Chapter III: The Clwyd and the Dee (3)

There are a few villages in the early stages of the Ribble, the first of any note being Horton-in-Ribblesdale, under the shadow of Pen-y-gent. The railway has little spoiled its primitive character, nor have the frequent expresses led to the disbandment of the beagles which still hunt the wild retreats of the mountain-side. There are ancient inhabitants in lonely farmhouses built of hard stone, and gleaming white from afar, who inherit the old traditions that portions of the mountain are honeycombed with giants' graves. There have long been legends to that effect, but men of science explain that the wondrous bones unearthed from caverns, and what not, belonged, not to sons of Anak, but to huge animals now unknown. The dalesmen but slowly discard such beliefs, retaining them as of right, just as the shepherds on the fells, and the hard-headed farmers in the valleys, cling to the customs of their grandfathers. The high-road between Horton and Giggleswick--in whose grammar school Paley was educated--gives access to the heart of Upper Ribblesdale; and the tourist visiting the cascades near Stainforth will recognise the sturdy bridge in the illustration (page 272) as a favourite resting-place. The river is represented in its peaceful mood, in one of its romantic bends.

TOWNELEY HALL, BURNLEY (_p. 276_).]

The country remains rich in its distinctive botany, and from no portion of the North do the great markets of Manchester and Leeds draw more of their supplies of whortleberry and mushroom in the early autumn months. At such junctions as Hellifield these natural products of the moorland may be seen stacked by the ton. It is almost the only indication of the gradual change that must come with the new era. Yet until comparatively recent times the peel-house at Hellifield stood witness to the remoteness of the district. So long back as the reign of Henry VI. a licence was granted to the Hamerton family to erect and keep as a place of defence the strong square peel which guarded the west; and around Gisburne Hall, the ancestral seat of the Listers, represented now by the Ribblesdale family, the wild cattle of the breed perpetuated chiefly at Chillingham roamed at large in the secluded woods of the high tract whence the feeder Stockbeck fitfully meanders to the valley of the Ribble.

The bracing bleakness of Bowland Forest is relieved for many a league by the Hodder, the Ribble's largest and longest tributary, which is in part of its course a natural line of demarcation between the counties that gave title to princely houses when the realm was divided by the Wars of the Roses. Dense fringes of bush and brier proclaim its progress, and exquisitely sweet spots, like that of the oak-covered knoll on which stands the little chapel at Whitewell, occur in the district where, to the commanding eminence of ancient Brownsholm Hall, a curious relic found its way--the veritable Seal of the Commonwealth, with a Bible between two branches of palm as the centre, and the inscription, "Seal for the approbation of Ministers."

The famous Roman Catholic College of Stonyhurst, south-west of Longridge Fell, is near the meeting of Hodder with Ribble. Beautiful is its situation, wooded valleys dipping in the east, and beyond them the substantial landmarks of Clitheroe and Pendle Hill. Stonyhurst, even to one who has no cognisance of its modern character, its origin, or the manner of its conversion from the mansion of the Sherburnes to the purpose which it has fulfilled with high distinction for more than a hundred years, has the appearance and atmosphere, even at a distance, of a place for study and retreat. It is wholly removed from the busy world, and all the surroundings give an involuntary impression of harmony and quiet. Stonyhurst was probably always a home of Catholics at heart, though the Sir Richard Sherburne who was one of Harry VIII.'s Commissioners at the dissolution of religious houses did contrive to be a favourite with young Edward, Mary, and, after her, Elizabeth. He it was who built part of the mansion on the site of an older baronial edifice; and the shapely west front, amongst other considerable portions of the present building, is his work. The Sherburnes, however, were not able to finish the structure; but Sir Nicholas, who was made a baronet, in whom the title became extinct, and who was a man of culture and travel, planned and laid out the gardens which no visitor to Stonyhurst is likely to forget. Through Cardinal Weld, to whose family the property fell, it was in 1794 devoted to the use of the Jesuits driven from Liège by the French Revolutionists. Since then it has gathered high renown as an educational agency amongst the Roman Catholic aristocracy.

PRESTON, FROM THE WEST (_p. 278_).]

In approaching Stonyhurst, even the simple village on its borders exercises its tranquillising influence upon the visitor; the cemetery and oratory, the trim lawn, the trees on either side of the drive, the sheet of water, and the glimpse of the inner seclusion through the gateway, claim a share of the admiration which is given without stint to the imposing two-towered building so finely situated. The gardens are an enchantment; and the fountain, the observatory with its Peter's telescope, the summer-houses, the tall, deep dividing walls of ancient yew clipped square and pierced with archway exits and entrances, blend in strengthening the conviction that here we are removed from scenes of strife. The Tudor-Gothic church is the most notable of the additions made since Stonyhurst became a college eminent for the most perfect appliances for scientific study, for a well-furnished museum, and all that is best for students at work or play. In the Mitton area, which trends to a point where the two rivers mingle, may be found many interesting specimens of the well-preserved, half-timbered houses for which the two counties (each of which claims a part of Mitton) are celebrated. The well-known doggerel perpetrated in honour of this neighbourhood, may be quoted--not, however, as warranted by any climatic defects, but rather as showing the straits to which the author was put for a rhyme:

"The Hodder, the Calder, Ribble, and rain,
All meet together in Mitton domain."

Into the Ribble, at no great distance below this ancient parish, protruding like a wedge into the County Palatine, flows the Calder, coming from the south-east, and from a district once as wild as Longridge Fell and Bowland Forest, but now reduced to modern uses by the cotton and worsted mills, calico works, and foundries of thriving Burnley, through which ran a Roman way once upon a time. It has an indirect relation with the Ribble, being placed on the Brun, the Calder intervening. Never had manufacturing town a finer "lung" than is furnished by Pendle Hill, which offers a climb of 1,800 feet above sea-level to the dwellers in a district which is in touch also (near or far) with Sawley Ruins, Blackstone Edge, and the Vale of Craven. Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends, was so carried away with delight in his travels thereabouts that he declares he was moved by the Lord to go up to the top of Pendle Hill, and in the clear atmosphere saw the sea shining beyond the Lancashire coast.

Amongst many old houses of which Lancashire is proud is Towneley Hall, seat of a family one of whose ancestors was first dean of Whalley Abbey, the ruins of which are one of the most valued relics on the banks of the Calder. This takes us back to a century and a half before the Conquest; and it was one of this ilk who was the last of the deans. The original hall of the Towneleys appears to have partly stood somewhat south of the mansion which is the subject of one of the illustrations to this chapter (page 223). Whitaker, the great authority on Lancashire history, was unable to ascribe a date to the Hall, but it is evident to the modern observer that portions are of considerable antiquity. Many must have been the changes, however, since the six-feet walls were built. The work of Richard Towneley in 1628 is known, and the addition was by W. Towneley in 1741. A still later member of the family removed turrets, gateway, chapel, and sacristy to their present position, but the rebuilding had been begun a few years earlier. The portraits, as is often the case, tell in great measure what the Towneleys were in their day and generation: one died at Wigan Lane, another at Marston Moor; one was an eminent antiquary, another translated "Hudibras" into French, another collected art treasures, secured to the trustees of the British Museum by means of a Parliamentary grant.

Some of the most interesting of the old Towneley relics were believed to have been brought from Whalley Abbey, built upon a spot which, before streams were polluted by factories, yielded fish from the river, and feathered game from the woods and heather, whilst the forest and park around the old Hall furnished abundance of venison. Burnley then must have been a delightful town, lying in its hollow, environed by swelling moors and crystal streams. This is the country of which Philip Gilbert Hamerton often pathetically speaks in his "Autobiography," though "the voice of Nature," to which he refers in one of his poems, must even in his young days have been thickened here and there by the smoke of tall chimneys, and marred by the echo of raucous sounds from foundry and loom.

"Proud Preston" is an appellation which had its significance in another generation, and was indicative of the loyalty of the town to old traditions, to the Grown, to its own independence. The hundred in which it was situated was attached, in the reign of Athelstan, to the Cathedral Church of York: hence Priests' Town, or Preston. This is evidence of a satisfactory old age; and in 1840 more was forthcoming from a rude box dug up from the alluvial soil on the banks of the Ribble, containing a precious store of coins, rings, and ingots, including nearly 3,000 Anglo-Saxon pieces. Higher up the stream was the still older settlement of Ribchester, the Roman station of Coccium, which declined into nothing as Preston increased in importance. The sweep of country surveyed from Red Scar, where the river curves into a horseshoe course under a precipitous bank, or from the popular point of look-out in Avenham Park, is studded with points around which history clings.

The lonesome moor where Cromwell routed Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his Royalists has become an open space for the recreation of the people; the Jacobite rebellions and the temporary sojourn of Charles Edward on that disastrous Derby campaign are remembrances dimmed by the remarkable rise of Preston in modern times as a manufacturing and commercial town. This is owing to its position at the head of the Ribble estuary. There are two things in the present century of which even "Proud Preston" need not be ashamed: it was here that the first total abstinence pledge was taken in England, the signatories being Joseph Livesey and half a dozen brother-abstainers; and it was here that the practical working of the vote by ballot was tested in 1872.

For more than thirty years the flourishing town, standing 120 feet above its river, has been undergoing improvements, carried out with great public spirit. Sir Gilbert Scott designed for it the French-Gothic Town Hall which rises gracefully above the other buildings; County Hall, Free Library, and Museum have been added; even the parish church has been rebuilt, and the once steepleless town now boasts, in St. Walburge's Roman Catholic Church, the loftiest spire erected in England since the Reformation. An unbroken link with the past is the Guild-Merchants' Festival, celebrated since 1397 (half a century before the first charter was granted); and for the last 400 years the "Preston Guild" has been observed with intense fervour every twenty years, the next coming due in 1902. The present writer was in Preston during, probably, the saddest circumstances under which such a celebration could occur. It was in 1862, when the cotton famine was sore in Lancashire; but the Prestonians threw themselves with energy into the traditional observance, and made it a memorable success. Rose festivals, morris dances, and other old English revelries retain their hold here, as in other parts of Lancashire, and are likely long to prevail.

It is as a port that Preston has recently claimed attention. The changes effected since the passing of the Ribble Navigation Act in 1883 have been striking. The marsh which kept the town apart from its river has been drained, and made fit for houses and streets. Woods that were familiar objects in the immediate landscape have disappeared, and the deepening of the channel of the tidal Ribble to admit ships of 1,700 tons has been but a natural result of Arkwright and his spinning-frame, and the cotton industry that superseded the linen-making of the previous century. The new dock, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1892, with the Corporation as its owners, cost a million of money. The scheme made it necessary to divert the course of the Ribble below the town, and the prediction of the eminent engineer, Sir John Coode, that there would be no port in the country with so free a run to the sea, has been fulfilled. Even with the construction of docks, involving three miles' length of permanent railway sidings, the old charm of the scene is not entirely lost. The brawny shoulders of Longridge Fell may be discerned in the north-east; cattle and sheep graze on the levels; the borders of the Fylde country are in view, and abrupt Rivington Pike is on the remote horizon.

* * * * *

Between the estuary of the Ribble and the south-eastern boundary of Lancaster Bay is the fertile Fylde district, the conformation of which is, roughly speaking, that of a foreshortened peninsula. The Margate and Ramsgate of Lancashire--if Lytham and Blackpool may be so-called--are on the outlying coast, but they are only of interest to us at the present moment from the arrival of the river /Wyre/ at Fleetwood. This is a seaport and military station of what may, without offence, be termed upstart growth. It is but twenty-one miles north of Preston as the railway flies, and it has the double advantage of being a port and a watering-place. Within the memory of persons who heard about the coronation of Queen Victoria, the place where this important harbour is now situated, with its lighthouse ninety feet high and showing a glare that is visible for thirteen miles at sea, was a mere rabbit-warren, its one adornment a dilapidated limekiln. Its population now must be close upon 10,000, and from its docks lines of steamers ply to and from Belfast and the Isle of Man.

The river Wyre, rising near Brennand Fells, on the western side of the Bowland Forest of which previous mention has been made, takes in as a small tributary another river Calder, which rises on Bleasdale Moor, forming part of a ridge of country often exceeding 1,700 feet above sea-level. Wyresdale is noted for its striking combinations of wild and motley fells in recurring variations, alternating with copse and woodland. One of the earliest ecclesiastical sites in Lancashire is St. Michael's, some miles below Garstang; and, at a point where the river nears the estuary, the Wyre for several miles is protected from the strength of its own current by a series of artificial banks. The old fashioned town of Poulton-le-Fylde overlooks the river where it expands into the salt expanse of Wyre Water, and the estuary, contrary to the usual custom, after broadening out considerably, contracts somewhat sharply at the mouth, at the western point of which is Fleetwood.

Our next river has been characterised by "Faërie Queene" Spenser as

"the stony, shallow Lone,
That to old Loncaster his name doth lend."

As the poet was probably born near the Burnley which has been described on a previous page, he no doubt knew his Lancashire well, and spoke from the book when he claims that it gives name to the town and the county. The /Lune/ is what in the North-country is called a bonny river, and it rises, not on the edge of Richmondshire, as is sometimes stated, but at the upper extremity of a dale to the south-east of Wharton, in Westmorland. This is a portion of the upheaved Lancashire country, however, that stands something midway between sea-level and the summits of its best mountains. The uplands and highlands of the early course of the Lune range between 500 feet and 1,000 feet, and the lower half is below the smaller figure. The course, however, is through a section of valleys watered by innumerable creeks, and kept in bounds by the lonely fells. Sometimes, as at Howgill, there are fairy glens, and the occasional intervals of fertile pastures and wooded levels are a not ungrateful contrast. On one of the plains of the Lune is Kirkby Lonsdale, the capital of a vale which stretches away with Ingleborough in the distance. The river courses round a half-circle, and the scene, with its mountainous background in the east, is particularly beautiful.

It is a rare kind of panorama for this part of the country. The radiating valleys in the Lancashire portion of the Lune's course bring in the Greta and the Wenning. The former must not be confounded with the other Greta that is born near Helvellyn, nor with the tributary of the Tees in the North Riding, at the bridge of which Nicholas Nickleby, old Squeers, and the wretched boys were put down from the coach _en route_ to Dotheboys Hall. This Greta which is a tributary of the Lune is a rocky-bedded, brawling, rushing little stream, tumbling down from Whernside, and, between Ingleborough and Ingleton Fells, finding its way through a dale which is much visited for the sake of the roaring subterranean waterfall of Wethercote Cave, the charming surroundings of Ingleton village, and the caves and fells of Kingsdale valley.

The Wenning is the larger tributary, and its popular attractions are the subterranean grotto called Ingleborough Cave, in the gloomy Clapdale ravine, and Hornby Castle, conspicuously placed on a craggy height fringed with old trees. This interesting country is now traversed by a railway branching west from Settle, with a junction at Clapham for the aforesaid Ingleton, and affording to the traveller a sight of Giggleswick Scar and the geological curiosity of Craven Fault. The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot in Lunedale. These are the words: "To see the view in perfection, you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. On each hand, up the middle distance, rise two sloping hills, the left clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage. Between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentines for many a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and richly-pastured foreground." For the last seven miles of its course the Lune runs almost parallel to and within a short distance of Morecambe Bay, and the narrow neck of land which it forms is distinguished by the designation of Little Fylde.

While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one looking at John of Gaunt's old home in the present day, and upon the business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town.

Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King's forests of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was "liable to" for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in musty grants and charters.

Lancaster Castle, through whose time-honoured owner the county became a duchy, was strongest, perhaps, in the reign of Elizabeth, when the threat of a Spanish invasion led to the overhauling of all its points of defence. This, too, was the date of the strengthening of the great keep, the remnant of which is a treasured example of Norman architecture. From a mighty royal and baronial residence the castle has now become a gaol, and John of Gaunt's Oven, as the mill and bakery of the fortress was termed, became the Record Office. There were five monastic establishments in Lancaster, with privilege of sanctuary. The time came when the privilege was of no avail. But the unfortunate rebels of 1715 entered Lancaster with flying colours, bravely marching, and mustering in the market-place to the skirl of the bagpipes. They proclaimed the Pretender King of England under the title of James III., and some of them, poor fellows, returned soon afterwards, not in search of the sanctuary they needed, but to be imprisoned in the castle, and to suffer the last penalty of the law as in their case made and provided. Even in the '45 Charles Edward, at the head of his little band, must needs trouble Lancaster, but the invaders were only passing through on their way to Manchester and Derby. A second time they came here, and then they were in full retreat, heralds of a finally lost cause.

The situation of Lancaster on the flank of a hill is most favourable for an appreciation of its appearance, and the castle buildings on its summit give a remarkable panorama of the town, the valley of the Lune winding on its way to the sea through the lowland. The principal gateway of the castle is an ancient portcullised archway, flanked by octagonal towers, and in it are chambers to which far-off traditions refer, for the authorities assure us that the gateway belonged to "time-honoured Lancaster's" tower, while in an apartment called the Pin Box Henry IV. gave audience to the King of Scotland and the French Ambassadors. The dungeon tower, demolished in 1818, became the penitentiary for women prisoners. "John of Gaunt's Chair" is a turret at the top of the tower, and from this eminence of ninety feet superb views, which in clear weather comprise shadowy forms in the Lake-country, are to be obtained. Whewell, the Master of Trinity College, is one of the worthies of whom the town is proud, and all the more because he was a son of one of its carpenters. But for the accident of the lad attracting the attention of a kindly master, and the existence of a Grammar School, founded in 1483 by John Gardiner, the distinguished scholar might never have attained his eminence. Another pupil of the school was Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist.

A couple of lines by Spenser prefaced these remarks about the Lune, and an extract from the river-poet, Drayton, may well conclude them:--

"For salmon me excels; and for this name of Lun,
That I am christened by the Britons it begun,
Which fulness doth import of waters still increase
To Neptune bowting low, when christal Lune doth cease;
And Conder coming in conducts her by the hand,
Till lastly she salutes the Point of Sunderland,
And leaves our dainty Lune to Amphitrite's care.

* * * * *

Then hey, they cry, for Lune, and hey for Lancashire,
That one high hill was heard to tell it to his brother."

There are streams which find their way, sometimes through devious and uncertain channels, into Morecambe Bay, but they are little known even to the inquisitive angler, who is always in search of new waters. The local sportsmen in their wisdom periodically look for the run of silver sea-trout, and keep their secret. The line of the bay from its north-eastern corner, where the Kent comes in, and round to Walney Island, is in the most literal sense irregular, for its indentations and river tributaries are continuous. It forms the intake of what Windermere and Coniston water send down to the sea, and it is, moreover, the watery foreground from which the world-famed scenery of Westmorland and Cumberland may be finely viewed. At Carnforth and Silverdale the outlook in this direction is unrivalled; Fairfield, Helvellyn, and Red Screes loom in the clouds or stand clear against the sky afar, and along the shores of the Bay are nestling towns and villages, wooded knolls and slopes, cottages, farms, and, always behind them, that wonderful amphitheatre, tier upon tier, of mountain.

In pre-railway days the journey from Lancaster to Ulverston was something of an adventure, always exciting, not only on account of the scenery brought under review, but because of the absolute danger of the shifting channels that had to be crossed. The coach was invariably joined at Hestbank (a cliff about three miles from the county town) by guides, whose duty it was to be up to date with the last man[oe]uvres of the quicksands, and to be ready with safe crossing places. These guides were an old institution, and were originally appointed and paid as retainers by the Prior of Cartmel. When the downfall came, and there was no longer an abbey treasure-chest to fall back upon, the Duchy of Lancaster paid the wages. It used to be said that few of those who got their living by "following the sands" died in their beds. Nevertheless, the calling of guide was kept in the same family for generations. The danger of this passage of the sands was long ago put into a distich--

"The Kent and the Keer
Have parted many a good man and his mear."

Some of the channels, it was said, were never two days together in the same place. The Keer mentioned in the old couplet was very treacherous, and was always carefully sounded before the coach ventured to cross. Sand tracks had to be staked out with furze-bushes, as the channel of a river is buoyed. Perilous difficulties were apprehended when nearing the Cartmel tongue of the Kent; the Leven sands beyond Cartmel and Ulverston were the worst of all. The poet Wordsworth told Mrs. Hemans, according to the lady's own letter, that he admired her exploit in crossing the Ulverston sands as a deed of derring-do, and as a decided proof of taste; and he truly added that the lake scenery is never seen to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its majestic barrier.

Before arriving at the Lake district we might in farewell turn our faces to the south, standing in imagination at Silverdale. There in the picture are the Wharton Crags, with houses great and small amongst their wooded feet; and then there are Bolton-le-Sands, Hestbank, Poulton-le-Sands (which to all intents and purposes is Morecambe), Heysham, and Lancaster Bay. It is a journey of twenty-six miles by rail from Lancaster to Ulverston, and the greater part of the distance is close to the shores of Morecambe Bay. The traveller going north, therefore, has the sea laving the tract to his left, and always, as an alternative prospect, rock, wood, stream, bushy dales and retiring glens to the right. From the sea the fishermen obtain great store of shrimp and flat fish. There are border guard-houses, such as Arnside Tower; and in reaching Hawes Tarn (which is said to be affected somehow by the rise and fall of the tide) groves of larch and pine, with a plenteous undergrowth of gorse and ling, offer themselves to the view. Picturesque Holme Island, at the mouth of the Kent, and the ruins of Peel Castle on the islet of that name, enter into the picture in other directions.

The river /Kent/, upon whose left bank the town of Kendal is situated, must not long delay our round of the streams that await introduction. It gives name to Kentmere village, and to the reservoir, or tarn, fed by the beck springing from the mountain bearing, in memory of the Roman road which neared its loftiest point, the very familiar name of High Street. There is also Kentmere Hall, remnant of one of the peel towers, and birthplace of Bernard Gilpin, the almost forgotten Apostle of the North in the dangerous times of Mary and Elizabeth, and after whom a parallel stream westward is called. The Kent, like the Mint from Grayrigg Forest, and the Sprint running down the middle of Long Sleddale--like, indeed, unnumbered becks on every hand in the whole district--is of the rapid order, abounding in boulders, shingly strands, deep channels between banks of imperishable rock, opening pools and pebbly shallows, haunts of trout and of the anglers who understand their ways and know the seasons when salmonidæ should be ascending from the salt water.

Her Majesty Catherine Parr, who had the good fortune to escape the peril of burning as a heretic, and the loving attention which was fatal to other wives of Bluff Harry, was born on the banks of the Kent, in the castle whose ruins are a prominent object in the scenery of which Kendal is the centre. Wordsworth sketches it in happy terms:--

"A straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,
And dignified by battlements and towers
Of a stern castle, mouldering on the brow
Of a green hill."

Shakespeare and others refer to Kendal in connection with an industry established by the Flemings, who settled there under Edward III. They became famous for their woollens, and their special "line" was the cloth termed "Kendals" in trade parlance, and "Kendal-green" by the outlaws and their critics. This was the colour of the clothes worn by the "three misbegotten knaves" whose exploits upon Falstaff were denounced by Prince Henry as lies "gross as a mountain, open, palpable." The foresters' cloth made by the Flemings was deservedly popular; but cotton superseded woollens in the last century, and this in time gave place to other textile fabrics.

The /Gilpin/ flows into the head of the long and crooked estuary a mile or so away from the mouth of the Kent river; and, further south, the viaduct carrying the railway to Grange crosses from Arnside. The isolated conical hill, Castle Head (or Castle Hill), is prettily brightened by foliage, and it is a significant survival of the old landmarks. The waves used to wash the base of this now high and dry eminence, for the plain traversed by the river WINSTER is mostly land reclaimed from the sea at different times, but most extensively for the construction of the railway. Holme Island is opposite and near the mouth of the Winster, and has not been inaptly described as a marine paradise made by the art and industry of man from a rude, isolated rock upon which previously nothing better than whins and brambles struggled for precarious roothold. The causeway which joins this beautiful little realm of a few acres to the mainland makes it an island only in name, but the name abides. Upon the Cartmel peninsula is the wooded domain of Holker Hall, which was the favourite autumnal resort of the late Duke of Devonshire.

* * * * *

The much more spacious peninsula of Furness--with Ulverston as its central town, the great docks and shipbuilding yards of Barrow marking modern progress, and the ruins of Furness Abbey pointing to a distant past--is divided from Cartmel by the estuary of the Leven. Leven from our point of consideration means Windermere and entrance to the unchanging beauty of Lakeland. The river Leven, however, is but a conclusion; in other words, it is the final link of the chain of water-pictures which have inspired many a poet; and to arrive at the first we must leave for a moment the sands of Morecambe Bay and take a new departure away beyond Grasmere, where the river /Rothay/ (or Rotha) is formed by a congregation of murmuring becks or gills. One of the feeders of the Rothay comes from the tiny Codale Tarn and the larger Easedale Tarn, well known to tourists from the rattling little waterfall, Sourmilk Force. Codale lies pretty high in the world, rising to an altitude considerably over 2,000 feet. Easedale is a basin somewhat down hill, and is in these days much better known than when Wordsworth strolled beside its outpouring stream, and confessed to having composed thousands of verses in the solitude of the vale. The conspicuous headland of Helm Crag is an essential part of the scenery, and it is climbed for the sake of the view over Grasmere, Windermere, Esthwaite Tarn, Helvellyn, and Fairfield.

It may be remarked that we are now in the region of tarns and pikes, and the derivation of the former word, if not strictly correct, is not unpoetical, for it is said to mean "a tear." This imaginative investment reminds us of Wordsworth's declaration that the stream which traverses Easedale is now and again as wild and beautiful as a brook may be. The river Rothay, however, does not rely entirely upon this immortalised brook, but it can fairly reckon upon what can be spared from the tarns when the other gills fail in their shrunken currents. In the valley is the village of Grasmere, sacred to Wordsworth's cottage; and the church, containing a medallion of the author who sang its "naked rafters intricately crossed," and whose grave and that of members of his family, with Hartley Coleridge lying hard by, and a memorial-stone to Clough, attract renewed streams of pilgrims. The cottage is not far from the church, and it is now owned by trustees, who keep it in order for the inspection of visitors. There is no section of this district which is not beautiful, and the recurring clumps of trees recall how the country was at one time alleged to be so covered with wood that wild boars abounded. There was, and probably is, a local saying that a squirrel could travel from Kendal to Keswick without once touching the ground.

It was at this cottage that Wordsworth first set up housekeeping, and many and distinguished were his visitors to Grasmere. It had been previously a rustic inn under the prophetic sign of the "Dove and Olive Bough"; and upon about £100 a year the poet contrived to entertain relays of visitors, amongst them Southey, Coleridge, and Scott. It was, perhaps of necessity, a teetotal cottage, and it was here (according to report) that Sir Walter, after dinner, used to pretend that he was going for a meditative stroll, and resort to the public-house for a draught of what was best. Until recent years the descendant of a certain publican--who was said to have given Scott away by addressing him, as he and Wordsworth walked up, with, "Ah, Master Scott, you're early to-day for your drink"--was pointed out as an inhabitant of the village; but there is some doubt about this pretty story, as Sir Walter only visited Wordsworth for one day while he resided at the cottage, and then it was a call in company with Davy, on an occasion when they ascended Helvellyn together. On the whole, the Lake district must remain a most temperate region, for it was reported that on the Christmas day of so recent a year as 1896 a party of young men who called at the most elevated public-house in England were the first customers the landlord had seen for six weeks.

The Rothay courses south, a short length between the village and the mere. Writ large in literary associations, and a household word amongst English-speaking peoples, Grasmere is but a mile long, and nothing like so broad at its widest part, but it is a precious gem in a setting where all is worthy. Gray, whose prose descriptions of Lakeland are passed on from writer to writer, rejoiced exceedingly because not a single red tile, and no staring gentleman's house (meaning probably no gentleman's staring house) broke in upon the repose of the unsuspected paradise. The paradise is not any longer unsuspected; it is public property; but there are still left the eternal hills, Grasmere water hollowed in their bosom, the small bays and miniature promontories, the soft turf green as an emerald, trees, hedges, cattle, pastures, and corn-land--items of description that may in a varying degree apply to almost every one of these famous sheets of Lakeland water. In truth, there is no better travelled ground in the three kingdoms than this; and it may be assumed once for all that its general attractions are known to the reader, and that we are free to proceed with our purpose of showing the part borne by the rivers as connecting ways, and systems of supply and relief for the lakes.

The river Rothay does precisely what Wordsworth did: it moves from Grasmere to Rydal, flowing along the base of Loughrigg Fell, avoiding the terrace and curving up towards the "Wishing Gate" to the western point of Rydal Water. From any of the paths which conduct downwards the course of the Rothay is brightly and clearly mapped. We need not pause at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's last residence, nor at the rock which is remembered as his favourite seat, nor at Rydal Hall and the shade-giving trees of its park, nor follow the beck to the little tumbles of water named Rydal Falls, nor stroll the half mile which would bring us to Fox How, the holiday retreat of Arnold of Rugby. Amongst the trees in the so-called Rydal forest there are oaks that must often have given pleasure to Wordsworth in his rambles; and the beck which is always scurrying to the Rothay receives its impetus from the steepness of its journey from the mountain--

"Down Rydal Cove from Fairfield's side."

On past Ambleside, which it leaves untouched to the left, the Rothay proceeds, with greetings from Rydal Water to busy Windermere. Ambleside, though it has no immediate lake view, is not without its water effects, both heard and seen when the swollen little tributary gives power to Stock Ghyll Force, a very respectable fall of some seventy feet. Every visitor to Ambleside pays homage to this romantic termination of a delightful walk through a sylvan enclosure. Ambleside is nowadays practically connected with the lake by Waterhead and the extended occupation of the flat; and a short distance above the head of the lake is the junction of the Brathay and the Rothay. The former, like the latter, is in intimate relations with lakelet and feeder, and, in truth, cuts an important figure by its drainage of Great and Little Langdale, its reception of sundry gills from the dominating pikes which seldom allow themselves to be forgotten in the Windermere county, its inclusion of Little Langdale tarn and Elterwater, and its share in keeping in action various waterfalls, of which Dungeon Ghyll Force and the Mill Beck Cascades are the best. The neighbourhood elicited the warmest admiration from Professor Wilson, who said that sweeter stream scenery with richer foreground and loftier background was nowhere to be seen within the four seas. Of the three lakelets he preferred the small tarn on Loughrigg Fell--

"By grandeur guarded in its loveliness."

The two rivers have time and space to combine in a united volume before fairly entering Windermere. It is strange to notice the exaggerated idea entertained by those who have never explored Lakeland as to the dimensions of such waters as Windermere, Ullswater, and Derwentwater. They have read so much and so often about them that they have become visions of vast distances, inland seas upon which storm-bound mariners have to run to port for shelter when the stormy winds do blow. Yet Windermere, the first of the lakes in dimensions, is not more than ten miles and a half in length, and, except in its broadest section, opposite Windermere and Bowness towns, less than a mile broad. Its real greatness lies in its exquisite islets or holms, and in the commanding views which receive so much charm from the intervening foreground of water, however limited in extent it may be.

Two of the feeders of Windermere, and they the principal ones, have been mentioned in their geographical order; and there remain to complete the category at least two others. /Troutbeck/, which is said to be one of the few streams in all Lakeland that are of small value to the angler, comes in from the north-east down a beautiful valley, an easy excursion distance either from Ambleside for the higher, or from Windermere for the lower, portions; and midway, under Wansfell Pike, lies Troutbeck village, the most picturesque conceivable, as it was also when Christopher North wrote of the scattered dwellings "all dropped down where the painter and the poet would have wished to plant them, on knolls and in dells, on banks and braes, and below tree-crested rocks--and all bound together in picturesque confusion by old groves of ash, oak, and sycamore, and by flower-gardens and fruit-orchards rich as those of the Hesperides." There to the north-east, over against Kentmere Reservoir, Ill Bell offers the temptation of an ascent of 2,476 feet, and Troutbeck valley is preferred as on the whole the easiest and pleasantest route.

Esthwaite Water, one of the smaller lakes, and a satellite of Windermere, is also narrow in proportion to length, and a matter of four miles removed to the west. No one is heard to rave about its homely shores and indifferent setting, but it comes under frequent notice from its nearness to Hawkshead, a quaint little market-town with a notable church, and a grammar school, one of whose forms is preserved with Wordsworth's initials cut in it. Esthwaite Water, however, is bound to receive its due in these pages, as the helpmeet of Windermere through the medium of the short and business-like stream /Cunsey Beck/. At the point where this feeder is lost in the lake, though it is not its deepest part, the angler may reckon upon the miscellaneous sport which is yielded by the lakes generally. In the deeper waters (and the plumb-line makes the bottom 240 feet at the maximum depth) the char, only to be found in a few localities in the three kingdoms, occurs. Its capture with rod and line is sport of a kind, but it is inferior in this respect to the trout. At a time when the available rivers for the angler who cannot afford to be his own riparian owner are becoming fewer and fewer, it is a little remarkable that these countless becks, tarns, full-sized streams and lakes are not more highly prized by the fisherman-tourist. It is true that Windermere, from one cause and another, has of late years fallen into disrepute, but under the operations of a local association there has been distinct improvement, though steamer traffic must always seriously reduce the value of such fishing haunts.

Very pleasing to the eye are the undulating shores, and the green of the grass, and the foliage of Windermere at its southern end. At Lakeside it is so narrow that it is hard to put your finger on the spot where the /Leven/ begins, though, for want of a better, Newby Bridge, as shown in the illustration (p. 284), will serve. The Leven, as before remarked, is the last link of our Windermere chain, but after Rothay and Brathay, and the becks with their forces and falls, we need give it but the consideration which is due to an outlet bearing to the sea such waters as Windermere does not want, through the long tortuous channel in the sandy wastes of Morecambe Bay.

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The /Crake/ river falls into the Leven so near its mouth that it might almost claim to be a tributary. But it is independent and apart in its character and mission. It belongs to Coniston Water, as Leven belongs to Windermere; and the commonplace scenery of its short course, with its trio of bridges, is another mark of similarity. All that is noticeable around Coniston lake is at the upper portion. The steamer pier is at Waterhead, the village and station are half a mile inland; the Old Man of Coniston (2,633 feet), whom generations of climbers have been proud to attack, is in the same direction, and Yewdale and its tarn, howes, crags and fells are towards the north. The coaching traveller may feast his eyes upon the lancet-shaped water, some five miles long from Schoolbeck at the upper or from the Crake at the lower terminal, and of a uniform width of about half a mile; while the upward trip from Lake Bank affords clear and happy views of the mountains of which the Old Man is the irrepressible head. Off the high road opposite Coniston Hall, a farmhouse once the Westmorland seat of the Le Fleming family, is Brantwood, associated with the names of Gerald Massey, poet and self-made man, of Linton the engraver, and of Ruskin, great as any of those giants of literature whose names are linked with Lakeland.

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The river /Duddon/ as a thing of beauty has often been overpraised, no less an authority than Wordsworth setting the example when, in his "Scenery of the Lakes," he says it may be compared, such and so varied are its beauties, with any river of equal length in any country. Yet there are streams in Wales, and even in the north of England, which their admirers would not hesitate to rank above it. It rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmorland, Cumberland, and Lancashire, and for twenty-five miles or so is the boundary between the two latter counties. It possesses, no doubt, a certain picturesqueness, having its wild mountain phases, its torrents roaring around obstructive rocks, its passage through fertile meadows, and at last its slow ending through the everlasting sands to an open outlet into the Irish Sea at the north end of Walney Island.

Donnerdale, with Seathwaite as its most notable centre, has received much attention because Wordsworth (from whom we cannot, and would not if we could, escape in Lakeland) made it the subject of thirty-four sonnets, dedicated to his brother Christopher. The poet evidently set himself down to glorify this particular district by prolonged observation--

"... For Duddon, long-beloved Duddon, is my theme."

In the course of his sonnets he sings its dwarf willows and ferny brakes; its sullen moss and craggy mound; its green alders, ash and birch trees, and sheltering pines; its hamlets under verdant hills; its barns and byres, and spouting mills. Nor does he fail to celebrate the gusts that lash its matted forests. When the gale becomes too obstreperous, then, reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by, the poet turns him to the warm hearth, to

"Laugh with the generous household heartily
At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale."

The only pollution he would admit in this innocent stream was the occasional sheep-washing by the dalesmen. In his notes Wordsworth recommends the traveller who would be most gratified with the Duddon not to approach it from its source, as is done in the sonnets, nor from its termination, but from Coniston over Walna Scar, first descending into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long, winding vale through which the river flows. In fact, Wordsworth's notes are a very excellent guide to the district, and Thorne, who was a first-hand authority upon rivers, confessedly took the poet as his cicerone when he followed the stream from the very top of Wrynose, marking even the bed of moss through which the water oozes at the source. With a poet's licence, Wordsworth likens his river finally to the Thames; but though the Duddon widens considerably at Ulpha, it loses its beauty before it finishes its career.

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Following the coast around Haverigg Point, whence the sand of the coast becomes only the decent margin which makes the shore pleasant, we pause at the three-branched estuary of the Esk, the creeks, right, left, and middle, being formed by the Esk, the Mite, and the Irt. This is all majestic country. Our Cumberland Esk hails from Scafell, whose pike of 3,210 feet is the highest ground in England. Upper Eskdale may also be spoken of in the superlative degree for its marked grandeur. No mean skill in mountaineering is required to reach Wastdale, Langdale, and Borrowdale from the different paths. The Esk Falls are formed by the junction of becks from Bowfell and Scafell. The fine cataract, Cam Spout, descends from Mickledore; and Hardknott, which is one of the lesser heights, has a Roman ruin spoken of as a castle. There are, moreover, Baker Force and Stanley Gill amongst the waterfalls. Little need be said about the second-named river, the Mite, except that it passes the fell, the railway station, and the castle, bearing each the name of Muncaster.

The river /Irt/ is the outlet of Wastwater, a gloomy lake three and a half miles long and half a mile broad, and of immense depth. It is a tradition in Lakeland that this piece of water is never frozen, but this is clearly an error, for there is a distinct record by the learned brother of Sir Humphry Davy that it was partly covered with ice in the great frost of 1855. The desolate crags around the lake are answerable for much of its severe character, and perhaps it was on this account that the Lakers used to visit it. Waugh, the Lancashire poet, encountered a local gossip who was full of memories of Wordsworth, Wilson, De Quincey, and Sedgwick, and the man very much amused his listener by describing Wordsworth as a very quiet old man, who had no pride, and very little to say. Christopher North was naturally a horse of another colour, being full of his gambols, and creating great excitement by his spirited contests with one of the Cumberland wrestlers. Wastwater is often violently agitated by heavy squalls from the south, which is somewhat of an anomaly, seeing that the boundary on that side is a mighty natural rampart named the Screes, so called from the loose nature of the scarps, which tend to make some of the neighbouring mountains practically inaccessible.

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