_BY WORDSWORTH'S ROTHAY_
Even during the height of summer there are dull days sometimes, when
dense clouds simply stifle the dales in gloom. This is the more
tantalising when one is at Ambleside in the midst of the beauties of
Lakeland.
But after two o'clock the day became perceptibly brighter; Loughrigg
discovered itself opposite our window, a kindly precipice of damp grey
crags rearing through a forest of dwarf oaks and clinging ash, green
plumed larches and verdant undergrowth, its long crest crowned with
patches of heather and wide, quivering wastes of bracken. There is
little to interest us in Ambleside: the sun is bursting his cloudy
bonds, and we chafe at streets and houses! Out, then, on the Rydal road,
past the old moss-grown mill and the bridge-house Ruskin sketched in his
youth, past the Knoll where Harriet Martineau lived. Now we rejoice to
see a riven cloud turn to gleaming silver at its edges, and through the
gap a shaft of light strikes down to earth. It is lost! No, there it is
again, kissing the rugged crest of Nab Scar, and hovering along its
flank. The clouds above whirl together, and the welcome gleam is cut
off. But the upper heavens are overpent with sunshine; glance after
glance of glory dances down and melts away on Loughrigg fell. For half
an hour gloom and coming sunshine wage unequal warfare, then the clouds
to westward break up their solid phalanx, and wider and more frequent
are the wheeling spokes of light. Here one blazons a scree-drifted
hillside, there one peers and glances into a rocky ghyll. Broad streams
of radiance flow into unseen abysms beyond the nearer mountain curtain,
a flash of refreshing brilliance lights up acres of rugged scrub.
[Illustration: A GLIMPSE OF GRASMERE
Evening sun]
By the rivulet we see the usual patient angler. Men there are so
entranced in seeking to lure the trout, that they brave rain or shine
indifferently. Under the hazels, when booming gusts clash walls of rain
against mountain and bosky meadow, they still angle on; under the hazels
you find them when from a sky of staring blue the sun beats down on a
drought-struck land. This brook from happy, lonely Scandale holds many a
small brown trout; its bed is bright and shingly, with clean swirling
pools and glinting, tinkling rapids. The road now enters Rydal park;
miles of rough land stretch toward the lofty ridge from which a cloud is
drifting slowly. The sun has now the victory, pouring a flood of joyous
light on a scene of unparalleled beauty, and this fleecy, crawling
monster is the rearguard of departed gloom.
Near a fir-crowned hillock we see a picturesque group of mountain
ponies. The Le Flemings of the Hall have ever been upholders of these
useful little animals, going to great trouble and expense to improve the
breed. The well-selected Rydal stallions are admired in the dales for
miles around. The farmers are not keen to part with their best stock, so
the standard, though not yet entirely satisfactory, is creeping upward.
Rydal beck hurries beneath the bridge, bank-full, its tiny surges
shaking the plumy water-grass, whipping the too-pendant branches. The
Rothay, close to our left, is a greater volume, but calmer, clear and
shining where the sunlight dapples through the wych-elms, darkling in
deep pools in the dense oak shade. The stream carries flakes of foam,
and from ahead we hear the water purling down a rocky channel.
A few yards on, at Pelter bridge, a cross-road passes under Loughrigg.
Looking up-stream, from the parapet, it is a lovely confusion: the beck,
overhung with tall sycamores, ashes, and oaks, is split into tiny
currents, each babbling its merry way down through a maze of boulders.
Some of these are crowned with grass, over which in due season dangle
the dainty blue harebell, the yellow-irised oxeyes, the crimson-spiked
foxglove, or the blue-orbed sundew. In the margins goldilocks show dark
tufts of leaves; when these are in bloom, the waterside is gay with
brilliant yellow. Some of the river-stones are decked with moss--the
gurgling, dashing streamlet occasionally tosses a tiny jet of spray to
gem the glossy crowns. After a long spell of drought Rothay shrinks
almost from view in this labyrinth of pool, wee cascade, and calmer
channel. The riverside is almost too beautiful to lift the eyes from,
but a sharp crag of Loughrigg sheers against a rosy cloud of eventide to
our left, and on our right the great green mass of Nab Scar almost
overhangs the cottage in front.
[Illustration: WILD HYACINTHS]
A cottage by Rothay! Wordsworth's Rothay! In far-off climes and dusty,
choking cities many pause in their eternal soul-grinding struggle and
think of such sweet retirements, even when the scene is merely a figment
conjured up by the poet's craft. To such as know Rothay from its source
in the craggy fells to slooming Winander, the feeling of envy is more
acute. It is a glorious stretch of country, alike calm and beautiful,
stormy and forbidding; in spring tinged with delicate green, in summer
wreathed in blossom of pink and white and blue; in autumn shot with
crimson and gold of dying leafage; in winter grey and dank with rain, or
garmented in dazzling snow. But the cottage!--clung with the bines of
creepers and eaved with glossy ivy; the lowly little cot where the
tallest hollyhock peeps in at the chamber window; the old-fashioned
garden laid out in neat beds of showy or sweet-scented flowers, with gay
gladioli spikes of puce and white, and fuchsias red and outbending, with
balsam and balm and the sweetest thyme; the rockery with green caressing
films of parsley fern, the smooth tongues of scolopendrium, and the
broad palmated fronds and upstanding brown "flowers" of the royal fern,
with the wiry, graceful forms of oak and more robust-looking holly
ferns; the wall-garden where white rocket, yellow musk, and a few hardy
plants flourish, with rare mosses garnishing their fountains of bloom,
and the half-wild turmoil of king-cups and "cross-buns" in the miniature
pool of the Rothay. But the cottage!--with twisty oaken beams in the
ceil of the parlour, with dark recesses and low windows, with a wide
fireplace, to which, when winter's roar and rain and snow run riot
without, the chairs can be drawn and the many-houred evening drift away
in happy talk and song and merriment. "Plain living and high
thinking"--one could almost realise the ideal in such a home, where the
fare is the humble, wholesome product of our mountain land; where thin
haver-bread, tough, sweet cheese, and warm, pure milk might form the
staple food; a home where the spinning-wheel might awaken from silence
and dusty limbo, and give a perfect employment; where linen and wool
might be worked up to thread and yarn in quiet hours. Such a prospect is
fair beyond words, but few of us will ever dwell--save in our roseate
dreams, by day or night--in a cottage by Wordsworth's Rothay.
After a time spent beneath the trees and by the gushing waters, where
viewpoints ever more fair allure us from one coign to another, we return
to the road, here avenued by giant beeches. The western light touches a
moving cloud, the damp, coppery leaves below catch the glow and throw it
in a myriad little sparkles from twig to branch, and from branch to
smooth bole. What is there in Nature more glorious than a group of
well-grown trees?
[Illustration: DUNGEON GHYLL FORCE, LANGDALE]
Wordsworth's connection with the hamlet of Rydal is well known. In his
pretty cottage on the hill he lived a life apart from the dalesfolk,
watching the seasons come and go over the beautiful glen. Through the
little knot of houses, we shortly approach the mere. Right up to Silver
Howe the basin is brimmed with light; mountain and wood and lake are at
"the pride of day." Evening, sweet and slow, is dropping nearer, its
first sign the grey-blue mist hovering beyond the bordering hills. The
crag on which the Laureate of the Fells often sat commands a good view
of the lake, and of a huge gash in Loughrigg, whence comes the sound of
tinkling slate, where the quarry thunders ring. This of course was not
so prominent in Wordsworth's day. The cottage at Nab where Hartley
Coleridge lived, loved by the dalesman (as his master was almost
shunned), comes next: here De Quincey afterwards resided some
opium-cursed years. We wander by the reedy mere, noting the islet on
which not so long ago herons used to nest among the tangled trees, then
take the road again for home.