Who could ever weary of English Lakeland? Who, though he had made a score of pilgrimages thither, could not find new beauties in this enchanted region? And so in our southward run we make a detour from Carlisle to Keswick by the way of Wigton, a new road to us, through a green and pleasant country. We soon find ourselves among the hills and vales of the ill-defined region which common consent designates as the Lake District. Rounding the slopes of Skiddaw—for we have a rather indirect route—we come upon a vantage point which affords a glorious view of Bassenthwaite Water, glittering like a great gem in its setting of forest trees. We have seen the District many times, but never under better conditions than on this clear, shimmering July day. The green wooded vales lying between the bold, barren hills, with here a church-tower or country mansion and there a glint of tarn or river, all combine to make an entrancing scene which stretches clear and distinct to the silvery horizon. We pause a short space to admire it, then glide gently down the slope and along the meandering Derwent into Keswick town.

It is the height of the summer season here and the place shows unmistakable marks of the tourist-thronged resort; the Hotel Keswick, where we stop for luncheon, is filled to overflowing. It is the most beautifully located of the many hotels in the town, standing in its own well-cared-for grounds, which are bedecked with flower-beds and shrubbery. The Keswick is evidently a favorite with motorists, for we found many cars besides our own drawn up in front. It is a pleasant, well-conducted inn—everything strictly first-class from the English point of view—with all of which the wayfarer is required to pay prices to correspond.

Keswick is anything but the retired village of the time of the poet Southey, whose home, Greta Hall, may be seen on an eminence overlooking the town. As the gateway by which a large proportion of tourists enter the Lake District, and as a resort where a considerable number of visitors—mostly English—come to spend their vacations, it is a lively place for some weeks in midsummer. There is not much of consequence in the town itself or in the immediate vicinity. It is the starting-point, however, for an endless number of excursions, mostly by coach, for the railroad does not enter many parts of the District frequented by tourists. Even wagon-roads are not numerous and the enthusiast who wishes to thoroughly explore the nooks and corners must do much journeying on foot.

We have little reason for choosing the coast road in our southern journey through Cumberland, except the very good one that we have never traversed it, while we are familiar with the splendid highway which follows the lakes to Lakeside and over which runs the great course of tourist travel. The roads are not comparable in interest, so greatly does the lake route excel, both in scenic beauty and in literary and historic associations. Still, the dozen miles from Keswick to Cockermouth is a beautiful run, passing around the head of Derwentwater and following for its entire length—some four miles—the western shore of Bassenthwaite Water. The road winds through almost unbroken woodland and we catch only fugitive glimpses of the shimmering water between the thickly crowded trunks that flit between us and the lake. At intervals, however, we swing toward the shore and come into full view of the gleaming surface, beyond which stretches an array of wooded parks, surrounding an occasional country seat. Still beyond rise the stern outlines of Skiddaw, one of the ruggedest and loftiest of the lake country hills—though as a matter of fact, its crest is but three thousand feet above the sea. It is a delightfully quiet road; we meet no other wayfarers and aside from the subdued purr of the motor, there is no sound save the wash of the wavelets over the rocks or the rustle of the summer breeze through the trees. The north end of Bassenthwaite marks the limit of Lakeland for all except the casual tourist, and here a snug little wayside inn, the Pheasant, affords a retreat for solitude-loving disciples of Ike Walton.

Cockermouth has little claim to distinction other than the fact that the poet Wordsworth was born here a little more than a century and a half ago. A native of whom we inquire points out the large square gray-stone house, now the residence of a local physician. The swift Derwent flows a few rods to the rear and the flower-garden runs down to the river’s edge. The house stands near the highway and is no exception to the harsh, angular lines that characterize the village. It is in no sense a public show-place and we have no intention of disturbing the Sunday-afternoon quiet of the present occupants in an endeavor to see the interior. Wordsworth’s connection with the house ceased at the death of his father, when the poet was but a child of fourteen. His young mother—a victim of consumption—had laid down life’s burdens some six years earlier, and the orphan children were taken to the home of a relative at Kendal.

Perhaps we are the more satisfied to pass the old house with a cursory glance because, if I must confess it, I was never able to arouse in myself any great enthusiasm over the poet Wordsworth or to read his writings except in a desultory way. He never had for me the human interest of Byron, Burns, Tennyson or many other great lights of English literature I might name. We were quite willing to assume the role of intruder at Somersby; we made more than one unsuccessful effort before we saw Newstead, and three pilgrimages to Alloway have not quenched our desire to see it again—but we are conscious of little anxiety to enter the doors of the big square house at Cockermouth. Perhaps we are not alone in such feeling, for pilgrims to the town are few and a well-known English author who has written a delightful volume on the Lake District admits that he paid his first visit to Cockermouth “without once remembering that it was Wordsworth’s birthplace!” His objective was the castle, a fine mediaeval pile which overlooks the vale of the Derwent. It is in fair preservation, having been inhabited until quite recently. Like so many Northland fortresses, it has its legend of Mary Stuart, who came here after landing at Workington, a seaport a few miles distant. She had been led by the emissaries of Elizabeth to believe that an appeal to her “sister’s” mercy would assure her a safe refuge in England, but she never drew a free breath in all the years she was to live after this act of sadly misplaced confidence.

“No one,” says the writer just referred to, “would wish to go beyond Cockermouth,” and though we prove one exception to this rule, it is a fairly safe one for the average tourist, since rougher, steeper and less interesting roads are scarce in England. A fairly good highway runs to Whitehaven, a manufacturing port on the Irish Sea where, according to an English historian, “John Paul Jones, the notorious buccaneer, served his apprenticeship, and he successfully raided the place in 1778, burning three vessels.” Not many Americans have visited Whitehaven since, for it is in no sense a tourist town. We pursue its main street southward until it degenerates into a tortuous, hilly lane leading through the bleak Cumberland hills. It roughly follows the coast, though there are only occasional glimpses of the sea which to-day, half shrouded in a silvery haze, shimmers in the subdued sunlight. The road, with its sharp turns and steep grades, is as trying as any we have traversed in England; at times it runs between tall hedges on earthen ridges—an almost tunnellike effect, reminding us of Devon and Cornwall, to which the rough country is not dissimilar. Fortunately, we meet no vehicles—we see only one motor after leaving Whitehaven—but in the vicinity of the villages we keep a close look-out for the Sunday pedestrians who throng the road. Our siren keeps up a pretty steady scream and the natives stare in a manner indicating that a motor is an infrequent spectacle. We pass through several lone, cheerless-looking towns, devoid of any touch of color and wholly lacking the artistic coziness of the Midland villages. Egremont, Bootle, Ravenglass and Broughton are of this type and seemingly as ancient as the hills they nestle among.

The ruin of a Norman castle towers above Egremont; shattered, bare and grim, it stands boldly against the evening sky. Yet it is not without its romance, a theme which inspired Wordsworth’s “Horn of Egremont Castle.” For tradition has it that in days of old there hung above the gate a bugle which would respond to the lips of none but the rightful lord. While the owner and his younger brother were on a crusade in the Holy Land, the latter plotted the death of the Lord of the Castle, bribing a band of villains to drown him in the Jordan. The rascals claim to have done their work and Eustace, with some misgivings, hastens home and assumes the vacant title, though he discreetly avoids any attempt to wind the famous horn. Some time afterwards, while engaged in riotously celebrating his accession, a blast of the dreaded horn tells him that his brother Hubert is not dead, and has come to claim his own. The usurper flees by the “postern gate,” but years afterward he returns to be forgiven by Sir Hubert and to expiate his crime by entering a monastery. Wordsworth tells the story in a halting, mediocre way that shows how little his genius was adapted to such a theme. What a pity that the story of Egremont was not told by the Wizard with the dash of “Lochinvar” or the “Wild Huntsman.”

There is a fine abbey ruin in the vale of the Calder about a mile from the main road. Calder Abbey was founded in the twelfth century and was second only to Furness in importance in Northwestern England. The beautiful pointed arches supporting the central tower are almost intact and the cloisters and walls of the south transept still stand. Over them all the ivy runs riot, and above them sway the branches of the giant beeches that crowd about the ruin. It is a delightfully secluded nook and in the quiet of a summer evening one could hardly imagine a spot more in harmony with the spirit of monastic peace and retirement. Such is the atmosphere of romance that one does not care to ask the cold facts of the career of Calder Abbey, and, indeed, there is none to answer even if we should ask its story.

You would never imagine that Ravenglass, with its single street bordered by unpretentious slate-roofed, whitewashed houses and its harbor, little more than a shifting sand-bar, has a history running back to the Roman occupation, and that it once ranked in importance with Chester and Carlisle. Archaeologists tell us that in Roman times acres of buildings clustered on the then ample harbor, where a good-sized fleet of galleys constantly rode at anchor. Here came the ships of the civilized world to the greatest port of the North Country, bringing olives, anchovies, wines and other luxuries that the Romans had introduced into Britain, and in returning they carried away numbers of the hapless natives to be sold as slaves or impressed into the armies. The harbor has evidently filled with silt to a great extent since that day, scarcely any spot being covered by water at low tide except the channel of the Esk. Many relics have been discovered at Ravenglass, and the older houses of the town are built largely from the ruins of the Roman city. Most remarkable of all are the remains of a villa in an excellent state of preservation, which a good authority pronounces practically the only Roman building in the Kingdom standing above ground save the fragments that have been revealed by excavation.

Ravenglass has another unique distinction in the great breeding ground of gulls and terns which almost adjoins the place. Here in early summer myriads of these birds repair to hatch their young, and the spectacle is said to be well worth seeing—and, in fact, does attract many visitors. The breeding season, however, was past at the time of our visit. An English writer, Canon Rawnsley of Carlisle, gives a graphic account of a trip to the queer colony of sea-birds during their nesting time:

“Suddenly the silence of the waste was broken by a marvellous sound, and a huge cloud of palpitating wings, that changed from black to white and hovered and trembled against the gray sea or the blue inland hills, swept by overhead. The black-headed gulls had heard of our approach and mightily disapproved of our tresspass upon their sand-blown solitude.

“We sat down and the clamour died; the gulls had settled. Creeping warily to the crest of a great billow of sand, we peeped beyond. Below us lay a natural amphitheatre of grey-green grass that looked as if it were starred with white flowers innumerable. We showed our heads and the flowers all took wing, and the air was filled again with sound and intricate maze of innumerable wings.

“We approached, and walking with care found the ground cup-marked with little baskets or basket-bottoms roughly woven of tussock grass or sea-bent. Each casket contained from two to three magnificent jewels. These were the eggs we had come so far to see. There they lay—deep brown blotched with purple, light bronze marked with brown, pale green dashed with umber, white shading into blue. All colours and all sizes; some as small as a pigeon’s, others as large as a bantam’s. Three seemed to be the general complement. In one nest I found four. The nests were so close to one another that I counted twenty-six within a radius of ten yards; and what struck one most was the way in which, instead of seeking shelter, the birds had evidently planned to nest on every bit of rising ground from which swift outlook over the gull-nursery could be obtained.

“Who shall describe the uproar and anger with which one was greeted as one stood in the midst of the nests? The black-headed gull swept at one with open beak, and one found oneself involuntarily shading one’s face and protecting one’s eyes as the savage little sooty-brown heads swooped round one’s head. But we were not the only foes they had had to battle with. The carrion crow had evidently been an intruder and a thief; and many an egg which was beginning to be hard set on, had been prey to the black robber’s beak. One was being robbed as I stood there in the midst of the hubbub.

“Back to the boat we went with a feeling that we owed large apologies to the whole sea-gull race for giving this colony such alarm, and causing such apparent disquietude of heart, and large thanks to the Lord of Muncaster for his ceaseless care of the wild sea-people whom each year he entertains upon his golden dunes.”

It is growing late as we leave Ravenglass and we wonder where we shall pass the night. There is no road across the rough country to our right and clearly we must follow the coast for many miles until we round the southern point of the hills. Then the wide sand marshes of the Duddon will force us to turn northward several miles until we come to a crossing which will enable us to continue our southward course. Here again a memory of Wordsworth is awakened, for did he not celebrate this valley in his series of “Sonnets to the Duddon?” There is no stopping-place at Bootle or Millom or Broughton, unless it be road-houses of doubtful character and we hasten over the rough narrow roads as swiftly as steep grades and numerous pedestrians will permit. The road for some miles on either side of Broughton is little more than a stony lane which pitches up and down some frightful hills. It is truly strenuous motoring and our run has already been longer than is our wont. The thought of a comfortable inn appeals strongly indeed—we study the map a moment to find to our certain knowledge that nothing of such description is nearer than Furness Abbey, still a good many miles to the south. But the recollection of the splendid ruin is, for the time being, quite overshadowed by our memory of the excellent hotel, which I must confess exerts much the greater attraction. The country beyond Broughton has little of interest, but the road gradually improves until it becomes a broad, well-surfaced highway which enables us to make up for lost time. Shortly after sunset we enter the well-kept park surrounding the abbey and hotel. We have come many miles “out of our way,” to be sure, for we are already decided on a northward turn for a last glimpse of Lakeland tomorrow—but, after all, we are not seeking shortest routes. Indeed, from our point of view, we can scarcely go “out of the way” in rural Britain; some of our rarest discoveries have been made unexpectedly when deviating from main-traveled routes.

On the following day we pursue familiar roads. Passing through Dalton and Ulverston, we ascend the vale of the Leven to Newby Bridge at the southern extremity of Windermere. We cannot resist the temptation to take the Lakeside road to Windermere town, though it carries us several miles farther north. It is surely one of the loveliest of English roads, and we now traverse it the third time—once in the sunlight of a perfect afternoon, once it was gray and showery, and to-day the shadows of the great hills darken the mirrorlike surface, for it is yet early morning. The water is of almost inky blackness, but on the far side it sparkles in the sunlight and the snowy sails of several small craft lend a pleasing relief to its somber hues. The road winds among the trees that skirt the shore and in places we glide beneath the overarching boughs. At times the lake glimmers through the closely standing trunks, and again we come into the open where our vision has full sweep over the gleaming expanse of dark water. We follow the Lakeside road for six miles until we reach the outskirts of the village of Bowness; here a turn to the right leads up a sharp hill and we are soon on the moorland road to Kendal. It shows on our map as a “second-class” road and, indeed, this description was deserved two years before. It is a pleasant surprise to find it smoothly re-surfaced—an excellent highway now, though in its windings across the fells it carries us over some steep grades. On either hand lies a barren and hilly country, which does not improve until we enter the green valley in which the town is situated. It is a charming place, depending now for its prosperity on the stretch of fertile country which surrounds it. Once it had numerous factories, but changing conditions have eradicated most of them excepting the woolen mills, which still operate on a considerable scale. The ancient castle—now a scanty ruin—looms high over the town: “a stern castle, mouldering on the brow of a green hill,” as Wordsworth, who lived many years in the vicinity, describes it. It might furnish material for many a romance; here was born Catherine Parr, the queen who was fortunate enough to survive that royal Bluebeard, Henry VIII. It escaped the usual epitaph, “Destroyed by Cromwell,” since it had long been in ruin at the time of the Commonwealth. But Cromwell, or his followers, must have been in evidence in Kendal, for in the church is the helmet of Major Robert Philipson—Robin the Devil—who gained fame by riding his horse into this selfsame church during services in search of a Cromwellian officer upon whom he sought to do summary vengeance. The exploits of this bellicose major furnish a groundwork for Scott’s “Rokeby.” The church is justly the pride of Kendal, being one of the largest in England and of quite unique architecture. It has no fewer than five aisles running parallel with each other and the great breadth of the building, together with its low square tower, gives it a squat appearance, though this is redeemed to some extent by its unique design. A good part of the building is more than seven hundred years old, though considerable additions were made in the fifteenth century. In the tower is a chime of bells celebrated throughout the North Country for their melody, which is greatly enhanced by the echoes from the surrounding hills.