Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 1

by John Wilson

Commend us—on a tour—to lunch and dinner in one. 'Tis a saving both of time and money—and of all the dinner-lunches that ever were set upon a sublunary table, the facile principes are the dinner-lunches you may devour in the White Lion, Bowness. Take a walk—and a seat on the green that overlooks the village, almost on a level with the lead-roof of the venerable church—while Hebe is laying the cloth for a repast fit for Jove, Juno, and the other heathen gods and goddesses; and if you must have politics—why, call for the Standard or Sun (Heavens! there is that hawk already at the Times), and devote a few hurried and hungry minutes to the French Revolution. Why, the Green of all Greens—often traced by us of yore beneath the midnight moonlight, till a path was worn along the edge of the low wall, still called "North's Walk"—is absolutely converted into a reading-room, and our laking party into a political club. There is Louisa with the Leeds Intelligencer—and Matilda with the Morning Herald—and Harriet with that York paper worth them all put together—for it tells of Priam, and the Cardinal, and St Nicholas—but, hark! a soft footstep! And then a soft voice—no dialect or accent pleasanter than the Westmoreland—whispers that the dinner-lunch is on the table—and no leading article like a cold round of beef, or a veal pie. Let the Parisians settle their Constitution as they will—meanwhile let us strengthen ours; and after a single glass of Madeira—and a horn of home-brewed—let us off on foot—on horseback—in gig—car and chariot—to Troutbeck.

It is about a Scottish mile, we should think, from Bowness to Cook's House—along the turnpike road—half the distance lying embowered in the Rayrig woods—and half open to lake, cloud, and sky. It is pleasant to lose sight now and then of the lake along whose banks you are travelling, especially if during separation you become a Druid. The water woos you at your return with her bluest smile, and her whitest murmur. Some of the finest trees in all the Rayrig woods have had the good sense to grow by the roadside, where they can see all that is passing—and make their own observations on us deciduous plants. Few of them seem to be very old—not much older than Christopher North—and, like him, they wear well, trunk sound to the core, arms with a long sweep, and head in fine proportions of cerebral development, fortified against all storms—perfect pictures of oaks in their prime. You may see one—without looking for it—near a farmhouse called Miller-ground—himself a grove. His trunk is clothed in a tunic of moss, which shows the ancient Sylvan to great advantage, and it would be no easy matter to give him a fall. Should you wish to see Windermere in all her glory, you have but to enter a gate a few yards on this side of his shade, and ascend an eminence called by us Greenbank—but you had as well leave your red mantle in the carriage, for an enormous white, long-horned Lancashire bull has for some years established his head-quarters not far off, and you would not wish your wife to become a widow, with six fatherless children. But the royal road of poetry is often the most splendid—and by keeping the turnpike, you soon find yourself on a terrace to which there was nothing to compare in the hanging gardens of Babylon. There is the widest breadth of water—the richest foreground of wood—and the most magnificent background of mountains—not only in Westmoreland but—believe us—in all the world. That blue roof is Calgarth—and no traveller ever pauses on this brow without giving it a blessing—for the sake of the illustrious dead; for there long dwelt in the body Richard Watson, the Defender of the Faith, and there within the shadow of his memory still dwell those, dearest on earth to his beatified spirit. So pass along in high and solemn thought, till you lose sight of Calgarth in the lone road that leads by St Catharine's, and then relapse into pleasant fancies and picturesque dreams. This is the best way by far of approaching Troutbeck. No ups and downs in this life were ever more enlivening—not even the ups and downs of a bird learning to fly. Sheep-fences, six feet high, are admirable contrivances for shutting out scenery; and by shutting out much scenery, why, you confer an unappreciable value on the little that remains visible, and feel as if you could hug it to your heart. But sometimes one does feel tempted to shove down a few roods of intercepting stone-wall higher than the horse-hair on a cuirassier's casque—though sheep should eat the suckers and scions, protected as they there shoot, at the price of the concealment of the picturesque and the poetical from beauty-searching eyes. That is a long lane, it is said, which has never a turning; so this must be a short one, which has a hundred. You have turned your back on Windermere—and our advice to you is, to keep your face to the mountains. Troutbeck is a jewel—a diamond of a stream—but Bobbin Mills have exhausted some of the most lustrous pools, changing them into shallows, where the minnows rove. Deep dells are his delight—and he loves the rugged scaurs that intrench his wooded banks—and the fantastic rocks that tower-like hang at intervals over his winding course, and seem sometimes to block it up; but the miner works his way out beneath galleries and arches in the living stone—sometimes silent—sometimes singing—and sometimes roaring like thunder—till subsiding into a placid spirit, ere he reaches the wooden bridge in the bonny holms of Calgarth, he glides graceful as the swan that sometimes sees his image in his breast, and through alder and willow banks murmurs away his life in the Lake.

Yes—that is Troutbeck Chapel—one of the smallest—and to our eyes the very simplest—of all the chapels among the hills. Yet will it be remembered when more pretending edifices are forgotten—just like some mild, sensible, but perhaps somewhat too silent person, whose acquaintanceship—nay, friendship—we feel a wish to cultivate we scarce know why, except that he is mild, sensible, and silent; whereas we would not be civil to the brusque, upsetting, and loquacious puppy at his elbow, whose information is as various as it is profound, were one word or look of courtesy to save him from the flames. For Heaven's sake, Louisa, don't sketch Troutbeck Chapel. There is nothing but a square tower—a horizontal roof—and some perpendicular walls. The outlines of the mountains here have no specific character. That bridge is but a poor feature—and the stream here very commonplace. Put them not on paper. Yet alive—is not the secluded scene felt to be most beautiful? It has a soul. The pure spirit of the pastoral age is breathing here—in this utter noiselessness there is the oblivion of all turmoil; and as the bleating of flocks comes on the ear, along the fine air, from the green pastures of the Kentmere range of soft undulating hills, the stilled heart whispers to itself, "this is peace!"

The worst of it is, that of all the people that on earth do dwell, your Troutbeck statesmen, we have heard, are the most litigious—the most quarrelsome about straws. Not a footpath, in all the parish that has not cost many pounds in lawsuits. The most insignificant style is referred to a full bench of magistrates. That gate was carried to the Quarter Sessions. No branch of a tree can shoot six inches over a march-wall without being indicted for a trespass. And should a frost-loosened stone tumble from some skrees down upon a neighbour's field, he will be served with a notice to quit before next morning. Many of the small properties hereabouts have been mortgaged over head and ears mainly to fee attorneys. Yet the last hoop of apples will go the same road—and the statesman, driven at last from his paternal fields, will sue for something or another in formâ pauperis, were it but the worthless wood and second-hand nails that may be destined for his coffin. This is a pretty picture of pastoral life—but we must take pastoral life as we find it. Nor have we any doubt that things were every whit as bad in the time of the patriarchs—else—whence the satirical sneer, "sham Abraham?" Yonder is the village straggling away up along the hill-side, till the furthest house seems a rock fallen with trees from the mountain. The cottages stand for the most part in clusters of twos or threes—with here and there what in Scotland we should call a clachan—many a sma' toun within the ae lang toun; but where in all braid Scotland is a mile-long scattered congregation of rural dwellings, all dropt down where the Painter and the Poet would have wished to plant them, on knolls and in dells, and on banks and braes, and below tree-crested rocks, and all bound together in picturesque confusion by old groves of ash, oak, and sycamore, and by flower-gardens and fruit-orchards, rich as those of the Hesperides?

If you have no objections—our pretty dears—we shall return to Bowness by Lowood. Let us form a straggling line of march—so that we may one and all indulge in our own silent fancies—and let not a word be spoken, virgins—under the penalty of two kisses for one syllable—till we crown the height above Briary-Close. Why, there it is already—and we hear our musical friend's voice-accompanied guitar. From the front of his cottage, the head and shoulders of Windermere are seen in their most majestic shape—and from nowhere else is the long-withdrawing Langdale so magnificently closed by mountains. There at sunset hangs "Cloudland, gorgeous land," by gazing on which for an hour we shall all become poets and poetesses. Who said that Windermere was too narrow? The same critic who thinks the full harvest moon too round—and despises the twinkling of the evening star. It is all the way down—from head to foot—from the Brathay to the Leven—of the proper breadth precisely—to a quarter of an inch. Were the reeds in Poolwyke Bay—on which the birds love to balance themselves—at low or high water, to be visible longer or shorter than what they have always been in the habit of being on such occasions since first we brushed them with an oar, when landing in our skiff from the Endeavour, the beauty of the whole of Windermere would be impaired—so exquisitely adapted is that pellucid gleam to the lips of its sylvan shores. True, there are flaws in the diamond—but only when the squalls come; and as the blackness sweeps by, that diamond of the first water is again sky-bright and sky-blue as an angel's eyes. Lowood Bay—we are now embarked in Mr Jackson's prettiest pinnace—when the sun is westering—which it now is—surpasses all other bays in fresh-water mediterraneans. Eve loves to see her pensive face reflected in that serenest mirror. To flatter such a divinity is impossible—but sure she never wears a smile so divine as when adjusting her dusky tresses in that truest of all glasses, set in the richest of all frames. Pleased she retires—with a wavering motion—and casting "many a longing, lingering look behind," fades indistinctly away among the Brathay woods; while Night, her elder sister, or rather her younger—we really know not which—takes her place at the darkening mirror, till it glitters with her crescent-moon-coronet, wreathed perhaps with a white cloud, and just over the silver bow the lustre of one large yellow star.

As none of the party complain of hunger, let us crack among us a single bottle of our worthy host's choice old Madeira—and then haste in the barouche (ha! here it is) to Bowness. It is right now to laugh—and sing—and recite poetry—and talk all manner of nonsense. Didn't ye hear something crack? Can it be a spring—or merely the axle-tree? Our clerical friend from Chester assures us 'twas but a string of his guitar—so no more shrieking—and after coffee we shall have

"Rise up, rise up, Xarifa, lay your golden cushion down!"

And then we two, my dear sir, must have a contest at chess—at which, if you beat us, we shall leave our bed at midnight, and murder you in your sleep. "But where," murmurs Matilda, "are we going?" To Oresthead, love—and Elleray—for you must see a sight these sweet eyes of thine never saw before—a sunset.

We have often wondered if there be in the world one woman indisputably and undeniably the most beautiful of all women—or if, indeed, our first mother were "the loveliest of her daughters, Eve." What human female beauty is all men feel—but few men know—and none can tell—further than that it is perfect spiritual health, breathingly embodied in perfect corporeal flesh and blood, according to certain heaven-framed adaptations of form and hue, that by a familiar yet inscrutable mystery, to our senses and our souls express sanctity and purity of the immortal essence enshrined within, by aid of all associated perceptions and emotions that the heart and the imagination can agglomerate round them, as instantly and as unhesitatingly as the faculties of thought and feeling can agglomerate round a lily or a rose, for example, the perceptions and emotions that make them—by divine right of inalienable beauty—the Royal Families of Flowers. This definition—or description rather—of human female beauty, may appear to some, as indeed it appears to us, something vague; but all profound truths—out of the exact sciences—are something vague; and it is manifestly the design of a benign and gracious Providence that they should be so till the end of time—till mortality puts on immortality—and earth is heaven. Vagueness, therefore, is no fault in philosophy—any more than in the dawn of morning, or the gloaming of eve. Enough, if each clause of the sentence that seeks to elucidate a confessed mystery, has a meaning harmonious with all the meanings in all the other clauses—and that the effect of the whole taken together is musical—and a tune. Then it is Truth. For all Falsehood is dissonant—and verity is consent. It is our faith, that the souls of some women are angelic—or nearly so—by nature and the Christian religion; and that the faces and persons of some women are angelic, or nearly so—whose souls, nevertheless, are seen to be far otherwise—and, on that discovery, beauty fades or dies. But may not soul and body—spirit and matter—meet in perfect union at birth; and grow together into a creature, though of spiritual mould, comparable with Eve before the Fall? Such a creature—such creatures—may have been; but the question is—did you ever see one? We almost think that we have—but many long years ago;