CHAPTER VII.

THE VILLAGE.

WALK TO THE VILLAGE—BANNOCKSTONE BRIDGE—A WILD LEGEND—THE CHURCH AND SCHOOLS—INNS—THE ENGLISH OPIUM EATER—MRS. ROBINSON—JENKIN SYKE—HAUSE BANK—PARKGATE—HIGHTHWAITE, &C.

As you will, most probably, be rather stiff, not to say saddle sick, with your last long and rough ramble, I may calculate upon your being disposed to make this a short and easy one; so what say you to a saunter through the village of Church Conistone? You are possibly aware that there are two Conistones, the designation of each possessing an ecclesiastical character. The district around the uppermost part of the lake, and for half a mile down the western shore, and two or three miles down the eastern, is called Monk Conistone, and forms a part of the parish of Hawkshead; whilst Church Conistone, lying on the west of the lake and Yewdale beck, and extending to Torver in one direction and Fell-foot in another, is a chapelry in the parish of Ulverstone.

The road leading from the Waterhead to the village runs for some distance along the edge of the lake, and is delightfully shaded with trees, chiefly oaks. On the right, a single range of extensive level fields divides it from the finely-wooded Guards hill; on the left, the wavelets of the lake run upon a gentle grassy slope close up to the roadside, and, occasionally, in very wet weather, the lake extends its waters across the road and the fields beyond it, leaving pedestrians no other choice but wading or walking back.

[Sidenote: THE ROADSIDE.]

Where the road makes a sudden sweep to the right, and leaves the water side, you may notice the miniature docks and piers where slate, &c., are shipped for the lake foot on its way to the sea, and the scene of the only fatal accident known to have occurred in Conistone lake. The first houses you approach are the buildings belonging to the Thwaite farm, sheltering prettily under its wooded eminence, and, adjoining them, the neat old-fashioned residence, called Thwaite Cottage; a little further still, occupying a natural terrace on the southern declivity of the aforesaid eminence, stands Thwaite House, or “The Thwaite,” which commands a most comprehensive view of the vale, the village, the mountains and the lake, in one ocular range. Saunter on, and you soon come to a group of singular-looking buildings—built, a few years ago, by Mr Marshall—surrounded by pretty flower-gardens which, in the season, agreeably relieve the dismal effect of the dark blue, or rather _light black_ stone of which the walls are constructed, with very little mortar, lest the white should disagree with the character of the scenery, as Mr Wordsworth avers it does: but the ivy, with its bright green tapestry, is now rapidly covering the nakedness of these comfortless-looking walls.

You now come to Yewdale Bridge, and, crossing it, enter Church Conistone; but here I wish you to turn off the road, and passing between some houses on your left, walk down the beckside for about 150 yards, and you reach a very primitive-looking bridge, formed of two huge flags laid upon piers of ancient and substantial mason-work, and named, with manifest propriety, “Bannockstone bridge.” It was not this I brought you out of your way to see; but I want you to bestow especial notice upon a large stone lying in the beck-bottom, just to the lower side of the bridge. Though it is covered by from two to three feet of water, Yewdale beck is so pure that you have no difficulty in discovering that the otherwise flat surface of this stone is interrupted by a ridge or elevation, some inches in height, occupying one of its corners, and in the edge of that elevation nearest to you is the deep, perfect, and unmistakeable imprint of a very large heel. Convinced, from the time I first noticed it, that some story might be ferretted out, to account for the production of this large heel-mark, I took considerable pains, for which I expect your gratitude, to collect the following facts in explanation of its traditionary origin, and now, without amplification or comment, I retail them for your satisfaction.

[Sidenote: FRUITS OF REPENTANCE.]

In those pious and enlightened times, when the profession and practice of witchcraft were so common that very few women could grow old and ugly, especially if they were also poor, without being suspected of having sold their immortal part to the Father of evil, a very old woman whose name has not been preserved, but the certainty of whose commerce with the devil no one ever doubted, dwelt in a hut upon the point of land which runs into the lake near the mouth of this brook. After practising the ordinary routine of a witchwoman’s life for several years, it is said that, as the time drew near for the fulfilment of her short-sighted bargain, she was seized with terror and remorse, and resolved to try whether she might not find a means of nullifying the agreement and evading payment of the fearful penalty to be exacted from her in return for the evil power with which her master had endued her old age; and, with this object, she visited a holy man, one of the Monks of Saint Mary of Furness, who was stationed at the place now called Bank Ground, which stands pleasantly upon the opposite side of the lake. He, when made aware of all the bearings of the case, offered some hope of redemption from the consequences of her contract, on the conditions of teetotal abstinence from any future indulgence in the [Sidenote: A MIRACLE.] evil art, _abnegation_ of the devil, his works and devices, and a course of penance so severe and protracted, as to make the penitent witch think the cure almost as bad as the disease; but concern for “her pore sole,” as Winifred Jenkins pathetically designates it, determined her to accept of Father Brian’s terms, provided he could secure her against the power of Satan in the interim. Being instructed to flee for her life, and to call loudly upon Father Brian and Saint Herbert for aid, should Beelzebub come, as was likely, to claim his own before the completion of her saving penance had rescued her from his dreaded clutches, she returned home, and turned over a new leaf, beginning to lead a tolerably exemplary life. As might be expected, the other contracting party was not long in hearing of this unpardonable breach of faith, and, one evening, he startled his quondam disciple by making his appearance at the door of her domicile, when she, remembering the Monk’s instructions, darted through the open window, and fled, with the speed of light, directly up the course of this beck, screaming loudly enough for succour as directed. She had reached the site of this bridge, and her pursuer was just about to lay his claws upon her, when the Saint, or the Monk, or both heard her, and the devil’s foot, not the cloven one,—for neither dead Saint nor living Priest can be supposed to have power over that,—but his other foot, was set upon that stone, the heel sank into the ridge upon its surface, and the stone hardening, he was held fast by the heel, and thus, by the miraculous intervention of the dead Saint or the living Monk—I cannot learn exactly whether—the penitent witch escaped; and, moreover, ere the devil was released, Father Brian, being well versed in this particular line of business, succeeded in obtaining possession of the document on which the claim upon the old woman’s soul was founded, and so was able to remit a considerable portion of her heavy penance. The print, much too large to be produced by any human heel, is, as you see, still there to testify to the truth of the history I have collated for your special behoof, and, therefore, I hope that you will readily recognise its perfect credibility.

[Sidenote: “WHERE GOD ERECTS, &c. &c.”]

You will now return to the road, and move on towards the village by the Crown Inn, a very commodious, respectable, and well-conducted house of entertainment for man and beast, with unexceptionable accommodation, and a more than unexceptionable hostess. Immediately beyond it, in a level green enclosure, having handsome iron rails on one side and low stone walls on the other, stands an oblong barn-like building, with a few blunt-arched windows in its dirty yellow walls, and over-topped at its western extremity by an unsightly black superstructure of rough stone, which some might call a small square tower badly proportioned, and others, with apparently equal correctness, the stump of a large square chimney. The oblong building is the church, and the level enclosure is the church-yard, in which the almost total absence of tombstones and the paucity of mounds lead you to the correct inference that death is rather a rare visitant at Conistone.

If you have any desire to explore the interior of the sacred edifice, the parish clerk, who, by the bye, is a poet of no mean pretensions, lives in one of these cottages close at hand, and he will readily open the doors and admit you. The only objects possessing even the smallest interest are—first, the antique oak-chest, with its curious padlock, which stands in the southern entrance, and in which the ancient parochial records were deposited—and second, a plate of copper fastened upon the wall over the Conistone Hall pew, engraven upon which in old, but very legible characters, are the following commemorative notice and quaint epitaph. You will perceive that there is probably an error in the dates:—

[Sidenote: CHURCH AND SCHOOLS.]

“To the living memory of Alice Fleming, of Coningston Hall, in the County Palatine of Lancaster, widow (late wife of William Fleming, of Coningston Hall aforesaid, Esq., and eldest daughter of Roger Kirkby, of Kirkby, in the said county, Esq.,) and of John Kirkby, gentleman, her second brother, was this monument, by her three sorrowful sons, Sir Daniel Fleming, Knight, Roger Fleming and William Fleming, gentlemen, to their dear mother and uncle, here erected. The said John Kirkby (having lived above thirty years with his sister, and having given to the churches and poor of Kirkby and Coningston the sum of £150), died a bachelor at Coningston Hall aforesaid, September 23, A.D., 1680, and was buried near unto this place the next day. And the said Alice Fleming died also (having outlived her late husband about 27 years, and survived five out of her eight children,) at Coningstone Hall aforesaid, Feb. 26, 1680, and was buried in this church, close by her said brother, Feb. 28, 1680; in the same grave where ye Lady Bold (second wife to John Fleming, Esq., deceased, uncle to ye said W. Fleming,) had, about 55 years before, been interred.

EPITAPH.

Spectator, stay and view this sacred ground; See, it contains such love on earth scarce found; A brother and a sister—and you see She seeks to find him in mortality. First he did leave us, then she stayed and tryed To live without him—liked it not, and died. Here they ly buried whose religious zeal Appeared sincere to Prince, Church, Commonweal; Kind to their kindred, faithful to their friends, Clear in their lives, and cheerful at their ends. They both were dear to them, whose good intent Makes them both live in this one monument. So dear is sacred love, though th’ outward part Turn dust, it still shall linger round the heart.”

In the vestry-room there is a library consisting of theological works, for circulation amongst the parishioners, but judging from the dusty state of the volumes, old divinity is not a favourite study with the reading public of Conistone. Leaving the church, you may notice, flanking the church-yard at two of its corners, a couple of tasteful little buildings, whose character and use you cannot well mistake. They are the boys’ and girls’ schools, and have been conducted upon the Home and Colonial School system, which, during the three or four years it has been tried here, has given great satisfaction.

[Sidenote: THE BLACK BULL.]

Opposite to the school and to the church gates, stands the Black Bull Inn, one of that low-browed, old-fashioned, roomy and snug class of public houses once so numerous in all the rural districts of England, but now fast disappearing before the sweep of modern improvement, or, if you like it better, modern innovation—and around whose ample hearths “the rude forefathers of the hamlet” were wont to muddle their brains, whilst settling the affairs of the parish, or discussing those of the country;—

“Where village statesmen talked with looks profound, And news much older than their ale went round.”

This same Black Bull derives a sort of classical interest from being the “Howf” where the English Opium-eater took up his quarters, when he made his two unsuccessful attempts to accept Mr Wordsworth’s invitation to visit him at Grasmere. You want to know what made the attempts unsuccessful! Upon my word, I can scarcely tell you; but I can give you Mr De Quincey’s own account of the matter, as detailed in his interesting autobiographical sketches in _Tait’s Magazine_:—“My delay”—in accepting a long-standing invitation—“was due to anything rather than to waning interest. On the contrary, the real cause of my delay was the too great profundity, and the increasing profundity of my interest in this regeneration of our national poetry; and the increasing awe, in due proportion to the decaying thoughtlessness of boyhood, which possessed me for the character of its author. So far from neglecting Wordsworth, it is a fact, (and Professor Wilson who, without knowing me in those, or for many subsequent years, shared my feelings towards both the poetry and the poet, has a story of his own experience somewhat similar to report)—it is a fact, I say, that twice I had undertaken a long journey expressly for the purpose of paying my respects to Wordsworth; twice I came so far as the little rustic inn (at that time the sole inn in the neighbourhood) at Church Conistone—the village which stands at the north-western angle of Conistone Water; and on neither occasion could I summon confidence enough to appear before him. * * * The very image of Wordsworth, as I pre-figured it to my own planet-struck eye, crushed my faculties as before Elijah or St. Paul. Twice, as I said, did I advance as far as the lake of Conistone, which is about eight miles from the church at Grasmere, and once I absolutely went forward from Conistone to the very gorge of Hammerscar, from which the whole vale of Grasmere suddenly breaks upon the view. Catching one glimpse of this loveliest of landscapes, I retreated like a guilty thing, for fear I might be surprised by Wordsworth, and then returned faint-heartedly to Conistone, and so to Oxford _re infectâ_. This was in 1806—and thus far, from mere excess of nervous distrust in my own powers for sustaining a conversation with Wordsworth, I had, for nearly five years, shrunk from a meeting for which, beyond all things under heaven, I longed. These, the reader will say, were foolish feelings.” Very possible, indeed, that the reader _may_ say so, Mr De Quincey! more particularly if he hold with me the opinion that the man who records his experience of those feelings, is, though inferior in genius, certainly superior in scholastic acquirements to the object of his idolatrous awe.

[Sidenote: DE QUINCEY’S IDOLATRY.]

[Sidenote: HISTORY OF A HOSTESS.]

At the period of the English opium-eater’s sojourn at the Black Bull, its domestic affairs would be under the control of Mrs Robinson, the eldest daughter of “Wonderful Walker,” and quite as wonderful a person, in her way, as her more celebrated father. In early life, she was wooed, won, and privately married by a respectable working miner named Bamford, who subsequently obtained an appointment as sub-agent and clerk at the Leadhills Mines, in Dumfriesshire. During her husband’s protracted last illness, she, having in common with all Parson Walker’s children, received an excellent education, discharged his duties as clerk, or accountant, in a manner so satisfactory to the Mining Managers, that, after his death, she was allowed to continue in his office and lift his salary, until an alteration in the management caused her removal. She then returned to her father at Seathwaite Parsonage, and she continued with him for some time, until her favour was sought by her second “venture,” Robinson. To his pretensions the patriarchal pastor was, however, unfavourable, and he kept such strict watch upon their movements, that they found it impossible to transact the requisite courtship in a satisfactory manner, until she contrived to give her lover an impression of the out-door key in _dough_, and he got a duplicate manufactured therefrom, which admitted him to her society when “Wonderful Walker” was safe in the land of dreams. At these stolen meetings, a marriage was arranged, which came off in spite of all obstacles, and they settled on the farm called Townend, on the eastern side of Conistone Lake. A simple anecdote I have heard, may serve to illustrate Mrs Robinson’s shrewd and upright character. One Sunday afternoon, some Conistone youths crossed the lake, and bought of her husband a quantity of apples. Some dispute arising as to the partition of the purchase, it was agreed that Robinson should divide them. Her quick eye detected him giving a larger share to one than the rest, when she called out, “Nay, nay, Thomas! if thou will make Tom Park a present, bring him out some of thy own, but don’t give away other folks’ apples.” From Townend, they removed to the Black Bull, where she remained for many years. She discharged the duties of parish officer in her own turn, and in that of her son-in-law, and the parish books yet bear testimony to the beauty of her hand-writing, and the accuracy and clearness of her accounts. She also managed a small woollen mill, carried on here by the late Mr Gandy, of Kendal; and even in extreme old age, when bent double by years and infirmity, so that she could not sit upon a chair without leaning forward upon a table, she would write for hours with her books upon her knee. Of the Black Bull there is little more to say, than that mine especial good friend, Mrs Bell, is, as hostess, in every respect a worthy successor of Mrs Robinson, and if you choose to place yourself under her care, and don’t feel comfortable, the fault will not be hers. And, lest you should be misled and prejudiced by the identity of surname, I should tell you that she is no connection of “Peter Bell.”

[Sidenote: THE CHURCH-BECK, &c.]

We will leave the examination of that portion of the village to the north of the Black Bull for another convenient occasion, and you had better now cross the bridge over the church beck, the waters of which, from having been used at the mines in the process of dressing copper ore, present such an appearance as might arise from some thousands of washerwomen exercising their vocation amongst the hills, and sending their suds down to the lake. The bed of this beck is fearfully rugged, and reminds one of the Border stream, the Tarras, of which the old rhyme says—

“There ne'er was ane drowned in Tarras, Nor yet in doubt, For ere his head could win down, His brains would be out.”

Many years ago, a young miner, who was courting the daughter of a blacksmith who resided at the mines, got into this beck one dark night when it was heavily flooded, and his body was found about a quarter of a mile below this bridge frightfully mangled. At the farther end of the bridge stands the post-office, and, leaving it to your right, you may ramble away down the road by Low Houses, Wraysdale Cottage, and Gateside, and then you come to Mount Cottage, where you must stay to inspect Mr Barrow's flower-garden, conservatory, shell grotto, grotesquely sculptured stones, of which nature was the artist, and, above all, his collection of busts, clerical, phrenological, general and diabolical.

[Sidenote: “WHITTLE-GATE.”]

Immediately beyond Mount Cottage is a stile where a foot-path leading to the Hall commences. It is called “Priest’s Stile,” and I have heard two accounts of the origin of its appellation. First, it is said to be so called, because a former Incumbent of Conistone died suddenly whilst crossing it. I prefer the second derivation of the name, because it affords an opportunity of mentioning a curious ancient custom, as well as reason good for congratulating ourselves and our clergy upon the progress of social improvement. In former times, the minister of Conistone, who was also the parochial schoolmaster, had no fixed home of his own, but held rights of “Whittlegate” over his chapelry; which signifies that he was lodged and fed by the different householders, each in turn, for longer or shorter periods, according to the value of the several tenements. Conistone Hall being by far the largest property in the chapelry, was favoured with the poor clergyman’s company, and had the benefit of his “whittle” much more frequently than any other residence, and consequently, on his way to and from church and school, the Priest very often was seen using this stile, and thence arose its name. The custom of “Whittlegate” is now all but obsolete, and, I believe, exists only at Wastdale-head, where, I understand, the schoolmaster is still supported on that uncomfortable system.

[Sidenote: A LONG LINK.]

Rising a short ascent called, no one knows why, Doe How, you soon reach another cluster of dwellings, named Bowmanstead, the most prominent amongst which are the Baptists’ Chapel and the Ship Inn; and beyond them, a row of houses which had its name from a somewhat odd incident. There was formerly an open ditch, called locally a syke, across the road here; and once the funeral array of a man named Jenkin, on the way to Ulverstone, then the only place of interment for this part of the parish, had got near to Torver, when the mourners discovered that the coffin had slipped, unobserved, from the “sled” it was carried upon, and, deeming it unseemly to proceed without it, they returned, and found it here in the syke, whence the spot is called “Jenkin Syke” to this day.

You saunter on past the Corn-mill and cottages around it, and down a short declivity to Hause Bank. An intelligent villager, who has resided at Hause Bank during the whole of a long life, tells me that the ancient cottage adjoining the smith’s shop was formerly an ale-house, and that a neighbour, who died at a great age, when my informant was a boy, used to relate that he remembered having seen two brothers of the Fleming family who were staying at the Hall, go in there for ale, and make a scramble with their change amongst the children round the door, of whom the relater was one. The names of the brothers, he stated, were “_Major and Roger_.” This reminiscence is remarkable, and worthy of record, because, supposing my calculations to be correct, it connects, by a single life, an individual of our own time with an officer who fought under the great Duke of Marlborough, and was the son of a gentleman who was obnoxious to Cromwell’s sequestrators, having to pay, during the time of the Commonwealth, a large annual fine for his loyalty. My authority is a condensed history of the Fleming family, on referring to which I find that “Michael, the sixth son of Sir Daniel Fleming, was Major in the regiment commanded by the Hon. Col. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, was in most of the sieges and battles in Flanders during the reigns of King William and Queen Anne, and was returned to Parliament for Westmorland in 1706.” I fancy he would be great-grandfather to the estimable lady who now holds the estates and honours of her ancient house. The other brother remembered by the old man would be, as I have reason to believe, Sir Daniel’s eighth son, Roger Fleming, who entered the church, and became Vicar of Brigham, a preferment enjoyed at the present day, not by a son of the Knight of Rydal Hall, but by a son of the Bard of Rydal Mount.

[Sidenote: ONE OF NELSON’S HEROES.]

We have not done yet with Hause Bank, for you should be told that the old-fashioned house in the fold, surrounded by equally old-fashioned farm-buildings, was formerly the residence of Lieutenant Oldfield, R.N., and is still possessed by his widow.

This Mr Oldfield rose from before the mast, and was made Lieutenant by Nelson himself, as a reward for very important service rendered on a critical occasion—that of piloting the fleet through an intricate and dangerous navigation at the entrance of the Baltic, previous to

——“the glorious day’s renown When to battle fierce came forth All the might of Denmark’s crown.”

The Danes had lifted all the buoys, and taken other measures to place difficulties in the way of the British fleet gaining the anchorage off Copenhagen, and no other man but Oldfield was to be found in the whole fleet, who would undertake a pilot’s responsibility under such circumstances.

[Sidenote: A QUOTATION.]

Leaving Hause Bank, you next pass “Piper-hole,” and soon after reach Park-gate, the farthest houses in the village in this direction. Then take the narrow road to your right, past the pretty farm of Outrake, and following it for a steep half mile, it brings you out upon the table-land high above the village, where stands the ancient hamlet of Highthwaite, called here “Heethat,” and from which you have a grand view of the Lake and the vales of Conistone and Yewdale. Descending by another steep lane, you arrive at another cluster of very comfortable cottages called Cat-bank, formerly Catherine Bank, upon the brow beyond which stands a recently-built row of ten cottages, with large well-tilled gardens in front.

Taking the foot-path behind these, whence the natural panorama of the dale and village appears to vary at every few steps, you pass one or two small groups of houses, and arrive at the steep road you descended in returning from Seathwaite. The old-fashioned farm-houses and cottages adjoining, which are shaded by a straggling regiment of magnificent Scotch firs, are called Dixon-ground; and from the flat in front of the higher farm, the whole of the upper portion of Conistone lies spread out beneath you, and beautiful it looks; “here a scattering, and there a clustering, as in the starry heavens.” But as you walk down this lane, I'll tell you how Father West describes the Conistone of nearly a century back; “the village of Conistone,” says he, “consists of scattered houses; many of them have a most romantic appearance, owing to the ground they stand on being extremely steep. Some are snow-white, others grey; some stand forth on bold eminences at the head of green enclosures, backed with steep woods; some are pitched on sweet declivities, and seem hanging in the air; others, again, are on a level with the lake; they are all neatly covered with blue slate, the produce of the mountains, and beautified with ornamental yews, hollies, and tall pines or firs. This is a charming scene, when the morning sun tinges all with a variety of tints. In the point of beauty and centre of perspective, a white house, under a hanging wood, gives life to this picture. Here a range of dark rugged rocks rises abruptly, and deeply contrasts with the transparent surface of the lake, and the stripe of verdure that skirts their feet.

* * * * *

The hanging woods, waving enclosures, and airy sites are elegant, beautiful, and picturesque; and the whole may be seen with ease and pleasure.”

[Sidenote: “GOOD BYE FOR THE PRESENT.”]

I need not tell you that Conistone is greatly altered since then, but it is for the better. It has lost none of its old beauties, and it has gained many new ones. But here we are again at the central point of the village, the Church bridge; and if you are as tired of rambling as I am of raving, you will be exceedingly glad when I bid you good bye for the present.