The gloomy-looking old tower, in which the chivalrous and intrepid Harringtons so long held sway, now only exhibits the melancholy aspects of desertion and decay. It is used as an outbuilding to the neighbouring farmhouse, and, though much dilapidated, tells more of time, and time’s slow wasting hand, than of the ruinous havoc of ruthless war.
The glory has long passed away, for two centuries and more have rolled by since it was in the heyday of its prosperity. It is now tenantless and forlorn, its battlements are broken, its rooms are desolated, and the wind whistles through the narrow casements that once were storied with the heraldic achievements of its knightly owners. Old time has pressed heavily upon it—may no ruder hand hasten its destruction!
A little more than half a mile from Wraysholme Tower is Humphrey Head, a huge mass of carboniferous limestone that thrusts its gaunt form far out into the bay, dividing the Milnthorpe from the Ulverston Sands. To the north it rises abruptly from the plain, here grim and grey and lifeless-looking, and there decked with a rich embroidery of lichens, moss, and trailing ivy, while the ledges of the rock are covered with a thick vegetation of ash and hazel, the bright greenery of which is in places relieved by the darker foliage of the yew that here thrives luxuriously. Round towards the sea the steep acclivities are all broken, channelled, and weather-worn, with scarcely a sign of vegetation to relieve their general sterility; and huge heaps that have been brought down by successive storms lie strewn about the shore in picturesque confusion. The rocky cliff which rears its naked front almost perpendicularly to a considerable elevation is not without its tale of sorrow, as we gather from the following warning, inscribed upon a block of limestone:—
Beware how you these rocks ascend,
Here William Pedder met his end,
August 22nd, 1857. Aged 10 years.
Near the top of the cliff is the Fairies’ Cave—a large cavernous opening or recess formed by the shrinkage of the limestone; and at the base is the Holy Well, a mineral spring famed for its curative properties in Camden’s time, and which even within memory was resorted to by the Cumberland miners, who came in large numbers to drink its health-inspiring waters. The spring issues through a fissure in the rock within a few feet of the ground, the flow being at the rate of about a gallon a minute, continuing without variation through the different seasons of the year. The water is perfectly clear and colourless, and effervesces slightly on agitation—an indication of the presence of free carbonic acid. Dr. Barber, who has written an account of the spa, tells us the principal ingredients are the chlorides of sodium and magnesium, and the sulphates of lime and soda; and that in its chief characteristics it most resembles the waters at Wiesbaden and the Ragoczy spring at Kissingen. Its celebrity would seem to have arisen as much from its diluent powers as from its medicinal virtues; and probably recent analyses, which have disclosed the fact that it contains but a small proportion of solid ingredients, have broken the charm with which traditional piety had surrounded it, and caused the health-seeking pilgrims who formerly believed in its virtues to seek elsewhere the refreshing and restorative draughts which nature provides. The spring is now virtually abandoned; the cottage close by, in which the high-priestess formerly resided, is tenantless and falling to decay; but the key of the spring can be had from the neighbouring farmhouse.
Tradition gathers round this little corner of Lancashire, and the shaping power of imagination has clothed it with the weird drapery of romance—that
Dubious light