'Well, well, he was ter'ble fond of going along under Loughrigg and ower by t' Redbank, but he was niver nowt of a mountaineer, allus kep' aboot t' roads.'
This was a bit of news I had not expected, but we will bear it in mind, and test its truth in future conversations with the poet's peasant contemporaries.
Our next talk shall be with one of the most well-informed of the Westmoreland builders, and I am indebted to Wordsworth's love of skating for an introduction to him. For making inquiries as to this pastime of the poet, I had chanced to hear how that Wordsworth had gone on one occasion to figure a bit by himself upon the White Moss Tarn. How that a predecessor of my friend the builder who lived near White Moss Tarn had sent a boy to sweep the snow from the ice for him, and how that when the boy returned from his labour he had asked him, 'Well, did Mr. Wudsworth gie ye owt?' and how that the boy with a grin of content from ear to ear had rejoined, 'Nay, bit I seed him tummle, tho'!'
I determined to seek out the builder and have the story first-hand, and was well repaid; for I heard something of the poet's gentle ways that was better than the grotesquely humorous answer of the boy who saw him fall.
The poet's skate had caught on a stone when he was in full swing, and he came with a crash on to the ice that starred the tarn and the lad, who had thought 'the tummle' a fair exchange for no pay, had been impressed with the quiet way in which Wordsworth had borne his fall. 'He didn't swear nor say nowt, but he just sot up and said, 'Eh boy, that was a bad fall, wasn't it?' And now we are walking along briskly towards Grisedale, with the recounter of the story: 'Kna Wudsworth! I kent him weel,—why, he larnt me and William Brown to skate. He was a ter'ble girt skater, was Wudsworth now; and he would put ya hand i' his breast (he wore a frill shirt i' them daays), and t'other hand i' his waistband, same as shepherds dea to keep their hands warm, and he would stand up straight and swaay and swing away grandly.'
'Was he fond of any other pastime?' I asked.
'Naay, naay, he was ower feckless i' his hands. I nivver seed him at t' feasts, or wrestling, he hadn't owt of Christopher Wilson in him. Nivver was on wheels in his life, and wad rayther ha' been a tailor upon horseback happen, but he was a gey good un on t' ice, wonderful to see, could cut his neame upon it, I've hard tell, but nivver seed him do it.'
So that the rapture of the time when as a boy on Esthwaite's frozen lake Wordsworth had
Wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untired horse
That cares not for his home, and shod with steel,
Had hissed along the polished ice,
was continued into manhood's later day; and here was proof that the skill which the poet had gained, when