'Clear though shallow stream of piety,
Ran on the Sabbath days a fresher course,'
The following additional extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley's (Christmas, 1882) casts light, both on the Hawkshead beck and fountain, and on the stone seat in the market square, referred to in the [fourth book] of [The Prelude].
"Postlethwaite of the Sun Inn at Hawkshead, has a father aged 82, who can remember that there was a stone bench, not called old Betty's, but Old Jane's Stone, on which she used to spread nuts and cakes for the scholars of the Grammar School, but that it did not stand where the Market Hall now is, and no one ever remembers a stone or stone-bench standing there. This stone or stone-bench stood about opposite the Red Lion inn, in front of the little row of houses that run east and west, just as you pass out of the village in a northerly direction by the Red Lion. This stone or stone-bench is not associated with dark pine trees, but they may have passed away root and branch in an earlier generation.
Next and most interesting, I think, as showing that I was right in the matter of the famous fountain, or spring in the garden, behind Betty Braithwaite's house. There exists in Hawkshead near this house a covered-in place or shed, to which all the village repair for their drinking-water, and always have done so. It is known by the name of the Spout House, and the water—which flows all the year from a longish spout, with an overflow one by its side—comes direct from the little drop well in Betty B.'s garden, after having its voice stripped and boxed therein; and, falling out of the spout into a deep stone basin and culvert, runs through the town to join the Town Beck.
So wedded are the Hawkshead folk to this, their familiar fountainhead, that though water is supplied in stand-pipes now from a Reservoir, the folks won't have it, and come here to this spout-house, bucket and jug in hand, morn, noon and night. I have never seen anything so like a continental scene at the gathering at Hawkshead spout-house.
Lastly, there is a very aged thorn-tree in the churchyard—blown over but propped up—in which the forefathers of the hamlet used to sit as boys (in the thorn, that is, not the churchyard), and which has been worn smooth by many Hawkshead generations. The tradition is, that Wordsworth used to sit a deal in it when at school."
Ed.
[Contents—Appendix]
[Main Contents]
Note III
The Hawkshead Morning Walk: Summer Vacation
(See p. 197, [The Prelude], [book iv.] ll. 323-38)
If the farm-house where Wordsworth spent the evening before this memorable morning walk was either at Elterwater or High Arnside, and the homeward pathway led across the ridge of Ironkeld, either by the old mountain road (now almost disused), or over the pathless fells, there are two points from either of which the sea might be seen in the distance. The one is from the heights looking down to the Duddon estuary, across the Coniston valley; the other is from a spot nearer Hawkshead, where Morecambe Bay is visible. In the former case "the meadows and the lower grounds" would be those in Yewdale; in the latter case, they would be those between Latterbarrow and Hawkshead; and, on either alternative, the "solid mountains" would be those of the Coniston group—the Old Man and Wetherlam. It is also possible that the course of the walk was over the Latterbarrow fells, or heights of Colthouse; but, from the reference to the sunrise "not unseen" from the copse and field, through which the "homeward pathway wound," it may be supposed that the course was south-east, and therefore not over these fells, when his back would have been to the sun. Dr. Cradock's [note] to the text (p. 197) sums up all that can "be safely said"; but Mr. Rawnsley has supplied me with the following interesting remarks:
"After a careful reading of the passage describing the poet's return from a festal night, spent in some farm-house beyond the hills, I am quite unable to say that the path from High Arnside over the Ironkeld range entirely suits the description. Is it not possible that the lad had school-fellows whose parents lived in Yewdale? If he had, and was returning from the party in one of the Yewdale farms, he would, as he ascended towards Tarn Howes, and faced about south, to gain the main Coniston road, by traversing the meadows between Berwick ground and the top of the Hawkshead and Coniston Hill, command a view of the sea that lay laughing at a distance; and near, the solid mountains—Wetherlam and Coniston Old Man—would shine bright as the clouds. I think this is likely to have been the poet's track, because he speaks of labourers going forth to till the fields; and the Yewdale valley is one that is (at its head) chiefly arable, so that he would be likelier to have gazed on them there than in the vale of Hawkshead itself. One is here, however—as in a former passage, when we fixed on Yewdale as the one described as being a cultured vale—obliged to remember that in Wordsworth's boyhood wheat was grown more extensively than is now the case in these parts. Of course, the Furness Fell, above Colthouse, might have been the scene. It is eminently suited to the description."