There is a chunking of oars, and shortly across our range of vision there swings a small boat; it grounds a few yards away, a boat from the hotel carrying a visitor to the Loughrigg side. We hail the boatman, and in a few seconds have hired him to take us out on to the lake awhile. What a splendid picture the glen makes from the island! The village church towers above a knot of grey buildings across the meadows; the hills around all seem to be higher; the feast of colour is even finer than that seen from the foot of the lake. Above the eastern shore the woods, a paradise of varied tints, lit up by the bright sun, rise to the Wishing Gate. Then back again we are rowed. There are plenty of brackens here to give a flush to the hillside, but we avoid their tangle. Among the boulders the hardy sheep are grazing; no other animal could nibble and thrive on the short, slippery grass of the uplands. As we turn, the lake seems to have narrowed; really more of the level valley is in sight, and the mountains are discovering themselves in their true magnitude. When Red Bank is reached, the view is at its widest; over the gap of Dunmail is seen a blue portion of Skiddaw forest. As a dalesman, it must be confessed that I am somewhat impatient with our “show” scenes; they tell me few stories, arouse few reminiscences. It is on a foxhunt that my memory pauses, when we streamed off over the rough slopes toward Silver Howe—a grey day of winter, not a morning in full autumn. One sees but little of the lake in descending to Grasmere village, just outside which is Pavement End, reminiscent of our “Sports.” Here for at least thirty years was held our great athletic festival—the “Derby of the Dales.” Here were seen our fell runners, our pole leapers, our trail hounds, our wrestlers in the true mountain style. The course of the old fell race was up the rough hillside, “that precipice,” as our Southron friends call it. Had I space I would say much on this topic; the sports are held on another field now, and—shades of the past, you giant athletes of Cumbria!—the race is now run on less difficult ground across the glen.
At Grasmere, beneath the yews of the kirk-garth, the poet Wordsworth is buried. Rothay murmurs near by. The church is not yet “restored,” and remains simple as in the days of Wordsworth. There is a pretty custom here (and in other dales) known as “the rush-bearing.” Many years ago our chapels were not floored with timber, the earth was merely pressed hard by the use of generations. Damp struck up on wet days, and chill in winter, which rendered worship uncomfortable. Rushes were therefore strewn on the floor at the approach of winter. Time went on, the earthen floor was superseded: instead of the old gathering of rushes for use a festival has been inaugurated. The children of the glen weave rushes into crosses and bouquets, go in procession to the church and lay their offerings by the altar there.
GRASMERE CHURCH
Grasmere is in itself without especial charm to the visitor. It is too busy to grow beautiful; romance has stayed away, commercialism reigns, and I for one do not care a fig for the place outside its connection with the poet, with its great possession, his grave and its grey-towered church. But Grasmere as a centre for rambles is unparalleled.
My last glimpse of Grasmere was in wintry weather, and from the Wishing Gate. No snow had fallen; the frost-rime covered the valley with white, though the southern facets of the uplands, on which the sun had spent its feeble power, were stiff bronze. The lake was partly frozen, the westering light gleamed on ice and the dark patches of water here and there. The woods, last seen glorious with autumn tints, were now sere and thin. The silence was divine: no rumbling car passed on the road beneath, no sound of voice broke the spell. And bending over the frosted bars of the gate I wished Grasmere’s peace and content—and mine own. Turning away at length to pass over to sweet Rydal Water,—oh! banished was the dream from my mind, for a house new-built on the moor-edge peeps curious eyes through the plantations at the sacred corner of the Wishing Gate. Truly it is a commanding site; perhaps the owner is proud of a choice which gives him views of Grasmere and Rydal, Loughrigg and the Wishing Gate—I cannot justly rail at him, but my unreason wishes his dwelling far hence. From the ridge, with the level sunbeams around you, leaving the hollows veiled in misty blue, you look down upon Rydalmere. Skimmed over with ice, except where busy rills keep open a few yards’ space, its levels steely hard, with a few skaters gliding among its islets, with brown coppice and white fields rising around, with the towering front of Nab Scar frowning at the softer slacks of Loughrigg, Rydal was a sight to remember. But its glory was all forgotten as I noticed the frost flowers in the roadside—are Nature’s largest or her smallest forms the loveliest? Is the spreading landscape as full of beauty as the flowers formed by frost rime round a casual sod in the wayside? I know not, nor care.
CHAPTER V
ESTHWAITE WATER AND OLD HAWKSHEAD
If, after a complete survey of our Lakes, one is asked which could be spared, there is little doubt that often Esthwaite Water would be the one selected: so uncharacteristic is it, so unlike the rest of the country. It is a lowland mere strayed into a district of crag and brae and foaming rivulet. I don’t wish to agree with such an opinion, for Esthwaite has its real beauties.
Esthwaite mere certainly possesses no bold scenery; its shores are regular, its bays sweep in smooth curves among the meadows. No ridges of rock jut into its waters, its shores are smooth and shingly. Esthwaite is the weediest, reediest of our Lakes, and at places absolutely the quietest, though a great main road runs close beside. But the vale of Esthwaite, with its old village of Hawkshead, is worth of notice. In no other case is there so much to be said about the locality and so little about the lake. High Furness has ever been wild and retired. After Domesday it was given to the Baron of Kendal as a chase for deer—possibly because the country was uninhabitable at that time. Then great Furness Abbey arose, and obtained a wide right over this country-side. The Old Hall at Hawkshead was the home of the monks when they came to collect their tithes and harvests. With the fall of the monastery the Sandys family leapt to ascendancy. One Sandys in King Edward VI.’s time became Archbishop of York, and used his interest to procure a market, by royal charter, for the town, which thereupon began to flourish considerably. This Sandys also gave the old grammar school its foundation. The church on the hillside, standing like a watchtower above the grey roofs, owes much to the Sandys’s beneficence, but its interior is to the casual observer somewhat dull. Its register, giving a list of Burials in Woollen, is very complete, that curious old law passed to aid the woollen industry being rigidly observed for long in these parts.
