But we are for Keswick, to recall briefly three scenes in its market-place beneath the old tower. Imagine, if you can, crowds of soberly dressed people passing in and out of this space—Convention week! How the dark clothes appal you as day after day passes! The streets have the air of devotion, but behind the houses the lanes teem with business. Another scene: the same streets are crowded, but the throng is of a wild gaiety—motley are the hues that press in and out. Not the steady, respectable murmur of conversation, but a wild medley of sounds, snatches of song, bursts of sound from uncouth unmusical instruments, shouts and laughter and much merrymaking. It is a bank holiday crowd, come to be entertained at all hazards. Five hours ago the town was peaceful as that morning when I rowed out on Derwentwater; shortly the crowd will have diminished, till by curfew-time many of the weary folks of Keswick will cast down their tasks to breathe something of evening’s calm.
THE VALE OF ST. JOHN, NEAR KESWICK
My last scene is the dalesman’s Keswick, as I first saw it many a year ago. The square is filled with moving sheep: it is the great October fair day and a long flock is now passing toward the narrow Borrowdale road. How the air quivers to their plaints! and the grey walls echo the tumult—the sharp barkings of busy dogs, and the loud shoutings of the shepherds. We descend to where the farm-wives sit with eggs and butter, and one offers us barley-bread, that luxury now so seldom seen and appreciated outside rural Cumbria. Or is it home-made cheese we would buy? Tough as leather and white as milk, ’tis true Willimer. Strong jaws and patience enough has the man who can enjoy this. Outside the narrow market are cartloads of potatoes and turnips; further down a couple of loads of wheat are for public auction. The congregation of buyers and sellers is interesting: hard-featured dalesmen, their ruddy wives and daughters, neater-dressed town-dwellers bargaining with them. Here comes another drove of sheep—judged by Southron standards they are small, but their mutton is the sweetest to be had. There is little “silly sheep” about them. Intelligent faces, alert limbs, they have already learnt to sup on heather-tops when the grass is buried in snow, silently to endure the wild blizzards and the rainstorms, to avoid swamp and torrent and crumbling edge of cliff. In their train comes friend Jacob, from the Bassenthwaite side of Skiddaw. All through this series of descriptions I have wished to introduce one lake as seen by those who dwell close to it. Bassenthwaite, being out of the tourist route, offers excellently for the experiment. Jacob’s rich dialect would, however, be difficult for those who know not the North Country, and to give the literal English would be to destroy the extreme raciness of the speech. Therefore, a middle way is attempted, retaining where possible the Cumbrian construction of phrase, and idiom.
CHAPTER XIII
BASSENTHWAITE
Jacob is wary and needs some management. First we chat about the exceeding fine autumn passing. “Aye, it’s fine, hooivver.” Jacob is slow of idea and of speech: no duty in his varied life ever needs lightning thought or action; he is decisive enough, but never precipitate. A typical dalesman—tall and broad-shouldered, stooping somewhat. Until you have walked a few miles by his side, you think he is a slow plodder, but experience teaches much. Without the slightest exertion he makes his four miles in the hour, over smooth road, soft meadow, or rocky hillside alike. As you see him face an ascent, you marvel how a man so accustomed to the work should have such an awkward style. But, defiant of all rules of the climbing and walking cults, he works his way up, down, or across the slopes with ease. Three hours of his work on the mountain is enough to tire most casual ramblers who know him. Once I worked a long day collecting sheep with him, but the sense of exhaustion was too severe to make me wish to proffer help again.
“If ye’d a summer on t’ fell ye’d do varra weel,” was his comment as I wearied through supper afterwards.
DERWENTWATER AND BASSENTHWAITE LAKE, FROM HIGH LODORE
“Ye want me to tell ye’r frend aboot Bassenthet?” he queries. “Nay, nay, ther’s nowt to tell. In summer it’s aw wark on t’ land, and in winter aw’s ter’bl’ dree. Nay, ther’s nowt at aw, man, as I can tell ye on. I’m net yan as talks mich. I’s leev’d aw me life aboot Bassenthet, as did me father an’ gran’-father afoor me. It’s nobbut a lile farm, but ther’s a fair bit o’ heaf-gang on Skiddaw. It gives us a lock o’ wark in summer, like at clippin’ an’ weshin’. What’s that, lad? Du I ivver gang tu laik? [My friend has asked if Jacob ever goes to the lake, but has been misheard.] Well, I’s no bairn, I’s leev’d in t’ reigns o’ three kings an’ a queen, but I deu like a bit o’ spooart. You should come and hev a hunt wi’ us. We hev grand runs noo an’ then. Mr. Crozier’s hoonds are rare uns. They’ll chase a fox five er sex times roond Skiddaw rayther ’n it sud git away. John Crozier’s dead noo; he was a grand un for t’ daels [dales]—a good gentleman. Then ther’s a few hares [the Cumbrian pronunciation of this word evades the science of print] in t’ boddems. But they’re nobbut babby-wark at best, fit for a day wi’ t’ sna on t’ tops. We used to hev a bit o’ cockfeightin’ yance ower, but t’ police er doon on it noo. But, hooivver, we mannish [manage] a main noo an’ then in spite on ’em a’, eh?”