin’ t’ hay doon t’ drift tull em. When things hed thowed a bit nowt wod suit Tommy but gangen doon wi’ his dog. ‘I’s gaen to drive ’em oot afoor this drift starts faa’ing to bits. Some on ’em mout git laemt.’

“Noo, I didn’t caw him Daft Watty, but hooivver cud he git them sheep up that brant o’ sna’ whar he couldn’t climm hissel? Hooivver ower he went as I said, an’ I went ower t’ crags to watch. He hed his dog in his arms as they lowered him doon, an’ he let it off that minute he gat doon to t’ bottom—it was like lukkin intull a well frae whar I was at. Tommy hed gone reet doon to t’ end o’ t’ hooal, an’ began hoonden t’ sheep up intull yan corner. Ther was a bit on a slack theyer, an’ what wi’ him shooten an’ t’ dog hoonden it wasn’t lang afoor he hed ’em climmin’ up t’ sna like as if they wur sae manny flees. It maed me feel white dizzy to see t’ lile dog drivin’ away at ’em; an’ as fur Tommy, why he was climmin’ away up t’ drift whar it wor like a hoose end, shooten an’ whistlen as if he wur as saef as on t’ main rooad. It wasn’t many minutes afoor I sah as t’ sheep hed getten up t’ warst part o’ t’ ginnel side, an’ I went roond to meet ’em. They com up like fleein’ things, wi’ that yella-an’-tan dog worryin’ ahint. An’ aboot t’ saem time Tommy com up t’ raep, an’ shooted ‘Noo, Jacob, wha’s t’ Daft Watty?’ It wornt Tommy at enny raet.

“Tommy went back to Ennerdale t’ followen summer, an’ I’s nivver seen him sen. Hae you? I mind you said yance that you hed seen him in Ennerdale last back-end.”

Yes, I had seen him, and found him overjoyed to hear of his one-time chum on Bassenthwaite side. These old-timers of the fell-heads are essentially men of their own localities. A journey of ten miles would bring them often into a terra incognita. The two old men mentioned above had a sincere regard for one another, yet it never occurred to them to traverse the fifteen miles of mountain which lay between their homes, nor to expend the three or four shillings which by rail would have carried them almost to the doorstep of each other. Perhaps such an incident as the following deters them. One old man of my acquaintance held a strong regard for another who for half a century he had not seen—and the while their domiciles were hardly ten miles apart. One day after much consideration old John decided that the time was ripe for a visit to old Billy, and off he set by the low moor road, with a pocket full of provisions to eat on the way. Two hours after he had got away, a hale old chap entered the hamlet inquiring for him. “Old John?” said I to the stranger. “Why, he’s just gone over the fell to see a friend in ——”

“Was it to see Billy Longmire?”

“Yes.”

“Then Jack’s just as daft as ivver. Here I’ve com be railyway to see him, an’ what mun he dew but set off be rooad to see me.”

The two veterans did not meet, for Billy would not sacrifice the return half of his “railyway” ticket, and Jack was so disgusted at the occurrence that he would not await his friend’s return. Though the pair lived at least ten years longer, they never made another attempt to meet.

But it is of Jacob that I should be speaking, and of the day when in Keswick market-place I tried to lure him on to description.

“I think a man like you will have met a few great men in your time,” suggested my friend in a halfhearted manner. “I mean did you ever see Southey, or Wordsworth?”

“No, I can’t say I ivver did. I hae often heard of Mr. Southey, but he was often away in t’ Sooth. But ther was yan chap I mind varra weel—t’ Skidda Hermit we used to caw him. Whar he com fra we nivver knew, but yan summer we began to find ther was some body leeven in t’ huts on t’ fell as hed nowt to do wi’ shipherds. But for many a day we nivver cam across him. We fand him at last in a ghyll penten’ a picter of a waterfa’—an’ a fine picter it was hooivver. But he woddent speak tull us. We thowt he was dumb and wanted him to tell our fortens, but he was as sulky as could be. He went off aw at yance leaven his painten and things just as they wor, and for a week or two we didn’t see him again. He was a tall chap, nut varra dirty seein’ how he leeved on t’ fell, and allus was fairly put on. But though he gat as he wod talk tull sum on us, he wod nivver say nowt about his name nor whar he com frae—you hed just to mention that and he was off like a deer and ye didn’t see seet on him agaen for many a day. He didn’t stop on Skidda always, but he was oftenest there—it is aboot t’ whietest [quietest] place in England on t’ moor there. Then yan back-end he went off; he gev me a bit of blue cobble pented wi’ a grey sheep just afoor, but I lost it on t’ fell—it was weel done——”

“Coming, Jacob?” through the bleats and barks and whistles and shouts a voice interrupts; it is one of our friend’s neighbours prepared to go home.

“Aye. Good-day,” this last to us, and he steps into the trap.

Such is a Cumbrian’s description of Bassenthwaite. We went to hear about the lake, but alas! Jacob hardly had a word to say about it. Next time I will ask him about shepherd-life on Skiddaw and he will probably reel off stories innumerable of the water in summer and winter, and of the men who give to the lake the attention due. Jacob is typical of his class, and his reticence was not due to any wish to keep information from us.

CHAPTER XIV
THIRLMERE FROM THE MAIN ROAD

The fact that Thirlmere is the reservoir for the drinking water of Manchester renders it somewhat unapproachable. Main roads encircle the lake at no great distance, but the whole watershed—Dunmail, Helvellyn-side, and Armboth—has been purchased on behalf of the city, and at hardly any point can one reach the lake-shore without breaking some bylaw. There is, I believe, only one boat allowed on its surface, strictly for the surveyors responsible for the embankment, etc. Though the lake was restocked after its conversion and large trout are now fairly plentiful, angling is hardly permitted.

The city of course has a perfect right to seclude the lake if by so doing they prevent impurity in its waters, and after all it is somewhat of a satisfaction to feel that a few square miles of Lakeland are tolerably certain of escaping the builder and the miner. The mines of Helvellyn are now likely to remain closed for our generation.

Old Thirlmere, like a winding river, connected a series of wider pools; at its narrowest point, near Armboth, it was spanned by stone bridges. Now, by judicious embankment, its area has been doubled, yet there still remains a very definite river-lake. I think Thirlmere a place of beauty, though I do not forget viewing, from mid-lake (this pleasure was illicit, of course), those harsh lines through the trees and along the hillsides behind which the new roads are cunningly contrived. However, when you are on Armboth road the disagreeable “line” does not trouble; instead you admire a beautifully engineered way through the mountains, giving entrancing glimpses up narrow ghylls, vertical peeps into pretty bays, with the grand contours of Helvellyn ever present either through a film of leafage or more clearly between the groups of trees.

Most of us see Thirlmere from the coach or from our cycles. Though the scenery is so fair, there is no escape from the wheeled procession. The quiet retirement of the old bridle-road is vanished. From Grasmere the head of the lake is about half a dozen miles distant, to Keswick it is not much more than four from its foot. From the former the approach is up the pass of Dunmail.

And this is the scene which meets the eye after you have toiled up the long slope. Behind is the bold and curious-shaped summit of Helm Crag, sage Asphodel, the Witch crooning over her hell-kail. Far off is Loughrigg fell with larch woods clustering up its sides, and the lake of Grasmere so dull with green reflections that a quick eye is necessary to distinguish it from its surroundings. Rising from your side is Seat Sandal, a host of carrion crows wheeling round its rugged knots; Steel Fell rises opposite, flecked with wandering sheep. The sky is bright blue, with soft white clouds lazily drawing their way across the narrow gulf. In wide patches the sunshine seems to drift about the landscape, picking out a green benk here, throwing a shadow over the crags there into some deep ravine. The scene at the head of the pass is of extreme wildness. The hillsides are scattered with scree, the uneven bottoms with boulders of every shape and size. The cairn of Dunmail, last king of Pictish Cumbria slain in battle with Edgar the Saxon, is here, a formless pile of stones. There is a legend concerning this spot.

The crown of Dunmail was charmed, giving to its wearer a succession in his kingdom. Therefore King Edgar of the Saxons coveted it above all things. When Dunmail came to the throne of the mountain-lands a wizard in Gilsland Forest held a master-charm to defeat the purpose of his crown. He Dunmail slew. The magician was able to make himself invisible save at cock crow, and to destroy him the hero braved a cordon of wild wolves at night. At the first peep o’ dawn he entered the cave where the wizard was lying. Leaping to his feet the magician called out, “Where river runs north or south with the storm” ere Dunmail’s sword silenced him for ever. The story came to the ear of the Saxon, who after much inquiry of his priests found that an incomplete curse, though powerful against Dunmail, could scarcely harm another holder of the crown. Spies were accordingly sent into Cumbria to find where a battle could be fought on land favourable to the magician’s words. On Dunmail raise, in times of storm even in unromantic to-day, the torrent sets north or south in capricious fashion. The spies found the place, found also fell-land chiefs who were persuaded to become secret allies of the Saxon. The campaign began. Dunmail moved his army south to meet the invader, and they joined battle on this pass. For long hours the fight was with the Cumbrians; the Saxons were driven down the hill again and again. As his foremost tribes became exhausted, Dunmail retired and called on his reserves—they were mainly the ones favouring the Southern king. On they came, spreading in well-armed lines from side to side of the hollow way, but instead of opening to let the weary warriors through they delivered an attack on them. Surprised, the army reeled back, and their rear was attacked with redoubled violence by the Saxons. The loyal ranks were forced to stand back-to-back round their king; assailed by superior masses they fell rapidly, and ere long the brave chief was shot down by a traitor of his own bodyguard.

“My crown,” cried he, “bear it away; never let the Saxon flaunt it.”

A few stalwarts took the charmed treasure from his hands, and with a furious onslaught made the attackers give way. Step by step they fought their way up the ghyll of Dunmail’s beck—broke through all resistance on the open fell, and aided by a dense cloud evaded their pursuers. Two hours later the faithful few met by Grisedale tarn, and consigned the crown to its depths—“till Dunmail come again to lead us.” And every year the warriors come back, draw up the charmed circlet from the depths of the wild mountain tarn, and carry it with them over Seat Sandal to where their king is sleeping his age-long sleep. They knock with his spear on the topmost stone of the cairn, and from its heart comes a voice, “Not yet; not yet; wait awhile, my warriors.”

The road now turns down the pass, a long, swinging slope where the steadying brake is necessary. To northward show the storm-washed sides of Helvellyn, with new rents staring like fresh-turned loam in the sunshine. A blue peak of Skiddaw is holding, as though unwilling to part with, a fleecy cloud, and here sweep into sight Raven Crag with its precipitous front, and the laughing summits of Armboth, one by one. Our cycles are gaining speed; we reach a corner, the top of a steep pitch,—there before us is a sudden view of Thirlmere, with Saddleback rising in rugged majesty behind. The open water is ruffled with breezelets, but every sheltered cove shines level blue. The pace becomes faster; the long curves are turned at ever-increasing speed. On either side are wide grass slopes, cut up by stony gullies. We are still above the zone of trees, if we except the fringes of rowan, the solitary hawthorns. Now across a bridge, spanning a wilderness of rubble where after heavy rain a flood roars and even throws veils of spray on to the road. A straight descent, and below we view the gardens and trees, white-walled inn, and grey church at Wythburn. Now, instead of allowing the machines full way to race in fifty seconds down the half-mile incline, we approach more leisurely, for halfway down the steep the road we are to take turns off at a tangent. Out of a clump of tall sycamores an old farm emerges; this is the Post Office, far removed from neighbouring houses! To the right Helvellyn is now in fuller sight, furrowed with watercourses, jagged with scaurs, with the sunshine dancing on the brackens and warming up the sober green stretches of grass. The dale is desolate and barren, yet a portion is known as the City, in memory possibly of a settlement of Britons in its stony waste.

The great gap of Wythburn Head will afford a pleasant ramble to any one who has the time. There is no towering crag, no huge cataract, no narrow, yawning ravine, but an infinite variety of the sweetest brook scenery. Only a few hundred yards from the road is a small basin of water, entirely hedged by slabs of stone, ten feet deep, and so clear that the least pebble on the floor can be seen—a place scoured by floods as clean of sand and soil as though Nature were the most expert of housemaids. On the bottom, in their season, the chrysalides of the Mayfly crawl—how wonderfully protected they are by their stick-like shape and their coats of sand! most realistically they imitate a piece of rotting twig as they lie in a chink of the pool-bed.

Another sweet corner I remember well. It is a dream of beauties in miniature. The down-pouring rivulet divides round a boulder, throwing two pearly cascades into the gloomy pool a fathom below. Round this pool the rocks rise sharply, crowned with foxgloves, heath and bog-violet, with a single stem of fly-orchis, with ivy and a cluster of the grass of Parnassus; more ivy wreathes around the roots of the trees, and long beards of moss drip with the outpourings of secret springs. Overhead, the alder, the rowan, and a few spindly self-grown ashes flourish, with a bush of glorious wild roses wilting loose petals into the slow-moving, bubbling circle. Ferns cluster among the tree-stems and on haphazard ledges, parsley and oak, the broad buckler and others, together with hardy bracken and other ubiquitous plants of the uplands. In a hole there a wren has built her nest, a thrush homes in the thickest holly, while the hawthorns are inhabited by a colony of hedge-sparrows and titmice. It is an active corner in bird-life if you have time to see it and your patience exceeds that of the busy midges.

The road has a slight incline which carries the cycle along with small exertion. The fences, as is customary in tourist Lake Country, are partly wall, topped with wire rail—a plan which allows the journeyer by road fully to enjoy the scenery. Tall, moss-grown walls and dense hedges are a feature of unfashionable Lakeland, but, pretty as they undoubtedly are, they sadly narrow the wanderer’s vision. The lake is now close by, stretching into the reedy level meadows. One curious feature is a now useless bridge, raising its hog-back in the mere. Wee looks the white-walled inn across the glen, with the great mountain range almost overhanging it. The fellside above us is bristling with crags, some splintered and hanging as though a breath of wind would hurl a shower of stone down upon us; others rise in flawless tiers, grandly immovable, impervious to the forces of Nature. And beneath them is the dainty, dancing harebell, the jocund foxglove, the sweet blooming heather, and many a starry mountain flower. Few trees are in sight; round an abandoned farm is a lonely cluster of sycamores; gulls are screaming and paddling in what was once pasture-land. Bare and stern is the last back-glance ere our way curves into a passage cut through the rocks. Then, suddenly—is this a new land, a new Thirlmere? The transformation is sudden and complete. To northward, many a mile, stretches a narrow lake, basking in the afternoon sun. Dense coppice and green larches clothe the slopes rising from the water; there is no indication of farms, of humanity.

The lake is quite close, we gaze down a terrace of rock at its shining mass. A knoll crowned with tough, short oaks is almost cut out from the land; a faint swell breaks entirely round a rock on which heather is in bloom. In the bay some wild ducks are feeding; Thirlmere in the quiet of winter is a grand haunt of migrants from ice-covered Northern seas. The lake is at its widest here; right opposite is the sham castle which Manchester erected over the pipe which draws, through ninety miles of mountain and meadow, the waters of Thirlmere. It is a pretentious battlemented horror of red sandstone at present, an insult to the shade of dour and grey Helvellyn. But perhaps time, and ivy, will soften the harshness, dull the too vivid colours, and the ugliness of to-day may be the beauty of a not-far-off to-morrow. On the road swings, ever softly on the incline, making the cycle run easier, and we pass through aisles of tall larch, beneath the shadow of sheering crags.

For a mile or so we pass through avenues of larch woods with broken crags ever shouldering against the roadside; then we come to Launchy Ghyll, the most extensive break in the mountain wall this side the lake. Not far from the ghyll, yet some little climb above the road, is the flat-topped boulder called the Justice Stone. It has been a famous landmark. It is suggested that its first use was in the plague years when the folks of Keswick laid money here to exchange with pedlars for goods from the outside world. Up to a century ago the shepherds of the neighbouring valleys used to meet at this place and exchange straying sheep. The climb up to the Stone gives splendid views of the lake and its surroundings, of Helvellyn range from Seat Sandal to Clough Head, of three-piked Saddleback, and of Skiddaw.

Armboth House is the next feature: the haunt of the grisliest set of phantoms the Lake Country holds. For once a year, on All Hallowe’en, it is said, the ghosts of the Lake Country, the fugitive spirits whose bodies were destroyed in unavenged crime, come here. I would not like to be present at their banquet, for they are, according to Harriet Martineau, an unpleasant lot. Bodies without heads, the skulls of Calgarth with no bodies, a phantom arm which possesses no other member, and many a weird shape beside. But they are a moral lot—victims and not sinners. Does the wild shriek in which ere dawning ends their banquet mean that to the spirit eyes has come a revelation of their wrongers in torment? But I forget: no man can hear that cry and live. Yet people will not believe the straight-forward story of the Armboth ghosts, of windows lit up with corpse-lights, of clankings of chains in corridors, of eternal shriekings which cannot be traced, as though murder was being done in some secret chamber. But why has this house been compelled to be a ghosts’ haunt? I have never heard a word against its reputation, ancient or modern. Perhaps it is most central for the guests to the ghost supper.

From Armboth a road turns over the moors for Watendlath and Borrowdale. It is a breezy moorland walk ending in a beautiful glen.

The road leaves the woodlands, and we cycle for some distance in full view of the water. The land is fertile meadow; a welcome change from the sterile wastes. A wood clothes the further shore; the hillside in front is known as the Benn, its summit stands well out from the fellside to which, if you trouble to climb so high, you find it is attached by a narrow spine of rock. Up here the Britons of old had a fort impregnable to assault. Now we reach the embankment, which has enlarged the bounds of the mere. It rises to a great height above the waters at present, but the engineers say that by a trifling amount of work the lake would rise sufficiently for a man, leaning over the parapet, to wash his hands in it. A road runs the width of the bank, giving a view up the sheening waters to far-off Dunmail. It is a pretty picture this—a succession of bluffs, some bare and stern, others clothed in clinging scrub of oak and ash, clustering with larch.

The return road winds round the hill into Legburthwaite, faces Helvellyn as though seeking a passage to its stone-strewn head, then turns sharply over a rise, and we are by Thirlmere again. The first view is exceedingly pretty. Neither sham castle nor embankment is visible, and you need not remember that the mere is semi-artificial. The fells of Armboth face one like a wall, broken here and there by a narrow ravine. On the fell you find the dip where Harrop tarn, beloved of wild fowl, is lying; you trace its rivulet threading down toward its long home in the lake. For a long mile we cycle along a terrace road high above the water, with Helvellyn rising to invisible heights to the left.

The next point of interest is Wythburn, its little church and inn across the way known over the wide world. Wordsworth describes his “Waggoner” making a journey past here at midnight, and halting at the Cherry-tree (now a farm), a public-house on the disused lower road where a merrynight was in progress. Coleridge has given his tribute to the little house of God, and other equally famous names occur to one, who have not disdained to ponder on the simplicity here. Wythburn was once among the smallest of English churches, but an addition has been made to the chancel since those days. In a batch of notes collected from aged dalesmen many years ago I have the following story concerning Wythburn.

The rector, after forty-six years’ constant and punctual work, caught a chill which, as the week wore on, prostrated him. On Sunday morning his wife persuaded him to send word to the clerk to take service as far as possible and then dismiss the congregation. Ten o’clock came and a quarter past, when the single bell should have tolled to assemble the congregation. But to the concern of the invalid its welcoming clatter did not ring out. To appease him his wife hurried to the church, half a mile away, to ascertain the cause. She found the clerk scrambling up the moss-grown roof with a newly twisted straw rope which had to be fixed ere the bell could be rung. A wild goat (there were wild goats on Helvellyn then as on the Coniston fells now) had during the week descended from the fell where keep was scant, had leapt on to the low roof, and, nimbly stepping along the ridge tiles, had found something eatable in the bell rope.

In another fellside the thatch of the church was once eaten by sheep. Services were not held in the building during winter; that was a particularly hard season, and a snowstorm had scattered the flocks ere they could be brought down. At still another fellside church a sudden jerk of the rope was apt to cause the bell to vacate the steeple, and with a rumble and a thud it would land in the adjacent field. Something was wrong with the swivel, but the yeoman who acted as bell-ringer did not know how to repair it. When the bell had finished its journey he would carry it back to its old position, and trust to luck for its remaining there awhile. But the parish clerk was a character, a class of himself in the dales, and on theological topics his voice carried little less weight than that of the parson. He was an independent fellow as a rule, and even the visit, once in a lifetime, of a bishop could not induce him to vary the methods which had descended to him through half a dozen generations.

CHAPTER XV
HAWESWATER AND THE BIRDS

In touring, extremes in conveyances and men meet—or perhaps, in these days of petrol, avoid one another. As the motor begins to monopolise the main roads, the true pedestrian is driven to the byways and field-paths. Gone for us seems the pleasure of swinging steadily, easily, over the hard turnpike; instead, we trudge in narrow, rutted lanes. Where, ten years ago, we watched the great events of the dale—the funerals, the weddings, the infants carried to church—now we must acquire a love for the everyday repose of Nature, else the Cult of the Hobnail knows us no more. Green hedges, grass-pitted roadways, ferns and flowers, birds and beasts of the wilder sort, must afford us food for observation and contemplation. Deeper and still deeper into the unknown countrysides have we to pierce, to taste again the keen delights of old.

It is a summer evening; the sky is packed with loose clouds; the sun’s rays, pouring through an archway left between two grey masses, merely touch the mountain-tops and are reflected down into the hollow glen about us. Not a sigh rustles the dense foliage; everything is dead calm save for the tinkle of water in yonder dingle—and the birds! The lark, the thrush, the whitethroat from its tuft of bosky grass; the sweet trills of the hedge-sparrow and linnet in the hedges, the yellow-hammer and the wagtail among the weatherbeaten outcrops. The stonechat too is here in his sober livery—but the harsh “natching” calls we hear are not all from its throat. There are three migrants hereabouts with almost identical characteristics—the whinchat, the wheatear, and the stonechat; but the last-named alone gives the call to perfection. There he stands on a notch of mossy rock on the roadside, his body seesawing as he gives forth the crisp, clear notes. That tuft of crimson feathers on his alert head distinguishes him from the others. Extending from the eye backward, they give the appearance of wearing a closely fitting skull-cap.

The hillsides around are steep, small crags jut out of their sides. Naddle Forest’s northern flank is clothed with a garth of small oak, through which in rides and patches the lovelier, livelier sward is seen. As we top a short rise, our view opens further, and into the distance stretches another narrow glen, its utmost limits invisible in a sea of filmy blue mist. In front, against a patch of bright blue sky, Walla Crag seems to mount to a tremendous height, its bare rocky facets catching the wandering gleams. The chorus of evening rises to rhapsody; then, as the light fades, the feathered choirs droop to silence and repose. Like a sheet of dull steel, between banks of darkening green Haweswater now appears. Its outlet is through the plain of rushes, tall grass, and tangled underwood to the left. What an ideal spot for a heron! and seldom will you visit Haweswater without seeing one, more often a pair, here. The true wanderer will not deem half an hour ill spent in watching this interesting bird. As we ramble on, the glassy surface of the lake is ruffled by the rising evening breeze. The green and black-grey shadow of Walla Crag—the clear water had carried it so faithfully that I thought of Tennyson’s undersea isle—