Middleton, with its eighteen hundred inhabitants, has the appearance of a little metropolis. There are inns and shops which betoken an active trade, maintained probably by the lead mines in the neighbourhood. I did not tarry, for we had spent two hours on the journey, and I wished to sleep at the High Force Inn, nearly five miles farther. We are still on the Durham side of the Tees, with the river now in sight, winding along its shallow, stony bed. The road is an almost continuous ascent, whereby the landscape appears to widen, and every minute the shadows grow broader and darker across the vale. At last the sun drops behind the hill-top, and the lights playing on the summits of the fells deepen into purple, umber, and black, darkest where the slopes and ridges intersect. Cliffs topped with wood break through the acclivities on the left, and here and there plantations of spruce and larch impart a sense of shelter. Every step makes us feel that we are approaching a region where Nature partakes more of the stern than the gentle.
There is room for improvement. I interrupted three boys in their pastime of pelting swallows, to examine them in reading; but they only went “whiles to skule,” and only one could read, and that very badly, in the “Testyment.”
I left Winch Bridge and the cascade which it bestrides about three miles from Middleton, unvisited, for I was tired with much rambling. The clean white front of High Force Inn gleaming at last through the twilight was a welcome sight; and not less so the excellent tea, which was quickly set before me. Cleanliness prevails, and unaffected civility; and the larder, though in a lone spot a thousand feet above the sea, contributes without stint to the hungry appetite.
It happened that I was the only guest: hence nothing disturbed the tranquil hour. Ere long I was looking from my chamber window on the dim outlines of the hills, and the thick wood below that intercepts the view of the valley beneath. Then I became aware of a solemn roar—the voice of High Force in its ceaseless plunge. Fitfully it came at times, now fuller, now weaker, as the night breeze rose and fell, and the tree-tops whispered in harmony therewith.
I listened awhile, sensible of a charm in the sound of falling water; then pushing the sash to its full height, the sound still reached me on the pillow. Strange fancies came with it: now the river seemed to utter sonorous words; anon the hills talked dreamily one with another, and the distant sea sent up a reply; and then all became vague—and I slept the sleep of the weary.
CHAPTER XVIII.
Early Morn—High Force—Rock and Water—A Talk with the Waitress—Hills and Cottages—Cronkley Scar—The Weel—Caldron Snout—Soothing Sound—Scrap from an Album—View into Birkdale—A Quest for Dinner—A Westmoreland Farm—Household Matters—High Cope Nick—Mickle Fell—The Boys’ Talk—The Hill-top—Glorious Prospect—A Descent—Solitude and Silence—A Moss—Stainmore—Brough—The Castle Ruin—Reminiscences.
The next day dawned, and a happy awaking was mine, greeted by the same rushing voice, no longer solemn and mysterious, but chanting, as one might imagine, a morning song of praise. I looked out, and saw with pleasurable surprise the fall full in view from the window: a long white sheet of foam, glistening in the early sunbeams.