Lake country sketches

by H. D. Rawnsley

But it was not only as steward of the farm and orchard that Pearson was so truly honoured by the Wordsworths. It was because the poet felt that in him he had a real lover of his art, and a real understander of his poetry and his philosophy. One is not surprised to find that Wordsworth thanked him on the occasion when, in the Kendal paper, the worthy yeoman took up pen in defence of the poet. And those who years after honoured the dead poet's memory—his personal friends, Dr. Davy and others—were grateful to William Pearson when, in 1854, he championed, in a letter full of feeling and knowledge, the Protestantism of the bard, which had been called in question by a lecturer of the Protestant Alliance in Kendal, who had described Wordsworth's poetry as being 'one of the principal means of the revival of priestly domination in the Church of England.'

It is very touching to see how really he valued the friendship of the poet he so well understood and so honoured. 'What claim have I,' he wrote to Dorothy Wordsworth, 'on the notice of a man like your brother? My chief obligations to him for conferring on me his society and hospitable notice I hope I shall feel to the latest hours of my life.' Writing to Wordsworth from Borderside under date 1849, he says, 'I felt very grateful for your letter. On reading the first few lines I was sorry to think how much Mrs. Wordsworth's handwriting had changed, but when I found it was indeed your own hand the tears came into my eyes. I shall preserve this kind memorial and shall not part with it till I part with everything in life.' These were the words of a real hero-worshipper, and he had cause for hero-worship.

What Wordsworth's poetry did to inspire and keep pure and true and serene the heart of William Pearson, it will still do for men of humble country life in the years that are to be. We need to-day more of soul among our farmer folk, we want a vade mecum for the tiller of the soil that shall lift his soul to Heaven. I cannot doubt that if men would study Wordsworth and receive his 'heart into their own,' there would be dignity and happiness added to many a daleside home.

To return to William Pearson. He found the farm life on the whole a happy one. He would not have given it up had he not determined to marry. His orchards prospered, and his hay grass was generally well got. His frugal ways ensured him competency, and all day and every day he was learning more of Nature's secrets, more of the pleasant ways of birds and beasts about him. He was making observations, too, on the changes that had come over the vale of Lythe and the neighbouring fells and common lands, since the packhorse had ceased to be, and the common enclosures and the larch planters had come in.

But his ears were open also to the quaint sayings and superstitions, and his eyes were on the quaint ways and customs of the dalesmen amongst whom he dwelt and moved, and these observations bore good fruit in the paper written in 1841, the year before his marriage, for the Kendal Natural History Society, entitled 'A Sketch of some of the Existing and Recent Superstitions of Westmoreland.'

It was doubtless a source of gratification to William Pearson that the son of the poet should be the officiating minister in Bowness Church the day he led his wife to the altar, in May of 1842. And he must needs have been pleased on his return to Low House after a wedding jaunt through the lakes, to find that Hartley Coleridge, who had called to congratulate him on his marriage, left behind him an impromptu sonnet. It had, as most of Hartley's sonnets have, a little touch of description of the life both of himself and of his friend, the gentle estatesman:

'A little man of solitary life
And half an idiot too—more helpless still—
Can wish all joy to thee and to thy wife;
Thy love must be as constant as thy will.
My gentle friend, how happy mayst thou be!
Thou hast a wife to pray—and pray with thee.'

During the coming June of 1842 Pearson took his wife to the Continent. He had long planned this trip; writing to his friend Thomas Smith in April of 1841, to tell him of his intended venture on 'that variety of untried being,' marriage, he says that Mr. Wordsworth has advised him to make a Swiss and Italian tour before age renders him unfit for foot-travel, and adds that his future wife 'is an excellent walker, and is quite willing to share the fatigue, and he is sure she will share the pleasure.' There is a note of simplicity in this intention to see the Swiss and Italian lakes afoot—the bridegroom now more than three score years, but a 'young heart travels many a mile,' and William Pearson's heart was young to the last.

Wordsworth supplied him with an itinerary which he faithfully followed. After the tour they stayed on until the spring at Versoix, near Geneva, and his journal shows that he was busy making naturalist notes all the while. There is a touching note in his journal of his delight on getting back to his Westmoreland home. The blue mountains and the well-known fells, and the ivy-covered cottage of Low House, and the happy greetings from beloved friends. These deeply moved him.