Part 26

We did not stop to speak to the Colonel, as he was at the other end of the church and passed out through another door, but we were recognised by one of his men, who told us the Colonel had only just removed to that neighbourhood. He had liked his summer's experiences there, but did not know how he would go on in the winter. The Colonel and his man were the only persons we saw on the whole of our journey that we knew.

To return to our boyish experiences and to the Colonel, the subject of his Sunday-school lesson was taken from the Summary of the Ten Commandments in the Church of England Prayer Book, where they were divided into two parts, the first four relating to our duty to God, and the remaining six to our duty towards our neighbour. It was surprising how these questions and answers learned in the days of our youth dwelt in our memories, and being Sunday, we each wrote them down from memory with the same result, and we again record them for the benefit of any of our friends who wish to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

"_Question_.--What is thy duty towards God?

"_Answer_.--My duty towards God, is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put my whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His Word, and to serve Him truly all the days of my life.

"_Question_.--What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?

"_Answer_.--My duty towards my Neighbour, is to love him as myself, and to do unto all men, as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt no body by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me."

The word "duty" in the last paragraph of the explanation of one's duty to one's neighbour must have been in the thoughts of both Nelson and his men at the Battle of Trafalgar when he signalled, "England expects that every man this day will do his duty." Although objections may be raised to clauses in the summary, we always thought that our country could be none the worse, but all the better, if every one learned and tried to act up to the principles contained in these summaries of the Ten Commandments.

In the evening we attended St. John's Church, where the Vicar officiated and preached from Isaiah lxvii. 7 to a large congregation, and after the service we returned to our hotel.

Keswick was a great resort of tourists and holiday people, and we were not without company at the hotel, from whom we obtained plenty of advice concerning our route on the morrow. We were strongly recommended to see the Druidical Circle and to climb Skiddaw, whose summit was over 3,000 feet above sea-level, from which we should have a view scarcely surpassed in the whole of Europe, and a scene that would baffle the attempts of ordinary men to describe, having taxed even the powers of Southey and Wordsworth. These recommendations and others were all qualified with the words "if fine." But, oh that little word "if"--so small that we scarcely notice it, yet how much does it portend! At any rate we could not arrive at a satisfactory decision that night, owing to the unfavourable state of the weather.

FIFTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

A WEEK IN THE RAIN

_Monday, October 16th._

The morning was showery, but we were obliged to continue our walk, so we left Keswick with the intention of visiting the Falls of Lodore, the large Bowder Stone, and the Yew Trees in Borrowdale, and afterwards crossing over the fells to visit the graves of the poets at Grasmere. We had been recommended to ascend the Castle Rigg, quite near the town, in order to see the fine views from there, which included Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwent Water. The poet Gray, who died in 1771, was so much impressed by the retrospect, and with what he had seen from the top where once the castle stood, that he declared he had "a good mind to go back again." Unfortunately we had to forgo even that ascent, as the rain descended in almost torrential showers. So we journeyed on in the rain alongside the pretty lake of Derwent Water, which is about three miles long and about a mile and a half broad, the water being so clear, we were informed, that a small stone could be seen even if five or six yards below the surface. It was certainly a lovely lake, and, with its nicely wooded islands dotting its surface, recalled memories of Loch Lomond. The first of these islands, about six acres in extent, was named the Vicar's or Derwent Island, on which a family mansion had been erected. On Lord's Island, which was quite near the side, were the ruins of an old summer-house built by the Ratcliffe family with the stones from their ruined castle on Castlerigg. The third island, which was in the centre of the lake, also had a summer-house that had been built there by the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, composed of unhewn stone and covered with moss to make it look ancient. This was known as St. Herbert's Island, after a holy hermit who lived there in the sixth century, the ruins of whose hermitage could still be traced. It was said that so great and perfect was the love of this saintly hermit for his friend St. Cuthbert of Holy Island, whose shrine was ultimately settled at Durham, that he used to pray that he might expire the moment the breath of life quitted the body of his friend, so that their souls might wing their flight to heaven in company.

Although not so large as Lake Windermere, Derwent Water was considered the most beautiful of the lakes because of these lovely islands on its surface and the grand hills that encircled it. This lake of unsurpassed beauty was associated both in name and reality with the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater, who suffered death for the part he took in the Jacobite rising in 1715, and to whom Lord's Island belonged. He was virtually compelled by his countess to join the rising, for when she saw his reluctance to do so, she angrily threw her fan at his feet, and commanded him take that and hand her his sword. The Earl gravely picked it up, returned it to her, and, drawing his sword, cried, "God save King James!" The Jacobites were supporters of James II, who was supplanted by William III, Prince of Orange, in 1689, James then retreating to Ireland, where he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The rising in which the Earl of Derwentwater took part in the year 1715 was in support of the son of James II, James Edward, whose adherents were defeated at Preston in November of the same year, the unfortunate Earl, with many others, being taken prisoner. The son of this James Edward was the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" so beloved of the Scots, who landed to claim the English Crown in 1745, and was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where the Jacobite movement found its grave. Much sympathy was felt at the time for the young Earl of Derwentwater, and there was a tradition in the family that in times of great peril a supernatural figure appeared to warn them of approaching fate. It is said that when his lordship was wandering over the hills, a figure approached clothed in the robe and hood of grey which the supernatural figure always wore, gave him a crucifix, which was to render him proof against bullet and sword, and then immediately disappeared. The Earl joined the insurgents, who were defeated by the Royal troops at Preston, and he, with other leaders, was taken to London, placed in the Tower, and condemned to death for treason. His wife, taking the family jewels with her, implored King George I, on her knees, for mercy; and Sir Robert Walpole declared in the House of Commons that he had been offered £60,000 if he would obtain Lord Derwentwater's pardon; but all efforts were in vain, for he died by the axe on Tower Hill, February 24th, 1716, and his estates were forfeited to the Government.

We enjoyed our walk along Derwentwater in spite of the weather, but as we approached Lodore, and heard the noise of the waters, we realised that we had scored one great advantage from the continued rain, for we could not have seen the falls to better advantage, as they fully carried out the description of Southey, written when he was Poet Laureate of England, in the following jingling rhyme:

"How does the water come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me thus, once on a time, Moreover, he task'd me to tell him in rhyme; Anon at the word there first came one daughter. And then came another to second and third The request of their brother, and hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar, As many a time they had seen it before. So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store. And 'twas my vocation that thus I should sing. Because I was laureate to them and the king.

Visitors to the Lake District, who might chance to find fine weather there, would be disappointed if they expected the falls to be equal to the poet's description, since heavy rains are essential to produce all the results described in his poem. But seen as we saw them, a torrential flood of water rushing and roaring, the different streams of which they were composed dashing into each other over the perpendicular cliffs on every side, they presented a sight of grandeur and magnificence never to be forgotten, while the trees around and above seemed to look on the turmoil beneath them as if powerless, except to lend enchantment to the impressive scene.

And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing-- And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions for ever are blending. All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar-- And this way the water comes down at Lodore!

The water rolled in great volumes down the crags, the spray rising in clouds, and no doubt we saw the falls at their best despite the absence of the sun. Near Lodore, and about 150 yards from the shore of Derwentwater, was a floating island which at regular intervals of a few years rises from the bottom exposing sometimes nearly an acre in extent, and at others only a few perches. This island was composed of a mass of decayed weeds and earthy matter, nearly six feet in thickness, covered with vegetation, and full of air bubbles, which, it was supposed, penetrated the whole mass and caused it to rise to the surface.

By this time we had become quite accustomed to being out in the rain and getting wet to the skin, but the temperature was gradually falling, and we had to be more careful lest we should catch cold. It was very provoking that we had to pass through the Lake District without seeing it, but from the occasional glimpses we got between the showers we certainly thought we were passing through the prettiest country in all our travels. In Scotland the mountains were higher and the lakes, or lochs, much larger, but the profiles of the hills here, at least of those we saw, were prettier. About two miles from the Falls of Lodore we arrived at the famous Bowder Stone. We had passed many crags and through bewitching scenery, but we were absolutely astonished at the size of this great stone, which Wordsworth has described as being like a stranded ship:

Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground, A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay Right at the foot of that moist precipice, A stranded ship with keel upturned, that rests Careless of winds and waves.

The most modest estimate of the weight of the Bowder Stone was 1,771 tons, and we measured it as being 21 yards long and 12 yards high. This immense mass of rock had evidently fallen from the hills above. We climbed up the great stone by means of a ladder or flight of wooden steps erected against it to enable visitors to reach the top. But the strangest thing about it was the narrow base on which the stone rested, consisting merely of a few narrow ledges of rock. We were told that fifty horses could shelter under it, and that we could shake hands with each other under the bottom of the stone, and although we could not test the accuracy of the statement with regard to the number of horses it could shelter, we certainly shook hands underneath it. To do this we had to lie down, and it was not without a feeling of danger that we did so, with so many hundreds of tons of rock above our heads, and the thought that if the rock had given way a few inches we should have been reduced to a mangled mass of blood and bones. Our friendly greeting was not of long duration, and we were pleased when the ceremony was over. There is a legend that in ancient times the natives of Borrowdale endeavoured to wall in the cuckoo so that they might have perpetual spring, but the story relates that in this they were not entirely successful, for the cuckoo just managed to get over the wall. We now continued our journey to find the famous Yew Trees of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth describes in one of his pastorates as "those fraternal four of Borrowdale":

But worthier still of note Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, From whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially--beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berries--ghostly shapes May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

It was a lonely place where the four yew trees stood, though not far from the old black lead works which at one time produced the finest plumbago for lead pencils in the world. As the rain was falling heavily, we lit a fire under the largest of the four trees, which measured about twenty-one feet in circumference at four feet from the ground, and sheltered under its venerable shade for about an hour, watching a much-swollen streamlet as it rolled down the side of a mountain.

Near the yew trees there was a stream which we had to cross, as our next stage was over the fells to Grasmere; but when we came to its swollen waters, which we supposed came from "Glaramara's inmost Caves," they were not "murmuring" as Wordsworth described them, but coming with a rush and a roar, and to our dismay we found the bridge broken down and portions of it lying in the bed of the torrent. We thought of a stanza in a long-forgotten ballad:

London Bridge is broken down! Derry derry down, derry derry down!

Luckily we found a footbridge lower down the stream. It was now necessary to inquire our way at one of the isolated farms in the neighbourhood of Borrowdale, where the people knew very little of what was going on in the world outside their own immediate environs. We heard a story relating to the middle of the eighteenth century, when in the absence of roads goods had to be carried on horseback. A rustic, who had been sent for a bag of lime, the properties of which were unknown in remote places, placed the bag on the back of his horse, and while he was returning up the hills the rain came on, soaking the bag so that the lime began to swell and smoke. The youth thought that it was on fire, so, jumping off his horse, he filled his hat with water from the stream and threw it on the bag. This only made matters worse, for the lime began smoking more than ever; so he lifted it from the horse's back and placed it in the water at the edge of the stream, where, in addition to smoking, it began to boil and to make a hissing sound, which so frightened the young man that he rode home in terror, feeling sure that it was the Devil who had sneaked inside the bag!

We made our way to a farmhouse which we could see in the distance, but the farmer advised us not to attempt to cross the fells, as it was misty and not likely to clear up that day. So we turned back, and in about two miles met a countryman, who told us we could get to Grasmere over what he called the "Green Nip," a mountain whose base he pointed out to us. We returned towards the hills, but we had anything but an easy walk, for we could find no proper road, and walked on for hours in a "go as you please" manner. Our whereabouts we did not know, since we could only see a few yards before us. We walked a long way up hill, and finally landed in some very boggy places, and when the shades of evening began to come on we became a little alarmed, and decided to follow the running water, as we had done on a very much worse occasion in the north of Scotland. Presently we heard the rippling of a small stream, which we followed, though with some difficulty, as it sometimes disappeared into the rocks, until just at nightfall we came to a gate at the foot of the fells, and through the open door of a cottage beheld the blaze of a tire burning brightly inside. We climbed over the gate, and saw standing in the garden a man who stared so hard at us, and with such a look of astonishment, that we could not have helped speaking to him in any case, even had he not been the first human being we had seen for many hours. When we told him where we had come from, he said we might think ourselves lucky in coming safely over the bogs on such a misty day, and told us a story of a gentleman from Bradford who had sunk so deeply in one of the bogs that only with the greatest difficulty had he been rescued.

He told us it was his custom each evening to come out of his cottage for a short time before retiring to rest, and that about a month before our visit he had been out one night as usual after his neighbours had gone to bed, and, standing at his cottage door, he thought he heard a faint cry. He listened again: yes, he could distinctly hear a cry for help. He woke up his neighbours, and they and his son, going in the direction from which the cries came, found a gentleman fast in the rocks. He had been on a visit to Grasmere, and had gone out for an afternoon's walk on the fells, when the mist came on and he lost his way. As night fell he tried to get between some rocks, when he slipped into a crevice and jammed himself fast between them--fortunately for himself as it afterwards proved, for when the rescuing party arrived, they found him in such a dangerous position that, if he had succeeded in getting through the rocks the way he intended, he would inevitably have fallen down the precipice and been killed.

After hearing these stories, we felt very thankful we were safely off the fells. Without knowing it, we had passed the scene of the Battle of Dunmail Raise, where Dunmail, the last King of Cumbria, an old British kingdom, was said to have been killed in 945 fighting against Edmund, King of England.

The place we had stumbled upon after reaching the foot of the fells was Wythburn, at the head of Thirlmere Lake, quite near Amboth Hall, with its strange legends and associations. The mansion was said to be haunted by supernatural visitors, midnight illuminations, and a nocturnal marriage with a murdered bride. The most remarkable feature of the story, however, was that of the two skulls from Calgarth Hall, near Windermere, which came and joined in these orgies at Amboth Hall. These skulls formerly occupied a niche in Calgarth Hall, from which it was found impossible to dislodge them. They were said to have been buried, burned, ground to powder, dispersed by the wind, sunk in a well, and thrown into the lake, but all to no purpose, for they invariably appeared again in their favourite niche until some one thought of walling them up, which proved effectual, and there they still remain.

The rain had now ceased, and the moon, only three days old, was already visible and helped to light us on our four-mile walk to Grasmere. On our way we overtook a gentleman visitor, to whom we related our adventure, and who kindly offered us a drink from his flask. We did not drink anything stronger than tea or coffee, so we could not accept the whisky, but we were glad to accept his guidance to the best inn at Grasmere, where we soon relieved the cravings of our pedestrian appetites, which, as might be imagined, had grown strongly upon us.

(_Distance walked twenty-two miles_.)

_Tuesday, October 17th._

GRASMERE. Our first duty in the morning was to call at the post office for our letters from home, and then to fortify ourselves with a good breakfast; our next was to see the graves of the poets in the picturesque and quiet churchyard. We expected to find some massive monuments, but found only plain stone flags marking their quiet resting-places, particularly that of Wordsworth, which was inscribed:

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1850 MARY WORDSWORTH 1859.

The grave of Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, who was buried in 1849, was also there. There are few who do not know his wonderful poem, "The Ancient Mariner," said to have been based on an old manuscript story of a sailor preserved in the Bristol Library. Strange to say, not far from his grave was that of Sir John Richardson, a physician and arctic explorer, who brought home the relics of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated and final voyage to the Arctic regions to discover the North-West Passage. This brought to our minds all the details of that sorrowful story which had been repeatedly told to us in our early childhood, and was, to our youthful minds, quite as weird as that of "The Ancient Mariner."

Sir John Franklin was born in 1786. Intended by his parents for the Church, but bent on going to sea, he joined the Royal Navy when he was fourteen years of age, and served as a midshipman on the _Bellerophon_ at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, afterwards taking part in Captain Flinders' voyage of discovery along the coast of Australia. His first voyage to the Arctic Regions was in 1818, and after a long and eventful career he was created Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837, whither criminals convicted of grave offences involving transportation for life were sent from England, where he did much for the improvement and well-being of the colony.

On May 19th, 1845, he left England with the two ships _Erebus_ and _Terror_, having on board 28 officers and 111 men--in all 134 souls--on a voyage to the Arctic Regions in the hope of discovering the North-West Passage. They reached Stromness, in the Orkneys, on July 1st, and were afterwards seen and spoken to in the North Sea by the whaler _Prince of Wales_, belonging to Hull. After that all was blank.