WINDERMERE FROM WANSFELL
Sunset
CHAPTER II
BY STEAM YACHT ON WINDERMERE
From its foot at Newby Bridge to the circling beach at Waterhead, Windermere, the largest of our Lakes, is full of interest. Not a bay on either bank fails in variety of scene, while from mid-lake the surroundings are ever changing. The ideal way to see Windermere is from a small boat; the journey, coasting every bay and yet not losing the broader views of mid-water, should not take less than two long summer days. Of course few can spare so much time to the pleasant task. By steamer in a short afternoon and at a moderate expense it is possible to make the tour of the lake. The visitor, however, can taste some of the pleasures of the ideal if he spare an evening for boating. From Bowness steer past the corner of Belle Isle; then as you near the Furness shore, turn right or left as fancy directs, coasting under larch-hung bluffs toward the Ferry, with Belle Isle on the left, or passing alder-fringed meadows past Rawlinson’s Nab for Wray. The Furness shore is rather the more diverse, and your rowing there at the close of day does not disturb the many anglers who frequent Millerground. From Lakeside the boat can be turned in any direction. Many wish to see the Leven leaving the lake: it is but a half-mile away. Paddling quietly beneath Gummers Howe is delightful; but the person with a taste for detail in light and shadow may decide that the opposite shore, with its view of the fell across the clear water, has even more charm.
By steamer the great majority see Windermere. The boats are large, and, though at some hours crowded, fairly often carry quite a few passengers. At mid-afternoon I have sailed from Bowness to Ambleside, a solitary passenger,—and that during the height of the touring season. From the deck of the steamer as it lies berthed at Lakeside there is a glorious view. The steep side of Gummers Howe, green in summer with bracken, golden with the young tendrils in spring, and in autumn russet with fading glory, rises opposite. Like a wide river the lake winds further and still further as your eyes turn toward the mountains. Yes, there they are, blue with distance—sharp peaks limning strongly against the sunlit sky. At present the lake is still as a mirror; drippings from the oars of passing boats make little glittering ripples. But though the views are so beauteous, it is well for a contemplative person to sit near the gangway and watch the throng which the latest train has brought from the outside world. There are two tall ladies, evidently school ma’ams, with much luggage and the power of looking after it without fuss; the stout old gentleman there has come this many years for a sojourn by the shore of Windermere. I don’t know his name, but his portly person is frequently seen on board the steamers. ’Cute chap that, say the lakemen; he has a season ticket and takes out full value. Now there is a quiet whirring of the screw; the captain, a white-bearded man with many years’ service on the lake, sounds the whistle for the last time, and the echo dies away among the hazels and coppices around. The water, with a quiet churning sound, parts in front of the boat and we are well away. Don’t look back, unless it be to catch a glimpse of where lake finally narrows into river.
The boat speeds past one or two wooded islets: in spring the undergrowth is blue with wild hyacinths. The afternoon sunlight glints upward from the calm water as from a mirror. By Finsthwaite the woods are rich green. Of cultivated land we see but little: here a cornfield between woods and lake; there, evenly hoed patches of turnips and potatoes, or more often meadows where rich grass is mantled in the white and yellow of ox-eyes and buttercups. Peeping between green bowers of sycamore and ash are one or two farmsteadings. Old and weathered, built of blue-grey stone, they harmonise well with their surroundings. Do our eyes, accustomed to these from birth, feel in this hoariness of theirs a rare beauty which is purely imaginary? We almost hate the sight of a modern-built villa, trim without, healthy and comfortable within. I make no pretension to the artistic temperament: subordinate the villa to its surroundings, and I am content; but stick a horror of brick and red tiles in all its nakedness on a commanding hillside, or right on the edge of a beautiful mere, and the wanderer is above human whose temper is not tried at the sight. Pretty bungalows, for occasional occupation, are springing up on the shores of Windermere; they are welcome, be the woodlands around them sere or green.
SWAN INN, NEWBY BRIDGE, WINDERMERE
When not watching the glorious picture unfolding as the steamer passes bay and creek, headland and rocky cove, there is to me much interest in observing other people on the boat. For the deck of a Windermere lake yacht has often as cosmopolitan a load as a cheap emigrant or “special tour” steamer. True, there is little distinction of nationality in dress; but the voices are often without disguise. Frenchmen, Swiss, and Germans are not unusual, while Americans are frequent. Here let me defend our friends from across the Atlantic. They are seldom the loud, almost vulgar critics of our lake scenery they are popularly supposed to be. Most of our visitors are readers of Wordsworth, of Ruskin, and our other poets in prose and verse, and know what to expect. A Yale man I once accompanied from Windermere to Keswick stated: “It is the breathlessness of Lakeland which surprises me. Here there is a memory of De Quincey or Coleridge: next moment there is a story of Christopher North. I lift mine eyes suddenly from the pastoral scenes of Wordsworth to the blue skies and mountains of Ruskin. Your country-side is breathless with lore: America has no place to compare it with.” I am not a “hail-fellow” person, preferring to be seen, not heard, and as the boat glides along I silently piece together, from external evidence, the little stories of my co-passengers. To-day there is a young man pacing the boat amidships. He is no chance visitor, I judge, by the anxious way he keeps looking ahead. There is some point he evidently does not wish to miss. Presently I hear a movement of his arm: he has drawn out his handkerchief and is waving it. Every eye turns to find out where he is signalling. In a moment we catch an answering flutter: there is a lady in white blouse and dark skirt on the shingles beneath the wood. Something in the message heartens our fellow-passenger; a load of anxiety has left him. Again and again he signals—ever there is an answer. Then a lithe dark figure springs into a path from the shore, and runs out of sight among the bushes. A child is hastening to give some one the news that the desired steamer is passing. Now, from the front of a bungalow, hardly to be seen for larches, another signal begins to jerk. Our passenger answers this also till the yacht sweeps out of the bay.
The promontory of Storrs now pushes out, and here the steamer will stop. The call of the syren, like an enormous flute, rings full and sonorous over the water, and dies in tuneful cadences, each softer and more sweet, through the green ghylls and swelling hills. The road to the pier runs close to the lake: a cyclist is rushing along vieing our boat in speed. The signaller has seen him, and smiles. In a minute we are past the narrow stone embankment with its small summer-house, and are purring alongside the newer wooden pier. The cyclist speeds into sight through an avenue of trees, and dismounts close by. The gangway is thrown aboard—the signaller is the first ashore. The cyclist exchanges a word, and they walk from view together. A story of joy and peace and love is maybe working itself out before us, and the whole while, seated on the opposite seat, a lady has been gloating over the theatricalities of miserable “life” as depicted by Marie Corelli. Better advised is the one who patrols the deck with a volume of the best carefully tucked under his arm. That book will be digested presently when lamps are lit and night like a velvet pall descends over lake and mountain.
Storrs Hall—now an hotel—was occupied a century ago by Mr. Bolton, who, a man of literary tastes, thought noble friendships a boon. He communed with Wordsworth, North, Sir Walter Scott, De Quincey, and many others who were attracted to that great coterie of genius. In these days the poetry of the Lakes school is often sneered at. The men with their simple tastes and pleasures are despised, but, leaving their work aside, never in history has a group of men so able, so high-minded, so far in advance of their day and generation, been so intimately associated. They had their weaknesses, their vices, but conducted their worst hours without impairing the morality of their surroundings. Their influence was wholly for good, wholly for an upward trend of thought.