CASTLE DAIRY
There is, after all, singularly little pictorial quality in Kendal. The old town-house of the Bellinghams, in Stramongate, built in 1546, still exists, although the family is extinct; but it turns the commonplace front of an ironmonger’s shop to the street. Indeed, old Kendal is only to be pictured in that fine rugged building, the Castle Dairy, in Wildman Street. It is supposed to have been the dairy of the old castle, and still contains a few of the many ancient and curious relics found in old cupboards and secret places in its immensely thick walls, together with some fragments of stained glass bearing the arms of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby. But the curious genealogy of the Saxon kings, and the old illuminated Roman mass-book, have been removed to the Public Library.
XIX
Between Kendal and Penrith, a distance of twenty-six miles, is situated the bleakest and most trying stretch of country in all the distance from London and Glasgow. It is the district of that high-perched table-land, 1,400 feet above sea-level, dreaded by the old coachmen, and the passengers too, as “Shap Fell.” All the weather of Westmoreland is brewed amid the inhospitable altitudes of Stainmoor and Shap Fell, which are, in addition, afflicted with the local phenomenon known as the “Helm Wind.” This, perhaps fortunately for travellers, is not a winter’s gale, but a playful blast that characterises the days of May and June. When the tourist reads that it is strong enough to overturn horses and carriages, and that the noise of it may be heard twenty miles off, like thunder, or the roar of a cataract, he entertains serious thoughts of accomplishing this stage of his journey by rail. The Helm Wind derives its name from the “helm,” or cap, of light clouds that rests immovably for hours in the sky at the time of its blowing. It blows across the fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland, rushing down their steep sides and lashing the waters of the Lakes into furious waves and driven spray.
The ascent to this not very promising region begins by a gentle rise at Mint Bridge, one mile from Kendal. It continues, with increasingly steep gradients, but with two short intervals of down gradient, for nine and a half miles, when the summit is reached. Although Shap Fell has so ugly a name, the rise at no point exceeds 1 in 10. It is rather the long-continued character of the ascent to the exposed summit that makes the road remarkable.
COACHING INCIDENTS
The coaching accidents on this stage were remarkably few. The principal happening of this kind was when a country mail was upset at Kirbythore Bridge, on Hucks Brow, owing to the horses shying at a quite inoffensive water-wheel. The coach fell eight feet, and a horse was killed, but there the damage ended. A stalwart Yorkshire wool-stapler, who was riding outside, was flung off and made to perform a complete somersault, but he alighted safely on his feet, and just in time to catch, at “mid-off,” a parcel which shot with wondrous velocity out of a woman’s arms, and proved on inspection to be a baby. He said, dryly, when they congratulated him on his fielding, that “a stray baby isn’t generally a good catch for a man.”
It was only right and proper that on such a road as this amateur coachmen were few. It would, indeed, have sounded a higher note of propriety had there been none at all. With regard to the mails, the Post Office regulations, not only on this road, but on roads in general, strictly forbade coachmen allowing amateurs to drive, and expected the guards to interpose, to prevent anything of the kind. On one occasion, when young Teather, of Teather & Son, the mail-contractors, had taken the coachman’s place, and was about to drive his own horses, a half-indignant and half-terrified passenger seized the reins because the guard would not veto the arrangement. What would have happened to that guard for not fulfilling his instructions to the letter we do not know, for there happened to be a change of Government at the time, and when the guard somewhat impudently desired to know which of the two Postmasters-General—the in-coming or retiring—he was to address in his defence, the matter was allowed to drop.
One of the few privileged amateurs was Mr. James Parkin, who generally worked on Teather’s ground out of Penrith, towards Carlisle. He was one of those who would drive only the best of teams, and so gave up when the railways encroached and the horses on the shorter journeys became inferior. He was wont to say he did not care to be a “screw-driver.” He was a very steady but slow-going whip: too slow for the Mail, and lacked energy to make his horses slip along over the galloping ground, where really scientific coachmen always made up for lost time. The guard, in fact, was perpetually holding up his watch, admonishing him to “send ’em along.”