Ruskin Relics

by W. G. Collingwood

RUSKIN'S "JUMP" ADRIFT OFF BRANTWOOD

The Lake district rowing-boat is built for the Lake fisherman, and it is as neatly adapted to its purpose as the Windermere yacht which, for the peculiar winds and waters of the place, is pretty nearly perfect. The fishers used to have two chief requirements, whether they netted or trolled; the boat must travel easily in lumpy but not violent water, for the men had far to go in reaching their "drawing-up spots," and in taking their fish to market of an evening; and it must carry a good deal of tackle. In netting, there were always two partners, and so two thwarts and two pairs of sculls were used; in trolling, one went out alone, but there were rods and lines which needed space for convenient stowage. Consequently the boats were rather long, and rather low in the water; the sculls were fixed on pins, so that you could drop them when you got a bite, or landed hastily to take the hair-rope at your end of the net in drawing up. Feathering the oar was quite unknown; great speed unnecessary; great stability desirable; but not what a sailor would call seaworthiness. On the whole, for pleasure-boating on the lakes, these boats are safe and convenient; accidents are extremely rare, though hundreds and perhaps thousands of hopelessly unskilled people every summer try their hands at rowing, and do everything you ought not to do in a boat. It is impossible to insist on an experienced boatman going out with every party, and not always possible to prevent overcrowding. Local authorities have no powers, except to hang life-buoys (at their own personal expense) on convenient points along the shore. You will see one of the Coniston parish council's buoys on the boathouse in our photograph of the Hall: but you will be glad to know that it has hung there for years without being wanted for a rescue.

(Hargreaves, photographer)

THE RUSKIN MUSEUM, CONISTON

After some seasons' trial of the local boat, Ruskin thought he could improve upon it for his own purpose. He wanted something less cumbrous and more seaworthy, and he was always trying experiments, uprooting notions to find how they grew, planting them upside down to see what happened, grafting one idea upon another, to the bewilderment of onlookers. In the matter of boats he had a very willing and capable helper in Laurence Hilliard, who was the cleverest and neatest-fingered boy that ever rigged a model; and many were the models he designed and finished with exquisite perfection of detail in the outhouse-workshop at Brantwood. Laurie, as every one called him, was deep in Scott Russell at that time, working away on the ponderous (and now discredited) folio as if he were getting it up for an examination, and covering sheets of cartridge-paper with sections and calculations. He was only too pleased to have a hand in a real job, and turned out the drawings and the model for the new boat in workmanlike fashion. This was in 1879 or 1880.

Just opposite Brantwood, across the lake, is the old Coniston Hall, built in the fifteenth century as the home of the Flemings of Coniston, but nearly two hundred years ago abandoned and left to ruin. Mrs. Radcliffe, who wrote the "Mysteries of Udolpho"—known to most readers nowadays less for itself than as the book that so excited the heroine of "Northanger Abbey"—about 1794 came to Coniston, and mistook the old Coniston Hall for Conishead Priory, as it seems: and with an odd fallacy of romance described the "solemn vesper that once swelled along the lake from those consecrated walls, and awakened, perhaps, the enthusiasm of the voyager, while evening stole upon the scene." But she was right enough in being charmed with the spot, as Ruskin was in his boyish visits, long before he dreamed of living—and dying—in view of the old round chimneys among the trees, with the ripple of lake below and the peak of the Old Man rising above. Early in the nineteenth century the ruins were fitted up as a farm, and, somewhat later, the boathouse close by came to be the workshop of the man who built Ruskin's "Jump."

Mr. William Bell was one of the celebrities of this dale. In his youth he had been a sort of right-hand man of John Beever of the Thwaite, brother to the ladies of "Hortus Inclusus," and author of "Practical Fly-Fishing." On the death of his father, William Bell became the leading carpenter of the place, and the leading Liberal, and during Mr. Gladstone's last Administration he was nominated for a Justice of the Peace. Ruskin was told of his neighbour, and sent word that he would like to come and have a talk about politics. Now the carpenter was used to Conservative orators and Liberal arguers, but he knew that Ruskin was a different sort of man; and all day long before the hour fixed for the visit he was in a greatly perturbed state of mind, walking up and down and wondering—a new thing for him—how he should tackle this unknown personality. At last the distinguished guest arrived. He was solemnly welcomed and shown into the parlour. The door was shut upon the twain. The son (Mr. John Bell), who felt he had brought into contact the irresistible force and the irremovable post, waited about hoping it would be all right, but in much trepidation as the sound of talk inside rose from a murmur to a rumble, and from a rumble to a roar. At last his father's well-known voice came through the partition in no trembling accents: "Ye're wrong to rags, Mr. Ruskin!" Then he knew it was all right, and went about his work. And after that Ruskin and "ald Will Bell" were firm friends in spite of differences.

So Will Bell built the "Jump"—or, to be accurate, was master-builder, employing at this job Mont. Barrow, well known to boat-owners on Windermere for one of the most skilful of craftsmen, as his father was before him—and one fine day in spring she was launched at the boat-house with great ceremony. A wreath of daffodils was hung round her bows, and Miss Martha Gale christened her, with this little versicle which Ruskin made for the occasion: