om Bowness to Cook's
House--along the turnpike road--half the distance lying embowered in the
Rayrig woods--and half open to lake, cloud, and sky. It is pleasant to
lose sight now and then of the lake along whose banks you are
travelling, especially if during separation you become a Druid. The
water woos you at your return with her bluest smile, and her whitest
murmur. Some of the finest trees in all the Rayrig woods have had the
good sense to grow by the roadside, where they can see all that is
passing--and make their own observations on us deciduous plants. Few of
them seem to be very old--not much older than Christopher North--and,
like him, they wear well, trunk sound to the core, arms with a long
sweep, and head in fine proportions of cerebral development, fortified
against all storms--perfect pictures of oaks in their prime. You may
see one--without looking for it--near a farmhouse called
Miller-ground--himself a grove. His trunk is clothed in a tunic of moss,
which shows the ancient Sylvan to great advantage, and it would be no
easy matter to give him a fall. Should you wish to see Windermere in all
her glory, you have but to enter a gate a few yards on this side of his
shade, and ascend an eminence called by us Greenbank--but you had as
well leave your red mantle in the carriage, for an enormous white,
long-horned Lancashire bull has for some years established his
head-quarters not far off, and you would not wish your wife to become a
widow, with six fatherless children. But the royal road of poetry is
often the most splendid--and by keeping the turnpike, you soon find
yourself on a terrace to which there was nothing to compare in the
hanging gardens of Babylon. There is the widest breadth of water--the
richest foreground of wood--and the most magnificent background of
mountains--not only in Westmoreland but--believe us--in all the world.
That blue roof is Calgarth--and no traveller ever pauses on this brow
without giving it a blessing--for the sake of the illustrious dead; for
there long dwelt in the body Richard Watson, the Defender of the Faith,
and there within the shadow of his memory still dwell those, dearest on
earth to his beatified spirit. So pass along in high and solemn thought,
till you lose sight of Calgarth in the lone road that leads by St
Catharine's, and then relapse into pleasant fancies and picturesque
dreams. This is the best way by far of approaching Troutbeck. No ups and
downs in this life