Alexander Craig Gibson

“ It is the Hall Point; the grounds lying between it and Hawthwaite, and extending from the water side to the tops of the heights more than a mile to the westward, form the ancient deer-park, which possesses such a luxuriant and widely-extended covering of natural timber, as might gladden the hearts of those who affect to hold that any utilitarian interference with nature tends grievously to degrade or destroy the romantic characteristics of lake scenery. The Hall itself is concealed by the upper arm of the bay, with the trees and neat, but singular and high, steep-roofed edifice upon it. ”

“ To him you are a dumb man. In two minutes you are as completely drenched in spray, as if you had fallen out of a boat—and descend to dinner with a tooth-ache that keeps you in starvation in the presence of provender sufficient for a whole bench of bishops. In dry weather, on the contrary, the waterfall is in moderation; and instead of tumbling over the cliff in a perpetual peal of thunder, why it slides and slidders merrily and musically away down the green shelving rocks, and sinks into repose in many a dim or lucid pool, amidst whose foam-bells is playing or asleep the fearless Naiad. ”

“ As you saunter on towards the hills, you arrive at a huge inelegant building of three high stories, formerly a corn-mill, but now converted into eight roomy dwelling-houses, and a large public room. Immediately above this old corn-mill, on a gentle acclivity at the apex of the fertile triangular plain of Church Conistone, so close to the fells as to be almost overhung by them, and surrounded by richly-decorated grounds, stands Holy-wath, the residence of one to whom Conistone is mainly indebted for the prosperity she has for so many years enjoyed. ”

“ The most curious feature of Dungeon Ghyll is two huge rocks, which appear to have been rolling down simultaneously from the Pikes above, and to have met and jammed together across the top of the chasm, forming a bridge, which it is a favourite feat with adventurous spirits to cross over, and which, in its “contempt of danger and accommodation,” might almost seem to have been placed there to gratify the peculiar taste in bridges of the lamb’s benevolent preserver. ”

“ Mr Wordsworth says that the lakes in general should be approached by this road, and as he says it well, and, like the true worshipper of Nature that he undoubtedly is, I feel constrained to quote him:—“The stranger, from the moment he sets his foot upon these (Lancaster) sands, seems to leave the turmoil and traffic of the world behind him; and, crossing the majestic plain when the sea has retired, he beholds, rising apparently from its base, the cluster of mountains among which he is going to wander; and towards whose recesses, by the vale of Conistone, he is gradually and peacefully led.” ”

“ He has probably never beheld a scene which conveyed a stronger impression of joyful charm; of fertility, prosperity, comfort, nestling in the bosom of the rarest beauty.
The traveller feasts his eye with the scattered dwellings under their sheltering woods,—the cheerful town, the rich slopes, and the dark gorge and summits of Yewdale behind; while the broad water lies as still as heaven between shore and shore. ”

“ Left a widow many years ago, with a young family, by great industry and exertion she brought them up and settled them in the world in useful and respectable callings. In the sweet and quiet vale of Duddon, about a quarter of a mile below the bridge which unites Seathwaite and Ulpha, at an angular bend of the river, is a deep hole called the ‘Smithy Dub.’ About a stone-throw from this, on the Cumberland side of the river, behind one of those detached rocks, so characteristic of Duddon dale, stands a neat and roomy cottage and a garden, well furnished with bee-hives and flowers. ”

“ Diverging occasionally from, but generally following the line of the shaft, you pass several old “bunnins”—I am not sure about the orthography, but the derivation is, I fancy, from bound in—which are short logs of wood jammed between the opposite walls of rock for the miners to stand upon when working in such situations. As you proceed on your perilous journey, you must not allow the thundering echoes of the distant blast, or the astounding rattle of the rapidly descending kibble and its chain, to deprive you of your presence of mind, else you are “but a dead” tourist. ”

“ It has long been a favourite notion with me that if, instead of general guides to, or descriptions of all the Lake country comprised in single volumes, of which we have a superabundance, we could have each distinct locality treated of fully and minutely in a work devoted exclusively to itself, and written by some one whose long residence in, and intimate knowledge of the district described would secure its accuracy, we should possess a series of Lake books much more comprehensive, more useful, and more amusing than any we can yet boast of. ”

“ But it is time you were taking leave of Cockley Beck, and as you are doing so, you may perceive at the foot of the heights to your left a number of rubbish heaps, the result of a mining speculation set a going and kept up by some spirited and very persevering gentlemen chiefly resident in Ulverstone. You now canter along a decent road through flat meadows where, if it be the season, the lads and lasses of the dale are busily engaged in securing the hay-crop and carrying it home, probably on horseback, for the old farmers here have not as yet begun to use carts for that purpose. ”

“ You may remember that it was hereabouts you crossed the vale of Tilberthwaite,
“Paled in with many a mountain high,”
on a former ramble. On the present occasion, you hold the road to your right, and a precious steep, rugged sample of a road it is; but as you gradually surmount the ascent, you may take a retrospective glance, now and then, at the beautiful vale, or rather dell, of Tilberthwaite, and the mountains with which it is “paled in,” all of these being surmounted by the massive Weatherlam, which is seen to much advantage, and shews itself to be a magnificent hill from this road. ”

“ A perpendicular wall of solid rock rises on each side, scarcely three yards apart, to the height of one hundred feet. At the inner extremity of the chasm, about fifty yards from its external opening, and directly opposite to you as you enter, the water rushes in one clear unbroken fall, from a height of ninety feet, into a deep circular basin, whence a lamb, which had been dashed over the fall without injury, was rescued from drowning by Mr Wordsworth, to await the legitimate fate of all lambs, they, like many of the human species, “being destined to a drier death on shore.” ”

“ The vale of Seathwaite now assumes a more attractive aspect; your pleasantest road lies through the farm-yard of Cockley Beck, and that hearty-looking elderly man, the uniform cherry-colour of whose honest phiz bespeaks exposure to many a biting mountain blast, is Daniel Tyson himself. If you are disposed to rest and chat awhile, you may lead him, nothing loath, into conversation, and if you do so, I fancy that some of his communications will surprise, if they don’t interest you ”

“ For miles hereabouts the137 scenery partakes largely of the Blea-tarn character, and were it not for the house, the road, the little fields and the intruding larches, there were nothing to indicate that the hand or foot of man has been there. It is not until you are descending a steep hill towards Wall-end, that the fertile meadows, the flourishing trees, the hedge-rows and the homesteads of Great Langdale, and the magnificent Pikes towering beyond them, neutralize the effect of the dreary scene you are emerging from. ”

“ As you follow up the margin of the lake, you next descry the beautiful farm of Hawthwaite, with its rookery, plantations, and numerous single trees, occupying a fine situation under the northern shoulder of Torver common, and presenting one of the most eligible sites for a gentleman's seat, with extensive grounds, in the north of England. Nearer still, you see a promontory covered with bright verdure, and tipped, or fringed, with low spreading wood, running out, as it seems from the Water Head, into the very middle of the lake. ”

“ And I, being neither bard, antiquary, romancist, moral philosopher, gourmand, natural philosopher, miner, bookmaker, opium-eater, painter, moist weather meter, nor philanthropist in particular, but the least in the world of them all, “in the abstract”—keeping its scenery, atmosphere, geology, mineralogy, fish, flesh, and fine weather all at once in view, and lumping, as is fair, the opinions of all these great and undeniable authorities together,—hold it to be matchless, not only in the Lake district of England, but in the world, at least in any part of it that I have seen. ”

“ The high lands were covered with a thick, cold, driving, suffocating mist, which every now and then thinned a little to make way for one of these thorough-bred mountain showers, of which none can have any conception who have not faced them on the fells in winter—wetting you to the skin and chilling you to the marrow in three seconds, and piercing your exposed skin like legions of needles and pins. ”

“ The beauties around you are so numerous, so diversified, such perfect realities, and the deformities or defects in the scenery are so few and so minute, that no softening or shadowing is required to enhance a reasonable man’s enjoyment of the loveliness of Conistone. ”

“ The neat cottages beyond, smiling over the beauty below them, are called 'Boon Beck, and, like nine-tenths of the houses you have seen, are inhabited by miners. Pass through the Fell-gate, taking the road to the right, and a pretty stiff pull you will find it.
On the upper side of the road, you have a steep fell-side consisting of grey rock, alternating with green pasturage, and on the lower a high and dry stone wall, and when you come to a gate therein, you may rest, and look over, or through it, at the dale and village from a new point of view. ”

“ Miss Martineau may undertake to supply all “the neighbours who have no clock” with that essential article of domestic respectability, for I can answer for it, there is no house in Seathwaite without one. “Just outside the wall,” Miss M. says, “is a white cottage, so humble that the stranger thinks it cannot be the parsonage: yet the climbing roses and glittering evergreens, and clear lattices, and pure uncracked walls, look as if it might be.” ”

“ What remains of the Old Hall, I have also said, is converted into a farm-house and appurtenances, both of which are of a most commodious and substantial description; and, should your sojourn at Conistone happen to fall in the early part of July, let me exhort you to attend the Conistone Hall clipping, or sheep-shearing, where you will witness some “scenes of life and shades of character” not to be seen every day, nor in every locality; and, moreover, you will find the viands to accord in character with the building,—i. e. to be plentiful, substantial, and old-fashioned. ”

“ Of course you have read the history and exploits of the famous Tom Hickathrift, and remembering that he was raised at Troutbeck, you will not be much surprised when I tell you that it was always famous for breeding a race of extraordinary size and strength, for even in these our own puny days, the biggest man in Westmorland is to be found in that beautiful vale. ”

“ My life has been about equally divided between town and country, the nature of my occupation has given me much—I hope not wasted—opportunity in both of noting human nature en deshabille, and I tell you that good and evil in town and country, in crowded capital and lonely fell-dale, are “much of a muchness.” As a general rule, you may safely aver that the best educated community, is also the best behaved, and the standard of education amongst our mountaineers is by no means a high one. ”

“ The beauties of Conistone have never been adequately described, neither has it received even “the shadow of justice” from any writer since the days of Gray, the poet, old West, the antiquary, and Mrs Anne Radcliffe, of romance-spinning celebrity, all of whom wrote of the scenery of Conistone in terms of quaintly eloquent eulogium. Indeed, the once popular, and still admired, fabricatrix of “Mysteries,” places it pre-eminent over all its neighbours in its diversity of beauty ”

“ I cannot observe any difference between the manners and conduct of the miners and of the other inhabitants of Seathwaite, nor can I understand how any such difference can be supposed to exist, because all the people employed in the Seathwaite mines are natives of this or the adjoining vales—are, in fact, for the most part, sons or brothers of the small yeomen and farmers, and have taken to mining because it is an occupation that affords them better earnings for less work, than does agricultural or pastoral labour, their only other resources. ”

“ The house across a field or two to your left, with some fine oaks beside it, is the Parsonage, both the house and grounds of which have been much beautified and extended by the present incumbent. You soon gain the high road at a neat little house called Oak Cottage; and may notice a little beyond it a handsome, but not very large residence, called Hollin-how, and near to that, close under the beetling precipice, a picturesque group of new cottages and old farm buildings, bearing the odd title of Far-end. ”

“ On my first becoming acquainted with Miss Smith’s pretensions, it is true that I regarded them with but little concern, for nothing ever interests me less than great philological attainments, or, at least, that mode of philological learning which consists in mastery over languages. But one reason for this indifference is, that the apparent splendour is too often a false one. They who know a vast number of languages, rarely know any one with accuracy; and the more they gain in one way, the more they lose in another. ”