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—