THE PRESENT INCUMBENT OF SEATHWAITE—HIS APPEARANCE, MANNER,
CONVERSATION, AND PREACHING—A CONTRE-TEMPS—CAUSES OF
DEFECTION—UNDERCRAG—“A VALE WITHIN A VALE”—“THE OLD CHURCH CLOCK”—“BAD
CUSTOMS”—COUNTRY VERSUS TOWN—ASCENT OF WALNA SCAR—OLD BRITISH
CAMP?—VIEW FROM THE SUMMIT AND DESCENT OF WALNA SCAR—GAITS WATER AND
DOW CRAGS—RETURN TO CONISTONE.
[Sidenote: AN OBLIGING CICERONE.]
As you loiter about the church-yard, you will be inevitably saluted
by an elderly personage arrayed in an elderly black coat, corduroy
“never-mention-thems” ending at the knees, dark rough yarn stockings,
by way of continuations, and strong country made shoes fastened with
leather whangs. He has the appearance of one with whom the world has
gone smoothly. His double chin, broad convex shoulders, “fair round
belly with” fell mutton “lined,” sturdy, well-developed under-limbs,
and, above all, the cheerful and benevolent expression pervading
his venerable features, all indicate one whose lot in life has been
peaceful, happy, and contented. His outer man would seem to fix his
rank in life very little above the surrounding farmers and yeomen.
His manner is simple, easy, and unaffected, and his style of language
is vastly superior to that of any with whom you have exchanged words
during your Seathwaite expedition. I may as well tell you who and
what he is. Well, then, he is the Rev. Ed. Tyson, and a collateral
descendant of the famous individual I told you so much about in
our last chapter,—was, for a short time, his coadjutor, and, at his
death, succeeded him in the ministry of this romantic chapelry. Ask
him for how long he has watched over the spiritual interests of his
unsophisticated flock, and he will answer “_only_ forty-six years this
time.” The “this time” means that, after acting as Mr Walker’s curate
for some time, he left Seathwaite, and returned at his death in 1802.
Forty-six years added to sixty-six, the duration of Robert Walker's
ministration, gives the sum of one hundred and twelve years, during
which the clerical function has been discharged in Seathwaite by only
two individuals. To this, I fancy, you can scarcely find a parallel! Mr
Tyson will have much pleasure in pointing out what is worthy of note
in and about his chapel; as the pew lined with cloth of “Wonderful
Walker's” own spinning, and again I may say that you will scarcely
find a parallel to this in any English church—a pew lined with cloth
spun by a clergyman! The pulpit is worth looking at on account of its
antiquity, and so is the door of a cupboard beside it, both being of
carved oak, and bearing a date which I forget.
One of the many writers who have chosen the Duddon for their theme,
says that he has seldom witnessed anything so gratifying as the manner
in which Mr Tyson greets his parishioners on a Sunday morning, as he
passes through amongst the assembled groups in the church-yard. He
might have increased his gratification by entering the church, and
hearing the church service read in Mr Tyson's unpretending, but earnest
and even affectionate style, and still more, by staying to hear one of
his plain, practical, and convincing discourses, so perfectly adapted
to the circumstances and understanding of his rustic congregation,
and yet so good in their matter, so impressive in the manner of
their delivery, and so excellent in their diction, composition, and
arrangement of topics, that any congregation, the most polished and
intellectual, might listen to them with the same pleasure and profit,
as that with which they are evidently attended to by the simple-minded
and uncultivated worshippers in Seathwaite. I have latterly made it a
custom to go to Seathwaite once a year to hear Mr Tyson preach, which
custom I mean to keep up, so long as I may be permitted.
[Sidenote: KERNEL NOT HUSK.]
I once witnessed a rather amusing scene occasioned by the plainness
of Mr Tyson’s exterior. I had accompanied a gentleman from London on
an excursion to Seathwaite, and introduced him to Mr Tyson, without
thinking it requisite to mention his position in the parish, and
noticed with some surprise, that whilst the worthy parson, with his
usual ready kindness, was shewing us through the chapel, and pointing
out the remarkables in its vicinity, my companion scarcely treated him
with the consideration due to his rank, character, and profession;
but my surprise increased almost to consternation, when the stranger,
looking over his shoulder to our venerable Cicerone, asked very
abruptly, “but, I say, who _is_ the parson here?” Mr Tyson looked
rather astonished for an instant, but immediately answered, with
some little dignity, “_I_ am the parson, sir—for want of a better.”
The gentleman's hat was off directly, and, with a deep obeisance,
a muttered apology was tendered to what he doubtless thought the
clergyman’s insulted dignity.—“Yes, sir,” continued Mr Tyson, “I am the
parson here, and if you calculated upon finding parsons in these dales
dressed in black silk stockings and broad-cloth breeches, you see you
have been mistaken!”
[Sidenote: A WORD FOR MINERS.]
Miss Martineau says that Mr Tyson will tell the traveller “of the
alteration in the times, and how the Wesleyans have opened a chapel
in Ulpha, which draws away some of the flock; and that others have
ceased to come to church since the attempts to get copper from
the neighbouring hills,—the miners drawing away the people to
diversion on Sundays.” I cannot help thinking that Miss Martineau has
misunderstood the worthy pastor as to this latter cause of diminution
in his congregation. The miners are certainly no more given to Sunday
diversion than the rest of the community, and they have the less excuse
for indulging in amusement on Sunday, inasmuch as they have more time
for week-day recreation than their agricultural compeers. I cannot
observe any difference between the manners and conduct of the miners
and of the other inhabitants of Seathwaite, nor can I understand how
any such difference can be supposed to exist, because all the people
employed in the Seathwaite mines are natives of this or the adjoining
vales—are, in fact, for the most part, sons or brothers of the
small yeomen and farmers, and have taken to mining because it is an
occupation that affords them better earnings for less work, than does
agricultural or pastoral labour, their only other resources.
Bidding adieu to Seathwaite chapel, and to its venerable and obliging
minister, you must return to Newfield for your pony, and set out on
your way back to Conistone. You ride up the dale by the road you
descended for about half a mile or more, and just before you reach the
guide-post, where the road you came by turns off to cross Nettleslack
Bridge, you had better leave the road, passing through a gate on your
right, and following a track through a field for about forty yards, to
take a look at the humble homestead of Undercrag, where Robert Walker
was born. Though the buildings are of the humblest, the situation is
very beautiful, nestling, as its name signifies, at the foot of a high
wall of grey rock nearly perpendicular, but delightfully chequered with
little slopes and irregular shelves of bright green turf. Undercrag
has little about it to attract notice before many of its neighbours;
its only claim to our attention is its being the birth-place of one,
whose homely name has become known wider and farther than has that of
any other native of the lake country, always excepting the name of his
great biographer.
[Sidenote: “A PEACEFUL RETIREMENT.”]
Leave Undercrag, and on regaining the highroad, instead of crossing the
bridge to your left, and so returning upon your track, hold straight
forward, and you soon enter a little circular basin of green fields,
besprinkled with ancient cottages and farms, intersected with stone
walls, and enlivened by two or three sparkling brooklets which meet in
its centre. It reminds you of De Quincey's description of Easedale—“a
chamber within a chamber, or rather a closet within a chamber—a chapel
within a cathedral—a little private oratory within a chapel.” The
houses in this little den are all within the sweep of the eye, and are
easily enumerated; Hollin house, Tongue-house, Beck-house, Long-house,
The Thrang, and—what next? Gibraltar!—each with
“A few small crofts of stone-encumbered ground,
Masses of every shape and size that lie
Scattered about beneath the mouldering wall
Of the rough precipice, and some apart,
In quarters unobnoxious to such chance,
As if the moon had rained them down in spite.”
[Sidenote: COURTING CUSTOMS.]
There is a little book bearing the odd title of “The Old Church Clock,”
written by the Rev. Mr Parkinson, canon of Manchester, &c., which,
possibly, you may have read. If you have, you may remark how strangely
inaccurate the amiable author is in his local geography. To take one
instance of many, he represents the sister of his hero to have the
very reprehensible habit of slipping out of the paternal door, after
bed-time, somewhere about the head of Yewdale, as near as I can fix
it, and tripping it deftly over hill and dale, to meet her scamp of
a sweetheart in this little dell. The said sweetheart must have been
a very irresistible, as well as a very unreasonable personage, to
entice a decent man’s daughter to enact the cart going to the horse,
and give him the meeting so far from home—for the distance is little
short of a round dozen of miles—and she is described as taking the
rough, wild road that you have travelled over in this excursion. It is
“rather of the ratherest,” and moreover, though this same custom of
“meeting by night in the shady boreen” may suit a taste so romantic
as that of the reverend author, it is not the custom of the daughters
of these dales, who, with a careful regard for personal comfort and
security from interruption, always have their wooers within the house
after the family retire to rest; and I may quote Anderson, the Cumbrian
bard, in support of the correctness of this statement, premising
that the customs of this portion of Lancashire are, in all respects,
similar to those in Cumberland and Westmorland. He says,—“A Cumbrian
peasant pays his addresses to his sweetheart during the silence and
solemnity of midnight, when every bosom is at rest, except those of
love and sorrow. Anticipating her kindness, he will travel ten or
twelve miles over hills, bogs, moors and mosses, undiscouraged by the
length of the road, the darkness of the night, or the intemperature of
the weather. On reaching her habitation, he gives a gentle tap at the
window of her chamber, at which signal she immediately rises, dresses
herself, and proceeds, with all possible silence, to the door, which
she gently opens, lest a creeking hinge or a barking dog should awaken
the family. * * Next the courtship commences, previously to which the
fire is darkened or extinguished, lest its light should guide to the
window some idle or licentious eye. In this dark and uncomfortable
situation (at least uncomfortable to all but lovers), they remain
till the advance of day,” and so on, concluding with some moralizing
remarks upon this naughty custom, which I do not feel myself called
[Sidenote: THE BALANCE OF MORALITY—WHERE?] upon to repeat. These
“sittings,” which are in constant practice all over these northern
counties, and which, after all, are not so bad as the Scotch and Welsh
sweethearting customs, generally come off on the Saturday nights; and
this practice, which involves the violation of the Sabbath, as well
as the breach of decorum, is unnoticed, or rather winked at, by most
writers who pretend to describe “life and manners” in the Lake country,
such as Wilson, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and, lastly, Mr Parkinson. In
fact, there appears a design amongst that tribe of writers to cry up
the inhabitants of secluded districts such as these, at the expense
of the inhabitants of towns. I am ready to do battle in this cause
under the banner of Miss Martineau, who, in her triumphant answer
to the arguments of those who opposed the introduction of railways
into the Lake district, on the plea, amongst others equally absurd,
that the morality of the people would suffer from contact with the
denizens of towns, who, it was dreaded, would avail themselves in
crowds of the increased facilities of transit, says—“As for the fear
that the innocent rural population will be morally corrupted by
intercourse with people from the towns, we have no apprehension of
this, but are disposed to hope rather than fear certain consequences
from the increased intercourse of the mountaineers with the people
of large towns. We doubt at once the innocence of the one party,
and the specific corruption of the other. Scarcely anything can be
conceived more lifeless, unvaried, and unideal, than the existence
of the dalesmen and their families; and where the intellect is left
so idle and unimproved as among them, the sensual vices are sure to
prevail. These vices rage in the villages and small towns; and probably
no clergyman or justice of the peace will be ever heard speaking of
the rural innocence of the region,—which is, indeed, to be found only
in works of the imagination. The people have their virtues many and
great.”—And so they have! but as to their morals being purer, or their
lives and conversation more innocent than those of the parallel classes
in towns, it is all nonsense. My life has been about equally divided
between town and country, the nature of my occupation has given me
much—I hope not wasted—opportunity in both of noting human nature _en
deshabille_, and I tell you that good and evil in town and country,
in crowded capital and lonely fell-dale, are “much of a muchness.” As
a general rule, you may safely aver that the best educated community,
is also the best behaved, and the standard of education amongst our
mountaineers is by no means a high one.
[Sidenote: RETROSPECT AND RIVULET.]
But quitting this subject, on which one might prose till midnight, you
had better commence the ascent of Walna Scar, and you’d also better
gird up your loins, and make up your mind to encounter a labour of
no ordinary magnitude; but as you rest and look back occasionally,
the view rewards you well for your labour. Mr Wordsworth gives a very
poetical and correct enumeration of the beauties of these prospects,
but the passage has been quoted so often that you must have read it,
and, therefore, though sorely tempted, I shall not give it here now.
Part of Seathwaite beck comes leaping, frothing, and sparkling down a
very rocky channel on your left. I think it is Captain Marryatt who
describes an American river as forming “a staircase of waterfalls;”
you have here this quaint fancy realized on a small scale for nearly
half a mile along the side of your steep fell-road. On the farther
side of this merry companion, is the extensive enclosure in which is
situated Dan Birkett’s Town of “t'auld Ancient Britons.” The following
instructions, furnished to me by a respected clerical friend, who is,
in the ordinary pedestrian acceptation of the phrase, indisputably
a “Wonderful Walker,” sufficed to enable me to find it out, and may
serve your turn now. You will observe that he supposes the instructed
party to be journeying from Conistone towards Seathwaite. “Follow the
cart-road from Walna Scar to Seathwaite, till it meets the brook coming
from the Peat-beds—turn to the right over the brook and wall, and march
at right angles to your former course, upon some thorn trees distant
about 500 yards. If the bogs are impassable, follow the Seathwaite road
to the gate of the road leading to the Peat-beds, and there scramble
over and among rocks to the above-mentioned thorn trees.”
[Sidenote: THE RUINS OF WHAT?]
I visited these remains with a member of the Archæological Association,
and he expressed a decided opinion that they were a genuine antiquity,
but thought they had formed a summer encampment, rather than a Town.
On the other hand, a Seathwaite shepherd assured me that they were
the ruins of a Peat-scale; that is, an erection for storing peats,
until leisure serves to get them brought home. After a good hour’s
climb, I must suppose you safely at the top of Walna Scar, and lost in
admiration at the magnificent prospect you contemplate, when looking
back to the north and west. The hill peering over the high ridge to
your right, is Bowfell, then Great End, and next Scawfell Pikes and
Scawfell, the highest hills in England. Those more distant, and seen
over the western slope of Scawfell, are the Ennerdale hills, with the
Pillar conspicuous amongst them, the scene of the fatal catastrophe in
Wordsworth’s beautiful poem called “The Brothers.” Over the lower range
of hills beyond Seathwaite, you may see the Isle of Man, the hills of
Galloway, and Saint Bees Head, with the broad expanse of sea between
them, glittering like ruddy gold in the red light of the declining
sun. This huge arm of the mountains thrust out, as it seems, to shake
hands with the sea, is Blackcombe, a well known land-mark for sailors.
Under it, to the south, are extended the fertile fields of Millom,
bounded again on the south by Duddon sands, over which the sea
creeps up into the country, converting the bare sands twice every day
into a broad area of water. The rich district of Low Furness divides
the Duddon estuary from Morecambe Bay, which you may contemplate in
all its vastness of extent and irregularity of shore. Stretching along
the eastern horizon, are the hills of Yorkshire, the most conspicuous
of which is Ingleborough. Nearer home, you behold the bright waters of
Windermere, divided into three portions by intervening heights. And
here nearer still, you have nearly the whole six miles of
“Our own dear lake
Beside the ancient Hall,”
with the beautiful valley of the Crake reaching from its foot to the
sea at Greenodd.
[Sidenote: LANDS, WATERS, AND ROCKS.]
[Illustration: GAITS WATER AND DHU CRAGS.]
[Sidenote: DRAWING A FOX.]
You will find the descent of Walna Scar worse than the climb, for, on
the Seathwaite side, the road is good and smooth, but, on the Conistone
side, it is less like a road than a superannuated water-course, and
that not of the “gentlest conditions.” After you have safely descended
the steepest portions, and crossed by a primitive stone bridge over a
brawling brook, pray leave your road for about half a mile, to look at
Gaits Water. You will find it to present a scene of savage desolation
approaching the terrific, and I know nothing equal to it for wildness
in the Lake country. It is an oval Tarn, about half a mile round,
on the eastern side of which the Old Man rears his most rocky and
precipitous side; at the head is a steep, high pass, connecting the
Old Man with Dow, or Dhu Crags, which last rise on its western side,
high, barren, verdureless screes, surmounted by a coronet of tremendous
black rocks, partly mural and partly columnar, of vast altitude, with
rough jagged edges, and bisected here and there with awful-looking
chasms, which, with the _borrans_ formed by the accumulation of huge
fragments of rock along the south-west of the shore, form a favourite
harbour for foxes, against which the shepherds wage a constant war
of extermination. They have an extraordinary method of taking the
fox, when they trace him to one of these rocky hiding-places; they
draw him out with a screw, like a cork from the neck of a bottle.
They have a gigantic cork-screw upon the end of a pole, which they
sometimes succeed in insinuating into poor reynard's _corpus_, and so
ruthlessly screw him to destruction. On the three sides I have pointed
out around Gaits Water, the walls of the dungeon come sheer down to
the water-edge: the fourth is fortified with a grotesquely-piled
accumulation of rocks of enormous size. Altogether, it is a scene
to make a man shudder, and wish himself anywhere else;—so return to
your road, and prick along under the southern slope of the Old Man to
Conistone.
As you approach the village, you have a view of all the vale of
Yewdale, shining sweetly in its _setting_ of dark brown hills and
moors. You reach Church Conistone by an abruptly-descending road, lined
and over-arched by a long grove of flourishing oaks. Of the village
itself, through a portion of which you take your way, we will say more
anon; meantime, your mind’s eye is doubtless gloating upon the good
things awaiting your attack at the Inn.