_THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER_
Proud Cumberland ranks Derwentwater as queen of the English Lakes; but I
was born south of Dunmail raise, and feel at liberty to worship at other
altars. To see the lake at its best one needs be afoot long before the
coaches and motors appear. A road smothered in dust clouds, an
atmosphere quivering with clatter, the fumes of petrol and the general
unpleasantness of heavy traffic, detract from the most imperious beauty.
At daybreak the town is almost silent: sweet mountain air has descended
to dissipate the closeness of midnight; the songs of larks and throstles
are wafted into the medley of houses and streets from the fields and
woods; the murmur of flowing Greta is pleasant indeed. On Friars Crag
you may meet an early visitor, and at the landings a boatman is cleaning
up. As you stand there, in a pleasant but undeniable way the waters
call. "A boat, sir? Certainly. Will you wait till I've finished here?"
And you watch the man haste on his scrubbing and polishing. In two
minutes he scrambles on to the pier, selects oars and cushions, sees you
safe in your place, and gives a push off.
As yet no other boat is astir: you have the wide expanse to yourself.
From Friars Crag scores of people in the summer watch the sun set. And
at the close of a clear day the scene is glorious, even sublime. Around
a hundred peaks, ranging from noble Skiddaw to humble Swineside and
Catbells, the shafts of light fall and ebb. Here in the rift between two
summits is a stretch of purple, there a patch of rosy light fades on a
scree-seamed brae. If the sun sets in a flurry of crimson cloud the
spectators will hardly take their eyes from the lake: the reflections of
the sky are so charming, so magnificent. No painter could match the
evanescent changes, the kindlings of the sky, the soft portrayal of each
living flame on the shimmering water, the green gloom of overhanging
mountains. What boots it if the fiery splendour is a presage of rain
when so splendid a pageant is the forecast? To your left is rocky
Derwent Isle. Fountains Abbey held it, before the Dissolution of
Monasteries, as Vicars Isle; it has had half a dozen names since.
Secluded, a fringe of trees hiding its narrow lawn, a house stands here
which for sheer romantic situation would be hard to beat in the Lake
Country or wide England. I would sit in an upper room there, on a day of
April squalls. First in the grey nor'-east I would see the storm clouds
gather darkly behind the cone of Skiddaw.
[Illustration: DERWENTWATER, FROM CASTLE HEAD
A bright morning]
Derwentwater is lap-lapping merrily against the stony beaches beyond the
green sward, every wave wearing a sunlit crown. The great hollows of the
mountain range are now filled with battling vapour; from right and left
round lower summits they move to desperate attack--dun curls of
skirmishers in front, heavy phalanxes of infantry grey behind. Down the
air comes a whisper of riot and war, and with soundless impact we see
the two hordes meet, shock, and mingle. Jagged as with unseen artillery,
the battle sways from end to end; then, like a bolt of Jove, over brawny
Skiddaw hurls a deluge of rain-sodden grey, the strife ceases, a sharp,
steady line of mists cuts off the seen from the unseen. Now a grey
shadow steals over the land, the bubbling life is chilled from the
waters, and they rattle black and harsh against the cobble-stones. But
on Grange fell the russet bracken is bathed in ephemeral sunshine. The
shadow in the air grows darker, the distance is obscured with the grime
of rain. The nearer hills, the fields, the town, are blotted out ere the
full fury of the squall shakes our window and shrieks among the island
trees. Like crest of cruelly spurred horse, the waves toss high, the mad
gusts catch the rising gouts, wrench them clear into the air and hustle
them along to crash in resounding sheets far up the shore. No boat was,
we recollect with pleasure, visible before the squall descended: it
would go hard with such a one just now. One experience of a squall on a
mountain lake is enough for the most daring. I remember my baptism in
such manner vividly. The yacht had but one sail spread to the breeze,
but maniac Boreas caught it, pinned us down while water poured into the
well, wrenched and screamed and worried at the mast and gear till that
went overboard with a crash, then, with a final paroxysm, spun the hulk
round and passed away over a waste of churning, creaming waters. More
comfortable to face the gale with thin glass in front than to fare like
that. The trees bend like switches, but the gloom is now rising from
north-east. In a minute a flood of sunlight is pouring down, waking to
brilliance the flooded lawn, and making sparkle the drop-decked boughs.
Look into the wake of the retiring storm. The lake is still leaping
white and racing along; a dim film hides the crags above Grange: now it
passes, so quickly as almost to make one start at the rapid change. It
would be dowly living at Derwent Isle when fog dark and drear hid lake
and town: one might feel lonesome when the blizzards whistled and
fumbled against window and door, and the waves crashed without the snug
retreat. But how joyous this morning, when the sun is aloft and day has
risen refreshed from the bath of night and is newly beginning a pageant
of song and life and changing colour!
Further up the lake is Lord's Isle, where once lived the Earls of
Derwentwater. On the attainder and execution of the last of the title
the mansion fell into ruins: some of its stone was used in building
Keswick market-hall. The last earl was much loved in Cumberland; he was
staunch to the Stuarts, as were most Northern gentry, and intrigued
widely to bring about their return. When the first Pretender landed,
bringing such sorry allies and little promise beyond, the earl foresaw
that insurrection would be useless and dangerous to the participants. He
argued that, although the Stuart was in Scotland, no rebellion need be
attempted in the North of England until the party there were better
prepared. In the secret council the earl was held little better than a
traitor; at home his wife accused him of cowardice, demanding his sword
and horse that a Derwentwater, though a woman, might take the accustomed
place in the battle for King James. The earl was no coward: he took the
mocked sword from his wife, and cast himself into the turmoil of
rebellion. It is history that the rising was crushed with ease, and that
as a ringleader the earl was beheaded on Tower Hill. Powerful men at
court sued unavailingly for the young noble's pardon. Money was lavished
on the king's favourites in vain. To raise funds the countess came north
to the island-home; the Cumbrians, incensed at her forcing the Earl into
the plot to save his honour at her hands, gave her a chilly reception.
Legend luridly asserts that her horses were stolen while she was on the
island, and that she and her servants were threatened. At dead of night
a boat was rowed to near Lodore, where the lady landed and escaped by
way of the fells to Penrith and the south. With her she carried a large
quantity of jewels, which were offered to save the young husband's head.
The ravine by which the countess climbed to the open moors is pointed
out as Lady's Rake. If it were my province here to examine the story in
detail, I would find that it was hardly to escape the Derwentwater
tenants that the lady left in such haste. She was, for her share in the
late rebellion, marked for arrest, or at least observation, by the
Hanoverian authorities.
Seven islands dot Derwentwater: on no other mere are islands the feature
we see here. Instead of snags of rock sticking up from deep water, with
trees keeping precarious hold in clefts and crannies, these are level,
well-wooded places, standing behind ample shallows.
Having passed Lord's Island, with its sorrowful story of a life risked
and lost for a banished prince, Lodore is the next point. Every one
knows by repute Southey's _poem-de-force_ describing the terrific rush
of its waters. After heavy rain the old poet's description can be
tested--at the expense of a wetting. Down a wide stair from the
moorland, bristling with crags and boulders and outstanding seams, come
the waters--their frolic can often be heard at Keswick, though Greta is
charging, headlong, noisily down its rugged course. The moment you enter
the gully--should you desire to see the heart of its beauty--you are
swathed in spray; never in flood-time can you see more than a few yards
ahead; your eyes film with moisture; the air to your lungs is choky with
mist; the day is gloomed with spindrift. You see a white front of water
hurtling down from invisibility: it eddies at your side, then drops away
in gathering water-smoke. Nothing can you hear at such a time but
continuous liquid thunder. Say the luxurious, there is then but little
to see except the watery path you are climbing? Once I climbed this
ravine at flood-time. As I passed into the zone of water-smoke, there
were blurred visions of tumbling cascades, shadows of huge rocks dimly
seen across the ravine, dripping branches of shrubs and plants among the
streaming rocks. Then, what a transformation! A flash of sunlight swept
into the hollow way. An atmosphere of shifting jewels of rainbow hue
above, around; strings and clusters of pearls and diamonds dripping down
reddish crags veined and barred with gold and silver; grasses poising
delicate racemes of turquoise; mosses adorned with tiaras of ethereal
beauty, ruffles of ivory spray caressing the currents of rich emerald.
The brief glow faded, and all became grey and black and dull green
again. For a glimpse of another such fairyland I would face stress much
wilder than greets one in the gap of Lodore.
[Illustration: BY THE SHORES OF DERWENTWATER]
Another ravine in the cliff near by possesses a beautiful waterfall, but
Barrow Cascade is on private ground and the free rambler can hardly be
brought to see it. The head of Derwentwater is so grown with weed that a
path has to be cut to allow boats to reach Lodore landings. Near here
the once wonderful Floating Island anchors. A mat of vegetable fibre
lying on the lake-bed at times becomes inflated with natural gas and
rises to the surface. In 1864 a second floating isle put in an
appearance, and during that dry summer it seemed likely that many acres
of adjoining lake-floor would follow suit. Floating Island shares fell
to tremendous discount and have never recovered. The Derwent here enters
the lake by two channels through ooze and tangled water-grass. Few lakes
have so extensive shoals as Derwentwater: for acres hereabout you may
look over the boat's side through some feet of clear, amber water at the
growing reeds, white spathes piercing the mud, green stems, and hasty
leaves unfolding ere they reach the upper air, or thin waving threads
linking a tuft of foliage on the surface with unseen roots beneath; all
kinds of pond-life creeping and swimming about. Where the lake-bed lies
fallow the eye rests on soft levels of mud, with a passing host of
minnows, a red-necked perch, or even a trout or pike. Here and there
rock-spines pierce the level floor, or perchance a bank of pebbles,
large and small, set in smooth mosaic, blood-red of granite picked out
with sea-blue slate, grey pebbles of volcanic ash intermingled with
knobs of salmon sandstone, and conglomerate of every colour and shape.
Watch the sunlines creeping and chasing and quivering as little ripples
undulate the lake's surface.
[Illustration: GRANGE IN BORROWDALE
Early morning]
The narrow glen ahead is Borrowdale: its entrance guarded by heathery
Grange fell to left and by Gate Crag to right, with Castle Crag uprising
in the centre as though jealous of an opening secret. A century ago the
world ended at Grange: hardy he who toured into the sunset land beyond.
The dalesmen were simpletons--"men of Gotham," who hardly knew the use
of wheels or saddlery. Castle Crag presents a precipitous front; unknown
hands have fashioned earthworks on its crest. As the lake is not low,
the boat comes some way upstream towards Grange. Here, when Borrowdale
was its possession, Furness Abbey had a barn for its harvests. Nothing
remains of it, however--possibly it was a mere skeleton of wood which,
when the Dissolution prevented the harvesting of the monks, fell into
ruin and was annexed piecemeal by neighbours as required. Casual
observers have remarked, anent this penchant of our forefathers in the
Fell Country, that they took much trouble to steal, carrying great
distances timber they might have felled at hand, stones which in
bewildering profusion lay upon their farmlands. Our forefathers knew the
toughness of the mountain oak and ash; to fell the trees was simple, but
no tools for shaping planks and baulks were obtainable, while worked
stone is still worth carting far in the dales. Not every boulder is fit
for building stone, my kindly critic, and it is hard northern sense
which prevents the products of labour lying fallow in grassy mounds.
Grange stands in one of the sweetest recesses of Cumberland: the wide
bed of Derwent furrows the tiny level; in front and behind rise, pile on
pile, the rocky fells, dotted above with grey fleeces, below with red
and white and scanty black of milch cattle. I take it a fine sight to
sit by the bridge here and watch the sun's last rays spread golden
raiment on rugged Eel crags and Maiden moor; down below a shadow of blue
is sweeping over intakes and screes, night hastening on ere day has
thought farewell. The boat now drifts back to the lake, and passes along
the Catbells shore. The bays, with steep woods or brackened slopes
rising out of them, are all sweet and pretty, fit places for an
afternoon's quiet thought. This is the tip of an old lead mine; the
whole country-side is rich in unworked minerals, from once-precious wad
or plumbago (from Borrowdale for years the chief supply of the world was
drawn) down to tin and copper. In the days of Elizabeth a colony of
German miners was imported to improve the craft; several leading lake
families are descended in part from them. The foreigners were not loved
by the fell-landers, and for generations scarce mingled with them. The
success of a new process has opened the mines at Church Coniston--will
the same occur here? In days when theological argument was common, a
Lake Country Quaker frequently encountered, and sometimes worsted, a
dignitary of the Church.
"You may best me," said the cleric, "but you do not convince me yet."
"Friend," rejoined the other calmly, "if but the man was to convince, I
could convince thee at once; but what man's talk can pierce through that
armour of gold thou renewest yearly? Forget thy church money, friend,
for an hour, and I'll convince thee."
If the mines are opened and our lakes and rivers made pools and streams
of mud, the glory of our hillsides wasted with metal-fumes, the pen of
the writer will avail little against the chant of profit. The large
island now at hand is St. Herbert's--the most renowned of all. In the
early days of Christianity, an acolyte of Holy Isle, off Northumbria,
came here to spend his life in divine contemplation and communion.
The story of Herbert's death forms our prettiest unassailed legend. Once
a year the hermit left his island-cell and made a journey to his beloved
Cuthbert, who remained on Holy Isle. Age did not prevent their tryst;
and when eternal rest was nigh, the venerable Christians each prayed
that his departure should not cause his friend to grieve. That petition,
says Bede, was granted.
One afternoon Cuthbert, surrounded by students of God's Word, suddenly
ceased the lesson he was expounding; his aged face took on a joyous
smile, and in a moment he was dead. A messenger set out to carry the
mournful news to Derwentdale, but on the way he met one hurrying to tell
Cuthbert that on a certain day his beloved friend had passed away. At
the same hour they both had entered the portals of death. Centuries
after Herbert's death his memory drew pilgrims here from distant parts:
at Portinscale dwelt a smith who sold the image of the saint in
silver-alloy and lead. Some years ago his mould and fragments of his
wares were dug up near an old landing convenient to the island.
There is no recognised ruin on St. Herbert's Isle; the few worked stones
scattered about may be remains of the chapel built during the
pilgrimages. It was for long the custom of the good folks of Keswick to
celebrate St. Herbert's day by a procession of boats up to the island
and a service in the open air to his memory. Opposite St. Herbert's Isle
is a belt of land touching the lake beneath and the open commons of
Catbells above, now secured as a public pleasure-ground for ever. In
this is Keswick blessed above all Lakeland towns. The striking of eight
o'clock from some campanile in the town brings back the mind to prosaic
human necessity. My back bends to the oars and quickly the boat comes to
rest in the reflections of Friar's Crag. For a modest fee indeed I have
had three hours of Derwentwater at its best.
Another good way to see the beauties of the valley is to walk or cycle
round. The road takes you to Crosthwaite church and over the meadows to
Portinscale, then winds into the glen of Newlands. But just within, the
way turns sharply, climbing up a corner of Catbells, running in a long
slope down to Grange, Lodore, and so to the town again. Skiddaw, rather
than Derwentwater, is the most prominent object as we leave Keswick
northward. Just at present that mountain is empurpled with heather, its
great flanks vivid with bloom and with the lighter green of bracken
fronds. Latrigg, the fell nearest at hand, has been planted with
larches; not so many years ago it was treeless as Skiddaw and as
beautiful. Not far from the road is the home of Southey, poet and
gentleman.
[Illustration: CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, KESWICK]
Crosthwaite church has been subject of many pens. The history of the
present building goes back beyond the great Reformation. Somewhere near
this point St. Kentigern of Strathclyde raised the cross when banished
from his native court. The present building is doubtless the last of
several which have successively weathered the storms of fourteen hundred
years. Probably the first were built of willow wands and clay, like the
daub huts still to be found in remoter Cumbria. With the Saxon still
stronger in the land a house of timber would be raised. Foundations
under the present building show an earlier stone edifice probably built
just before the Norman Conquest, which in this stubborn region was not
accomplished till almost two centuries after the fight at Senlac. The
church stands out among the meadows, and in times of flood is sometimes
cut off from its congregation. More than once within the recent past
service has had to be suspended on account of rising waters. Present-day
congregations may possibly be easily daunted, but I wonder how the
friars of old used to manage when Derwent swelled across the meadows!
The monks' road was some feet below dale-level, and probably ran like a
millrace. Did the old monks hold service in the belfry? Did they in a
body shirk attendance at church, or was a boat hired to take down the
votary whose turn it was to conduct worship, and the rest remain at
home? We cannot tell now; but had the ancient records mentioned these
things instead of others much less interesting to us, their study would
attract more attention. Inside the church at Crosthwaite, apart from
points of architecture valuable to those who understand, most striking
is the effigy of Southey, done in white marble by Lough, the self-taught
sculptor from Northumbria. The lines on it are by William Wordsworth.
After the monument was in its place, the poet felt this tribute not
sufficient for his dead friend's merits: accordingly he rewrote some of
the lines in loftier terms and had part of the tablet newly engraved.
This too, remember, by that poet whom his contemporaries asserted to be
without sympathy for the feelings of others!
Outside the church in the graveyard looking towards Skiddaw's triple
crown, is the grave of Southey: a plain stone tomb, with no highsounding
phrases--fit memorial of him who found the name of poet linked with that
of drunkard and libertine, and who exalted it in himself and his school
of thought to glorious equality with that of gentleman. There is a font
of great age in the church, and effigies and memorials of the Ratcliffe
family, extinct with the last Earl of Derwentwater. Beyond the church
the road passes between flowery meadows, across slow-flowing Derwent,
and on through Portinscale the magnificent, with a glimpse of
Derwentwater across its levels, and of course a succession of views of
Skiddaw's everchanging breast. Once there is a vision of Bassenthwaite,
but greenery hides it almost as soon as seen. A turning here might carry
one miles from sight and sound of twentieth-century life.
[Illustration: DRUID CIRCLE, NEAR KESWICK
Moonlight]
For a mile Swineside is fringed--a common whereon not long ago half-wild
pigs were pastured; then we hover by the vale of Newlands with its
splendid background of mountains. The road sways undecidedly on the
watershed: through a tangle of treetops we see farms below; along a
far-off hillside are the ruins of a long flume down which water was
conducted to drive that tall waterwheel. The skeleton remains, a blur on
the pastoral beauty, though watercourse and mine buildings are in
indistinguishable ruin. At last, the road throws a branch between banks
of meadow-sweet down to rattling Newlands beck; our way sweeps toward
cone-fronted Catbells. Shortly we descend into a narrow glen, then
zigzag up the flank of the fell. After a hard pull (the day is hot; the
distant hills are swinging in vapour) we come to easier angles. The road
is delved out of the hillside, the home of bracken and creeping
stagshorn, with, by rills almost silent with drought, trees of hawthorn,
alder and rowan. Below us--over spears of larch, over _chevaux-de-frise_
of oak and ash and birch, over green and bronze cupolas of sycamore and
beech, is the vale of Derwent, from Lodore to the furthest Man of
Skiddaw. How sweet and dreamy the blue stretch of water, dappled with
shades of high-floating clouds, with emerald islets scattered in bay and
reach, with the swift launches and the slow march of oared craft
glinting back the sunlight at the dip of every blade! To northward lush
fields and verdant woodlands border the mere, with hillsides, soft green
and swelling among the levels, but, opposite, sheer and bristling with
crags they rise from the water, crowded in by the heathy moors. Then the
town on a tousled plain between Derwent and Greta, and beyond, the hills
giving place to mountains, Blencathra and Helvellyn, shadows wavering in
August's blue sky. From this corner of Catbells you curve slowly down to
Grange; the road is ever fair, but he is an ardent cyclist who prefers
to ride all along this incline of beauty.
From Grange it is easy to pass up to the jaws of Borrowdale, in autumn
one of the best pictures of Lakeland, when the birches' silvern bark is
half seen, half hid in the thinning leafage; the river is flooding down
too, not hiding in pools and filtering under long stretches of white
pebbles. Of course you see the Bowder Stone if it is your first visit.
It is by a quarry quite close to the foot of Castle Crag.
One can reach Watendlath by a mountain track from Rosthwaite. This is a
shallow dip in the moorland, containing a pretty tarn and one or two
small farms. Not many years ago a Cumbrian visitor put the following
note in his diary: "I came to a village called Watendlath, the most
primitive place I ever saw in Cumberland. I entered one of the houses.
There was no fireplace, but only logs of wood and turf burning on the
floor." Not here, but still within the Lake Country, I stumbled upon a
similar thing. My queries aroused the ancient dame's curiosity. "You
divvent mean to tell me you've nivver seen a hearth fire afore? Well,
well." I was eager to know how, minus an oven, she baked bread. The old
eyes sparkled with amusement. "Why, I make it in t' pan ower t' fire." I
didn't see the process, but I tested the quality of the product, which
was excellent. A century ago ovens were rare in the dales; on baking day
the dough was placed in a covered pan, which was laid on the hearth.
Fuel was then heaped around and on top of the pan. When sufficient time
had elapsed the housewife raked aside the burning embers, opened the pan
and took out the baked batch. Had it been possible for any wandering
reader to witness the bakery, I would have told the place; but five
years after my discovery, wishing to see again the old-time oven, I
visited the dale. Alas! the cottage was empty, falling into ruins, and a
green mound in the church garth covered my aged dame. The tarn of
Watendlath is fed mainly by a stream which comes down the desolate back
of Armboth fells, passing through Blea tarn on its way. This beck it is
that goes down the thunder-chasm of Lodore. It is an interesting ramble,
giving some splendid views of Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, down to
the Keswick road, by Ashness bridge.
[Illustration: FALCON CRAG, DERWENTWATER]
But we are for Keswick, to recall briefly three scenes in its
market-place beneath the old tower. Imagine, if you can, crowds of
soberly dressed people passing in and out of this space--Convention
week! How the dark clothes appal you as day after day passes! The
streets have the air of devotion, but behind the houses the lanes teem
with business. Another scene: the same streets are crowded, but the
throng is of a wild gaiety--motley are the hues that press in and out.
Not the steady, respectable murmur of conversation, but a wild medley of
sounds, snatches of song, bursts of sound from uncouth unmusical
instruments, shouts and laughter and much merrymaking. It is a bank
holiday crowd, come to be entertained at all hazards. Five hours ago the
town was peaceful as that morning when I rowed out on Derwentwater;
shortly the crowd will have diminished, till by curfew-time many of the
weary folks of Keswick will cast down their tasks to breathe something
of evening's calm.
[Illustration: THE VALE OF ST. JOHN, NEAR KESWICK]
My last scene is the dalesman's Keswick, as I first saw it many a year
ago. The square is filled with moving sheep: it is the great October
fair day and a long flock is now passing toward the narrow Borrowdale
road. How the air quivers to their plaints! and the grey walls echo the
tumult--the sharp barkings of busy dogs, and the loud shoutings of the
shepherds. We descend to where the farm-wives sit with eggs and butter,
and one offers us barley-bread, that luxury now so seldom seen and
appreciated outside rural Cumbria. Or is it home-made cheese we would
buy? Tough as leather and white as milk, 'tis true Willimer. Strong jaws
and patience enough has the man who can enjoy this. Outside the narrow
market are cartloads of potatoes and turnips; further down a couple of
loads of wheat are for public auction. The congregation of buyers and
sellers is interesting: hard-featured dalesmen, their ruddy wives and
daughters, neater-dressed town-dwellers bargaining with them. Here comes
another drove of sheep--judged by Southron standards they are small, but
their mutton is the sweetest to be had. There is little "silly sheep"
about them. Intelligent faces, alert limbs, they have already learnt to
sup on heather-tops when the grass is buried in snow, silently to endure
the wild blizzards and the rainstorms, to avoid swamp and torrent and
crumbling edge of cliff. In their train comes friend Jacob, from the
Bassenthwaite side of Skiddaw. All through this series of descriptions I
have wished to introduce one lake as seen by those who dwell close to
it. Bassenthwaite, being out of the tourist route, offers excellently
for the experiment. Jacob's rich dialect would, however, be difficult
for those who know not the North Country, and to give the literal
English would be to destroy the extreme raciness of the speech.
Therefore, a middle way is attempted, retaining where possible the
Cumbrian construction of phrase, and idiom.