Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)

by Ann Radcliffe

  Of the walls around us every ledge, marking their many stories, was embossed with luxuriant vegetation. Tufts of the hawthorn seemed to grow from the solid stone, and slender saplings of ash waved over the deserted door-cases, where, at the transforming hour of twilight, the superstitious eye might mistake them for spectres of some early possessor of the castle, restless from guilt, or of some sufferer persevering from vengeance.

  4.7. THE TOWN AND BEACON OF PENRITH.

  HAVING pursued the road one mile further, for the purpose of visiting the tender memorial of pious affection, so often described under the name of Countess’ Pillar, we returned to Emontbridge, and from thence reached Penrith, pronounced Peyrith, the most southern town of Cumberland. So far off as the head of Ullswater, fourteen miles, this is talked of as an important place, and looked to as the storehouse of whatever is wanted more than the fields and lakes supply. Those, who have lived chiefly in large towns, have to learn from the wants and dependencies of a people thinly scattered, like the inhabitants of all mountainous regions, the great value of any places of mutual resort, however little distinguished in the general view of a country. Penrith is so often mentioned in the neighbourhood, that the first appearance of it somewhat disappointed us, because we had not considered how many serious reasons those, who talked of it, might have for their estimation, which should yet not at all relate to the qualities, that render places interesting to a traveller.

  The town, consisting chiefly of old houses, straggles along two sides of the high north road, and is built upon the side of a mountain, that towers to great height above it, in steep and heathy knolls, unshaded by a single tree. Eminent, on the summit of this mountain, stands the old, solitary beacon, visible from almost every part of Penrith, which, notwithstanding its many symptoms of antiquity, is not deficient of neatness. The houses are chiefly white, with door and window cases of the red stone found in the neighbourhood. Some of the smaller have over their doors dates of the latter end of the sixteenth century. There are several inns, of which that called Old Buchanan’s was recommended to us, first, by the recollection, that Mr. Gray had mentioned it, and afterwards by the comfort and civility we found there.

  Some traces of the Scottish dialect and pronunciation appear as far south as Lancashire; in Westmoreland, they become stronger; and, at Penrith, are extremely distinct and general, serving for one among many peaceful indications of an approach, once notified chiefly by preparations for hostility, or defence. Penrith is the most southern town in England at which the guinea notes of the Scotch bank are in circulation. The beacon, a sort of square tower, with a peaked roof and openings at the sides, is a more perfect instance of the direful necessities of past ages, than would be expected to remain in this. The circumstances are well known, which made such watchfulness especially proper, at Penrith; and the other traces of warlike habits and precautions, whether appearing in records, or buildings, are too numerous to be noticed in a sketch, which rather pretends to describe what the author has seen, than to enumerate what has been discovered by the researches of others. Dr. Burn’s History contains many curious particulars; and there are otherwise abundant and satisfactory memorials, as to the state of the debateable ground, the regulations for securing passes or fords, and even to the public maintenance of slough dogs, which were to pursue aggressors with hot trod, as the inhabitants were to follow them by horn and voice. These are all testimonies, that among the many evils, inflicted upon countries by war, that, which is not commonly thought of, is not the least; the public encouragement of a disposition to violence, under the names of gallantry, or valour, which will not cease exactly when it is publicly prohibited; and the education of numerous bodies to habits of supplying their wants, not by constant and useful labour, but by sudden and destructive exertions of force. The mistake, by which courage is released from all moral estimation of the purposes, for which it is exerted, and is considered to be necessarily and universally a good in itself, rather than a means of good, or of evil, according to its application, is among the severest misfortunes of mankind. Tacitus has an admirable reproof of it —

  “Ubi manu agitur, modestia et probitas nomina superioris sunt.”

  Though the situation of Penrith, looking up the vales of Eden and Emont, is remarkably pleasant, that of the beacon above is infinitely finer, commanding an horizon of at least an hundred miles diameter, filled with an endless variety of beauty, greatness and sublimity. The view extends over Cumberland, parts of Westmoreland, Lancashire, Yorkshire, and a corner of Northumberland and Durham. On a clear day, the Scottish high lands, beyond Solway Firth, may be distinguished, like faint clouds, on the horizon, and the steeples of Carlisle are plainly visible. All the intervening country, speckled with towns and villages, is spread beneath the eye, and, nearly eighty miles to the eastward, part of the Cheviot-hills are traced, a dark line, binding the distance and marking the separation between earth and sky. On the plains towards Carlisle, the nearer ridges of Crossfell are seen to commence, and thence stretch their barren steeps thirty miles towards the east, where they disappear among the Stainmorehills and the huge moorlands of Yorkshire, that close up the long landscape of the vale of Eden. Among these, the broken lines of Ingleborough start above all the broader ones of the moors, and that mountain still proclaims itself sovereign of the Yorkshire heights.

  Southward, rise the wonders of Westmoreland, Shapfells, ridge over ridge, the nearer pikes of Hawswater, and then the mountains of Ullswater, Helvellyn preeminent amongst them, distinguished by the grandeur and boldness of their outline, as well as the variety of their shapes; some hugely swelling, some aspiring in clusters of alpine points, and some broken into shaggy ridges. The sky, westward from hence and far to the north, displays a vision of Alps, Saddleback spreading towards Keswick its long shattered ridge, and one top of Skiddaw peering beyond it; but the others of this district are inferior in grandeur to the fells of Ullswater, more broken into points, and with less of contrast in their forms. Behind Saddleback, the skirts of Skiddaw spread themselves, and thence low hills shelve into the plains of Cumberland, that extend to Whitehaven; the only level line in the scope of this vast horizon. The scenery nearer to the eye exhibited cultivation in its richest state, varied with pastoral and sylvan beauty; landscapes embellished by the elegancies of art, and rendered venerable by the ruins of time. In the vale of Eden, Carleton-hall, flourishing under the hand of careful attention, and Bird’s Nest, luxuriant in its spiry woods, opposed their cheerful beauties to the neglected walls of Brougham Castle, once the terror, and, even in ruins, the pride of the scene, now half-shrouded in its melancholy grove. These objects were lighted up by partial gleams of sunshine, which, as they fled along the valley, gave magical effect to all they touched.

  The other vales in the home prospect were those of Bampton and Emont; the first open and gentle, shaded by the gradual woods of Lowther-park; the last closer and more romantic, withdrawing in many a lingering bend towards Ullswater, where it is closed by the pyramidal Dunmallard, but not before a gleam of the lake is suffered to appear beyond the dark base of the hill. At the nearer end of the vale, and immediately under the eye, the venerable ruins of Penrith Castle crest a round green hill. These are of palered stone, and stand in detached masses; but have little that is picturesque in their appearance, time having spared neither tower, or gateway, and not a single tree giving shade, or force, to the shattered walls. The ground about the castle is broken into grassy knolls, and only cattle wander over the desolated tract. Time has also obscured the name of the founder; but it is known, that the main building was repaired, and some addition made to it by Richard the Third, when Duke of Gloucester, who lived here, for five years, in his office of sheriff of Cumberland, promoting the York interest by artful hospitalities, and endeavouring to strike terror into the Lancastrians. Among the ruins is a subterraneous passage, leading to a house in Penrith, above three hundred yards distant, called Dockwray Castle. The town lies between the fortress and the Beacon-hill
, spreading prettily along the skirts of the mountain, with its many roofs of blue slate, among which the church rises near a dark grove.

  Penrith, from the latter end of the last century, till lately, when it was purchased by the Duke of Devonshire, belonged to the family of Portland, to whom it was given by William the Third; probably instead of the manors in Wales, which it was one of William’s few faulty designs to have given to his favourite companion, had not Parliament remonstrated, and informed him, that the Crown could not alienate the territories of the Principality. The church, a building of red stone, unusually well disposed in the interior, is a vicarage of small endowment; but the value of money in this part of the kingdom is so high, that the merit of independence, a merit and a happiness which should always belong to clergymen, is attainable by the possessors of very moderate incomes. What is called the Giant’s Grave in the church yard is a narrow spot, inclosed, to the length of fourteen or fifteen feet, by rows of low stones, at the sides, and, at the ends, by two pillars, now slender, but apparently worn by the weather from a greater thickness. The height of these is eleven or twelve feet; and all the stones, whether in the borders, at the sides, or in these pillars, bear traces of rude carving, which shew, at least, that the monument must have been thought very important by those that raised it, since the singularity of its size was not held a sufficient distinction. We pored intently over these traces, though certainly without the hope of discovering any thing not known to the eminent antiquarians, who have confessed their ignorance concerning the origin of them.

  4.8. FROM PENRITH TO KESWICK.

  THE Graystock road, which we took for the first five or sixmiles, is uninteresting, and offers nothing worthy of attention, before the approach to the castle, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk. The appearance of this from the road is good; a gray building, with gothic towers, seated in a valley among lawns and woods, that stretch, with great pomp of shade, to gently-rising hills. Behind these, Saddleback, huge, gray and barren, rises with all its ridgy lines; a grand and simple background, giving exquisite effect to the dark woods below. Such is the height of the mountain, that, though eight or ten miles off, it appeared, as we approached the castle, almost to impend over it. Southward from Saddleback, a multitude of pointed summits crowd the horizon; and it is most interesting, after leaving Graystock, to observe their changing attitudes, as you advance, and the gradual disclosure of their larger features. Perhaps, a sudden display of the sublimest scenery, however full, imparts less emotion, than a gradually increasing view of it; when expectation takes the highest tone, and imagination finishes the sketch.

  About two miles beyond Graystock, the moorlands commence, and, as far as simple greatness constitutes sublimity, this was, indeed, a sublime prospect; less so only than that from Shapfell itself, where the mountains are not so varied in their forms and are plainer in their grandeur. We were on a vast plain, if plain that may be called, which swells into long undulations, surrounded by an amphitheatre of heathy mountains, that seem to have been shook by some grand convulsion of the earth, and tumbled around in all shapes. Not a tree, a hedge, and seldom even a stone wall, broke the grandeur of their lines; what was not heath was only rock and gray crags; and a shepherd’s hut, or his flocks, browsing on the steep sides of the fells, or in the narrow vallies, that opened distantly, was all that diversified the vast scene. Saddleback spread his skirts westward along the plain, and then reared himself in terrible and lonely majesty. In the long perspective beyond, were the crowding points of the fells round Keswick, Borrowdale, and the vales of St. John and Leyberthwaite, stretching away to those near Grasmere. The weather was in solemn harmony with the scenery; long shadows swept over the hills, followed by gleaming lights. Tempestuous gusts alone broke the silence. Now and then, the sun’s rays had a singular appearance; pouring, from under clouds, between the tops of fells into some deep vale, at a distance, as into a focus.

  This is the very region, which the wild fancy of a poet, like Shakespeare, would people with witches, and shew them at their incantations, calling spirits from the clouds and spectres from the earth.

  On the now lonely plains of this vast amphitheatre, the Romans had two camps, and their Eagle spread its wings over a scene worthy of its own soarings. The lines of these encampments may still be traced on that part of the plain, called Hutton Moor, to the north of the high road; and over its whole extent towards Keswick a Roman way has been discovered. Funereal urns have also been dug up here, and an altar of Roman form, but with the inscription obliterated.

  Nearer Saddleback, we perceived crags and heath mingling on its precipices, and its base broken into a little world of mountains, green with cultivation. White farms, each with its grove to shelter it from the descending gusts, corn and pastures of the brightest verdure enlivened the skirts of the mountain all round, climbing towards the dark heath and crags, or spreading downwards into the vale of Threlkeld, where the slender Lowther shews his shining stream.

  Leaving Hutton Moor, the road soon began to ascend the skirts of Saddleback, and passed between green hillocks, where cattle appeared most elegantly in the mountain scene, under the crags, or sipping at the clear stream, that gushed from the rocks, and wound to the vale below. Such crystal rivulets crossed our way continually, as we rose upon the side of Saddleback, which towers abruptly on the right, and, on the left, sinks as suddenly into the vale of Threlkeld, with precipices sometimes little less than tremendous. This mountain is the northern boundary of the vale in its whole length to Keswick, the points of whose fells close the perspective. Rocky heights guard it to the south. The valley between is green, without wood, and, with much that is grand, has little beautiful, till near its conclusion; where, more fertile and still more wild, it divides into three narrower vallies, two of which disclose scenes of such sublime severity as even our long view of Saddleback had not prepared us to expect.

  The first of these is the vale of St. John, a narrow, cultivated spot, lying in the bosom of tremendous rocks, that impend over it in masses of gray crag, and often resemble the ruins of castles. These rocks are overlooked by still more awful mountains, that fall in abrupt lines, and close up the vista, except where they also are commanded by the vast top of Helvellyn. On every side, are images of desolation and stupendous greatness, closing upon a narrow line of pastoral richness; a picture of verdant beauty, seen through a frame of rock work. It is between the cliffs of Threlkeld-fell and the purple ridge of Nadale-fell, that this vale seems to repose in its most silent and perfect peace. No village and scarcely a cottage disturbs its retirement. The flocks, that feed at the feet of the cliffs, and the steps of a shepherd, ‘“in this office of his mountain watch,”’ are all, that haunt the ‘“dark sequestered nook.”’

  The vale of Nadale runs parallel with that of St. John, from which it is separated by the ridge of Nadale-fell, and has the same style of character, except that it is terminated by a well wooded mountain. Beyond this, the perspective is overlooked by the fells, that terminate the vale of St. John.

  The third valley, opening from the head of Threlkeld, winds along the feet of Saddleback and Skiddaw to Keswick, the approach to which, with all its world of rocky summits, the lake being still sunk below the sight, is sublime beyond the power of description. Within three miles of Keswick, Skiddaw unfolds itself, close behind Saddleback; their skirts unite, but the former is less huge and of very different form from the last; being more pointed and seldomer broken into precipices, it darts upward with a vast sweep into three spiry summits, two of which only are seen from this road, and shews sides dark with heath and little varied with rock. Such is its aspect from the Penrith road; from other stations its attitude, shape and colouring are very different, though its alpine terminations are always visible.

  Threlkeld itself is a small village, about thirteen miles from Penrith, with a very humble inn, at which those, who have passed the bleak sides of Saddleback, and those, who are entering upon them, may rejoice to rest. We had been blown about,
for some hours, in an open chaise, and hoped for more refreshment than could be obtained; but had the satisfaction, which was, indeed, general in these regions, of observing the good intentions, amounting almost to kindness, of the cottagers towards their guests. They have nearly always some fare, which less civility than theirs might render acceptable; and the hearth blazes in their clean sanded parlours, within two minutes after you enter them. Some sort of preserved fruit is constantly ferved after the repast, with cream, an innocent luxury, for which no animal has died.

  It is not only from those, who are to gain by strangers, but from almost every person, accidentally accosted by a question, that this favourable opinion will be formed, as to the kind and frank manners of the people. We were continually remarking, between Lancaster and Keswick, that severe as the winter might be in these districts, from the early symptoms of it then apparent, the conduct of the people would render it scarcely unpleasant to take the same journey in the depths of December.