From Warrington the Mersey, still keeping a sinuous course, begins to

expand, and when next it comes into touch with the ship-canal, which

it does at a point known as Randall's Creek, it assumes estuarial

form, and markedly so just before reaching Runcorn. Then there is a

sudden change, caused by the outswelling of both banks of the river,

the result being that the Mersey is contracted to about 1,200 feet

across, after being more than twice that width. This contraction, known

as Runcorn Gap, lies between Widnes Point on the Lancashire side, and

Runcorn on the Cheshire side. At this, the nearest point to the upper

estuary proper, the Mersey is crossed by a high level bridge, giving

the London and North Western Railway access to Liverpool. Runcorn has

been made by canals; three, approaching from different directions,

touch the Mersey there. The ship-canal lies to the north of the town,

after passing through a cutting extending to a depth of 66 feet, the

deepest on the route. Lying under the railway bridge, and coming close

to the river, it soon finds itself wholly in the bed of the Mersey,

separated from the stream by a massive concrete wall, for which in one

place a foundation had to be made 70 feet down. There were considerable

docks and warehouses here before the greatest of the canals gave

additional claim to Runcorn to be considered a seaport. Ethelfreda,

daughter of Alfred the Great, is said to have founded the town; and

antiquaries are pleased to regard the name as a corruption of Runcofan,

from the Anglo-Saxon "cofa," a cove or inlet. The locks on the canal

here are so constructed as to enable vessels to leave or enter at

any state of the tide. Widnes, on the opposite side of the river, is

a busy, thriving manufacturing town, with chemicals as its leading

commercial product, but doing a good deal also in various branches of

the iron trade.

From Runcorn the ship-canal forms the southern side of the Mersey. The

outer wall of protection follows the course of the river, bending with

it round what may be called the Runcorn headland, and crossing the

mouth of the river Weaver. The Weaver being navigable up to Northwich,

the construction of the canal across its opening into the Mersey

was a work of considerable ingenuity and difficulty. In the first

instance, provision had to be made by special locks to give entrance

to the tributary before the point of junction with the Mersey could

be interfered with; and when the canal itself was carried over the

tributary, a series of great sluices had to be constructed to regulate

the flow of the waters into the Mersey. Since then the Weaver has not

been subjected to the inconvenience of low tide. Another result of the

change has been the formation of a new town on its west bank, known as

Saltport, with wharves and other arrangements specially adapted for

the cargoes of salt that come down the Weaver for shipment elsewhere.

In the case of a smaller stream further on, the Gowy, the water had

to be carried under the canal by means of syphons strong enough and

large enough to withstand tidal influences. From the Gowy the line of

the canal follows the northward sweep of the estuary, and continues

thus past Ellesmere Port, where is the outlet for the Shropshire Union

system of canals. It then passes onward to what may be called the grand

entrance to this commercial undertaking, namely, the Eastham Locks.

These locks are in sets of varying sizes, according to the vessels that

come and go, this arrangement being necessary to avoid waste of water

from the canal. From Eastham the distance by the Mersey to Liverpool is

six miles, and to the lightship at the bar nineteen miles.

The Mersey is at its widest in the neighbourhood of Ellesmere Port,

the stretch across from here to Dungeon Point, on the Lancashire side,

being about three miles. Gradually narrowing in its progress to the

sea, it is only some 1,250 yards wide at the entrance. The passage

outwards, between Liverpool and Birkenhead down to the bar, has been

compared to a bottle-neck, and it is this feature of the stream,

added to the fact that, although a river of the west coast, it turns

round and takes a northerly direction, which gives it its commercial

importance. Through the narrow passage, the tidal flow is rapid enough

to maintain an open channel into the inlying estuary, and to clear a

passage for the largest vessels well out into the open sea. One source

of danger lies at the bar. Here sand is apt to silt up; and if this

were allowed to go on, the result would be that large vessels would

have to wait on either side for high water in order to get in or out.

The remedy has been found in extensive and frequent dredging, the

effect of which is not only to make entrance to the river accessible

at all states of the tide, but also to increase the inrush and the

outrush of water, to the manifest improvement of the inner channels.

The estuary has the further advantage of natural protection. The Wirral

Peninsula, as a glance at the map will show, serves as a magnificent

break-water, and the harbour has of course a great out-lying safeguard

in the barrier Ireland presents between it and the Atlantic.

It is where Mersey is at its widest and best--at the places where

it affords safe and capacious anchorage for the merchantmen of all

nations--that its story begins to unfold itself; and, as has been

indicated, it is not an ancient recital, by any means. Elsewhere

along its course are references to places and persons that take one

back as far as the written history of this island can go, but in the

neighbourhood of Liverpool the references are all of them comparatively

modern. Here there is trace neither of Roman nor of Norman. Yet if

Liverpool and Birkenhead do not figure in the Domesday pages, they are

by no means creations of yesterday, though, as we now find them, both

are very much the outcome of nineteenth-century enterprise. Liverpool

got a charter as far back as the year 1173, and about a century and a

half later the enterprising Prior of Birkenhead obtained a licence to

build hospices for travellers, and secured at the same time the right

of ferryage, of which the Monk's Ferry of to-day is an interesting

reminiscence.

It is in the early Liverpool charter that the name of the great city is

first met with. It is there written Lyrpul, and the name has undergone

such variations as Litherpool, Liderpool, Liferpool, and Lithepool,

before finally passing into its existing form. No one has been able to

say exactly what the name means. The latter part, of course, causes no

difficulty. The first part can be one of half a dozen different things,

or may mean something else. Certain authorities favour the notion that

in Liver we have the name of an aquatic bird of the cormorant family,

that found choice food on the shores of the Pool. Others assert for the

first part of the name that it comes from the liverwort plant, which

grew abundantly in the neighbourhood. Other opinions are that the name

really means "Ship Pool," or "the place at the pool," or "the gentle

pool," but all that is guesswork. What is certain is that a cormorant

or a pelican, or a liver (whatever sort of creature that may have

been), has figured upon the borough seal since the time of King John,

although advocates for another derivation have claimed that the figure

upon the seal was not meant for an aquatic bird, but for an eagle.

The authorities of the town never adopted this view; they have kept

loyally to the bird that is said to have found peace and plenty on the

banks of the stretch of still water around which Liverpool sprang into

existence.

[Illustration: 1. RUNCORN BRIDGE (_p. 257_). 2. THE LOCKS AT EASTHAM

(_p. 258_).]

The pool on whose borders the city grew spread out over the site of

the Custom House and adjoining buildings. At some uncertain date

after the Norman occupation a castle was built where now stands St.

George's Church, and this stronghold was held for many generations by

the Molineux family, the descendants of William de Molines, one of the

Conqueror's lieutenants. In time another Norman family, the Stanleys,

found their way into Liverpool, and got possession of "the Tower,"

a structure which had been raised for the purpose of observation on

what is now Water Street. The Stanleys strengthened and fortified "the

Tower," building a mansion round it, and covering some four thousand

square yards in the process; so that practically Liverpool had two

castles, with two powerful families dominating the place, and making

life almost unbearable, for they were continually at feud as to their

rights, though, curiously enough, fighting side by side for the king as

the occasion arose.

Neither of castle nor of tower is there any trace to be found in these

days. While they existed they were the chief features of Liverpool,

but they had nothing in common with the circumstances that led to the

development of the port, although their possessors had influence enough

with successive sovereigns to obtain privileges for the place, and,

indeed, they were far-seeing as well, and believed that the roadstead

at their doors meant much for the future of England. King John himself

came here, formed Toxteth Park, and gave the town a charter. Henry II.

made Liverpool a free port, while Henry III. constituted it a borough.

A Parliament summoned at Westminster in the reign of Edward I. was

attended by two burgesses from Liverpool; and from the time of Edward

III. the town seems to have sent members to Parliament with commendable

regularity, although there was but little for them to represent.

Liverpool, however, had to be content with only two members down to the

Reform Bill of 1867, long after she had made a name and reputation the

world over. In 1867 the number was increased to three; and when, in

1885, the Redistribution Scheme came into force, Liverpool was strong

enough to secure nine members, and is the only constituency in England

whose Irish voters are sufficiently numerous in any one division to

return a member after their own heart, though, singular to say, the

division which that member represents is known as the Scotland division.

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. GEORGE'S LANDING-STAGE, LIVERPOOL (_p. 265_).]

Although favoured, as we have seen, in the reign of Edward I.,

Liverpool was then of so little importance that she was only required

to furnish one barque and six sailors for the assistance of that

monarch; while Hull, on the east coast, had to supply sixteen ships and

four hundred and sixty-six men, and Bristol twenty-one ships and six

hundred men. That the town made but slow progress is shown also by the

fact that while Charles I. assessed Bristol for £1,000 in ship-money,

and Chester at £100, the amount claimed from Liverpool was only £25.

Liverpool does not seem to have hesitated to meet the demand, probably

because she owed a debt of gratitude to Charles, who raised the place

in civic importance by constituting the authorities a corporate body.

Nevertheless, the burgesses favoured the Puritan rather than the Royal

cause when the crisis came; and probably for this reason, although the

Molineuxs in their castle and the Stanleys in their tower stood for the

King, the Parliament had no great difficulty in raising the siege of

Liverpool and taking possession for the Commonwealth.

Prince Rupert had a sufficiently hard task when he tried to win the

place back. That dashing leader made light of the defences that had

been thrown up; but the citizens kept him outside, for all that, for

full three weeks, beating back his troops at every successive assault,

and only surrendering after a combined attack by night. The fiery

Prince did not appreciate the bravery of the men of Liverpool, but

smote them without mercy when the chance came, and did much damage to

their property besides. His triumph, however, was of the briefest. The

battle of Marston Moor, with its crowning victory for the Commonwealth,

was fought six days afterwards, and all that Prince Rupert had gained

gradually passed into the hands of the Parliament, Liverpool included,

though not without another siege. The attitude of the citizens

favoured them with the Protector. As compensation for the loss they

had sustained, the Corporation secured rights of ferryage over the

Mersey, they were allowed £500 worth of timber from the estates of

the Royalists in the neighbourhood, and they got a money allowance in

addition of £10,000.

Camden in the reign of Elizabeth found Liverpool "not so eminent for

being ancient as for being neat and populous"; and the historian

who speaks of it in the closing years of the nineteenth century may

fittingly describe the city in the same terms. But there is this

difference between the two epochs--that while the inhabitants in

Camden's time were housed in seven streets, they are now spread over a

great area north and south, and away to the east, in streets almost too

numerous to count. In 1565 a census that was taken gave the population

of Liverpool at 820. In 1700 the number had risen to 5,700. Fifty years

later it was about 25,000. At the beginning of the present century it

was 85,000. At the present time, including Birkenhead and the suburbs,

it probably exceeds 900,000. Its position as a port, as has been

shown, was insignificant in the ship-money days; it now handles about

one-fifth of the tonnage of Great Britain. In 1801 vessels trading

to and from Liverpool numbered 5,000, with an aggregate tonnage of

459,710, providing dues to the extent of about £28,000. For the year

ending June 30th, 1896, 23,659 vessels entered the port, representing

a tonnage of 11,946,459. For the same period, the total revenue of the

dock estate from all sources amounted to £4,014,000. The number of

sailing vessels finding their way to the Mersey as compared with the

Thames is as three to one, and to the Clyde as two to one. One-third

more steamers enter the Thames, but the greater number of large liners

that come to Liverpool almost equalises the steam tonnage.

It is not difficult to ascertain how this marvellous development of

population and trade has taken place. The situation of Liverpool,

with its practically open though well protected roadstead, has, of

course, had much to do with the change. But this natural advantage has

its drawbacks, and these were sufficiently serious to have prevented

progress beyond a certain point had not there been public-spirited and

large-minded men to direct the enterprise of the community. To attract

navigation, the channels of the river had to be defined, and they had

to be kept clear. They had to be buoyed and provided with beacons on

both sides. Notable among the guiding influences are the New Brighton

Lighthouse (known also as the Perch Rock Lighthouse) at the mouth of

the river on the Cheshire side, and the Formby and numerous other

lights on the other side along the stretch of the Crosby channel until

safe passage out to sea is secured. But something more was needed. The

tidal rise and fall of the water-level meant a variation of some 30

feet at spring tides, which made the loading and unloading of vessels

difficult, and at times dangerous; besides, the vessels soon became too

numerous for ordinary quay accommodation. It was necessary to provide

special basins, and the first step in this direction was taken as far

back as 1699, when the Pool was deepened and improved.

This was but an insignificant beginning to what has now grown to

such vast dimensions, but it solved a serious problem for the trade

of Liverpool of that day; and in about ten years afterwards the Pool

was made into a dock some four acres in extent, giving accommodation

for 100 small vessels, Liverpool securing its reward in Parliamentary

permission "to impose a duty for twenty-one years upon the tonnage of

all ships trading to or from the port for making a wet dock." This

earliest of the docks no longer exists; but others were soon afterwards

constructed in its vicinity, though parallel with the river, and some

of these are still in use. The expansion of the dock system eventually

necessitated the formation of a Dock Estate and the acquisition of

property along the whole city front. The docks now stretch along the

line of the Mersey for a distance of from six to seven miles, and

comprise some 25 miles of quay space and 380 acres of water space.

In addition, there are nine miles of quay space and 164 acres of

water space in the dock accommodation provided across the river at

Birkenhead. This is irrespective of graving dock arrangements. The area

of the Dock Estate exceeds 1,600 acres, inclusive of provision for

extension.

[Illustration: SWING-BRIDGE OVER THE ENTRANCE TO STANLEY DOCK,

LIVERPOOL (_p. 266_).]

The dock system of Liverpool, as we now find it, is very largely

the work of the present century, and it separates readily into two

divisions. For about thirty-six years (from 1824) the docks were laid

out upon plans prepared by Mr. Jesse Hartley, assisted by his son, Mr.

John B. Hartley. Since then the work has been conducted by Mr. G. F.

Lyster, assisted by his son, Mr. A. G. Lyster. In the first instance

the docks had to be constructed for sailing vessels. The many additions

that have since been made have been almost wholly for the accommodation

of steamships. But whether we take the docks that were constructed

during the first half of the present century, or those that have been

opened since then, they are engineering triumphs; and the world has no

more wonderful sight of the kind than they, alike in their capacity,

their admirable adaptation to tidal conditions and particular classes

of goods, their warehouse and office arrangements, and the care that

has been taken to provide ample quay and road space. The cost has been

enormous, but it has been justified by the returns. By means of its

docks Liverpool is able to meet any demand upon its shipping powers.

The vessels that are at times housed within its protecting river

chambers, if ranged side by side, would cover the banks of the Mersey

along all its navigable length.

It is, of course, only a part, although the major part, of the tonnage

of Liverpool that finds treatment in this way. There is a constantly

moving flotilla. The goods and passenger traffic from one side of

the Mersey to the other is scarcely ever at a standstill; but while

this traffic passes to or from widely separated points on the Wirral

Peninsula, it converges at Liverpool to that which is as much one

of the sights of the city as the docks themselves--namely, the

landing-stage. This is constructed on a series of enormous floating

pontoons, about midway between the northern and southern lines of the

docks. Formerly there were two such structures, and nominally there

are still two--St. George's and the Prince's; but while they were

for many years separated by a space of 500 feet to give access to

the St. George's basin, they are now continuous, and their unbroken

length makes a stretch of over 2,400 feet. The landing-stage, which

is connected with the quay wall by a succession of girder bridges,

adapted for both passengers and vehicles, is at any period of the day

a scene of unusual activity and bustle; but the official arrangements

are admirable, and seldom is there any difficulty in dealing with the

great crowds that gather and disperse here, either for lands across sea

or on their way to inland towns. Here, if anywhere, the cosmopolitan

character of the passenger traffic of Liverpool is seen in its fulness

and variety. The landing-stage is, in fact, the temporary meeting-place

of people of all nations, and belonging to all grades and conditions of

life, from wretched stowaways to ambassadors with princely retinues.

[Illustration: LIVERPOOL, FROM BIRKENHEAD (_p. 266_).]

Although called a stage, this landing-place is really a magnificent

promenade, with ranges of official buildings and waiting and

refreshment rooms. Until recently the passengers by the deep-sea liners

were taken to and from the steamers in tenders. This arrangement

often gave rise to serious inconvenience, and entailed also much loss

of time. The latest addition to the stage was therefore contrived

specially with the object of overcoming these drawbacks. Passengers

may now pass direct from the stage to the largest vessels; and more

than this has been done for them. They are now brought close to the

stage itself by railway, so that they may book themselves and their

luggage from London or from any of our large towns to any part of the

world, and have no more trouble on arriving on the banks of the Mersey

than is usually involved in a change of conveyance. To facilitate

passenger traffic to and from the docks, an electric overhead railway

running along the whole stretch of the six or seven miles comprising

the city front, and into the districts beyond, has been in operation

since February, 1893, when it was formally opened by Lord Salisbury.

The line has since undergone extension, and it was carried as far as

Dingle in December, 1896. It is now about eight miles long. The Dingle

extension presents some notable engineering features. In one place it

crosses the Dock Estate by girders 220 feet in length--an unusually

large span; in another it is run through a tunnel arch said to be the

largest of its kind in the world; while at Dingle the line belies its

name, the terminal station being here considerably below the road

level. The only dock entrance that runs inland sufficiently far to be

crossed by the overhead railway is the Stanley, and here a swing-bridge

has been erected, on the double-deck principle, so as to provide for

the railway traffic overhead and the usual carriage and foot traffic

underneath. This railway may be considered a part of the great work

of dock development at Liverpool. A report laying out the scheme was

presented by Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Dock Board, in 1885, but

for public and other reasons it was thought advisable to leave the

work to private enterprise, and it was therefore undertaken by an

incorporated company, Sir William Forwood being the chairman, and Mr.

S. B. Cottrell the engineer and general manager. A railway under the

Mersey from Birkenhead was opened in 1885 by the Prince and Princess

of Wales, to meet the growing increase in the cross-river traffic, and

this line, which passes for 2,100 yards under the river, has since been

connected with main lines on each side.

Liverpool, with its great line of protected dockage and quayage,

and the movement of vessels of every description and of every size

along its water front, is seen in its finest panoramic effect from

the Birkenhead side of the river; but the city reveals itself also

in increasing multiplicity of architectural detail and business

activity to the visitor whose first impressions of it are obtained

as he stands on the vessel that carries him over the Mersey bar to

the landing-stage. At the same time, the passenger by rail does not

enter Liverpool by any back door. At the Lime Street terminus of the

London and North Western Railway he looks out immediately on the

municipal centre of the city; should he arrive at the Exchange Station

of the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Midland lines, he is at once in

the commercial heart of Liverpool, surrounded by noble and spacious

buildings. Other lines land him in scenes of shipping activity,

others in more residential quarters; but nowhere is he left in squalid

surroundings.

The front of the Lime Street Station itself adds to the picturesqueness

of the street it looks upon. Almost opposite, in isolated grandeur, is

St. George's Hall, and on one side of that building is the magnificent

range of edifices of the classic order where are housed the Brown Free

Library (including the Museum of Natural History, presented by the

thirteenth Earl of Derby), the Mayer Museum of Antiquity, the Picton

Reading Room, and the Walker Art Gallery--all alike monuments of the

beneficence of merchants who in this way have enriched and adorned the

city from which they drew their wealth. Even St. George's Hall, the

cost of which was £330,000, was in the nature of a gift, it being paid

for by the Corporation out of the dock dues, which they controlled

up to 1858, when the dues were transferred to the Dock Board. The

fact, too, that the Corporation owned large estates makes the burden

of taxation rest lightly on the citizens of Liverpool; and since the

present century began, improvements have not ceased to be the order

of the day in the city. The Town Hall is in Castle Street. It is in

the Corinthian style, and is conspicuous for its dome and its raised

portico; but a much more majestic building lies behind it in the Royal

Exchange--a structure in the Flemish Renaissance style, with a noble

façade, and wings that enclose a spacious quadrangle. Here on "the

Flags," when the weather is favourable, the merchants and brokers

of Liverpool mingle together in animated colloquy and strike their

bargains.

Education flourishes in Liverpool no less than commerce, and in

all its branches has not been without liberal support. University

College, although only inaugurated in 1882, has an endowment of over

£125,000. It has a numerous staff of professors, technical and medical

departments, and is affiliated to the Victoria University. There

are several secondary schools of note, Schools of Art, and Nautical

Training Institutions. The charitable societies of the city number

over 100, the oldest in the medical sense being the Infirmary, which

dates from 1748. Of open spaces there is nothing, of course, equal to

the grand sweep of the estuary in front of the city. But there are

ornamental grounds in the city itself, and in the outskirts recreation

grounds and pleasure resorts, the largest and most picturesque being

Sefton Park, which was purchased at a cost of over a quarter of a

million. For water the city has gone into Mid-Wales and purchased the

Vyrnwy Valley, and from the lake and the reservoirs there is able to

draw an unfailing supply of some fifty million gallons daily. The

bishopric dates from 1879, but Liverpool is without ancient churches.

St. Peter's, which serves as the pro-cathedral, is the oldest in

structure but not in foundation (that distinction belongs to St.

Nicholas', near the Prince's Dock), but this does not carry us further

back than the beginning of the eighteenth century.

A long list could be made of eminent men connected with Liverpool,

were this the place for it. But there are two names that ought not

to be omitted--one is Francis Bacon, "the wisest, greatest, meanest

of mankind," who was member for Liverpool towards the close of the

sixteenth century; the other is Mr. Gladstone, who is a citizen of

Liverpool by birthright as well as by complimentary burgess ticket. It

is interesting to add also that the Stanley (Derby) and the Molineux

(Sefton) families are still closely identified with the town. They

are no longer housed in the heart of Liverpool, but their Lancashire

seats are close to its boundaries, and they rival one another in the

active interest they take in the municipal, commercial, and educational

progress of this great community.

It is the bottle-neck part of the estuary of the Mersey that runs

between Liverpool and Birkenhead, but a good three-quarters of a mile

of water separates the two places. They are divided also by county

distinctions: otherwise they may be regarded as one, their interests

being identical. Many business men of Liverpool make Birkenhead and

its outskirts their home. Like the great city on the other side,

Birkenhead has its landing-stages adapted to the rise and fall of the

tide. Its range of docks has already been touched upon, and need only

be referred to again to indicate that they do not run parallel with

the river, like those on the other side, but pass inland. Behind them

are the commodious water spaces known as the east and west "floats."

Nearly all the great liners find their way to the Liverpool side,

but on the Birkenhead side great liners are built. Its shipbuilding

yards are among the most extensive in the kingdom, and include the

great establishment of the Laird Brothers, from which the Confederate

cruiser, _The Alabama_, was turned out in 1862.

Proportionately, Birkenhead has made even greater progress during

the century so soon to close than Liverpool. In 1800 its population

numbered only about 100 persons. That figure may now be multiplied

1,000 times over and still be within the mark. Its tonnage is about

one-tenth that of Liverpool. In 1861 the town was formed into a

Parliamentary borough, with a single member, the gentleman who became

its first representative being the late Mr. John Laird, of whom there

is a statue in front of the Town Hall. Birkenhead has been a municipal

borough since 1887. It did not, however, wait for corporate privileges

to show public spirit and enterprise. It was one of the first towns

of the kingdom, if not the very first, to introduce tramways, which

it did on the suggestion of George Francis Train, who had previously

established a similar mode of conveyance in New York. It has long had

a public park, 180 acres in extent, laid out by Sir Joseph Paxton,

and costing £140,000. Although a hundred years or so ago it consisted

of less than a score of habitable houses, it can trace back its name

for centuries, and the ruins may be seen of the Benedictine Priory of

Byrkhead, founded here in the eleventh century, and whose monks in

their simple way did the work that is now carried on by enormous steam

ferries on the river, and by railway trains through a submarine tunnel.

[Illustration: _Photo: Valentine & Sons, Dundee._

ST. GEORGE'S HALL AND LIME STREET, LIVERPOOL (_p. 266_).]

All along the inner line of the Wirral Peninsula, which here bounds

the Mersey, are pleasant residential suburbs, and at the extreme end

lies New Brighton, beloved of Lancashire and Cheshire folk. Immediately

to the north of New Brighton is one of the defences of the river in

Rock Fort, and just beyond the fort is the Perch Rock Lighthouse. At

this point, the visible shore-line of the Mersey on the west side comes

to an end, but the channel of the river runs on over a well-buoyed

line of route, some eight or nine miles further on, and for navigation

purposes does not really cease till the bar is crossed. Directly to

the north-west of the Wirral Peninsula are great sandbanks, but these

as a rule are within the ken only of the mariner familiar with the ins

and the outs of this great commercial highway. The total length of the

river is about 70 miles. At least 12 miles of that, towards the mouth,

is a vast basin, having an average width of about two and a half miles,

and containing at high tide some 600,000,000 tons of water. To see the

Mersey here at the flood is to agree with Drayton:--

"Whence, where the rivers meet with all their stately train,

Proud Mersey is so great in entering the Main,

As he would make a sea for Empery to stand,

And wrest the three-forked mace from out grim Neptune's hand."

/W. S. Cameron./

[Illustration: THE PERCH ROCK LIGHTHOUSE.]

RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.

A Birthplace of Rivers--The /Ribble/:

Ribblehead--Horton-in-Ribblesdale--Survival of Old

Traditions--Hellifield--The Hodder--Stonyhurst and its College--The

Calder--Burnley--Towneley Hall--Preston--Its Development as a Port.

The /Wyre/: Poulton-le-Fylde. The /Lune/: Kirkby Lonsdale--The

Greta and the Wenning--Hornby Castle--Lancaster--Morecambe

Bay--The Journey from Lancaster to Ulverston in Coaching

Days--Shifting Sands. The /Kent/: Kentmere--Kendal. The /Gilpin/

and the /Winster/. The /Rothay/ and the /Brathay/. Grasmere

and Wordsworth--Rydal Water--Ambleside--Windermere. Troutbeck.

Esthwaite Water. The /Leven/: Newby Bridge--The Estuary. The

/Crake/: Coniston Water--Coniston Hall--Brantwood and Mr. Ruskin.

The /Duddon/: Wordsworth's Sonnets. The /Esk/ and the /Irt/:

Wastwater. The /Liza/: Ennerdale Water. The /Ehen/: Egremont

Castle. The /Derwent/: The Vale of St. John--The Greta and

Keswick--The View from Castlerigg top--Derwent water.

In the lonely moorland solitudes guarded by Ingleborough, Whernside,

and Pen-y-gent, with outlying fells of almost mountain magnitude, may

be traced the birthsprings of many important rivers. They shoot off

to every point of the compass, and, gathering in tributary waters

from the best of our bold English scenery, are lost in the North Sea

as with the Yorkshire Ouse, or in the Irish Sea as with the Ribble,

the Lune, and the many minor streams that diversify Morecambe Bay.

The whole extent of this corner of the North-West Riding is wild,

open country, with diverging dales lost in fading distances: stone

walls for leafy hedges, and limitless grazing uplands clothed with the

herbage peculiar to unwooded elevations of over two thousand feet. In

the blithe springtime, when the tender flush of green proclaims the

renewed life-blood of the grass; in the summer prime, when the umbers

and greys of prolonged heat are faintly changing the broad faces of

the untrodden mountains and silent valleys; and in winter, when all

is white with unsullied snow, this expanse of billowy hill and fell

has a grandeur all its own. Its features are repeated under a more

striking development by-and-by in Lakeland, but this is the crowning

point of the great backbone of picturesque highland which, beginning in

Derbyshire, defines much of the boundary of Yorkshire and Lancashire.

* * * * *

The /Ribble/ is one of the rivers which take their rise from

the Ingleborough and Whernside heights. It is a babbling brook as it

is seen by the railway traveller at Ribblehead, but the source must be

sought in one of the rills that tumble down the shoulders of Wold Fell.

The difficulty usually encountered in tracing a mountain-born river to

the precise bubble of water that may without hesitation be pronounced

its source is intensified here. So much depends upon circumstances in

these matters. After a rainless month in summer, the wayfarer would

note a waterless country; let the rains descend, or the snows melt,

and every hill is silvered by tumbling cascades, the air is musical

with the leap of a hundred rivulets. So it is that, for the Ribble's

source, old Craven maps select Gearstones, north-east of Settle; more

recent local authorities are divided between Wold Fell and Cam Fell;

and for the world at large Ribblehead serves the general purpose of

identification.

[Illustration: _Photo: A. Horner, Settle._

STAINFORTH BRIDGE (_p. 273_).]

The source of the Ribble, let the spot be where it may, makes it

imperative to associate with its distinctions the great engineering

triumph that ended in the awakening of its echoes by the railway train.

From Settle--where Birkbeck, the founder of the Mechanics' Institutions

of our youth, was born--to Carlisle is only a matter of seventy miles,

but it cost the invaders three millions sterling to overcome the

obstacles of the stubborn Pennine chain, and the enterprise seemed to

be well-nigh hopeless when they advanced into the Pen-y-gent region.

The course of the young Ribble had hereabouts to be diverted by the

blasting out of a new channel; but at length the line was safely laid

a thousand feet above sea-level, and clear running for the trains

was achieved by means of nineteen tunnels, thirteen embankments, and

cuttings innumerable.

There are a few villages in the early stages of the Ribble, the

first of any note being Horton-in-Ribblesdale, under the shadow of

Pen-y-gent. The railway has little spoiled its primitive character, nor

have the frequent expresses led to the disbandment of the beagles which

still hunt the wild retreats of the mountain-side. There are ancient

inhabitants in lonely farmhouses built of hard stone, and gleaming

white from afar, who inherit the old traditions that portions of the

mountain are honeycombed with giants' graves. There have long been

legends to that effect, but men of science explain that the wondrous

bones unearthed from caverns, and what not, belonged, not to sons of

Anak, but to huge animals now unknown. The dalesmen but slowly discard

such beliefs, retaining them as of right, just as the shepherds on the

fells, and the hard-headed farmers in the valleys, cling to the customs

of their grandfathers. The high-road between Horton and Giggleswick--in

whose grammar school Paley was educated--gives access to the heart

of Upper Ribblesdale; and the tourist visiting the cascades near

Stainforth will recognise the sturdy bridge in the illustration (page

272) as a favourite resting-place. The river is represented in its

peaceful mood, in one of its romantic bends.

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

TOWNELEY HALL, BURNLEY (_p. 276_).]

The country remains rich in its distinctive botany, and from no portion

of the North do the great markets of Manchester and Leeds draw more of

their supplies of whortleberry and mushroom in the early autumn months.

At such junctions as Hellifield these natural products of the moorland

may be seen stacked by the ton. It is almost the only indication

of the gradual change that must come with the new era. Yet until

comparatively recent times the peel-house at Hellifield stood witness

to the remoteness of the district. So long back as the reign of Henry

VI. a licence was granted to the Hamerton family to erect and keep as

a place of defence the strong square peel which guarded the west; and

around Gisburne Hall, the ancestral seat of the Listers, represented

now by the Ribblesdale family, the wild cattle of the breed perpetuated

chiefly at Chillingham roamed at large in the secluded woods of the

high tract whence the feeder Stockbeck fitfully meanders to the valley

of the Ribble.

The bracing bleakness of Bowland Forest is relieved for many a league

by the Hodder, the Ribble's largest and longest tributary, which is in

part of its course a natural line of demarcation between the counties

that gave title to princely houses when the realm was divided by

the Wars of the Roses. Dense fringes of bush and brier proclaim its

progress, and exquisitely sweet spots, like that of the oak-covered

knoll on which stands the little chapel at Whitewell, occur in the

district where, to the commanding eminence of ancient Brownsholm Hall,

a curious relic found its way--the veritable Seal of the Commonwealth,

with a Bible between two branches of palm as the centre, and the

inscription, "Seal for the approbation of Ministers."

[Illustration: RIVERS OF LANCASHIRE AND LAKELAND.]

The famous Roman Catholic College of Stonyhurst, south-west of

Longridge Fell, is near the meeting of Hodder with Ribble. Beautiful is

its situation, wooded valleys dipping in the east, and beyond them the

substantial landmarks of Clitheroe and Pendle Hill. Stonyhurst, even

to one who has no cognisance of its modern character, its origin, or

the manner of its conversion from the mansion of the Sherburnes to the

purpose which it has fulfilled with high distinction for more than a

hundred years, has the appearance and atmosphere, even at a distance,

of a place for study and retreat. It is wholly removed from the busy

world, and all the surroundings give an involuntary impression of

harmony and quiet. Stonyhurst was probably always a home of Catholics

at heart, though the Sir Richard Sherburne who was one of Harry VIII.'s

Commissioners at the dissolution of religious houses did contrive to

be a favourite with young Edward, Mary, and, after her, Elizabeth. He

it was who built part of the mansion on the site of an older baronial

edifice; and the shapely west front, amongst other considerable

portions of the present building, is his work. The Sherburnes, however,

were not able to finish the structure; but Sir Nicholas, who was made

a baronet, in whom the title became extinct, and who was a man of

culture and travel, planned and laid out the gardens which no visitor

to Stonyhurst is likely to forget. Through Cardinal Weld, to whose

family the property fell, it was in 1794 devoted to the use of the

Jesuits driven from Liège by the French Revolutionists. Since then it

has gathered high renown as an educational agency amongst the Roman

Catholic aristocracy.

[Illustration: _Photo: Arthur Winter, Preston._

PRESTON, FROM THE WEST (_p. 278_).]

In approaching Stonyhurst, even the simple village on its borders

exercises its tranquillising influence upon the visitor; the cemetery

and oratory, the trim lawn, the trees on either side of the drive, the

sheet of water, and the glimpse of the inner seclusion through the

gateway, claim a share of the admiration which is given without stint

to the imposing two-towered building so finely situated. The gardens

are an enchantment; and the fountain, the observatory with its Peter's

telescope, the summer-houses, the tall, deep dividing walls of ancient

yew clipped square and pierced with archway exits and entrances,

blend in strengthening the conviction that here we are removed from

scenes of strife. The Tudor-Gothic church is the most notable of the

additions made since Stonyhurst became a college eminent for the most

perfect appliances for scientific study, for a well-furnished museum,

and all that is best for students at work or play. In the Mitton area,

which trends to a point where the two rivers mingle, may be found many

interesting specimens of the well-preserved, half-timbered houses

for which the two counties (each of which claims a part of Mitton)

are celebrated. The well-known doggerel perpetrated in honour of

this neighbourhood, may be quoted--not, however, as warranted by any

climatic defects, but rather as showing the straits to which the author

was put for a rhyme:

"The Hodder, the Calder, Ribble, and rain,

All meet together in Mitton domain."

Into the Ribble, at no great distance below this ancient parish,

protruding like a wedge into the County Palatine, flows the Calder,

coming from the south-east, and from a district once as wild as

Longridge Fell and Bowland Forest, but now reduced to modern uses by

the cotton and worsted mills, calico works, and foundries of thriving

Burnley, through which ran a Roman way once upon a time. It has an

indirect relation with the Ribble, being placed on the Brun, the

Calder intervening. Never had manufacturing town a finer "lung" than

is furnished by Pendle Hill, which offers a climb of 1,800 feet above

sea-level to the dwellers in a district which is in touch also (near or

far) with Sawley Ruins, Blackstone Edge, and the Vale of Craven. Fox,

the founder of the Society of Friends, was so carried away with delight

in his travels thereabouts that he declares he was moved by the Lord to

go up to the top of Pendle Hill, and in the clear atmosphere saw the

sea shining beyond the Lancashire coast.

Amongst many old houses of which Lancashire is proud is Towneley Hall,

seat of a family one of whose ancestors was first dean of Whalley

Abbey, the ruins of which are one of the most valued relics on the

banks of the Calder. This takes us back to a century and a half

before the Conquest; and it was one of this ilk who was the last of

the deans. The original hall of the Towneleys appears to have partly

stood somewhat south of the mansion which is the subject of one of

the illustrations to this chapter (page 223). Whitaker, the great

authority on Lancashire history, was unable to ascribe a date to the

Hall, but it is evident to the modern observer that portions are of

considerable antiquity. Many must have been the changes, however, since

the six-feet walls were built. The work of Richard Towneley in 1628

is known, and the addition was by W. Towneley in 1741. A still later

member of the family removed turrets, gateway, chapel, and sacristy

to their present position, but the rebuilding had been begun a few

years earlier. The portraits, as is often the case, tell in great

measure what the Towneleys were in their day and generation: one died

at Wigan Lane, another at Marston Moor; one was an eminent antiquary,

another translated "Hudibras" into French, another collected art

treasures, secured to the trustees of the British Museum by means of a

Parliamentary grant.

[Illustration: LANCASTER (_p. 282_).]

Some of the most interesting of the old Towneley relics were believed

to have been brought from Whalley Abbey, built upon a spot which,

before streams were polluted by factories, yielded fish from the river,

and feathered game from the woods and heather, whilst the forest and

park around the old Hall furnished abundance of venison. Burnley then

must have been a delightful town, lying in its hollow, environed by

swelling moors and crystal streams. This is the country of which Philip

Gilbert Hamerton often pathetically speaks in his "Autobiography,"

though "the voice of Nature," to which he refers in one of his poems,

must even in his young days have been thickened here and there by the

smoke of tall chimneys, and marred by the echo of raucous sounds from

foundry and loom.

"Proud Preston" is an appellation which had its significance in

another generation, and was indicative of the loyalty of the town to

old traditions, to the Grown, to its own independence. The hundred in

which it was situated was attached, in the reign of Athelstan, to the

Cathedral Church of York: hence Priests' Town, or Preston. This is

evidence of a satisfactory old age; and in 1840 more was forthcoming

from a rude box dug up from the alluvial soil on the banks of the

Ribble, containing a precious store of coins, rings, and ingots,

including nearly 3,000 Anglo-Saxon pieces. Higher up the stream was the

still older settlement of Ribchester, the Roman station of Coccium,

which declined into nothing as Preston increased in importance. The

sweep of country surveyed from Red Scar, where the river curves into a

horseshoe course under a precipitous bank, or from the popular point of

look-out in Avenham Park, is studded with points around which history

clings.

The lonesome moor where Cromwell routed Sir Marmaduke Langdale and

his Royalists has become an open space for the recreation of the

people; the Jacobite rebellions and the temporary sojourn of Charles

Edward on that disastrous Derby campaign are remembrances dimmed by

the remarkable rise of Preston in modern times as a manufacturing and

commercial town. This is owing to its position at the head of the

Ribble estuary. There are two things in the present century of which

even "Proud Preston" need not be ashamed: it was here that the first

total abstinence pledge was taken in England, the signatories being

Joseph Livesey and half a dozen brother-abstainers; and it was here

that the practical working of the vote by ballot was tested in 1872.

For more than thirty years the flourishing town, standing 120 feet

above its river, has been undergoing improvements, carried out

with great public spirit. Sir Gilbert Scott designed for it the

French-Gothic Town Hall which rises gracefully above the other

buildings; County Hall, Free Library, and Museum have been added; even

the parish church has been rebuilt, and the once steepleless town now

boasts, in St. Walburge's Roman Catholic Church, the loftiest spire

erected in England since the Reformation. An unbroken link with the

past is the Guild-Merchants' Festival, celebrated since 1397 (half a

century before the first charter was granted); and for the last 400

years the "Preston Guild" has been observed with intense fervour every

twenty years, the next coming due in 1902. The present writer was in

Preston during, probably, the saddest circumstances under which such

a celebration could occur. It was in 1862, when the cotton famine was

sore in Lancashire; but the Prestonians threw themselves with energy

into the traditional observance, and made it a memorable success. Rose

festivals, morris dances, and other old English revelries retain their

hold here, as in other parts of Lancashire, and are likely long to

prevail.

It is as a port that Preston has recently claimed attention. The

changes effected since the passing of the Ribble Navigation Act in 1883

have been striking. The marsh which kept the town apart from its river

has been drained, and made fit for houses and streets. Woods that were

familiar objects in the immediate landscape have disappeared, and the

deepening of the channel of the tidal Ribble to admit ships of 1,700

tons has been but a natural result of Arkwright and his spinning-frame,

and the cotton industry that superseded the linen-making of the

previous century. The new dock, opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in

1892, with the Corporation as its owners, cost a million of money. The

scheme made it necessary to divert the course of the Ribble below the

town, and the prediction of the eminent engineer, Sir John Coode, that

there would be no port in the country with so free a run to the sea,

has been fulfilled. Even with the construction of docks, involving

three miles' length of permanent railway sidings, the old charm of the

scene is not entirely lost. The brawny shoulders of Longridge Fell may

be discerned in the north-east; cattle and sheep graze on the levels;

the borders of the Fylde country are in view, and abrupt Rivington Pike

is on the remote horizon.

* * * * *

Between the estuary of the Ribble and the south-eastern boundary of

Lancaster Bay is the fertile Fylde district, the conformation of

which is, roughly speaking, that of a foreshortened peninsula. The

Margate and Ramsgate of Lancashire--if Lytham and Blackpool may be

so-called--are on the outlying coast, but they are only of interest to

us at the present moment from the arrival of the river /Wyre/ at

Fleetwood. This is a seaport and military station of what may, without

offence, be termed upstart growth. It is but twenty-one miles north of

Preston as the railway flies, and it has the double advantage of being

a port and a watering-place. Within the memory of persons who heard

about the coronation of Queen Victoria, the place where this important

harbour is now situated, with its lighthouse ninety feet high and

showing a glare that is visible for thirteen miles at sea, was a mere

rabbit-warren, its one adornment a dilapidated limekiln. Its population

now must be close upon 10,000, and from its docks lines of steamers ply

to and from Belfast and the Isle of Man.

[Illustration: WINDERMERE (_p. 291_).]

The river Wyre, rising near Brennand Fells, on the western side of the

Bowland Forest of which previous mention has been made, takes in as a

small tributary another river Calder, which rises on Bleasdale Moor,

forming part of a ridge of country often exceeding 1,700 feet above

sea-level. Wyresdale is noted for its striking combinations of wild

and motley fells in recurring variations, alternating with copse and

woodland. One of the earliest ecclesiastical sites in Lancashire is

St. Michael's, some miles below Garstang; and, at a point where the

river nears the estuary, the Wyre for several miles is protected from

the strength of its own current by a series of artificial banks. The

old fashioned town of Poulton-le-Fylde overlooks the river where it

expands into the salt expanse of Wyre Water, and the estuary, contrary

to the usual custom, after broadening out considerably, contracts

somewhat sharply at the mouth, at the western point of which is

Fleetwood.

[Illustration: RYDAL WATER (_p. 290_).]

[Illustration: GRASMERE (_p. 290_).]

Our next river has been characterised by "Faërie Queene" Spenser as

"the stony, shallow Lone,

That to old Loncaster his name doth lend."

As the poet was probably born near the Burnley which has been described

on a previous page, he no doubt knew his Lancashire well, and spoke

from the book when he claims that it gives name to the town and the

county. The /Lune/ is what in the North-country is called

a bonny river, and it rises, not on the edge of Richmondshire, as

is sometimes stated, but at the upper extremity of a dale to the

south-east of Wharton, in Westmorland. This is a portion of the

upheaved Lancashire country, however, that stands something midway

between sea-level and the summits of its best mountains. The uplands

and highlands of the early course of the Lune range between 500 feet

and 1,000 feet, and the lower half is below the smaller figure. The

course, however, is through a section of valleys watered by innumerable

creeks, and kept in bounds by the lonely fells. Sometimes, as at

Howgill, there are fairy glens, and the occasional intervals of fertile

pastures and wooded levels are a not ungrateful contrast. On one of

the plains of the Lune is Kirkby Lonsdale, the capital of a vale which

stretches away with Ingleborough in the distance. The river courses

round a half-circle, and the scene, with its mountainous background in

the east, is particularly beautiful.

It is a rare kind of panorama for this part of the country. The

radiating valleys in the Lancashire portion of the Lune's course bring

in the Greta and the Wenning. The former must not be confounded with

the other Greta that is born near Helvellyn, nor with the tributary of

the Tees in the North Riding, at the bridge of which Nicholas Nickleby,

old Squeers, and the wretched boys were put down from the coach _en

route_ to Dotheboys Hall. This Greta which is a tributary of the Lune

is a rocky-bedded, brawling, rushing little stream, tumbling down from

Whernside, and, between Ingleborough and Ingleton Fells, finding its

way through a dale which is much visited for the sake of the roaring

subterranean waterfall of Wethercote Cave, the charming surroundings of

Ingleton village, and the caves and fells of Kingsdale valley.

The Wenning is the larger tributary, and its popular attractions

are the subterranean grotto called Ingleborough Cave, in the gloomy

Clapdale ravine, and Hornby Castle, conspicuously placed on a craggy

height fringed with old trees. This interesting country is now

traversed by a railway branching west from Settle, with a junction at

Clapham for the aforesaid Ingleton, and affording to the traveller

a sight of Giggleswick Scar and the geological curiosity of Craven

Fault. The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans

on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory

reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile

walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet

Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot

in Lunedale. These are the words: "To see the view in perfection,

you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a

variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. On

each hand, up the middle distance, rise two sloping hills, the left

clothed with thick woods, the right with variegated rock and herbage.

Between them, in the richest of valleys, the Lune serpentines for many

a mile, and comes forth ample and clear, through a well-wooded and

richly-pastured foreground." For the last seven miles of its course the

Lune runs almost parallel to and within a short distance of Morecambe

Bay, and the narrow neck of land which it forms is distinguished by the

designation of Little Fylde.

While Preston, as we have seen, has been rising into importance as a

port, and the Ribble has been made worthy of vessels of considerable

tonnage, Lancaster, though the county town, has declined very swiftly

in maritime importance in the course of the last hundred years. No one

looking at John of Gaunt's old home in the present day, and upon the

business transacted on the Lune, which passes by it, could guess that

it was a very considerable emporium of commerce, being, indeed, ranked

above Liverpool when Charles I. levied the ship-money which brought him

to disaster. At that time Lancaster was assessed at £30 and Liverpool

at £25. Even then the Lancaster ships sailed regularly to the West

Indies and the Baltic. The sinuosity of the channel and the shallowness

of the ancient ford near the town became a serious hindrance to

navigation, but by dint of enterprising dredging Lancaster is still

reckoned amongst the English ports, and at Glasson, where the little

Conder flows into the estuary under the railway, there is a harbour and

dock which may yet revive the prosperity of the town.

Lancaster is one of the many Roman settlements about whose name

antiquaries are entitled to contend. A piece of brass money, found

under one of the foundation-stones of the arch of a former Lancaster

bridge, was described as Danish, and in the time of King John the Abbot

of Furness had royal permission to get timber from the King's forests

of Lancaster for such of the repairs of the bridge as he was "liable

to" for his fisheries. These fisheries, like those of the Ribble, were

once of the first class, and were granted to the Abbot of Furness

in the reign of Stephen. There were always disputes, however, and

sometimes hot quarrels, as to the rights in both salmon and timber, and

king after king, according to the necessity of those days, backed up

the Church, while legal regulations from time to time controlled the

fisheries. From this, coupled with the fact that its first charter was

granted by Richard I., we may without more ado conclude that Lancaster

is an ancient borough. Indeed, there are many curious evidences of this

kept alive in surviving customs, the origin of which must be found in

musty grants and charters.

Lancaster Castle, through whose time-honoured owner the county became

a duchy, was strongest, perhaps, in the reign of Elizabeth, when

the threat of a Spanish invasion led to the overhauling of all its

points of defence. This, too, was the date of the strengthening of

the great keep, the remnant of which is a treasured example of Norman

architecture. From a mighty royal and baronial residence the castle has

now become a gaol, and John of Gaunt's Oven, as the mill and bakery

of the fortress was termed, became the Record Office. There were five

monastic establishments in Lancaster, with privilege of sanctuary.

The time came when the privilege was of no avail. But the unfortunate

rebels of 1715 entered Lancaster with flying colours, bravely marching,

and mustering in the market-place to the skirl of the bagpipes. They

proclaimed the Pretender King of England under the title of James III.,

and some of them, poor fellows, returned soon afterwards, not in search

of the sanctuary they needed, but to be imprisoned in the castle,

and to suffer the last penalty of the law as in their case made and

provided. Even in the '45 Charles Edward, at the head of his little

band, must needs trouble Lancaster, but the invaders were only passing

through on their way to Manchester and Derby. A second time they came

here, and then they were in full retreat, heralds of a finally lost

cause.

The situation of Lancaster on the flank of a hill is most favourable

for an appreciation of its appearance, and the castle buildings on

its summit give a remarkable panorama of the town, the valley of the

Lune winding on its way to the sea through the lowland. The principal

gateway of the castle is an ancient portcullised archway, flanked by

octagonal towers, and in it are chambers to which far-off traditions

refer, for the authorities assure us that the gateway belonged to

"time-honoured Lancaster's" tower, while in an apartment called the

Pin Box Henry IV. gave audience to the King of Scotland and the

French Ambassadors. The dungeon tower, demolished in 1818, became

the penitentiary for women prisoners. "John of Gaunt's Chair" is a

turret at the top of the tower, and from this eminence of ninety

feet superb views, which in clear weather comprise shadowy forms in

the Lake-country, are to be obtained. Whewell, the Master of Trinity

College, is one of the worthies of whom the town is proud, and all

the more because he was a son of one of its carpenters. But for the

accident of the lad attracting the attention of a kindly master, and

the existence of a Grammar School, founded in 1483 by John Gardiner,

the distinguished scholar might never have attained his eminence.

Another pupil of the school was Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist.

[Illustration: NEWBY BRIDGE (_p. 293_).]

[Illustration: ANOTHER BIT OF THE LEVEN.]

A couple of lines by Spenser prefaced these remarks about the Lune, and

an extract from the river-poet, Drayton, may well conclude them:--

"For salmon me excels; and for this name of Lun,

That I am christened by the Britons it begun,

Which fulness doth import of waters still increase

To Neptune bowting low, when christal Lune doth cease;

And Conder coming in conducts her by the hand,

Till lastly she salutes the Point of Sunderland,

And leaves our dainty Lune to Amphitrite's care.

* * * * *

Then hey, they cry, for Lune, and hey for Lancashire,

That one high hill was heard to tell it to his brother."

There are streams which find their way, sometimes through devious and

uncertain channels, into Morecambe Bay, but they are little known even

to the inquisitive angler, who is always in search of new waters.

The local sportsmen in their wisdom periodically look for the run of

silver sea-trout, and keep their secret. The line of the bay from its

north-eastern corner, where the Kent comes in, and round to Walney

Island, is in the most literal sense irregular, for its indentations

and river tributaries are continuous. It forms the intake of what

Windermere and Coniston water send down to the sea, and it is,

moreover, the watery foreground from which the world-famed scenery

of Westmorland and Cumberland may be finely viewed. At Carnforth and

Silverdale the outlook in this direction is unrivalled; Fairfield,

Helvellyn, and Red Screes loom in the clouds or stand clear against

the sky afar, and along the shores of the Bay are nestling towns and

villages, wooded knolls and slopes, cottages, farms, and, always behind

them, that wonderful amphitheatre, tier upon tier, of mountain.

[Illustration: THE LIZA AT GILLERTHWAITE.]

[Illustration: THE LIZA FLOWING INTO ENNERDALE WATER (_p. 297_).]

In pre-railway days the journey from Lancaster to Ulverston was

something of an adventure, always exciting, not only on account of the

scenery brought under review, but because of the absolute danger of

the shifting channels that had to be crossed. The coach was invariably

joined at Hestbank (a cliff about three miles from the county town) by

guides, whose duty it was to be up to date with the last man[oe]uvres

of the quicksands, and to be ready with safe crossing places. These

guides were an old institution, and were originally appointed and paid

as retainers by the Prior of Cartmel. When the downfall came, and there

was no longer an abbey treasure-chest to fall back upon, the Duchy of

Lancaster paid the wages. It used to be said that few of those who got

their living by "following the sands" died in their beds. Nevertheless,

the calling of guide was kept in the same family for generations. The

danger of this passage of the sands was long ago put into a distich--

"The Kent and the Keer

Have parted many a good man and his mear."

Some of the channels, it was said, were never two days together in the

same place. The Keer mentioned in the old couplet was very treacherous,

and was always carefully sounded before the coach ventured to cross.

Sand tracks had to be staked out with furze-bushes, as the channel of

a river is buoyed. Perilous difficulties were apprehended when nearing

the Cartmel tongue of the Kent; the Leven sands beyond Cartmel and

Ulverston were the worst of all. The poet Wordsworth told Mrs. Hemans,

according to the lady's own letter, that he admired her exploit in

crossing the Ulverston sands as a deed of derring-do, and as a decided

proof of taste; and he truly added that the lake scenery is never seen

to such advantage as after the passage of what he calls its majestic

barrier.

Before arriving at the Lake district we might in farewell turn our

faces to the south, standing in imagination at Silverdale. There in

the picture are the Wharton Crags, with houses great and small amongst

their wooded feet; and then there are Bolton-le-Sands, Hestbank,

Poulton-le-Sands (which to all intents and purposes is Morecambe),

Heysham, and Lancaster Bay. It is a journey of twenty-six miles by

rail from Lancaster to Ulverston, and the greater part of the distance

is close to the shores of Morecambe Bay. The traveller going north,

therefore, has the sea laving the tract to his left, and always, as

an alternative prospect, rock, wood, stream, bushy dales and retiring

glens to the right. From the sea the fishermen obtain great store of

shrimp and flat fish. There are border guard-houses, such as Arnside

Tower; and in reaching Hawes Tarn (which is said to be affected somehow

by the rise and fall of the tide) groves of larch and pine, with a

plenteous undergrowth of gorse and ling, offer themselves to the view.

Picturesque Holme Island, at the mouth of the Kent, and the ruins of

Peel Castle on the islet of that name, enter into the picture in other

directions.

The river /Kent/, upon whose left bank the town of Kendal is

situated, must not long delay our round of the streams that await

introduction. It gives name to Kentmere village, and to the reservoir,

or tarn, fed by the beck springing from the mountain bearing, in memory

of the Roman road which neared its loftiest point, the very familiar

name of High Street. There is also Kentmere Hall, remnant of one of the

peel towers, and birthplace of Bernard Gilpin, the almost forgotten

Apostle of the North in the dangerous times of Mary and Elizabeth,

and after whom a parallel stream westward is called. The Kent, like

the Mint from Grayrigg Forest, and the Sprint running down the middle

of Long Sleddale--like, indeed, unnumbered becks on every hand in the

whole district--is of the rapid order, abounding in boulders, shingly

strands, deep channels between banks of imperishable rock, opening

pools and pebbly shallows, haunts of trout and of the anglers who

understand their ways and know the seasons when salmonidæ should be

ascending from the salt water.

[Illustration: CONISTON WATER (_p. 294_).]

Her Majesty Catherine Parr, who had the good fortune to escape the

peril of burning as a heretic, and the loving attention which was fatal

to other wives of Bluff Harry, was born on the banks of the Kent, in

the castle whose ruins are a prominent object in the scenery of which

Kendal is the centre. Wordsworth sketches it in happy terms:--

"A straggling burgh, of ancient charter proud,

And dignified by battlements and towers

Of a stern castle, mouldering on the brow

Of a green hill."

Shakespeare and others refer to Kendal in connection with an industry

established by the Flemings, who settled there under Edward III.

They became famous for their woollens, and their special "line" was

the cloth termed "Kendals" in trade parlance, and "Kendal-green" by

the outlaws and their critics. This was the colour of the clothes

worn by the "three misbegotten knaves" whose exploits upon Falstaff

were denounced by Prince Henry as lies "gross as a mountain, open,

palpable." The foresters' cloth made by the Flemings was deservedly

popular; but cotton superseded woollens in the last century, and this

in time gave place to other textile fabrics.

The /Gilpin/ flows into the head of the long and crooked estuary

a mile or so away from the mouth of the Kent river; and, further south,

the viaduct carrying the railway to Grange crosses from Arnside. The

isolated conical hill, Castle Head (or Castle Hill), is prettily

brightened by foliage, and it is a significant survival of the old

landmarks. The waves used to wash the base of this now high and dry

eminence, for the plain traversed by the river WINSTER is mostly land

reclaimed from the sea at different times, but most extensively for

the construction of the railway. Holme Island is opposite and near the

mouth of the Winster, and has not been inaptly described as a marine

paradise made by the art and industry of man from a rude, isolated rock

upon which previously nothing better than whins and brambles struggled

for precarious roothold. The causeway which joins this beautiful little

realm of a few acres to the mainland makes it an island only in name,

but the name abides. Upon the Cartmel peninsula is the wooded domain of

Holker Hall, which was the favourite autumnal resort of the late Duke

of Devonshire.

* * * * *

The much more spacious peninsula of Furness--with Ulverston as its

central town, the great docks and shipbuilding yards of Barrow marking

modern progress, and the ruins of Furness Abbey pointing to a distant

past--is divided from Cartmel by the estuary of the Leven. Leven

from our point of consideration means Windermere and entrance to

the unchanging beauty of Lakeland. The river Leven, however, is but

a conclusion; in other words, it is the final link of the chain of

water-pictures which have inspired many a poet; and to arrive at the

first we must leave for a moment the sands of Morecambe Bay and take

a new departure away beyond Grasmere, where the river /Rothay/

(or Rotha) is formed by a congregation of murmuring becks or gills.

One of the feeders of the Rothay comes from the tiny Codale Tarn and

the larger Easedale Tarn, well known to tourists from the rattling

little waterfall, Sourmilk Force. Codale lies pretty high in the world,

rising to an altitude considerably over 2,000 feet. Easedale is a basin

somewhat down hill, and is in these days much better known than when

Wordsworth strolled beside its outpouring stream, and confessed to

having composed thousands of verses in the solitude of the vale. The

conspicuous headland of Helm Crag is an essential part of the scenery,

and it is climbed for the sake of the view over Grasmere, Windermere,

Esthwaite Tarn, Helvellyn, and Fairfield.

[Illustration: ENNERDALE (_p. 298_).]

It may be remarked that we are now in the region of tarns and pikes,

and the derivation of the former word, if not strictly correct, is

not unpoetical, for it is said to mean "a tear." This imaginative

investment reminds us of Wordsworth's declaration that the stream which

traverses Easedale is now and again as wild and beautiful as a brook

may be. The river Rothay, however, does not rely entirely upon this

immortalised brook, but it can fairly reckon upon what can be spared

from the tarns when the other gills fail in their shrunken currents.

In the valley is the village of Grasmere, sacred to Wordsworth's

cottage; and the church, containing a medallion of the author who sang

its "naked rafters intricately crossed," and whose grave and that of

members of his family, with Hartley Coleridge lying hard by, and a

memorial-stone to Clough, attract renewed streams of pilgrims. The

cottage is not far from the church, and it is now owned by trustees,

who keep it in order for the inspection of visitors. There is no

section of this district which is not beautiful, and the recurring

clumps of trees recall how the country was at one time alleged to be

so covered with wood that wild boars abounded. There was, and probably

is, a local saying that a squirrel could travel from Kendal to Keswick

without once touching the ground.

It was at this cottage that Wordsworth first set up housekeeping, and

many and distinguished were his visitors to Grasmere. It had been

previously a rustic inn under the prophetic sign of the "Dove and Olive

Bough"; and upon about £100 a year the poet contrived to entertain

relays of visitors, amongst them Southey, Coleridge, and Scott. It was,

perhaps of necessity, a teetotal cottage, and it was here (according

to report) that Sir Walter, after dinner, used to pretend that he was

going for a meditative stroll, and resort to the public-house for

a draught of what was best. Until recent years the descendant of a

certain publican--who was said to have given Scott away by addressing

him, as he and Wordsworth walked up, with, "Ah, Master Scott, you're

early to-day for your drink"--was pointed out as an inhabitant of

the village; but there is some doubt about this pretty story, as Sir

Walter only visited Wordsworth for one day while he resided at the

cottage, and then it was a call in company with Davy, on an occasion

when they ascended Helvellyn together. On the whole, the Lake district

must remain a most temperate region, for it was reported that on the

Christmas day of so recent a year as 1896 a party of young men who

called at the most elevated public-house in England were the first

customers the landlord had seen for six weeks.

The Rothay courses south, a short length between the village and the

mere. Writ large in literary associations, and a household word amongst

English-speaking peoples, Grasmere is but a mile long, and nothing like

so broad at its widest part, but it is a precious gem in a setting

where all is worthy. Gray, whose prose descriptions of Lakeland are

passed on from writer to writer, rejoiced exceedingly because not a

single red tile, and no staring gentleman's house (meaning probably no

gentleman's staring house) broke in upon the repose of the unsuspected

paradise. The paradise is not any longer unsuspected; it is public

property; but there are still left the eternal hills, Grasmere water

hollowed in their bosom, the small bays and miniature promontories, the

soft turf green as an emerald, trees, hedges, cattle, pastures, and

corn-land--items of description that may in a varying degree apply to

almost every one of these famous sheets of Lakeland water. In truth,

there is no better travelled ground in the three kingdoms than this;

and it may be assumed once for all that its general attractions are

known to the reader, and that we are free to proceed with our purpose

of showing the part borne by the rivers as connecting ways, and systems

of supply and relief for the lakes.

The river Rothay does precisely what Wordsworth did: it moves from

Grasmere to Rydal, flowing along the base of Loughrigg Fell, avoiding

the terrace and curving up towards the "Wishing Gate" to the western

point of Rydal Water. From any of the paths which conduct downwards

the course of the Rothay is brightly and clearly mapped. We need not

pause at Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's last residence, nor at the rock

which is remembered as his favourite seat, nor at Rydal Hall and the

shade-giving trees of its park, nor follow the beck to the little

tumbles of water named Rydal Falls, nor stroll the half mile which

would bring us to Fox How, the holiday retreat of Arnold of Rugby.

Amongst the trees in the so-called Rydal forest there are oaks that

must often have given pleasure to Wordsworth in his rambles; and the

beck which is always scurrying to the Rothay receives its impetus from

the steepness of its journey from the mountain--

"Down Rydal Cove from Fairfield's side."

On past Ambleside, which it leaves untouched to the left, the Rothay

proceeds, with greetings from Rydal Water to busy Windermere.

Ambleside, though it has no immediate lake view, is not without its

water effects, both heard and seen when the swollen little tributary

gives power to Stock Ghyll Force, a very respectable fall of some

seventy feet. Every visitor to Ambleside pays homage to this romantic

termination of a delightful walk through a sylvan enclosure. Ambleside

is nowadays practically connected with the lake by Waterhead and the

extended occupation of the flat; and a short distance above the head

of the lake is the junction of the Brathay and the Rothay. The former,

like the latter, is in intimate relations with lakelet and feeder, and,

in truth, cuts an important figure by its drainage of Great and Little

Langdale, its reception of sundry gills from the dominating pikes which

seldom allow themselves to be forgotten in the Windermere county, its

inclusion of Little Langdale tarn and Elterwater, and its share in

keeping in action various waterfalls, of which Dungeon Ghyll Force and

the Mill Beck Cascades are the best. The neighbourhood elicited the

warmest admiration from Professor Wilson, who said that sweeter stream

scenery with richer foreground and loftier background was nowhere to be

seen within the four seas. Of the three lakelets he preferred the small

tarn on Loughrigg Fell--

"By grandeur guarded in its loveliness."

The two rivers have time and space to combine in a united volume before

fairly entering Windermere. It is strange to notice the exaggerated

idea entertained by those who have never explored Lakeland as to the

dimensions of such waters as Windermere, Ullswater, and Derwentwater.

They have read so much and so often about them that they have become

visions of vast distances, inland seas upon which storm-bound mariners

have to run to port for shelter when the stormy winds do blow. Yet

Windermere, the first of the lakes in dimensions, is not more than

ten miles and a half in length, and, except in its broadest section,

opposite Windermere and Bowness towns, less than a mile broad. Its real

greatness lies in its exquisite islets or holms, and in the commanding

views which receive so much charm from the intervening foreground of

water, however limited in extent it may be.

Two of the feeders of Windermere, and they the principal ones,

have been mentioned in their geographical order; and there remain

to complete the category at least two others. /Troutbeck/,

which is said to be one of the few streams in all Lakeland that are

of small value to the angler, comes in from the north-east down a

beautiful valley, an easy excursion distance either from Ambleside for

the higher, or from Windermere for the lower, portions; and midway,

under Wansfell Pike, lies Troutbeck village, the most picturesque

conceivable, as it was also when Christopher North wrote of the

scattered dwellings "all dropped down where the painter and the poet

would have wished to plant them, on knolls and in dells, on banks

and braes, and below tree-crested rocks--and all bound together in

picturesque confusion by old groves of ash, oak, and sycamore, and by

flower-gardens and fruit-orchards rich as those of the Hesperides."

There to the north-east, over against Kentmere Reservoir, Ill Bell

offers the temptation of an ascent of 2,476 feet, and Troutbeck valley

is preferred as on the whole the easiest and pleasantest route.

[Illustration: THE GRETA BETWEEN THRELKELD AND KESWICK (_p. 298_).]

Esthwaite Water, one of the smaller lakes, and a satellite of

Windermere, is also narrow in proportion to length, and a matter of

four miles removed to the west. No one is heard to rave about its

homely shores and indifferent setting, but it comes under frequent

notice from its nearness to Hawkshead, a quaint little market-town

with a notable church, and a grammar school, one of whose forms is

preserved with Wordsworth's initials cut in it. Esthwaite Water,

however, is bound to receive its due in these pages, as the helpmeet

of Windermere through the medium of the short and business-like stream

/Cunsey Beck/. At the point where this feeder is lost in the

lake, though it is not its deepest part, the angler may reckon upon the

miscellaneous sport which is yielded by the lakes generally. In the

deeper waters (and the plumb-line makes the bottom 240 feet at the

maximum depth) the char, only to be found in a few localities in the

three kingdoms, occurs. Its capture with rod and line is sport of a

kind, but it is inferior in this respect to the trout. At a time when

the available rivers for the angler who cannot afford to be his own

riparian owner are becoming fewer and fewer, it is a little remarkable

that these countless becks, tarns, full-sized streams and lakes are

not more highly prized by the fisherman-tourist. It is true that

Windermere, from one cause and another, has of late years fallen into

disrepute, but under the operations of a local association there has

been distinct improvement, though steamer traffic must always seriously

reduce the value of such fishing haunts.

[Illustration: THE DERWENT, WITH KESWICK IN THE DISTANCE (_p. 299_).]

[Illustration: THE DERWENT AT CROSTHWAITE (_p. 298_).]

Very pleasing to the eye are the undulating shores, and the green

of the grass, and the foliage of Windermere at its southern end. At

Lakeside it is so narrow that it is hard to put your finger on the spot

where the /Leven/ begins, though, for want of a better, Newby

Bridge, as shown in the illustration (p. 284), will serve. The Leven,

as before remarked, is the last link of our Windermere chain, but after

Rothay and Brathay, and the becks with their forces and falls, we need

give it but the consideration which is due to an outlet bearing to the

sea such waters as Windermere does not want, through the long tortuous

channel in the sandy wastes of Morecambe Bay.

* * * * *

The /Crake/ river falls into the Leven so near its mouth that it

might almost claim to be a tributary. But it is independent and apart

in its character and mission. It belongs to Coniston Water, as Leven

belongs to Windermere; and the commonplace scenery of its short course,

with its trio of bridges, is another mark of similarity. All that is

noticeable around Coniston lake is at the upper portion. The steamer

pier is at Waterhead, the village and station are half a mile inland;

the Old Man of Coniston (2,633 feet), whom generations of climbers

have been proud to attack, is in the same direction, and Yewdale and

its tarn, howes, crags and fells are towards the north. The coaching

traveller may feast his eyes upon the lancet-shaped water, some five

miles long from Schoolbeck at the upper or from the Crake at the lower

terminal, and of a uniform width of about half a mile; while the upward

trip from Lake Bank affords clear and happy views of the mountains of

which the Old Man is the irrepressible head. Off the high road opposite

Coniston Hall, a farmhouse once the Westmorland seat of the Le Fleming

family, is Brantwood, associated with the names of Gerald Massey, poet

and self-made man, of Linton the engraver, and of Ruskin, great as any

of those giants of literature whose names are linked with Lakeland.

* * * * *

The river /Duddon/ as a thing of beauty has often been

overpraised, no less an authority than Wordsworth setting the example

when, in his "Scenery of the Lakes," he says it may be compared, such

and so varied are its beauties, with any river of equal length in any

country. Yet there are streams in Wales, and even in the north of

England, which their admirers would not hesitate to rank above it. It

rises upon Wrynose Fell, on the confines of Westmorland, Cumberland,

and Lancashire, and for twenty-five miles or so is the boundary

between the two latter counties. It possesses, no doubt, a certain

picturesqueness, having its wild mountain phases, its torrents roaring

around obstructive rocks, its passage through fertile meadows, and at

last its slow ending through the everlasting sands to an open outlet

into the Irish Sea at the north end of Walney Island.

Donnerdale, with Seathwaite as its most notable centre, has received

much attention because Wordsworth (from whom we cannot, and would not

if we could, escape in Lakeland) made it the subject of thirty-four

sonnets, dedicated to his brother Christopher. The poet evidently

set himself down to glorify this particular district by prolonged

observation--

"... For Duddon, long-beloved Duddon, is my theme."

In the course of his sonnets he sings its dwarf willows and ferny

brakes; its sullen moss and craggy mound; its green alders, ash and

birch trees, and sheltering pines; its hamlets under verdant hills;

its barns and byres, and spouting mills. Nor does he fail to celebrate

the gusts that lash its matted forests. When the gale becomes too

obstreperous, then, reckless of angry Duddon sweeping by, the poet

turns him to the warm hearth, to

"Laugh with the generous household heartily

At all the merry pranks of Donnerdale."

The only pollution he would admit in this innocent stream was the

occasional sheep-washing by the dalesmen. In his notes Wordsworth

recommends the traveller who would be most gratified with the Duddon

not to approach it from its source, as is done in the sonnets, nor from

its termination, but from Coniston over Walna Scar, first descending

into a little circular valley, a collateral compartment of the long,

winding vale through which the river flows. In fact, Wordsworth's

notes are a very excellent guide to the district, and Thorne, who was

a first-hand authority upon rivers, confessedly took the poet as his

cicerone when he followed the stream from the very top of Wrynose,

marking even the bed of moss through which the water oozes at the

source. With a poet's licence, Wordsworth likens his river finally to

the Thames; but though the Duddon widens considerably at Ulpha, it

loses its beauty before it finishes its career.

[Illustration: DERWENTWATER AND SKIDDAW (_p. 299_).]

[Illustration: DERWENTWATER FROM SCAFELL.]

* * * * *

Following the coast around Haverigg Point, whence the sand of the coast

becomes only the decent margin which makes the shore pleasant, we pause

at the three-branched estuary of the Esk, the creeks, right, left, and

middle, being formed by the Esk, the Mite, and the Irt. This is all

majestic country. Our Cumberland Esk hails from Scafell, whose pike of

3,210 feet is the highest ground in England. Upper Eskdale may also

be spoken of in the superlative degree for its marked grandeur. No

mean skill in mountaineering is required to reach Wastdale, Langdale,

and Borrowdale from the different paths. The Esk Falls are formed by

the junction of becks from Bowfell and Scafell. The fine cataract, Cam

Spout, descends from Mickledore; and Hardknott, which is one of the

lesser heights, has a Roman ruin spoken of as a castle. There are,

moreover, Baker Force and Stanley Gill amongst the waterfalls. Little

need be said about the second-named river, the Mite, except that it

passes the fell, the railway station, and the castle, bearing each the

name of Muncaster.

[Illustration: THE COCKER FLOWING FROM CRUMMOCK WATER (_p. 300_).]

The river /Irt/ is the outlet of Wastwater, a gloomy lake three

and a half miles long and half a mile broad, and of immense depth. It

is a tradition in Lakeland that this piece of water is never frozen,

but this is clearly an error, for there is a distinct record by the

learned brother of Sir Humphry Davy that it was partly covered with

ice in the great frost of 1855. The desolate crags around the lake are

answerable for much of its severe character, and perhaps it was on this

account that the Lakers used to visit it. Waugh, the Lancashire poet,

encountered a local gossip who was full of memories of Wordsworth,

Wilson, De Quincey, and Sedgwick, and the man very much amused his

listener by describing Wordsworth as a very quiet old man, who had

no pride, and very little to say. Christopher North was naturally

a horse of another colour, being full of his gambols, and creating

great excitement by his spirited contests with one of the Cumberland

wrestlers. Wastwater is often violently agitated by heavy squalls from

the south, which is somewhat of an anomaly, seeing that the boundary

on that side is a mighty natural rampart named the Screes, so called

from the loose nature of the scarps, which tend to make some of the

neighbouring mountains practically inaccessible.

[Illustration: THE COCKER AT KIRKGATE (_p. 300_).]

* * * * *

Ennerdale Water, a few miles to the north, receives its first influx

from the river /Liza/, locally known as Lissa Beck. It is a

lovely valley, and there is no overcrowding of population. The last

house is the farmhouse of Gillerthwaite, and further progress upwards

to the mountains is by footpath only. This is in truth the only excuse

for mentioning the Liza, though it might serve as an opportunity

for singing the praises of the Great Gable, formerly known as the

Green Gable. It is one of the most conspicuous of mountain heads,

and its frowning peak meets the view from great distances. Pillar

Mountain, which is nearer Ennerdale Plain, is almost exactly the

same height--2,927 feet, which is about seven yards less than the

Gable--and it has a pinnacled and abrupt descent almost to the confines

of the lake. Ennerdale Water at one time had the character of being the

best fishing resort in the Lakes. "The Anglers' Inn" is not, as may be

supposed, an establishment of modern growth, for it is bepraised in the

literature of forty years ago. The bold headland projecting into the

water at the western end was more than half a century back well known

as Angler Fell, for a reason which the term itself explains, and at

that time one of the curiosities of the lake was a collection of loose

stones which, according to tradition, had been placed at the head of

the shoal by unknown mortal or supernatural hands. Anyhow, the heap was

always pointed out as a mystery until a scientific visitor explained it

away by pronouncing it to be the remnant of an old moraine.

Though not so deep as Wastwater, Ennerdale Water can boast its

twenty-four fathoms, and the familiar statement is made as to its

immunity from ice, the fact being that it is only in the severest

frosts that these uncommonly deep lakes are affected. At the lower end

the river Ehen takes up the duty of carrying the overflow to the sea,

describing a long and semicircular course that from opposite St. Bees

becomes by quick swerve a journey due south. The valley thence is of a

pastoral character, and is perhaps best known from the establishment on

its banks (long before the Cleator Iron Works sent up their smoke) of

the little town of Egremont, with its ruins of a strong fortress. It

was this that suggested the Cumberland tradition told by Wordsworth in

the poem "The Horn of Egremont Castle."

* * * * *

"Scarcely ever have I seen anything so fine as the Vale of St. John,"

Southey exclaims; and the Valley of St. John which is named more

than once in Scott's "Bridal of Triermain" is always accepted as the

same. It is in the country of Helvellyn, of Thirlmere, of the river

/Greta/, and Keswick is its capital. The Greta, however, is

known by sectional names, even after it issues from the mere, which has

the distinction of being, while one of the minor lakes, the highest

in altitude. The other lakes are generally something between 200 and

300 feet above sea level. This is over 500 feet, and its precipitous

borderings here and there are in accord with its unusual elevation.

The stream which has to make so steep a descent before it is received

by the Derwent is generally spoken of as St. John's Beck as it trends

northward through the namesake vale, Naddle Fell on the one side,

and Great Dodd on the other, keeping watch and ward, deeply scored;

Saddleback always looming grimly ahead beyond Threlkeld, with Skiddaw

as near neighbour. At this stage the Glenderamakin makes conjunction

from the east, and, united, the streams become the Greta. From

Threlkeld it takes a new course, westerly to Keswick, and its scenery

is of the highest beauty as it hurries past Latrigg, otherwise known as

Skiddaw's Cub. Greta in this short length of established identity is

not to be denied, as Greta Bridge, Greta Hall (the home of Southey for

forty years), and Greta Bank testify. Half a mile from Keswick, over

the bridge, is Crosthwaite, the old parish church in whose God's acre

Southey was buried.

The tourist in Lakeland will bring back his special impression of

"the very finest view," according to his individual tastes and,

maybe, temperament. A well-ordered ballot would probably, however,

place at the head of the list that prospect--never to be adequately

described--from Castlerigg top. For water there are Bassenthwaite

and Derwentwater; for giant mountain forms, Skiddaw and Saddleback;

for cloud-capped and shadowy fells, the highlands of Buttermere and

Crummock, with "the mountains of Newlands shaping themselves as

pavilions; the gorgeous confusion of Borrowdale just revealing its

sublime chaos through the narrow vista of its gorge," as De Quincey

described them; and for the softer toning and the human interest, the

valley of the Greta and the goodly town of Keswick are in the nearer

survey. Out of town the river becomes moderately tranquil, and enters

the Derwent at the northernmost point of Keswick Lake or Derwentwater.

Derwentwater is the most oval in outline of any of the lakes, and it

has the bijou measurements of three miles in length, by a mile and a

half in breadth. Foreshores of foliaged slopes or herbaged margins

give play to an imposing presentment of cliff and wooded knoll, with

dark masses of fantastic mountains behind; the clear water is studded

with small islands of varying form and bulk, and in its centre is St.

Herbert's Isle, sacred to the memory of a "saintly eremite" whose

ambition it was to die at the moment when his beloved Cuthbert of

Durham expired, so that their souls might soar heavenwards in company.

After hot summers a phenomenal floating islet, of bog-like character

and covered with vegetation, rises at a point about 150 yards from

the shore near the far-famed waters coming down from Lodore. Scafell

is somewhat a far cry from Keswick, but one of the most impressively

comprehensive views of Derwentwater, as of Windermere and Wastwater in

a lesser degree, is to be obtained from the summit.

The river /Derwent/, known alternatively as the Grange, rises

at the head of Borrowdale, flows along the middle of the valley,

and enters the lower part of the lake near the Falls of Lodore.

Issuing from the further extremity, augmented by the Greta, it flows

north-westwards to pay tribute to Bassenthwaite Water, which, after

Derwentwater and its strong features of interest, is somewhat of an

anti-climax; yet it is a fine lake some four miles in length, with

woods on the Wythop shore, and Armathwaite Hall at its foot commanding

a full view of the lake. The Derwent, renewing its river-form on the

outskirts of this wooded estate, turns to the west, and arrives at

Cockermouth, so named from the river which here joins it from the south.

Buttermere and Crummock Water, with Little Loweswater up in the

high fells, are the western outposts of Lakeland, and they must be

considered as the starting-point of the river /Cocker/. They are

a small chain of themselves, equidistant, and in a line from south-east

to north-west. Loweswater is of least account, and not in eager

request by tourists; but it is the moving spirit of Holme Force, in a

wood beside which the explorer of the lake passes; and the lower end,

where the small stream connects with Crummock Water, is not without

pleasant scenery. Kirkgate, about half a mile south and half-way on the

connecting stream, is a favourite resting-point. In the illustration on

page 297 the artist has eloquently described the river Cocker in its

hill solitudes, and in its early life, when a single arch is enough to

span its modest channel; the plain whitewashed cottage in its sheltered

nook, the straggling trees, the sheep fresh from the higher grazings,

are very typical of these remote districts.

Crummock Water, the largest of this trio, is somewhat out of the beaten

track, but there are boats upon it, and walls of mountain rise on

either side. The tourist generally spends the time possible for the

casual excursionist at Scale Force, on a feeder of the Cocker after it

has cleared the lake. It is a sheer fall of over a hundred feet when

there is plenty of water. A kindred cataract in the neighbourhood is

Sour Milk Force, the second waterfall of that name mentioned in this

chapter. The main river, having sped through the meres and the meadows

that separate them, passes through the Vale of Lorton, and enters

the Derwent near the castle ruins at Cockermouth. The town was so

important, through its baronial fortress, of which the gateway remains,

that the Roundhead troops gave it the fatal honour of a passing visit,

and there an end of the castle, which they promptly dismantled. But

Wordsworth was born here, and the garden-terrace of his home was by

Derwent side. The railway frequently crosses the Derwent between

Cockermouth and Workington, keeping it on the whole close company

through a generally level and ordinary country. Workington is in these

days a prosperous seaport; yet we must not forget that Mary Queen of

Scots landed here on a May day in 1568, and Wordsworth tells us how--

"With step prelusive to a long array

Of woes and degradations hand in hand--

Weeping captivity and shuddering fear

Stilled by the ensanguined block of Fotheringay."

/William Senior./

[Illustration: _Photo: W. J. Munro, Annan._

THE ANNAN NEAR ANNAN TOWN (_p. 318_).]

RIVERS OF THE SOLWAY FIRTH.

The Firth--A Swift Tide. The /Eden/: The Eamont--Eden

Hall--Armathwaite--John Skelton--Wetheral and Corby Castle--The

Caldew and the Petteril--Greystoke Castle--Carlisle, its Romance

and History--_Serva Pactum_--"Kinmont Willie" and "bauld

Buccleuch"--Executions of Jacobites--The Carlisle of To-day.

The /Sark/: Gretna Green. The /Liddel/--Hermitage Water and

Castle. The /Esk/: The Tarras--Gilnockie Tower--Carlenrig and

Johnnie Armstrong--Young Lochinvar--Kirtle Water and its Tragic

Story. The /Annan/: The Land of the Bruces--Thomas Carlyle.

The /Nith/: Dumfries--Burns's Grave--Robert Bruce and the Red

Cumyn--Drumlanrig and Caerlaverock Castles--The Cairn and its

Associations--The New Abbey Pow and Sweetheart Abbey. The /Dee/:

Douglas Tongueland--Threave Castle. The /Cree/: Newton Stewart--The

"Cruives of Cree." The /Bladenoch/: The Wigtown Martyrs.

It is some years since we last saw the Solway Firth, but we well

remember the long stretch of naked sand so quickly covered by the

galloping tide, and the giant shape of Criffell guarding the whole

expanse of water from out which it appeared to rise, so that the

prophecy ascribed to Thomas the Rhymer, "In the evil day coming safety

shall nowhere be found except atween Criffell and the sea," seemed in

truth a hard saying. Our abode was a solitary house on the northern

bank, and, save for the wild ebb and flow of the waters, all was peace.

On the right was the open sea, not much ploughed of passing keel;

straight across was the indented Cumberland shore, well tended and

fertile, but not more so than the inland from our cottage. How plainly

it comes back as one takes up the pen!

"Rank-swelling Annan, Lid with curled streams,

The Esks, the Solway where they lose their names":

so sings quaint and courtly Drummond of Hawthornden. It is before these

and the other Solway tributaries "lose their names" that we wish to

write of them, touch on their beauty, and repeat again some of the

brave tales, weird traditions, and choice songs that hallow their

fields. And first as to the Firth itself. The Solway opens so rapidly

on the sea that it is hard to draw the line between it and the ocean.

We shall not try. The Cumberland side falls rapidly off, and presents a

larger coast to the open water. Its rivers are not numerous, but in the

Eden it possesses one of great interest and importance. The coast-line

of the three counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, and Wigtown forms

the northern shore. It has many streams. We do not go beyond the Cree,

which runs into Wigtown Bay, and of which we shall count the Bladenoch

a tributary.

[Illustration: THE EDEN, THE PETTERIL, AND THE CALDEW.]

The Solway is noted all the world over for its swift tide: "Love

flows like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide," says Scott in one

of his best-known lines. A spring-tide, urged by a breeze from the

south-west, speeds along at a rate of ten miles an hour. A deep, hoarse

roar is heard twenty miles away, a swirling mist glittering with a

number of small rainbows is seen on the sea, a huge wave of foam

comes into sight, and this resolves itself into a volume of water six

feet high--the vanguard of the ocean itself, which follows, a great

mass in violent perturbation. The Solway near Annan is crossed by a

long railway bridge. Some years ago this bridging of the Firth was

considered a remarkable engineering feat, but now that you rattle in

express trains over the Tay and the Forth, the Solway viaduct seems a

very trumpery affair. In the old days, when communication was slow and

costly, and when, maybe, folk were bolder, how strong the temptation to

make a dash for it across the sand! And yet how dangerous! Dense fogs

would arise of a sudden, quicksands abounded, and had a nasty trick

of shifting their place ever and anon. How easy to miscalculate time

or distance! Imagine the feeling of the unfortunate traveller, midway

across, when there fell on his ear the sullen roar of the advancing

tide! Fatal accidents were frequent, especially to those returning

from Cumberland fairs with their brains heated and their judgment

confused by hours of rustic dissipation. You remember the graphic

account in "Redgauntlet" of Darsie Latimer's mishap on the northern

shore, and his rescue by the Laird of the Lakes on his great black

steed. Scott in his novel gives a vivid account of the salmon-fishing

on the Solway: how horsemen with barbed spears dashed at full gallop

into the receding tide, and speared the fish with wondrous skill. This

picturesque mode is long out of date, and stake nets, which, when the

tide is out, stretch like huge serpents over the sand, are now the

principal engines of capture. The Solway has somewhat dwindled of late

epochs; geologists report it as receding seaward at the rate of a mile

a century, which is lightning speed for that species of alteration--but

'twas ever a hasty Firth!

* * * * *

The /Eden/ is our first river. During its course of thirty-five

miles it has much variety of pleasant scenery; whereof let Wordsworth

tell:--

"Eden! till now thy beauty had I viewed

By glimpses only, and confess with shame

That verse of mine, whate'er its varying mood,

Repeats but once the sound of thy sweet name:

Yet fetched from Paradise, that honour came,

Rightfully borne; for Nature gives thee flowers

That have no rival among British bowers,

And thy bold rocks are worthy of their fame."

It rises in the backbone of England, on the borders of Westmorland, in

Yorkshire. We do not loiter in the long street of Kirkby Stephen, or

dilate on the many antiquities of Appleby, though in its Westmorland

course it flows by both places. On the Cumberland border it is joined

by the Eamont, which rises nine miles off in romantic Ullswater--a

lake renowned for the remarkable combination of savage and cultivated

scenery on its borders. A mile or two further, and the Eden winds

through a noble park, wherein stands Eden Hall. Here, since the time

of Henry VI., have lived the "martial and warlike family of the

Musgraves," as Camden calls them. They acquired the estate by marriage

from the heirs of one Robert Turpe, who had it under Henry III.; and

how far back _his_ ancestors go--why, 'twould gravel the College

of Heralds themselves to tell! Thus Eden Hall has been held by the

same race from time immemorial. Not this alone has made the family

famous, but the possession of a famous goblet, called "The Luck of the

Musgraves," which they got, so the story goes, in this fashion. There

stood in the garden St. Cuthbert's Well, of the most exquisite spring

water. Hither repaired the Seneschal ("butler" some prosaically dub

him; but the other sounds much finer, and is at least as accurate) to

replenish his vessels. 'Twas a fine summer evening, and he found the

green crowded with fairies, dancing and flirting "and carrying on most

outrageous," quite forgetting they had left their magic glass on the

brink of the well. The Seneschal promptly impounded it, as a waif and

stray, for the benefit of the lord of the manor. The fairies implored

and threatened in vain, and at length they vanished, uttering the

prophecy--

"If that glass either break or fall,

Farewell the luck of Eden Hall."

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

EDEN HALL.]

How to doubt this story when the goblet is there to speak for itself?

It is of green-coloured glass, ornamented with foliage and enamelled in

different colours. Spite of all, some affirm it a church vessel of the

fourteenth or fifteenth century, and hint that it came into the family

in a more commonplace if equally high-handed way. How far the fame of

that goblet has travelled! Uhland, the German poet, makes it the theme

of a romantic ballad whose spirit Longfellow's rendering admirably

preserves. It tells how young Musgrave wantonly smashed the goblet, and

how instant ruin fell on him and his house. All poetic licence! The

Musgraves are still lords of Eden Hall.

[Illustration: THE WEIR AT ARMATHWAITE.]

[Illustration: WETHERAL BRIDGE (_p. 306_).]

Ten miles further down the stream we come to Armathwaite. The castle

thereof is a plain old tower modernised. Its charm lies in the

surroundings. There is a fine wooded walk by the river, which swirls

round a huge crag. Above the weir the stream swells out into a lake.

The weir itself is some four yards high and twenty long; its slope

does not approach the perpendicular; and though the Eden must needs

fall over it, it does so with a gentle grace quite in keeping with

its character. The place has its musty records: William Rufus built a

mill here. Here, too, the Benedictines had a religious house; but what

pleasant spot in England is without its religious house? The ancient

family of Skelton held the castle from the days of the second Richard;

and here most probably John Skelton, the poet--the best known, if not

most reputable, member of the race--was born about 1461. He took holy

orders, and was rector of Diss, in Norfolk, but lost this and other

appointments--from his improper conduct, said his superiors--rather

you fancy from his mad wit, which lampooned everything and everybody.

Three things he held in special horror: the mendicant friars, Lilly

the grammarian, and Cardinal Wolsey. And he found vulnerable points in

the red robe of the cardinal. "Why come ye not to Court?" is a bitter,

brutal, yet brilliant invective against the great statesman. He taunts

the English nobility that they dared not move--

"For dread of the mastiff cur,

For dread of the butcher's dog

Worrying them like a hog."

No doubt Wolsey's father _was_ a butcher, but his Eminence scarce cared

to have his memory jogged on the matter; no doubt the English nobles

_were_ afraid of the great prelate, but they would rather not be told

so. Thus, when vengeance threatened, Skelton found none to take his

part. With a mocking grin, you fancy, invoking the protection of the

very Church he had disgraced, he took sanctuary at Westminster, whence

not even Wolsey dared drag him forth. Here he is said to have amused

himself in inditing certain "Merrie Tales," accounts, it would seem, of

his own adventures.

We must find room for one of these stories from his student days.

He had made merry at Abingdon, near Oxford, where he had eaten

"salte meates." Returned to Oxford, he "dyd lye in an ine named the

'Tabere.'" At midnight he awoke with a most consuming thirst; he called

in succession on the "tappestere" (the quaint mediæval term for a

barmaid), "hys oste, hys ostesse, and osteler," but none would give him

ear--possibly the poet lacked regularity in his payments. "'Alacke,'

sayd Skelton, 'I shall perysh for lacke of drynke: what remedye!'" He

soon found one: he bellowed "fyer, fyer, fyer," so long and so loud

that presently the whole house was up and scurrying hither and thither

in excitement and alarm. Finding nothing, they finally asked the poet

where the fire was? The mad rogue, pointing to his open mouth and

parched tongue, implored, "fetch me some drynke to quench the fyer and

the heate and the driness in my mouthe." Our forefathers dearly loved

a joke even at their own expense. The honest folk of the "Tabere" were

amused rather than enraged. Mine host produced him of his best, and

at length even Skelton's thirst was quenched. Yet this madcap was a

man of genius. Erasmus spoke of him to Henry VIII. as "_Britannicarum

literarum decus et lumen_"; and if you can endure the obsolete and (one

must add) the coarse expressions, you will find in "The Tunnyng of

Elynour Running" the most remarkable picture in existence of low life

in late mediæval England.

But let us return to the Eden, which now enters the parish of Wetheral.

Not far from Wetheral Bridge the riverside is precipitous. Here, cut

in the face of the rock, forty feet above the water level, are three

curious cells known as "Wetheral Safeguards." Tradition affirms that

St. Constantine, younger son of an early Scots king, having excavated

them with his own hands, lived therein the pious life of a hermit. To

him was dedicated Wetheral Priory, whereof a mouldering gateway alone

survives the havoc of well-nigh a thousand years. The choicest of Eden

scenery is in this parish. There is Cotehill, with its sweet pastoral

aspect; Cotehill Island, fringed with trees, whose low-lying branches

continually sway to and fro in the stream; and Brackenbank, wherefrom

you best catch the prominent features of the surrounding country. We

think the pencil gives the aspect of such places better than the pen,

so we refer to our illustrations, and move on to Corby Castle in the

same parish, which tops a precipitous cliff overhanging the river.

From it you see far along the richly wooded banks. Do you wonder that

it "has been a gentleman's seat since the Conquest"? And yet, not to

be disdained of the most fastidious modern, for "the front of Corby

House is of considerable length and consists of a suite of genteel

apartments." And those delightful walks through the woods! There among

the trees by the edge of the stream is the Long Walk, best of all. The

reflection of the moon in the water on a calm summer evening is much

admired by amorous couples, who cannot understand, however, why the

Walk is called Long. If those same couples go up the winding stairway

cut in the rock, they will be chagrined to find that, despite its

wildly picturesque appearance, it leads to nothing more romantic than a

boathouse! Years ago some ingenious wit carved choice quotations from

the poets on the rocks and trees, and the name of the river suggested

many passages from Milton's account of Eden in "Paradise Lost"; but the

quotations were not appreciated by the rustics, who joyed in defacing

them. Edward II. gave the place to the Salkeld family, but it has

long been in the possession of the Howards. In Wetheral Church, among

many other monuments, is a touching one to the lady of the house,

commemorated by Wordsworth in the perfect lines beginning--

"Stretched on the dying mother's lap lies dead

Her new-born babe; dire ending of bright hope!"

We have now followed the Eden's course to Carlisle; there it is

joined by two tributaries, the Caldew and the Petteril, each of some

importance. The /Caldew/ rises on the eastern slope of Skiddaw.

Both it and its affluent, the Caldbeck, flow through the romantic

scenery of the Fells, and dash at quite a headlong pace down steep

declines, whereof Howk Fall is the most renowned. At Holt Close Bridge

the Caldew deserts the light of day altogether, but after four miles

of subterranean windings it "comes up smiling" (as one might say)

at Spout's Dub. The /Petteril/ comes from two headstreams in

Greystoke Park and by Penruddock, and has a course of some twenty miles

through pleasant woodland and meadow scenery. Near the Westmorland

border, on a steep eminence by its first headwater, stands Greystoke

Castle. The old castle was, during the Civil Wars in 1648, taken by

Lambert for the Parliament, and burned to the ground. The remains of

the battery he threw up are still called "Cromwell's Holes." This place

has long been in the possession of the Howards. The castle was widely

famed for its collection of curiosities, more or less authentic. Thus,

there were "a large white hat," said to have covered no less a head

than Thomas Becket's; and a picture of silk embroidery representing the

Crucifixion, worked by the royal hands of Mary Queen of Scots. A fire

in 1868 played sad havoc among these oddities; but you may still admire

the great park with its deer and its ponds, and the charming prospects

of the Lake mountains which you have from the castle windows.

[Illustration: /VIEW FROM BRACKENBANK, LOOKING TOWARDS COTEHILL/

(_p. 306_).

COTEHILL ISLAND.]

And now we are in Carlisle town--to-day a thriving, well-built, but,

after all, not very remarkable place. Here as elsewhere, romance

has fled, and prosaic comfort takes its place. "Merrie Carlisle" the

ballads call it. Do you wonder why? It was in the very centre of border

warfare; some eight miles north lay the Debatable Land--for centuries

a bone of contention between Scots and English. In frequent incursions

the Northman wasted the country far and near, and the warder, as he

looked from the Scots Gate--so they termed the northern port of the

citadel--could see robber bands moving here and there, and note the

country round dotted with fire and smoke; but against the strong walls

of Carlisle Castle they dashed themselves in vain. Here was a secure

haven of refuge--here at least was peace and comfort, whatever red

ruin wasted either border; nay, the town throve on the very disorder;

and the bullocks and horses were cheap and good, what need to inquire

too curiously whence they came? Far better to get and part with them

quickly and quietly and profitably. Even if the seller was a Scot, come

there in time of truce, so much more reason to make a profit out of

him. And then the merchants had everything to sell, from strong waters

to trinkets; so it was strange if the gentleman took much cash away

with him. A "merrie" town, in truth! In flowing lines Lydia Sigourney

has admirably touched off the place and its history:--

"How fair amid the depth of summer green

Spread forth thy walls, Carlisle! Thy castled heights

Abrupt and lofty; thy cathedral dome

Majestic and alone; thy beauteous bridge

Spanning the Eden.

* * * * *

"Old Time hath hung upon thy misty walls

Legends of festal and of warlike deeds,--

King Arthur's wassail-cup; the battle-axe

Of the wild Danish sea-kings; the fierce beak

Of Rome's victorious eagle: Pictish spear

And Scottish claymore in confusion mixed

With England's clothyard arrow."

[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE LONG WALK, CORBY CASTLE (_p. 307_).

ROCK STAIRWAY TO THE BOATHOUSE, CORBY CASTLE.]

Some of these legends are but half told or half sung. One scarcely

coherent, yet weird and powerful, ballad suggests an ancient, and but

for it forgotten, tragedy:--

"She's howket a grave by the light o' the moon.

The sun shines fair on Carlisle wa';

And there she's buried her sweet babe in,

And the lyon shall be lord of a'!"

We turn to the authentic, but scarce less tragic or romantic, history

to present three pictures from Carlisle's past. Edward I. in his last

Scots expedition halted here. The country on whose conquest he had

lavished blood and treasure for twenty years, which he had ground under

his heel again and again, had revolted yet again with a purpose as

fell as his own. When knighting the Prince of Wales, he had given a

great banquet, wherein two swans were introduced, "richly adorned with

gold network." On these he had made his son swear that fantastic yet

terrible vow to God and the swans (in accordance with the etiquette of

chivalry), that if he died leaving Scotland unconquered, his son would

boil his flesh from his bones and carry these with him to war against

the rebels. The king, though stricken with mortal sickness, was carried

north as far as Carlisle in a horse-litter. Here he pretended himself

recovered, hung his litter in the cathedral as an offering, and, with

terrible resolve, mounting his horse, moved onwards for a few miles.

Near where the Eden loses itself in the sands of the Solway, at the

little village of Burgh-on-the Sands, his strength completely gave way.

His dying eyes looked across the waters of the Solway on the land which

he had conquered so often in vain, and here the fierce old man made his

son renew his solemn oath, and soon all was over.

The new monarch was a man of softer mould. Turning with a shudder from

the task, he hurried back to the pleasures of London. Go to-day to

Westminster Abbey, and read the inscription on the old king's tomb:

"_Eduardus Primus Scotorum malleus hic est 1308 pactum serva_." Dean

Stanley thinks the last two words merely a moral maxim; others have

more reasonably taken it as a reminder to the son to keep his promise.

Moreover, it was provided that "once every two years the tomb was to

be opened, and the wax of the king's cerecloth renewed"; as if Edward

even in death had some work to do. The son, no doubt, meant some day or

other to fulfil his promise; but the day never dawned, and the voice

from the grave spoke in vain.

Our next picture is from the days of Good Queen Bess. In the year

1596 there was peace between England and Scotland, but that did not

prevent a little private marauding on the Borders. It was customary

for the wardens on either side to hold courts, and there settle their

differences. William Armstrong, of Kinmont--to be known to all time

as "Kinmont Willie"--a famous Scots freebooter, was present at one of

these courts. When it was over he rode away with some friends along

the north bank of the Liddel, scornfully heedless of the angry looks

of certain Englishmen, who had (you guess) lately suffered from his

depredations. By Border law there was truce till the next sunrise; but

the sight of Kinmont so slenderly guarded was too much for his southern

foes. A troop of two hundred pursued and caught him after a long chase,

and so our bold freebooter was laid safely by the heels in a strong

dungeon in Carlisle Castle. The feelings with which Scott of Buccleuch,

keeper of Liddesdale, received news of this are vigorously described in

the old ballad:--

"He has ta'en the table, wi' his hand

He garr'd the red wine spring on hie;

'Now, Christ's curse on my head,' he said,

'But avenged of Lord Scrope I'll be.'"

Buccleuch, having urged the release of Kinmont Willie in vain,

determined to free him by force. At Morton Tower, in the Debatable

Land, he collected one evening before sunset a chosen band of

followers with scaling ladders and pickaxes. Through the darkness of

a misty and stormy night they forded in succession the Esk and the

Eden, and halted under the wall of Carlisle two hours before daybreak.

Bursting in the postern, and overpowering the sentinels, they made such

a ferocious din with tongue and trumpet that the garrison, thinking

all the wild men of the Border had got into the town, prudently shut

themselves up in the Keep, and then--

"Wi' coulters, and with forehammers,

We garr'd the bars bang merrilie,

Until we came to the inner prison,

Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie."

The prisoner was soon rescued; and there being no time to knock off

his irons, he was mounted on the shoulders of "Red Rowan," described

as "the starkest man in Teviotdale." Some attempt was made to prevent

the escape; but the night continuing dark, the bold band got away, and

a wild gallop brought them safe to the Scots border two hours after

daybreak. Kinmont humorously complaining of his steed and his spurs,

as he playfully termed his irons, the company halted at a smith's

cottage in their own country, and demanded his services. The smith

seemed loth to rise so early, whereupon Buccleuch, playfully thrusting

his lance through the window, speedily had him wide awake. This stroke

of humour was highly appreciated on the Border--was considered quite

side-splitting, in fact--but history has failed to record the smith's

observations on the incident. The "bauld Buccleuch" himself never did a

bolder deed, but Elizabeth was furious. In October, 1597, he was sent

to the English court to make what excuse he might to the Queen, who, in

one of her Tudor tempers, angrily demanded "how he dared to undertake

an enterprise so desperate and presumptuous." "What is there that a man

dares not do?" was the answer, surely in fit keeping with the tradition

of boldness. Elizabeth turned to her courtiers: "With ten thousand such

men our brother of Scotland might shake the firmest throne in Europe!"

and so Buccleuch departed in peace.

Our last picture is from the days after the Jacobite rising of 1745. A

great many of the trials of the Scots rebels took place at Carlisle,

and, as one can understand, the accused had but short shrift. "We

shall not be tried by a Cumberland jury in the next world!" was the

comforting reflection of one of the prisoners. A long series of

executions, with all the terrible rites practised on traitors, took

place on Gallows Hill, and the heads of these poor Jacobites were

planted over Carlisle gates as a warning. A ballad of deepest pathos

tells the fate of one unfortunate:--

"White was the rose in his gay bonnet,

As he faulded me in his brooched plaidie;

His hand, which clasped the truth o' luve,

Oh, it was aye in battle readie!

"His lang, lang hair in yellow hanks

Waved o'er his cheeks sae sweet and ruddie,

But now they wave o'er Carlisle yetts,

In dripping ringlets, clotting bloodie."

[Illustration: _Photo: Frith & Co., Reigate._

GREYSTOKE CASTLE (_p. 307_).]

Not all merrie are the records of Carlisle! And to-day you will find

the castle has suffered change. You enter through an ancient gateway,

and there is still the portcullis adorned with a sadly battered piece

of sculpture. Unsightly barracks, and so forth, cumber the outer ward.

The half-moon battery is dismantled, and the great keep is now used

as an armoury. You turn to the cathedral, and there, spite of many

alterations and more or less judicious restoration, there is much to

admire. We can but mention the splendid central window at the east

end of the choir, the graceful arcades below the windows of the side

aisles, and the carved oak work of the stalls.

* * * * *

At the head of the Solway Firth the /Sark/, a small river,

or rather "burn," which in a dry summer well-nigh vanishes, divides

the two kingdoms. On the Scots side the first village on the road is

Gretna Green, famed for just over a century because of its irregular

marriages. Here we might take leave of England were it not that our

next two rivers, the Esk and the Liddel, Scots for most of their

course and rising at very different points, finally meet and pass into

Cumberland, whence they flow into the Solway Firth; the Esk having made

a complete circuit round the Sark. The Debatable Land already mentioned

was the piece of ground between the Solway and the junction of the two

streams, of each of which we must now speak.

[Illustration: CARLISLE, LOOKING EAST.]

[Illustration: CARLISLE, LOOKING WEST.]

* * * * *

The /Liddel/ rises in a great morass in Roxburghshire called

Deadwater. For some ten miles it is a wild mountain stream, flowing

dark and sullen through a rocky glen, but as it reaches lower ground

the glen widens and softens into a beautiful valley with trees and fine

pasture land, whilst lower still are fertile fields. The Liddel has

many tributaries, whereof we will only mention Hermitage Water, near

the source. It is a wild mountain stream, and at its wildest part,

amidst morasses and bare desolate mountains, stand the ruins of grim

old Hermitage Castle, with its thick towers and walls and rare narrow

windows. See it on some gloomy November day, when the storm spirit

is abroad, and it stands the very abomination of desolation! Turn to

its history, and the gloom grows ever darker; for 'tis little but a

record of cruel deeds. This is one of the oldest baronial buildings

in Scotland. Sir William Douglas, the "Knight of Liddesdale" and

"Flower of Chivalry," took the place in 1338 from the English. You

wonder at his name! Four years later he wounded and seized at Hawick

Sir Alexander Ramsay, Sheriff of Teviotdale, of whose appointment he

was jealous, and, throwing him into a deep dungeon at Hermitage, left

him to starve. A few chance droppings from the granary protracted

his miserable existence through seventeen awful days. His captors,

hearing his groans, at length took him out and gave him--not bread,

but a priest, in whose arms Ramsay expired! The "Flower of Chivalry"

was finally slain by the Earl of Douglas, head of his house, whilst

hunting in Ettrick Forest. It was whispered the Earl had discovered

that his Countess entertained a guilty passion for the murdered man.

A rude old ballad represents her as coming out of her bower when she

heard of the crime, and proclaiming her own shame--

"And loudly there she did ca',

It is for the Lord of Liddesdale

That I let all these tears doune fa'."

In October, 1566, Bothwell had gone to the Borders as Warden of the

Marshes, to prepare for a court which Mary Queen of Scots was about

to hold at Jedburgh for the trial of freebooters. He was wounded

by Elliott of the Park, known as "Little Jock Elliott," and lay

dangerously ill at Hermitage. The infatuated Mary, scantily attended,

dashed over from Jedburgh through the wildest and most dangerous

territory (what a prize for a freebooter!), spent two hours by

Bothwell's bedside "to his great pleasure and content," and then

dashed as madly back again. Who shall dare to guess the secret of that

meeting? Seven months earlier was Rizzio's murder, four months later

was Darnley's--the great tragedy of Mary's life. The question of her

guilt is still open, but no one doubts Bothwell's. Some dark hint of

his perhaps caused the torture of mind which men noted in her after

the visit. She was immediately stricken down with a fever of ten days'

duration, and for some time her life was despaired of. But let us away

from this sad old ruin among those far-off gloomy mountains.

* * * * *

The Liddel is, after all, but a tributary of the /Esk/. There

are several rivers of that name in Britain, which fact will not

surprise you when you remember that Esk is Celtic for "water." Its

scenery has the characteristic features of all these Border streams:

wild hills, bare save for a fringe of heather at the source; then

richly wooded meadows, with fertile fields in the lower reaches. The

Esk and its tributaries are much praised of anglers; nowhere will you

find better salmon-fishing. Three miles below Langholm, on the left

bank, the Tarras falls into the Esk. Its narrow channel is broken by

huge masses of rock over which the water foams and swirls in wild

fury. A strange old rhyme ever rings in our ears when we think of its

passionate rush--

"Was ne'er ane drowned in Tarras, nor yet in doubt,

For e'er the head can win doun the harns are out,"--

which means that Tarras never drowned anybody who fell in, for the

excellent reason that before his head touched the bottom, the current

and the rocks, between them, knocked out his brains! Is there not a

tragic power about this snarling couplet? Indeed, those pithy popular

rhymes will well repay attention. Nowhere else is so much said in so

few words; each is, in truth, the distilled essence of a poem.

The Tarras divides Langholm from Canonbie parish, wherein once stood,

in a position of great natural strength, washed on three sides by the

Esk, Gilnockie Tower. Johnnie Armstrong, the famous Border freebooter,

took his title from this place, whereof not a stone remains. A little

higher up the river is Hollows Tower, also a nest of this bird of prey.

Johnnie was summoned to appear before James V. when that monarch made

a Border tour in 1539 to administer justice. Getting himself up in the

most magnificent apparel, and with an easy mind and a clear conscience,

he, accompanied by many of his name, whereof "Ill Will Armstrong"

is specially noted, set forth to meet the king. On Langholm Holm,

according to the Chronicle, "they ran their horse and brak their spears

when the ladies lookit frae their lofty windows, saying, 'God send our

men well back again.'" The fair dames' anxieties were well founded, for

Johnnie's reception was scarce as cordial as he expected. "What wants

yon knave that a king should have?" exclaimed James in angry amazement,

as he ordered off Gilnockie and his companions to instant execution.

The culprit's petition for grace was sternly refused. "Had I known, I'd

have lived upon the Borders in spite of King Harry and you both," said

Johnnie as they led him away. The trees whereon he and his followers

were strung up are still shown at Carlenrig, and tradition still

identifies their graves in that lonely churchyard. The ballads praise

his honesty and lament the treachery which led to his end. James's was

the violent act of a weak man; it had an unroyal touch of trickery; and

no good results followed.

[Illustration: RIVERS FLOWING SOUTH INTO SOLWAY FIRTH.]

Of another romantic character it is written that he "swam the

Esk river where ford there was none"--that, of course, was young

Lochinvar, who "came out of the west" to run off with a fair daughter

of Netherby Hall. The "west" in this case is a lake in Dalry parish,

in Kirkcudbrightshire, containing an island which still has remains

of the castle of the Gordons, knights of Lochinvar, one of whom was

the hero of Lady Heron's song in "Marmion." Netherby is away by the

Debatable Land, and Canobie Lee (perhaps) in the Dumfriesshire parish

of Canonbie; but how idle to localise the incidents of the splendid

ballad! Scott himself never touched the romantic note with truer hand

or to better purpose--

"And now am I come, with this lost love of mine,

To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine."

And then we know how the bride

"... looked down to blush and looked up to sigh,

With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye."

And how they danced a measure, and how the charger stood near by the

hall door, and 'twas but the work of an instant to swing the lady on

its back, and so light to the saddle before her he sprung:--

"'She is won! We are gone over bank, bush, and scaur;

They'll have fleet steeds that follow,' said young Lochinvar."

And the delightful couple again fade away into the "rich heart of the

west."

[Illustration: THE ESK, NEAR GILNOCKIE (_p. 315_).]

There is no end to those ballads and traditions! The very streams in

their flow seem to murmur of them. But few can find place here; yet how

can we pass from Eskdale and leave untouched its sweetest spot, its

most, tragic story, its most pathetic song? Kirtle Water, after a short

course of a little over sixteen miles, runs into the Solway at Kirtle

Foot, near the head of the Firth. In the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming

it passes through "fair Kirkconnel Lee," where, in the churchyard of

Kirkconnel, sleep the ashes of Helen and her lover. According to the

well-known tradition, she was loved by Fleming of Redhall and Bell of

Blacket. The latter was not the favoured one, and basely tried to slay

Fleming. Helen threw herself in the path of the murderer's bullet, and

perished to save her friend. Fleming did speedy justice on his cruel

foe, wandered in far lands for many years, and returned to die and be

buried in the same grave with the love of his youth. Of the ancestral

tower of the Flemings not a fragment is left; and Dryasdust still dully

debates the exact measure of historic truth in the story. Some great

but unknown poet long ago moulded the passionate complaint of Fleming

into imperishable verse, with its mournful refrain:--

"I wish I were where Helen lies,

Night and day on me she cries;

O that I were where Helen lies,

On fair Kirkconnel Lee!"

[Illustration: HIGH STREET, DUMFRIES (_p. 319_).]

* * * * *

Annandale is the second division of Dumfries. /Annan/ means in

Celtic "quiet water"; perhaps that river was called so in fear, to

propitiate the water-sprite, as malignant fairies were dubbed "the

good people" to ward off their anger. Allan Cunningham lauds it as the

"Silver Annan," but none the less he has some hard words for it:--

"The cushat, hark, a tale of woe

Is to its true love telling;

And Annan stream in drowning wrath

Is through the greenwood swelling."

And the old ballad of "Annan Water" calls it a "drumlie river," and

tells a most melancholious tale of a lover and his steed drowned whilst

attempting to cross it to keep tryst with his love, Annie, who, we are

assured, was "wondrous bonny." The last verse warns the river that a

bridge will presently be thrown over, that "ye nae mair true love may

sever": the prosaic purposes of transit to kirk or market being, of

course, quite unworthy of a minstrel's mention. Well! Annan has its

moods--quiet and gentle in the pleasant summer days, given to violent

outbursts in time of spate.

Annandale was the home of Bruce, and the great Robert is supposed

to have been born at Lochmaben, which, situated on seven lochs, is

a sort of Caledonian Venice. Bruce, not unmindful of the place of

his nativity, is famed to have created it a royal burgh soon after

his sword won him the crown. This did not prevent the citizens from

treating through many generations his ancestral castle as a common

quarry, and nothing is now left but a shapeless mass of stones.

According to old Bellenden, in his translation of Boace (1536),

the people of former times were a terrible lot; the women worst of

all! "The wyvis usit to slay thair husbandis, quhen they wer found

cowartis, or discomfit be thair ennymes, to give occasion to otheris

to be more bald and hardy quhen danger occurrit." "To learn them for

their tricks," as Burns might have remarked. Annandale's most famous

modern son was Thomas Carlyle, who, as everybody knows, was born at

Ecclefechan in 1795, and was buried there at the end of his long career

on a "cloudy, sleety day" early in 1881. Ecclefechan is on the Main

Water, a tributary of the Annan; you will find it described in "Sartor

Resartus" as Entepfuhl. Many spots around are connected with his life

or works. Hoddam Kirk, his parish church, he pointed out to Emerson in

a remarkable talk as an illustration of the connection of historical

events. His once bosom friend, Edward Irving, was born in the town

of Annan, of which Carlyle had his own memories, for here he went to

school, first to learn, afterwards to teach. Craigenputtock, where he

lived for six years, is in Nithsdale, the third division of Dumfries,

to which we now turn.

* * * * *

The /Nith/, its name-river, in its course of some seventy miles,

rising in Ayrshire, passes through the Queen of the South, as its

citizens proudly designate Dumfries, and, during the last ten miles of

its existence, is rather an estuary than a river. It has many important

tributaries--the Carron, with its almost Alpine gorge, known as the

Wallpath; the Enterkin, with its famed Enterkin pass, of old time the

bridle-path from Clydesdale to Nithsdale, noted for the famous rescue

in 1684 of a band of Covenanting prisoners who were being conveyed to

Edinburgh; the Minnick Water, with its many traditions of the Hill

Folk; and "many mo'."

Every variety of scenery diversifies the banks of those streams, and

there is a great mass of legendary lore as to the famous men who dwelt

by their waters; but one name swallows up all the rest. How to follow

the windings of the Nith, or tread the High Street of Dumfries,

without thinking of Robert Burns? He sang of the streams of Nith in

his choicest verse. "Flow gently, sweet Afton, among thy green braes"

is linked with one tributary, and the song he fitted to "Ca' the yowes

to the knowes"--most musical fragment of old Scots poetry--reminds

of another. Among the beautiful ruins of Lincluden Abbey, surrounded

by the defaced monuments of the great house of Douglas, he saw that

"Vision" which he has commemorated in so remarkable a poem. Not far

off is Friars' Carse, where the bacchanalian contest related in "The

Whistle" took place. In Dumfries, as an exciseman, he spent the

last five years of his life. Let us find place for one incident of

his closing days. He had gone to the little village of Brow, on the

Solway, to try the effect of the seaside. During a visit to the manse,

one of the family remarked the sun shining in his eyes and made some

effort to adjust the blind. Burns noted it; "Thank you, my dear, for

your kind attention--but ah, let him shine! He will not shine long

for me." This was the end of June, 1796; on the twenty-first of July

he was dead. "Who will be our poet now?" was the quaint inquiry of

an honest Dumfries burgher. Who, indeed! His remains were buried in

the churchyard of St. Michael's. "They were originally interred in

the north corner, upon which spot a simple table-stone was raised to

his memory; but in 1815 his ashes were removed to a vault beneath an

elegant mausoleum, which was erected by subscription, as a tribute to

his genius, at a cost of £1,450. This monument contains a handsome

piece of marble sculpture, executed by Turnerelli, representing the

genius of Scotland finding the poet at the plough, and throwing 'her

inspiring mantle' over him." Well meant, and yet--! We remember

standing in the cemetery at Montmartre by the plain stone that bears

the name, and nothing but the name, of Heine. It had a simple, a

pathetic, dignity beyond the reach of the most cunningly carved

monument. One thought of the "elegant mausoleum" at Dumfries, and

sighed for the "simple table-stone" which humble but pious hands had

placed as the first and, still after a century the best, monument to

Robert Burns. Do you doubt which himself had chosen?

Of the antiquities of Dumfries we will only mention its famous mediæval

bridge over the Nith, built by Devorgilla, mother of John Baliol. A

remarkable old dame this Devorgilla! Balliol College, Oxford, was

endowed by her liberality; and we shall come across another of her

foundations presently. The Queen of the South has a long history; its

most important event is connected with the house rival to Baliol. On

the 4th of February, 1306, Robert the Bruce disputing with the Red

Cumyn in the Greyfriars' Monastery, struck and wounded him with his

dagger. He burst out remorseful, exclaiming, "I fear I have slain

the Red Cumyn." "I mak siccar," was the grimly pithful remark of

Kirkpatrick of Closeburn as he rushed in, and--_exit_ the Red Cumyn!

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Rutherford, Jardington, Dumfries._

LINCLUDEN ABBEY (_p. 319_).]

Even in Scotland this district is remarkable for old castles and

abbeys. Of these one first notes Drumlanrig Castle, in Durisdeer

parish, on a _drum_, or long ridge of hill, on the right bank of the

Nith. It is a huge and splendid building, finished in 1689 after ten

years' labour, by the first Duke of Queensberry, who spent but one

night within its walls. It had splendid woods, which old "Q," that

picturesque rascal of the Georgian period, shamelessly depleted, for

which he was righteously castigated by Wordsworth; his descendants

have repaired the damage, and poets and forest nymphs are at length

appeased and consoled. The Highlanders, passing by here in the '45,

amused themselves by stabbing the portrait of William III. with their

claymores. Again, there is Caerlaverock Castle, the Ellangowan of

Scott's "Guy Mannering," situated on the left bank of the Nith, just

where it becomes part of the Solway Firth. A wild romantic spot! The

boiling tides of the Solway and the Nith approach its walls; and of old

time it was so hemmed by lake and marsh as to deserve the name of the

"Island of Caerlaverock." It has a long romantic history, in keeping

with its environment. It has been in possession of the Maxwells since

the beginning of the thirteenth century, and you can still spell out

their motto, "I bid ye fair," on its mouldering walls. They took--as

was but seemly in so ancient a family--the Stuart side in the rising of

1715; and the title of Baron Herries, held since 1489, was destroyed

by attaint in 1716. It was revived, however, in favour of William

Constable Maxwell by various Parliamentary proceedings ending in 1858;

then high revel was held in the long deserted courts of Caerlaverock,

and little imagination was needed to recall the incidents of a

long-vanished feudal day.

[Illustration: _Photo: J. Rutherford, Jardington, Dumfries._

DRUMLANRIG CASTLE (_p. 320_).]