Robert Southey

Departure from the Lakes.—Wigton.—Carlisle.—Penrith.—The Borderers.—The Pillar of the Countess.—Appleby.—Brough.—Stainmoor.—Bowes.—Yorkshire Schools.

We were now to leave the land of lakes and turn our faces towards London. T he regular road would have been to have returned to Penrith, and there have met the stage; but it would cost us only half a day's journey to visit Carlisle from whence it starts; and a city whose name occurs so often in English history, being the frontier town on this part of the Scotish border, was deserving of this little deviation from the shortest route. For Carlisle, therefore, we took chaise from Keswick, the distance being eight leagues. Our road lay under Skiddaw, and, when we had advanced about five miles, overlooked the lake of Bassenthwaite, nearly the whole of its length. We now perceived the beauty of this water, which, because of its vicinity to Keswick, is contemptuously overlooked by travellers; and the sight of its wooded shores, its mountainous sides, with its creeks and bays, and the grand termination formed by the Borrodale mountains as we looked back, made us regret that we had not devoted a day to exploring it. The road at length bent to the eastward, leaving the lake; and shortly afterwards, walking up a steep hill, we had a new and striking view of the vale. The Lake of Keswick was hidden behind Brandelow, the long mountain which forms its western bank: over this appeared the mountains behind the waterfall of Lodore, and over these we could distinguish the point of a remarkable mountain at the head of Winandermere. This was our last view of this lovely country: and a certainty that it was the last, that no circumstances could ever lead me to it again, made me gaze longer and more earnestly, as if to fix deeper in my memory so exquisite a landscape. I remembered the day of my departure from my father's house, and, for the first time, anticipated with fear the time when I should leave England, never to return to it.

We had left the mountains, but their roots or outworks extended to some distance before the plain began. The road lay over an open country of broken ground, with hills at a little distance, enclosed in square patches, and newly, as it appeared, brought into cultivation. There was not a single tree rising in the hedge-rows. Our stage was to Wigton, five leagues and a half, which is unusually far. The postboy rested his horses at Ireby, one of those townlets in which every thing reminds us of the distance from a metropolis. It consists of a few houses forming something like a plaza, grass grows between the stones of the pavement, and the children came clattering round us in their wooden shoes, as if the sight of a chaise were a novelty. We soon gained an eminence, from whence the flat country opened upon us. Solway Firth and the Scotish mountains lay to the north, to the east and south the plain extended as far as we could see;—a noble prospect, and to us the more striking as we had been so much among the close scenery of a mountainous district. We passed near a quadrangular farm-house, which the driver told us was built like those in Scotland. The dwelling and out-houses are round the fold, and the dung-hill in the middle of the court. This form was evidently devised for defence against cow-stealers.

Wigton bears all the marks of increasing prosperity. It is not many years since its market was held on Sunday, and the country people bought their meat before they went into church, carried it into the church with them, and hung it over the back of their seats till the service was over. The many well-drest inhabitants whom we beheld were sufficient proof that no such custom could now be tolerated there. Good inns, good shops, carts and chaises in the streets, and masons at work upon new houses, were symptoms of rapid improvement. They paint their houses with a dark red, thus hiding and disfiguring good stone; perhaps it may be thought the paint preserves the stone, but there can be no good reason for preferring so abominable a colour. Going up the stairs of the inn I noticed a common alehouse print of the battle of Wexford, which was an action with the Irish insurgents, in the late rebellion in that country. It represented a lady, by name Miss Redmond, at the head of the rebels, who is said to have taken arms to revenge the death of her lover. The artist was probably a well-wisher to the Irishmen.

From hence to Carlisle was less than three leagues, and the cathedral was in view over the plain. We met carts upon the way having wheels of primitive rudeness, without spokes, such as are used in our country, and which I have never till now seen since I left it. One of these wheels we saw by the road side, laid against the bank as a stile, its two holes serving as ladder-steps to ascend by. Carlisle is the capital of these parts, and is indeed a great city. While dinner was preparing we hastened to the cathedral. Its tower would not be thought fine upon a parochial English church, and looks the worse for standing upon so large a body. The inside, however, proved far more interesting than the exterior had promised. The old stalls remain, admirably carved in English oak, which rivals stone in durability; but the choir is disfigured by a double row of those vile partitions which crowd and debase all the heretical churches; and the window, instead of old painted glass, of which every pane is stained, having only a border of bright yellow, with corners of bright green, round uncoloured compartments, flings a glaring and ill-assorted light. The lives of StAugustine, StAnthony the Great, and StCuthbert, are represented here in a series of pictures. They were plaistered over at the time of the schism, but have been lately recovered as much as possible, by the exertions of Percy, the antiquary and poet, who is a dignitary of this church. As vestiges of antiquity they are curious; but otherwise they might well have been spared, the subjects being taken from those fabulous legends by which men of mistaken piety have given so much occasion of scandal. One of them represents the devil appearing to StAugustine, with a large book upon his back, fastened with great clasps, which is the register wherein he keeps his account of sins committed, and it seems a sufficient load for him. He had brought it to show the Saint his debtor account, which we are to suppose has been cancelled by immediate prayer, for the devil is saying, Poenitet me tibi ostendisse librum, 'I repent having shown thee the book.' Over some of the oldest tombs we noticed a remarkable form of arch, which might be adduced as an example of the sylvan origin of Gothic architecture: it resembles a bent bough, of which the branches have been lopt, but not close to the stem.

The city walls, which half a century ago were capable of defence, are now in a state of decay; the castle is still guarded, because within the court there is a depositary of arms and field-pieces. Here is an entire portcullis, formed of wood cased with iron. Manufactories of late introduction have doubled the population within few years, but with little addition to the decent society of the place. Poor Scotch and poor Irish chiefly make up the increase, and the city swarms with manufacturing poor in their usual state of depravity. We are once more in the land of salmon. Some of the natives here take this fish with a dexterity truly savage; they ride on horseback into the water, and pierce them with a heavy trident as long as a tilting-spear.

I observe many peculiarities at our inn. Two grenadiers painted upon wood, and then cut out to the picture so as to resemble life, keep guard, one at the bottom of the stairs, another half way up. They brought us a singular kind of spoon in our negus,—longer than the common one, the stem round, twisted in the middle, and ending in a heavy button or head, the heavy end being placed in the glass, and designed to crush the sugar. The boot-cleaner is an old Scotchman, with all the proverbial civility of his nation;—he entered with a low bow, and asked if we would please to give him leave to clean our boots. My bed curtains may serve as a good specimen of the political freedom permitted in England. General Washington is there represented driving American Independence in a car drawn by leopards, a black Triton running beside them, and blowing his conch,—meant, I conceive, by his crown of feathers, to designate the native Indians. In another compartment, Liberty and Dr Franklin are walking hand in hand to the Temple of Fame, where two little cupids display a globe, on which America and the Atlantic are marked. The tree of liberty stands by, and the stamp-act reversed is bound round it. I have often remarked the taste of the people for these coarse allegories.

*****

At six we were on the roof of the stage-coach on our return to London after this long journey. We saw symptoms of our vicinity to Scotland upon the road. Scotch drovers were on their way home, men who are employed in driving lean cattle into England to be fattened for the English market; they wore instead of a hat a sort of flat turban, and had a large mantle of gray checquered cloth scarft round them, a costume far more graceful than the English. One woman we saw walking barefoot, and carrying her shoes in her hand.—"'Tis the way they do in Scotland," said the coachman, who seemed to pride himself on having been born the south side of the border. Skiddaw appeared to our right, in a new form, and of more impressive magnitude than when we first beheld it at its foot, because we were aware of the distance, and knew by experience its height. During the whole of the first stage the road inclined towards the mountains which we had left:—we did not look at them without something of regret, remembering hours and days spent among them, in that happy state of health, both bodily and mental, which extracts enjoyment even from difficulty and toil.

We breakfasted at Penrith. There are the remains of a castle here on a little eminence, which have been much dilapidated of late;—a fine gateway has been pulled down for the sake of the materials, and after it had been demolished, the stones were found to be so excellently cemented together, that it was cheaper to dig fresh ones than to separate them. This habit of quarrying in castles and abbeys has been fatal to some of the most interesting ruins in England. Richard III. resided here when Duke of Gloucester: the character of this prince, like that of our Pedro, has been vindicated by late historians; and the prevailing opinion is, that he has been atrociously calumniated to gratify the Tudors, an able but a wicked race of princes. It is a proof of his popular qualities at least, that his memory is still in good odour here, where he could not have been beloved unless he had eminently deserved to be so, because the country was attached to the hostile party.

We had an intelligent companion on the roof, a native of the country, who seemed to take a pleasure in communicating information to us concerning it, perceiving me to be a foreigner, and that I listened to him with attention. This rendered the next stage, for unfortunately he proceeded no farther with us, particularly interesting. The road ran parallel with the sierra of Crossfell, at some little distance from it; its length and uniformity of outline so diminished its apparent height, that I listened to him at first with incredulity when he told me it exceeded any of the mountains in the lake country: yet books confirm his statement, and appearances must not be weighed against measurement. It formed a fine screen to the east. Immediately near Penrith we crossed two rivers which still retained the wild character of mountain streams. The country is beautiful, and its scenery enriched by the ruins of many castles, the strong-holds in former times of the Banditti of the Border. These Borderers carried the art of cow-stealing to its greatest possible perfection; they are now reduced to a state of subordination and law, and their district is as orderly as any in the kingdom; yet in those parts which are remote from the great roads, though their plundering habits are laid aside, they retain much of their old rude manners and barbarous spirit. An instance of this we heard from our companion. A Borderer, who was at mortal enmity with one of his neighbours, fell sick, and, being given over, sent for his enemy, that they might be reconciled. "Ah," said he, when the man entered the room, "I am very bad, very bad indeed;—d'ye think I shall die?" "Why, hope not," replied his visitor,—"hope not;—to be sure you are very bad, but for all that perhaps you may do yet." "No, no," said the other, "I shall die, I know I shall die,—and so I have sent for you that I may not go out of the world in enmity with any one. So, d'ye see, we'll be friends. The quarrel between us is all over,—all over,—and so give me your hand." Accordingly this token of reconciliation was performed, and the other took his leave; when, just as he was closing the door after him, the sick man cried out, "But stop," said he,—"if I should not die this time, this is to go for nothing: Mind now,—it's all to be just as it was before, if I do not die."

Not far from Penrith is a pillar of stone, well wrought, and formerly well emblazoned, with dials on each side, and this inscription upon a brazen plate:

This pillar was erected anno 1656, by the Right Honourable Anne, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, and sole heir of the right honourable George Earl of Cumberland, &c., for a memorial of her last parting in this place with her good and pious mother, the right honourable Margaret Countess Dowager of Cumberland, the 2d of April, 1616. In memory whereof she also left an annuity of four pounds to be distributed to the poor within the parish of Brougham every 2d day of April, for ever, upon the Stone Table hard by.

The little low stone table stands close at hand, on which the distribution of this alms is still made. I have seldom been so interested by any monument or inscription, as by this, which relates wholly to the private feelings of an individual. She was an admirable woman, and her name is still held in veneration.

A little distant, though not in sight of the road, is the scene of a circumstance which I have seen more frequently related than any other single anecdote in English books: so deep an interest do these people, one and all, take either in the practice or the tales of hunting. It is the park,—Whinfield is its name,—where a hart was once started, and chased by a single buck-hound from thence to Red Kirk in Scotland, which is sixty English miles off, and back again, thirty leagues in all. The hart returned to die upon his lair: he leaped the park pales, and expired immediately; and the hound, not having strength for the leap, died on the outside. Their heads were nailed against a hawthorn-tree, with these lines under them:

We passed through Kirkby Thur, that is, the Church by Thor, one of the few etymological vestiges of Saxon idolatry in England. The worship of this god was common in these parts; the name Thor occurs in a pedigree, as that of the lord of one of the manors in Cumberland. Through Temple Sowerby next, where the Knights Templars were once established. It was not unusual formerly, for men who found it necessary to limit their expenses as much as possible, to retire into this neighbourhood, where thirty years ago they could live in a respectable family for so small a pension as eighteen English pounds;—a sort of banishment, for there was then little intercourse between the metropolis and these remote parts, and no stage coach nearer than York. Then we reached Appleby, the county town of Westmoreland, though apparently a smaller place than Kendal. The road runs close by it, but does not enter, a river dividing it from the town. A castle, one of the few which are still habitable, overlooks it from a wooded eminence; the river and bridge come into the foreground, and the whole forms a highly beautiful scene. Here we lost our companion. He told us that Appleby was almost in as high a state of faction about horse-racing as ever Constantinople had been from the same cause.

The road, which was now become of a drearier character, continued under Crossfell till we approached Brough, when it drew nearer to the sierra just at its termination. Its sides were broken here with rocks, and loose stones brought from above by the frosts and torrents. Under it stood some well-built houses, with a few trees about them, not set thickly enough to look like plantations, but as if of spontaneous growth. The appearance of these houses, wherein certainly the elegancies as well as comforts of life would be found, formed an impressive contrast with the dreariness of the adjoining country, which was as bleak and ungenial as the worst wastes of Galicia. At Brough the coach dined, at an hour unreasonably early, and at an inn bad enough and dirty enough to be in character with a beggarly town.

Our next stage was over the sierra of Stainmoor, a cold and desolate tract. The few houses upon the way bear testimony to the severity of the climate; their roofs are raised to as acute an angle as possible, that the snow may not lie upon them, which covers these heights probably all the winter through. Since my first day's journey in Cornwall, I have seen nothing so desolate, and in this latitude the sky is as cheerless as the earth. Beyond this is the town of Bowes, which is in Yorkshire, a huge province, as large as any other three in the island. The town, like all those which we have seen since Carlisle, has its ruined castle, meant formerly for protection against their marauding neighbours, who long after the union of the two kingdoms carried on incessant hostilities against English beef and mutton.

At Bowes begins the great grazing country for children.—It is the cheapest part of England, and schools for boys have long been established here, to which tradesmen, and even some parents of higher order who think money better than learning, send their children from all the great towns, even from the western provinces,—but London supplies the greater number. Two of these lads we took up, who were returning to their parents in the metropolis after a complete Yorkshire education. One of them, who was just fourteen, had been four years there, during which time one of his sisters and his father had died, and he had never seen face of friend or kinsman. I asked him if he thought he should know his brothers and sisters when he saw them: he said, he supposed not; but presently, after a pause, added with a smile in the dialect of the country, "I think I shall ken 'em too." This was an interesting lad with a quick eye and a dyspeptic countenance. He will be apprenticed behind some London counter, or at a lawyer's desk, and die for want of fresh air. His companion was a fine, thriving, thick-headed fellow, with a bottle belly and a bulbous nose; of that happy and swinish temperament, that it might be sworn he would feed and fatten wherever he went.

These schools are upon the most oeconomical plan: a pension of sixteen pounds sterling pays for everything, clothing included. For certain they are kept upon Spartan fare; but the boys, who were from different schools, spake well of their masters, and had evidently been happy there. Sheets are considered as superfluous, and clean linen as a luxury reserved only for Sundays. They wash their own clothes by means of a machine; and the masters use no other labourers in getting in their harvests both of hay and corn; so that what with farming, teaching, and a small cure, for they are generally priests, they make the system answer. What is taught is merely what is required for the common purposes of life, to write well, and be ready at the ordinary operations of arithmetic. They profess to teach Latin, but I could not find that the masters ever ventured beyond the grammar. At one of these schools they had been enacting plays, to which the neighbourhood were admitted at a price. Three pounds a night had been their receipt, and this was divided among the boys. Our little friend related this with great satisfaction, told us that he himself had played a part, and was easily persuaded to give us one of his songs. They had moveable scenes, he said, as good as we should see in any theatre.—One of these schools consists of Irish boys, and the master goes over every summer to catch a drove of them.

A single house at Greta-Bridge was our next stage, pleasantly situated beside a clear rapid river in a woody country; but after this single scene of beauty all was flat and dismal. The road, however, had this recommendation, that for league after league it was as straight as the most impatient traveller could wish it. At midnight we left the coach at Borough-Bridge, bidding adieu to the poor boys who had forty hours to travel on.