Not seldom from the uproar he retired,
Unto a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultous throng
To cut across the reflex of a star,
was of such a kind as to astonish the natives among whom he dwelt.
My friend had known Wordsworth well, and what was better, knew his poems too. 'Here is t' verra spot, you'll mappen hev read it i' t' beuk, where Wudsworth saw Barbara feeding her pet lamb. She tell't me hersel. I was mending up t' cottage there at t' time. Eh, she was a bonny lass! they were a fine family a' t' lot o' Lewthwaites. She went lang sen and left, but she tell't me t' spot wi' her ain lips.' As I peered through the hedge upon the high-raised field at my right, I remembered that Barbara Lewthwaite's lips were for ever silent now, and recalled how I had heard from the pastor of a far-away parish that he had been asked by a very refined-looking handsome woman, on her deathbed, to read over to her and to her husband the poem of The Pet Lamb, and how she had said at the end, 'That was written about me. Mr. Wordsworth often spoke to me, and patted my head when I was a child,' and had added with a sigh, 'Eh, but he was such a dear kind old man.'
We passed on in silence till we were near 'Boon beck,' and opposite Greenhead ghyll, 'That,' said my companion, 'is a cottage as we used to ca' i' these parts t' Village Clock. Yan, I'se fergitten his neame, a shep, lived here, and i' winter days fowks fra far eneuf round wad say, "Is t' leet oot i' t' shep's cottage?" then you may wind t' clock and cover t' fire (for you kna matches was scarce and coal to fetch i' them days); and of a morning "Is t' leet i' t' winder? is t' shep stirrin'? then ye maunt lig nea langer," we used to saay.' My friend did not know that this too was in 't' beuk,' as he called it,—that Wordsworth had described "the cottage on a spot of rising ground,"
And from its constant light so regular,
And so far seen, the House itself, by all
Who dwelt within the limits of the vale,
Both old and young, was named the Evening Star.
Onward we trudged, entered the pastures leading; to the Grasmere Common that stretches up to the Grisedale Pass, there sat, and had a talk as follows, the Tongue Ghyll Beck murmuring among the budding trees at our feet:
'Why, why, Wudsworth newer said much to t' fowk, quite different fra lile Hartley, as knawed t' inside o' t' cottages for miles round, and was welcome i' them a'. He was distant, ye may saäy, verra distant. He wasn't made much count on "nayther i' these parts," but efter a time fwoaks began to tak his advice, ye kna, aboot trees, and plantin', and cuttin', and buildin' chimleys, and that mak o' things. He hed his say at t' maist o' t' houses i' these parts, and was verra particler fond of round chimleys.'
It was delicious this description of the path to fame among his countrymen the poet had taken, but my friend explained himself as he went on:
'He was yan as keppit his head doon and eyes upo' t' ground, and mumbling to hissel; but why, why, he 'ud never pass folks draining, or ditching, or walling a cottage, but what he'd stop and say, "Eh dear, but it's a pity to move that stean, and doant ya think ya might leave that tree?"[[2]] I mind there was a walling chap just going to shoot a girt stean to bits wi' powder i' t' grounds at Rydal, and he came up and saaved it, and wreat summat on it.'