_CONISTON WATER_
On a sultry afternoon, the wanderer over High Cross from Hawkshead
suddenly sees a gulf beneath, a delectable vision of waters, the ancient
Thurston mere; a lake of shining silver, chased with darker lines and
patches as faint catspaws play here and there, with calm pools
irradiating the sunlight like clusters of diamonds, the glow fining down
to a distant wisp of blue threading between hills and woods. The setting
is lovely as the gem: fertile, swelling farmlands, with here and there a
white-walled home peering through its curtain of sycamore, the venerable
grey church behind its yews, and the village straggling around its God's
acre. Often so ethereal seems the beauty and repose that one fears that
tree-shaded bays, white beaches, and spreading reaches dotted with a
shimmering sail or two, will yet dissolve in the disappointment of a
mirage. For the road one walks is a dusty ribbon over a parched moor,
the grouse cluck drowsily in the heather, the rabbits lop lazily into
the furze--the larks alone sing briskly, for they have climbed to fuller
life in the highest heavens, far from the slumbrous world around us; the
mountains afar off swim in haze, their scarry sides uncertain seem, but
down there is the fruitful valley of the lake, with dancing rills,
fields of green corn, and its flowery meadows ready for the mower. Such
is the delightful picture unrolled as a hundred yards are passed, then a
corner of the hills shuts it from view.
[Illustration: DAWN, CONISTON]
Coniston, the third longest of our Lakes, is perhaps the one most
intimately associated with our earliest civilisations. On its placid
bosom the Britons plied their coracles; they were keen anglers, and
built their settlements near the lake-shore. Next came the Roman
legions, to whose credit is placed by some the presence in Lakeland of
that toothsome fish, the char. And after them, Norsemen raiding from the
seaboard for harvests denied to their semi-frozen home-land, yet after
awhile remaining permanent settlers on the soil. They built their boats
of timbers from the forests around, and on Peel Island one erected a
house, the foundations of which have recently been determined by an
antiquarian. After the Norseman, the Saxon. And the char were taken up
the fells to dark Gateswater, over which the golden eagle screamed and
round which roved bear and wolf. The Normans after a couple of centuries
of strife found the land comfortable to dwell in, but no baron ousted
the native from his hearth. And the char had been carried further, over
the pass beyond the haunt of the wild eagles to where the seafowl
scream--lonely Seathwaite tarn. With the Norman came the forest laws and
rights to fish the lake. Nets were reserved to the lord of Coningstone,
and the Le Flemings became a mighty power in the dale. The monks of
Furness Abbey, not many miles distant, afterwards obtained great
privileges here--a relic of their times is to be found in the shore
woods. Down among the roots of the trees, deep beneath accumulations of
leaf-soil, are red metal stains and nodules of iron. Trees were
converted into charcoal by the industrious monks, and iron ore brought
here to be smelted. A thriving trade was this long after it had reverted
to the great families, whom it enabled to prosper during dark times. The
ore was conveyed by the lake to the neighbourhood of the "bloomery," and
again was so carried to the waiting panniered ponies. Great rafts of
forest trees also floated down with the slow current. All this while
Coniston Water had been in unsullied purity. But a century ago copper
was found among the fells and mines opened. Refuse ran down in muddy
streams, tainting the lake from head to foot. Many fish died, for the
shingles on which they had previously spawned were fouled, and, though
ripe with ova, they could not perpetuate their kind. The damage was not
completed in a season, but in thirty years, just as English law began to
protect the finny denizens, the lake had been robbed of a great
proportion of its fish. Twenty years more the mines continued to send
down poisonous offal. Then the copper veins gave out, pollution ceased,
and the fishery gradually improved. A few years ago it was gravely
propounded as a fact that the lack of size in the angler's spoils here
was due entirely to the overcrowding of the water by the trout and
perch! It is not many places where such an accusation can be brought
forward. A large number of visitors annually come for the angling alone;
and as they are seen year after year, no doubt they find it worth while
from the sporting as well as the scenic point of view.
[Illustration: CHARCOAL-BURNERS, CONISTON LAKE]
The lake-head is bounded by a mass of mountains of which the Old Man is
the chief. On the east of the water too the hills are lofty, their
lowest slopes a mass of coppice and larches, their upper braes wild and
desolate. It seems odd to look down from these upland farms, where
everything is sterile, on the soft, rich-looking lands of the lake-side.
Coniston Water is hardly less famous for the people who have lived on
its shores than is Windermere or even Grasmere. To the challenge of
Wordsworth and Coleridge and De Quincey, of Christopher North, Hemans
and Arnold, it can reply with Tennyson, Linton, and, greatest and
nearest of all, John Ruskin. If Grasmere reveres the ashes of
Wordsworth, Coniston holds in no less esteem those of Ruskin--and the
memory of the great is so much the more living. Every one almost in
Coniston remembers Professor Ruskin, but few folks can recall
Wordsworth. However, my concern is less with rival celebrities than with
the lake and its natural surroundings.
To know Coniston Water well is to be convinced that one's pen cannot
describe it. The greatest master of English descriptive prose, John
Ruskin, after years of residence, left the task undone. Duty, however,
dictates that some attempt must be made, and I cannot conceive anything
more likely to give a fair idea of the lake and its surroundings than
notes on a long summer day spent on its waters.
We breakfasted by candlelight--one of our party was a keen angler and
had persuaded us to rising before the midsummer sun. Outside the cottage
the air came cool and fresh, laden with the fragrance of the
morning--honeysuckles over our porch and new mown hay, wild roses of the
hedgerows and sweet flowers of our garden, larch woods and
white-wreathed fields. The faint light just shows a sea of mist
overhanging the lake, shows patches of cloud wandering among delicate
grey-blue crag and mountain. Now we near the lakeside: the deep blue sky
becomes dimmed by trailers of vapour. The boat engaged by the angler
overnight is here; but, as he speaks of remaining hours in his almost
motionless craft, and that is not to our taste, we select another,
opening, after much labour, a link in the mooring chain and setting it
free. The view when first we are afloat is curious: a bank of mist
overhangs the lake; we can see the lower meadows around, but the
mountains are invisible. Soon, however, we find the mist sweeping away
in the dawn-breeze.
[Illustration: BRANTWOOD, CONISTON LAKE: CHAR-FISHING]
Day is at hand, the dark hour of the morning watch is ending. One by one
the stars fade away: a dark shadow passes up the sky from eastward, and
the horizon there is being fringed with kindlier light. A cloud floating
high above flushes from pearly grey to pink at its edges, to purple in
its densest plume, and, as it floats nearer the day, to crimson, to red,
and to glistening gold. And now we rest on the oars to watch the coming
of the sun to the mountain tops. The fuller light has revealed a
glorious scene: the horizon is a rugged sea of summits, lands of rocky
steeps with torrents gushing down--Helvellyn and Seat Sandal, the Pikes
and Fairfield, with, nearer at hand, Wetherlam, the Carrs, and Old Man
himself. Shortly the coming sunshine touches one after another of these
giants: Fairfield's huge gashes where the foxes dwell secure are picked
out in gloom and light before day bends to awake the Old Man from his
rest. It is interesting to watch the band of sunshine gradually descend
his stony, riven flanks. At first only the cairn has the glow; then
shortly, a hundred feet below, shadow divides from light. So day breaks
among the mountains. Purple shadows still remain in the hollows, the
dark green of woodlands is softly dusked: on Coniston Water it is light,
though the sun's rays still linger aloft. "Come on," grunts the angler
at this juncture--the scene to him is beauteous, no doubt, but for his
art most valuable minutes are wasting away. We heed him not, and shortly
his oars rattle as he pulls for the bay in which the trout should be on
the feed. Awhile we feast our eyes on sunlit mountains and shadowy
glens, then our oars are plied to take us further down the lake. Quite
close to the shore is the Old Hall, once the home of the great Le
Fleming family, but now merely a picturesque farmhouse. To Sir Daniel of
that family was due the peaceful succession in the three north-western
counties of Charles II. after the Interregnum. In Oliver's day his house
at Rydal was almost demolished by soldiers seeking a hidden treasure. To
me Sir Daniel is more interesting as the first man to attempt to solve
the life-history of the char of our lakes. In few particulars only are
we able to improve his observations to-day. The char is the most
mysterious as it is the most beautiful of British fishes. Though for
three hundred years "silver" and "gilt" char have been noted, no close
observer will say there are two varieties of the fish. Sir Daniel
suggested that the two divisions spawn at different periods--November
and February respectively--but the information then and now hardly
justified the idea. During the midsummer months char are bottom feeders;
in April and early May, and again towards the close of the fishing
season, they occasionally come near the surface, and odd captures are
made with the fly. Char average about nine inches in length and
three-quarters of a pound in weight. A two-pound char is a great event
among the lakemen. Potted char is quite a Lakeland delicacy, and
commands high prices. In former times each inn had its stew into which
the fish netted or plumbed were placed till a demand for them came
along. West, touring over a century ago, mentions particularly the stews
at Waterhead Inn, Coniston, and the Ferry, Windermere, as holding great
numbers of char. Char pie was once a favourite dish too; in the Le
Fleming house-keeping accounts, dating back nearly three hundred years,
mentions are made of the large number of fish so used up. Char pie of
those days is said to have been so full of spices that the flavour of
the fish was neutralised out of existence. In the papers preserved at
Holker Hall, a noble duke orders fish for a char pie to be sent to
London without loss of time--in December, when the char would be
spawning and far from toothsome!
[Illustration: CONISTON VILLAGE: THE OLD BUTCHER'S SHOP]
Now the light is falling in a wider riband; it has touched the top of
Yewdale crags, the scarred Mines valley is brimming with radiance. How
uneven that line where shadow meets sunshine! Still lower bends the
light; it is now only minutes before the lake will be flooded in glory.
The heights round Torver are in the realm of sunshine, but the larches
of Brantwood side are green and unkindled. Not a breath of air disturbs
the flat calm. Over the eastern hills the great round sun rolls into
sight. Everything is transformed. The subdued grey light is expelled by
shimmering gold, green hills and fields alike are suffused with a living
blaze. A boat pulled out from the pier near the Old Hall is followed by
a wake of pale gold, the oars drip diamonds, the curl of parting waters
is like a crystal-crowned sapphire.
To see Coniston Water by broad daylight nothing is better than Felix
Hammel's handsome craft, though the commander will cheerfully admit that
we, in our pulling boat, had the best of it at dawn. The _Gondola's_
landing-stage is in the shade of some mighty oaks, an old cottage
astride a shallow waiting-room with a jetty running out a few yards into
the lake. The craft is of strange shape; at the stern, where the engines
are placed, the draught is a yard and a half, but at bow--"There are few
places on Coniston Lake," says Mr. Hammel, "where I could not put the
prow into the green fields while the stern was in deep water," which,
incidentally, shows the paucity of shallows. Mr. Hammel is fond of the
engines which drive his taper-keeled craft along. "Fourteen horse-power,
yet they drive the boat through the wildest gales betwixt April and
September. I have sailed here for twenty-five years, and we have lost
time but once. That was the wildest gale that ever smote this water. It
blew from sou'-west, and there was a pretty lively water going. Not big
rollers, but nasty short things that broke and shook themselves out into
a cross-sea that would have made a pulling boat a mighty risky thing to
be in. But the _Gondola_ ran within five minutes of normal--the five and
a half miles from here to Lake Bank we reckon to do in thirty-five
minutes. That wild day it took forty. Only two days in my experience has
the steamer not run. During the wet summer of 1903 the lake was so full
that for two days the landing-stage was under water, and never a
passenger got within two hundred yards of us."
"I suppose you did a bit of fishing out of your windows those two days,"
I commented. Mr. Hammel is an angler--as keen as ever.
[Illustration: MOONLIGHT AND LAMPLIGHT, CONISTON]
"Hardly out of the windows, though of course I did do a bit."
By this time the hands of the clock nearly point to starting-time;
passengers are rapidly coming on board, and to hurry up laggards Mr.
Hammel sends a flute-like note booming and swelling from the syren. Now
there is a quiet rumble as the engines start, a purling of water beneath
the stern, and the _Gondola_ backs out into the lake. Tent Lodge, where
Tennyson once dwelt, is almost opposite--a square sturdy house standing
on a narrow green bank just above the water. The little landing-stage
looks decidedly picturesque now; our craft pauses as though regretting
to leave so happy a scene, then again the thrumming begins and we are
swung round toward the foot of the lake. Far away two green banks
contract till the water seems to end: Fir Island narrows the curving
lake there. Brantwood is a pretty house beneath the fell, the views from
its windows are splendid. Here Ruskin came to spend his latter days, in
a house which had been occupied by Linton, the famous wood-engraver. The
homelikeness of Brantwood is to me its chief charm: once a dweller in
it, no mortal can, I should think, be so dead to natural beauties as not
often to picture it, when far away, in memory's freshest pigments. The
eyes of all on board are turned to Brantwood--Mr. Hammel is speaking of
it to a bevy of interested young ladies, the other lakemen are pointing
it out to those near them; but, seated on the knife-like ridge of iron
where his stokehole joins the deck, the engineer is looking intently at
the greasy jacket of his boiler! Instantly his posture captures my
attention. What meant that strange position? Were we in danger of an
explosion? The engineer's back was eloquent of intent inspection, even
of alertness. Nothing happened, however, and as none of the lakemen
seemed apprehensive I did not allow that rapt gaze to spoil my pleasure
further.
"Brantwood?" says Mr. Hammel, "and Ruskin? Well, of course I knew the
Professor well. He wasn't a man to laugh and talk much, though. For
five-and-twenty years I have done odd repairs to Mr. Severn's yacht at
Brantwood, and I often met the old gentleman thereabouts. Mr. Ruskin did
not like scrow [upset], I remember, and every year the family used to go
down to Lake Bank Hotel till spring cleaning was over. Mr. Ruskin went
with them, of course. Mr. Severn used to hire the _Gondola_, and we ran
in to the landing-stage to take servants and luggage on board. Now you
know Mr. Ruskin didn't like our boat at all--I believe he used to write
a bit bitter about it; but I remember once (it was in the seventies)
when we drew it to the stage, that Mr. Ruskin stood there with Mrs.
Severn and the family. I was surprised and some pleased, I can tell you,
when _he_ came on board. He went all over the boat, into every corner
while we were steaming down, looked at the engines a long while and
asked a lot of sharp questions about them--he knew a fair bit about
machinery in spite of his old-fashioned ways and ideas. Then when we
were nearing Lake Bank he came out of the saloon there, and as he passed
me, said with a nice smile, 'I _may_ like steam after all.'"
[Illustration: AN OLD INN KITCHEN, CONISTON]
"Do you remember any others of the big men who lived about here," I ask
my friend.
"Oh yes: there was Mr. Tennyson lived across at Tent Lodge awhile, and
in the seventies we had Carlyle here at the Waterhead Hotel two or three
weeks. He used to have the steamer nearly every morning for a cruise
around. He was a pleasant man to do with, but quiet. They used to say to
me that Carlyle never laughed, and Mr. Ruskin but rarely, but I know
different. One evening when Carlyle was here, I was across at Brantwood
doing some repair to Mr. Severn's yacht that was drawn up on the slip.
While I was working away, down from the house came Mr. Ruskin and
Carlyle and sat down on a pile of rough stones beside the slip. I didn't
take much heed of what they were talking about, for I was thrang [busy];
but I remember well that I was surprised to hear a big burst of
laughing. I looked up--it was Mr. Ruskin, and before my eyes were fairly
clapt on him Carlyle roared out quite as long and loud as he. Then they
sat there full a quarter of an hour, talking quite merry, and every now
and then there was a crack of laughing as made your heart feel glad."
At this Mr. Hammel steps away and takes charge of the wheel of the
steamer. There is little need of fine steering, for the water is deep
and free from reefs.
We move along the crowded promenade deck to get a better view of the
grand mountains clustering around. Like a sheet of blue the water
stretches far away to meet the multi-shaded greens beneath High Cross.
Yewdale crags are prominent, but the soaring ridges culminating in Old
Man's pointed top fill the eye most. Now the eastern shore is crowded
with regiments of larches, growing where once the old monks burnt
charcoal for their bloomeries by the beckside. On the right is Torver
Common where never a wall is to be seen, and the lake-shore is fringed
with rocks. Fir Island, a mass of Scotch firs or stone pines, anchored
to a narrow rib of rock, has been passed, and now seems like a
promontory of green. The woods on the mainland look delightful in this
pleasant air, but the stiff lines of their planting is rather an
eyesore. The coppice woods next succeed, in wide acres climbing to the
skyline. These are allowed to grow fifteen years, then, when the
saplings are about six inches thick, all are felled. The best wood is
sent down to the mines to use as props; the other portions, after being
peeled (for even in these days of chemical tanning bark of ash and oak
and sycamore is still put on the market), are placed in neat circular
piles in the centre of which a fire is laid. Then by a covering of wet
turf the air is excluded. The fire has been sufficiently kindled not to
be put out by the short supply of air, and it smoulders away for weeks.
Much charcoal burning is done in the winter, and a pleasant scene it is
to find on a snow-clad day lines of smoke rising from the barrenness
where once was woodland, men moving round the conical patches from which
internal heat has melted the white covering, the rough huts, the
incipient flicker which has to be immediately quenched else the whole
oven of charcoal be spoiled, the thinning smoke which threatens a dead
fire there, to which the woodmen hasten to encourage the hidden blaze.
[Illustration: THE SHEPHERD, YEWDALE, CONISTON]
Peel Island, alluded to before, is the place when in the time of the
Sagas a Norseman dwelt, and a daring man he was to live on so low a rib
of rock. In a wild gale the water, lashing its rocky sides, will throw
spray right over it. In relief the islet is mitred; two rock ledges face
the lake, leaving between a grassy depression some feet in depth. Our
old Norseman built walls across this gap, then with poles and twigs from
the shore-woods made a roof, and thereby obtained a home sufficient in
its humble way to provide shelter in the wildest weather. In spring the
glen of the islet is a mass of blue--with wild hyacinths. The lake is
now becoming riverine in character, its banks are nearing rapidly, a
picnic party seated on the rock-set shore wave and call merrily to the
passing craft. The water is still as a pond, the reflections only broken
in the wake of the passing steamer. And thus we come to Lake Bank, the
end of the lake for steamer purposes, and the point to which coaches
drive from Greenodd and Ulverston. It is a change for a good walker to
get ashore here, and by the Brantwood shore return--a walk of some eight
miles.
At first the road leads down by the rushing Crake, then crosses. The
traveller passes through tall-hedged lanes, past old-world farms
nestling against sheering hillsides. Once there is a beautiful
glimpse--a vista of lake, Fir Island in foreground, and far away the
rising fells. Just as the walker feels that Brantwood must be at hand,
the woods open a little; here is a point jutting out into the lake to
which he can easily pass, a shelf of shingle, overgrown with wych elms
and sallows, but from it is a marvellous view. Not too far for detail to
be dimmed is Coniston Hall, the church and the village, Mines valley and
Yewdale crags, Old Man, Wetherlam and a number of giant hills. In autumn
particularly the play of light and shade among the woodlands is
glorious. The road passes within a few yards of Brantwood. If the
wanderer has time to spare let him leave the road by one of the paths he
sees up the hillside. There is little danger of any one complaining of
trespass if you should light upon a worn path that is not public. Rising
some two hundred feet up you are above coppice woods, and come among the
heather, enjoying an excellent view of the lake and its surroundings.
How peaceful such a place at sunset! Once I watched the sun set in a
haze of blood red: the lake turned like frozen gore beneath my eyes, the
hillsides mantled in crimson, the outstanding spurs of rock were
wreathed in fire, a purple shadow gradually gathered in the hollows.
Then, through a ravishing succession of tints, the scene melted away
till I was looking down on a lake with moonlight shimmering on it, edged
by blue, rocky mountains.
[Illustration: STEPPING-STONES, SEATHWAITE]
One scene more and I have finished. It is of mid-winter--and night. Day
was dying ere we left the village; with a parting glish at the
snow-covered church tower, the sun left the lower glen. Now the hills
were pointed with fire; from the lake a blue vapour rose as the air
chilled, to join the helm of feathery smoke gradually spreading from the
village. The glen was snowbound indeed; from hedges and plantations came
the rustle of slipping snow; a partial thaw after the snowfall passed
gave us the roads fairly clear. There were many slippery places, but to
the careful and robust there was pleasure in the prospect of a walk.
Large flocks of sheep are crowded into the fields lying near the farms
we pass; there a weary shepherd is still at work. On the higher farms
the shelter of the plantations will have been courted; down here a huge
rib of rock lies athwart the wind, and the fields have been but little
swept by the storm. Almost the most arduous of a shepherd's trials is
after a long snowstorm. His flock have to be mustered; if the snow has
drifted at all a band of ewes are sure to be beneath it, and these have
to be got out. Then comes the problem of hand-feeding perhaps a
thousand. Hay and roots may be brought by sleigh, but the labour of
distribution is great. The soft snow clings so tenaciously to the grass
beneath that to walk a hundred yards in the fields is too hard work for
any pleasure-seeker. The sheep are nosing down to the hidden grass: even
in the hardest weather they forage well for themselves, though the gap
between "feed" and "appetite" is often very wide. The lake looks blue
and cold under its veil of soft vapour; a skin of ice is forming. There
is a loud crack and a rattling echo passes along the frozen surface.
Eerie it is so to hear the ice "stretching": the frostier the night the
louder and more frequent the reports. (In 1895 I was on Windermere after
dark--it was a moonless night--and the loud and long continued roars
which spread about the ice were almost alarming.) Soon we are in the
byroad for Tarn Hows. The trees meet overhead, and if it were not for
the white flashes of snow between them the way would be bad to find. The
road is slippery, and time and again we have to leave the metalled part
for the snow-banks to get on at all. The sounds heard in the woods on a
frosty night are interesting. A faint rustle in the undergrowth as a
small bird hops from one twig to another, a faint rumble and a sissing
of snow as a rabbit bolts away, the thud of falling pieces of snow from
the branches, the crackling of twigs as the frost nips harder, the
blundering rush of a large bird through the curtain of branches,
followed by a mimic snowstorm of dislodged particles; from darksome
glades, the melancholy hoot of the wood owl and the shriekings of the
barn owl, then from far away floats the chime proclaiming the hour, the
cadence dying in sweet confusion over the tapering larches.
[Illustration: WINTER SUNSHINE, CONISTON]
So far the way has been steep and the footing uncertain; now, however,
we rise above the woods to the open hillside. The angle of ascent is
less difficult and the snow firm to the tread. Our path forms a terrace
above Yewdale. Beneath is a glen cumbered with snow; above, a sky
liberally dusted with stars large and small, the gentle light from which
is sufficient to kindle the jewels on the frosted snow. The air is
chill, but our blood is too warm for us to be more than barely conscious
of it. From a corner of the track we have an excellent view backward.
The lake is still hidden in its curtain of mist, the dark woods of
Brantwood side climb sharply into the white desolations. Coniston Old
Man over the way--how truly near it looks!--is gilded by a new light;
the moon is rising and the light spreads over summit and upper
snowfield, over crag and bield and lower slack of white, finally
touching with crystal the fields and houses in the deep dingles around.
From one point we look over a wilderness of snow to other dales, but the
expected mountain heads are hidden in pearly cloud. The tarn is covered
with ice, and some time we spend sliding. Then to return, but first of
all notice that grey moving blotch on the shoulder of Wetherlam. The
glasses show a family of wild goats. Villagers of Coniston tell of a
herd of over thirty observed not many seasons ago, while groups of over
a dozen occasionally tempt the keen gunster out on to the chilly wastes.
The goats, I am told, were introduced about a century ago in order to
prevent fell-sheep frequenting dangerous cliffs--for a goat is safe
where a sheep will turn giddy, and, falling, be dashed to pieces. By
nature the sheep is divided from the goat, and will not browse the same
pasture. For long it was a custom of the quarrymen of Tilberthwaite to
assemble on Good Friday morning, and attempt to hunt the goats haunting
the fell near by. But though a kid or so, weaker than the rest, might be
taken, I never heard that much success accompanied these chases. The
goats from Coniston fells wander in search of toothsome grass to beyond
the Duddon, and there is record of an exciting hunt among the rocks of
Wallabarrow for a wandering goat. In winter only do these animals
approach civilisation; their usual haunts are the crags above
sequestered glens. The snow crunches under our feet, and we speedily
come down to where we again catch view of Coniston Water. Now it is
clear of mist, the whitened fields, blotched with woods, limned with
hedges, are in sharp contrast to the grey ice, and to the glittering
unfrozen water in mid-lake. A glory almost approaching that of day
spreads over the scene: the queen of the heavens is indeed "walking in
brightness" here.
[Illustration: DAFFODILS BY THE BANKS OF THE SILVERY DUDDON]