SWEETHEART ABBEY
There is no one to point out refectory and chapel and other haunts of the ancient monks—but it is just as well. We know Sweetheart’s story and that is enough, in the silence and solemnity of the gathering twilight, to make the hour we linger an enchanting one. And yet the feeling of sadness predominates, as we move softly about over the thick carpet of green sward—sadness that this splendid memorial to a life of sacrifice and good works should have fallen into such decay that the very grave of the benevolent foundress should be effaced! The spell is broken when one of our party reminds us that it is growing late; that we may miss the dinner hour at our hotel, and we regretfully bid farewell to Sweetheart Abbey. We are glad that the royal burgh of Dumfries is at the end of the day’s journey—an unusually long one for us—for we know that its Station Inn is one of the most comfortable in Scotland.
XIV
ODD CORNERS OF LAKELAND
Who could ever weary of English Lakeland? Who, though he had made a score of pilgrimages thither, could not find new beauties in this enchanted region? And so in our southward run we make a detour from Carlisle to Keswick by the way of Wigton, a new road to us, through a green and pleasant country. We soon find ourselves among the hills and vales of the ill-defined region which common consent designates as the Lake District. Rounding the slopes of Skiddaw—for we have a rather indirect route—we come upon a vantage point which affords a glorious view of Bassenthwaite Water, glittering like a great gem in its setting of forest trees. We have seen the District many times, but never under better conditions than on this clear, shimmering July day. The green wooded vales lying between the bold, barren hills, with here a church-tower or country mansion and there a glint of tarn or river, all combine to make an entrancing scene which stretches clear and distinct to the silvery horizon. We pause a short space to admire it, then glide gently down the slope and along the meandering Derwent into Keswick town.
It is the height of the summer season here and the place shows unmistakable marks of the tourist-thronged resort; the Hotel Keswick, where we stop for luncheon, is filled to overflowing. It is the most beautifully located of the many hotels in the town, standing in its own well-cared-for grounds, which are bedecked with flower-beds and shrubbery. The Keswick is evidently a favorite with motorists, for we found many cars besides our own drawn up in front. It is a pleasant, well-conducted inn—everything strictly first-class from the English point of view—with all of which the wayfarer is required to pay prices to correspond.
Keswick is anything but the retired village of the time of the poet Southey, whose home, Greta Hall, may be seen on an eminence overlooking the town. As the gateway by which a large proportion of tourists enter the Lake District, and as a resort where a considerable number of visitors—mostly English—come to spend their vacations, it is a lively place for some weeks in midsummer. There is not much of consequence in the town itself or in the immediate vicinity. It is the starting-point, however, for an endless number of excursions, mostly by coach, for the railroad does not enter many parts of the District frequented by tourists. Even wagon-roads are not numerous and the enthusiast who wishes to thoroughly explore the nooks and corners must do much journeying on foot.
We have little reason for choosing the coast road in our southern journey through Cumberland, except the very good one that we have never traversed it, while we are familiar with the splendid highway which follows the lakes to Lakeside and over which runs the great course of tourist travel. The roads are not comparable in interest, so greatly does the lake route excel, both in scenic beauty and in literary and historic associations. Still, the dozen miles from Keswick to Cockermouth is a beautiful run, passing around the head of Derwentwater and following for its entire length—some four miles—the western shore of Bassenthwaite Water. The road winds through almost unbroken woodland and we catch only fugitive glimpses of the shimmering water between the thickly crowded trunks that flit between us and the lake. At intervals, however, we swing toward the shore and come into full view of the gleaming surface, beyond which stretches an array of wooded parks, surrounding an occasional country seat. Still beyond rise the stern outlines of Skiddaw, one of the ruggedest and loftiest of the lake country hills—though as a matter of fact, its crest is but three thousand feet above the sea. It is a delightfully quiet road; we meet no other wayfarers and aside from the subdued purr of the motor, there is no sound save the wash of the wavelets over the rocks or the rustle of the summer breeze through the trees. The north end of Bassenthwaite marks the limit of Lakeland for all except the casual tourist, and here a snug little wayside inn, the Pheasant, affords a retreat for solitude-loving disciples of Ike Walton.
Cockermouth has little claim to distinction other than the fact that the poet Wordsworth was born here a little more than a century and a half ago. A native of whom we inquire points out the large square gray-stone house, now the residence of a local physician. The swift Derwent flows a few rods to the rear and the flower-garden runs down to the river’s edge. The house stands near the highway and is no exception to the harsh, angular lines that characterize the village. It is in no sense a public show-place and we have no intention of disturbing the Sunday-afternoon quiet of the present occupants in an endeavor to see the interior. Wordsworth’s connection with the house ceased at the death of his father, when the poet was but a child of fourteen. His young mother—a victim of consumption—had laid down life’s burdens some six years earlier, and the orphan children were taken to the home of a relative at Kendal.
Perhaps we are the more satisfied to pass the old house with a cursory glance because, if I must confess it, I was never able to arouse in myself any great enthusiasm over the poet Wordsworth or to read his writings except in a desultory way. He never had for me the human interest of Byron, Burns, Tennyson or many other great lights of English literature I might name. We were quite willing to assume the role of intruder at Somersby; we made more than one unsuccessful effort before we saw Newstead, and three pilgrimages to Alloway have not quenched our desire to see it again—but we are conscious of little anxiety to enter the doors of the big square house at Cockermouth. Perhaps we are not alone in such feeling, for pilgrims to the town are few and a well-known English author who has written a delightful volume on the Lake District admits that he paid his first visit to Cockermouth “without once remembering that it was Wordsworth’s birthplace!” His objective was the castle, a fine mediaeval pile which overlooks the vale of the Derwent. It is in fair preservation, having been inhabited until quite recently. Like so many Northland fortresses, it has its legend of Mary Stuart, who came here after landing at Workington, a seaport a few miles distant. She had been led by the emissaries of Elizabeth to believe that an appeal to her “sister’s” mercy would assure her a safe refuge in England, but she never drew a free breath in all the years she was to live after this act of sadly misplaced confidence.