On leaving this enviable little residence, we pursued the steeps of the mountain behind it, and were soon amidst the flocks and the crags, whence the look-down, upon the lake and among the fells was solemn and surprising. About a quarter of a mile from the Parsonage, a torrent of some dignity rushed past us, foaming down a rocky chasm in its way to the lake. Every where, little streams of crystal clearness wandered silently among the moss and turf, which half concealed their progress, or dashed over the rocks; and, across the largest, sheep-bridges of flat stone were thrown, to prevent the flocks from being carried away in attempting to pass them in winter. The gray stones, that grew among the heath, were spotted with mosses of so fine a texture, that it was difficult to ascertain whether they were vegetable; their tints were a delicate pea-green and primrose, with a variety of colours, which it was not necessary to be a botanist to admire.
An hour, passed in ascending, brought us to the brow of Bampton vale, which sloped gently downward to the north, where it opened to lines of distant mountains, that extended far into the east. The woods of Lowther-park capped two remote hills, and spread luxuriantly down their sides into the valley; and nearer, Bampton-grange lay at the base of a mountain, crowned with fir plantations, over which, in a distant vale, we discovered the village of Shap and long ridges of the highland, passed on the preceding day.
One of the fells we had just crossed is called Blanarasa, at the summit of which two gray stones, each about four feet high, and placed upright, at the distance of nine feet from each other, remain of four, which are remembered to have been formerly there. The place is still called Four Stones; but tradition does not relate the design of the monument; whether to limit adjoining districts, or to commemorate a battle, or a hero.
We descended gradually into the vale, among thickets of rough oaks, on the bank of a rivulet, which foamed in a deep channel beneath their foliage, and came to a glade so sequestered and gloomily overshadowed, that one almost expected see the venerable arch of a ruin, peeping between the branches. It was the very spot, which the founder of a monastery might have chosen for his retirement, where the chantings of a choir might have mingled with the soothing murmur of the stream, and monks have glided beneath the solemn trees in garments scarcely distinguishable from the shades themselves.
This glade, sloping from the eye, opened under spreadings oaks to a remote glimpse of the vale, with blue hills in the distance; and on the grassy hillocks of the fore-ground cattle were every where reposing.
We returned, about sun-set, to Bampton, after a walk of little more than four miles, which had exhibited a great variety of scenery, beautiful, romantic and sublime. At the entrance of the village, the Lowther and a nameless rivulet, that runs from Hawswater, join their waters; both streams were now sunk in their beds; but in winter they sometimes contend for the conquest and ravage of the neighbouring plains. The waters have then risen to the height of five or six feet in a meadow forty yards from their summer channels. In an enclosure of this vale was fought the last battle, or skirmish, with the Scots in Westmoreland; and it is within the telling of the sons of great-grandfathers, that the contest continued, till the Scots were discovered to fire only pebbles; the villagers had then the folly to close with them and the success to drive them away; but such was the simplicity of the times, that it was called a victory to have made one prisoner. Stories of this sort are not yet entirely forgotten in the deeply inclosed vales of Westmoreland and Cumberland, where the greater part of the present inhabitants can refer to an ancestry of several centuries, on the same spot.
We thought Bampton, though a very ill-built village, an enviable spot; having a clergyman, as we heard, of exemplary manners, and, as one of us witnessed, of a most faithful earnestness in addressing his congregation in the church; being but slightly removed from one of the lakes, that accumulates in a small space many of the varieties and attractions of the others; and having the adjoining lands distributed, for the most part, into small farms, so that, as it is not thought low to be without wealth, the poor do not acquire the offensive and disreputable habits, by which they are too often tempted to revenge, or resist the ostentation of the rich.
[ULLSWATER.]
The ride from Bampton to Ullswater is very various and delightful. It winds for about three miles along the western heights of this green and open vale, among embowered lanes, that alternately admit and exclude the pastoral scenes below, and the fine landscapes on the opposite hills, formed by the plantations and antient woods of Lowther-park. These spread over a long tract, and mingle in sweet variety with the lively verdure of lawns and meadows, that slope into the valley, and sometimes appear in gleams among the dark thickets. The house, of white stone with red window-cases, embosomed among the woods, has nothing in its appearance answerable to the surrounding grounds. Its situation and that of the park are exquisitely happy, just where the vale of Bampton opens to that of Eden, and the long mountainous ridge and peak of Cross-fell, aspiring above them all, stretch before the eye; with the town of Penrith shelving along the side of a distant mountain, and its beacon on the summit; the ruins of its castle appearing distinctly at the same time, crowning a low round hill. The horizon to the north and the east is bounded by lines of mountains, range above range, not romantic and surprising, but multitudinous and vast. Of these, Cross-fell, said to be the highest mountain in Cumberland, gives its name to the whole northern ridge, which in its full extent, from the neighbourhood of Gillsland to that of Kirkby-Steven, is near fifty miles. This perspective of the extensive vale of Eden has grandeur and magnificence in as high a degree as that of Bampton has pastoral beauty, closing in the gloomy solitudes of Hawswater. The vale is finely wooded, and variegated with mansions, parks, meadow-land, corn, towns, villages, and all that make a distant landscape rich. Among the peculiarities of it, are little mountains of alpine shape, that start up like pyramids in the middle of the vale, some covered with wood, others barren and rocky. The scene perhaps only wants a river like the Rhine, or the Thames, to make it the very finest in England for union of grandeur, beauty and extent.