Tales and Legends of the English Lakes

by Wilson Armistead

"THESE Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise,
Perch'd on the forehead of a jutting crag,
Pencil in hand and book upon the knee,
Will look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, for that moping son of idleness,
Why can he tarry yonder?—In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
Tombstone nor name—only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves." To Jane, his wife,
Thus spake the homely priest of Ennerdale.
It was a July evening; and he sat
Upon the long stone-seat beneath the eaves,
Of his old cottage,—as it chanced, that day,
Employ'd in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards tooth'd with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who turned her large round wheel in the open air
With back and forward steps. Towards the field
In which the parish chapel stood alone,
Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall,
While half an hour went by, the priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,
Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other lock'd; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the churchyard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost
The stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.

'Twas one well-known to him in former days,
A shepherd lad,—who, ere his sixteenth year,
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters—with the mariners
A fellow-mariner—and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been rear'd
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls and inland sounds
Of caves and trees:—and, when the regular wind
Between the tropics fill'd the steady sail,
And blew with the same breath through days and weeks,
Lengthening invisibly its weary line
Along the cloudless main, he, in those hours
Of tiresome indolence, would often hang
Over the vessel's side, and gaze and gaze;
And, while the broad green wave and sparkling foam
Flash'd round him images and hues that wrought
In union with the employment of his heart,
He, thus by feverish passion overcome,
Even with the organs of his bodily eye,
Below him, in the bosom of the deep,
Saw mountains—saw the forms of sheep that grazed
On verdant hills—with dwellings among trees,
And shepherds clad in the same country gray
Which he himself had worn.

And now at last
From perils manifold, with some small wealth
Acquired by traffic 'mid the Indian Isles,
To his paternal home he is return'd,
With a determined purpose to resume
The life he had lived there; both for the sake
Of many darling pleasures, and the love
Which to an only brother he has borne
In all his hardships, since that happy time
When, whether it blew foul or fair, they two
Were brother shepherds on their native hills.
—They were the last of all their race; and now,
When Leonard had approach'd his home, his heart
Fail'd in him; and, not venturing to inquire
Tidings of one whom he so dearly loved,
Towards the churchyard he had turn'd aside;
That as he knew in what particular spot
His family were laid, he thence might learn
If still his brother lived, or to the file
Another grave was added.—He had found
Another grave, near which a full half-hour
He had remain'd; but, as he gazed, there grew
Such a confusion in his memory,
That he began to doubt; and he had hopes
That he had seen this heap of turf before—
That it was not another grave, but one
He had forgotten. He had lost his path,
As up the vale, that afternoon, he walk'd
Through fields which once had been well known to him:
And O what joy the recollection now
Sent to his heart! He lifted up his eyes,
And, looking round, imagined that he saw
Strange alteration wrought on every side
Among the woods and fields, and that the rocks
And everlasting hills themselves were changed.

By this the priest, who down the field had come
Unseen by Leonard, at the churchyard gate
Stopp'd short,—and thence, at leisure, limb by limb
Perused him with a gay complacency,
Ay, thought the vicar smiling to himself,
'Tis one of those who needs must leave the path
Of the world's business to go wild alone:
His arms have a perpetual holiday;
The happy man will creep about the fields,
Following his fancies by the hour, to bring
Tears down his cheek, or solitary smiles
Into his face, until the setting sun
Write Fool upon his forehead. Planted thus
Beneath a shed that over-arch'd the gate
Of this rude churchyard, till the stars appear'd,
The good man might have communed with himself,
But that the stranger, who had left the grave,
Approach'd; he recognised the priest at once,
And, after greetings interchanged, and given
By Leonard to the vicar as to one
Unknown to him, this dialogue ensued:

LEONARD.

You live, Sir, in these dales a quiet life;
Your years make up one peaceful family;
And who would grieve and fret, if, welcome come
And welcome gone, they are so like each other,
They cannot be remember'd? Scarce a funeral
Comes to this churchyard once in eighteen months;
And yet, some changes must take place among you;
And you, who dwell here, even among these rocks
Can trace the finger of mortality,
And see, that with our threescore years and ten
We are not all that perish.——I remember
(For many years ago I passed this road)
There was a foot-way all along the fields
By the brook-side—'tis gone—and that dark cleft!
To me it does not seem to wear the face
Which then it had.

PRIEST.

Nay, Sir, for aught I know,
That chasm is much the same—

LEONARD.

But, surely, yonder—