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
[Illustration: CARNFORTH.]
[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.
[Illustration: THE BUCKSTONE.]
[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.
[Illustration: THE MARKET CROSS AND PILLORY, BURTON-IN-KENDAL.]
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.
[Illustration: THE “DUKE OF CUMBERLAND” INN, AND FARLETON KNOTT.]
[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.
[Illustration: KENDAL CASTLE, AND THE ROAD INTO KENDAL.]
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.
[Illustration: CASTLE DAIRY.]
[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
Between Kendal and Penrith, a distance of twenty-six miles, is situated
the bleakest and most trying stretch of country in all the distance
from London and Glasgow. It is the district of that high-perched
table-land, 1,400 feet above sea-level, dreaded by the old coachmen,
and the passengers too, as “Shap Fell.” All the weather of Westmoreland
is brewed amid the inhospitable altitudes of Stainmoor and Shap Fell,
which are, in addition, afflicted with the local phenomenon known as
the “Helm Wind.” This, perhaps fortunately for travellers, is not a
winter’s gale, but a playful blast that characterises the days of May
and June. When the tourist reads that it is strong enough to overturn
horses and carriages, and that the noise of it may be heard twenty
miles off, like thunder, or the roar of a cataract, he entertains
serious thoughts of accomplishing this stage of his journey by rail.
The Helm Wind derives its name from the “helm,” or cap, of light clouds
that rests immovably for hours in the sky at the time of its blowing.
It blows across the fells of Westmoreland and Cumberland, rushing down
their steep sides and lashing the waters of the Lakes into furious
waves and driven spray.
The ascent to this not very promising region begins by a gentle rise
at Mint Bridge, one mile from Kendal. It continues, with increasingly
steep gradients, but with two short intervals of down gradient, for
nine and a half miles, when the summit is reached. Although Shap Fell
has so ugly a name, the rise at no point exceeds 1 in 10. It is rather
the long-continued character of the ascent to the exposed summit that
makes the road remarkable.
[Sidenote: _COACHING INCIDENTS_]
The coaching accidents on this stage were remarkably few. The
principal happening of this kind was when a country mail was upset at
Kirbythore Bridge, on Hucks Brow, owing to the horses shying at a quite
inoffensive water-wheel. The coach fell eight feet, and a horse was
killed, but there the damage ended. A stalwart Yorkshire wool-stapler,
who was riding outside, was flung off and made to perform a complete
somersault, but he alighted safely on his feet, and just in time to
catch, at “mid-off,” a parcel which shot with wondrous velocity out of
a woman’s arms, and proved on inspection to be a baby. He said, dryly,
when they congratulated him on his fielding, that “a stray baby isn’t
generally a good catch for a man.”
It was only right and proper that on such a road as this amateur
coachmen were few. It would, indeed, have sounded a higher note of
propriety had there been none at all. With regard to the mails,
the Post Office regulations, not only on this road, but on roads
in general, strictly forbade coachmen allowing amateurs to drive,
and expected the guards to interpose, to prevent anything of the
kind. On one occasion, when young Teather, of Teather & Son, the
mail-contractors, had taken the coachman’s place, and was about to
drive his own horses, a half-indignant and half-terrified passenger
seized the reins because the guard would not veto the arrangement. What
would have happened to that guard for not fulfilling his instructions
to the letter we do not know, for there happened to be a change
of Government at the time, and when the guard somewhat impudently
desired to know which of the two Postmasters-General—the in-coming or
retiring—he was to address in his defence, the matter was allowed to
drop.
One of the few privileged amateurs was Mr. James Parkin, who generally
worked on Teather’s ground out of Penrith, towards Carlisle. He was one
of those who would drive only the best of teams, and so gave up when
the railways encroached and the horses on the shorter journeys became
inferior. He was wont to say he did not care to be a “screw-driver.”
He was a very steady but slow-going whip: too slow for the Mail, and
lacked energy to make his horses slip along over the galloping ground,
where really scientific coachmen always made up for lost time. The
guard, in fact, was perpetually holding up his watch, admonishing him
to “send ’em along.”
Ramsay of Barnton was a good enough whip when the cattle were good, but
he liked to choose his ground. Nightingale, the great coursing judge of
that day, was the one to “take a coach through the country.” He took
the horses as they came,—kickers or jibbers—and, thanks to his fine
nerves and delicate handling of the ribbons, kept his time to a second.
[Sidenote: _COACHMEN_]
Parson Bird was also said to be “well up to his work,” and was so
good-hearted a fellow that when the regular coachman from Keswick to
Kendal broke his leg, he took his place for six weeks, and collected
the fees for him. A story is told of a lady giving the parson-coachman
half-a-crown at the end of the journey one afternoon, and being
introduced to him at a ball the same evening at Kendal. He at once
asked for a dance, but she was highly indignant that a coachman should
so presume. However, the matter was explained, and to such satisfaction
that not only did she dance, but eventually became Mrs. Bird.
Among the regular coachmen, John Reed took a very high place. He was
a stout and a very silent man: all for his horses and nothing to his
passengers. He drove the Glasgow Mail from Carlisle to Abington, never
tasted ale or wine, and never had an accident. This was the more
remarkable as Mr. Johnstone of Hallheaths, owner of Charles XII.,
horsed the Mail along one stage with nothing but thoroughbreds; and,
had they “taken off,” not even Reed, strong-wristed though he was,
could have held them in.
John Bryden was the very reverse of John Reed, and full of jollity
and good stories on the box. The two Drydens were even more dashing
in their style: one had the art of teaching his horses to trot when
most men would have had them on the gallop; the other was a wonderful
singer. Whenever the Mail reached a long ascent and he had to slacken
speed, he would beguile the way with “She Wore a Wreath of Roses,” or
“I Know a Flower within my Garden Growing,” in a rich tenor that would
have secured him a good concert-room engagement in these times.
Another notable coachman was “Little Isaac Johnson.” He kept on the box
for thirty-five years, and never had an accident. He was supreme with a
kicking horse, and always took care to make him his near-side leader.
When such an one was put there, he could punish him more severely, and
liked to hit restive animals inside the thigh. He could “fairly wale
them up,” if they continued to rebel.
The Telfers were coachmen of the same severe school, and well known
over Shap way. Jem Barnes, on the other hand, was fat and lumbersome
and lacked fire; so that people _did_ say he had his sleeping-ground
as well as his galloping-ground. But, one night, at least, when he was
driving north over Shap Fell, there was little chance of sleeping. He
had on that occasion not only to gallop at all the snow-drifts, but
to put a postboy and a pair on in front. The pole-hook broke in midst
of the blinding, snow-wreathed journey, and the hand of his almost
namesake, Jem Byrns, the guard, was nearly frozen to the screw-wrench
when he brought out a spare pole-hook and fastened it on. The snow was
falling in flakes as large as crown-pieces all the while, and the
only comic relief was the voice of a “heavy swell” issuing from the
box seat, beneath a perfect tortoise-shell covering of capes and furs,
“_What are you fellows keeping me here in the cold for, and warming
your own hands at the lamp?_”
[Sidenote: _PEDIGREE_]