Our kind interpreter now left us, and took his way across the fields, down a path which led through a chasm between high tower-like rocks, called the Winnets, which etymoloists say is a corruption of Windgates, a name given to this mountain-pass from the currents of air which are always blowing through it. Turning out of the main road, we began to ascend a steep green declivity. To the right of us rose a peaked summit, the name of which our driver told us was Mam Tor. We left the vehicle and climbed to its top, where a wide and beautiful prospect was out-spread before us. To the north lay Edale, a deep and almost circular valley, surrounded by a wavy outline of pastoral hills, bare of trees, but clothed in living green to their summits, except on the northern side of the valley, where, half-way down, they were black with a thick growth of heath. At the bottom of the valley winded a little stream, with a fringe of trees, some of which on account of the lateness of the season were not yet in leaf, and near this stream were scattered, for the most part, the habitations. In another direction lay the valley of Hopedale, with its two villages, Hope and Castleton, its ancient castle of the Peverils seated on a rock over the entrance of the Peak Cavern, and its lead mines worked ever since the time of the Saxons, the Odin mines as they are called, the white cinders of which lay in heaps at their entrance. We left the driver to take our baggage to its destination, and pursued our way across the fields. Descending a little distance from the summit, we came upon what appeared to be an ancient trench, thickly overgrown with grass, which seemed to encircle the upper part of the hill. It was a Roman circumvallation. The grass was gemmed with wild pansies, yellow, "freaked with jet," and fragrant, some of which we gathered for a memorial of the spot.
In descending to the valley, we came upon a little rivulet among hazels and hollies and young oaks, as wild and merry as a mountain brook of our own country. Cowslips and wild hyacinths were in flower upon its banks, and blue violets as scentless as our own. We followed it until it fell into the larger stream, when we crossed a bridge and arrived at a white house, among trees just putting out their leaves with plots of flowers in the lawn before it. Here we received a cordial welcome from a hospitable and warmhearted Scotchman.
After dinner our host took us up the side of the mountain which forms the northern barrier of Edale. We walked through a wretched little village, consisting of low cottages built of stone, one or two of which were alehouses; passed the parsonage, pleasantly situated on the edge of a little brook, and then the parson himself, a young man just from Cambridge, who was occupied in sketching one of the picturesque points in the scenery about his new habitation. A few minutes active climbing brought us among the heath, formming a thick elastic carpet under our feet, on which we were glad to seat ourselves for a moment's rest. We heard the cuckoo upon every side, and when we rose to pursue our walk we frequently startled the moor-fowl, singly or in flocks. The time allowed by the game laws for shooting them had not yet arrived, but in the mean time they had been unmercifully hunted by the hawks, for we often found the remains of such as had been slain by these winged sportsmen, lying in our path as we ascended. We found on the top of the hill, a level of several rods in width, covered to a considerable depth with peat, the produce of the decayed roots of the heath, which has sprung and perished for centuries. It was now soft with the abundant rains which had fallen, and seamed with deep muddy cracks, over which we made our way with difficulty. At length we came to a spot from which we could look down into another valley. "That," said our host, "is the Woodlands." We looked and saw a green hollow among the hills like Edale, but still more bare of trees, though like Edale it had its little stream at the bottom.
The next day we crossed the Mam Tor a second time, on a visit to the Derbyshire mines. On our way, I heard the lark for the first time. The little bird, so frequently named in English poetry, rose singing from the grass almost perpendicularly, until nearly lost to the sight in the clouds, floated away, first in one direction, then in another, descended towards the earth, arose again, pouring forth a perpetual, uninterrupted stream of melody, until at length, after the space of somewhat more than a quarter of an hour, he reached the ground, and closed his flight and his song together. The caverns which contain the Derbyshire spars of various kinds, have been the frequent theme of tourists, and it is hardly worth while to describe them for the thousandth time. Imagine a fissure in the limestone rock, descending obliquely five hundred feet into the bowels of the earth, with a floor of fallen fragments of rock and sand; jagged walls, which seem as if they would fit closely into each other if they could be brought together, sheeted, in many places, with a glittering, calcareous deposit, and gradually approaching each other overhead—imagine this, and you will have an idea of the Blue John mine, into which we descended. The fluor-spar taken from this mine is of a rich blue color, and is wrought into vases and cups, which were extremely beautiful.
The entrance to the Peak Cavern, as it is called, is very grand. A black opening, of prodigious extent, yawns in the midst of a precipice nearly three hundred feet in height, and you proceed for several rods in this vast portico, before the cave begins to contract to narrower dimensions. At a little distance from this opening, a fine stream rushes rapidly from under the limestone, and flows through the village. Above, and almost impending over the precipice, is the castle of the Peverils, the walls of which, built of a kind of stone which retains the chisel marks made eight hundred years since, are almost entire, though the roof has long ago fallen in, and trees are growing in the corners. "Here lived the English noblemen," said our friend, "when they were robbers—before they became gentlemen." The castle is three stories in height, and the space within its thick and strong walls is about twenty-five feet square. These would be thought narrow quarters by the present nobility, the race of gentlemen who have succeeded to the race of robbers.
The next day we attended the parish church. The young clergyman gave us a discourse on the subject of the Trinity, and a tolerably clever one, though it was only sixteen minutes long. The congregation were a healthy, though not a very intelligent looking set of men and women. The Derbyshire people have a saying—
"Darbyshire born, and Darbyshire bred,
Strong o' the yarm and weak o' the yead."
The latter line, translated into English, would be—
"Strong of the arm, and weak of the head;"
and I was assured that, like most proverbs, it had a good deal of truth in it. The laboring people of Edale and its neighborhood, so far as I could learn, are not remarkable for good morals, and indifferent, or worse than indifferent, to the education of their children. They are, however, more fortunate in regard to the wages of their labor, than in many other agricultural districts. A manufactory for preparing cotton thread for the lace-makers, has been established in Edale, and the women and girls of the place, who are employed in it, are paid from seven to eight shillings a week. The farm laborers receive from twelve to thirteen shillings a week, which is a third more than is paid to the same class in some other counties.