Ambleside

“ The beginning and the end are forever hidden; and what appears insignificant and out of proportion when caught alone at close quarters, may reveal all the splendour of the Eternal Purpose when surveyed with the proper perspective⁠—of the Infinite. The Reverend Phillip Ambleside felt as if for a moment he had been lifted to a height whence he had caught perhaps a glimpse of these larger horizons.
With his faith vastly strengthened, but his nerves considerably shaken, the clergyman went to bed and slept the sleep of a just man who has done his duty by chance as it were. ”

“ I fear there are many neighbourhoods in England too like, in this respect, to the one in which I live,—where many of the abodes of the humbler inhabitants are a disgrace to any civilised community. If ever there was a settlement favoured beyond others in regard to natural sanitary conditions, it is Ambleside: and if any one spot can be found superior even to Ambleside, it is Windermere (five miles off) , where the railway ends, and whence the Lake tourist, on his arrival, overlooks from a height a glorious view of lake, wood, and mountain. ”

“ At the head of Windermere is Waterhead, the landing-stage of Ambleside, which is served by the lake steamers of the Furness Railway Company. The chief roads which centre upon Ambleside are—one from the town of Windermere, following the eastern shore of the lake; one from Ullswater, by Patterdale and Kirkstone Pass; one from Keswick, by Dunmail Raise and Grasmere, and the two lovely lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water; and one from the Brathay valley and the Langdales to the west. Ambleside is thus much frequented by tourists. ”

“ An ordinary frivolous girl, of course, would have been impatient long ago. But the fine passion of the man broke everywhere through his rather lame words, and set something in the air about them aflame. The violins sounded thin and trashy compared to the rhythm of this earnest voice; all the glitter of the ballroom seemed cheap⁠—the costume of Carmen absurdly incongruous. Mr. Ambleside slipped back somehow into the key of the afternoon when Cosmic Powers had held direct communion with his soul. ”

“ July 21st.—We left Grasmere yesterday, after breakfast; it being a delightful morning, with some clouds, but the cheerfullest sunshine on great part of the mountainsides and on ourselves. We returned, in the first place, to Ambleside, along the border of Grasmere Lake, which would be a pretty little piece of water, with its steep and high surrounding hills, were it not that a stubborn and straight-lined stone fence, running along the eastern shore, by the roadside, quite spoils its appearance. ”

“ John carried letters to Ambleside. Wm. stuck peas. After dinner he lay down. John not at home. I stuck peas alone. Cold showers with hail and rain, but at half-past five, after a heavy rain, the lake became calm and very beautiful. Those parts of the water which were perfectly unruffled lay like green islands of various shapes. William and I walked to Ambleside to seek lodgings for C. No letters. No papers. It was a very cold cheerless evening. John had been fishing in Langdale and was gone to bed.
A very tall woman, tall much beyond the measure of tall women, called at the door. ”

“ Paul’s Cathedral are real and actual.
What he saw, he really saw: though the sight may have been of a kind unfamiliar to the majority. He was used as a real pawn in a real game. The girl’s life and soul were rescued, so to speak, by the marriage brought about, and her forces of mind and spirit lifted bodily for what they were worth into the scheme that God had ordained for them from the beginning of the world. Only⁠—the machinery brought to bear upon the end in view seemed so prodigious, so extraordinary, so unnecessary. One thinks of the sentence with which Ambleside always began his tale. ”

“ The date of the creation of this parish is not known; but from the fact that its southern boundary runs by the Stock Beck—thus cutting the now thriving town of Ambleside into two parts, one of which belonged to Grasmere and the other to Windermere—there seems a probability of it having been delineated at an early period, when the sæter of some Norse settler was but an insignificant clearing in the forest.
Every parish is but a unit in a complex Church organization, which passes upwards by rural deanery, archdeaconry, to diocese. ”

“ This lies to the left of the road as you are going from Ambleside; and from its name, Churchstone (Kirkstone) , is derived the name of the pass, and from the pass the name of the mountain. The guide-post—which was really the work of man—tells those going southwards (for to those who go northwards it is useless, since, in that [Pg 310] direction, there is no choice of roads) that the left hand track conducts you to Troutbeck, and Bowness, and Kendal, the right hand to Ambleside, and Hawkshead, and Ulverstone. ”

“ There the road goes on by Rydal Water, a small lake almost covered with rushes, and then through a gap in the mountain to Grassmere. This is all haunted ground, for Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge and De Quincy all walked and mused by the side of these lakes and on these hills, and one hardly wonders that they were inspired by the lovely scenery. Then, in another direction, one may walk from Ambleside to the quaint little village of Clappersgate, which is made up entirely of low grey stone cottages covered with vines and roses. ”

“ See also the Ambleside Fall, within half a mile of the town; the road up to it is by the inn door.
There is a fine pass over Kirkstone, and through Patterdale to Ulswater; but the road of late has been, by violent rains, rendered impassable for a carriage.
From Low-wood to Keswick, 18 miles; one of the finest drives in the world: in that road observe Rydal Water, and the rocky romantic pass between it and Grassmere, where you will be introduced into the land of soft, pastoral, calm delight. Admire the mountains as you ascend from Grassmere ”

“ Ambleside, when the crisis of the Reformation came, took matters strenuously in hand, as we have seen. The townsmen provided a regular stipend for a curate who could teach Latin and Greek to their sons, and also kept up the fabric of the chapel, in complete independence of the mother church. Moreover the right of burial and baptism at the chapel was secured in 1676, after some opposition from the patron. [174] Nothing, perhaps, was definitely fixed with regard to the nomination of the schoolmaster-curate, when the townsfolk undertook to furnish his salary in 1584. ”

“ But from the early seventeenth century, if not before, the dependent chapels in Langdale (at Chapel Stile) and Ambleside would absorb many of the more distant worshippers. For the four great celebrations, however, the whole of the adult population of the valleys, except the sick and infirm, would attend the parish church. [39] It is of course impossible to compute the number of the people, especially in early times ”

“ He called us, and we found him in a bower—the sweetest that was ever seen. The rock on one side is very high, and all covered with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of brown berries. On the other side it was higher than my head. We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed to wind away from us, the village lying under the hill. The fir-tree island was reflected beautifully. About this bower there is mountain-ash, common-ash, yew-tree, ivy, holly, hawthorn, grasses, and flowers, and a carpet of moss. Above, at the top of the rock, there is another spot. ”

“ James Dugdale the cleric, who witnessed a Rydal deed in 1575, might have been supposed to serve at Ambleside, only that Priest Watson was then alive. Certain it is that in 1584 the townsfolk placed their support of chapel and curate on a solid basis, pledging each man his portion of land thereto. This was immediately before the appointment of John Bell as curate. The pledge was repeated in a deed of the year 1597.
The rector of the parish, with no more than £18 odd as stipend, had now to perform the entire duty of the wide parish. ”

“ The item disappears, however, after 1752, for then the chapel was rebuilt, and was no doubt paved throughout with the fine slate of the valley: the need for rushes there being over, more than 80 years earlier than was the case with the mother church. The Ambleside Festival has continued to the present day (though with a lapse of a few years, according to Grasmere folk) , and is regularly held near the day of her Saint (Anne) , July 26th, the hymn used being the same as at Grasmere. ”

“ From Ambleside is another charming excursion by Clappersgate, where cross the Brathay, and proceed with the river on the right to the hamlet of Skelwith-fold; when the houses are passed, turn, before you descend the hill, through a gate on the right, and from a rocky point is a fine view of the Brathay River, Langdale Pikes, &c. ”

“ Immediately behind Ambleside there was a fearfully steep road leading up to the head of Kirkstone Pass, where at an altitude of quite 1,400 feet stood the "Travellers' Rest Inn." In our time walking was the only means of crossing the pass, but now visitors are conveyed up this hill in coaches, but as the gradient is so steep in some parts, they are invariably asked to walk, so as to relieve the horses a little, a fact which found expression in the Visitors' Book at the "Travellers' Rest" in the following lines ”

“ But quiet as the spot appeared, secluded as it is, it was a great mistake to suppose that a woman of any reputation could escape the inroads of the Tourist Vandals so near Ambleside, and Lowood. If any one wants to set up for a lion or lioness, let him or her go and take a cottage in the Lake country: there they will be lionized to their heart's content. There, in the height of summer, the whole region is alive with tourists and idlers, who are all on the lookout for any novelty ”

“ But it is certain that Parson Ambrose soon made good his claim to the position of rector, and that John Brathwaite remained as his principal curate in charge. He was a man who had seemingly no mind for strife or commotion. He showed supineness in allowing the squire to conduct the dispute about the tithes which now arose; as well as later to oppose the scheme of the Ambleside folk to secure the privileges of baptism and burial for their chapel. ”

“ There we met a gentleman, a resident in the locality, who was what we might describe as a religious enthusiast, for he had a very exalted opinion of the Vicar of Ambleside, whom he described as a "Christian man"—a term obviously making distinctions among vicars with which we heartily agreed. There must have been an atmosphere of poetry in the Lake District affecting both visitors and natives, for in a small valley, half a mile from a lonely chapel, stood the only inn, bearing the strange sign of "The Mortal Man" on which some native poet, but not Wordsworth, had written ”

“ It was just possible some climber in distress had spied him out, and shouted down upon him from the heights. But he searched in vain. There was no moving human figure. The sound, if sound it had been, was not repeated; only he was no longer alone, as before. That, at least, was certain. He nibbled more chocolate, put a couple of sour prunes into his mouth to suck, arranged the blue snow-glass over his eyes, and started on again for a steady pull up to the next ridge. ”

“ Ambleville, to the camp of Saint-Laurent-des-Orgerils to ask for Guyenne, who had borne the letter from Blois and had not returned. Ambleville was also instructed to tell Sir John Talbot, the Earl of Suffolk, and the Lord Scales that in God's name the Maid required them to depart from France and go to England; otherwise they would suffer hurt. The English sent back Ambleville with an evil message.
"The English," he said to the Maid, "are keeping my comrade to burn him."
She made answer: "In God's name they will do him no harm." And she commanded Ambleville to return. ”

“ Nothing was wanting to complete her beauty. The tinge of the rose was in full bloom upon her cheek; the charms of sensibility and tenderness were always her associates. In Ambulinia's bosom dwelt a noble soul—one that never faded—one that never was conquered.
Ambulinia! It can hardly be matched in fiction. The full name is Ambulinia Valeer. Marriage will presently round it out and perfect it. Then it will be Mrs. Ambulinia Valeer Elfonzo. ”

“ Advancement in diplomacy is proverbially slow, and Eric Ambleton struggled on in an onerous and most difficult life, always hoping for better things that never came.
He died while attached to the embassy in St. Petersburg, [Pg 34] and his wife had no other course open to her but to travel back to her old country with her two handsome boys and accept all her brother offered to her.
After her death Sir Ambrose desired Valentine to continue to regard the Dower House as a home for himself and his brother and sister—the little Grace who had been born there so soon after her mother’s widowhood. ”

“ My emotions were indescribable, but I preserved as sedate an appearance as possible, and was able to account for my return in a natural enough way to Ambrose when he opened the door for me. To brave his possible curiosity by going up-stairs, required a still greater effort; but the thought that my intentions were pure and my daring legitimate, sustained me in the ordeal, and I ran, singing, up the first flight, glad that Ambrose had no better ear for music than to be pleased with what he probably considered an evidence of happiness on the part of his young mistress. ”