The English Lakes :: CHAPTER XII THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER

CHAPTER XII THE CHARMS OF DERWENTWATER

Proud Cumberland ranks Derwentwater as queen of the English Lakes; but I was born south of Dunmail raise, and feel at liberty to worship at other altars. To see the lake at its best one needs be afoot long before the coaches and motors appear. A road smothered in dust clouds, an atmosphere quivering with clatter, the fumes of petrol and the general unpleasantness of heavy traffic, detract from the most imperious beauty. At daybreak the town is almost silent: sweet mountain air has descended to dissipate the closeness of midnight; the songs of larks and throstles are wafted into the medley of houses and streets from the fields and woods; the murmur of flowing Greta is pleasant indeed. On Friars Crag you may meet an early visitor, and at the landings a boatman is cleaning up. As you stand there, in a pleasant but undeniable way the waters call. “A boat, sir? Certainly. Will you wait till I’ve finished here?” And you watch the man haste on his scrubbing and polishing. In two minutes he scrambles on to the pier, selects oars and cushions, sees you safe in your place, and gives a push off.

As yet no other boat is astir: you have the wide expanse to yourself. From Friars Crag scores of people in the summer watch the sun set. And at the close of a clear day the scene is glorious, even sublime. Around a hundred peaks, ranging from noble Skiddaw to humble Swineside and Catbells, the shafts of light fall and ebb. Here in the rift between two summits is a stretch of purple, there a patch of rosy light fades on a scree-seamed brae. If the sun sets in a flurry of crimson cloud the spectators will hardly take their eyes from the lake: the reflections of the sky are so charming, so magnificent. No painter could match the evanescent changes, the kindlings of the sky, the soft portrayal of each living flame on the shimmering water, the green gloom of overhanging mountains. What boots it if the fiery splendour is a presage of rain when so splendid a pageant is the forecast? To your left is rocky Derwent Isle. Fountains Abbey held it, before the Dissolution of Monasteries, as Vicars Isle; it has had half a dozen names since. Secluded, a fringe of trees hiding its narrow lawn, a house stands here which for sheer romantic situation would be hard to beat in the Lake Country or wide England. I would sit in an upper room there, on a day of April squalls. First in the grey nor’-east I would see the storm clouds gather darkly behind the cone of Skiddaw.

DERWENTWATER, FROM CASTLE HEAD
A bright morning

Derwentwater is lap-lapping merrily against the stony beaches beyond the green sward, every wave wearing a sunlit crown. The great hollows of the mountain range are now filled with battling vapour; from right and left round lower summits they move to desperate attack—dun curls of skirmishers in front, heavy phalanxes of infantry grey behind. Down the air comes a whisper of riot and war, and with soundless impact we see the two hordes meet, shock, and mingle. Jagged as with unseen artillery, the battle sways from end to end; then, like a bolt of Jove, over brawny Skiddaw hurls a deluge of rain-sodden grey, the strife ceases, a sharp, steady line of mists cuts off the seen from the unseen. Now a grey shadow steals over the land, the bubbling life is chilled from the waters, and they rattle black and harsh against the cobble-stones. But on Grange fell the russet bracken is bathed in ephemeral sunshine. The shadow in the air grows darker, the distance is obscured with the grime of rain. The nearer hills, the fields, the town, are blotted out ere the full fury of the squall shakes our window and shrieks among the island trees. Like crest of cruelly spurred horse, the waves toss high, the mad gusts catch the rising gouts, wrench them clear into the air and hustle them along to crash in resounding sheets far up the shore. No boat was, we recollect with pleasure, visible before the squall descended: it would go hard with such a one just now. One experience of a squall on a mountain lake is enough for the most daring. I remember my baptism in such manner vividly. The yacht had but one sail spread to the breeze, but maniac Boreas caught it, pinned us down while water poured into the well, wrenched and screamed and worried at the mast and gear till that went overboard with a crash, then, with a final paroxysm, spun the hulk round and passed away over a waste of churning, creaming waters. More comfortable to face the gale with thin glass in front than to fare like that. The trees bend like switches, but the gloom is now rising from north-east. In a minute a flood of sunlight is pouring down, waking to brilliance the flooded lawn, and making sparkle the drop-decked boughs. Look into the wake of the retiring storm. The lake is still leaping white and racing along; a dim film hides the crags above Grange: now it passes, so quickly as almost to make one start at the rapid change. It would be dowly living at Derwent Isle when fog dark and drear hid lake and town: one might feel lonesome when the blizzards whistled and fumbled against window and door, and the waves crashed without the snug retreat. But how joyous this morning, when the sun is aloft and day has risen refreshed from the bath of night and is newly beginning a pageant of song and life and changing colour!

Further up the lake is Lord’s Isle, where once lived the Earls of Derwentwater. On the attainder and execution of the last of the title the mansion fell into ruins: some of its stone was used in building Keswick market-hall. The last earl was much loved in Cumberland; he was staunch to the Stuarts, as were most Northern gentry, and intrigued widely to bring about their return. When the first Pretender landed, bringing such sorry allies and little promise beyond, the earl foresaw that insurrection would be useless and dangerous to the participants. He argued that, although the Stuart was in Scotland, no rebellion need be attempted in the North of England until the party there were better prepared. In the secret council the earl was held little better than a traitor; at home his wife accused him of cowardice, demanding his sword and horse that a Derwentwater, though a woman, might take the accustomed place in the battle for King James. The earl was no coward: he took the mocked sword from his wife, and cast himself into the turmoil of rebellion. It is history that the rising was crushed with ease, and that as a ringleader the earl was beheaded on Tower Hill. Powerful men at court sued unavailingly for the young noble’s pardon. Money was lavished on the king’s favourites in vain. To raise funds the countess came north to the island-home; the Cumbrians, incensed at her forcing the Earl into the plot to save his honour at her hands, gave her a chilly reception. Legend luridly asserts that her horses were stolen while she was on the island, and that she and her servants were threatened. At dead of night a boat was rowed to near Lodore, where the lady landed and escaped by way of the fells to Penrith and the south. With her she carried a large quantity of jewels, which were offered to save the young husband’s head. The ravine by which the countess climbed to the open moors is pointed out as Lady’s Rake. If it were my province here to examine the story in detail, I would find that it was hardly to escape the Derwentwater tenants that the lady left in such haste. She was, for her share in the late rebellion, marked for arrest, or at least observation, by the Hanoverian authorities.

Seven islands dot Derwentwater: on no other mere are islands the feature we see here. Instead of snags of rock sticking up from deep water, with trees keeping precarious hold in clefts and crannies, these are level, well-wooded places, standing behind ample shallows.

Having passed Lord’s Island, with its sorrowful story of a life risked and lost for a banished prince, Lodore is the next point. Every one knows by repute Southey’s poem-de-force describing the terrific rush of its waters. After heavy rain the old poet’s description can be tested—at the expense of a wetting. Down a wide stair from the moorland, bristling with crags and boulders and outstanding seams, come the waters—their frolic can often be heard at Keswick, though Greta is charging, headlong, noisily down its rugged course. The moment you enter the gully—should you desire to see the heart of its beauty—you are swathed in spray; never in flood-time can you see more than a few yards ahead; your eyes film with moisture; the air to your lungs is choky with mist; the day is gloomed with spindrift. You see a white front of water hurtling down from invisibility: it eddies at your side, then drops away in gathering water-smoke. Nothing can you hear at such a time but continuous liquid thunder. Say the luxurious, there is then but little to see except the watery path you are climbing? Once I climbed this ravine at flood-time. As I passed into the zone of water-smoke, there were blurred visions of tumbling cascades, shadows of huge rocks dimly seen across the ravine, dripping branches of shrubs and plants among the streaming rocks. Then, what a transformation! A flash of sunlight swept into the hollow way. An atmosphere of shifting jewels of rainbow hue above, around; strings and clusters of pearls and diamonds dripping down reddish crags veined and barred with gold and silver; grasses poising delicate racemes of turquoise; mosses adorned with tiaras of ethereal beauty, ruffles of ivory spray caressing the currents of rich emerald. The brief glow faded, and all became grey and black and dull green again. For a glimpse of another such fairyland I would face stress much wilder than greets one in the gap of Lodore.

BY THE SHORES OF DERWENTWATER

Another ravine in the cliff near by possesses a beautiful waterfall, but Barrow Cascade is on private ground and the free rambler can hardly be brought to see it. The head of Derwentwater is so grown with weed that a path has to be cut to allow boats to reach Lodore landings. Near here the once wonderful Floating Island anchors. A mat of vegetable fibre lying on the lake-bed at times becomes inflated with natural gas and rises to the surface. In 1864 a second floating isle put in an appearance, and during that dry summer it seemed likely that many acres of adjoining lake-floor would follow suit. Floating Island shares fell to tremendous discount and have never recovered. The Derwent here enters the lake by two channels through ooze and tangled water-grass. Few lakes have so extensive shoals as Derwentwater: for acres hereabout you may look over the boat’s side through some feet of clear, amber water at the growing reeds, white spathes piercing the mud, green stems, and hasty leaves unfolding ere they reach the upper air, or thin waving threads linking a tuft of foliage on the surface with unseen roots beneath; all kinds of pond-life creeping and swimming about. Where the lake-bed lies fallow the eye rests on soft levels of mud, with a passing host of minnows, a red-necked perch, or even a trout or pike. Here and there rock-spines pierce the level floor, or perchance a bank of pebbles, large and small, set in smooth mosaic, blood-red of granite picked out with sea-blue slate, grey pebbles of volcanic ash intermingled with knobs of salmon sandstone, and conglomerate of every colour and shape. Watch the sunlines creeping and chasing and quivering as little ripples undulate the lake’s surface.

GRANGE IN BORROWDALE
Early morning

The narrow glen ahead is Borrowdale: its entrance guarded by heathery Grange fell to left and by Gate Crag to right, with Castle Crag uprising in the centre as though jealous of an opening secret. A century ago the world ended at Grange: hardy he who toured into the sunset land beyond. The dalesmen were simpletons—“men of Gotham,” who hardly knew the use of wheels or saddlery. Castle Crag presents a precipitous front; unknown hands have fashioned earthworks on its crest. As the lake is not low, the boat comes some way upstream towards Grange. Here, when Borrowdale was its possession, Furness Abbey had a barn for its harvests. Nothing remains of it, however—possibly it was a mere skeleton of wood which, when the Dissolution prevented the harvesting of the monks, fell into ruin and was annexed piecemeal by neighbours as required. Casual observers have remarked, anent this penchant of our forefathers in the Fell Country, that they took much trouble to steal, carrying great distances timber they might have felled at hand, stones which in bewildering profusion lay upon their farmlands. Our forefathers knew the toughness of the mountain oak and ash; to fell the trees was simple, but no tools for shaping planks and baulks were obtainable, while worked stone is still worth carting far in the dales. Not every boulder is fit for building stone, my kindly critic, and it is hard northern sense which prevents the products of labour lying fallow in grassy mounds.

Grange stands in one of the sweetest recesses of Cumberland: the wide bed of Derwent furrows the tiny level; in front and behind rise, pile on pile, the rocky fells, dotted above with grey fleeces, below with red and white and scanty black of milch cattle. I take it a fine sight to sit by the bridge here and watch the sun’s last rays spread golden raiment on rugged Eel crags and Maiden moor; down below a shadow of blue is sweeping over intakes and screes, night hastening on ere day has thought farewell. The boat now drifts back to the lake, and passes along the Catbells shore. The bays, with steep woods or brackened slopes rising out of them, are all sweet and pretty, fit places for an afternoon’s quiet thought. This is the tip of an old lead mine; the whole country-side is rich in unworked minerals, from once-precious wad or plumbago (from Borrowdale for years the chief supply of the world was drawn) down to tin and copper. In the days of Elizabeth a colony of German miners was imported to improve the craft; several leading lake families are descended in part from them. The foreigners were not loved by the fell-landers, and for generations scarce mingled with them. The success of a new process has opened the mines at Church Coniston—will the same occur here? In days when theological argument was common, a Lake Country Quaker frequently encountered, and sometimes worsted, a dignitary of the Church.

“You may best me,” said the cleric, “but you do not convince me yet.”

“Friend,” rejoined the other calmly, “if but the man was to convince, I could convince thee at once; but what man’s talk can pierce through that armour of gold thou renewest yearly? Forget thy church money, friend, for an hour, and I’ll convince thee.”

If the mines are opened and our lakes and rivers made pools and streams of mud, the glory of our hillsides wasted with metal-fumes, the pen of the writer will avail little against the chant of profit. The large island now at hand is St. Herbert’s—the most renowned of all. In the early days of Christianity, an acolyte of Holy Isle, off Northumbria, came here to spend his life in divine contemplation and communion.

The story of Herbert’s death forms our prettiest unassailed legend. Once a year the hermit left his island-cell and made a journey to his beloved Cuthbert, who remained on Holy Isle. Age did not prevent their tryst; and when eternal rest was nigh, the venerable Christians each prayed that his departure should not cause his friend to grieve. That petition, says Bede, was granted.

One afternoon Cuthbert, surrounded by students of God’s Word, suddenly ceased the lesson he was expounding; his aged face took on a joyous smile, and in a moment he was dead. A messenger set out to carry the mournful news to Derwentdale, but on the way he met one hurrying to tell Cuthbert that on a certain day his beloved friend had passed away. At the same hour they both had entered the portals of death. Centuries after Herbert’s death his memory drew pilgrims here from distant parts: at Portinscale dwelt a smith who sold the image of the saint in silver-alloy and lead. Some years ago his mould and fragments of his wares were dug up near an old landing convenient to the island.

There is no recognised ruin on St. Herbert’s Isle; the few worked stones scattered about may be remains of the chapel built during the pilgrimages. It was for long the custom of the good folks of Keswick to celebrate St. Herbert’s day by a procession of boats up to the island and a service in the open air to his memory. Opposite St. Herbert’s Isle is a belt of land touching the lake beneath and the open commons of Catbells above, now secured as a public pleasure-ground for ever. In this is Keswick blessed above all Lakeland towns. The striking of eight o’clock from some campanile in the town brings back the mind to prosaic human necessity. My back bends to the oars and quickly the boat comes to rest in the reflections of Friar’s Crag. For a modest fee indeed I have had three hours of Derwentwater at its best.

Another good way to see the beauties of the valley is to walk or cycle round. The road takes you to Crosthwaite church and over the meadows to Portinscale, then winds into the glen of Newlands. But just within, the way turns sharply, climbing up a corner of Catbells, running in a long slope down to Grange, Lodore, and so to the town again. Skiddaw, rather than Derwentwater, is the most prominent object as we leave Keswick northward. Just at present that mountain is empurpled with heather, its great flanks vivid with bloom and with the lighter green of bracken fronds. Latrigg, the fell nearest at hand, has been planted with larches; not so many years ago it was treeless as Skiddaw and as beautiful. Not far from the road is the home of Southey, poet and gentleman.

CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, KESWICK

Crosthwaite church has been subject of many pens. The history of the present building goes back beyond the great Reformation. Somewhere near this point St. Kentigern of Strathclyde raised the cross when banished from his native court. The present building is doubtless the last of several which have successively weathered the storms of fourteen hundred years. Probably the first were built of willow wands and clay, like the daub huts still to be found in remoter Cumbria. With the Saxon still stronger in the land a house of timber would be raised. Foundations under the present building show an earlier stone edifice probably built just before the Norman Conquest, which in this stubborn region was not accomplished till almost two centuries after the fight at Senlac. The church stands out among the meadows, and in times of flood is sometimes cut off from its congregation. More than once within the recent past service has had to be suspended on account of rising waters. Present-day congregations may possibly be easily daunted, but I wonder how the friars of old used to manage when Derwent swelled across the meadows! The monks’ road was some feet below dale-level, and probably ran like a millrace. Did the old monks hold service in the belfry? Did they in a body shirk attendance at church, or was a boat hired to take down the votary whose turn it was to conduct worship, and the rest remain at home? We cannot tell now; but had the ancient records mentioned these things instead of others much less interesting to us, their study would attract more attention. Inside the church at Crosthwaite, apart from points of architecture valuable to those who understand, most striking is the effigy of Southey, done in white marble by Lough, the self-taught sculptor from Northumbria. The lines on it are by William Wordsworth. After the monument was in its place, the poet felt this tribute not sufficient for his dead friend’s merits: accordingly he rewrote some of the lines in loftier terms and had part of the tablet newly engraved. This too, remember, by that poet whom his contemporaries asserted to be without sympathy for the feelings of others!

Outside the church in the graveyard looking towards Skiddaw’s triple crown, is the grave of Southey: a plain stone tomb, with no highsounding phrases—fit memorial of him who found the name of poet linked with that of drunkard and libertine, and who exalted it in himself and his school of thought to glorious equality with that of gentleman. There is a font of great age in the church, and effigies and memorials of the Ratcliffe family, extinct with the last Earl of Derwentwater. Beyond the church the road passes between flowery meadows, across slow-flowing Derwent, and on through Portinscale the magnificent, with a glimpse of Derwentwater across its levels, and of course a succession of views of Skiddaw’s everchanging breast. Once there is a vision of Bassenthwaite, but greenery hides it almost as soon as seen. A turning here might carry one miles from sight and sound of twentieth-century life.

DRUID CIRCLE, NEAR KESWICK
Moonlight

For a mile Swineside is fringed—a common whereon not long ago half-wild pigs were pastured; then we hover by the vale of Newlands with its splendid background of mountains. The road sways undecidedly on the watershed: through a tangle of treetops we see farms below; along a far-off hillside are the ruins of a long flume down which water was conducted to drive that tall waterwheel. The skeleton remains, a blur on the pastoral beauty, though watercourse and mine buildings are in indistinguishable ruin. At last, the road throws a branch between banks of meadow-sweet down to rattling Newlands beck; our way sweeps toward cone-fronted Catbells. Shortly we descend into a narrow glen, then zigzag up the flank of the fell. After a hard pull (the day is hot; the distant hills are swinging in vapour) we come to easier angles. The road is delved out of the hillside, the home of bracken and creeping stagshorn, with, by rills almost silent with drought, trees of hawthorn, alder and rowan. Below us—over spears of larch, over chevaux-de-frise of oak and ash and birch, over green and bronze cupolas of sycamore and beech, is the vale of Derwent, from Lodore to the furthest Man of Skiddaw. How sweet and dreamy the blue stretch of water, dappled with shades of high-floating clouds, with emerald islets scattered in bay and reach, with the swift launches and the slow march of oared craft glinting back the sunlight at the dip of every blade! To northward lush fields and verdant woodlands border the mere, with hillsides, soft green and swelling among the levels, but, opposite, sheer and bristling with crags they rise from the water, crowded in by the heathy moors. Then the town on a tousled plain between Derwent and Greta, and beyond, the hills giving place to mountains, Blencathra and Helvellyn, shadows wavering in August’s blue sky. From this corner of Catbells you curve slowly down to Grange; the road is ever fair, but he is an ardent cyclist who prefers to ride all along this incline of beauty.

From Grange it is easy to pass up to the jaws of Borrowdale, in autumn one of the best pictures of Lakeland, when the birches’ silvern bark is half seen, half hid in the thinning leafage; the river is flooding down too, not hiding in pools and filtering under long stretches of white pebbles. Of course you see the Bowder Stone if it is your first visit. It is by a quarry quite close to the foot of Castle Crag.

One can reach Watendlath by a mountain track from Rosthwaite. This is a shallow dip in the moorland, containing a pretty tarn and one or two small farms. Not many years ago a Cumbrian visitor put the following note in his diary: “I came to a village called Watendlath, the most primitive place I ever saw in Cumberland. I entered one of the houses. There was no fireplace, but only logs of wood and turf burning on the floor.” Not here, but still within the Lake Country, I stumbled upon a similar thing. My queries aroused the ancient dame’s curiosity. “You divvent mean to tell me you’ve nivver seen a hearth fire afore? Well, well.” I was eager to know how, minus an oven, she baked bread. The old eyes sparkled with amusement. “Why, I make it in t’ pan ower t’ fire.” I didn’t see the process, but I tested the quality of the product, which was excellent. A century ago ovens were rare in the dales; on baking day the dough was placed in a covered pan, which was laid on the hearth. Fuel was then heaped around and on top of the pan. When sufficient time had elapsed the housewife raked aside the burning embers, opened the pan and took out the baked batch. Had it been possible for any wandering reader to witness the bakery, I would have told the place; but five years after my discovery, wishing to see again the old-time oven, I visited the dale. Alas! the cottage was empty, falling into ruins, and a green mound in the church garth covered my aged dame. The tarn of Watendlath is fed mainly by a stream which comes down the desolate back of Armboth fells, passing through Blea tarn on its way. This beck it is that goes down the thunder-chasm of Lodore. It is an interesting ramble, giving some splendid views of Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite, down to the Keswick road, by Ashness bridge.

FALCON CRAG, DERWENTWATER

But we are for Keswick, to recall briefly three scenes in its market-place beneath the old tower. Imagine, if you can, crowds of soberly dressed people passing in and out of this space—Convention week! How the dark clothes appal you as day after day passes! The streets have the air of devotion, but behind the houses the lanes teem with business. Another scene: the same streets are crowded, but the throng is of a wild gaiety—motley are the hues that press in and out. Not the steady, respectable murmur of conversation, but a wild medley of sounds, snatches of song, bursts of sound from uncouth unmusical instruments, shouts and laughter and much merrymaking. It is a bank holiday crowd, come to be entertained at all hazards. Five hours ago the town was peaceful as that morning when I rowed out on Derwentwater; shortly the crowd will have diminished, till by curfew-time many of the weary folks of Keswick will cast down their tasks to breathe something of evening’s calm.

THE VALE OF ST. JOHN, NEAR KESWICK

My last scene is the dalesman’s Keswick, as I first saw it many a year ago. The square is filled with moving sheep: it is the great October fair day and a long flock is now passing toward the narrow Borrowdale road. How the air quivers to their plaints! and the grey walls echo the tumult—the sharp barkings of busy dogs, and the loud shoutings of the shepherds. We descend to where the farm-wives sit with eggs and butter, and one offers us barley-bread, that luxury now so seldom seen and appreciated outside rural Cumbria. Or is it home-made cheese we would buy? Tough as leather and white as milk, ’tis true Willimer. Strong jaws and patience enough has the man who can enjoy this. Outside the narrow market are cartloads of potatoes and turnips; further down a couple of loads of wheat are for public auction. The congregation of buyers and sellers is interesting: hard-featured dalesmen, their ruddy wives and daughters, neater-dressed town-dwellers bargaining with them. Here comes another drove of sheep—judged by Southron standards they are small, but their mutton is the sweetest to be had. There is little “silly sheep” about them. Intelligent faces, alert limbs, they have already learnt to sup on heather-tops when the grass is buried in snow, silently to endure the wild blizzards and the rainstorms, to avoid swamp and torrent and crumbling edge of cliff. In their train comes friend Jacob, from the Bassenthwaite side of Skiddaw. All through this series of descriptions I have wished to introduce one lake as seen by those who dwell close to it. Bassenthwaite, being out of the tourist route, offers excellently for the experiment. Jacob’s rich dialect would, however, be difficult for those who know not the North Country, and to give the literal English would be to destroy the extreme raciness of the speech. Therefore, a middle way is attempted, retaining where possible the Cumbrian construction of phrase, and idiom.

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