The English Lakes :: CHAPTER XVI ULLSWATER, HOME OF BEAUTY

CHAPTER XVI ULLSWATER, HOME OF BEAUTY

To see Ullswater is to love it, and to love a scene is to often travel that way. I often travelled there even when so to do meant an eighteen miles’ tramp there and an eighteen miles’ tramp back again. I have walked there to go fox-hunting, and some rare chases I have enjoyed—crags of Fairfield and Helvellyn, yes! (I have tramped back, too, with shins bumped and skinned through scrambling among the rocks, and oh, so weary and footsore.) But we are not fox-hunters always in the land of the fells, whatever our detractors say. We do not see beauty in the same places as they. The “splendidly rugged” hillside of the rambler is only “bad ground” to the shepherd kind; and the waterfall thundering in the gloomy dell, so admired by the emotional, arouses little interest with those who in wild winter have to wrestle with torrents as foamy and rock-tortured as the finest peep of Aira or Lodore. We see beauty in the small things of our everyday life—in our wee birds and springing flowers (when the flock does not make us too busy to notice them). I have seen—I almost said I know, but that is too big a boast for even those who dwell there—Ullswater under almost all conditions. My first view was from far-off Kentmere High Street. Only a small portion was visible, still that much was Ullswater. The next time I saw its long stream from Helvellyn, but the time was not ripe for going down. My feet were toward Thirlmere, and the other lake had to wait awhile.

Shortly, however, I had opportunity—I started ere sunrise, and met the light on the top of High Street. I was still a novice at fellscraft, and knew but little of the lay of the land. Still, with face set so sure toward Ullswater, neither map nor guide-book was required to keep direction. It is wonderfully deceptive, that descent of Fusedale. From the ridge it seems that ten easy minutes down the slope would bring one there, but an hour passed and I had not reached Howtown bay. On the way I had a distant glimpse of some deer. On the fells hereabouts a herd of native red deer roam in a wild state. Sometimes outlyers go far south, and more than once they have been chased miles by hounds. A forester looks after the herd—no light matter when there is no keep on the uplands and the half-starved animals break into the turnip fields, or drive the sheep away from the hay thrown out for their benefit. The forester also regulates the constitution of the herd: occasionally there is a day of thinning out redundant stags or hinds. The red deer was till comparatively recent times known on several of our wilder fells. At Ennerdale a piece of rugged fell known as the Side was a rallying point for them, and from this they ranged the mountains to Buttermere and Wastdale, where some few homed about craggy Scawfell. There was a wild herd on the Rydal fells for long, and within the memory of persons not long dead deer used to wander occasionally on the moorland between Duddon and Esk. Stories of how their fathers fought the deer in winter from the stackyards are often told by the dwellers on Ullswater farms. Hereabouts, too, nested the golden eagle long after it was extinct in less stern parts. The last was recorded as shot on the Martindale fells by a local named Sisson, about seventy years ago. The bird had been unknown since 1790, when a mature specimen was shot or trapped in the wilds near Buttermere. The birds and beasts of Ullswater at that period would make an interesting list indeed: kites, eagles, bittern; martens, badgers, wild cats, and the like. I don’t believe there are any wild cats now, but the sweetmart is not yet extinct, and latterly there has been a recrudescence of the badger. The foumart is a noisome beast, and capable of doing great damage in a poultry roost. Dogs will hunt it with glee, but are content to corner it, not to bowl it over.

ULLSWATER, FROM GOWBARROW PARK
A sultry June morn

I was disappointed this first time I reached Howtown to find that the road did not follow the lake shore. Instead it curves backward over the ridge between Hallin fell and wall-like High Street. This is a bit of bleak road when the Helm wind is tearing up the lake, but the meadows around the wyke are so snug that tents are not seldom there until November. Hardy campers these! Martindale is a really odd corner—I think it got its distinctive atmosphere under the forest laws of Rufus; for except a new bridge and maybe half a dozen red-painted carts, everything has the indefiniteness of hoary age. Perhaps it is a knowledge of its old-world fauna which makes me place Martindale so far remote in the ages. The road passes the church; the growing greyness of this makes its exact year of erection difficult to fix. The clergyman in charge for long had the smallest direct revenue in the diocese of Carlisle, and the benefice was often awaiting acceptance. Nowadays, however, the three pounds yearly is greatly improved upon.

ULLSWATER: SILVER BAY

Past Sandwick there is a return to the mountain track winding in bracken and cevin. Then for miles, now a hundred feet up the hillside, now at its level, the lake is skirted. There is a succession of fine views, near and distant: of the steamer slipping through the deep blue water within stone’s throw of the crags, for the lake-bed falls in a precipice here; of sheep climbing and grazing on the shelving hillside, and timorously rushing off at our approach; of the swell when a breeze lifts it along, bursting green on the boulders and throwing shimmering spray into the air; of birches in their summer radiance; of thin green shadows of ghylls where rivulets are slipping down to the lake through piles of moss; of the bramble, and the fox-glove and the heather; of the juniper, the rowan, and the bilberry; of green Glencoin, and mine-torn Glenridding; of thorny Gowbarrow; of the hilltops embosoming Matterdale and its quaint old church, where the sacramental wine was long kept in a wooden keg, and where many a dalesman was baptized “of riper years,” opportunity not serving to traverse the weary miles from home when he was an infant. One dweller at least in remote Martindale (whose chapel was then unused for want of a cleric), can tell of his “kursennin’” here. He was a big lad when the family party were rowed across Ullswater and clomb the brow by Aira Force. The little church he remembers well, especially he noted a big bass fiddle hung on the wall near the font. Fifty years or so later he revisited the place and pointed out where the fiddle had hung on that memorable day. One of the fiddlers left his instrument here between services, out of the way of the lads. The village orchestra was a feature in old dales churches—we were far behind other parts in adopting the harmonium or the organ. At one place the parson’s wife used to lead the singing on a concertina—not very many years ago.

Rounding the fell corner, there is a glorious view of Helvellyn and Fairfield, empurpled with scree, rifted with ravines, solid, smooth crags sheering skyward, often aloof from the bulk of the mountain. A ragged line etched against the sunny green fell shows the Striding Edge’s top, that other ruggedness ending with a sharp peak is Swirrel Edge with Catchedecam. Between these two, and beneath the wide breast of Helvellyn is that romantic rock-basin where lies Red Tarn, the most notable and highly elevated of our mountain waters. Trout caught here are remarkably thick in the shoulder. Our ancient writers make the char also occupant, but no one living has, so far as I know, ever seen one there. As the water is deep, attempts were made half a century ago to introduce that fish; but whether ova, fry, or fullgrown fish were turned in, their enemies accounted for them so well that not one was observed again. An ancient friend of mine—an angler and poacher of wide repute in the old lath-fishing days—once told me a wonderful story—“aye, an’ I’ve caught ’em mesel’, up to a poond weight”—of a unique race of fish dwelling in the fringe of the mist at Red tarn. He called them the silver trout. Their scales were silvery, their fins small, their flesh dainty. Only in the deepest pools beyond the reach of a shore rod were they found; to the lath with its trailing baits alone they fell. I have from other sources heard a similar story, but no one lights upon the silver trout in these days. Old Tom was quite unlettered; it is unlikely that he ever heard that old books asserted that the skelly or gwyniad, as well as the char, was to be found here.

In peak and frowning crag, in shadowy slack and deep cove, Helvellyn extends far to westward, finally breaking away at the sun-filled hollow of Grisedale. Westward again, the debacle, an amazing tangle of mountains, some throwing a mossy green shoulder into view, others jagged precipices or walls of scree—Fairfield and Cofa Pike, St. Sunday’s Crag and Hartsop Dodd, Red Screes, Kirkstone, and many another. But to describe yard by yard the opening view were tedious indeed; when one has climbed almost every moor and mountain within sight, and walked in many of the coves and valleys, one is apt to have much to say which must be familiar to all who know the Lake Country by repute.

ULLSWATER: THE SILVER STRAND
Afterglow

There is little of history in the Patterdale of to-day; the inrush of tourists has caused the old-style cottages and farms to be renovated almost out of existence. Bay windows and upper floors take the place of bottle-glass casements and the old camp bedsteads which stood in recesses of the one long room, and, by their great size, formed really chambers within a chamber. To see Ullswater fully we must be upon it. A boat is secured and we float down the Goldrill, river of pretty name and raging furies of floods, under the bridge. Hereabouts another rivulet joins us, to-day in quiescent a mood as ours; but it has trilled down steep Seat Sandal, eddied in dark Grisedale tarn over the crown of Dunmail, burst in mad career down the dale of the Wild Swine (Grisedale), losing pace in the level meadows, and now in a murmur it glides through the laced alder shade to fall in here. The united currents send us out on to the lake itself, carrying us clear of the wide tangle of grasses growing in the silt the floods carried from Kirkstone and Helvellyn. This upper basin of Ullswater is where the great lake trout was last to be found. Though it is several years since an undeniable example, with hooked underjaw, was caught, the existence of the fish was no myth. Legend makes too much of its size, asserting that fish sixty pounds in weight were landed. At flood time the great trout, states Clarke, writing about a century and a half ago, ascend the Goldrill, as also in autumn at the time for spawning. This in his day gave rise to the sport of spearing, to join in which, he observes that gentlemen came from great distances. The redds, a series of sand-bottomed pools, were visited at night; a torch showed where the fish lay, and the sportsman, armed with a three-pronged spear, kept striking as long as a big trout was within his reach. The ordinary lake trout to-day hasten into the river when a flood is due, after there has been heavy rain on the fells. As our boat is pulled from the shore, the grand panorama of mountains begins to show; the bluffs behind the village dotted with white hawthorn, and the flat lands by the river are not yet dwarfed by more mighty forms. Place fell is the most commanding sight, two thousand feet of rock rising in unbroken slope from the water’s edge. A level tongue of land is now quite close by. The whitened current pouring through acres of silt is silent testimony of mining activity. This stream has its little tragedy. Once the char inhabited Ullswater, and spawned in Glenridding beck. When the mines began to be worked many breeding char were poisoned by pollution. Others to save themselves did not shed their spawn, but returned to the lake. A few afterwards left their ova on the shallows and among the water grasses, but the following seasons the females held back their spawn altogether. The stock of char became rapidly depleted, and for years there has been no trace of the kind in the lake.

HAZY TWILIGHT, HEAD OF ULLSWATER

My taste is not for big hotels, but I will admit that the Ullswater, with its back to wooded Glenridding, has a splendid site. It faces across the lake the bloomy sweep of Place fell, and Helvellyn, with a tumult of hills around it, is also visible from its grounds. At the foot of its garden is the steamer pier. To me there seems little of anachronism about the Ullswater boats—I wonder why? At Windermere the yachts always seem out of sympathy; at Coniston this is glaringly so (such opinion does not prevent my using them when convenient); Derwentwater’s toy fleet plies between Portinscale and Lodore, from one palatial hotel to its neighbour. The boats here are more business-like. The sharp, near fells, the deep blue of the water, make one think of beauteous Norwegian fiords, of arms of the sea where the rise and fall of tide is scarcely marked on the upspringing rocks, rather than a lake of quiet England.

Our boat is turned inshore, and we feel the coolness of nearing woodlands. Above our heads oaks are clinging in thin profusion to every ledge of a lofty crag—this is Stybarrow, the rocky hill dividing Glenridding from its eastern neighbour. Nowadays a main road has been cut through the foot of the fell, just above the level of the water, but a disused zigzag track shows the way dalesmen of the past travelled to market. Difficult was the track for friends, with many a rut and spongy mire, sharp curves and slippery ascents; but for foes from northward it was for centuries impassable. Little has history to tell of the head of Ullswater; the customs of the country-side, the lack of fortified places, of even a Border tower or of a cattle keep, tell plainly of uninvaded peace. But though their lands were free from harrying, the yeomen of Patterdale were ever willing to fight under the banners of Greystoke and Yanwath. And for thus leading the foray the wild Scots of Liddelsdale once almost dealt them retribution. A strong band stole across the Esk, and during the night rode hard up the Eden valley and across the grassy fells towards the lake. Marching unsignalled, from an unusual direction, their presence was first noted by the shepherds as they rose from sleeping in the folds on Helvellyn. One ran to rouse the glen, the others made a rush down the mountain wall between Glencoin and their home, hoping to hold the road, the key of the situation, long enough for their friends to rally and beat back the invasion. Mounsey was a stout yeoman, had seen service long and hard in Border campaigns, and he it was who took command. He placed his few where the road narrowed between two crags and was steepest, where the rocky ground prevented the dreaded charge of the enemy’s horse. The Scots came riding on, unaware that their presence had been discovered till a flight of arrows whizzed from rock and bush. Thrown into disorder by these, a second volley sent the raiders hot-trod to the foot of the hill. Here they formed an attack, leaving their ponies, taking what cover they could find. They reached the belt of timber, and carefully crept through it without finding an enemy, for the men of the dale had after their ambush retired, so that the shock with the full weight of the Scottish force could not be brought to bear on them at a disadvantage.

A MOUNTAIN PATH, SANDWICK, ULLSWATER

The leader halted at the upper edge of the forest to survey the situation. To his eye, there was no way of winning up that lofty hill while the bows were plied from shelter secure. Accordingly he halted, sending scouts to right and left. The chief had certain knowledge of the number of men-at-arms in Patterdale; he had brought a party strong enough to crush their utmost resistance, and had cut off their chance of alarming their allies of the low country. One scout told that away to the left the fell became a terrific precipice, along the wooded ledges of which a party might move to attack the dalesmen’s rear. Fifty were accordingly detached to force the way of the cliff. Safely they passed through the wood of Glencoin, then swarmed cautiously from ledge to ledge of the dizzy crag; the blue lake beneath received the stones they dislodged. Of a sudden the leader of the forlorn hope reeled, threw up his arms, fell back and down—down—down. Undaunted by his wild cry and the splash which after a pause showed that his body had fallen from ledge to ledge into the lake, from their path in mid-air the Scots sought the archer in vain. Another man, with a strange gurgle, swung round, grasping at the cloth-yard that had transfixed him. He too fell into the abyss. When the tenth had been struck, one of the Scots espied the enemy. So far away, and deep below, that he looked merely a doll, an archer stood on a rock by the shimmering water. Mounsey had divined their plan, and with his strong arm and sure aim saved Patterdale from invasion.

The Scottish leader waited hour after hour for the wild slogan which should proclaim that his men had attacked the ridge, then a few stragglers returned from the face of the cliff and told him of the disaster which had befallen. The word was given at once “to horse,” and the raiders sped back to the Border. For his service the men of Patterdale claimed the Mounsey as their king. He was given the best house and land, on condition that he, and his heirs for ever, should be able and willing to lead the dalesmen to victory. For centuries the family held their post with distinction. The first Scottish rabble to break into the glen were the men of the Forty-Five. And they did not get far beyond, for the men of Troutbeck manned the narrow head of their dale and, unaided by the Royal army, beat back the invasion. For which the courage of Patterdale is still slighted across the fell. The last King of Patterdale flourished a century ago; his estates were afterwards sold to the Marshall family. The name and lineage of Mounsey still exists in the dale.

I find legend a too-fascinating topic; get the boat pushed forward if we have to see Aira Force this golden afternoon. The wavelets rattle gay under the bow as we sweep past soft Glencoin, with a solitary house glimmering through the trees—Seldom Seen, once, it is said, the jewel-house of the Howards in time of serious war. But the greatest beauty is on Place fell. In bands of green and brown and golden yellow, in purple streak and white, it rises rock on rock, slope on slope, more the presiding genius of Ullswater than vaunted but distant Helvellyn. The rugged Gowbarrow we are approaching is tame and smooth compared with the giant across the water. Tree-fringed, with brake of bramble and low bushes, the road runs along the northern shore; beyond bay after bay we find it keeping pace with us apparently. It is a level run for the cyclist, and happy is he who first at sunset approaches by it. On a curve of white shingle we land; the field is glorious with water buttercups, and the last wild roses star the brakes around. The gorge of Aira is quite half a mile from the lake. Leaving the road Lyulph’s tower cannot be evaded by the observing eye. Who Lyulph was is a disputed point among the Doctors; his name was given to this place after he was long dead: he wasn’t foolish enough to design or build this erection. Relief comes to the soul when, rising up the hill, you see the meadows where the daffodils blow, the place where Dorothy Wordsworth pointed out to her gifted brother the flowers dancing in the breeze and struck the chord which gave us the fine poem known as “The Daffodils.” Aira Force too has its story of love and romance, which is briefly stated thus: A lady dwelling beneath knotty Gowbarrow loved a knight of Cumbria, and they were wont to tryst by the waterfall. The lover, to prove his love and gain honour, joined a crusade. No news of him came from Syria for years—he was a prisoner there—and the lady, lonely and much troubled, began to fear that he had fallen. At length the knight broke prison and hastened home. At night he approached the trysting place of old, and through the trees saw a lady in white moving. He sprang forward to meet her—it was his own true love for whom he had jeopardised his life—just as she came to the crag which overhangs the torrent’s leap. In his arms he held her a moment, then she started back, back, and out of sight—down that terrible rock, into the gloom of the spout. After her leapt the brave knight—he found her in the whirlpool, caught her, and reached the shore. And there, as he bent over her, she opened her eyes a moment and recognised him; with his name on her lips she died. The sudden shock, the fall, the deep waters, had beaten out the frail life of the somnambulist. By the waterfall the knight built him a cell, and, a hermit, dwelt in the solitude.

The hollow of Aira is a gloomy place: moist-loving ferns spread over the rocks, there is wet moss everywhere, spray ever hangs dank in the air. In height Aira is great among our waterfalls. In flood-time it is a glorious medley: flying waters, shiny fangs of rock, dripping trees and grass and weed and fern.

BROUGHAM CASTLE, PENRITH

Although the lower portions of the lake, toward Pooley, do not come into this brief survey, they are far from unlovely, though to most the beauties do not begin till Hallin fell is abreast and wild Gowbarrow. The eastern reaches are more domesticate—green swelling hills and wide woodlands, with many-acred spaces of smooth pasture. To the south of the lake’s outlet is Swarth fell, a haunt of straight-necked foxes (I have been at their chase from far-off Kentmere), and to the north is Dunmallet, another of those curious “teeth” found among our lake mountains.

My finest experience of Ullswater was on a summer evening. Our boat, to quiet pulling, stole out into the upper lake. The sun was nearly down to Fairfield. When about opposite Silver Bay oars were taken in—their solemn steady chunking sound seemed to mar the harmony of even. A few men and women were wandering the paths by the mouth of Glenridding, but no one was afloat. Away over the horizon, behind the fells, thunder is still echoing. An hour ago raindrops dimpled the lake’s surface; the air was dark and brooding, every few seconds a vivid flash of lightning rent the gloom, and blast after blast of heaven’s trumpet seemed to shake the mountains to their deep-set foundations. After storm, calm—and refreshment and peace at eventide. From westward pour the generous, kindly beams of light, pouring out new life to rain-dashed fields and woodlands, giving new songs and glorious to the birds. What a glory of colouring mantles field and fell and forest. Though a wide gate is cleared for the sun in its latest hour, dense clouds are still overhead, and the north-east is ink-black. The sun touches the topmost ridge of Fairfield with living fire, and just beneath is a deep fold of violet vapour. Place fell is glorious with purple light, its riven ghylls mysterious with a deeper tinge. Along the craggy face of Helvellyn a soft veil of mist is rolling: from hollow Grisedale come cloudy wreaths and streams which bathe the mountain-top ere they dissolve in the amber even. Around us Ullswater spreads, blue as the bluest of our summer skies; its ripples, like frolicking children, rejoice in careless mirth. Now the sun hides behind the turmoil of mountain-tops, and we are in a vale of glorious shadow. The faint lake-current and the soft-moving breeze drift us ever down the mere: we are past Glenridding, the climbing shadow has risen far up Place fell. Above, all is clear and golden; a sharp line passing along the hillside marks off the zone of light. The sheep are wandering upward as the day retires; from the summits they will greet the first gleams of to-morrow. The dusk gathers in every hollow; night is softly, reluctantly, drawing in. Still the drama of sunset ebbs tardily on the rocky heights; a wee wafer of cloud, the last of its tribe it seems, is drawing away from the flaming west. As it curls and rolls its course up the sky, its brilliance fades to crimson, to thin purple, and, as a grey lock, it fades out of sight at the zenith. Boats are now astir on our Ullswater: hardly can there live a man, or woman, so dead to the beauties of Nature as to willingly stay indoors on such an eventide. So time passes: we drift beneath the bulk of Place fell, then the oars are put out and in the shade we steal along. Grey-blue are the heights behind Glencoin, all the glory has gone from the western sky. The clouds have crept out of the north, and streaks of pulsing night-glow come up in their stead. Brown the woods on the hillside above us, and a silence of sleep reigns supreme. A rill falling into the lake rattles pleasantly; the soft whistle of an otter, the wing-beat of a bird hawking the night moths, the sudden splash as a trout falls from its leap into mid-air, break pleasantly on the ear.

Look above: the mountains shoulder to great frowning heights, but the marvel of all is the sky. There seems no firmament, no bound to the ranging eye. Only the gate of heaven itself seems withdrawn from vision. Star-drift, in soft luminous puffs, besprinkles the great violet dome: planet and fixed star, great and small, dust over the immeasurable width with ten million sparkling lights. On most nights it is the stars that seem so far away, but to-night, by quiet Ullswater, they discover themselves as milestones near us on the way to that distant blue curtain which is the nearer boundary of heaven itself. More comprehensible is the element beneath us, where over plunging depths are mirrored the twinkling stars. There again the light is a veil to a mystery, but not a boundless one. For we know what manner of things lie beneath the waters: their pits have been plumbed and their secrets discovered. There is a flush of pale primrose in the east: the moonrise. How the the frail light glows! We turn the corner of Hallin fell toward Howtown ere the full orb at last rolls into sight. In a few minutes the fells are radiant with the peaceful beams, and a broad track of silver leaps down the bay.

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