Or paced the ground—to guide her husband home.”
As you have read “The Excursion,” or, if not, intend to correct that sin of omission without further delay, I need not quote farther. But I should tell you that the same Betty Yewdale also figures as the heroine of a section of that strange book “The Doctor,” or rather, I should say, she is the narrator of the chapter, for it was taken down from her own lips, and in her own language, by “the Doctor's” daughter, Miss Southey, and a friend. It is called “A true story of the terrible knitters i’ Dent”—is by far the best specimen of our local dialect that I know, and in truth to nature, interest of narrative, and as a picture of manners, is infinitely superior to the only production at all resembling it—the well-known “Borrowdale letter.” I must recommend it to you as well worthy a careful perusal, giving you the following short extract as a whet. She and her sister, I must premise, had been sent from Langdale to Dent, when she was “between sebben an’ eight year auld, and Sally twea year younger,” and tiring of the mode of living and the incessant knitting at Dent, which are most graphically described, they ran away. She gives a minute detail of their three days’ journey, and continues:—“It was quite dark afore we gat to Ammelside yat—our feet warr sair, an’ we warr naarly dune for—an’ when we turnt round Windermer Watter heead t'waves blasht sea dowly that we warr fairly heart-brossen. We sat down on a cauld steean an’ grat sair—but when we hed hed our belly full o’ greeting, we gat up an’ dreed on agean—slaw enough, ye may be sure, but we warr i’ kent rwoads.——We began ta be flayet at my fadder an’ mudder wad be angert at us for running away. It was tweea o'clock in t’ mwornin’ when we gat to our awn duir. I ca’d out ‘Fadder, fadder! Mudder, mudder!’ ower an’ ower agean. She hard us, an’ sed ‘That’s our Betty voice!’ ‘Thou’s nowt but fancies, lig still,’ sed my fadder—but she waddent, an’ sea gat up an’ open’t duir, an’ thear warr we stannin’ dodderin’ an’ daized wi’ cauld, as nar deead as maks nea matter. When she so us she was warr flay’t than we,—she brast out a crying, an’ we grat, an’ my fadder grat an’ o', an’ they duddent flyte nor sed nowt tull us for running away.”
FORCE, FARMS, AND BIRCHES.
You soon arrive at Colwith, where you may stop to inspect the force. It is, in my opinion, one of the finest forces in the country, possessing by far the largest body of water, with a fall, or rather a succession of falls, of 152 feet, very much broken and frothed up by jutting interruptions of rock. Its immediate environs are prettily wooded, and it is seen to most advantage from below. When you cross Colwith Bridge, you are again in Lancashire, and in rather a dreary portion of that important county. You have no houses for miles, except the two farms of Arnside, which stand unseen in “dual loneliness” upon the wild moor to the left, and those of Oxenfell over the heights on your right.
As you descend towards Yewdale by the alder-fringed brook, you may notice a large enclosure of birches, which fully justify Mr Wordsworth’s preference; for it is difficult to name a deciduous tree that is prettier in all seasons than the birch, with its tremulous foliage in summer, and its flea-coloured twigs and its grey-coloured stem in winter. One cannot help regretting that the twigs of such a handsome tree should come to such base uses at last!
A “FLASH” AND ADIEU!
As you approach the head of Yewdale, the scenery gradually assumes an aspect of the most varied loveliness. When you enter the vale of Yewdale, take the steep road to the left over Tarn Hows; but Mr De Quincey is here a much better cicerone than I, and he says,—“Taking the left-hand road, so as to make for Monk Conistone, and not for Church Conistone, you ascend a pretty steep hill, from which, at a certain point of the little gorge, or hawse (i. e. hals, neck or throat, viz., the dip in any hill through which the road is led), the whole lake, of six miles in length, and the beautiful foregrounds, all rush upon the eye with the effect of a pantomimic surprize—not by a graduated revelation, but by an instantaneous flash.”
You descend by the road winding through Mr Marshall's beautiful grounds, until you reach the road from Ambleside. You are now very near your excellent head quarters, and my ravings and your ramblings are equally near a happy conclusion; so trusting you will drink your first bumper after dinner to our next merry meeting, I bid you, most affectionately, adieu.
FINIS.
