On the third morning after my arrival in Grasmere, I found
the whole family, except the two children, prepared for the expedition across
the mountains. I had heard of no horses, and took it for granted that we were
to walk; however, at the moment of starting, a cart - the common farmers’ cart
of the country-made its appearance; and the driver was a bonny young woman of
the vale.
Such a vehicle I had never in my life seen used for such a
purpose; but what was good enough for the Wordsworths was good enough for me;
and, accordingly, we were all carted along to the little town, or large
Village, of Ambleside - three and a half miles distant. Our style of travelling
occasioned no astonishment; on the contrary, we met a smiling salutation
wherever we appeared - Miss Wordsworth being, as I observed, the person most
familiarly known of our party, and the one who took upon herself the whole
expenses of the flying colloquies exchanged with stragglers on the road.
What struck me with most astonishment, however, was the
liberal manner of our fair driver, who made no scruple of taking a leap, with
the reins in her hand, and seating herself dexterously upon the shafts (or, in
Westmorland phrase, the 'trams' of the cart.)
From Ambleside - and without one foot of intervening flat
ground - begins to rise the famous ascent of Kirkstone; after which, for three
long miles, all riding in a cart drawn by one horse becomes impossible. The
ascent is computed at three miles, but is, probably, a little more. In some
parts it is almost frightfully steep; for the road being only the original
mountain track of shepherds, gradually widened and improved from age to age,
(especially since the era of tourists began), is carried over ground which no
engineer, even in alpine countries, would have viewed as practicable.
In ascending, this is felt chiefly as an obstruction and not
as a peril, unless where there is a risk of the horses backing; but in the
reverse order, some of these precipitous descents are terrific: and yet, once
in utter darkness, after midnight, and the darkness irradiated only by
continual streams of lightning, I was driven down this whole descent, at a full
gallop, by a young woman – the carriage being a light one, the horses
frightened, and the descents, at some critical parts of the road, so literally
like the sides of a house, that it was difficult to keep the fore wheels from
pressing upon the hind legs of the horses.
Indeed, this is only according to the custom of the country,
as I have beforementioned. The innkeeper of Ambleside, or Lowwood, will not
mount this formidable hill without four horses. The leaders you are not
required to take beyond the first three miles; but, of course, they are glad if
you will take them on the whole stage of nine miles, to Patterdale; and, in
that case, there is a real luxury at hand for those who enjoy velocity of
motion.
The descent into Patterdale is much above two miles; but
such is the propensity for flying down hills in Westmoreland that l have found
the descent accomplished in about six minutes, which is at the rate of eighteen
miles an hour; the various turnings of the road making the speed much more
sensible to the traveller. The pass, at the summit of this ascent, is nothing
to be compared in sublimatity with the pass under the Great Gavil from
Wastdalehead; but it is solemn, and profoundly impressive. At a height so awful
as this, it may be easily supposed that all human dwellings have been long left
behind: no sound of human life, no bells of churches or chapels ever ascend so
far.
On the solitary area of tableland which you find at the
summit - though, heaven knows, you might almost cover it with a drawing-room
carpet, so suddenly does the mountain take to its old trick of precipitous
descent, on both sides alike there are only two objects to remind you of man
and his workmanship. One is a guide-post - always a picturesque and interesting
object, because it expresses a wild country and a labyrinth of roads, and often
made much more interesting (as in this case) by the lichens which cover it, and
which record the generations of men to whom it has done its office; as also by
the crucifix form which inevitably recall, in all mountainous regions, the
crosses of Catholic lands, raised to the memory of wayfaring men who have
perished by the hand of the assassin.
The other memorial of man is even more interesting: -
Amongst the figments of rock which lie in the confusion of a ruin on each side
of the road, one there is which exceeds the rest in height, and which, in shape,
presents a very close resemblance to a church. This lies to the left of the
road as you are going from Ambleside; and, from its name, Churchstone (Kirkstone,)
is derived the name of the pass, and from the pass the name of the mountain.
The guide-post - which was really the work of man - tells those going southwards
(for to those who go northwards it is useless, since, in that direction, there
no choice of roads) that the left hand track conducts you to Troutbeck, and
Bowness, and Kendal; the right hand to Ambleside, and Hawkshead, and
Ulverstone.
The church - which is but a phantom of man’s handiwork -
might, however, really be mistaken for such, were it not that the rude and
almost inaccessible state of the adjacent ground proclaims the truth. As to
size, that is remarkably difficult to estimate upon wild heaths or mountain
solitudes, where there are no leadings through gradations of distance, nor any
artificial standards, from which height or breadth can be properly deduced.
This mimic church, however, has a peculiarly fine effect in
this wild situation, which leaves so far below the tumults of this world; the
phantom church, by suggesting the phantom and evanescent image of a
congregation, where never congregation met; of the peeling organ, where never
sound was heard except of wild natural notes, or else of the wind rushing
through these mighty gates of everlasting rock - in this way, the fanciful
image that accompanies the traveller on his road, for half a mile or more,
serves to bring out the antagonist feeling of intense and awful solitude, which
is the natural and presiding sentiment – the religio loci - that broods for ever over the romantic pass.
Thomas de Quincy
