Such was the state of the world, the continent, the provinces, and the metropolis. Nor was the pulse that beat so throbbingly at Bermondsey, Bow, Bayswater, Brixton, Brompton, Brentford, and Blackheath, without a response on the banks of Crummock Water and the tranquil meadows of Buttermere.
He who has passed all his life amid the chaffering of Cheapside, or the ceaseless toil of Bethnal Green, or the luxurious ease of Belgravia,—who has seen no mountain higher than Saffron Hill,—has stood beside no waters purer than the Thames—whose eye has rested upon no spot more green than the enclosure of Leicester Square,—who knows no people more primitive than the quaker corn-factors of Mark Lane, and nothing more truthful than the “impartial inquiries” of the Morning Chronicle, or more kind-hearted than the writings of the Economist,—who has drunk of no philosophy deeper than that of the Penny Cyclopædia,—who has felt no quietude other than that of the City on a Sunday,—sighed for no home but that which he can reach for “threepence all the way,” and wished for no last resting-place but a dry vault and a stucco cenotaph in the theatrical Golgothas of Kensal and of Highgate;—such a man can form no image of the peace, the simplicity, the truth, and the beauty which aggregate into the perpetual Sabbath that hallows the seclusion about and around the Lake of Buttermere.
Here the knock of the dun never startles the hermit or the student—for (thrice blessed spot!) there are no knockers. Here are no bills, to make one dread the coming of the spring, or the summer, or the Christmas, or whatever other “festive” season they may fall due upon, for (oh earthly paradise!) there are no tradesmen, and—better still—no discounters, and—greater boon than all—no! not one attorney within nine statute miles of mountain, fell, and morass, to ruffle the serenity of the village inn. Here that sure-revolving tax-gatherer—as inevitable and cruel as the Fate in a Grecian tragedy—never comes, with long book and short inkhorn, to convince us it is Lady-day—nor “Paving,” nor “Lighting,” nor “Water,” “Sewers,” nor “Poors,” nor “Parochials,” nor “Church,” nor “County,” nor “Queen’s,” nor any other accursed accompaniment of our boasted civilization. Here are no dinner-parties for the publication of plate; no soirées for the exhibition of great acquaintances; no conversaziones for the display of your wisdom, with the full right of boring your friends with your pet theories; nor polkas, nor schottisches, nor Cellarii, for inflaming young heirs into matrimony. Here there are no newspapers at breakfast to stir up your early bile with a grievance, or to render the merchant’s morning meal indigestible with the list of bankrupts, or startle the fundholder with a sense that all security for property is at an end. Here there are no easy-chair philosophers,—not particularly illustrious themselves for a delight in hard labour,—to teach us to “sweep all who will not work into the dust-bin.” Here, too, there are no Harmonic Coalholes, or Cyder Cellars, nor Choreographic Casinos, or Cremornes, or other such night colleges for youth, where ethics are taught from professional chairs occupied by “rapid” publicans, or by superannuated melodists, with songs as old as themselves, and as dirty as their linen.
No! According to a statistical investigation recently instituted, to the great alarm of the inhabitants, there were, at the beginning of the ever-to-be-remembered year 1851, in the little village situate between the Lakes of Crummock and Buttermere, fifteen inhabited houses, one uninhabited, and one church about the size of a cottage; and within three miles of these, in any direction, there was no other habitation whatsoever. This little cluster of houses constituted the village called Buttermere, and consisted of four farm-houses, seven cottages, two Squires’ residences, and two inns.
The census of the nine families who resided in the fifteen houses of Buttermere—for many of these same families were the sons and nephews of the elders—was both curious and interesting. There were the Flemings, the Nelsons, the Cowmans, the Clarks, the Riggs, the Lancasters, the Branthwaites, the Lightfoots—and The Jopson, the warm-hearted Bachelor Squire of the place. The remaining Squire—also, be it said, a Bachelor—had left, when but a stripling, the cool shades of the peaceful vales for the wars of India. His name was but as a shadow on the memory of the inhabitants; once he had returned with—so the story ran—“an Arabian Horse;” but “his wanderings not being over,” as his old housekeeper worded it, with a grave shake of her deep-frilled cap, he had gone back “t’ hot country with Sir Henry Hardinge to fight t’ Sikhs,” promising to return again and end his days beside his native Lake of Buttermere.
Of the families above cited, two were related by marriage. The Clarks had wedded with the Riggs, and the Cowmans with the Lightfoots, so that, in reality, the nine were but seven; and, strange to say, only one of these—the Clarks—-were native to the place. It was curious to trace the causes that had brought the other settlers to so sequestered a spot. The greatest distance, however, that any of the immigrants had come from was thirty miles, and some had travelled but three; and yet, after five-and-twenty years’ residence, were spoken of by the aboriginal natives as “foreigners.”
Only one family—Buttermere born—had been known to emigrate, and they had been led off, like the farmers who had immigrated, by the lure of more fertile or more profitable tenancies. Three, however, had become extinct; but two in name only, having been absorbed by marriage of their heiresses, while the other one—the most celebrated of all—was utterly lost, except in tradition, to the place. This was the family of Mary Robinson, the innkeeper’s daughter, and the renowned Beauty of Buttermere, known as the lovely, simple-hearted peasant girl, trapped by the dashing forger into marriage, widowed by the hangman, amidst a nation’s tears, and yet—must we write it—not dying broken-hearted,—but—alas, for the romance and constancy of the sex!—remarried ere long to a comfortable farmer, and ending her days the stout well-to-do mother of seven bouncing boys and girls.
Mr. Thornton, the eminent populationist, has convinced every thinking mind, that, in order that the increase of the people may be duly regulated, every husband and wife throughout the country should have only one child and a quarter. In Buttermere, alas! (we almost weep as we announce the much-to-be-regretted fact) there are seventeen parents and twenty-nine children, which is at the frightful rate of one child and three-quarters and a fraction, to each husband and wife!
Within the last ten years, too, Buttermere has seen, unappalled, three marriages and nine births. The marriages were all with maids of the inn, where the memory of Mary Robinson still sheds a traditionary grace over each new chambermaid, and village swains, bewitched by the association, come annually to provide themselves with “Beauties.”