  Even during the height of summer there are dull days sometimes, when dense clouds simply stifle the dales in gloom. This is the more tantalising when one is at Ambleside in the midst of the beauties of Lakeland. But after two o’clock the day became perceptibly brighter; Loughrigg discovered itself opposite our window, a kindly precipice of damp grey crags rearing through a forest of dwarf oaks and clinging ash, green plumed larches and verdant undergrowth, its long crest crowned with patches of heather and wide, quivering wastes of bracken. There is little to interest us in Ambleside: the sun is bursting his cloudy bonds, and we chafe at streets and houses! Out, then, on the Rydal road, past the old moss-grown mill and the bridge-house Ruskin sketched in his youth, past the Knoll where Harriet Martineau lived. Now we rejoice to see a riven cloud turn to gleaming silver at its edges, and through the gap a shaft of light strikes down to earth. It is lost! No, there it is again, kissing the rugged crest of Nab Scar, and hovering along its flank. The clouds above whirl together, and the welcome gleam is cut off. But the upper heavens are overpent with sunshine; glance after glance of glory dances down and melts away on Loughrigg fell. For half an hour gloom and coming sunshine wage unequal warfare, then the clouds to westward break up their solid phalanx, and wider and more frequent are the wheeling spokes of light. Here one blazons a scree-drifted hillside, there one peers and glances into a rocky ghyll. Broad streams of radiance flow into unseen abysms beyond the nearer mountain curtain, a flash of refreshing brilliance lights up acres of rugged scrub. A GLIMPSE OF GRASMERE By the rivulet we see the usual patient angler. Men there are so entranced in seeking to lure the trout, that they brave rain or shine indifferently. Under the hazels, when booming gusts clash walls of rain against mountain and bosky meadow, they still angle on; under the hazels you find them when from a sky of staring blue the sun beats down on a drought-struck land. This brook from happy, lonely Scandale holds many a small brown trout; its bed is bright and shingly, with clean swirling pools and glinting, tinkling rapids. The road now enters Rydal park; miles of rough land stretch toward the lofty ridge from which a cloud is drifting slowly. The sun has now the victory, pouring a flood of joyous light on a scene of unparalleled beauty, and this fleecy, crawling monster is the rearguard of departed gloom. Near a fir-crowned hillock we see a picturesque A few yards on, at Pelter bridge, a cross-road passes under Loughrigg. Looking up-stream, from the parapet, it is a lovely confusion: the beck, overhung with tall sycamores, ashes, and oaks, is split into tiny currents, each babbling its merry way down through a maze of boulders. Some of these are crowned with grass, over which in due season dangle the dainty blue harebell, the yellow-irised oxeyes, the crimson-spiked foxglove, or the blue-orbed sundew. In the margins goldilocks show dark tufts of leaves; when these are in bloom, the waterside is gay with brilliant yellow. Some of the river-stones are decked with moss—the gurgling, dashing streamlet occasionally tosses a tiny jet of spray to gem the glossy crowns. After a long spell of drought Rothay shrinks almost from view in this labyrinth of pool, wee cascade, and calmer channel. The riverside is almost too beautiful to lift the eyes from, but a sharp crag of Loughrigg sheers against a rosy cloud of eventide to our left, and on our right the great green mass of Nab Scar almost overhangs the cottage in front. WILD HYACINTHS A cottage by Rothay! Wordsworth’s Rothay! In far-off climes and dusty, choking cities many pause in their eternal soul-grinding struggle and think of such sweet retirements, even when the scene is merely a figment conjured up by the poet’s craft. To such as know Rothay from its source in the craggy fells to slooming Winander, the feeling of envy is more acute. It is a glorious stretch of country, alike calm and beautiful, stormy and forbidding; in spring tinged with delicate green, in summer wreathed in blossom of pink and white and blue; in autumn shot with crimson and gold of dying leafage; in winter grey and dank with rain, or garmented in dazzling snow. But the cottage!—clung with the bines of creepers and eaved with glossy ivy; the lowly little cot where the tallest hollyhock peeps in at the chamber window; the old-fashioned garden laid out in neat beds of showy or sweet-scented flowers, with gay gladioli spikes of puce and white, and fuchsias red and outbending, with balsam and balm and the sweetest thyme; the rockery with green caressing films of parsley fern, the smooth tongues of scolopendrium, and the broad palmated fronds and upstanding After a time spent beneath the trees and by the gushing waters, where viewpoints ever more fair allure us from one coign to another, we return to the road, here avenued by giant beeches. The western light touches a moving cloud, the damp, coppery leaves below catch the glow and throw it in a myriad little sparkles from twig to branch, and from branch to smooth bole. What is there in Nature more glorious than a group of well-grown trees? DUNGEON GHYLL FORCE, LANGDALE Wordsworth’s connection with the hamlet of Rydal is well known. In his pretty cottage on the hill he lived a life apart from the dalesfolk, watching the seasons come and go over the beautiful glen. Through the little knot of houses, we shortly approach the mere. Right up to Silver Howe the basin is brimmed with light; mountain and wood and lake are at “the pride of day.” Evening, sweet and slow, is dropping nearer, its first sign the grey-blue mist hovering beyond the bordering hills. The crag on which the Laureate of the Fells often sat commands a good view of the lake, and of a huge gash in Loughrigg, whence comes the sound of tinkling slate, where the quarry thunders ring. This of course was not so prominent in Wordsworth’s day. The cottage at Nab where Hartley Coleridge lived, loved by the dalesman (as his master was almost shunned), comes next: here De Quincey afterwards resided some opium-cursed years. We wander by the reedy mere, noting the islet on which not so long ago herons used to nest among the tangled trees, then take the road again for home. |
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