The English Lakes

by William T. Palmer

ESTHWAITE WATER: APPLE BLOSSOM

To deal with present-day Hawkshead, there is the old church on high, its God’s acre now spreading from the narrow promontory on to the swelling hillside behind, the grammar school where Wordsworth was educated, and many an old house built in a fashion now long abandoned. There are curious nooks here and there, particularly near the church. One house, built with its upper story protruding on stone pillars to form a sort of penthouse, tells that here in happier days the “garn” or yarn was displayed, within the hum of the busy spinning-wheels, to the intending purchaser. To picture Hawkshead in its prime of two centuries ago is not easy. Though land was plentiful and even lay waste, the rigours of manorial law made it impossible to spread out environs on the sumptuous scale we are accustomed to to-day, so the little community was herded into the least possible space. Houses were built as near together as possible, with narrow entries not two yards wide passing between the squares; the main street was hardly broad enough to enable a coach to be driven along without fear of fouling some outstanding wall. Sunlight and fresh air were strangers, sanitary arrangements were nil, roadways, of natural earth, had a powerful range of suction assimilating sooner or later the masses of garbage thrown from door and window. Within the houses, ceilings were low: a tall man could not stand erect in the loftiest chamber. Stairways and passages were troublesome things to build, said our forefathers; so, when building the penthouse over the shop, many left the upper portion open, to form a ladder-reached balcony from which the sleeping apartments could be attained. What the huge rounded chimneys were intended for is almost a puzzle. The open fires, with that immense draught at work, could hardly throw off much heat, and firelight was an illuminant not favoured by our forefathers. All cooking was done in pans hanging over the burning fuel. One real attribute the spacious chimney had, and has. Across its throat, from bars, could hang whole sheep to be cured by “smoking.” Hung mutton, from a chamber fed with smoke of wood or peat, is hardly unknown even now in our wilder dales. The roofs without were slated with thin slabs of soft stone, locally quarried, for the hard grey slate was not discovered for the purpose then. Down the streets and across them at various places babbled tiny streams which, in their courses from the hills, alighted on the town. To pass these in time of flood, footbridges were provided for men, but how the great coaches managed to drive across their deep channels is a mystery. Looked at from a distance then, even more than now, Hawkshead would look like a grey blotch in the landscape. Though its population was more than at present, the old town was hardly half the width of the present one. One must have walked through streets with huddled houses on either hand awhile, then at once and completely have emerged into God’s country. The houses were close, mouldy, filthy erections, and the ignorance of the people was so great that these were preferred. The idea that anything could be more healthy than those fœtid rooms, poisonous smells, and filthy drinking-water!

AN OLD STREET IN HAWKSHEAD

In those days, too, hundreds of acres near the lake were swampy and almost impassable: there are many items in the accounts of the old town for maintenance of causeways across. The river was spanned by a wooden bridge, at first for foot passengers only, while the pack-ponies with merchandise ventured the ford. The vale of Esthwaite sweeps quietly down from the rugged hillocks behind Outgate in a wide sweep to the water’s head. The only building of historic merit outside the town is the Old Hall, now being used as an ignoble barn or granary. The walls remaining have been part of the gatehouse; tremendously thick are they, with narrow stairs climbing inside solid columns of stone, and with a fine fourteenth century fireplace in the upper room. The vale of Esthwaite has no story of war: the Scottish raiders never penetrated so far aside into the mountain land, and successive invasions by Romans, Picts, Norsemen, Saxon, and Norman have been without memorable strife, and hardly a legend of such actions remains. Near the head of the lake is the pool known as Priest’s Pot. No streams enter it, none leave, but the oozy ground around carries into it a sufficiency of water. It might, from the name, once have been used as a fish stew; though such a thing is unlikely, for the monks would have more convenient waters. In the Priest’s Pot was for years a floating islet, but there is now pointed out a bunch of sallows on a tuft of mossy grass against the edge of the pool, which has grown part of the mainland. The locals say that the Priest’s Pot is the measure of a certain dead-and-gone parish priest’s appetite for strong ale. Not a hundred yards from the Priest’s Pot is the meeting-house at Colthouse, founded in the early days of Quakerism. In Claife are one or two notable farmhouses, but nothing possessing a story. One of the grey farms on the other side of the glen was for centuries the home of the Sandys.

There are boats available on Esthwaite mere, but the fishing is strictly preserved. For a shilling fee a day you are permitted to take coarse fish only. Pike are plentiful enough at some places, and many a trimmer is set in defiance of regulations. A summer afternoon spent on Esthwaite is a memory of some charm. We pushed off from the shingle near the ruined boathouse, and were soon well away. Then we pulled down to where a streamlet purls into the lake, and at the mouth of this lines were put over for perch, as bait for pike. But no tackle for sinking the baits had been provided, and our flighty thoughts turn meanwhile to the wealth of water-lilies and flowering grasses in a bay just below. So long as open water remained it was easy enough to put the boat along; but in a tangle of stems, when every pull at the oars means fouling and pulling plants up by the roots, it is hard work. The water-lily, with its heart of bright gold and ivory petals lying just awash the clear peaty water, is a queen of flowers. Beyond a profusion of these, tall, straight grasses rise like a brake over the boat, brown flower tufts crowning the straight green stems, a background of meadow tinged white and red and blue with flowers, and a coppice wood glorious with fox-gloves and wild Canterbury bells. The faint sweetness rising from land and water too is a memory to treasure. As we float idly along there is a variety of bird life to notice: the king-fisher and the dipper busy on the shingles and threading the narrow ghylls of the rivulets: further down we pass a heron, standing poised and still in the shallow. Time was when the heron was more plentiful in the Lake Country than to-day; the heronry on the shore of this water, as that of Rydal, has been tenantless for many a year. A few pairs still resort to the firs near Whitestock Hall for breeding, but the only great heronry left is at Dallam Tower, some leagues away. Yet from the hills above Esthwaite you may, during winter, watch the birds rise when evening is falling, and flight away toward their great haunt and home. The woods fringing the lower part of the lake are used for the preserving of the “wild” duck. The sedges are haunted with these, and also with coot and waterhens. Sit still awhile and they will come into sight. Truly to the patient man nature is free with stories and secrets. In ten minutes the shyest brood of ducklings may paddle fearlessly within fifty feet of you, and often birds are daring enough to dive under and about your craft. But keep still! The first movement sends the whole company fluttering into the sedges, and they will be long in coming out again. The water is split into a hundred little wakes as the birds dash along, half flying, half swimming, in terror. In winter perhaps finer things are to be seen. Attracted by the plenty of their kind, ducks from northward, mallard, wigeon, whistlers, come circling down to Esthwaite: wild geese whistle about the dark waters, and the clanging of swans resounds during hard weather from the air above, where in triangular packs they breast southward, or from the lake, where in wary little groups they feed near the other birds. But it is a hard winter that brings swans to Esthwaite. The country about this lake-foot is the only real haunt of the badger in the Lake Country. A gamekeeper of my acquaintance says he has often traced the badger’s prints in snow-time, from his domain at Grisedale to the earth near Esthwaite Lodge. The badger does not provide regular sport for the dalesmen, but only a few seasons since a pack of foxhounds ran a hot scent into a well-known borran here. Terriers were slipped and “found” within. As the “fox” would not bolt, it was decided to dig him out. The fight had rapidly shifted far into the ground, so an attack was delivered on the rear of the piled stones. Ere long a dalesman, outstretched in the narrow tunnel, espied a moving of earth ahead. “Hold hard!” he cried, “this is no fox.” Terriers were still at work, and sounds of their barking with an occasional animal cry came from within. In five minutes Brother Brock prepared to bolt, but a sack was ready for his reception, and as he came with a rush he was caught. Not he alone, but also one of the terriers who still held on to his rear.

SHEEP-SHEARING, ESTHWAITE HALL FARM

Our boat is now pulled up the Sawrey shore: to northward great fells shoulder the sky, and as the wavelets rumble beneath I think of the boy-life of Wordsworth. He was educated under the lee of the old church here, and in this vale began that deep study and appreciation of nature which shows itself in his poetry. Wordsworth is at home with nature: he speaks of birds, of animals of the covert-side, of flowers and trees, and the ever-changing glory of the skies and seasons, in far more convincing manner than of the people he dwelt long years among. In his school days it was customary to adjourn school of a Shrove Tuesday that cock-fighting might be practised. With spurs of sharp steel fastened to their natural weapons, the selected birds fought in pairs, till one was cut down and disabled. The sport was cruel, for the pluck and tenacity of the birds made the contests more often to the death. The winner of the “main,” or rather its owner, was hailed captain of the school till another champion gained victory. Wordsworth ever writes with fondness of his boyish days—of riding across the fells, of skating on this mere, of nutting and bird-nesting expeditions to the unchanging, yet ever-changing woods around. There is no story of his school days save that told in his own work; but he admirably portrays the shy lad he was, his comrades, and his successive schoolmasters.

Here, floating across the water level with ourselves, is a swan: how graceful its progress, how white the half-lifted wings as it keeps pace! Calm idyllic beauty is its charm, and the charm of Esthwaite mere.