One scene characteristic of Lakeland comes before us at the outskirts of the little town. It is the country carrier, a lusty, embrowned, genial man, and his large covered cart within which in picturesque (but safe) confusion are the parcels from a larger town to our vale. Storm or calm, rain, shine, or snow, so regular that events are timed by his appearances, passes the carrier along the roads of this land where are no railways. An old farmer, selling some sheep to a dealer, asked when he would take away his purchase.
“Will it do if I come about the seventh of next month?”
“Oh aye,” but the old man looked puzzled. After the dealer had taken his leave, a reflective voice sounded from the ingle-nook.
“T’ seventh o’ next month! That’ll be——” and for awhile the old farmer counted on his fingers, but without satisfaction to himself.
“That’ll be t’ Tuesday after t’ carrier comes, father,” announced a matron who was washing dishes at the far end of the room.
“Aye,” responded the old man promptly, “that’ll be three weeks to-morn; t’ sheep’ll be ready.”
This is not an extraordinary thing to hear in our dales where the list of “inevitables” is: Rent-day, Candlemas (February 2nd, when all accounts are rendered), and t’ Carrier.
The carrier’s life is an arduous one, yet we have whole families who succeed one another in it without a break. Our oldest “carrier” family is to be traced in manor-rolls far into the pack-horse days. The halting of the railway on the confines of Lakeland has preserved, and indeed given impetus to, his craft. He is a necessity to dales-life, but now he is perhaps doomed to totally disappear. The new traffic companies are hoping to send their motors, humming and throbbing, with loads of parcels into the villages and over the passes. As a rule our carrier is a genial soul—he knows the gossip of a hundred miles of road. “We can neither stir dish nor spoon,” complain the daleswomen (who are keenest to hear his news and give notes of their neighbours), “wi’out the carrier hearin’ on it.”
CHAPTER VI
CONISTON WATER
On a sultry afternoon, the wanderer over High Cross from Hawkshead suddenly sees a gulf beneath, a delectable vision of waters, the ancient Thurston mere; a lake of shining silver, chased with darker lines and patches as faint catspaws play here and there, with calm pools irradiating the sunlight like clusters of diamonds, the glow fining down to a distant wisp of blue threading between hills and woods. The setting is lovely as the gem: fertile, swelling farmlands, with here and there a white-walled home peering through its curtain of sycamore, the venerable grey church behind its yews, and the village straggling around its God’s acre. Often so ethereal seems the beauty and repose that one fears that tree-shaded bays, white beaches, and spreading reaches dotted with a shimmering sail or two, will yet dissolve in the disappointment of a mirage. For the road one walks is a dusty ribbon over a parched moor, the grouse cluck drowsily in the heather, the rabbits lop lazily into the furze—the larks alone sing briskly, for they have climbed to fuller life in the highest heavens, far from the slumbrous world around us; the mountains afar off swim in haze, their scarry sides uncertain seem, but down there is the fruitful valley of the lake, with dancing rills, fields of green corn, and its flowery meadows ready for the mower. Such is the delightful picture unrolled as a hundred yards are passed, then a corner of the hills shuts it from view.