not before we have caught just a glimpse of the Caldbeck
moors, and John Peel's country far away to the north. A




Tke Road, Kes:vick, to Penrith.

lonely house — indeed it is a lonely road — stands by the way-
side, some halfway down the slope. Approaching it from the
east, it is not in the least likely that any cyclist would be
going slow enough to notice a small inscription on the wall.
A frivolous rider would almost certainly be in the full enjoy-
ment of a two mile run with his feet up, while the more sober
wheelman, under the stimulus of a good road and a gentle
downward slope, would be enjoying the delightful prospect
that had just opened ahead of him. It is, to be sure, quite



HI A FORGOTTEN HOSTELRY 75

possible that either of these might take the solitary building at
Moor End for a house of refreshment — as indeed it once was —
and in looking for the long vanished sign by chance encounter
the plate on its whitewashed wall bearing the following
inscription —

This building's age
These letters show
Though many gaze
Yet few may know
MDCCIX.

The architect evidently did not rate the intelligence of the
neighbourhood in 1709 very highly.

This was once a busy hostelry enough, though now so lonely
and forlorn, and was known in the coaching days as the Siin
Inn. It was kept from 1790 to 1850 by a well known couple
named Hutchinson. The old lady, who went on crutches for
the last part of her life, was a popular gossip, and no regular
travellers when the coach stopped there failed to visit the
chimney corner in the kitchen and have a crack with her.
Mr. Wilson, of Keswick, has preserved a somewhat character-
istic reply given by old Isaac Hutchinson to Bass's agents
when they first travelled the country, placing large orders
everywhere, in consequence of the increasing demand from
tourists.

" I git aw my yal," said the old Tory, " fra Alfred Eemison
o' t' Burns, an' it's alius varra good ; bit I divvent want to
be unneighbourly — -what, ye niun send me a hofe quarter"
(4^ gallons).

At the foot of the long hill we cross the babbling current of the
Glendermaken on its way from Mungrisedale, and, running
parallel with its course, go rising and falling with the road over
the rough toes of Blencathara, and beneath its mighty shadow
to the ancient village of Threlkeld. Down in the meadows on
the left, the tall stone chimneys of Threlkeld Hall rise above
the trees, a venerable farmhouse, once a seat of the potent



7f»



THRELKELD HALL



CHAP.



knight of that name, who, it may be remembered, married the
widow of the Black CUfford, and the mother of the " Shepherd
Lord." The manor was even in those days, according to the
owner's own showing, full of fighting yeomen.

A still greater Conservative than even Sir John Threlkeld, I
have heard somewhere, lived at Threlkeld Hall not very long
ago : for when the landlord, to the immense satisfaction of the
tenant's family, proposed to refloor the ancient kitchen, the old
gentleman in possession, whom age had consigned to his arm




On the 7va.y to the Lake^ Kcs7vick.

chair, offered the stoutest resistance, urging the time-honoured
plea, that as it had done well enough for him and his ancestors,
it should be more than good enough for degenerate moderns
and their descendants. As this stout preserver of ancient
monuments refused to move, he and his chair were lifted
bodily about during the progress of the work, under a steady
fire of protest.

The valley is still fairly populous ; grey or whitewashed
homesteads, blinking between the fresh June leaves of the



Ill IN MEMORY OF FOXHUNTERS 77

sycamore, which is the great "shade tree" of the Cumbrian
farmhouse, are everywhere in evidence as we descend it.
They do not shelter fighting, but fox-hunting yeomen nowa-
days, as is sufficiently indicated by a monument in Threlkeld
churchyard, which we must by no means pass by. Here
indeed is a memorial I will venture with much confidence
to assert is unique of its kind ; for near the gate of the grave-
yard, which opens on the village street, is a homely cenotaph
of local stone, and on it are inscribed the names of over forty
fox-hunters, natives of Threlkeld parish, who have died within
the last twenty or thirty years.

" A few friends" (we read) '"''have contributed to raise this
stone in loving memory of the undernamed, who in their genera-
tion were noted veterans of the chase, all of ivhom lie i?i this
churchyard."

Then comes the long list of typical border names — Cock-
bains, Hudsons, Brownriggs, Bells, Atkinsons, and so forth,
giving the date of the birth and death of each departed
sportsman. Around the cenotaph, and below the names, we
may read, though not without some difficulty,

The forest music is to hear the liounds
Rend the thin air, and with a histy cry
Awake the drowsy echoes and confound
Their perfect language in a mingled cry.

A space is left for the names of those still living who may
be thought worthy of this measure of local immortality, when
the day comes that they are called to more shadowy hunting
grounds. The most famous perhaps of all Cumbrian sports-
men, though over four score years of age, is still hale and, what
is more, residing within a few hundred yards of this very spot
— no less a person than Mr. Crozier, the present master of the
Blencathara hounds, who seeing that he has hunted them for
sixty years may fairly be accounted the Nestor of his profession
in all England.

Threlkeld churchyard is certainly an ideal spot for the last



78 THRELKELD CHURCH



CHAP.



resting-place of fell fox-hunters. Blencathara, with its steep
sides riven into dark gorges and its huge supporting buttresses,
towers over it on the north, while to the south, not a mile away,
leap up the northern outworks of the Helvellyn range. St.
Kentigern himself is said to have preached where the church
now stands, which last, in the way of remarkable ugliness, wholly
mitigated by antiquity, is well worth a look inside. From
what point of view it thus repays inspection is another matter,
certainly not from either the Early English or the Perpen-
dicular. For it is a barn pure and simple : not indeed very far
from an actual square, and carrying a bell turret ; but then the
fact of its being such an ancient barn just makes all the
difference. The whole floor of the west end is sloped like the
pit of a theatre ; and the pews would cause infinite anguish of
mind to experts in church furniture, for they suggest the two first
Georges in uncompromising fashion. The general appearance
is that of a conventicle ; but a conventicle of the Civil War
period at least, it is so quaint. Restoration is of course in the
air — or rebuilding as it would practically mean, which is a costly
business, and Threlkeld would seem to have neither resident
magnates, nor many summer visitors. It may seem unkind,
but I trust Threlkeld Church may be spared to us. Restored
churches are as common as blackberries, but I do not think
there can be more than one Threlkeld. There is a rugged
simplicity too about it, which is in keeping with a graveyard so
plentifully strewn with the remains of simple hardy fox-hunters.
Very different indeed are these Lakeland sportsmen from
the smart gentlemen who take hunting boxes in the shires.
They know as little of cross-country riding as perhaps some of
these latter do of hounds and foxes. Social statisticians of a
cynical turn sometimes amuse themselves by guessing at the
proportion of Englishmen who hunt from other reasons
than love of it. Nobody ever gets up at six in the morning
and goes a-hunting with the Blencathara hounds — who by
the way are kennelled here, or any of the Lake packs, for



in CUMBRIAN SPORTSMEN 79

other reasons than to see hounds hunt. It is needless
too, to remark that the horse ])lays no part whatever in the
business. Every one, including the master and wliip, goes afoot,
a proceeding which one glance at the country would make
immediately explicable, though a horse might be used by some
to get to the meet, just as a cycle or a trap might be by others.
Indeed, I met Beaumont, the veteran huntsman of the Ullswater
mountain hounds, one summer day in Patterdale, exercising his
own pack, as well as a low country one that he had in charge,
on a bicycle, and I confess to being struck by something of
incongruity in the spectacle. Now, Beaumont, with one
exception perhaps, has killed more foxes and walked more
thousands of miles than any Lake country sportsman. It is
said of him, with pardonable hyperbole, by his friends, that
he could go blindfold from Kidsty to Scafell on a misty
winter's night, but all the same he is sadly unmindful of
his dignity. If he were only the popular huntsman of the
Blankshire Blazers, he would know Avhat was expected of him,
and the right attitude to assume towards the unspeakable bike.
But here was this simple Cumbrian sportsman quite enthusiastic
with liis mount. He could exercise his hounds to greater
advantage on it for both himself and them, he declared ; and
it saved him many a weary mile of road tramping in the
hunting season.

These mountain hunt clubs are democratic associations.
Subscriptions range from ;£io to a shilling, and the smallest
subscriber is as welcome as the largest. The Dale farmers,
who turn out in great strength, are their chief mainstay ; but
many of the local tradesmen are zealous and experienced
sportsmen, farmers' sons some of them, and bred to hunting
in their youth. There are four packs of hounds at least in the
Lake country kept entirely for fell hunting, to say nothing of
two or three more who divide beween them the adjoining low
country, and occasionally run into the mountains. Ten couple
is about the number of hounds usually kept in work, some of



8o HOUNDS AND FOXES CHAP.>

which will be on the flags through the summer, and some at
walk with various members of the hunt. These mountain hounds,
it goes without saying, have been carefully bred for their special
work for generations, and can make fast going over precipitous
and rocky ground that would bring an ordinary foxhound to a
standstill. The killing of foxes too has here a double signifi-
cance—that of real necessity as well as sport ; for even four packs
find it by no means easy to keep the stock in the Lake country
within reasonable limits, and the toll of lambs levied is a high
one. One large sheep farmer of my acquaintance averages his
annual loss at thirty ! Hunting is, on this account, often carried
on till very late in the season, and I have heard the woody
cliffs of Borrowdale echo to the crash of hounds in full cry as
late as the end of May.

The mountain foxes breed as a rule in screes and rocky
wastes in lofty and remote situations. Sunrise is the primitive
hut profitable hour for commencing operations, unless of course
there has been much frost on the mountains. There are no
coverts to draw, and Reynard must be hunted on the drag
in the early morning as he returns with supper undigested
from his nightly rambles. The main pleasure of the busi-
ness consists of course in seeing hounds work and run;
and the experienced fell hunter, with average luck, and his
own knowledge of the sport and the country, can by judicious
manoeuvring see a great deal of this. These foxes do not
as a rule, unless very hard pressed, leave their particular
country. Those for instance on the Fairfield and Helvellyn
range will not usually cross the Threlkeld valley to Skiddaw
and Blencathara ; while the Skiddaw fox, with the wide range of
his own forest and the Caldbeck fells, would have to be in sore
straits before he faced the Greta and the vale of Keswick, and
trailed his draggled brush into the wilds of Whinlatter or
Wythop. But as it is, he often runs away, and the hounds with
him, from the most vigorous and most knowing of the field,
leaving them nothing for it but to go home and speculate on



Ill FELL FOX HUNTING 8i

the probable issue of the chase. The dogs freciuently sleep
out on their own account after long runs, putting up at any
friendly farmhouse that happens to be handy. Foxes too
being plentiful the small pack often divides, and two or three
couple of hounds frequently kill their fox after a long run. I
am assured, by well-known members of both the Blencathara
and Ullswater hunts, that there is scarcely an old hound in
their respective packs that has not at some time or other hunted
and killed a fox single-handed. In the bye days at the close
of the season, provoked by the bitter cry of sheep-farmers, the
small pack is sometimes split up into two, or even into three
small drafts, so that more than one district can be dealt with
on the same day.

There are always plenty of terriers out too, both regulars and
volunteers, and they play an especially prominent part in these
mountains : for some of the holts among the rocks are of pro-
digious depth. Som.etimes the terriers fail altogether to regain
the upper air, and are not unfrequently lost for days in these sub-
terranean labyrinths, turning up at home after they have been
given up for lost and duly mourned. I have seen one tyke, still
in full work, who once spent eleven days in the bowels of Raven
crag, over yonder towards Thirlmere. In this precipitous country
it is quite a frequent thing for a fox, and indeed for hounds and
terriers too, to get "binked" ^ in the heat of the chase — to find
themselves, that is to say, on a ledge of rock from which they
can neither go back nor forward. If Master Reynard lands
himself in this predicament, stones are used from above as an
inducement to him to take the risks, while a dog can as a rule be
rescued by a crag climber and a rope. It is a fine wild sport
this, and has immense fascination for those who are fond of
hound work. A few strangers do come north for it in the
winter, and it is only surprising that there are not more. There
is certainly no part of Great Britain where the farmers, and for
obvious reasons, are so generally addicted to foxhunting. The
^ " Bink " is an old border term for shelf.

G



82 APPROACH TO KESWICK chap.

horse question, of necessity limits the number in a lowland
country, while following on foot under such conditions has none
of the advantages for seeing the sport offered by the great bare
and mostly grass-covered mountains of Cumberland and West-
moreland. Besides the two packs already mentioned, there
are or were others at Coniston and ^^'^astdale Head respec-
tively, which hunt on the same lines.

Threlkeld is four miles from Keswick. Wc have not gone
one when the Greta, noisy with such streams as the Manchester
Corporation can spare from Thirlmere, sparkles beneath the
road, and away into that series of wooded glens that make its
descent to Keswick so notably romantic. Rising the hill beyond,
the vale of St. John opens out on the left, and squeezing between
Naddle fell and Wanthwaite crags vanishes from sight in the
direction of Thirlmere. Saddleback, on our right, gives place
to Skiddaw. Lattrig, crowned and robed with woods, confronts
us ; while the Borrowdale fells, rolling round the head of the dark
hollow where Thirlmere lies, join the Helvellyn group at Dun-
mail raise upon the verge of sight. Another low hill and we are
atop of the last ridge, Bassenthwaite gleams ahead and beneath
us, in the lap of woods and hills. The whole range of moun-
tains that divide that lake and Derwentwater from the west
bursts into view, all gloriously illumined by the slow descending
sun, and showing so obviously the path by which the waters
of all this country below us travel to the open country and
the sea. It is wonderful indeed what bold shapes these
miniature Alps assume as the shadows of approaching evening
begin to creep among them. The outstanding Pikes of Grise-
dale and Grasmoor, of Robinson and Causey, are none of them
three thousand feet, nor in the glare of morning or mid-day
do they look it ; yet touch them with storm or shadow, a
golden sunset or a black thunderstorm, and their altitude in
figures becomes a thing of nought.

The descent into Keswick is more gradual, and nothing like
the fearsome business it is by the more travelled route over



in



SHELLEY



83



yonder to the left, which comes from Thirlmere and Ambleside,
and pitches you down to the lake level in a way to be remem-
bered. We may here run down gradually, and with sufficient
confidence, to spare a glance over the left shoulder to the
house on Chestnut Hill where Shelley, at nineteen or there-
abouts, lived for some months with his girl bride, and as a
mere stranger aroused the indignation of the good natured
Southey i)y the rent that an over-greedy landlord was exacting
of his youthful inexperience. We come upon level terms













-r^^m^



Landing' S/age, Kcsivick.

with the rocky loud roaring (keta at the same instant the
pleasant suburbs of the town are entered : and, after following
its course for half a mile or so, are landed fairly in Keswick
streets.

Now the situation of Keswick may in truth, and fairly, I
think, be claimed as the most beautiful enjoyed by any town
in England. When guide books enunciate in dogmatic
fashion that this pass or that valley " has no equal in Great
Britain," thus intruding individual taste or perhaps even

G 2



84 A CHEERFUL TOWN chap.

local prejudice in the garb of information, one is apt to wax
impatient. But Keswick could be proved by mere geography
to occupy a site that no other town of several thousand souls
in England can offer any parallel to. At any rate if there
be such a town I cannot imagine what or where it is. For
immediately behind Keswick the noble mass of Skiddaw fills
the whole sky upon the north ; and Skiddaw, though sneered
at by cragsmen, is in outline and dignified independence of
position one of the finest as it is almost the highest of
northern mountains. Upon the other side, and almost from
its doorsteps, the only lake that in beauty is generally thought
to rival the head of UUswater spreads away to the southward,
and gleams among its marvellous setting of wood and crag
and mountain. To the west the vale of the Derwent spreads
a rich green carpet of pasture, wood and meadowland, through
which that turbulent river, just released from the upper lake,
rolls beneath high and grassy banks to merge itself again in
the quiet depths of Bassenthwaite. Keswick itself is a cheery
little place of some three or four thousand souls, that in the
days before railroads must have enjoyed a great measure of
seclusion from the outer world. It has no social and historic
memories such as cling to Penrith. Save for its dim associations
with the Derwentwater family, it was but a gathering place for
statesmen, and a sprinkling of small gentry — a little mountain
capital, where wool was woven and sheep bought and sold.
The only remains of the ill-fated house of Radcliffe are the
stones of the Town-hall, standing in the centre of the wide
high street, which are said to have come from the old mansion
on Lord's island, together with a bell that certainly once hung
there.

Lead pencils are the industry that Keswick chiefly plumes
itself on. A hundred or two souls thus make their living
amid an aroma of cedar that floats not unpleasantly about the
banks of the Greta, whose roaring stream turns their factory
wheels. Many hundred tourists however deem it incumbent



Ill LEAD PENCILS 85

on them to go and see these same pencils made, and stimulate
the industry, no doubt, by buying many contrivances in cedar
they do not want, and would not dream of purchasing at home.
I was myself several weeks in Keswick, and successfully resisted
the still snuill voice which every wet afternoon — though these, I
am bound to say, were not many — tortured me with whispers
of the pencil factory, till the very last day, when I weakly yielded.
My forebodings were more than justified, and I am supplied with
pencils and penholders for the rest of my life ; to say nothing
of some wholly useless cedar boxes, and a monstrosity called
a pencil walking stick. All these things too I purchased with
a deliberation that in the open air afterwards seemed incredible ;
and the more so as I am bound to say, no sort of pressure
is put upon the intelligent visitor. His craving to support a local
industry, beyond the main one he is already supporting, is, I
fancy, as spontaneous as it is evanescent.

Having purchased the esteem of the pencil makers I was
also entitled to their confidences, which led me to suppose,
among other things, that they do not hold our American
cousins in any great regard, declaring that, while their interest
in the machinery is greater than that of others, and the ques-
tions they ask more numerous, a desire to possess themselves
of samples of the work is conspicuously lacking. But Americans
surely have some excuse if any is needed. Those in Lakeland
will for the most part be either at the beginning or the end
of a European tour. If the former, they will not be anxious
to carry Keswick wares to Paris, Rome, and Vienna ; if the
latter, their trunks will be full to bursting. As a matter of
fact, however, Americans seem curiously unpopular with all
the catering fraternity of the Lake country, except the pro-
prietors of the hotels they actually stop at, which to be sure is
an eminently saving clause.

The vendors of photographs or curiosities declare that
American tourists give them no end of trouble, and buy nothing.
The tip-expecting class complain that their most obvious and



86 SOME AMERICAN TOURISTS chap.

most equitable claims are often disregarded — a note which, I
believe, is being sounded, and not wholly without justice, even
in London, and a sharp reaction surely from the lavishness in
this respect that was the burden of the British tourist's complaint
in former days. The fact is, I take it, an immense number of
Americans of a class that did not formerly travel now cross the
Atlantic. Strict economy is often necessary to the accomplish-
ment of the projected tour, and the disposition to distinguish
between superfluous or extortionate fees and those which are as
equitable and as morally obligatory as if posted on a tariff,
seems to be lacking. This probably arises more often than not
from a very natural inability to adjust their ideas to circum-
stances which are genuinely different from any they are used
to at home.

One minor cause of complaint is not without its humorous
side, and proceeds from the wayside hostelries where coaches
stop for changing horses, or for quenching the thirst of man
and beast. Now one of the features of American life is of
course that unnatural craving for cold water, iced if possible,
which, stimulated by habit, amounts almost to a vice ; for
it does sound somewhat abnormal to hear a coach load of
young women on a chilly morning speculating as to the
earliest chance of gratifying an appetite so morbid and
unseasonable. But the rosy-faced matron of the Black Bull
or ,the Dun Cow has yet more practical objections to so
untoward a practice. Carrying out gratuitous glasses of the
hostile element not only to young women but to able-bodied
men goes sorely against the grain. She would scarcely indeed
be human if she did not resent a tax upon her good nature
that added something of insult to the injury. Englishmen
would not dare thus much, even supposing they followed the
pernicious habit of drinking cold water between meals, and
iced water at all times. I think the publican who has enterprise
enough to store ice and retail iced water to American tourists
at a penny a glass has a bright future before him. People who



Ill



A PROMISING ENTERPRISE



87



often begin their breakfast with this cheerless draught in January
will not stick at a penny on a dusty road in July or August,







Keswick.



and there is really no reason why any bad habit should
be indulged in gratis. I have made a present of what I believe
to be a really valuable suggestion to every wayside innkeeper



88 IMPORTUNATE JEHUS chap.

in the Lake Country of my acquaintance. I doubt, however,
but that the question of ice has even yet too unattainable
a sound about it for the rural Englishman.

Various small local industries are pressed upon the attention
of the visitor as he saunters about the pleasant streets and
lanes of Keswick. But it really is so very obvious that its
absorbing industry is entertaining tourists, driving them about,
rowing them on the lake, bedding them, feeding them and
supplying them generally with all the necessaries and such