COCKLEY BRIG.
ETYMOLOGY AND ZOOLOGY.
Push on, and, as you round the elbow of the hill, you are farther cheered by the nearer prospect of another domicile on the Lancashire side of the brook; that is the residence of Mr Daniel Tyson, the worthy proprietor and occupant of Cockley Beck, the name of the house and farm being derived from the stream that rushes along its north-western boundary, and said to signify “a winding or rugged stream;” others say its name is derived from the former condition or character of the bridge here which used to be “Cocklety,” a term implying “a daring contempt of danger and accommodation” on the part of its architect; others, again, say that the name of the brook ought to be Cockling or Cackling Beck, because the noise it occasionally makes in its stoney bed may, by the aid of a leetle imagination, be likened to that by which a hen announces to all concerned that she has just got safely quit of an egg.
The vale of Seathwaite now assumes a more attractive aspect; your pleasantest road lies through the farm-yard of Cockley Beck, and that hearty-looking elderly man, the uniform cherry-colour of whose honest phiz bespeaks exposure to many a biting mountain blast, is Daniel Tyson himself. If you are disposed to rest and chat awhile, you may lead him, nothing loath, into conversation, and if you do so, I fancy that some of his communications will surprise, if they don’t interest you; for instance, in allusion to some skins you may notice hung up to dry, he will inform you that the weasels about Cockley Beck have a fashion, on the advent of winter, of CONJECTURES.changing their colour from brown to white, resuming their more sombre coloured coats on the return of spring; a fact in local zoology of which I incline to imagine you have not hitherto been cognisant. He will also tell you, should anything suggest the subject, that, in one of his pastures, a little up the beck, there existed, till within the last few years, a number of graves arranged in rows, but which now, either from the sinking of the soil, or the growth of the surrounding moss, &c., have become level with the adjacent surface, and all distinct traces of them obliterated. What rather adds to the interest excited by these mysterious tombs is, that there is no history, authentic, traditional, or legendary, to account for their existence—thus affording a capital field for those imaginative geniuses who love to speculate upon such mysteries or to frame what maybe awanting for their satisfactory development. With me the favourite probability in this instance is, that a skirmish, tolerably fatal, has been fought in this sequestered nook during the progress of some of the horrible wars that, from time to time, have saddened our merry land, and that the slain have been buried here where they fell; but, whether the supposed skirmish was fought between the factions of York and Lancaster about the time poor King Henry sought and found, for a season, a house of refuge in this vicinity; or between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, when the Flemings of Conistone stood out for Church and King; or between the Dalesmen themselves and a stray party of Moss-trooping Scots, who, “in the old riding times,” occasionally pushed their predatory incursions even into these poor valleys, neither Mr Tyson nor I will inform you, for, as I said before, history, authentic and apocryphal, is silent on the subject, Daniel is a man of verity, and I am but a lame hand at invention; therefore you need not hope for even a fabricated story (which, after all, would be better than none), in connection with this now effaced souvenir of the good old times.
THE STEPPING STONES.
A SUBJECT OF SONNETS.
But it is time you were taking leave of Cockley Beck, and as you are doing so, you may perceive at the foot of the heights to your left a number of rubbish heaps, the result of a mining speculation set a going and kept up by some spirited and very persevering gentlemen chiefly resident in Ulverstone. You now canter along a decent road through flat meadows where, if it be the season, the lads and lasses of the dale are busily engaged in securing the hay-crop and carrying it home, probably on horseback, for the old farmers here have not as yet begun to use carts for that purpose. On this road, too, there are “oceans of gates” to open, the frequent recurrence of which becomes rather troublesome, should your pony not be all the steadier. You very soon arrive at another farm, called Dalehead; but, by the bye, just before you reach that, you had better turn off to the right by a track that soon brings you to the river side, and take a look at the stepping stones by which the Duddon is crossed at this point. When you have looked at them, you seem to wonder what it may be that should entitle them to be noticed more than any other stepping stones in the country. I'll tell you. Mr Wordsworth says they are—
“What might seem a zone