“The rock that meets the current’s way
May stillest rills arrest.”
BETTY YEWDALE.
His brother’s verses I have not seen, and having devoted more time to this subject than you may approve of, you had better now return to your inn—pay your moderate bill, and set out, passing the Elterwater powder works, and through the straggling village of that name—take a glance at the tarn with its reedy shores, and pushing on, you pass, unseen, far up on the height to your right hand, the farm houses called Hacket, formerly the residence of old Betty Yewdale, the heroine of one of the best passages in the “Excursion.” I allude to that in the fifth book, where the sage and eloquent wanderer describes his having been benighted amongst the hills—
——until a light
High in the gloom appeared, too high, methought,
For human habitation;——
But making for this light, he finds a matron
“Drawn from her cottage on that aëry height,
Bearing a lantern in her hand she stood,