PENRITH CASTLE
Ullswater.
In the drive between Penrith and Patterdale you see many things that are worthy of regard. Among these are the parish church of Penrith, a building made of red stone, remarkable for a massive square tower of great age and formidable aspect. In the adjacent churchyard are The Giant's Grave and The Giant's Thumb, relics of a distant past that strongly and strangely affect the imagination. The grave is said to be that of Ewain Cæsarius,[16] a gigantic individual who reigned over Cumberland in remote Saxon times. The Thumb is a rough stone, about seven feet high, presenting a clumsy cross, and doubtless commemorative of another mighty warrior. Sir Walter Scott, who traversed Penrith on his journeys between Edinburgh and London, seldom omitted to pause for a view of those singular memorials, and Scott, like Wordsworth, has left upon this region the abiding impress of his splendid genius. Ulfo's Lake is Scott's name for Ullswater, and thereabout is laid the scene of his poem of The Bridal of Triermain. In Scott's day the traveller went by coach or on horseback, but now, "By lonely Threlkeld's waste and wood," at the foot of craggy Blencathara, you pause at a railway station having Threlkeld in large letters on its official signboard. Another strange thing that is passed on the road between Penrith and Patterdale is "Arthur's Round Table,"—a circular terrace of turf slightly raised above the surrounding level, and certainly remarkable, whatever may be its historic or antiquarian merit, for fine texture, symmetrical form, and lovely, luxuriant colour. Scholars think it was used for tournaments in the days of chivalry, but no one rightly knows anything about it, save that it is old. Not far from this bit of mysterious antiquity the road winds through a quaint village called Tirril, where, in the Quaker burial-ground, is the grave of an unfortunate young man, Charles Gough, who lost his life by falling from the Striding Edge of Helvellyn in 1805, and whose memory is hallowed by Wordsworth and Scott, in poems that almost every schoolboy has read, and could never forget,—associated as they are with the story of the faithful dog, for three months in that lonesome wilderness vigilant beside the dead body of his master,
"A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below."
Patterdale possesses this advantage over certain other towns and hamlets of the lake region, that it is not much frequented by tourists. The coach does indeed roll through it at intervals, laden with those miscellaneous, desultory visitors whose pleasure it is to rush wildly over the land. And those objects serve to remind you that now, even as in Wordsworth's time, and in a double sense, "the world is too much with us." But an old-fashioned inn, Kidd's Hotel, still exists, at the head of Ullswater, to which fashion has not resorted and where kindness presides over the traveller's comfort. Close by also is a cosy nook called Glenridding, where, if you are a lover of solitude and peace, you may find an ideal abode. One house wherein lodging may be obtained was literally embowered in roses on that summer evening when first I strolled by the fragrant hay-fields on the Patterdale shore of Ullswater. The rose flourishes in wonderful luxuriance and profusion throughout Westmoreland and Cumberland. As you drive along the lonely roads your way will sometimes be, for many miles, between hedges that are bespangled with wild roses and with the silver globes of the laurel blossom, while around you the lonely mountains, bare of foliage save for matted grass and a dense growth of low ferns, tower to meet the clouds. It is a wild place, and yet there is a pervading spirit of refinement over it all,—as if Nature had here wrought her wonders in the mood of the finest art. And at the same time it is a place of infinite variety. The whole territory occupied by the lakes and mountains of this famous district is scarcely more than thirty miles square; yet within this limit, comparatively narrow, are comprised all possible beauties of land and water that the most passionate worshipper of natural loveliness could desire.
My first night in Patterdale was one of such tempest as sometimes rages in America about the time of the fall equinox. The wind shook the building. It was long after midnight when I went to rest, and the storm seemed to increase in fury as the night wore on. Torrents of rain were dashed against the windows. Great trees near by creaked and groaned beneath the strength of the gale. The cold was so severe that blankets were welcome. It was my first night in Wordsworth's country, and I thought of Wordsworth's lines: