WILD HYACINTHS
A cottage by Rothay! Wordsworth’s Rothay! In far-off climes and dusty, choking cities many pause in their eternal soul-grinding struggle and think of such sweet retirements, even when the scene is merely a figment conjured up by the poet’s craft. To such as know Rothay from its source in the craggy fells to slooming Winander, the feeling of envy is more acute. It is a glorious stretch of country, alike calm and beautiful, stormy and forbidding; in spring tinged with delicate green, in summer wreathed in blossom of pink and white and blue; in autumn shot with crimson and gold of dying leafage; in winter grey and dank with rain, or garmented in dazzling snow. But the cottage!—clung with the bines of creepers and eaved with glossy ivy; the lowly little cot where the tallest hollyhock peeps in at the chamber window; the old-fashioned garden laid out in neat beds of showy or sweet-scented flowers, with gay gladioli spikes of puce and white, and fuchsias red and outbending, with balsam and balm and the sweetest thyme; the rockery with green caressing films of parsley fern, the smooth tongues of scolopendrium, and the broad palmated fronds and upstanding brown “flowers” of the royal fern, with the wiry, graceful forms of oak and more robust-looking holly ferns; the wall-garden where white rocket, yellow musk, and a few hardy plants flourish, with rare mosses garnishing their fountains of bloom, and the half-wild turmoil of king-cups and “cross-buns” in the miniature pool of the Rothay. But the cottage!—with twisty oaken beams in the ceil of the parlour, with dark recesses and low windows, with a wide fireplace, to which, when winter’s roar and rain and snow run riot without, the chairs can be drawn and the many-houred evening drift away in happy talk and song and merriment. “Plain living and high thinking”—one could almost realise the ideal in such a home, where the fare is the humble, wholesome product of our mountain land; where thin haver-bread, tough, sweet cheese, and warm, pure milk might form the staple food; a home where the spinning-wheel might awaken from silence and dusty limbo, and give a perfect employment; where linen and wool might be worked up to thread and yarn in quiet hours. Such a prospect is fair beyond words, but few of us will ever dwell—save in our roseate dreams, by day or night—in a cottage by Wordsworth’s Rothay.
After a time spent beneath the trees and by the gushing waters, where viewpoints ever more fair allure us from one coign to another, we return to the road, here avenued by giant beeches. The western light touches a moving cloud, the damp, coppery leaves below catch the glow and throw it in a myriad little sparkles from twig to branch, and from branch to smooth bole. What is there in Nature more glorious than a group of well-grown trees?
DUNGEON GHYLL FORCE, LANGDALE
Wordsworth’s connection with the hamlet of Rydal is well known. In his pretty cottage on the hill he lived a life apart from the dalesfolk, watching the seasons come and go over the beautiful glen. Through the little knot of houses, we shortly approach the mere. Right up to Silver Howe the basin is brimmed with light; mountain and wood and lake are at “the pride of day.” Evening, sweet and slow, is dropping nearer, its first sign the grey-blue mist hovering beyond the bordering hills. The crag on which the Laureate of the Fells often sat commands a good view of the lake, and of a huge gash in Loughrigg, whence comes the sound of tinkling slate, where the quarry thunders ring. This of course was not so prominent in Wordsworth’s day. The cottage at Nab where Hartley Coleridge lived, loved by the dalesman (as his master was almost shunned), comes next: here De Quincey afterwards resided some opium-cursed years. We wander by the reedy mere, noting the islet on which not so long ago herons used to nest among the tangled trees, then take the road again for home.
CHAPTER IV
RYDAL AND GRASMERE
It is unfortunate that so many see Lakeland from its main ways only. They realise its narrow bounds, but cannot justly appreciate its rare beauties. For a week or two such travel our macadam roads; they climb the most frequented mountains, visit ghylls and tarns and waterfalls, wander by the favourite lakes: then away they pass, believing doubtless that Lakeland offers nothing further. Could they but come again, and discover our wealth of bypaths! Why I, a native of and dweller upon the soil, have spent the leisure of a dozen years and more in exploring without wearying, and know that many corners remain unvisited. To those who have seen Lakeland in hurried guise, I would say come again, avoid the sights noted in prose and verse, go elsewhere where you will, and at the end you may feel, with me, that less-known scenes make the “cream” look not unlike the watery dregs of the milk-pail.
DOVE COTTAGE, GRASMERE