Yewdale Beck—The Parsonage—Oak Cottage—Hollin-how—Far-end—The Saw Mills—Yewdale—“Girt Will’s Grave”—Holme Ground—Tilberthwaite—Hodgeclose—Slate-quarries.

This ramble being, in play-bill phrase, positively our last performance here this season, I am inclined to make it a pretty long one; therefore, you had better order out your pony, and be off without loss of time.

You may canter along the road to the village as far as Yewdale bridge, and, crossing it, turn to your right, and proceed along a narrow, shaded, and rugged lane up the banks of the stream. The house across a field or two to your left, with some fine oaks beside it, is the Parsonage, both the house and grounds of which have been much beautified and extended by the present incumbent. You soon gain the high road at a neat little house called Oak Cottage; and may notice a little beyond it a handsome, but not very large residence, called Hollin-how, and near to that, close under the beetling precipice, a picturesque group of new cottages and old farm buildings, bearing the odd title of Far-end.

Continuing to skirt the brook, you pass a pool close under the road, and divided from it only by a few trees and bushes growing upon the steep high bank, and I may now inform you that this pool, called Cawdrell, or Cauldron Dub, has been haunted, as also has Yewdale Bridge, for a century or two, by certain apparitions who develope their incorporealities in a somewhat eccentric manner, of which I shall tell you more directly.

These neat new buildings to your right, are mills erected by Mr Marshall, for sawing timber and for cutting and polishing the blue flag-stones worked from a quarry at the back of the Guards hill. The land round the saw-mills is divided into garden allotments, let at easy rents to the neighbouring cottagers, and the industrious attention paid by the allottees to the delving, clearing, and cropping of their several parcels, is a pleasing proof of the high estimation in which they hold the privileges thus accorded them. I should have mentioned that Lady le Fleming has devoted a field adjoining the church-yard to the same excellent purpose.

Move on, and, as you pass the Saw-mills, you enter the vale of Yewdale, on which, and on its charms, seeing that I have long ago exhausted my vocabulary of praise, it were but repeating a thrice-told tale to say much more respecting it. But, that you may not ride up Yewdale “in solemn silence,” as, according to the newspapers, they drink to dead men at public dinners, “I'll tell you a tale without any flam” in connection with Yewdale and Cauldron Dub.

It is a story possessing a fair allowance of tragic incident, and in some hands might be worked up into something worth while; but I am a wretched story-teller, and regret exceedingly that I cannot recapitulate its leading particulars in the racy and terse, aye, and poetical, albeit broadly provincial phraseology of my rustic informant.

In good time here we are at the very fittest spot for the commencement of my story, about a quarter of a mile above the Saw-mills, where, by craning over the hedge to your right, you may perceive, near to the verge of the precipitous bank of Yewdale Beck, and a few yards from the road side, a long narrow mound which seems to be formed of solid stone covered with moss, but which a nearer inspection would shew to be composed of several blocks fitted so closely together as to prove the mound to have had an artificial, and not a natural origin. You observe it is somewhere between three and four yards long. That singular accumulation of lichen-clad rock has been known for centuries amongst the natives of Yewdale and the adjacent valleys, by the romance-suggesting designation of “Girt Will’s Grave.” How it came by that name, and how Cauldron Dub and Yewdale Bridge came to be haunted, my task is now to tell.

Some few hundred years ago, the inhabitants of these contiguous dales were startled from their propriety, if they had any, by a report that one of the Troutbeck giants had built himself a hut, and taken up his abode in the lonely dell of “The Tarns,” above Yewdale Head. Of course you have read the history and exploits of the famous Tom Hickathrift, and remembering that he was raised at Troutbeck, you will not be much surprised when I tell you that it was always famous for breeding a race of extraordinary size and strength, for even in these our own puny days, the biggest man in Westmorland is to be found in that beautiful vale.

The excitement consequent upon the settlement of one of that gigantic race in this vicinity soon died away, and the object of it, who stood somewhere about nine feet six out of his clogs—if they were in fashion then—and was broad in fair proportion, became known to the neighbours as a capital labourer, ready for any such work as was required in the rude and limited agricultural operations of the period and locality—answered to the cognomen of “Girt (great) Will o’ t’ Tarns,” and, once or twice, did good service as a billman under the Knight of Conistone, when he was called upon to muster his powers to assist in repelling certain roving bands of Scots or Irish, who were wont, now and again, to invade the wealthy plains of Low Furness.

The particular Knight, who was chief of the Flemings at the period of the giant’s location at the Tarns, was far advanced in the vale of years, and, in addition to some six or eight gallant and stately sons, had

And Eva le Fleming, called by the country people “the Lady Eva,” was famed throughout the broad north for her beauty and gentleness, her high-bred dignity and her humble virtues; but it is not with her that my story has to do. She, like the mother of “the gentle lady married to the Moor,” had a maid called Barbara, an especial favourite with her mistress, and, in her own sphere, deemed quite as beautiful. In fact, it was hinted that, when she happened to be in attendance upon her lady on festive or devotional occasions, the eyes of even knights and well-born squires were as often directed to the maid as to the mistress, and seemed to express as much admiration in one direction as the other. And when mounted on the Lady Eva’s own palfrey, bedecked in its gayest trappings, she rode, as she oftentimes did, to visit her parents at Skelwith, old and young were struck with her beauty, and would turn, as she ambled past, to gaze after her, and to wonder at the elegance of her figure, the ease of her deportment, and the all-surpassing loveliness of her features. Her lady, notwithstanding the disparity of their rank, loved her as a sister, and it was whispered amongst her envious fellow-servants, that her mistress’s fondness made her assume airs unbecoming her station. True enough it was that she seemed sufficiently haughty and scornful in her reception of the homage paid to her charms by the young men of her own rank, and by many above it. The only one to whom she showed the slightest courtesy on these occasions was wild Dick Hawksley, the Knight’s falconer, and he was also the only one who appeared to care no more for her favours than for her frowns.

The Lady Eva, as well befits high-born dames, was somewhat romantic in her tastes, and would often row for hours upon the lake, and wander for miles through the woods, or even upon the mountains, unattended, save by her favourite bower-maiden. And one evening in autumn, after having been confined for two whole days to the hall by heavy and incessant rain, tired of playing chess with her father and battledore with her younger brothers, or superintending the needlework of her maids, and tempted by the brilliant moonlight and now unobscured skies, she summoned Barbara, and set out upon a stroll by the lake side.

The pair were sauntering along a path cut through the dense coppice, the lady leaning in condescending affection upon the shoulder of her maiden, and listening to a recital of how, on her return from some of her visits to her parents, she had been waylaid by Great Will of the Tarns, and how, on a recent evening, he had attempted to seize her rein, and would have stopped her, had she not whipt the palfrey, and bounded past him. The lady was expressing her indignation at this insolence, when a gigantic figure sprang upon the pathway, and snatching up the screaming Barbara with the same ease with which she herself would have lifted an infant, vanished on the instant amongst the thick hazels.

The Lady Eva stood for a minute struck powerless with terror and astonishment at this audacious outrage; but the sound of the monster crashing his headlong course through the coppice, and the half-stifled screams of his captive, soon recalled her suspended faculties, and then

back to the hall, where, breathless with terror and exertion, she gave the alarm that Barbara had been carried off by the Giant. There was noisy and instantaneous commotion A CHASE BUT NO RESCUE. amongst the carousing gentles at the upper, and the loitering lackeys at the lower end of the hall. Dick Hawksley, and a few more, darted off in immediate pursuit on foot, while several rushed to the stables, in obedience to the calls of their young masters, who were, one and all, loudly vociferating for their horses. Scarce a minute passed, ere half a dozen le Flemings, attended by as many mounted followers, were spurring like lightning through the wood in the direction of Yewdale. They came in sight of the Giant and his burthen as he neared Cauldron Dub, with the light-heeled falconer close behind, calling loudly upon him to stay his flight; but he held on with tremendous strides, till he reached the brow over the pool, when, finding that the horsemen were close upon him, and that it was hopeless to try to carry his prize farther, he stopped—uttered one terrible shout of rage and disappointment—and whirled his shrieking victim into the flooded beck, resuming his now unincumbered flight with increased speed. Dick Hawksley rushed over the bank a little lower down, and the horsemen, abandoning the chase, galloped to the brink of the stream, which was high with the recent rains. They saw the falconer plunge into the torrent, as the bower maiden, yet buoyant with her light garments, was borne rapidly down. They saw him seize her with one hand, and strike out gallantly for the bank with the other, but the current was too strong for him, encumbered as he was with the girl in his grasp. The devoted pair were swept down the stream, at a rate that made the spectators put their horses to a gallop to keep them in sight, even while the exertions of the brave falconer sufficed to sustain their heads above water, which was only till they came under the bridge, where the water, pent in by the narrow arch, acquired four-fold force, and there they heard him utter a hoarse cry of despair, and the gallant Hawksley and the Lady Eva’s beauteous favourite SPEEDY RETRIBUTION.were seen no more, till their bodies were found, days after, on the shore far down the lake. One or two of the horsemen continued to gallop down the side of the beck, in the bootless hope of being able even yet to render them some aid, but the most of them turned their horses’ heads, and went off once more at their utmost speed in pursuit of the murderous Giant. He, considering the chase at an end, had slackened his pace, and they were not long in overtaking him. Great Will struck out manfully with his club (time out of mind the giant’s favourite weapon) as they rushed upon him, but they speedily surrounded him, and, amid a storm of vengeful yells and bitter execrations, the Giant of the Tarns was stretched upon the sward, “with the blood running like a little brook” from a hundred wounds, for he was so frightfully slashed and mangled by their swords, that—as my informant nÄively averred—there was not so much whole skin left upon his huge body as would have made a tobacco-pouch.

It will be apparent enough to the most obtuse intellect, that, after such events as these, the localities where they occurred must, of necessity, be haunted, and, as the ghosts of murderers, as well as of murderees, if they be right orthodox apparitions, always appear to be re-enacting the closing scene of their earthly career, it is scarcely required of me to dilate farther upon the manner of their appearance. Of course I do not expect, and certainly do not wish to be called upon to prove the even down truth of every particular of the story, with which I have been doing my little best to amuse you; but the assured fact of the Dub and the Bridge being haunted, and that by sundry most pertinacious spirits, I am ready to maintain against all comers.

But here you are approaching the lovely secluded farm and cottage of Holme Ground, and whenever I am sick of this world and its vanities, which as yet, I am happy to say, maintain some hold upon my affections, it is here that I should be satisfied to take up my rest.

You may remember that it was hereabouts you crossed the vale of Tilberthwaite,

on a former ramble. On the present occasion, you hold the road to your right, and a precious steep, rugged sample of a road it is; but as you gradually surmount the ascent, you may take a retrospective glance, now and then, at the beautiful vale, or rather dell, of Tilberthwaite, and the mountains with which it is “paled in,” all of these being surmounted by the massive Weatherlam, which is seen to much advantage, and shews itself to be a magnificent hill from this road.

Travel onwards, with belts of plantations occupying all conceivable, and some inconceivable inequalities of ground on your left, and “mountains and moorlands, bleak, barren, and bare,” on your right, till, as you approach Hodgeclose, you pass one or two very awful-looking chasms, yawning in close proximity to the road. These are slate-quarries, which have, for many years, been placed upon the superannuated list. At Hodgeclose, you must turn from the road, pass through the farm-yard and a wood-girdled field or two, to inspect an adjacent slate-quarry, in which inspection you will find the proprietor an intelligent and obliging cicerone. He will first conduct you by a subterranean passage two hundred yards long, to the principal quarry, where the men are busy boring and blasting, and loading the carts with masses of slate metal, technically called clogs. It is in truth a strange looking spot this same quarry, being about eighty yards long and twenty wide, with perpendicular walls of living rock rising to a height of, at least, fifty yards, fringed at the top by low trees and bushes, the circumscribed portion of white clouds and blue sky appearing, from below, to rest upon the tree tops. The only exit is by the level through which you entered, though there is another level branching off to the right, and leading to an enormous dark cavern,

Its great extent is shewn by the candles of the workmen at its farther extremity—its height, by a chink in the roof, where a few stray rays of daylight faintly and feebly struggle through.

Having explored the slate beds, you may proceed to the slate sheds, where the men are engaged in riving and dressing the slate, and, from the expertness of the workmen, a very interesting process it is. The clogs, you perceive, are thrown down in heaps at the open side of the shed, and are of various shapes and sizes, the average size being that of a well-grown folio volume. One of these the splitter seizes, and holding it adroitly on edge with his left hand, taps one side of it with a hammer like a small pickaxe, with its points flattened and sharpened, until he establishes a decided crack, which he follows up, and repeating this process, divides the clog into smooth slates, quite as rapidly as you could divide the leaves of any gigantic folio. When riven to a proper degree of thinness, the slates are laid alongside of a man who sits very commodiously upon a prostrate beam of wood, into the upper side of which a long flat-topped staple is fastened. On this staple he holds the undressed slates, and chips them into shape as quickly as any young lady of your acquaintance could clip muslin with her best scissors. They are then laid aside, and classified according to their fineness, the finest being called London—the second Country—the coarsest Tom—and a very small quality for slating the walls of houses is called Peg.

Having thanked Mr Parker for his courtesy, and, if you can afford it, left a small gratuity for the men, you may proceed upon your way, which is a very pleasant one, as ways go, winding through woods and fields into the valley you traversed on your way to Wrynose. Then cross this same valley to examine another slate-quarry belonging to Mr Marshall, in which you will find a magnificent cavern, not dark, but quite as light as any part of the world without, having an ample window near its roof; it is nearly circular, about forty-five yards in diameter, and the same in height, forming a grander dome than is possessed by any artificial edifice I have yet beheld.