ENNERDALE (p. [298]).
It may be remarked that we are now in the region of tarns and pikes, and the derivation of the former word, if not strictly correct, is not unpoetical, for it is said to mean “a tear.” This imaginative investment reminds us of Wordsworth’s declaration that the stream which traverses Easedale is now and again as wild and beautiful as a brook may be. The river Rothay, however, does not rely entirely upon this immortalised brook, but it can fairly reckon upon what can be spared from the tarns when the other gills fail in their shrunken currents. In the valley is the village of Grasmere, sacred to Wordsworth’s cottage; and the church, containing a medallion of the author who sang its “naked rafters intricately crossed,” and whose grave and that of members of his family, with Hartley Coleridge lying hard by, and a memorial-stone to Clough, attract renewed streams of pilgrims. The cottage is not far from the church, and it is now owned by trustees, who keep it in order for the inspection of visitors. There is no section of this district which is not beautiful, and the recurring clumps of trees recall how the country was at one time alleged to be so covered with wood that wild boars abounded. There was, and probably is, a local saying that a squirrel could travel from Kendal to Keswick without once touching the ground.
It was at this cottage that Wordsworth first set up housekeeping, and many and distinguished were his visitors to Grasmere. It had been previously a rustic inn under the prophetic sign of the “Dove and Olive Bough”; and upon about £100 a year the poet contrived to entertain relays of visitors, amongst them Southey, Coleridge, and Scott. It was, perhaps of necessity, a teetotal cottage, and it was here (according to report) that Sir Walter, after dinner, used to pretend that he was going for a meditative stroll, and resort to the public-house for a draught of what was best. Until recent years the descendant of a certain publican—who was said to have given Scott away by addressing him, as he and Wordsworth walked up, with, “Ah, Master Scott, you’re early to-day for your drink”—was pointed out as an inhabitant of the village; but there is some doubt about this pretty story, as Sir Walter only visited Wordsworth for one day while he resided at the cottage, and then it was a call in company with Davy, on an occasion when they ascended Helvellyn together. On the whole, the Lake district must remain a most temperate region, for it was reported that on the Christmas day of so recent a year as 1896 a party of young men who called at the most elevated public-house in England were the first customers the landlord had seen for six weeks.
The Rothay courses south, a short length between the village and the mere. Writ large in literary associations, and a household word amongst English-speaking peoples, Grasmere is but a mile long, and nothing like so broad at its widest part, but it is a precious gem in a setting where all is worthy. Gray, whose prose descriptions of Lakeland are passed on from writer to writer, rejoiced exceedingly because not a single red tile, and no staring gentleman’s house (meaning probably no gentleman’s staring house) broke in upon the repose of the unsuspected paradise. The paradise is not any longer unsuspected; it is public property; but there are still left the eternal hills, Grasmere water hollowed in their bosom, the small bays and miniature promontories, the soft turf green as an emerald, trees, hedges, cattle, pastures, and corn-land—items of description that may in a varying degree apply to almost every one of these famous sheets of Lakeland water. In truth, there is no better travelled ground in the three kingdoms than this; and it may be assumed once for all that its general attractions are known to the reader, and that we are free to proceed with our purpose of showing the part borne by the rivers as connecting ways, and systems of supply and relief for the lakes.
The river Rothay does precisely what Wordsworth did: it moves from Grasmere to Rydal, flowing along the base of Loughrigg Fell, avoiding the terrace and curving up towards the “Wishing Gate” to the western point of Rydal Water. From any of the paths which conduct downwards the course of the Rothay is brightly and clearly mapped. We need not pause at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth’s last residence, nor at the rock which is remembered as his favourite seat, nor at Rydal Hall and the shade-giving trees of its park, nor follow the beck to the little tumbles of water named Rydal Falls, nor stroll the half mile which would bring us to Fox How, the holiday retreat of Arnold of Rugby. Amongst the trees in the so-called Rydal forest there are oaks that must often have given pleasure to Wordsworth in his rambles; and the beck which is always scurrying to the Rothay receives its impetus from the steepness of its journey from the mountain—
“Down Rydal Cove from Fairfield’s side.”
On past Ambleside, which it leaves untouched to the left, the Rothay proceeds, with greetings from Rydal Water to busy Windermere. Ambleside, though it has no immediate lake view, is not without its water effects, both heard and seen when the swollen little tributary gives power to Stock Ghyll Force, a very respectable fall of some seventy feet. Every visitor to Ambleside pays homage to this romantic termination of a delightful walk through a sylvan enclosure. Ambleside is nowadays practically connected with the lake by Waterhead and the extended occupation of the flat; and a short distance above the head of the lake is the junction of the Brathay and the Rothay. The former, like the latter, is in intimate relations with lakelet and feeder, and, in truth, cuts an important figure by its drainage of Great and Little Langdale, its reception of sundry gills from the dominating pikes which seldom allow themselves to be forgotten in the Windermere county, its inclusion of Little Langdale tarn and Elterwater, and its share in keeping in action various waterfalls, of which Dungeon Ghyll Force and the Mill Beck Cascades are the best. The neighbourhood elicited the warmest admiration from Professor Wilson, who said that sweeter stream scenery with richer foreground and loftier background was nowhere to be seen within the four seas. Of the three lakelets he preferred the small tarn on Loughrigg Fell—