journey through Cumberland, except the very good one that we have never
traversed it, while we are familiar with the splendid highway which
follows the lakes to Lakeside and over which runs the great course of
tourist travel. The roads are not comparable in interest, so greatly
does the lake route excel, both in scenic beauty and in literary and
historic associations. Still, the dozen miles from Keswick to
Cockermouth is a beautiful run, passing around the head of Derwentwater
and following for its entire length--some four miles--the western shore
of Bassenthwaite Water. The road winds through almost unbroken woodland
and we catch only fugitive glimpses of the shimmering water between the
thickly crowded trunks that flit between us and the lake. At intervals,
however, we swing toward the shore and come into full view of the
gleaming surface, beyond which stretches an array of wooded parks,
surrounding an occasional country seat. Still beyond rise the stern
outlines of Skiddaw, one of the ruggedest and loftiest of the lake
country hills--though as a matter of fact, its crest is but three
thousand feet above the sea. It is a delightfully quiet road; we meet no
other wayfarers and aside from the subdued purr of the motor, there is
no sound save the wash of the wavelets over the rocks or the rustle of
the summer breeze through the trees. The north end of Bassenthwaite
marks the limit of Lakeland for all except the casual tourist, and here
a snug little wayside inn, the Pheasant, affords a retreat for
solitude-loving disciples of Ike Walton.
Cockermouth has little claim to distinction other than the fact that the
poet Wordsworth was born here a little more than a century and a half
ago. A native of whom we inquire points out the large square gray-stone
house, now the residence of a local physician. The swift Derwent flows a
few rods to the rear and the flower-garden runs down to the river's
edge. The house stands near the highway and is no exception to the
harsh, angular lines that characterize the village. It is in no sense a
public show-place and we have no intention of disturbing the
Sunday-afternoon quiet of the present occupants in an endeavor to see
the interior. Wordsworth's connection with the house ceased at the death
of his father, when the poet was but a child of fourteen. His young
mother--a victim of consumption--had laid down life's burdens some six
years earlier, and the orphan children were taken to the home of a
relative at Kendal.
Perhaps we are the more satisfied to pass the old house with a cursory
glance because, if I must confess it, I was never able to arouse in
myself any great enthusiasm over the poet Wordsworth or to read his
writings except in a desultory way. He never had for me the human
interest of Byron, Burns, Tennyson or many other great lights of English
literature I might name. We were quite willing to assume the role of
intruder at Somersby; we made more than one unsuccessful effort before
we saw Newstead, and three pilgrimages to Alloway have not quenched our
desire to see it again--but we are conscious of little anxiety to enter
the doors of the big square house at Cockermouth. Perhaps we are not
alone in such feeling, for pilgrims to the town are few and a well-known
English author who has written a delightful volume on the Lake District
admits that he paid his first visit to Cockermouth "without once
remembering that it was Wordsworth's birthplace!" His objective was the
castle, a fine mediaeval pile which overlooks the vale of the Derwent.
It is in fair preservation, having been inhabited until quite recently.
Like so many Northland fortresses, it has its legend of Mary Stuart, who
came here after landing at Workington, a seaport a few miles distant.
She had been led by the emissaries of Elizabeth to believe that an
appeal to her "sister's" mercy would assure her a safe refuge in
England, but she never drew a free breath in all the years she was to
live after this act of sadly misplaced confidence.
[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S BIRTHPLACE--COCKERMOUTH, LAKE DISTRICT]
"No one," says the writer just referred to, "would wish to go beyond
Cockermouth," and though we prove one exception to this rule, it is a
fairly safe one for the average tourist, since rougher, steeper and less
interesting roads are scarce in England. A fairly good highway runs to
Whitehaven, a manufacturing port on the Irish Sea where, according to an
English historian, "John Paul Jones, the notorious buccaneer, served his
apprenticeship, and he successfully raided the place in 1778, burning
three vessels." Not many Americans have visited Whitehaven since, for it
is in no sense a tourist town. We pursue its main street southward until
it degenerates into a tortuous, hilly lane leading through the bleak
Cumberland hills. It roughly follows the coast, though there are only
occasional glimpses of the sea which to-day, half shrouded in a silvery
haze, shimmers in the subdued sunlight. The road, with its sharp turns
and steep grades, is as trying as any we have traversed in England; at
times it runs between tall hedges on earthen ridges--an almost
tunnellike effect, reminding us of Devon and Cornwall, to which the
rough country is not dissimilar. Fortunately, we meet no vehicles--we
see only one motor after leaving Whitehaven--but in the vicinity of the
villages we keep a close look-out for the Sunday pedestrians who throng
the road. Our siren keeps up a pretty steady scream and the natives
stare in a manner indicating that a motor is an infrequent spectacle. We
pass through several lone, cheerless-looking towns, devoid of any touch
of color and wholly lacking the artistic coziness of the Midland
villages. Egremont, Bootle, Ravenglass and Broughton are of this type
and seemingly as ancient as the hills they nestle among.
The ruin of a Norman castle towers above Egremont; shattered, bare and
grim, it stands boldly against the evening sky. Yet it is not without
its romance, a theme which inspired Wordsworth's "Horn of Egremont
Castle." For tradition has it that in days of old there hung above the
gate a bugle which would respond to the lips of none but the rightful
lord. While the owner and his younger brother were on a crusade in the
Holy Land, the latter plotted the death of the Lord of the Castle,
bribing a band of villains to drown him in the Jordan. The rascals claim
to have done their work and Eustace, with some misgivings, hastens home
and assumes the vacant title, though he discreetly avoids any attempt to
wind the famous horn. Some time afterwards, while engaged in riotously
celebrating his accession, a blast of the dreaded horn tells him that
his brother Hubert is not dead, and has come to claim his own. The
usurper flees by the "postern gate," but years afterward he returns to
be forgiven by Sir Hubert and to expiate his crime by entering a
monastery. Wordsworth tells the story in a halting, mediocre way that
shows how little his genius was adapted to such a theme. What a pity
that the story of Egremont was not told by the Wizard with the dash of
"Lochinvar" or the "Wild Huntsman."
[Illustration: CALDER ABBEY, CUMBERLAND]
There is a fine abbey ruin in the vale of the Calder about a mile from
the main road. Calder Abbey was founded in the twelfth century and was
second only to Furness in importance in Northwestern England. The
beautiful pointed arches supporting the central tower are almost intact
and the cloisters and walls of the south transept still stand. Over them
all the ivy runs riot, and above them sway the branches of the giant
beeches that crowd about the ruin. It is a delightfully secluded nook
and in the quiet of a summer evening one could hardly imagine a spot
more in harmony with the spirit of monastic peace and retirement. Such
is the atmosphere of romance that one does not care to ask the cold
facts of the career of Calder Abbey, and, indeed, there is none to
answer even if we should ask its story.
You would never imagine that Ravenglass, with its single street bordered
by unpretentious slate-roofed, whitewashed houses and its harbor, little
more than a shifting sand-bar, has a history running back to the Roman
occupation, and that it once ranked in importance with Chester and
Carlisle. Archaeologists tell us that in Roman times acres of buildings
clustered on the then ample harbor, where a good-sized fleet of galleys
constantly rode at anchor. Here came the ships of the civilized world to
the greatest port of the North Country, bringing olives, anchovies,
wines and other luxuries that the Romans had introduced into Britain,
and in returning they carried away numbers of the hapless natives to be
sold as slaves or impressed into the armies. The harbor has evidently
filled with silt to a great extent since that day, scarcely any spot
being covered by water at low tide except the channel of the Esk. Many
relics have been discovered at Ravenglass, and the older houses of the
town are built largely from the ruins of the Roman city. Most remarkable
of all are the remains of a villa in an excellent state of preservation,
which a good authority pronounces practically the only Roman building in
the Kingdom standing above ground save the fragments that have been
revealed by excavation.
Ravenglass has another unique distinction in the great breeding ground
of gulls and terns which almost adjoins the place. Here in early summer
myriads of these birds repair to hatch their young, and the spectacle is
said to be well worth seeing--and, in fact, does attract many visitors.
The breeding season, however, was past at the time of our visit. An
English writer, Canon Rawnsley of Carlisle, gives a graphic account of a
trip to the queer colony of sea-birds during their nesting time:
"Suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous sound, and
a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to white and
hovered and trembled against the gray sea or the blue inland hills,
swept by overhead. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach and
mightily disapproved of our tresspass upon their sand-blown solitude.
"We sat down and the clamour died; the gulls had settled. Creeping
warily to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below
us lay a natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it
were starred with white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the
flowers all took wing, and the air was filled again with sound and
intricate maze of innumerable wings.
"We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked with
little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or
sea-bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels.
These were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay--deep
brown blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green
dashed with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes;
some as small as a pigeon's, others as large as a bantam's. Three seemed
to be the general complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were
so close to one another that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten
yards; and what struck one most was the way in which, instead of seeking
shelter, the birds had evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising
ground from which swift outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.
"Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as
one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one
with open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one's face
and protecting one's eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped
round one's head. But we were not the only foes they had had to battle
with. The carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and
many an egg which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the
black robber's beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst
of the hubbub.
"Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to
the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing
such apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the Lord of
Muncaster for his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year
he entertains upon his golden dunes."
It is growing late as we leave Ravenglass and we wonder where we shall
pass the night. There is no road across the rough country to our right
and clearly we must follow the coast for many miles until we round the
southern point of the hills. Then the wide sand marshes of the Duddon
will force us to turn northward several miles until we come to a
crossing which will enable us to continue our southward course. Here
again a memory of Wordsworth is awakened, for did he not celebrate this
valley in his series of "Sonnets to the Duddon?" There is no
stopping-place at Bootle or Millom or Broughton, unless it be
road-houses of doubtful character and we hasten over the rough narrow
roads as swiftly as steep grades and numerous pedestrians will permit.
The road for some miles on either side of Broughton is little more than
a stony lane which pitches up and down some frightful hills. It is truly
strenuous motoring and our run has already been longer than is our wont.
The thought of a comfortable inn appeals strongly indeed--we study the
map a moment to find to our certain knowledge that nothing of such
description is nearer than Furness Abbey, still a good many miles to the
south. But the recollection of the splendid ruin is, for the time being,
quite overshadowed by our memory of the excellent hotel, which I must
confess exerts much the greater attraction. The country beyond Broughton
has little of interest, but the road gradually improves until it becomes
a broad, well-surfaced highway which enables us to make up for lost
time. Shortly after sunset we enter the well-kept park surrounding the
abbey and hotel. We have come many miles "out of our way," to be sure,
for we are already decided on a northward turn for a last glimpse of
Lakeland tomorrow--but, after all, we are not seeking shortest routes.
Indeed, from our point of view, we can scarcely go "out of the way" in
rural Britain; some of our rarest discoveries have been made
unexpectedly when deviating from main-traveled routes.
[Illustration: KENDAL CASTLE, "A STERN CASTLE, MOULDERING ON THE BROW OF
A GREEN HILL"]
On the following day we pursue familiar roads. Passing through Dalton
and Ulverston, we ascend the vale of the Leven to Newby Bridge at the
southern extremity of Windermere. We cannot resist the temptation to
take the Lakeside road to Windermere town, though it carries us several
miles farther north. It is surely one of the loveliest of English roads,
and we now traverse it the third time--once in the sunlight of a perfect
afternoon, once it was gray and showery, and to-day the shadows of the
great hills darken the mirrorlike surface, for it is yet early morning.
The water is of almost inky blackness, but on the far side it sparkles
in the sunlight and the snowy sails of several small craft lend a
pleasing relief to its somber hues. The road winds among the trees that
skirt the shore and in places we glide beneath the overarching boughs.
At times the lake glimmers through the closely standing trunks, and
again we come into the open where our vision has full sweep over the
gleaming expanse of dark water. We follow the Lakeside road for six
miles until we reach the outskirts of the village of Bowness; here a
turn to the right leads up a sharp hill and we are soon on the moorland
road to Kendal. It shows on our map as a "second-class" road and,
indeed, this description was deserved two years before. It is a pleasant
surprise to find it smoothly re-surfaced--an excellent highway now,
though in its windings across the fells it carries us over some steep
grades. On either hand lies a barren and hilly country, which does not
improve until we enter the green valley in which the town is situated.
It is a charming place, depending now for its prosperity on the stretch
of fertile country which surrounds it. Once it had numerous factories,
but changing conditions have eradicated most of them excepting the
woolen mills, which still operate on a considerable scale. The ancient
castle--now a scanty ruin--looms high over the town: "a stern castle,
mouldering on the brow of a green hill," as Wordsworth, who lived many
years in the vicinity, describes it. It might furnish material for many
a romance; here was born Catherine Parr, the queen who was fortunate
enough to survive that royal Bluebeard, Henry VIII. It escaped the usual
epitaph, "Destroyed by Cromwell," since it had long been in ruin at the
time of the Commonwealth. But Cromwell, or his followers, must have been
in evidence in Kendal, for in the church is the helmet of Major Robert
Philipson--Robin the Devil--who gained fame by riding his horse into
this selfsame church during services in search of a Cromwellian officer
upon whom he sought to do summary vengeance. The exploits of this
bellicose major furnish a groundwork for Scott's "Rokeby." The church is
justly the pride of Kendal, being one of the largest in England and of
quite unique architecture. It has no fewer than five aisles running
parallel with each other and the great breadth of the building, together
with its low square tower, gives it a squat appearance, though this is
redeemed to some extent by its unique design. A good part of the
building is more than seven hundred years old, though considerable
additions were made in the fifteenth century. In the tower is a chime of
bells celebrated throughout the North Country for their melody, which is
greatly enhanced by the echoes from the surrounding hills.
[Illustration: KENDAL PARISH CHURCH]
Kendal serves as the southernmost gateway of the Lake District, the
railway passing through the town to Windermere, and there is also a
regular coaching service to the same place. When we resume our journey
over the highway to the south we are well out of the confines of English
Lakeland and I may as well close this chapter on the lesser known
corners of this famous region.
XV
WE DISCOVER DENBIGH
Night finds us in Chester, now so familiar as to become almost
commonplace, and we stop at the Grosvenor, for we know it too well to
take chances elsewhere. There has been little of consequence on the
highway we followed from Kendal, which we left in the early forenoon, if
we except the fine old city of Lancaster, where we stopped for lunch.
And even Lancaster is so dominated by modern manufactories that it is
hard to realize that its history runs back to Roman times. It has but
few landmarks left; the castle, with the exception of the keep tower, is
modern and used as a county jail--or gaol, as the English have it. St.
Mary's Church, a magnificent fifteenth-century structure, crowns the
summit of the hill overlooking the city and from which a wide scope of
country on one hand and the Irish Sea and Isle of Man on the other may
be seen on clear days.
Preston, Wigan and Warrington are manufacturing towns stretching along
the road at intervals of fifteen or twenty miles and ranging in
population around one hundred thousand each. Their outskirts merge into
villages and for many miles it was almost as if we traveled through a
continuous city. The houses crowd closely on the street, which was often
thronged with children, making slow and careful driving imperative. The
pavements in the larger towns are excellent and the streets of the
villages free from filth--a marked contrast to what we saw on the
Continent. Shortly after leaving Warrington we crossed the Manchester
Ship Canal, by which ocean-going vessels are able to reach that city.
From thence to Chester our run was through a pretty rural section, over
an excellent road.
Chester is crowded even more than usual. An historical pageant is to
take place during the week and many sightseers are already on the
ground. Only our previous acquaintance enables us to secure rooms at the
Grosvenor, since would-be guests are hourly being turned away. Under
such conditions we do not care to linger and after a saunter along the
"rows" in the morning we are ready for the road. We have not decided on
our route--perhaps we may as well return to London and prepare for the
trip to Land's End which we have in mind. A glance at the map shows
Conway within easy distance. Few places have exerted so great a
fascination for us as the little Welsh town--yes, we will sojourn a day
or two in Conway and we may as well go by a route new to us. We will
take the road through Mold and Denbigh, though it never occurs to us
that either of them deserves more than a passing glance.
The first glimpse of Denbigh arouses our curiosity. A vast ivy-mantled
ruin surmounts a steep hill rising abruptly from the vale of the Clwyd,
while the gray monotone of the slate roofs and stone walls of the old
town covers the slopes. The noble bulk and tall spire of the church
occupies the foreground and, indeed, as Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote in
1774, "Denbigh is not a mean town," if one may judge by its aspect from
a little distance. The first view awakens a lively desire for closer
acquaintance and soon we are ascending the long steep street that leads
to the castle--for the castle is naturally the first objective of the
newcomer in Denbigh. The hill rises five hundred feet above the level of
the plain and the ascent, despite its many windings, is steep enough to
change the merry hum of our motor to a low determined growl ere we pause
before the grim old gateway in the fragment of the keep tower.
We are fortunate in finding an intelligent custodian in charge, who
hastens to inform us that he himself is an American citizen, having been
naturalized during a sojourn in the States. We have reason to be proud
of our fellow-countryman, for we have found few of his brethren who
could rival him in thorough knowledge of their charges or who were able
to tell their stories more entertainingly.
There is little left of Denbigh Castle save the remnant of the keep and
the outlines of the foundation walls, but these are quite enough to
indicate its old-time defensive strength. Of all the scores of British
castles we have seen, scarcely another, it seems to us, could have
equalled the grim strength of Denbigh in its palmy days. The keep
consisted of seven great towers, six of them surrounding a central one,
known as the Hall of Judgment. And, indeed, dreadful judgments must have
emanated from this gloomy apartment--gloomy in its best days, being
almost windowless--for beneath the keep the dungeon is still intact to
tell plainer than words the fate of the captives of Denbigh Castle.
"Man's inhumanity to man" was near its climax in the mind of the
designer who planned this tomblike vault, hewn in the solid rock, shut
in by a single iron-bound trap-door and without communication with the
outer air save a small passageway some two inches square and several
feet in length which opened in the outside wall. Only by standing
closely at the tiny aperture was it possible for the inmates to breathe
freely, and when there were more than one in the dungeon the unfortunate
prisoners took turns at the breathing-hole, as it was styled.