At Rydal Mount, Wordsworth lived nearly forty years, roaming over the mountains or sitting down by some lonely tarn to write his “solemn-thoughted idylls;” for he seldom wrote in-doors. A visitor once asked to see his study, and a servant showed her a room containing a number of books. “This is the master’s library,” she said: “his study is out o’ doors and up on t’hill-tops.” The house is a lovely spot now, but it owes much to Wordsworth. I have a drawing of it, made soon after he removed there, which represents only a very plain stone house, standing on a natural terrace of turf. The interior has been often described, for no visitor with a respectable claim on the poet’s attention was ever turned away. But it is now in the possession of a man who suffers no one to approach it. In fact, he has taken care to post conspicuously the following notice: “No person is allowed in these grounds under any circumstances.” In 1850, Wordsworth died at Rydal Mount,—a sweetly-solemn death, which gave to his mourning heart the glad assurance that he was “going to Dora,” his dearly beloved daughter, whose death on the threshold of a beautiful and happy womanhood he had never ceased to mourn.
On the road which skirts Rydal Water is Nab Cottage, forever associated with De Quincey and poor Hartley Coleridge. Standing before it, how easy it was to imagine the small, fragile Opium-Eater, with his wrinkled face and arched brows loaded with thought, and those haunted eyes peering out from their dark rings! How vividly we could see him in the small parlor, with its five thousand books and bright fire and decanter of laudanum, or imagine him rambling through the summer nights upon the hills, in solitary possession of the whole sleeping country, when that fine expression he applied to Coleridge in similar situations might so well designate himself,—“an insulated son of revery”!
[The travellers next set out for a tramp to the top of Helvellyn, the loftiest mountain of the lake district. On their way thither they came upon an interesting pastoral scene.]
The farm-yard went straight up the hill, but was surrounded by buildings of every kind. What a busy, merry, picturesque gathering was in it! The old men, in clean, white shirt-sleeves, with long clay pipes in their mouths, were wandering about the yard, watching the shearers, who were working with a silent rapidity that showed a very keen contest. For these “shearings” are a kind of rural Olympics; and proud is the young farmer who has finished his sixscore sheep in a day.
There were seven shearers present, wonderfully handsome, stalwart fellows. Each sat upon a bench, their pillar-like throats uncovered, their arms bare to the shoulder; and, as the sheep were brought to them, they lifted them on to the bench, turned them with the greatest ease, and cut off the wool with amazing rapidity, rarely allowing the shears to injure the animal. If such an accident occurred, it was a blemish on the shearer’s fame.
At a long impromptu table women were just as rapidly folding the fleeces ready for market. Some were handsome matrons, some were young lasses, but all wore the snow-white kirtle and the short, striped linsey petticoat that showed their slender ankles and trimly-shod feet. Peals of merry laughter and shafts of harmless satire flew from them to the shearers, who were far too busy to answer just then, but who doubtless promised themselves future opportunities. In a small enclosure at the extreme end there was perhaps the merriest group of all,—about a dozen school-lads, whose duty it was to bring the sheep to the shearers. How the heated air quivered above the panting creatures, and how the lads laughed and shouted and tugged and pulled and pushed and dragged, their brown faces glowing to crimson, their parted scarlet lips and intense blue eyes making them perfect pictures of splendidly healthy, happy boyhood!
And with what indulgent tolerance the sheep-dogs watched them! I am sure the good-natured ones laughed quietly to themselves at all the unnecessary fuss, while others lay with their heads between their paws and opened their eyes sarcastically at the whole affair. They would have taken a sheep by the ear and walked it up to the bench without a bark. It was a perfect idyllic picture, in which every age of manhood and womanhood blended.
At sundown over six hundred sheep had been sheared, and a number of visitors arrived. Then a feast was spread for more than fifty people, and after it the fiddlers took the place of honor, and dancing began. No one could resist the mirthful infection, and, after a slight hesitation, Christina drew on her gloves and allowed herself to be persuaded to open the ball with “the master.” She was just stepping daintily down the middle, with a smile on her face, when the Bailie looked in at the open door. He professed to be “vera weary;” but in half an hour he was taking his part in “Moneymusk” with a lively agility that won him much admiration. “Such hours dinna come every day,” he said. And so we stayed until the dancing ceased and the company scattered at the fell foot into parties of twos and threes.