Leaving Lancaster, we wound along the southern brow of the vale of the Lune, which there serpentizes among meadows, and is soon after shut up between steep shrubby banks. From the heights we had some fine retrospects of Lancaster and the distant sea; but, about three miles from the town, the hills open forward to a view as much distinguished by the notice of Mr. Gray, as by its own charms. We here looked down over a woody and finely broken fore-ground upon the Lune and the vale of Lonsdale, undulating in richly cultivated slopes, with Ingleborough, for the back-ground, bearing its bold promontory on high, the very crown and paragon of the landscape. To the west, the vale winds from sight among smoother hills; and the gracefully falling line of a mountain, on the left, forms, with the wooded heights, on the right, a kind of frame for the distant picture.
The road now turned into the sweetly retired vale of Caton, and by the village church-yard, in which there is not a single gravestone, to Hornby, a small straggling town, delightfully seated near the entrance of the vale of Lonsdale. Its thin toppling castle is seen among wood, at a considerable distance, with a dark hill rising over it. What remains of the old edifice is a square grey building, with a slender watch-tower, rising in one corner, like a feather in a hat, which joins the modern mansion of white stone, and gives it a singular appearance, by seeming to start from the centre of its roof.
In front, a steep lawn descends between avenues of old wood, and the park extends along the skirts of the craggy hill, that towers above. At its foot, is a good stone bridge over the Wenning, now shrunk in its pebbly bed, and, further on, near the castle, the church, shewing a handsome octagonal tower, crowned with battlements. The road then becomes extremely interesting, and, at Melling, a village on a brow some miles further, the view opens over the whole vale of Lonsdale. The eye now passes, beneath the arching foliage of some trees in the fore-ground, to the sweeping valley, where meadows of the most vivid green and dark woods, with white cottages and villages peeping from among them, mingle with surprising richness, and undulate from either bank of the Lune to the feet of hills. Ingleborough, rising from elegantly swelling ground, overlooked this enchanting vale, on the right, clouds rolling along its broken top, like smoke from a cauldron, and its hoary tint forming a boundary to the soft verdure and rich woodlands of the slopes, at its feet. The perspective was terminated by the tall peeping heads of the Westmoreland fells, the nearer ones tinged with faintest purple, the more distant with light azure; and this is the general boundary to a scene, in the midst of which, enclosed between nearer and lower hills, lies the vale of Lonsdale, of a character mild, delicate and reposing, like the countenance of a Madona.
Descending Melling brow, and winding among the perpetually-changing scenery of the valley, we approached Ingleborough; and it was interesting to observe the lines of its bolder features gradually strengthening, and the shadowy markings of its minuter ones becoming more distinct, as we advanced. Rock and grey crags looked out from the heath, on every side; but its form on each was very different. Towards Lonsdale, the mountain is bold and majestic, rising in abrupt and broken precipices, and, often impending, till, at the summit, it suddenly becomes flat, and is level for nearly a mile, whence it descends, in along gradual ridge, to Craven in Yorkshire. In summer, some festivities are annually celebrated on this top, and the country people, as they "drink the freshness of the mountain breeze [1]," look over the wild moorlands of Yorkshire, the rich vales of Lancashire, and to the sublime mountains of Westmoreland.
Crossing a small bridge, we turned from Ingleborough, and passed very near the antient walls of Thirlham Castle, little of which is now remaining. The ruin is on a green broken knoll, one side of which is darkened with brush-wood and dwarf-oak. Cattle were reposing in the shade, on the bank of a rivulet, that rippled through what was formerly the castle ditch. A few old trees waved over what was once a tower, now covered with ivy.
Some miles further, we crossed the Leck, a shrunk and desolate stream, nearly choked with pebbles, winding in a deep rocky glen, where trees and shrubs marked the winter boundary of the waters. Our road, mounting a green eminence of the opposite bank, on which stands Overborough, the handsome modern mansion of Mr. Fenwick, wound between plantations and meadows, painted with yellow and purple flowers, like those of spring. As we passed through their gentle slopes, we had, now and then, sweet views between the foliage, on the left, into the vale of Lonsdale, now contracting in its course, and winding into ruder scenery. Among these catches, the best picture was, perhaps, where the white town of Kirby Lonsdale shelves along the opposite bank, having rough heathy hills immediately above it, and, below, a venerable Gothic bridge over the Lune, rising in tall arches, like an antient aqueduct; its grey tint agreeing well with the silvery lightness of the water and the green shades, that flourished from the steep margin over the abutments.
The view from this bridge, too, was beautiful. The river, foaming below among masses of dark rock, variegated with light tints of grey, as if touched by the painter's pencil, withdrew towards the south in a straight channel, with the woods of Overborough on the left. The vale, dilating, opened a long perspective to Ingleborough and many blue mountains more distant, with all the little villages we had passed, glittering on the intervening eminences. The colouring of some low hills, on the right, was particularly beautiful, long shades of wood being overtopped with brown heath, while, below, meadows of soft verdure fell gently towards the river bank.
Kirby Lonsdale, a neat little town, commanding the whole vale, is on the western steep. We staid two hours at it, gratified by witnessing, at the first inn we reached, the abundance of the country and the goodwill of the people. In times, when the prices of necessary articles are increasing with the taste for all unnecessary display, instances of cheapness may be to persons of small incomes something more than mere physical treasures; they have a moral value in contributing to independence of mind.
Here we had an early and, as it afterwards appeared, a very exaggerated specimen of the dialect of the country. A woman talked, for five minutes, against our window, of whose conversation we could understand scarcely a word. Soon after, a boy replied to a question, "I do na ken," and "gang" was presently the common word for go; symptoms of nearness to a country, which we did not approach, without delighting to enumerate the instances of genius and worth, that adorn it.
Leaving Kirby Lonsdale by the Kendal road, we mounted a steep hill, and, looking back from its summit upon the whole vale of Lonsdale, perceived ourselves to be in the mid-way between beauty and desolation, so enchanting was the retrospect and so wild and dreary the prospect. From the neighbourhood of Caton to Kirby the ride was superior, for elegant beauty, to any we had passed; this from Kirby to Kendal is of a character distinctly opposite. After losing sight of the vale, the road lies, for nearly the whole distance, over moors and perpetually succeeding hills, thinly covered with dark purple heath flowers, of which the most distant seemed black. The dreariness of the scene was increased by a heavy rain and by the slowness of our progress, jostling amongst coal carts, for ten miles of rugged ground. The views over the Westmoreland mountains were, however, not entirely obscured; their vast ridges were visible in the horizon to the north and west, line over line, frequently in five or six ranges. Sometimes the intersecting mountains opened to others beyond, that fell in deep and abrupt precipices, their profiles drawing towards a point below and seeming to sink in a bottomless abyss.