But you must take my word for all this, for you cannot “wind 'twixt rock and wave” on horseback, therefore keep the good road, whilst you have it. Cross Seathwaite Beck by Nettleslack Bridge, and push on for the little Inn at Newfield, to reach which you must pass between the Chapel and the Parsonage. Behind the latter, you may notice Seathwaite Beck, a tributary of the Duddon nearly as large as itself, which rushes impetuously and noisily along—
“Hurrying with lordly Duddon to unite;
Who, 'mid a world of images imprest
On the calm depth of his transparent breast,
Appears to cherish most that torrent white,
The fairest, softest, liveliest of them all!”
The “torrent white” looks exceedingly black and gloomy under the shadow of these dense overhanging branches, causing the numerous patches of snow-like foam to look “than snow more white” by the contrast.
CHAPEL, PARSONAGE, AND PUBLIC.
Of Seathwaite Chapel Miss Martineau says, “when the traveller reaches the Church, he finds it little loftier or larger than the houses near. But for the bell, he would hardly have noticed it for a Church in approaching: but when he has reached it, there is the porch, and the little grave-yard, and the spreading yews encircled by the seat of stones and turf, where the early comers sit and rest, till the bell calls them in. A little dial on a whitened post in the middle of the enclosure, tells the time to the neighbours who have no clocks.” Miss Martineau may undertake to supply all “the neighbours who have no clock” with that essential article of domestic respectability, for I can answer for it, there is no house in Seathwaite without one. “Just outside the wall,” Miss M. says, “is a white cottage, so humble that the stranger thinks it cannot be the parsonage: yet the climbing roses and glittering evergreens, and clear lattices, and pure uncracked walls, look as if it might be.”
I have a good deal to say in connection with this same Church and Parsonage, but I suppose it must be deferred, for after your long ride you must be somewhat athirst, and an unromantic feeling of emptiness most likely renders you insensible to the charms of scenery as well as sentiment. Your pony, who has been here before, has for sometime shewn an impatient consciousness of the proximity of Edward Stables’ corn-chest, and, in fair time of day, here you are at the door of his public, which, though of rather unpromising exterior, has the wherewithal inside to furnish forth a plain, but plentiful, savoury, and to a man, in your circumstances, satisfactory feed—