The Old Man; or, Ravings and Ramblings round Conistone

by Alexander Craig Gibson

CHAPTER VI.

The Present Incumbent of Seathwaite—His Appearance, Manner, Conversation, and Preaching—A Contre-Temps—Causes of Defection—Undercrag—“A Vale within a Vale”—“The Old Church Clock”—“Bad Customs”—Country versus Town—Ascent of Walna Scar—Old British Camp?—View from the Summit and Descent of Walna Scar—Gaits Water and Dow Crags—Return to Conistone.

As you loiter about the church-yard, you will be inevitably saluted by an elderly personage arrayed in an elderly black coat, corduroy “never-mention-thems” ending at the knees, dark rough yarn stockings, by way of continuations, and strong country made shoes fastened with leather whangs. He has the appearance of one with whom the world has gone smoothly. His double chin, broad convex shoulders, “fair round belly with” fell mutton “lined,” sturdy, well-developed under-limbs, and, above all, the cheerful and benevolent expression pervading his venerable features, all indicate one whose lot in life has been peaceful, happy, and contented. His outer man would seem to fix his rank in life very little above the surrounding farmers and yeomen. His manner is simple, easy, and unaffected, and his style of language is vastly superior to that of any with whom you have exchanged words during your Seathwaite expedition. I may as well tell you who and what he is. Well, then, he is the Rev. Ed. Tyson, and a collateral descendant of the famous individual AN OBLIGING CICERONE.I told you so much about in our last chapter,—was, for a short time, his coadjutor, and, at his death, succeeded him in the ministry of this romantic chapelry. Ask him for how long he has watched over the spiritual interests of his unsophisticated flock, and he will answer “only forty-six years this time.” The “this time” means that, after acting as Mr Walker’s curate for some time, he left Seathwaite, and returned at his death in 1802. Forty-six years added to sixty-six, the duration of Robert Walker's ministration, gives the sum of one hundred and twelve years, during which the clerical function has been discharged in Seathwaite by only two individuals. To this, I fancy, you can scarcely find a parallel! Mr Tyson will have much pleasure in pointing out what is worthy of note in and about his chapel; as the pew lined with cloth of “Wonderful Walker's” own spinning, and again I may say that you will scarcely find a parallel to this in any English church—a pew lined with cloth spun by a clergyman! The pulpit is worth looking at on account of its antiquity, and so is the door of a cupboard beside it, both being of carved oak, and bearing a date which I forget.

One of the many writers who have chosen the Duddon for their theme, says that he has seldom witnessed anything so gratifying as the manner in which Mr Tyson greets his parishioners on a Sunday morning, as he passes through amongst the assembled groups in the church-yard. He might have increased his gratification by entering the church, and hearing the church service read in Mr Tyson's unpretending, but earnest and even affectionate style, and still more, by staying to hear one of his plain, practical, and convincing discourses, so perfectly adapted to the circumstances and understanding of his rustic congregation, and yet so good in their matter, so impressive in the manner of their delivery, and so excellent in their diction, composition, and arrangement of topics, that any congregation, the most polished and intellectual, might listen to them with the same pleasure and profit, as that with which they are evidently attended to by the simple-minded and uncultivated worshippers in Seathwaite. I have latterly made it a custom to go to Seathwaite once a year to hear Mr Tyson preach, which custom I mean to keep up, so long as I may be permitted.

KERNEL NOT HUSK.

I once witnessed a rather amusing scene occasioned by the plainness of Mr Tyson’s exterior. I had accompanied a gentleman from London on an excursion to Seathwaite, and introduced him to Mr Tyson, without thinking it requisite to mention his position in the parish, and noticed with some surprise, that whilst the worthy parson, with his usual ready kindness, was shewing us through the chapel, and pointing out the remarkables in its vicinity, my companion scarcely treated him with the consideration due to his rank, character, and profession; but my surprise increased almost to consternation, when the stranger, looking over his shoulder to our venerable Cicerone, asked very abruptly, “but, I say, who is the parson here?” Mr Tyson looked rather astonished for an instant, but immediately answered, with some little dignity, “I am the parson, sir—for want of a better.” The gentleman's hat was off directly, and, with a deep obeisance, a muttered apology was tendered to what he doubtless thought the clergyman’s insulted dignity.—“Yes, sir,” continued Mr Tyson, “I am the parson here, and if you calculated upon finding parsons in these dales dressed in black silk stockings and broad-cloth breeches, you see you have been mistaken!”

A WORD FOR MINERS.

Miss Martineau says that Mr Tyson will tell the traveller “of the alteration in the times, and how the Wesleyans have opened a chapel in Ulpha, which draws away some of the flock; and that others have ceased to come to church since the attempts to get copper from the neighbouring hills,—the miners drawing away the people to diversion on Sundays.” I cannot help thinking that Miss Martineau has misunderstood the worthy pastor as to this latter cause of diminution in his congregation. The miners are certainly no more given to Sunday diversion than the rest of the community, and they have the less excuse for indulging in amusement on Sunday, inasmuch as they have more time for week-day recreation than their agricultural compeers. I cannot observe any difference between the manners and conduct of the miners and of the other inhabitants of Seathwaite, nor can I understand how any such difference can be supposed to exist, because all the people employed in the Seathwaite mines are natives of this or the adjoining vales—are, in fact, for the most part, sons or brothers of the small yeomen and farmers, and have taken to mining because it is an occupation that affords them better earnings for less work, than does agricultural or pastoral labour, their only other resources.

Bidding adieu to Seathwaite chapel, and to its venerable and obliging minister, you must return to Newfield for your pony, and set out on your way back to Conistone. You ride up the dale by the road you descended for about half a mile or more, and just before you reach the guide-post, where the road you came by turns off to cross Nettleslack Bridge, you had better leave the road, passing through a gate on your right, and following a track through a field for about forty yards, to take a look at the humble homestead of Undercrag, where Robert Walker was born. Though the buildings are of the humblest, the situation is very beautiful, nestling, as its name signifies, at the foot of a high wall of grey rock nearly perpendicular, but delightfully chequered with little slopes and irregular shelves of bright green turf. Undercrag has little about it to attract notice before many of its neighbours; its only claim to our attention is its being the birth-place of one, whose homely name has become known wider and farther than has that of any other native of the lake country, always excepting the name of his great biographer.

“A PEACEFUL RETIREMENT.”

Leave Undercrag, and on regaining the highroad, instead of crossing the bridge to your left, and so returning upon your track, hold straight forward, and you soon enter a little circular basin of green fields, besprinkled with ancient cottages and farms, intersected with stone walls, and enlivened by two or three sparkling brooklets which meet in its centre. It reminds you of De Quincey's description of Easedale—“a chamber within a chamber, or rather a closet within a chamber—a chapel within a cathedral—a little private oratory within a chapel.” The houses in this little den are all within the sweep of the eye, and are easily enumerated; Hollin house, Tongue-house, Beck-house, Long-house, The Thrang, and—what next? Gibraltar!—each with

“A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground,

Masses of every shape and size that lie

Scattered about beneath the mouldering wall

Of the rough precipice, and some apart,

In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,

As if the moon had rained them down in spite.”

COURTING CUSTOMS.

There is a little book bearing the odd title of “The Old Church Clock,” written by the Rev. Mr Parkinson, canon of Manchester, &c., which, possibly, you may have read. If you have, you may remark how strangely inaccurate the amiable author is in his local geography. To take one instance of many, he represents the sister of his hero to have the very reprehensible habit of slipping out of the paternal door, after bed-time, somewhere about the head of Yewdale, as near as I can fix it, and tripping it deftly over hill and dale, to meet her scamp of a sweetheart in this little dell. The said sweetheart must have been a very irresistible, as well as a very unreasonable personage, to entice a decent man’s daughter to enact the cart going to the horse, and give him the meeting so far from home—for the distance is little short of a round dozen of miles—and she is described as taking the rough, wild road that you have travelled over in this excursion. It is “rather of the ratherest,” and moreover, though this same custom of “meeting by night in the shady boreen” may suit a taste so romantic as that of the reverend author, it is not the custom of the daughters of these dales, who, with a careful regard for personal comfort and security from interruption, always have their wooers within the house after the family retire to rest; and I may quote Anderson, the Cumbrian bard, in support of the correctness of this statement, premising that the customs of this portion of Lancashire are, in all respects, similar to those in Cumberland and Westmorland. He says,—“A Cumbrian peasant pays his addresses to his sweetheart during the silence and solemnity of midnight, when every bosom is at rest, except those of love and sorrow. Anticipating her kindness, he will travel ten or twelve miles over hills, bogs, moors and mosses, undiscouraged by the length of the road, the darkness of the night, or the intemperature of the weather. On reaching her habitation, he gives a gentle tap at the window of her chamber, at which signal she immediately rises, dresses herself, and proceeds, with all possible silence, to the door, which she gently opens, lest a creeking hinge or a barking dog should awaken the family. * * Next the courtship commences, previously to which the fire is darkened or extinguished, lest its light should guide to the window some idle or licentious eye. In this dark and uncomfortable situation (at least uncomfortable to all but lovers), they remain till the advance of day,” and so on, concluding with some moralizing remarks upon this naughty custom, which I do not feel myself called upon to repeat. These “sittings,” which THE BALANCE OF MORALITY—WHERE? are in constant practice all over these northern counties, and which, after all, are not so bad as the Scotch and Welsh sweethearting customs, generally come off on the Saturday nights; and this practice, which involves the violation of the Sabbath, as well as the breach of decorum, is unnoticed, or rather winked at, by most writers who pretend to describe “life and manners” in the Lake country, such as Wilson, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and, lastly, Mr Parkinson. In fact, there appears a design amongst that tribe of writers to cry up the inhabitants of secluded districts such as these, at the expense of the inhabitants of towns. I am ready to do battle in this cause under the banner of Miss Martineau, who, in her triumphant answer to the arguments of those who opposed the introduction of railways into the Lake district, on the plea, amongst others equally absurd, that the morality of the people would suffer from contact with the denizens of towns, who, it was dreaded, would avail themselves in crowds of the increased facilities of transit, says—“As for the fear that the innocent rural population will be morally corrupted by intercourse with people from the towns, we have no apprehension of this, but are disposed to hope rather than fear certain consequences from the increased intercourse of the mountaineers with the people of large towns. We doubt at once the innocence of the one party, and the specific corruption of the other. Scarcely anything can be conceived more lifeless, unvaried, and unideal, than the existence of the dalesmen and their families; and where the intellect is left so idle and unimproved as among them, the sensual vices are sure to prevail. These vices rage in the villages and small towns; and probably no clergyman or justice of the peace will be ever heard speaking of the rural innocence of the region,—which is, indeed, to be found only in works of the imagination. The people have their virtues many and great.”—And so they have! but as to their morals being purer, or their lives and conversation more innocent than those of the parallel classes in towns, it is all nonsense. My life has been about equally divided between town and country, the nature of my occupation has given me much—I hope not wasted—opportunity in both of noting human nature en deshabille, and I tell you that good and evil in town and country, in crowded capital and lonely fell-dale, are “much of a muchness.” As a general rule, you may safely aver that the best educated community, is also the best behaved, and the standard of education amongst our mountaineers is by no means a high one.

RETROSPECT AND RIVULET.

But quitting this subject, on which one might prose till midnight, you had better commence the ascent of Walna Scar, and you’d also better gird up your loins, and make up your mind to encounter a labour of no ordinary magnitude; but as you rest and look back occasionally, the view rewards you well for your labour. Mr Wordsworth gives a very poetical and correct enumeration of the beauties of these prospects, but the passage has been quoted so often that you must have read it, and, therefore, though sorely tempted, I shall not give it here now. Part of Seathwaite beck comes leaping, frothing, and sparkling down a very rocky channel on your left. I think it is Captain Marryatt who describes an American river as forming “a staircase of waterfalls;” you have here this quaint fancy realized on a small scale for nearly half a mile along the side of your steep fell-road. On the farther side of this merry companion, is the extensive enclosure in which is situated Dan Birkett’s Town of “t'auld Ancient Britons.” The following instructions, furnished to me by a respected clerical friend, who is, in the ordinary pedestrian acceptation of the phrase, indisputably a “Wonderful Walker,” sufficed to enable me to find it out, and may serve your turn now. You will observe that he supposes the instructed party to be journeying from Conistone towards Seathwaite. “Follow the cart-road from Walna Scar to Seathwaite, till it meets the brook coming from the Peat-beds—turn to the right over the brook and wall, and march at right angles to your former course, upon some thorn trees distant about 500 yards. If the bogs are impassable, follow the Seathwaite road to the gate of the road leading to the Peat-beds, and there scramble over and among rocks to the above-mentioned thorn trees.”

THE RUINS OF WHAT?

I visited these remains with a member of the Archæological Association, and he expressed a decided opinion that they were a genuine antiquity, but thought they had formed a summer encampment, rather than a Town. On the other hand, a Seathwaite shepherd assured me that they were the ruins of a Peat-scale; that is, an erection for storing peats, until leisure serves to get them brought home. After a good hour’s climb, I must suppose you safely at the top of Walna Scar, and lost in admiration at the magnificent prospect you contemplate, when looking back to the north and west. The hill peering over the high ridge to your right, is Bowfell, then Great End, and next Scawfell Pikes and Scawfell, the highest hills in England. Those more distant, and seen over the western slope of Scawfell, are the Ennerdale hills, with the Pillar conspicuous amongst them, the scene of the fatal catastrophe in Wordsworth’s beautiful poem called “The Brothers.” Over the lower range of hills beyond Seathwaite, you may see the Isle of Man, the hills of Galloway, and Saint Bees Head, with the broad expanse of sea between them, glittering like ruddy gold in the red light of the declining sun. This huge arm of the mountains thrust out, as it seems, to shake hands with the sea, is Blackcombe, a well known land-mark for sailors. Under it, to the south, are extended the fertile fields of Millom, bounded again on the south by Duddon sands, over which LANDS, WATERS, AND ROCKS.the sea creeps up into the country, converting the bare sands twice every day into a broad area of water. The rich district of Low Furness divides the Duddon estuary from Morecambe Bay, which you may contemplate in all its vastness of extent and irregularity of shore. Stretching along the eastern horizon, are the hills of Yorkshire, the most conspicuous of which is Ingleborough. Nearer home, you behold the bright waters of Windermere, divided into three portions by intervening heights. And here nearer still, you have nearly the whole six miles of

“Our own dear lake

Beside the ancient Hall,”

with the beautiful valley of the Crake reaching from its foot to the sea at Greenodd.

GAITS WATER AND DHU CRAGS.

You will find the descent of Walna Scar worse than the climb, for, on the Seathwaite side, the road is good and smooth, but, on the Conistone side, it is less like a road than a superannuated water-course, and that not of the “gentlest conditions.” After you have safely descended the steepest portions, and crossed by a primitive stone bridge over a brawling brook, pray leave your road for about half a mile, to look at Gaits Water. You will find it to present a scene of savage desolation approaching the terrific, and I know nothing equal to it for wildness in the Lake country. It is an oval Tarn, about half a mile round, on the eastern side of which the Old Man rears his most rocky and precipitous side; at the head is a steep, high pass, connecting the Old Man with Dow, or Dhu Crags, which last rise on its western side, high, barren, verdureless screes, surmounted by a coronet of tremendous black rocks, partly mural and partly columnar, of vast altitude, with rough jagged edges, and bisected here and there with awful-looking chasms, which, with the borrans formed by the accumulation of huge fragments of rock along the south-west of the shore, form a favourite DRAWING A FOX.harbour for foxes, against which the shepherds wage a constant war of extermination. They have an extraordinary method of taking the fox, when they trace him to one of these rocky hiding-places; they draw him out with a screw, like a cork from the neck of a bottle. They have a gigantic cork-screw upon the end of a pole, which they sometimes succeed in insinuating into poor reynard's corpus, and so ruthlessly screw him to destruction. On the three sides I have pointed out around Gaits Water, the walls of the dungeon come sheer down to the water-edge: the fourth is fortified with a grotesquely-piled accumulation of rocks of enormous size. Altogether, it is a scene to make a man shudder, and wish himself anywhere else;—so return to your road, and prick along under the southern slope of the Old Man to Conistone.

As you approach the village, you have a view of all the vale of Yewdale, shining sweetly in its setting of dark brown hills and moors. You reach Church Conistone by an abruptly-descending road, lined and over-arched by a long grove of flourishing oaks. Of the village itself, through a portion of which you take your way, we will say more anon; meantime, your mind’s eye is doubtless gloating upon the good things awaiting your attack at the Inn.

CHAPTER VII.
THE VILLAGE.

Walk to the Village—Bannockstone Bridge—A Wild Legend—The Church and Schools—Inns—The English Opium Eater—Mrs. Robinson—Jenkin Syke—Hause Bank—Parkgate—Highthwaite, &c.

As you will, most probably, be rather stiff, not to say saddle sick, with your last long and rough ramble, I may calculate upon your being disposed to make this a short and easy one; so what say you to a saunter through the village of Church Conistone? You are possibly aware that there are two Conistones, the designation of each possessing an ecclesiastical character. The district around the uppermost part of the lake, and for half a mile down the western shore, and two or three miles down the eastern, is called Monk Conistone, and forms a part of the parish of Hawkshead; whilst Church Conistone, lying on the west of the lake and Yewdale beck, and extending to Torver in one direction and Fell-foot in another, is a chapelry in the parish of Ulverstone.

The road leading from the Waterhead to the village runs for some distance along the edge of the lake, and is delightfully shaded with trees, chiefly oaks. On the right, a single range of extensive level fields divides it from the finely-wooded Guards hill; on the left, the wavelets of the lake run upon a gentle grassy slope close up to the roadside, and, occasionally, in very wet weather, the lake extends its waters across the road and the fields beyond it, leaving pedestrians no other choice but wading or walking back.

THE ROADSIDE.

Where the road makes a sudden sweep to the right, and leaves the water side, you may notice the miniature docks and piers where slate, &c., are shipped for the lake foot on its way to the sea, and the scene of the only fatal accident known to have occurred in Conistone lake. The first houses you approach are the buildings belonging to the Thwaite farm, sheltering prettily under its wooded eminence, and, adjoining them, the neat old-fashioned residence, called Thwaite Cottage; a little further still, occupying a natural terrace on the southern declivity of the aforesaid eminence, stands Thwaite House, or “The Thwaite,” which commands a most comprehensive view of the vale, the village, the mountains and the lake, in one ocular range. Saunter on, and you soon come to a group of singular-looking buildings—built, a few years ago, by Mr Marshall—surrounded by pretty flower-gardens which, in the season, agreeably relieve the dismal effect of the dark blue, or rather light black stone of which the walls are constructed, with very little mortar, lest the white should disagree with the character of the scenery, as Mr Wordsworth avers it does: but the ivy, with its bright green tapestry, is now rapidly covering the nakedness of these comfortless-looking walls.

You now come to Yewdale Bridge, and, crossing it, enter Church Conistone; but here I wish you to turn off the road, and passing between some houses on your left, walk down the beckside for about 150 yards, and you reach a very primitive-looking bridge, formed of two huge flags laid upon piers of ancient and substantial mason-work, and named, with manifest propriety, “Bannockstone bridge.” It was not this I brought you out of your way to see; but I want you to bestow especial notice upon a large stone lying in the beck-bottom, just to the lower side of the bridge. Though it is covered by from two to three feet of water, Yewdale beck is so pure that you have no difficulty in discovering that the otherwise flat surface of this stone is interrupted by a ridge or elevation, some inches in height, occupying one of its corners, and in the edge of that elevation nearest to you is the deep, perfect, and unmistakeable imprint of a very large heel. Convinced, from the time I first noticed it, that some story might be ferretted out, to account for the production of this large heel-mark, I took considerable pains, for which I expect your gratitude, to collect the following facts in explanation of its traditionary origin, and now, without amplification or comment, I retail them for your satisfaction.

FRUITS OF REPENTANCE.

In those pious and enlightened times, when the profession and practice of witchcraft were so common that very few women could grow old and ugly, especially if they were also poor, without being suspected of having sold their immortal part to the Father of evil, a very old woman whose name has not been preserved, but the certainty of whose commerce with the devil no one ever doubted, dwelt in a hut upon the point of land which runs into the lake near the mouth of this brook. After practising the ordinary routine of a witchwoman’s life for several years, it is said that, as the time drew near for the fulfilment of her short-sighted bargain, she was seized with terror and remorse, and resolved to try whether she might not find a means of nullifying the agreement and evading payment of the fearful penalty to be exacted from her in return for the evil power with which her master had endued her old age; and, with this object, she visited a holy man, one of the Monks of Saint Mary of Furness, who was stationed at the place now called Bank Ground, which stands pleasantly upon the opposite side of the lake. He, when made aware of all the bearings of the case, offered some hope of redemption from the consequences of her contract, on the conditions of teetotal abstinence from any future indulgence in the evil art, abnegation of the devil, his works A MIRACLE. and devices, and a course of penance so severe and protracted, as to make the penitent witch think the cure almost as bad as the disease; but concern for “her pore sole,” as Winifred Jenkins pathetically designates it, determined her to accept of Father Brian’s terms, provided he could secure her against the power of Satan in the interim. Being instructed to flee for her life, and to call loudly upon Father Brian and Saint Herbert for aid, should Beelzebub come, as was likely, to claim his own before the completion of her saving penance had rescued her from his dreaded clutches, she returned home, and turned over a new leaf, beginning to lead a tolerably exemplary life. As might be expected, the other contracting party was not long in hearing of this unpardonable breach of faith, and, one evening, he startled his quondam disciple by making his appearance at the door of her domicile, when she, remembering the Monk’s instructions, darted through the open window, and fled, with the speed of light, directly up the course of this beck, screaming loudly enough for succour as directed. She had reached the site of this bridge, and her pursuer was just about to lay his claws upon her, when the Saint, or the Monk, or both heard her, and the devil’s foot, not the cloven one,—for neither dead Saint nor living Priest can be supposed to have power over that,—but his other foot, was set upon that stone, the heel sank into the ridge upon its surface, and the stone hardening, he was held fast by the heel, and thus, by the miraculous intervention of the dead Saint or the living Monk—I cannot learn exactly whether—the penitent witch escaped; and, moreover, ere the devil was released, Father Brian, being well versed in this particular line of business, succeeded in obtaining possession of the document on which the claim upon the old woman’s soul was founded, and so was able to remit a considerable portion of her heavy penance. The print, much too large to be produced by any human heel, is, as you see, still there to testify to the truth of the history I have collated for your special behoof, and, therefore, I hope that you will readily recognise its perfect credibility.

CHURCH CONISTONE.

“WHERE GOD ERECTS, &c. &c.”

You will now return to the road, and move on towards the village by the Crown Inn, a very commodious, respectable, and well-conducted house of entertainment for man and beast, with unexceptionable accommodation, and a more than unexceptionable hostess. Immediately beyond it, in a level green enclosure, having handsome iron rails on one side and low stone walls on the other, stands an oblong barn-like building, with a few blunt-arched windows in its dirty yellow walls, and over-topped at its western extremity by an unsightly black superstructure of rough stone, which some might call a small square tower badly proportioned, and others, with apparently equal correctness, the stump of a large square chimney. The oblong building is the church, and the level enclosure is the church-yard, in which the almost total absence of tombstones and the paucity of mounds lead you to the correct inference that death is rather a rare visitant at Conistone.

If you have any desire to explore the interior of the sacred edifice, the parish clerk, who, by the bye, is a poet of no mean pretensions, lives in one of these cottages close at hand, and he will readily open the doors and admit you. The only objects possessing even the smallest interest are—first, the antique oak-chest, with its curious padlock, which stands in the southern entrance, and in which the ancient parochial records were deposited—and second, a plate of copper fastened upon the wall over the Conistone Hall pew, engraven upon which in old, but very legible characters, are the following commemorative notice and quaint epitaph. You will perceive that there is probably an error in the dates:—

CHURCH AND SCHOOLS.

“To the living memory of Alice Fleming, of Coningston Hall, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, widow (late wife of William Fleming, of Coningston Hall aforesaid, Esq., and eldest daughter of Roger Kirkby, of Kirkby, in the said county, Esq.,) and of John Kirkby, gentleman, her second brother, was this monument, by her three sorrowful sons, Sir Daniel Fleming, Knight, Roger Fleming and William Fleming, gentlemen, to their dear mother and uncle, here erected. The said John Kirkby (having lived above thirty years with his sister, and having given to the churches and poor of Kirkby and Coningston the sum of £150), died a bachelor at Coningston Hall aforesaid, September 23, A.D., 1680, and was buried near unto this place the next day. And the said Alice Fleming died also (having outlived her late husband about 27 years, and survived five out of her eight children,) at Coningstone Hall aforesaid, Feb. 26, 1680, and was buried in this church, close by her said brother, Feb. 28, 1680; in the same grave where ye Lady Bold (second wife to John Fleming, Esq., deceased, uncle to ye said W. Fleming,) had, about 55 years before, been interred.

Epitaph.

Spectator, stay and view this sacred ground;

See, it contains such love on earth scarce found;

A brother and a sister—and you see

She seeks to find him in mortality.

First he did leave us, then she stayed and tryed

To live without him—liked it not, and died.

Here they ly buried whose religious zeal

Appeared sincere to Prince, Church, Commonweal;

Kind to their kindred, faithful to their friends,

Clear in their lives, and cheerful at their ends.

They both were dear to them, whose good intent

Makes them both live in this one monument.

So dear is sacred love, though th’ outward part

Turn dust, it still shall linger round the heart.”

In the vestry-room there is a library consisting of theological works, for circulation amongst the parishioners, but judging from the dusty state of the volumes, old divinity is not a favourite study with the reading public of Conistone. Leaving the church, you may notice, flanking the church-yard at two of its corners, a couple of tasteful little buildings, whose character and use you cannot well mistake. They are the boys’ and girls’ schools, and have been conducted upon the Home and Colonial School system, which, during the three or four years it has been tried here, has given great satisfaction.

THE BLACK BULL.

Opposite to the school and to the church gates, stands the Black Bull Inn, one of that low-browed, old-fashioned, roomy and snug class of public houses once so numerous in all the rural districts of England, but now fast disappearing before the sweep of modern improvement, or, if you like it better, modern innovation—and around whose ample hearths “the rude forefathers of the hamlet” were wont to muddle their brains, whilst settling the affairs of the parish, or discussing those of the country;—

“Where village statesmen talked with looks profound,

And news much older than their ale went round.”

This same Black Bull derives a sort of classical interest from being the “Howf” where the English Opium-eater took up his quarters, when he made his two unsuccessful attempts to accept Mr Wordsworth’s invitation to visit him at Grasmere. You want to know what made the attempts unsuccessful! Upon my word, I can scarcely tell you; but I can give you Mr De Quincey’s own account of the matter, as detailed in his interesting autobiographical sketches in Tait’s Magazine:—“My delay”—in accepting a long-standing invitation—“was due to anything rather than to waning interest. On the contrary, the real cause of my delay was the too great profundity, and the increasing profundity of my interest in this regeneration of our national poetry; and the increasing awe, in due proportion to the decaying thoughtlessness of boyhood, which possessed me for the character of its author. So far from neglecting Wordsworth, it is a fact, (and Professor Wilson who, without knowing me in those, or for many subsequent years, shared my feelings towards both the poetry and the poet, has a story of his own experience somewhat similar to report)—it is a fact, I say, that twice DE QUINCEY’S IDOLATRY.I had undertaken a long journey expressly for the purpose of paying my respects to Wordsworth; twice I came so far as the little rustic inn (at that time the sole inn in the neighbourhood) at Church Conistone—the village which stands at the north-western angle of Conistone Water; and on neither occasion could I summon confidence enough to appear before him. * * * The very image of Wordsworth, as I pre-figured it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul. Twice, as I said, did I advance as far as the lake of Conistone, which is about eight miles from the church at Grasmere, and once I absolutely went forward from Conistone to the very gorge of Hammerscar, from which the whole vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view. Catching one glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-heartedly to Conistone, and so to Oxford re infectâ. This was in 1806—and thus far, from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had, for nearly five years, shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed. These, the reader will say, were foolish feelings.” Very possible, indeed, that the reader may say so, Mr De Quincey! more particularly if he hold with me the opinion that the man who records his experience of those feelings, is, though inferior in genius, certainly superior in scholastic acquirements to the object of his idolatrous awe.

HISTORY OF A HOSTESS.

At the period of the English opium-eater’s sojourn at the Black Bull, its domestic affairs would be under the control of Mrs Robinson, the eldest daughter of “Wonderful Walker,” and quite as wonderful a person, in her way, as her more celebrated father. In early life, she was wooed, won, and privately married by a respectable working miner named Bamford, who subsequently obtained an appointment as sub-agent and clerk at the Leadhills Mines, in Dumfriesshire. During her husband’s protracted last illness, she, having in common with all Parson Walker’s children, received an excellent education, discharged his duties as clerk, or accountant, in a manner so satisfactory to the Mining Managers, that, after his death, she was allowed to continue in his office and lift his salary, until an alteration in the management caused her removal. She then returned to her father at Seathwaite Parsonage, and she continued with him for some time, until her favour was sought by her second “venture,” Robinson. To his pretensions the patriarchal pastor was, however, unfavourable, and he kept such strict watch upon their movements, that they found it impossible to transact the requisite courtship in a satisfactory manner, until she contrived to give her lover an impression of the out-door key in dough, and he got a duplicate manufactured therefrom, which admitted him to her society when “Wonderful Walker” was safe in the land of dreams. At these stolen meetings, a marriage was arranged, which came off in spite of all obstacles, and they settled on the farm called Townend, on the eastern side of Conistone Lake. A simple anecdote I have heard, may serve to illustrate Mrs Robinson’s shrewd and upright character. One Sunday afternoon, some Conistone youths crossed the lake, and bought of her husband a quantity of apples. Some dispute arising as to the partition of the purchase, it was agreed that Robinson should divide them. Her quick eye detected him giving a larger share to one than the rest, when she called out, “Nay, nay, Thomas! if thou will make Tom Park a present, bring him out some of thy own, but don’t give away other folks’ apples.” From Townend, they removed to the Black Bull, where she remained for many years. She discharged the duties of parish officer in her own turn, and in that of her son-in-law, and the parish books yet bear testimony to the beauty of her hand-writing, and the accuracy and clearness of her accounts. She also managed a small woollen mill, carried on here by the late Mr Gandy, of Kendal; and even in extreme old age, when bent double by years and infirmity, so that she could not sit upon a chair without leaning forward upon a table, she would write for hours with her books upon her knee. Of the Black Bull there is little more to say, than that mine especial good friend, Mrs Bell, is, as hostess, in every respect a worthy successor of Mrs Robinson, and if you choose to place yourself under her care, and don’t feel comfortable, the fault will not be hers. And, lest you should be misled and prejudiced by the identity of surname, I should tell you that she is no connection of “Peter Bell.”

THE CHURCH-BECK, amp;c.

We will leave the examination of that portion of the village to the north of the Black Bull for another convenient occasion, and you had better now cross the bridge over the church beck, the waters of which, from having been used at the mines in the process of dressing copper ore, present such an appearance as might arise from some thousands of washerwomen exercising their vocation amongst the hills, and sending their suds down to the lake. The bed of this beck is fearfully rugged, and reminds one of the Border stream, the Tarras, of which the old rhyme says—

“There ne'er was ane drowned in Tarras,

Nor yet in doubt,

For ere his head could win down,

His brains would be out.”

Many years ago, a young miner, who was courting the daughter of a blacksmith who resided at the mines, got into this beck one dark night when it was heavily flooded, and his body was found about a quarter of a mile below this bridge frightfully mangled. At the farther end of the bridge stands the post-office, and, leaving it to your right, you may ramble away down the road by Low Houses, Wraysdale Cottage, and Gateside, and then you come to Mount Cottage, where you must stay to inspect Mr Barrow's flower-garden, conservatory, shell grotto, grotesquely sculptured stones, of which nature was the artist, and, above all, his collection of busts, clerical, phrenological, general and diabolical.

“WHITTLE-GATE.”

Immediately beyond Mount Cottage is a stile where a foot-path leading to the Hall commences. It is called “Priest’s Stile,” and I have heard two accounts of the origin of its appellation. First, it is said to be so called, because a former Incumbent of Conistone died suddenly whilst crossing it. I prefer the second derivation of the name, because it affords an opportunity of mentioning a curious ancient custom, as well as reason good for congratulating ourselves and our clergy upon the progress of social improvement. In former times, the minister of Conistone, who was also the parochial schoolmaster, had no fixed home of his own, but held rights of “Whittlegate” over his chapelry; which signifies that he was lodged and fed by the different householders, each in turn, for longer or shorter periods, according to the value of the several tenements. Conistone Hall being by far the largest property in the chapelry, was favoured with the poor clergyman’s company, and had the benefit of his “whittle” much more frequently than any other residence, and consequently, on his way to and from church and school, the Priest very often was seen using this stile, and thence arose its name. The custom of “Whittlegate” is now all but obsolete, and, I believe, exists only at Wastdale-head, where, I understand, the schoolmaster is still supported on that uncomfortable system.

A LONG LINK.

Rising a short ascent called, no one knows why, Doe How, you soon reach another cluster of dwellings, named Bowmanstead, the most prominent amongst which are the Baptists’ Chapel and the Ship Inn; and beyond them, a row of houses which had its name from a somewhat odd incident. There was formerly an open ditch, called locally a syke, across the road here; and once the funeral array of a man named Jenkin, on the way to Ulverstone, then the only place of interment for this part of the parish, had got near to Torver, when the mourners discovered that the coffin had slipped, unobserved, from the “sled” it was carried upon, and, deeming it unseemly to proceed without it, they returned, and found it here in the syke, whence the spot is called “Jenkin Syke” to this day.

You saunter on past the Corn-mill and cottages around it, and down a short declivity to Hause Bank. An intelligent villager, who has resided at Hause Bank during the whole of a long life, tells me that the ancient cottage adjoining the smith’s shop was formerly an ale-house, and that a neighbour, who died at a great age, when my informant was a boy, used to relate that he remembered having seen two brothers of the Fleming family who were staying at the Hall, go in there for ale, and make a scramble with their change amongst the children round the door, of whom the relater was one. The names of the brothers, he stated, were “Major and Roger.” This reminiscence is remarkable, and worthy of record, because, supposing my calculations to be correct, it connects, by a single life, an individual of our own time with an officer who fought under the great Duke of Marlborough, and was the son of a gentleman who was obnoxious to Cromwell’s sequestrators, having to pay, during the time of the Commonwealth, a large annual fine for his loyalty. My authority is a condensed history of the Fleming family, on referring to which I find that “Michael, the sixth son of Sir Daniel Fleming, was Major in the regiment commanded by the Hon. Col. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, was in most of the sieges and battles in Flanders during the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and was returned to Parliament for Westmorland in 1706.” I fancy he would be great-grandfather to the estimable lady who now holds the estates and honours of her ancient house. The other brother remembered by the old man would be, as I have reason to believe, Sir Daniel’s eighth son, Roger Fleming, who entered the church, and became Vicar of Brigham, a preferment enjoyed at the present day, not by a son of the Knight of Rydal Hall, but by a son of the Bard of Rydal Mount.

ONE OF NELSON’S HEROES.

We have not done yet with Hause Bank, for you should be told that the old-fashioned house in the fold, surrounded by equally old-fashioned farm-buildings, was formerly the residence of Lieutenant Oldfield, R.N., and is still possessed by his widow.

This Mr Oldfield rose from before the mast, and was made Lieutenant by Nelson himself, as a reward for very important service rendered on a critical occasion—that of piloting the fleet through an intricate and dangerous navigation at the entrance of the Baltic, previous to

——“the glorious day’s renown

When to battle fierce came forth

All the might of Denmark’s crown.”

The Danes had lifted all the buoys, and taken other measures to place difficulties in the way of the British fleet gaining the anchorage off Copenhagen, and no other man but Oldfield was to be found in the whole fleet, who would undertake a pilot’s responsibility under such circumstances.

A QUOTATION.

Leaving Hause Bank, you next pass “Piper-hole,” and soon after reach Park-gate, the farthest houses in the village in this direction. Then take the narrow road to your right, past the pretty farm of Outrake, and following it for a steep half mile, it brings you out upon the table-land high above the village, where stands the ancient hamlet of Highthwaite, called here “Heethat,” and from which you have a grand view of the Lake and the vales of Conistone and Yewdale. Descending by another steep lane, you arrive at another cluster of very comfortable cottages called Cat-bank, formerly Catherine Bank, upon the brow beyond which stands a recently-built row of ten cottages, with large well-tilled gardens in front.

Taking the foot-path behind these, whence the natural panorama of the dale and village appears to vary at every few steps, you pass one or two small groups of houses, and arrive at the steep road you descended in returning from Seathwaite. The old-fashioned farm-houses and cottages adjoining, which are shaded by a straggling regiment of magnificent Scotch firs, are called Dixon-ground; and from the flat in front of the higher farm, the whole of the upper portion of Conistone lies spread out beneath you, and beautiful it looks; “here a scattering, and there a clustering, as in the starry heavens.” But as you walk down this lane, I'll tell you how Father West describes the Conistone of nearly a century back; “the village of Conistone,” says he, “consists of scattered houses; many of them have a most romantic appearance, owing to the ground they stand on being extremely steep. Some are snow-white, others grey; some stand forth on bold eminences at the head of green enclosures, backed with steep woods; some are pitched on sweet declivities, and seem hanging in the air; others, again, are on a level with the lake; they are all neatly covered with blue slate, the produce of the mountains, and beautified with ornamental yews, hollies, and tall pines or firs. This is a charming scene, when the morning sun tinges all with a variety of tints. In the point of beauty and centre of perspective, a white house, under a hanging wood, gives life to this picture. Here a range of dark rugged rocks rises abruptly, and deeply contrasts with the transparent surface of the lake, and the stripe of verdure that skirts their feet.

---

The hanging woods, waving enclosures, and airy sites are elegant, beautiful, and picturesque; and the whole may be seen with ease and pleasure.”

“GOOD BYE FOR THE PRESENT.”

I need not tell you that Conistone is greatly altered since then, but it is for the better. It has lost none of its old beauties, and it has gained many new ones. But here we are again at the central point of the village, the Church bridge; and if you are as tired of rambling as I am of raving, you will be exceedingly glad when I bid you good bye for the present.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE COPPER MINES.

Perchance you now feel no insurmountable objection to visiting and inspecting the grand source of the prosperity of Conistone—the copper mines to wit.

Miss Martineau tells you that—“The traveller should see the copper works at Conistone (if he can obtain leave,) both for their own sake, and for the opportunity it gives him of observing the people engaged there, and because they lie in his way to the tarns on Conistone Old Man, and to the summit of the mountain itself.” Should you happen to know this very eminent and excellent writer, pray tell her that she might have omitted the parenthesis which insinuates that leave to inspect the mines is sometimes refused; for I assure you and her, that such leave has never been refused during the reign of the present liberal and enlightened manager, and that has lasted upwards of twenty years, and will, I earnestly hope, last for upwards of twenty more. You will find that you have nothing to do but walk up to the office like a gentleman, as you are, (if you be not a lady,) send in your card, state your wishes, and you will not only obtain the wished permission, but the offer of a proper equipment, and candles, and be directed to a competent guide and cicerone.

Very well, then; you may follow the same route you took at the commencement of your last ramble—that is to say, along the Lake side, by the slate-quays, over Yewdale Bridge, past the Church to the Black Bull, the end of which you pass, and soon come to a wooden bridge connecting the road with a number of cottages arranged in the form of an irregular square with a tail to it, and called “the Forge.”

WAY TO THE MINES.

As you saunter on towards the hills, you arrive at a huge inelegant building of three high stories, formerly a corn-mill, but now converted into eight roomy dwelling-houses, and a large public room. Immediately above this old corn-mill, on a gentle acclivity at the apex of the fertile triangular plain of Church Conistone, so close to the fells as to be almost overhung by them, and surrounded by richly-decorated grounds, stands Holy-wath, the residence of one to whom Conistone is mainly indebted for the prosperity she has for so many years enjoyed.

Those interested in planting operations, especially in transplanting “adult trees,” may here see numerous examples of success in that difficult art; for all these large healthy trees in the grounds of Holy-wath were transplanted by Mr Barratt, some few years ago, from beyond the lake.

The neat cottages beyond, smiling over the beauty below them, are called 'Boon Beck, and, like nine-tenths of the houses you have seen, are inhabited by miners. Pass through the Fell-gate, taking the road to the right, and a pretty stiff pull you will find it.

On the upper side of the road, you have a steep fell-side consisting of grey rock, alternating with green pasturage, and on the lower a high and dry stone wall, and when you come to a gate therein, you may rest, and look over, or through it, at the dale and village from a new point of view. It is “devoutly to be wished” that, when wearied in the up-hill journey through life, we may always find a resting-place pleasant as this. You are, of course, delighted, for the beauty of Conistone is of that sterling character that, from whatever direction you gain a peep at it, you are struck with renewed admiration, and you GHYLL AND FALLS.are always inclined to fancy that it is seen to most advantage from the place whence you then happen to be looking. But all earthly delights must end, and you must not stand all day gazing so eagerly at the landscape through the gate—reminding one of a hungry monkey eyeing gingerbread nuts through the bars of his cage. So resume your walk, and when the wall terminates, you have in its place a deep rugged ravine, with the soap-suddy beck brawling and foaming along its jagged course at the bottom. And here the lover’s leap might commodiously be perpetrated, as one of Mr George Robins’ advertisements said in its enumeration of the attractions of a property he had to sell hereabouts some years ago. But you had better, if you contemplate such an exploit, defer the execution of it, until once I have shown you all that is worth seeing around this same Conistone; and then, if you still wish to quit a world containing a locality so beautiful, why, the sooner such an insensate animal makes his exit, the better for all parties concerned. About half way up the ghyll, you come to a waterfall of about forty feet, where the water, being much broken by the inequalities above, and upon the broad ledge it falls from, spreads out like a huge white apron gathered a little at the waist. A hundred yards higher is another fall, and, higher still, a third, where the stream is split into three by two sharp projecting rocks, and, about half way down, falls upon a sort of “slantindicular” shelf, whence, white as butter-milk, it makes a second fall at right angles to the first, and forms altogether a highly interesting subject of contemplation.

CHRONOLOGICAL DATA.

And now, occupying the upper end of an oblong basin amongst the hills, you see “a little town” of sheds, offices, workshops, and water-wheels, which, with the constant clatter of the machinery issuing therefrom, presents a most extraordinary contrast to the silence and solitude of the surrounding wilderness. These are the works belonging to the Copper Mines, which Copper Mines were in existence when Christianity was not, for there is good reason to believe that copper was wrought here, and that extensively, by the Romans during their first occupation of the country, and also by the Britons before them. In support of this supposition, I beg to offer an extract, bearing upon the subject, from that very grave and erudite work, Mr A'Beckett’s History of England. “Before quitting the subject of Cæsar’s invasion, it may be interesting to the reader to know something of the weapons with which the early Britons attempted to defend themselves. Their swords were made of copper, and generally bent with the first blow, which must have greatly straitened their aggressive resources, for the swords thus followed their own bent, instead of carrying out the intention of the persons using them. This provoking pliancy of material must often have made the soldier as ill-tempered as his weapon.” Since those remote days, these mines have never been entirely deserted, save for a few years during the rumpus kicked up by Oliver Cromwell and his compatriots, at which period of our national history, lead and cold iron being more in request than “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals,” they were shut up; but on the restoration of tranquillity and of “that sad scamp, the Merry Monarch,” operations were resumed, and continued with varying energy and success until the advent of the present management. At that period there were only two or three miners employed, but since then, matters have been very different. The mines have been rapidly increasing in extent and prosperity; they now employ several hundred people, and are become a splendid property to the present enterprising company.

MINING—OLD AND MODERN.

It is worthy of being remarked, that, in the early ages, the mode of obtaining the ore, which is generally found in veins, or lodes, intermingled with quartz, and surrounded by very hard rock, was similar to that which the Roman historians say was adopted by Hannibal to smooth his passage over the Alps; that is, they kindled large fires upon the veins, and, having heated the stone as much as possible, poured water upon it, (the Carthaginians used vinegar,) which, by the sudden and copious abstraction of caloric, caused it to crack, or burst, and so rendered a circumscribed portion workable by their rude implements, some of which—small quadrangular iron wedges, with a hole at the thick end for the insertion of a handle—have been recently found in the very old workings. The invention of gunpowder and its application to blasting purposes, have, of course, for ages, superseded this primitive modus operandi;

And now these rock-built hills are hourly “shaken

By thy humane discovery, Friar Bacon!”

Some of the operations are carried on by what are called “tribute-workers,” the workmen receiving a certain proportion of what they raise, and, when fortunate, some of them realize large sums under this system; but the greater part by far of the underground work is done by bargain, some man, or, more frequently, men, undertaking to excavate a given number of fathoms in a certain locality and in an assigned direction, for so much per fathom; the results of their labours being brought out along the levels by waggons, and by “kibbles”—a sort of large strong bucket—up the shafts. If you happen to be fresh from College, it may be necessary to inform you that a level means a horizontal, and a shaft a perpendicular excavation.

High up the mountain side, you may notice a solitary water-wheel which, from having nothing near it visible from below, appears to be spinning away like a child's toy mill, without aim or object. It is at the top of the main shaft, and is employed in hoisting those kibbles and water to the horse level.

THE HORSE LEVEL.

And now having arrived at the works, before examining the details of the dressing process, suppose you take a subterranean ramble, and see how and where the ore is obtained, and to do that comfortably, it were well to borrow some regular mining habiliments to save your clothes;—the gentlemen below stairs will excuse your appearing amongst them in full dress.

It will be wise to select the oldest and most extensive part of the mines for exploration, and it is that most to the east; so, when you are properly equipped, and have procured candles and a guide, proceed at once to the horse level mouth, light your candles, open the door and walk in, and as you proceed, it were well, once in a way, to take a lesson from your respectable fellow-biped the goose, who, I have been told, always lowers his head when entering even the highest doors; for if you disdain the Saviour of the Capitol’s example, you will hardly save your own capital, the arch of living rock beneath which you travel being too low for even a little man to walk with an erect front. When you have progressed thus with your crest lowered for some distance, you may straight your back and look up, for you are under the “Cobbler’s hole,” a tremendous chasm, from which a vein of copper, extending to above the water-wheel you saw on the hill-side, has been wrought, and when you are advanced about a quarter of a mile into the level, you are at the side of the shaft which reaches from the said water-wheel through all the workings down to the deepest level; and by which the kibbles containing the ore are hoisted a few fathoms above your head, and there emptied into a large hopper, the mouth of which is six or seven feet above the level, and under it the waggons are run to be loaden.

VISIT TO THE INTERIOR.

If you are determined to descend the shaft, it must be by a series of ladders, with wooden sides and iron steps, and you come upon a platform, or “landing,” at every few fathoms. Diverging occasionally from, but generally following the line of the shaft, you pass several old “bunnins”—I am not sure about the orthography, but the derivation is, I fancy, from bound in—which are short logs of wood jammed between the opposite walls of rock for the miners to stand upon when working in such situations. As you proceed on your perilous journey, you must not allow the thundering echoes of the distant blast, or the astounding rattle of the rapidly descending kibble and its chain, to deprive you of your presence of mind, else you are “but a dead” tourist. But supposing that you carry your senses along with you, and are resolved to stop at nothing short of the deep workings, you continue, sometimes crawling down the ladders, and sometimes stepping cautiously across the landings, and pass several levels in your descent—viz., one twenty fathoms down, one thirty-five, one fifty, and at length you arrive at the seventy fathom, when you are some where about the level of the village, or about 420 feet below the place where you commenced your underground knight errantry—or, again, about 640 feet below the top of the shaft. There is, “at the lowest depth a lower still,” some twenty fathoms below this another working called “the ninety;” but you are already deep enough for any useful purpose. Moving a short way onwards, you come in sight of two men working upon a “bunnin,” and looking, according to your notion, very much like inhabitants of a still lower region, the darkness being made barely visible by a couple of twinkling candles plastered against the rock with clay. Their attitudes are somewhat picturesque, as they hold up and turn the jumper with the left hand, whilst they keep driving it into the flinty rock by an incessant rapping with a hammer held in the right. Having bored BORING AND BLASTING. their holes to a sufficient depth, they proceed to clear them out with an iron instrument something like a yard-long needle, with its point bent and flattened—first scraping out the borings or fragments of stone, with the point, and then drying the hole with a small wisp of straw, or dried grass, drawn through the eye, and worked up and down in the hole until all moisture is completely mopped up. They then fill a tin tube with gunpowder, and conveying it into the hole, withdraw the tube and leave the hole filled to one-third, or one-half its depth with the powder. Having corked down, by way of wadding, the wisp used in drying, and carefully cleaned away any stray grains of powder which may possibly adhere to the sides, they next thrust a long sharpened rod of copper, called a “pricker,” down one side into the powder, and pass an iron “stemmer,” or ramrod, grooved on one side to fit the pricker, to feel whether it work easily, which it will not do, if the pricker be improperly inserted. They then beat in with the stemmer a quantity of soft rotten stone, called “stemming,” sufficient to fill up the hole, finishing off with a little clay, and commence the withdrawal of the pricker, an operation of some nicety. Having got it out, they pass down the hole it leaves a long straw filled with powder, having a piece of match-paper attached to its outer extremity; and having secured their tools, and uttered two or three indescribable warning shouts, the precise sound of which it is difficult to realize, but which consist of the monosyllable “fire,” they ignite the touch-paper and immediately retire to a respectful distance, and you had better retire with them, to await the report, which, when it does occur, will be pretty likely to make you jump an inch or two out of your skin. Returning to their working, they note carefully the effects of the blast, and breaking up the larger fragments, and beating down any loose pieces that may hang about the sides, they select a suitable “lofe,” and recommence boring. About three blasts in this hard rock is considered a fair day's work, the men working eight hours a day in shifts—which does not mean that they array themselves in chemises to work in, but that they are relieved, or shifted, at the end of eight hours, by other workmen taking their places.

RETURN TO DAYLIGHT.

And now having visited the depths of the mines, and witnessed the most important, as well as the most common of the underground operations, and, moreover, being almost “scomfished” with the powder smoke, you are anxious to return to the blessed light of day, and “Heaven's untainted breath,” and may clamber up the interminable ladders you descended by. What you have seen, of course, conveys no adequate idea of the extent of the mines, for these hills are almost honey-combed by levels and other workings; but you have seen enough to show you the nature of copper mining. It is rather extraordinary that the mines, even in their deepest parts, are infested by myriads of rats, and why they harbour there, or what they get to eat, would require a longer head than mine to discover.

It says much for the excellent arrangements on the part of the management, that, notwithstanding the dangerous nature of the work, and the number of hands employed, serious accidents are of very rare occurrence; and when they do occur, they are almost always the result of negligence, frequently involving disobedience of orders, on the part of the sufferer. However, one of the most melancholy that has yet occurred, was purely accidental, and I may relate it as a sad episode in mining life. A father and son—Irishmen—named Redmond, were employed at the foot of a shaft, “filling kibbles.” The father’s kibble had descended, and he had unhooked the chain, handed it to his son to attach to his kibble, which was full, and commenced refilling, when his attention was attracted by a ANECDOTES GRAVE AND GAY.cry, and, starting round, he saw his son carried with the kibble rapidly up the dark shaft. He called to him to hold on by the bucket, but that was considered hopeless by the workmen about, because the shaft is tortuous, and the sides very rugged and uneven. A very short time shewed that they were correct, for the unfortunate youth's body was heard tumbling down the shaft. The old man placed himself below, stretching out his arms to catch the body as it fell, and was with difficulty dragged from the position where he would have shared the fate of his son, whose mangled body fell close to his feet.

Another story of a different character connected with kibble-filling, I may tell you by way of relief to the above sad narrative. A man was employed in this department, who had seen better days, and whose thoughtlessness or ill luck had reduced him to labour thus for his daily bread, but whose humour and ready wit were by no means impaired by his fallen fortunes. One of the agents observing some small stones falling down the shaft, said, “Take care—or you'll have your brains knocked out!” He continued his work, replying coolly, “If I’d ever had any brains, Captain, I shouldn’t have been here!”

PROCESS OF SEPARATION.

And now, having safely returned to this every-day world, you may examine the processes through which the ore has to pass, before it is fit for the market, for, unlike most other mining, one-half of the work is not done when it is brought above ground. Well, first, you perceive, it is thrown from the waggons into a heap, where water runs over it, and by cleaning the lumps, shews more plainly what each piece is made of. Then from the heap it is raked by men to a platform, or long low bench, along which a number of little boys are actively engaged in picking or separating the richer pieces from the poorer, and it is highly amusing to watch the expertness and celerity with which the imps make the selection, and toss each lump into its proper receptacle. The richest portion is carried at once to the crushing mill, the poorer is thrown into another shed below, to be broken up and further picked, and the mere stones are wheeled off to the rubbish heap. The ore being broken small is thrown into the crushing mill, and passed once or twice through it, being returned to the mill by an endless chain of iron buckets, which dip into the heap of crushed ore below, and, carrying it up, empty themselves into the mill. When ground to the size of coarse sand, the ore is carried to the “jigging troughs,” which are large square boxes, filled with water, and having each a smaller box, with a grated bottom, suspended in it from a beam above, and filled with ore, a “jigging” motion being imparted to the grated boxes by water-power. This jigging under water causes the grains of pure ore, which are heavy, to sink and pass through the grating of the inner box, and the particles of spar and rock, which are lighter, to rise to the top, whence they are scooped off and wheeled away to undergo another pounding and washing. The pounding is effected by means of two long rows of stamps or heavy iron-shod pestles, kept incessantly rising and falling in beds fronted with perforated iron plates, and fed with the material, and a flow of water to wash it, when fine enough, through the holed plate. It is, after that, collected to go through the process of “buddling,” which consists of laying it on slanting shelves, at the head of long wooden troughs, also slanting longitudinally, and a limited stream of water being allowed to run through it and wash it slowly off the shelves and down the inclining troughs, the heavier and valuable portion remains at the head, whilst the lighter and worthless portion is washed down to the lower end. All the waste water used in any of the dressing processes is made to flow through a series of large tanks or reservoirs, in which it deposits all the fine particles of ore that may be floating away, and from these tanks some thousands of pounds' worth of ore is collected annually in the form of slime, and looking like bronze, which with all the other ore is shipped to Swansea to be smelted.

ANOTHER WORD FOR MINERS.

An impression is general that the people employed here are more than ordinarily “ignorant and profligate.” Nothing could be farther from the truth than such a supposition. They, doubtless, have their share of the failings of human nature, and many enjoy themselves rather freely at the month’s end, when they receive their pay, but open or obtrusive profligacy is very rare, and their ignorance is certainly not so general as that of the pastoral and agricultural population around them. And I maintain that, in kindness to each other, in the proper discharge of the duties of domestic life, in demonstrative respect for those above them, in real civility to strangers, though accompanied perhaps, in some instances, by gruffness of manner, the mining population of Conistone are not to be surpassed by any other of equal numbers in the world, and are certainly not equalled by any that I have been amongst.

I have now nothing more to say about either mines or miners, but leave you to divest yourself of your miners' habiliments, and cleanse your fingers from the candle grease at your leisure.

CHAPTER IX.
THE OLD MAN.

Ascent from the Mines—The Kernel Crag Ravens—Paddy' End and Simon’ Nick—Leverswater, &c.— The Summit—“Old Man,” unde Derivatur—Enumeration of Objects seen from the Summit—Mountain and Mere—Dale and Down—Sea and Shore—Tower and Town—The Descent.

It were well now to delay no longer the favourite and finest of all Conistonian excursions; therefore again gird your loins with strength, and prepare to ascend the Old Man. For that purpose, I think the pleasantest, though not the nearest route is directly past the Mines; so, leaving on your right the works you have been inspecting, you take a very rough and very steep cart-road winding its weary way up the mountain, and pass between another more elevated and more recent range of works and workings styled Paddy'-end—after the discoverer of the richness of the veins in that direction—and a high precipice of solid stone called Kernel Crag. On this crag, probably for ages, a pair of ravens have annually had their nest, and though their young have again and again been destroyed by the shepherds, they always return to this favourite spot; and frequently, when one of the parents has been shot in the brooding season, the survivor has immediately been provided with another helpmate; and, what is still more extraordinary, and beautifully and literally illustrative of a certain impressive scripture passage—it happened, a year or two since, that both the parent birds were shot, whilst the nest was full of unfledged young, and their duties were immediately undertaken by a couple of strange ravens, who attended assiduously to the wants of the orphan brood, until they were fit to forage for themselves.

FATAL INDISCRETION.

In the face of the precipice to the left, over Paddy'-end, you may note a nearly perpendicular fissure, or niche. It is called Simon’ nick, also after the discoverer, and thereby hangs a tale. The said Simon, to the great mystification, and greater mortification of his compeers, succeeded in obtaining large quantities of rich ore from this nick, wherein no one but himself could discover any indications of it. They were all, of course, very curious and anxious to fathom this mystery, but they could make nothing of it. Simon resisted all enquiries, direct or insidious, till one unfortunate night when, “hot with the Tuscan grape,” or, to express it less poetically, the Black Bull malt, he divulged the fatal secret that he owed his mysterious and envied success to the co-operation of the Fairies. For this breach of confidence, he received condign punishment, for he never again fell in with anything worth working; and becoming reckless from the consequences of his own indiscretion, he abandoned all caution in his perilous operations, and the charge in one of the holes he had prepared for blasting exploding prematurely, Simon paid the penalty of his imprudence with his life.

Still toiling upwards, you soon attain the edge or lip of the basin containing Leverswater, one of the finest of our mountain lakelets, nearly circular in shape, surrounded by very steep grassy slopes and magnificent rocky precipices, and measuring upwards of a mile in circumference. Were Mr Wordsworth here, he might again make the bewailing inquiry—

“Is there no spot of English ground secure

From rash assault?”

for you may observe that even this lonely tarn is rendered subservient to purposes of “sordid industry” (I feel spiteful at that phrase) by having its waters dammed up, so as to form it into a mere vulgar reservoir of water for the dozen or two of water-wheels at the works below. And, moreover, as you follow the path along the southern verge of Leverswater, under the noble offset from the Old Man, called Brimfell, you fall in with very plain indications that mining is pursued, and that vigorously, even up here. In one of these levels very rich ore has been found, including, in minute quantities, copper in a malleable state, which, if I am correctly informed, is the only instance of native malleable copper being found in Britain.

A STIFF PULL.

You wend your way along a very uneven path on the hill-side to the west of Leverswater, and when you arrive at a point about opposite to that on which you approached it, and nearly under a precipice called Oukrigg (Wool-crag?) you take the very steep ascent to your left, and follow up a small water-course, until you observe more on your left a fine dell dished, as it were, out of the hill-side, and thickly dotted with sheep. It is called the Gillcove, because, from time immemorial, the sheep belonging to a farm in the village called the Gill (or Ghyll), have been depastured upon it. You traverse this same cove, and rise over the shoulder of Brimfell, regularly gaining upon the mountain; but the ascent becomes dismally laborious here, so much so, that you are fain to lie down to recover breath, and whilst doing so, what say you to a little familiar chat with the Old Man himself?—Listen!

Old Man! Old Man!!—Your sides are brant,

And dreadfully hard to climb;

My strength fails fast, and my breath is scant,

So I'll e'en rest here and rhyme.

“Yea, my slopes are steep and my dells are deep,

And my broad bald brow is high,

And you'll ne'er, should you rhyme till the limit of time,

Find worthier theme than I!

“My summit I shroud in the weltering cloud,

And I laugh at the tempest’s din;

I am girdled about with stout rock without,

And I've countless wealth within.

“My silence is broke by the raven’s croak,

And the bark of the mountain fox;

And mine echoes awake to the brown glead’s shriek,

As he floats past my hoary rocks.”

Old Man! Old Man! many an age

Has glided away while you've stood,

And much has been graven on history’s page,

Since your summit was laved by the flood.

“Yea, nations are dead and centuries fled,

Whilst here, like a trusty guard,

O'er mine own sweet vale, braving thunder and gale,

I have held close watch and ward.

“And many a change, portentous and strange,

Hath swept o'er this change-loving earth;

Yet here do I stand, and I frown o'er the land

With the aspect I wore at my birth.”

THE PINNACLE.

There! you perceive Shakspere is correct as ever when he says we may find sermons in stones, and I trust you will profit by the Old Man’s homily.

Resuming your clamber, you, by and bye, come out upon the high narrow ridge connecting the Old Man with the fells behind him. It is now all plane sailing, and you soon arrive at the pinnacle, or pillar, or pile of stones upon the mountain’s “very topmost towering height,” which is, according to the best authority, 2,632 feet above the sea.

In the place of this solid erection there stood, a few years ago, an externally similar, though larger pile containing a chamber, which formed a welcome shelter to such shepherds and tourists as happened to be overtaken on the mountain by bad weather. This chambered pile was pulled down by certain officers employed on the trigonometrical survey, or rather by their orders; and, by the bye, I have heard that the labourer who undertook the demolition had five pounds for the job, and earned the THE OLD MAN’S GODFATHERS.satisfactory wages of somewhere near one pound per hour by it. Be this as it may, those gentlemen ought, when they restored the erection, to have made the new equal in all respects to the old one, instead of giving us a pile inferior both in its useful and ornamental attributes. Any erection of this description on a hill-top being locally called a “man,” this is said by certain shallow etymologists to give the Old Man his name, as though a mountain of his respectability would stand unchristened, until somebody, like the “three rosy-cheeked school-boys, the tallest not more than the height of a counsellor’s bag,” in the Laureate's poem on “Perseverance” (I believe), undertook and completed the task of rearing a pile of stones upon his vertex. The Rev. W. Ford, who has written one of the many “Guides to the Lakes,” says there are three piles on the mountain top—“the Old Man, his wife, and son,” thereby inferring that the name of the hill bears some allusion to the featherless biped of similar designation. This is certainly wide of the mark, but there are two reasonable derivations of this mountain’s quaint appellative, and both are probably correct. Some say the name comes from two British or Saxon words Alt, high, and Maen, crag or rocky hill, which pretty well describe the Old Man. Others say that the same Roman soldiery who called their beautiful station at the head of Windermere Amabilis Situs (since degenerated into Ambleside), called this hill Altus Mons, which, by a natural metonomy, gradually became Auld Man, for, be it remembered, the natives of this immediate vicinage, even at the present day, pronounce old in the Scotch fashion.

“KINDRED HILLS.”

The view from this same Old Man is, in my opinion, and in that of many others, unequalled in England; and though, on the north and east, the prospect is somewhat limited by its kindred hills, they are hills such as you would not have removed, if you could, even to enlarge the prospect, for they comprise all the English mountains worthy of notice, and, in other directions, some of those of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales.

Commencing here at the south-west, you have Blackcombe, which is not seen to very great advantage, in as much as you are looking down upon it, a mode of inspection which you must know to be unfavourable to the dignity of either mountain or man.

Near to it is a tarn called Devock Water, which contains trout of peculiarly excellent quality, traditionally said to have been imported by the Monks of Furness from Italy, and it fully supports the character of those holy men as judges of good living, for no one should say he has eaten trout, till once he has tasted those of Devock Water. The next hill of any mark is Birksfell, which is a striking object, not so much on account of its altitude—for that is no great matter—as its isolated position and conical shape. Then you see Scawfell and the Pikes, followed up by Great End, Great Gable, and Bowfell, beyond which, more to the east, is Skiddaw, and beyond Skiddaw are to be seen the dim outlines of the Scotch hills about Langholm. Still bringing the eye round in the course of the sun, you look at Blencathra, and then “the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn.” Nearly in the same line, but much nearer, you have Langdale Pikes, and in the side of them Stickle Tarn glistens like a gem in a lady’s hair. Recurring to the more distant line, you see Fairfield, Kirkstone, High Street, and Hillbell. You have overlooked very many important mountains, but I have enumerated the most prominent as seen from the Old Man. Rather nearer than Hillbell is Wansfell, at the foot of which you may perceive Ambleside, and a little lower, a considerable portion of Windermere, with numerous seats upon its banks, Wray Castle the most conspicuous; and nearer and more to the right, the vale and lake of Esthwaite, with the pretty village of Sawrey (which Wilson calls “scarcely a village indeed, but rocks, glades, and coppices bedropt with dwellings!”) smiling in the sun, at its south-eastern extremity. A little farther to the right, another portion of the “river lake” is visible, and beyond that a remarkable succession of elevated ridgy moorlands stretches across the view, until it is stopped by a portion of that chain of hills called the “Backbone of England.” You remark that, if yonder ridge be in reality a portion of England’s backbone, she must have been a ricketty child, for there are inequalities upon it such as no healthy spine would exhibit.

A WIDE SWEEP.

More to the right, the view becomes more extended, for it embraces much of that part of Lancashire lying to the west and south of the county town, watered by the Ribble and the Wyre, and at the western extremity of which you can distinctly see the town and port of Fleetwood. Stretching far in-land from it, you have all the majestic Bay of Morecambe, looking so beautiful with its numerous rivers meandering along its level sands, that you fancy it would be almost a sin to carry into execution the project of embanking it. Following along its shores, your eyes come to the town and castle of “John O'Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster;” then the wooded promontory of Cartmel, jutting into the bay, and, on its north-western side, the fertile and undulating district of Low Furness, with the Isle of Walney stretched along its seaward side like a natural breakwater. Then you look upon the miles of smooth, flat sand, over which the Duddon is

“Gliding in silence with unfettered sweep.”

Directly over that, and across the sea, are to be seen very plainly some of the hills of Wales, Snowdon, I believe, amongst the rest; and you have under your eye the whole of that portion of the Irish sea stretching from Wales to the Isle of Man, and thence to the Mull of Galloway and Burrow Head, and, again, a considerable portion of the Solway Frith. I am told that in “certain conditions of the atmosphere,” the high hill in Ireland, called Slieve Donard, where O'Neale entertained Rokeby and Mortham, and

“Gave them each sylvan joy to know,

Slieve Donard’s cliffs and woods could shew”—

is to be seen between the Scottish headlands and the Isle of Man. If it be so, and there is no good reason to doubt it, it seems that, from the Old Man, the eye can at one sweep behold all the divisions of the Kingdom, as well as “the Kingdom of Man.”

A FACT FOR NATURALISTS.

You may now take a look at the objects nearer home, and perhaps the most striking is the tarn, occupying a concavity in the eastern side of the Old Man, and called, on the principle of lucus a non lucendo, Low-wat-hung by a tremendous precipitous range called Buckbarrow Crags, which, like Dow Crags, is a favourite place of refuge with foxes; and upon its ledges sheep frequently get “crag-fast,” from which predicament they have to be rescued by an adventurous shepherd lowered over the beetling precipice by a rope, the animal, aware of its peril, allowing itself to be slung in the rope and drawn up. Low-water is remarkable for trouts of large dimensions, and once, like the tarn sung by the poet, had one of enormous size supposed to be immortal. It was frequently seen by the men working in the slate quarry above, and it was not unfrequently hooked, but no tackle was strong enough to land such a monster. So much for its strength: but, alack for its immortality,—it was found one morning dead upon the shore. I am too tenacious of my character for veracity to tell you its weight and size; but, according to my informant, nature, compassionating its great age and its high stormy location, had furnished it with a covering of hair, a fact unparalleled, as I think, in the annals of ichthyology.

Directly under Low-water, you have a bird's-eye view of the works belonging to the Mines, which, with the roads intersecting the hills about them, have a rather odd appearance. Beyond these, Weatherlam rears his massive cone to nearly an equal height with you.

TWO DEATHS.

Down to the right, you have a delicious view of the vale of Monk and Church Conistone, in early autumn most beautifully chequered with fields of ripe and ripening grain. But I have already dilated usque ad nauseam (sufficiently to sicken a dog) upon the beauties of that same valley, so let it rest, and commence your descent, taking a path to the southward of Low-water, through amongst the slate-quarries, which, for many years deserted, are again in active operation. One of these, called Saddle Stone quarry, was the scene, some years ago, of two melancholy deaths,—one of them mysterious, the other singular. On a Monday morning, the labourers discovered a man’s hat floating in some water in a hole a good way into the working, and, on a search being instituted, they soon after found the body of a Mr Dixon, a respectable and intelligent native of the dale. It was supposed that he had sauntered into the level, and, whilst directing his attention to the air-shaft above, had walked into the water.

The other was one of the labourers, named Gould, who, with his fellow-workmen, had sat down to rest, or dine, somewhere under the said shaft. He was leaning back, when a stone, scarcely larger than a good walnut, fell from the shaft, and striking him upon the forehead, killed him on the spot. Passing this ill-omened hole, you follow the steep path downwards, and pass considerably to your left the “Pudding Stone,” the largest boulder stone I have seen, excepting that near Keswick. It is higher than it is long or broad, and rests upon a ridge, where it is puzzling to conceive how it could have stayed by chance. You also pass on the left, but nearer to you, two singularly rugged hillocks called High and Low Crawberry, with Crawberry Hause between. On the right is the Bell, a precipitous rocky hill, where ravens, and buzzards, or gleads, take up their abode; and descending still through an extensive rocky pasture, rejoicing in the euphonious title of the Scrow, formerly covered with wood, as is evidenced by the traces of the charcoal pits yet visible, you reach a wooden bridge, and cross it into the Mines road, with which you are already so well acquainted, that it is scarcely incumbent upon me to rave any further at this present speaking.

CHOICE OF ROUTES.

I would by no means bind you to ascend or descend the Old Man by the routes I have described. I merely recommend them as offering most objects likely to amuse, and as being considered the easiest for pedestrian adventurers. But, by taking the road to the slate quarries, you may ride a steady pony to within a quarter of a mile of the summit,—or by following the Walna Scar road for a mile or two, and taking the path by Gaits Water, you may, with one or two short intervals of leading, ride to the very top; the road, however, is some miles longer, seeing that you must circumvent the Old Man before you attain your object by this route, and you will find it no trifling task to get round him.

PROPER SELF-APPRECIATION.

During this and the preceding ramble, it might, perhaps, be expected of me to say something upon geology. The only excuse I have to offer for this serious omission—whether sufficient or otherwise—is, that I know nothing about it. I can, however, do the next best thing to lecturing on the subject myself, and that is recommend you to peruse the letters of Professor Sedgwick to Mr Wordsworth on the Geology of the Lake District, which you will find in a handsome and well got up guide-book, published by Mr Hudson, of Kendal, or the chapters on the same subject by Professor Phillips, contained in another guide-book, of which Adam and Charles Black, of Edinburgh, are the publishers, either or both of which are amply sufficient, if well studied, to enable you to talk geology in any society very respectably. I am a very superficial observer myself, and only pretend to point out what is amusing, leaving the instructive to abler hands and wiser heads.

CHAPTER X.
THE CIRCUIT OF THE LAKE.

The Village and Church again—The Deer Park—High Ground, Little Arrow, and Hawthwaite—Torver—Hem Hall—Torver Mill—Sunny Bank—Oxness—Brown How—Water-yeat—Arklid—Nibthwaite—Waterpark—The Lake Foot—“The Gridiron,” and Fir Island—Brantwood—Conistone Bank—Bank Ground—T’ Ho'penny Yall 'us—Tent Lodge.

I intend now to treat you to a fourteen miles’ ride, namely, down the western side of the Lake and up the eastern, to accomplish which it is necessary again to pass through the village by Yewdale Bridge, the Crown Inn and the Church. When I last mentioned the Church to you, I think I alluded to “an old oak chest,” with a very oddly constructed padlock, in which chest is deposited a mass of ancient documents connected with the ecclesiastical business of the chapelry. Since then, through the polite attention of my urbane and erudite friend, the parish clerk, I have had an opportunity of rummaging at will through these parochial archives, but the only papers possessing the least interest were a number of slips, each recording the oaths of two people—always females by the bye—as to the costume in which defunct persons were carried to their long home. As these afford a striking and instructive instance of the wisdom of our ancestors, and refer to an act of Parliament, of the existence of which, at any period of our national annals, perhaps you were not cognizant, any more than I was myself, I have taken the liberty of transcribing one of the most legible; and here it is:—

AN OLD MONOPOLY.

Parociall Chappell de Coniston.

We Elizabeth Grigg widdow and Agnes Fleming widow—doe severally make oath that ye corps of Elizabeth wife of George Towers was buryed April ye 3d day Anno Dmi 1688 And was not put in wrapt or wound up in any shirt shift sheet or shroud made or mingled with Flax Hemp Hair Gold or Silver &c; nor in any coffin lined or faced with Cloath &c; nor now other material but sheeps wooll only According to Act of Parliamt. In Testemony whereof we ye sd. Eliz Grigg and Agnes Fleming have hereunto set our hands and seals

Capt. et. Jurat Septimo die	Elizabeth Grigg
Aprilis Anno Dmie 1688	Her X mark
Coram me	Agnes Fleming
Rogero Atkinsonne	Her X mark

Capt. et. Jurat Septimo die	Elizabeth Grigg
Aprilis Anno Dmie 1688	Her X mark
Coram me	Agnes Fleming
Rogero Atkinsonne	Her X mark

You cross the Church Bridge, and, riding down the village in the same direction as before, leave it at Parkgate, where the road enters the old deer park, still pretty well covered with coppice wood, oaks and other trees from the Lake side, about half a mile to your left to the top of Bleathwaite, the same distance to your right. Looking back from the little height beyond Parkgate, you have a delicious view of the scenery around the upper part of the Lake, and it is, perhaps, as well that the wooded park soon screens this view from your admiring retrospection, or it is possible that your progress southward might be seriously retarded by your “longing, lingering looks behind.”

PEOPLE AND STEEPLE-(HOUSE.)

After emerging from the forest-fringed road through the park, you soon pass the pleasant residence called High Ground, and the picturesque homestead of Little Arrow, and leaving the beautiful farm of Hawthwaite considerably to the left, you shortly enter the ancient and primitive chapelry of Torver, where—

“Provided you've got a strong taste for rusticity,

And Wordsworth has not made you sick of simplicity”—

you may have your taste gratified, for there are few places now in England, where old-fashioned and unsophisticated habits and manners prevail more decidedly than in Torver. There is no account of any family of rank ever being resident in Torver, and nearly all the land is still possessed by the descendants of the men whom Sir Walter Scott apostrophizes as

“——Those gallant yeomen,

England’s peculiar and appropriate sons,

Known in no other land. Each boasts his hearth

And field as free as the best lord his barony,

Owing subjection to no human vassalage,

Save to their King and law. Hence are they resolute,

Leading the van on every day of battle,

As men who know the blessings they defend.

Hence are they frank and generous in peace,

As men who have their portion in its plenty;

No other kingdom shows such worth and happiness

Veiled in such low estate.”

A very neat and appropriate chapel has just been erected in Torver, after a design furnished gratuitously by Mr M. Thompson, an architect resident, I believe, in Kendal. The old chapel, removed in 1848, was an object of interest from the fact of its having been consecrated by Archbishop Cranmer, and said to have been the first church erected in England for the exercise of the Protestant form of worship.

Close to the chapel stands the snug and tidy public-house, known pretty widely by the title of Torver Kirk-house, and if you happen to be a-thirst, I can honestly recommend Thomas Massicks’ home-brewed ale. In fulfilment of a trite rhyming proverb, these houses of entertainment, adjoining houses of prayer, are very abundant in our rural parishes, and are so extensively patronized both by wayfarers and neighbours, that Mr Wordsworth, when he says

“The Kirk of Ulpha to the pilgrim’s eye

Is welcome as a star, that doth present

Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent

Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:”

&c. &c., would have given us a truth of much more general application, had he said—

Old Ulpha Kirk-house to the pilgrim’s eye

Is welcome as the sun that doth present

His blowzy visage through some hopeful rent

In clouds, whose rain has left not one stitch dry.

HILL, MILL AND PILL-(BOXES.)

After noticing the many old, but comfortable and substantial dwellings with which the remarkably verdant fields of Torver (which flow with milk and honey) are “bedropt,” you must take the road which the guide-post tells you leads to Ulverston—if you can’t read, ask at the blacksmith’s shop—and when you reach the eminence on which stands the old farm-house called Hem, or Hen Hall, turn round and take a good look at the Old Man, who is certainly seen to the greatest advantage from this point of view. In looking at him on any other side, his connection with the chain of hills behind him detracts much from the dignity of his aspect; but from this side, and especially from this precise spot, he appears to stand forth, independent and self-reliant, the advanced guard of an army of Titans.

At Hem Hall, you may leave the high road for about a hundred yards, taking a narrow steep lane straight before you, to look at Torver Mill,—and a splendid fall the “Blackbeck of Torver” makes a little above the mill,—returning to the highway at Beckstones, and descending rapidly till you cross the beck near to the exceedingly well-named farm of Sunny-bank, and the Bobbin Mill. By the bye, if you would like to see how very rapidly they can make bobbins or reels for holding cotton thread, and boxes for holding Professor Holloway’s pills and ointment, by the use of which you may escape the penalty entailed upon us all by old father Adam, you should ask leave to inspect the operations in this bobbin mill, and I have no doubt that my good friend, Mr Kendal, will be happy to do the honours to any pretty-behaved young gentleman like yourself.

THE LAKE-FOOT.

You pass Sunny-bank, its pretty farm, its bridge and bobbin mill, and return to the lake-side below the mouth of Torver beck, and opposite to “the Gridiron,” and ride on through the farm-yard of Oxness, past Brown How, near to which a very handsome mansion has just been built upon a singularly beautiful site by the lake side. The scenery here is very picturesque, consisting, as it does, of successive but irregular precipitous ranges of grey rock—in some parts bare, and in others clad with a heavy drapery of glittering ivy—separated by intervals of purple heather, or green brackens and greener pasturage.

You are now near the water-foot, and just before you reach the hamlet of Water-yeat, stop on a little eminence and enjoy a view, one glimpse of which, I have been told, would be ample compensation for a journey from Timbuctoo. The whole length of the lake lies spread out before you, from the Copper sheds at Nibthwaite to the Inn at Waterhead, which last, though at six miles’ distance, is very distinctly seen—beautifully backed up by the slopes and woods of Mr Marshall’s noble park; these again over-topped by the distant, finely-outlined range of mountains beyond Rydal and Grasmere.

At Water-yeat, you take a road leading across the valley and over the river Crake, to a large old farm-house called Arklid, when you again turn your nose towards Conistone, passing through the venerable village of Nibthwaite, and by the richly-wooded grounds of Waterpark, the road sometimes approaching the lake side, and sometimes diverging from it.

WILSON AND WORDSWORTH.

The lower part of Conistone Water is said to be tame, and many of its most faithful admirers do not attempt to contradict what has almost assumed the aspect of an admitted fact. But you now see that it is anything but tame, and if you cannot accept the evidence of your own optics, or if you doubt the infallibility of your own taste, you will, perhaps, feel more confidence in your perception of the beautiful, when I tell you what Professor Wilson says anent the foot of this lake. You will please to observe, too, that, as I have already said, the Professor’s taste is somewhat warped by his devotion to his own magnificent Windermere, and that he has, on other occasions, written somewhat slightingly of Conistone Water. Hear what he says now:—“Pull away to the foot of the lake, if you choose, and you will be well repaid for your labour by the pretty promontories and bashful bays they conceal, and merry meadows lying in ambush, and “corn riggs sae bonny” trespassing upon the coppice woods that, year after year, yield up their lingering roots to the ploughshare, and grey, white, blue, green, and brown cottages of every shape and size, and pastoral eminences of old lea crowned with a few pine trees, or with an oak, itself a grove.” There, after that, I hope you will never allow Conistone Water-foot to be twitted with tameness again, without running at least one tilt in its defence.

Mr Wordsworth says that the lakes in general should be approached by this road, and as he says it well, and, like the true worshipper of Nature that he undoubtedly is, I feel constrained to quote him:—“The stranger, from the moment he sets his foot upon these (Lancaster) sands, seems to leave the turmoil and traffic of the world behind him; and, crossing the majestic plain when the sea has retired, he beholds, rising apparently from its base, the cluster of mountains among which he is going to wander; and towards whose recesses, by the vale of Conistone, he is gradually and peacefully led.”

As you pursue your pleasant road along the lake, now rising and descending over a gentle hillock, and again running along the level lake shore, the Conistone fells become grander and grander, as you bring them nearer, the Old Man still towering over his compeers, the Patriarch of his tribe, and seeming what the Professor happily says “he certainly is, with his firm foot and sunny brow,

‘The king o’ guid fellows and wale o’ auld men.'”

“WORDSWORTH’S SEAT.”

Again, passing “the Gridiron” and then Fir Island close to this side of the lake, the road runs between the lake and the most attractively placed villa of Brantwood, in the charming grounds of which is a seat called “Wordsworth's seat,” because that great poet is in the habit of recommending it to his friends as the point whence he thinks the beauties of Conistone are beheld to the most advantage: and certainly the landscape from the said seat is truly exquisite, if such a young-lady-like term can with propriety be applied to a view, where none may say whether the grand or the beautiful predominates. The sparkling waters of the lake in the foreground,—beyond it the fertile plain and green acclivity, sheltered and shaded by an abundance of scattered and congregated trees and by giant hedge-rows, and dotted and diversified by innumerable white, grey, and black houses, peeping here and there from their embowering foliage, or smiling over the brilliant verdure of the fields,—the picture being filled up in the background by that most magnificent of all mountain ranges, comprising Walna Scar, the Old Man, Brim Fell, High Carr, Oukrigg, Weatherlam, Henn Crag, Yewdale Crag and Raven Crag, with their countless waterfalls shining, here like patches, and there like zig-zag lines of snow, forming altogether a coup d'œil rarely to be equalled—never surpassed.

A HOME OF GENIUS.

Leaving this highly favoured spot, you proceed past the gate of Conistone Bank and Black-beck Cottage, nestling prettily in the overhanging wood, with which the road is thickly fringed, sometimes on one side, but more frequently on both, and wherever the western side is left open, you have the view respecting which Miss Martineau says,—“And there he (the traveller) will assuredly pause, and hope that he may never forget what he now sees. He has probably never beheld a scene which conveyed a stronger impression of joyful charm; of fertility, prosperity, comfort, nestling in the bosom of the rarest beauty.

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The traveller feasts his eye with the scattered dwellings under their sheltering woods,—the cheerful town, the rich slopes, and the dark gorge and summits of Yewdale behind; while the broad water lies as still as heaven between shore and shore.”

After pausing, as Miss Martineau says you assuredly will, for a reasonable space, pray move on, passing, down to your left, the two pretty farms of Bank-ground, one of which is in the course of conversion into an ornamental cottage residence, by a lady whose ancestors have possessed it for centuries. Then passing the large new house built upon the site of the old cottage which used to rejoice in a name suggestive of the low-priced jollifications of ancient times, namely the Halfpenny Ale-house, or, more correctly, t'Ho'penny Yall'us, you descend by Howhead, and soon run to cover under the umbrageous groves of Tent Lodge, decidedly the most interesting of all the seats around Conistone Lake, having, for many years, been the residence of a family, widely celebrated on account of the wonderful talents and acquirements of one of its female members—the learned, elegant, estimable, and accomplished Elizabeth Smith. I might myself from my own knowledge of that lady’s history and character, picked up in this locality, which she, for years, honoured and adorned with her residence, and which was the scene of her early death, give a sketch of her story. But this has been done already by much abler hands, amongst others by Mr De Quincey in Tait’s Magazine, and of his excellent paper on Miss Smith, I propose to offer such an epitome as, with due regard for time and space, will enable you to form some notion of her extraordinary character and attainments.

DE QUINCEY LOQUITUR.

The narcotic-loving philosopher commences thus:—“On a little verdant knoll, near the north-eastern margin of the lake, stands a small villa, called Tent Lodge, built by Colonel Smith, and for many years occupied by his family. That daughter of Colonel Smith who drew the public attention so powerfully upon herself by the splendour of her attainments, had died some months before I came into the country. But yet, as I was subsequently acquainted with her family through the Lloyds (who were within on easy drive of Tent Lodge), and as, moreover, with regard to Miss Elizabeth Smith herself, I came to know more than the world knew—drawing my knowledge from many of her friends, but especially from Mrs Hannah More, who had been intimately connected with her, for these reasons, I shall rehearse the leading points of her story; and the rather because her family, who were equally interested in that story, long continued to form part of the lake society. On my first becoming acquainted with Miss Smith’s pretensions, it is true that I regarded them with but little concern, for nothing ever interests me less than great philological attainments, or, at least, that mode of philological learning which consists in mastery over languages. But one reason for this indifference is, that the apparent splendour is too often a false one. They who know a vast number of languages, rarely know any one with accuracy; and the more they gain in one way, the more they lose in another. With Miss Smith, however, I gradually came to know that this was not the case, or, at any rate, but partially the case; for of some languages which she possessed, and those the least accessible, it appeared finally that she had even a critical A FEMALE’S LORE. knowledge. It created also a secondary interest in these difficult accomplishments of hers to find that they were so very extensive. Secondly, that they were nearly all of self-acquisition. Thirdly, that they were borne so meekly, and with unaffected absence of all ostentation. As to the first point, it appears that she made herself mistress of the French, the Italian, the Spanish, the Latin, the German, the Greek, and the Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable knowledge of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Persic. She was a good geometrician and algebraist. She was a very expert musician. She drew from nature, and had an accurate knowledge of perspective. Finally, she manifested an early talent for poetry; but, from pure modesty, destroyed most of what she had written, as her acquaintance with the Hebrew models had elevated the standard of true poetry in her mind, so as to disgust her with what she now viewed as the tameness and inefficiency of her own performances. As to the second point—that for these attainments she was indebted almost exclusively to her own energy, this is placed beyond all doubt, by the fact, that the only governess she ever had (a young lady not much beyond her own age) did not herself possess, and therefore could not have communicated any knowledge of languages, beyond a little French and Italian. Finally, as to the modesty with which she wore her distinctions, that is sufficiently established by every page of her printed works, and her letters. Greater diffidence as respected herself, or less willingness to obtrude her knowledge upon strangers, or even upon those correspondents who would have wished her to make a little more display, cannot be imagined. And yet I repeat that her knowledge was as sound and as profound as it was extensive. For, taking only one instance of this, her translation of Job has been pronounced by Biblical critics of the first rank, a work of real and intrinsic value, without any reference to the disadvantages of the translation, or without needing any allowance whatever. In particular, Dr Magee, the celebrated writer on the Atonement, and subsequently a dignitary of the Irish Church—certainly one of the best qualified judges at that time—describes it as 'conveying more of the character and meaning of the Hebrew, with fewer departures from the idiom of the English, than any other translation whatever that we possess.'”

MISS SMITH’S STORY.

Mr De Quincey next proceeds to “briefly sketch her story”—mentioning her birth at Burnhall, in the county of Durham, in 1776—the engagement of her governess—the acquisition of, and removal of the family to “the splendid inheritance of Piercefield, a show place on the banks of the Wye”—their numerous visitors there, and the influence of two of them (Mrs Bowdler and her daughter) in exciting in Miss Smith her ardent and enduring love of learning and piety—the ruin that, in her 16th year, fell upon “the house of Piercefield. The whole estate, a splendid one, was swept away by the failure of one banking house;” the greatest loss to Miss Smith being the library, which followed the general wreck—“not a volume, not a pamphlet was reserved; for the family were proud in their integrity, and would receive no favours from the creditors.” Then the residence of the family in many different parts of the kingdom under their sadly altered circumstances, and the comfort they derived from their daughter, who, “young as she was, became the moral support of the whole family, and the fountain from which they all drew consolation and fortitude;”—their settlement in Patterdale, and then finally at Conistone, in the cottage close behind Tent Lodge—for the villa was built, after Miss Smith’s death, on the spot where the tent stood in which, during her long illness, she was wont to enjoy the breezes from the lake, and the glorious PRAISE WORTH HAVING. scenery around it—the manner in which her fatal illness was contracted—its progress—her death in 1806, at the lamentably early age of 29—and several anecdotes illustrating the extraordinary and various perfections of Miss Smith’s character, are all detailed by Mr De Quincey at great length, with great elegance of diction and great force of expression, as this last extract will serve to exemplify:—“She was buried in Hawkshead Church-yard, where a small tablet of white marble is raised to her memory, on which there is the scantiest record that, for a person so eminently accomplished, I ever met with. After mentioning her birth and age (twenty-nine), it closes thus:—‘She possessed great talents, exalted virtues, and humble piety.’ Anything so unsatisfactory or so common-place, I have rarely known. As much or more is often said of the most insipid people; whereas Miss Smith was really a most extraordinary person. I have conversed with Mrs Hannah More often about her; and I never failed to draw forth some fresh anecdote illustrating the vast extent of her knowledge, the simplicity of her character, the gentleness of her manners, and her unaffected humility. She passed, it is true, almost inaudibly through life; and the stir which was made after her death, soon subsided. But the reason was, that she wrote but little! Had it been possible for the world to measure her by her powers, rather than by her performances, she would have been placed, perhaps, in the estimate of posterity, at the head of learned women; whilst her sweet and feminine character would have rescued her from all shadow and suspicion of that reproach which too often settles upon the learned character, when supported by female aspirants.”

HEREDITARY LACK OF TASTE.

This you will admit to be no ordinary measure of praise; and when you reflect that it is meted out by one of the greatest and most philosophic scholars of this or any other age—one whose acquaintance with literature (and literateurs), ancient and modern, is inferior to that of no other writer whatever, you will pardon me for lingering so long at Tent Lodge, and for taking such extensive liberties with the English Opium Eater’s charming papers on the “Society of the Lakes,” and, at the risk of greatly overstepping my usual limits, I must make one further quotation:—“The family of Tent Lodge continued to reside at Conistone for many years; and they were connected with the Lake literary clan chiefly through the Lloyds, and those who visited the Lloyds; for it is another and striking proof of the slight hold which Wordsworth, &c., had upon the public esteem in those days, that even Miss Smith, with all her excessive diffidence in judging of books and authors, never seems, in any one of her letters, to have felt the slightest interest about Wordsworth or Coleridge.” It is possible that Miss Smith’s indifference about Wordsworth was, like the rash humour of Cassius, something that her mother gave her, for it may be admitted to be a defect in the otherwise powerful understanding of that venerable lady—whose memory is cherished in Conistone with undiminishing respect and affection—that, to the close of her long life, she always appeared to regard our greatest of living bards with something more like contempt than anything else. Indeed I have seen a copy of verses written by her, parodizing one of his poems, perhaps the most beautiful and pathetic he has produced. If my memory does not betray me, the parody commenced somewhat in this way:—

“He dwelt by the untrodden ways,

Near Rydal’s grassy mead,

A Bard whom there were none to praise,

And very few to read.”

The imitation, you observe, is sufficiently close to the original.

AN ILLUSTRIOUS NAME.

I believe the only surviving member of Mrs Smith's once numerous family, is one of her sons, now Sir Chas. Smith, who has pitched his tent far from Tent Lodge. After Mrs Smith’s death, the villa was purchased by Mr Jas. G. Marshall, and, it is understood, is about to become the residence of a gentleman whose family name is not unknown in modern literature, nor yet in old romance.

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Note.—I ought, in this tenth division of my discourse, to have remembered my promise relative to the floating island. I make the best reparation I can by telling you now, that the last time I saw the said island, it was stranded amongst the reeds between the Copper Quay at Nibthwaite and the outlet of the lake, and when I looked for it again, it had left that berth, and gone I knew not whither; but on enquiring after it at the Commodore of the Copper fleet, I was informed that the erratic object of my solicitude is now occupying a berth in juxta-position to Mr Harrison’s quay, below Waterpark, where it may be inspected. Ben’s memory is failing, or he would have told me the number of trees upon it, having counted them one day whilst on duty in its vicinity. However, it may suffice to inform you that it is a piece of earth about twenty yards square, well covered with herbage and young birches of decent growth. Altogether, were it not for its unfortunate preference of short to long voyages, it would be a highly important addition to the attractions of Conistone Water, and decidedly the best specimen of its genus in the kingdom.