There seems to have been a long hereditary emulation among the
inhabitants of these districts to raise their sons beyond the
situation of their birth; a laudable practice, but one which
until recent times was clouded by a comparative neglect of their
daughters, whose education at the best was very indifferent. Hence
many of these youths have risen to be respectable merchants, whose
early circumstances compelled them to toil for their daily bread,
and to be educated in night schools taught during the winter by a
village schoolmaster, a parish clerk, or some industrious mechanic.
Dr. Todd states, that in his time it was reported that Sir Richard
Whittington, knight, thrice Lord Mayor of London, was born of
poor parents in the parish of Great Salkeld, in East Cumberland;
that he built the church and tower from the foundation; and that
he intended to present three large bells to the parish, which by
some mischance stopped at Kirkby-Stephen on their way to Salkeld.
And a similar tradition is yet current in the neighbourhood. Less
apocryphal, perhaps, is the instance of Richard Bateman, a native
of the township of Staveley, near Windermere; who, being a clever
lad, was sent by the inhabitants to London, and there by his
diligence and industry raised himself from a very humble situation
in his master's house to be a partner in his business, and amassed
a considerable fortune. For some years he resided at Leghorn; but
his end was tragical. It is said, that in his voyage to England,
the captain of the vessel in which he was sailing, poisoned him
and seized the ship and cargo. The pretty little Chapel of Ings,
in the vicinity where he was born, was erected at his expense, and
the slabs of marble with which it is floored were sent by him from
Leghorn. Hodgson states, that he gave twelve pounds a year to the
Chapel, and a thousand pounds more to be applied in purchasing an
estate, and building eight cottages in the Chapelry for the use of
its poor.
In Westmorland and Cumberland, thanks to the piety and local
attachments of our ancestors, endowed, or, as they are more
commonly called, free, schools abound. Grammar schools were
established on the verge of, and even within, the lake district,
prior to the dissolution of monasteries. From these institutions
a host of learned and valuable men were distributed over England;
many of them rose to great eminence in the literary world; and
contributed to the establishment of Schools in the villages
where they were born. Before the conclusion of the 17th century,
seminaries of this kind were commenced in every parish, and in
almost every considerable village; and education to learned
professions, especially to the pulpit, continued the favourite
method of the yeomanry of bringing up their younger sons, till
about the year 1760, when commerce became the high road to wealth,
and Greek and Latin began reluctantly, and by slow gradation, to
give way to an education consisting chiefly in reading, writing,
and arithmetic. Many of this new species of scholars were annually
taken into the employment of merchants and bankers in London, and
several of them into the Excise. The clergyman generally found
preferment at a distance from home, where he settled and died; but
the merchant brought his riches and new manners and habits among
his kindred.
The predilection for ancient literature and the learned
professions seems to have been a kind of instinctive propensity
among the people of these secluded vales. In the grammar schools
the discipline was severe, and the instruction imparted was
respectable. In addition to the endowment, the master's industry
was usually rewarded at Shrovetide with a gift in money or
provisions, proportioned to his desert, and the circumstances of
the donor. This present was called Cock-penny, a name derived from
the master being obliged by ancient usage and the "barring-out"
rules, to give the boys a prize to fight cocks for; which
cock-fighting was held either at Shrovetide or Easter. Indeed this
custom seems to have originated in the care which was taken to
instil into youth a martial and enterprising spirit. This appears
from the founders, in many of the schools, having made half of the
master's salary to depend on the cock-pennies; and if the master
refused to give the customary prize, the scholars withheld the
present. The vacations were at Christmas and Pentecost, for about a
fortnight; and all red-letter days were half-holidays. But between
the former seasons the Barring-out occurred; which consisted in the
boys taking possession of the schoolroom early in the morning,
and refusing the master admittance until he had signed certain
rules for the regulation of the holidays, and a general pardon for
all past offences, demanding a bondsman to the instrument. Then
followed a feast and a day of idleness.
The youths of a neighbourhood, rich and poor, were all educated
together; a circumstance which diffused and kept alive a plain
familiarity of intercourse among all ranks of people, which
inspired the lowest with independence of sentiment, and infused
no insolent or unreal consequence into the wealthy. Thus it was
no unusual thing for the yeoman and the shepherd to enliven their
employments or festivities with recitations from the bucolics of
Virgil, the idyls of Theocrites, or the wars of Troy. A story is
told of the late Mr. John Gunson, a worthy miller, who formerly
kept the Plough Inn, a small public-house near the Church at Ulpha.
Two or three young fellows from a neighbouring town, or, as some
say, a party of students from St. Bees School, being out on a
holiday excursion, called at John's, and after regaling themselves
with his ale, and indulging in a good deal of quizzing and banter
at the landlord's expense, demanded their bill. John in his homely
country dialect, said, "Nay, we niver mak' any bills here, ye hev
so much to pay"--mentioning the sum. "O," replied one of the wags,
"you cannot write: that is the cause of your excuse." John, who had
quietly suffered them to proceed in their remarks, retired, and
in a short time brought them in a bill written out in the Hebrew
language, which it need scarcely be said quite puzzled them. He
then sent them one in Greek, and afterwards in Latin, neither of
which they could make out. They then begged that he would tell
them in plain English what they had to pay. John laughed heartily
at their ignorance, which on this occasion shone as conspicuous as
their impertinence to their learned and unassuming host.
If such was the level upon which the yeomanry stood in an
educational sense, their favourite plan of bringing up their
younger sons to the learned professions, and especially the pulpit,
may account for a saying which is almost proverbial in Cumberland,
"Owt 'll mak' a parson!" meaning thereby that if one of their
sons proved more stupid than another, the church was the proper
destination for him.
In the more secluded valleys the scholars were taught in the
church; the curate, who was also schoolmaster, sitting within the
communion rails, and using the table as a desk, while the children
occupied the pews or the open space beside him.
In the parish register of the last named chapelry is a notice, that
a youth who had quitted the valley, and died in one of the towns
on the coast of Cumberland, had requested that his body should be
brought and interred at the foot of the pillar by which he had been
accustomed to sit while a school-boy.
Teachers of writing and arithmetic also wandered from village to
village, being remunerated by a whittle gate. The churches and
chapels have mostly a little school-house adjoining. In some places
the school-house was a sort of antichapel to the place of worship,
being under the same roof, an arrangement which was abandoned as
irreverent. It continues however to this day in Borrowdale and some
other chapelries.
Superstitious fears were sometimes entertained lest a boy should
_learn too far_. It was usual to consider all schoolmasters as
_wise men_ or conjurors. Wise men were such as had spent their
lives in the pursuit of science, and had _learned too much_.
For conjuration was supposed to be a science which as naturally
followed other parts of learning as compound addition followed
simple addition. The wise man possessed wonderful power. He could
recover stolen goods, either by fetching back the articles,
showing the thief in a black mirror, or making him walk round the
cross on a market day, with the stolen goods on his shoulders.
The last, however, he could not do, if the culprit wore a piece
of _green sod_ upon his head. When any person applied to the
wise man for information, it was necessary for him to reach home
before midnight, as a storm was the certain consequence of the
application, and the applicant ran great risk of being tormented
by the devil all the way home. The wise men were supposed to have
made a compact with the devil, that he was to serve them for a
certain number of years, and then have them, body and soul, after
death. They were compelled to give the devil some living animal
whenever he called upon them, as a pledge that they intended to
give themselves at last. Instances are recorded of boys, in the
master's absence, having got to his books, and raised the devil.
The difficulty was to lay him again. He must be kept employed,
or have one of the boys for the trouble given to him. The broken
flag through which he rose is no doubt shown to this day. Such
superstitions are not so completely exploded in the country, but
that many equally improbable tales are told and believed.
The old register-book of the parish of Penrith, which appears to
have been commenced about the year 1599, contains some entries
of an earlier date, which have been either copied from a former
register, or inserted from memory. The following entries occur:--
"Liber Registerii de Penrith scriptus in anno dni 1599 anno regni
regine Elizabethe 41.
Proper nots worth keeping as followethe.
Floden feild was in anno dni 15....
Comotion in these north parts 1536.
St. George day dyd fall on good friday.
Queene Elizabethe begene her rainge 1558.
Plague was in Penrith and Kendal 1554.
Sollome Mose was in the yere....
Rebellion in the North Partes by the two earls of Northumberland &
Westmorland & leonard Dacres in the year of our lord god 1569 & the
9th day of November.
A sore plague was in London, notinghome Derbie & lincolne in the
year 1593.
A sore plague in new castle, durrome & Dernton in the year of our
lord god 1597.
A sore plague in Richmond Kendal Penrith Carliell Apulbie and other
places in Westmorland and Cumberland in the year of our lord god
1598 of this plague there dyed at Kendal"--a few words more, now
very indistinct, follow, and the remainder of the page is cut or
torn off.
Several records of the ravages committed by the plague in
Cumberland and Westmorland are preserved in the more populous
parts. The following inscription on the wall in Penrith Church is
singular:--
AD MDXCVIII
Ex gravi peste quæ regionibus hisce
incubuit, obierunt apud
Penrith 2260
Kendal 2500
Richmond 2200
Carlisle 1196
Posteri
Avertite vos et vivite
Ezek. 18th ---- 32 ----
From the Register it appears that William Wallis was vicar at the
time; the following entries noting the beginning and end of the
calamity are interesting:--
"1597. 22d of September, Andrew Hodgson, a foreigner, was buried."
"Here begonne the plague (God's punismet in Perith.)"
"All those that are noted with the ltre P. dyed of the infection;
and those noted with F. were buried on the Fell."
"December 13th, 1598, Here ended the visitation."
The fear of infection prevented the continuance of the usual
markets; and places without the town were appointed for purchasing
the provisions brought by the country people.
The Church register in the neighbouring parish of Edenhall takes
notice of 42 persons dying in the same year, of the plague, in that
village.
Some centuries previous to this, in 1380, when the Scots made an
inroad into Cumberland, under the Earl of Douglas, Penrith was
suffering from a visitation of the same nature; they surprised the
place at the time of a fair, and returned with immense booty; but
they introduced into their country the plague contracted in this
town, which swept away one-third of the inhabitants of Scotland.
It is not at all likely that these calamitous visitations were
confined to the towns and villages. Although few traces may be
found of this frightful disease having invaded the more remote and
scattered population of the dales. Records of isolated cases might
easily be lost in the course of ages; and, as mere memorials of
domestic affliction, were not likely to be preserved in families.
Yet tradition has its utterances where purer history fails. On the
side of Lingmoor in Great Langdale, a small stone-fenced enclosure,
a few feet across, of green and shining laurels, indicates a spot
which the pestilence had reached. This bright circular patch of
evergreens is very conspicuous amid the ferns, from the heights
on the opposite side of the valley. On a near approach, the
foundations of what appear to be the remains of an ancient dwelling
may be traced at a little distance from it. Still more distant are
the ruins of one or two deserted cottages, where the sheep pasture
along the base of the mountain. What has been gathered from the
dalespeople about the laurels, so singular in such a spot, is, that
in the time of the great plague in England a woman and her son
occupied a cottage near the place. The youth went from this remote
district, in the spirit of enterprise, to push his fortunes in
London, was smitten by the pestilence, and died. After a time some
clothes and other things belonging to him were sent to his home
among the hills, infected the mother, and spread terror throughout
the neighbourhood. The woman having fallen a victim to the disease,
so great was the dread of the pestilence that the ordinary rites
of burial could not be obtained for her. The body could not be
borne for interment in consecrated ground. It mouldered away, it
is supposed, on the spot which to this day is marked by the little
enclosure of evergreens, a memorial of the fearful visitation in
the lonely dale.
One of the most pleasing characteristics of manners in secluded
and thinly-peopled districts, is a sense of the degree in which
human happiness and comfort are dependent on the contingency of
neighbourhood. This is implied by a rhyming adage common here,
"_Friends are far, when neighbours are nar_" (near). This mutual
helpfulness is not confined to out-of-doors work; but is ready
upon all occasions. Formerly, if a person became sick, especially
the mistress of a family, it was usual for those of the neighbours
who were more particularly connected with the party by amicable
offices, to visit the house, carrying a present; this practice,
which is by no means obsolete, is called _owning_ the family,
and is regarded as a pledge of a disposition to be otherwise
serviceable in a time of disability and distress.