Part 8

The poet Gray, touring the Lake Country in 1769, relates a pathetic story of a family overtaken by the mists half-way across the Sands: “An old fisherman told me, in his dialect, a moving story, how a brother of the trade—a cockler, as he styled him—driving a little cart with his two daughters (women grown) in it, and his wife on horseback following, set out one day to cross the Sands, as they had been frequently used to do (for nobody in the village knew them better than the old man did). When they were about half-way over, a thick fog rose, and as they advanced they found the water much deeper than they expected. The old man was puzzled. He stopped, and said he would go a little way to find some mark he was acquainted with. They stayed awhile for him, but in vain. They called aloud, but no reply. At last the young women pressed their mother to think where they were, and go on. She would not leave the place. She wandered about, forlorn and amazed. She would not quit her horse and get into the cart with them. They determined, after much time wasted, to turn back, and gave themselves up to the guidance of their horses. The elder woman was soon washed off, and perished. The girls clung close to their cart, and the horse, sometimes wading and sometimes swimming, brought them back to land alive, but senseless with terror and distress, and unable for many days to give an account of themselves. The bodies of the parents were found the next ebb, that of the father a very few paces distant from the spot where he had left them.”

The story is still remembered how, in the days when coaches crossed Grange Sands at low water, an outside passenger lost his portmanteau and excitedly jumped down after it, becoming half-engulfed in the treacherous quicksands. He would probably have perished, had the guard, used to the place, not come to his rescue, and pulled him out, with a resounding “cluck,” similar to the noise made when drawing a cork.

[Sidenote: _TRAGEDIES THE OF THE SANDS_]

But a more serious affair was that of 1811, when the Over-Sands coach, the Lancaster stage, was overturned in the Kent Channel, through the horses turning restive. They brought the coach to a stop, and the current washing away the sand under the wheels of one side, the whole affair turned completely over. It was very nearly a tragedy, for there were fifteen passengers, inside and out, flung floundering in the sand and water at a very dangerous place. A young lady, floating on voluminous clothes down the Channel, was grabbed by the guard, and the passengers huddled together on the side of the overturned coach; but all the loose luggage was swept away and lost, and two pointer dogs were drowned. The passengers were brought to land on the backs of the coach-horses, the last being taken off none too soon; for the coach was gradually sinking, and was eventually completely engulfed in the sands.

A narrow escape was that of Major Bigland, who was crossing one dark evening in his gig from Lancaster, intending to reach Cartmel. He drove towards the sea instead, and only by extreme good fortune managed to land near Conishead. A post-chaise was lost and the postboy and one of the horses drowned near Hest Bank in 1821, and in 1825 the Lancaster coach was blown over, midway, and a horse drowned. The passengers were only with difficulty saved. In 1832 the identical coach was sunk in a quicksand. Much later, in 1846, nine merry holiday-makers, returning from the Whitsun fair at Ulverston, drove into a treacherous spot near Black Scar, on the Leven Sands, and were all immediately drowned: and a similar disaster occurred to a party of seven farm-hands crossing the Kent Sands to Lancaster in 1857, the year the Furness Railway was opened, and the Over-Sands coach discontinued. In every case, the bodies were easily found; lending point to the grim story told of an ancient mariner who, asked if guides were ever lost on the sands, answered with simplicity: “I never knew any lost. There’s one or two drowned, now and again, but they’re generally found when the tide goes out.”

[Sidenote: _THE TIME OF CROSSING_]

About 1785 a coach was started between Ulverston and Lancaster, going daily across the sands. The scene at its crossing was curious. The Carter, on horseback, headed it, and in its wake generally followed a number of carts and other country vehicles, forming a procession not unlike an Eastern caravan crossing the deserts of Arabia. The Carter’s guidance was absolutely necessary, for although the track might at every ebb be beaten out by a multitude, the incoming tide inevitably obliterated every trace of it, and the channels were constantly shifting. A contemporary account says: “The Carter seems a cheerful and pleasant fellow. He wore a rough great-coat and a pair of jack-boots, and was mounted on a good horse, which appeared to have been up to the ribs in water. When we came to him, he recommended us to wait till the arrival of the coach, which was nearly a mile distant, as the tide would then be gone further out. When the coach came up, we took the water in procession, and crossed two channels in one of which the water was up to the horses’ bellies. The coach passed over without the least difficulty, being drawn by fine, tall horses. Arrived at the other side, the Carter received our gratuities and we rode on, keeping close to a line of rods which have been planted in the sands to indicate the track. The channel is seldom two days together in the same place. You may make the chart one day, and before the ink is dry it will have shifted.”

A sufficient testimony to the dangers of the sands is found in the fact that those who have known them best have ever been the ones to most dread them and the “cruel crawling tide” that with the shifting of the wind can readily change from a crawl to a hissing seething gallop across the perilous flats.

It is the shout of the coming foe, Ride, ride for thy life, Sir John; But still the waters deeper grew The wild sea foam rushed on.

The proper time to attempt the crossing is five hours after high water, but even then only in fine weather. A strong sea-breeze will bring the flood in, fully an hour before the tide-tables; while after heavy rains the crossing is impossible, owing to the flood-water from the rivers permeating the sands in every direction and converting the whole route into one vast quicksand. Never at any time should the stranger attempt the passage without competent assistance.

The dangers of the Lancashire coast were illustrated once more at the very moment of these lines being written, in the inquest held, September 1907, on John Richardson, a farm-labourer who was engulfed in the quicksands at Broadfleet Bridge, Pilling, near Garstang. While walking on the sands, he sank to the waist, and being far from any human habitation, his cries could not be heard; with the result that he met a fearful death by slow drowning, as the cruel tide crept up across the lonely shore.

Turner’s picture of the coach crossing the sands is dramatic, but nothing in the way of drama is enacted there now. It is a grey and sullen scene. On the skyline to the left is the tall ugly tower at Morecambe, and dimly on the right the mountains of Lakeland. The London and North-Western Railway runs along the shore, at its Hest Bank station cutting off proper access, and only by the rarest chance is the Over-Sands route now taken.

XVII

[Sidenote: _THE BUCKSTONE_]

The village of Bolton-le-Sands, standing on the Lancaster Canal, and near the shore, is a small place of many inns—the “Blue Anchor,” “Black Bull” and others—and an old church, surrounded and almost overhung by trees. Succeeding it is Carnforth, growing almost while you wait, in the new-found prosperity of its ironworks, where a goodly quantity of the hæmatite ore of the adjoining Furness district is smelted. Beyond it, in a choice of routes to Kendal, by Milnthorpe or by Burton-in-Kendal, we take the second, past the “Longlands” inn; where traces of an older road to Kendal are to be found. A mile onward, a considerable stretch of it, on the left hand of the present highway, exists as a deserted lane, very narrow here and there, and overgrown with grass. In general, however, farmers have gradually abolished it and added it to their pastures, and even this surviving stretch is in process of being similarly swallowed and digested. Portions of it are not without their romantic aspects: as where a huge granite crag, called from time immemorial “the Buckstone,” stands in the hedgerow and recalls the trials of travellers in a bygone age, when roads were little better than winding tracks and sign-posts did not exist. They went, those palpitating travellers, as directed, “past the Buckstone,” standing for centuries as sure a landmark as anything in this countryside. And now it is forgotten, except by the farming and field-folk and those whose business or pleasure is in the byways and the hedges. Many surrounding houses and natural objects are named after the wild deer that once roamed the district: among them Roanad Hill, and Hilderstone and Deerslack farms.

From the Buckstone you see the rugged terraced hill of Farleton Knott, styled by the county historian “the Gibraltar of Westmoreland,” and, down beneath, the clustered houses of Burton-in-Kendal; but before you reach that decayed town the old road is cut off and a modern lane leads on the right into the highway, past Dalton Park, through whose grounds the old road ran its winding way. Still, a few yards within the Park wall, may be seen, amid the trees, a rude milestone bearing nothing by way of inscription save the figure “10.” This, if you please, was the curt way of informing travellers that they were ten miles from Lancaster. It is obvious that old-time wayfarers had to bring some native understanding with them.

The old boundary of Westmoreland and Lancashire, somewhat varied in recent times, is seen marked on a brass plate on the way to Burton-in-Kendal, opposite a group of old cottages standing in a hollow beside the modern raised road. The place is called Heron Syke, and the deep hollow and surviving fragment of old road illustrate the ancient name, indicating a marshy place with a brook, once frequented by herons.

[Sidenote: _WESTMORELAND_]

And here we are in Westmoreland. Authorities have not yet done disputing whether it was originally “Westmoreland,” or “Westmereland,” for the moors and the meres, _i.e._ the lakes, are equally prominent in the county; and, by the same token, there is no settled spelling of the name, “Westmoreland”; with two “e’s” or with one. The one “e” appears to be now the more favoured of these versions, but, for my part, I plump for the more romantic-looking old style.

The old wool-market of Burton-in-Kendal is extinct, and that is a very quiet uneventful place nowadays, in which a narrow street of grey stone houses opens into a little square where the granite pillar of a market-cross, reared upon three steps, stands, bearing witness to an importance otherwise not only past, but almost forgotten. The market-cross was by way of being stocks and pillory as well, for the steps were fitted with contrivances by which petty offenders were literally “laid by the heels.” There were two pairs of them, as the inquisitive may readily see: and there, thus securely fastened, the rogues and vagabonds of Burton’s busier days were exposed to gibe, insult, and missile.

On the night of April 30th, 1812, some evil-disposed persons placed no fewer than eleven gates across the road between Lancaster and Burton-in-Kendal, with intent to upset the mail; which indeed only narrowly escaped. These scoundrels were never caught.

Burton is, or was, a loyal place, and does what it can to celebrate national events. It cannot, in the very nature of things, with the slender resources at its command, do much, and its high-water-mark of effort is seen in a very ordinary gas-lamp, erected to commemorate the wedding of the Prince of Wales in 1863.

[Sidenote: _FARLETON KNOTT_]

Farleton Knott—most hills in these parts are “Knotts”—strikingly overhangs the road to Kendal, rising in grey scarps, ridges, and terraces above a level stretch, where the humble old whitewashed “Duke of Cumberland” inn stands beside the lonely way. This is followed, at a considerable interval, by Crooklands inn, with the church of Preston Patrick on the right, and the hamlet of End Moor, all seated in, or overlooking, a green and fertile valley, where a silvery beck winds away in shining loops. The scene, with its rich grass and fine trees, might be in one of the bolder parts of Surrey, rather than in the north.

Now Kendal is approached, its ruined castle surmounting a rounded green hill and thrusting out ragged walls almost in the likeness of some rocky outcrop. Kendal Castle seems to have been so threatening a fortress—and it still looks especially formidable from the north, whence most of its possible enemies could come—that no one appears ever to have attacked it. They went round the other way, if another way could be found, or—better still—stopped at home.

[Sidenote: _KENDAL_]

At Kendal was born the much-married Katherine Parr, whose family at the time were lords of the castle. Thirdly, she was married by Henry the Eighth, and was so fortunate as to survive him. How little she regretted that Royal husband we may judge by the fact that, two months after his death she married, fourthly an old flame, Admiral Lord Seymour of Sudeley, and then, a year later, died, aged thirty-six.

On the Milnthorpe road, a mile short of Kendal, stands the little manor-house of Collin Field, a halting-place for the night often used by that formidable lady, Ann, Countess of Pembroke, on her journeys between her various residences. It was purchased in 1660 by her secretary, George Sedgwick, who long lived there and occupied his leisure in writing of his great mistress. The house is an admirable specimen of the semi-fortified smaller residences of that age.

XVIII

And so into Kendal, across the river.

Kendal, originally Kirkby Kendal, _i.e._ Kirk-by-Kent Dale, is indeed very much among the waters, for here the river Kent, reinforced by tributary streams pouring down from the misty fells, foams down in weirs, and is crossed, in highway and byway, by no fewer than three bridges. There is good fishing for the “gentle” angler in these waters. Though why “gentle” and where the gentleness is more than I can comprehend. For sport, the angler baits his cruel line and, if sport be good, he, himself an exemplar of “nature, red in tooth and claw,” hooks, with his fiendish barb, some unfortunate trout or grayling in the gills.

The streets of Kendal are mostly “gates,” as Stramongate and Strickland gate, and were once picturesque, in the stern way of these northern latitudes; but Kendal, in these days a highly prosperous agricultural town, and in a favourable position at the gate of the Lake Country, is being greatly rebuilt, and looks, to those who hurry by, little removed from the common run of provincial towns. Motor-tourists to and from the Lakes do not deign to halt at Kendal, and he who does may notice, any day of summer and autumn, a veritable procession of cars hurrying to and from those resorts and regarding Kendal as an unwelcome incident, containing inhabitants and dogs, which are to be run over only at risk to car and purse.

The great church of Kendal lies low, by the river, and is great, not in height, nor in any imposing architectural design, but in the sheer ground-space it covers. It has no fewer than five aisles, and by consequence of them looks squat. It is a kind of Westmoreland Westminster Abbey, the place of sepulture of barons and squires innumerable from the castle on the hill yonder and from the country round about. Their private chapels, where Parrs and Bellinghams, Stricklands, Howards, and others lie, are now not a little the worse for wear, and no longer private; and their mortuary glories obscured. But to one of the old school of county historians or patient genealogists, the interior of Kendal church would be, in the way of hatchments, heraldic carvings, and flatulent epitaphs, the study of years. More to my purpose are the strange incidents and the odd inscriptions of the place.

[Sidenote: “_ROBIN THE DEVIL_”]

There hangs, for example, in the once private chapel of the dead and gone Bellinghams a helmet with a story. Once, it seems, in the days when Cavalier and Roundhead fought out their dispute, there flourished a family of Philipsons in the Windermere district, with a notorious person, Major Robert Philipson, at their head: so wild and reckless that he was commonly known as “Robin the Devil.” It is hardly necessary to add that he was not a Puritan. This rumbustious character, greatly incensed that the Puritans should have established themselves in the town, under one Colonel Briggs, set out one Sunday with a number of horsemen, to kill the colonel in church. Happily for Briggs, he had not attended service that day, and Philipson, rampaging with drawn sword over the building, was baulked of his prey: although it does not seem quite certain that Robin would have been fortunate had Briggs been present, for even without their commander the people present made him run, and in his haste to go his helmet was knocked off against an archway. He did not stop to recover it, but made off as quick as he could go. So much for your daredevils. The helmet was hung up as a trophy. But Smelfungus, the antiquary, who must for always be spoiling the best stories with his dry facts, tells us that the helmet is really a portion of the funeral armour of Sir Roger Bellingham, suspended over his tomb.

Among the interesting items in Kendal Church are pieces of an ancient cross, dated about A.D. 850, and the monument to over one hundred and fifty officers and men of the 55th (Westmoreland) Regiment, who fell in that most stupid of blunders, the Crimean War, from which none, save the Army contractors, ever reaped any advantage. Here, too, is a Chinese “Dragon Flag,” captured at Chusan, and deposited in the church in 1874.

[Sidenote: _REPARTEE_]

Here, also, is a monument to the unfortunate Sir Augustine Nichols, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, poisoned when on circuit at Kendal in 1616. But the most curious object in Kendal Church is the epitaph upon a former vicar, the Reverend Ralph Tyrer, B.D., who died in June 1627. The curious rhymes of which it is composed are said to have been written by himself; but, however that may be, it is certain that whoever was the author of them was keenly desirous of puzzling posterity. He has done it effectually, too. He has set out, in his rugged and uncouth way, that—

London bred me, Westminster fed me, Cambridge sped me, My sister wed me, Study taught me, Living sought me, Learning brought me, Kendal caught me, Labour pressed me, Sickness distressed me, Death oppressed me, The grave possessed me, God first gave me, Christ did save me, Earth did crave me, Heaven would have me.

“My sister wed me”: that is the crux of the matter; but it does not appear that this is to be taken seriously, in its ordinary meaning. As to the real interpretation, we are offered at least two stories: the one that his sister, finding him too busy or too diffident a man to do his own wooing, conducted his courtship for him and provided him with a wife of her own choosing. In that case, she dared much. The alternative theory is that the word “sister,” as used here, is intended to bear an academical meaning, and to indicate that he was educated at Cambridge but admitted _ad eundem_ afterwards to the “sister University” of Oxford.

The people of Kendal were turbulent folk in the old days, and varied the humdrum existence of woollen manufacture and the printing of cottons by rioting: keeping up their reputation in this sort until the early years of the nineteenth century, when the first Parliamentary election was excuse sufficient for an outbreak. The making and the dyeing of the once famous “Kendal green” cloth is a thing of the past, and peace is now the characteristic of Kendal, but the reputation of the neighbourhood for incisive wit remains, in the ancient story of the horseman who asked a countryman the time o’ day. “Twelve o’clock,” said the man, looking at that rural chronometer, the sky.

“Twelve!” exclaimed the traveller. “I thought it was more.”

“Did y’ever know it to be moor nor twelve?” rejoined the man, turning away.

The traveller, struck with this unusual rustic facility for repartee, sent his servant after him, to know if he would like a situation as a jester.

“Here, fellow,” said the servant, “my master wants to know if you would like a place as fool.”

The reply was disheartening: “Does he want two on ’em, then, or are you going to leave?”

The turbulent people of Kendal no doubt acquired their character from the old-time circumstances of the place, ever subject to incursions of Scottish raiders. Sturdy independence, and a readiness to hold their own, thus become traits in these men of the dales and fells. Something of the ancient trials of Kendal town may yet be seen, behind the modern smug facing of shops in the older streets, where houses and cottages are built around courtyards approached only by narrow alleys easily to be defended, in case of attack.

The last occasion when these old defences seemed like to prove again useful was in 1745, when Prince Charlie, in memories of whose enterprise this road is so rich, came with his ill-disciplined following. But nothing serious happened: the Prince stayed the night in Stricklandgate, at the old mansion still standing, numbered 93, and rested there again on his retreat. Next day came the Duke of Cumberland, in hot pursuit, and he also halted at the old house, pleasantly remarking that they had entertained his cousin there, the day before. I suspect the more or less unwilling host of Prince and Duke, in fear of consequences, explained, as politely as he could, that he entertained whom he must.

[Sidenote: _CASTLE DAIRY_]

There is, after all, singularly little pictorial quality in Kendal. The old town-house of the Bellinghams, in Stramongate, built in 1546, still exists, although the family is extinct; but it turns the commonplace front of an ironmonger’s shop to the street. Indeed, old Kendal is only to be pictured in that fine rugged building, the Castle Dairy, in Wildman Street. It is supposed to have been the dairy of the old castle, and still contains a few of the many ancient and curious relics found in old cupboards and secret places in its immensely thick walls, together with some fragments of stained glass bearing the arms of the Stanleys, Earls of Derby. But the curious genealogy of the Saxon kings, and the old illuminated Roman mass-book, have been removed to the Public Library.

XIX