From Gretna Green to Land's End Part 3

Yet Wordsworth, for all his ill.u.s.trious compeers, is still the presiding genius of these opalescent hills and silver meres. It is to him, that plain-faced man who used to go "booing" his verses along these very roads, that mult.i.tudes of visitants have owed

"Feelings and emanations--things which were Light to the sun and music to the wind."

It is good for the soul to follow that sane, pure life from its "fair seedtime" on the garden terrace at c.o.c.kermouth, where the murmuring Derwent gave

"Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind, A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm That Nature breathes among the hills and groves,"

through the boyhood at Hawkshead--that all-angled little huddle of houses near Esthwaite Water--a boyhood whose inner growth is so marvellously portrayed in "The Prelude," on through the long and fruitful manhood of a poet vowed,

"Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high, Matins and vespers of harmonious verse,"

to the churchyard beside the Rotha, where Wordsworth and his kin of flesh and spirit keep their "incommunicable sleep."

"Blessing be with them, and eternal praise!"

THREE RUSH-BEARINGS

_Where is the stranger? Rushes, ladies, rushes, Rushes as green as summer for this stranger._

FLETCHER'S "Valentinian."

I

We heard about it first in Ambleside. We were in lodgings half-way up the hill that leads to the serene, forsaken Church of St. Anne. It was there that Faber, fresh from Oxford, had been curate, silently thinking the thoughts that were to send him into the Roman communion, and his young ghost, with the bowed head and the troubled eyes, was one of the friends we had made in the few rainy days of our sojourn.

Another was Jock, a magnificent old collie, who accepted homage as his royal due, and would press his great head against the knee of the alien with confident expectation of a caress, lifting in recognition a long, comprehending look of amber eyes. Another friend--though our relations were sometimes strained--was Toby, a piebald pony of piquant disposition. He allowed us to sit in his pony-cart at picturesque spots and read the Lake Poets to him, and to tug him up the hills by his bridle, which he had expert ways of rubbing off, to the joy of pa.s.sing coach-loads, when our attention was diverted to the landscape. Another was our kindly landlady. She came in with hot tea that Sat.u.r.day afternoon to cheer up the adventurous member of the party, who had just returned half drowned from a long drive on coachtop for the sake of scenery absolutely blotted out by the downpour. There the "trippers" had sat for hours, huddled under trickling umbrellas, while the conscientious coachman put them off every now and then to clamber down wet banks and gaze at waterfalls, or halted for the due five minutes at a point where nothing was perceptible but the grey slant of the rain to a.s.sure them--and the spattered red guidebook confirmed his statement--that this was "the finest view in Westmoreland." So when our landlady began to tell us of the ancient ceremony which the village was to observe that afternoon, the bedrenched one, hugging the bright dot of a fire, grimly implied that the customs and traditions of this sieve-skied island--in five weeks we had had only two rainless days--were nothing to her; but the tea, that moral beverage which enables the English to bear with their climate, wrought its usual reformation.

At half-past five we were standing under our overworked umbrellas on a muddy street corner, waiting for the procession to come by. And presently it came, looking very much as if it had been through a pond to gather the rushes. In front went a bra.s.s band, splashing along the puddles to merry music, and then a long train of draggled children, with a few young men and maidens to help on the toddlers, two or three of whom had to be taken up and carried, flowers and all. But soberly and st.u.r.dily, in the main, that line of three hundred bonny bairns trotted along through the heavy clay, under the soft rain--little lads in rubber coats and gaiters, some holding their tall bunches of rushes, or elaborate floral designs, upright before them like bayonets, some shouldering them like guns; tired little la.s.sies clasping their "bearings" in their arms like dolls, or dragging them along like kittens. All down the line the small coats and cloaks were not only damp, but greened and mossed and petal-strewn from the resting and rubbing of one another's burdens. These were of divers sorts. Most effective were the slender bundles of rushes,--long, straight rushes gathered that morning from the meres by men who went out in boats for the purpose. These rush-f.a.gots towered up from a distance like green candles, making the line resemble a procession of Catholic fairies. The village, however, took chief pride in the moss-covered standards of various device entwined with rushes and flowers. There were harps of reeds and waterlilies, crosses of ferns and harebells, shepherds' crooks wound with heather, sceptres, shields, anchors, crowns, swords, stars, triangles, hearts, with all manner of nosegays and garlands. Ling and bracken from the hillsides, marigolds from the marsh, spikes of oat and spears of wheat from the harvest-fields, and countless bright-hued blossoms from meadow and dooryard and garden were woven together, with no little taste and skill, in a pretty diversity of patterns.

The bells rang out blithe welcome as the procession neared the steepled Church of St. Mary, where a committee of ladies and gentlemen received the offerings and disposed them, according to their merit, in chancel or aisles. The little bearers were all seated in the front pews, the pews of honour, before we thronging adults, stacking our dripping umbrellas in the porch, might enter. The air was rich with mingled fragrances. Along the chancel rail, in the window-seats, on the pillars, everywhere, were rushes and flowers, the choicest garden-roses whispering with foxglove and daisy and the feathered timothy gra.s.s. But sweeter than the blossoms were the faces of the children, glad in their rustic act of worship, well content with their own weariness, no prouder than the smiling angels would have had them be. Only here and there a rosy visage was clouded with disappointment, or twisted ruefully awry in the effort to hold back the tears, for it must needs be that a few devices, on which the childish artists had spent such joyful labour, were a.s.signed by the expert committee to inconspicuous corners. The mere weans behaved surprisingly well, though evensong, a brief and sympathetic service, was punctuated by little sobs, gleeful baby murmurs, and crows of excitement. The vicar told the children, in a few simple words, how, in earlier times, when the church was unpaved, the earth-floor was strewn with sweet-smelling rushes, renewed every summer, and that the rushes and flowers of to-day were brought in memory of the past, and in grat.i.tude for the beauty of their home among the hills and lakes. Then the fresh child voices rang out singing praises to Him who made it all:

"The purple-headed mountain, The river running by, The sunset, and the morning That brightens up the sky."

They sang, too, their special hymn written for the Ambleside rush-bearers seventy years ago, by the well-beloved vicar of Brathay, the Rev. Owen Lloyd:

"Our fathers to the house of G.o.d, As yet a building rude, Bore offerings from the flowery sod, And fragrant rushes strew'd.

"These, of the great Redeemer's grace Bright emblems, here are seen; He makes to smile the desert place With flowers and rushes green."

One highly important ceremony, to the minds of the children, was yet to come,--the presentation of the gingerbread. As they filed out of the church, twopenny slabs of a peculiarly black and solid substance were given into their eager little hands. The rain had ceased, and we grown-ups all waited in the churchyard, looking down on the issuing file of red tam-o'-shanters, ribboned straw hats, worn grey caps, and, wavering along very low in the line, soft, fair-tinted baby hoods, often cuddled up against some guardian knee. Under the varied headgear ecstatic feasting had begun even in the church porch, though some of the children were too entranced with excitement to find their mouths.

One chubby urchin waved his piece of gingerbread in the air, and another laid his on a gravestone and inadvertently sat down on it. A bewildered wee damsel in robin's-egg blue had lost hers in the basket of wild flowers that was slung about her neck. One spud of a boy, roaring as he came, was wiping his eyes with his. In general, however, the rush-bearers were munching with such relish that they did not trouble themselves to remove the tissue paper adhering to the bottom of each cake, but swallowed that as contentedly as the rest.

Meanwhile their respective adults were swooping down upon them, dabbing the smear of gingerbread off cheeks and chins, b.u.t.toning up little sacques and jackets, and whisking off the most obtrusive patches of half-dried mud. Among these parental regulators was a beaming old woman with a big market-basket on her arm, who brushed and tidied as impartially as if she were grandmother to the whole parish.

Then, again, rang out those gleeful harmonies of which our Puritan bells know nothing. The circle of mountains, faintly flushed with an atoning sunset, looked benignly down on a spectacle familiar to them for hundreds of Christian summer-tides; and if they remembered it still longer ago, as a pagan rite in honour of nature G.o.ds, they discreetly kept their knowledge to themselves.

The rushes and flowers brightened the church through the Sunday services, which were well attended by both dalesfolk and visitors. On Monday twelve prizes were awarded, and the bearings were taken away by their respective owners. Then followed "the treat," an afternoon of frolic, with rain only now and then, on a meadow behind St. Mary's.

The ice-cream cart, the climbing-pole, swings and games, seemed to hold the full attention of the children, to each of whom was tied a cup; but when the simple supper was brought on to higher ground close by the church, who sat like a gentle mother in the very midst of the merry-make, a jubilant, universal shout, "It's coom! It's coom!" sent all the small feet scampering toward the goodies. To crown it all, the weather obligingly gave opportunity, on the edge of the evening, for fireworks, which even the poor little Wesleyans outside the railing could enjoy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE RUSH-BEARING AT GRASMERE]

II

The Ambleside rush-bearing takes place on the Sat.u.r.day before the last Sunday in July. The more famous Grasmere rush-bearing comes on the Sat.u.r.day next after St. Oswald's Day, August fifth. This year (1906) these two festivals fell just one week apart. The London papers were announcing that it was "brilliant weather in the Lakes," which, in a sense, it was, for the gleams of sunshine between the showers were like opening doors of Paradise; yet we arrived at Grasmere so wet that we paid our sixpences to enter Dove Cottage, a shrine to which we had already made due pilgrimage, and had a cosey half-hour with Mrs.

Dixon, well known to the tourist world, before the fireplace whose quiet glow often gladdened the poets and dreamers of its great days gone by.

Our canny old hostess, in the bonnet and shawl which seem to be her official wear, was not disposed this afternoon to talk of the Wordsworths, whom she had served in her girlhood. Her mind was on the rush-bearing for which she had baked the gingerbread forty-three years. There were five hundred squares this time, since, in addition to what would be given to the children, provision must be made for the Sunday afternoon teas throughout Grasmere. The rolling out of the dough had not grown easier with the pa.s.sing of nearly half a century, and she showed us the swollen muscles of her wrist. Her little granddaughters, their flower erections borne proudly in their arms, were dressed all spick and span for the procession, and stood with her, for their pictures, at the entrance to Dove Cottage.

It was still early, and we strolled over to the tranquil church beside the Rotha. Under the benediction of that grey, embattled tower, in the green churchyard with

"Ridge rising gently by the side of ridge, A heaving surface,"

sleep Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy, and their kindred, while the names of Hartley Coleridge and Arthur Hugh Clough may be read on stones close by. We brought the poets white heather and heart's ease for our humble share in the rush-bearing.

Grasmere church, with its strange row of rounded arches down the middle of the nave and its curiously raftered roof, still wears the features portrayed in _The Excursion_:

"Not raised in nice proportions was the pile, But large and ma.s.sy; for duration built; With pillars crowded, and the roof upheld By naked rafters intricately crossed, Like leafless underboughs, in some thick wood, All withered by the depths of shade above.

Admonitory texts inscribed the walls, Each in its ornamental scroll enclosed, Each also crowned with winged heads--a pair Of rudely painted Cherubim. The floor Of nave and aisle, in unpretending guise, Was occupied by oaken benches ranged In seemly rows; the chancel only showed Some vain distinctions, marks of earthly state, By immemorial privilege allowed."

There were a number of people in the church, but the reverent hush was almost unbroken. Strangers in the green churchyard were moving softly about, reading the inscriptions on stones and bra.s.ses, or waiting in the pews, some in the att.i.tude of devotion. In the south aisle leaned against the wall the banner of St. Oswald, a crimson-bordered standard, with the figure of the saint in white and crimson, worked on a golden ground. A short, stout personage, with grey chin-whiskers and a pompous air, presumably the s.e.xton, came in a little after three with a great armful of fresh rushes, and commenced to strew the floor.

Soon afterwards the children, with their bearings, had taken their positions, ranged in a long row on the broad churchyard wall, fronting the street, which by this time was crowded with spectators, for the Grasmere rush-bearing is the most noted among the few survivals of what was once, in the northern counties of England, a very general observance. There is an excellent account of it, by an eyewitness, as early as 1789. James Clarke, in his _Survey of the Lakes_, wrote:

"I happened once to be at Grasmere, at what they call a Rushbearing.... About the latter end of September a number of young women and girls (generally the whole parish) go together to the tops of the hills to gather rushes. These they carry to the church, headed by one of the smartest girls in the company. She who leads the procession is styled the Queen, and carries in her hand a huge garland, and the rest usually have nosegays. The Queen then goes and places her garland upon the pulpit, where it remains till after the next Sunday. The rest then strew their rushes upon the bottom of the pews, and at the church door they are met by a fiddler, who plays before them to the public house, where the evening is spent in all kinds of rustic merriment."

Still more interesting is the record, in Hone's _Year Book_, by "A Pedestrian." On July 21, 1827, the walking tour of this witness brought him to Grasmere.

"The church door was open, and I discovered that the villagers were strewing the floors with fresh rushes....

During the whole of this day I observed the children busily employed in preparing garlands of such wild flowers as the beautiful valley produces, for the evening procession, which commenced at nine, in the following order: The children, chiefly girls, holding their garlands, paraded through the village, preceded by the Union band. They then entered the church, when the three largest garlands were placed on the altar, and the remaining ones in various parts of the place.

In the procession I observed the 'Opium Eater,' Mr. Barber, an opulent gentleman residing in the neighbourhood, Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Wordsworth and Miss Dora Wordsworth.

Wordsworth is the chief supporter of these rustic ceremonies.

The procession over, the party adjourned to the ballroom, a hayloft at my worthy friend Mr. Bell's (now the Red Lion), where the country lads and la.s.ses tripped it merrily and heavily. They called the amus.e.m.e.nt dancing. I called it thumping; for he who made the most noise seemed to be esteemed the best dancer; and on the present occasion I think Mr. Pooley, the schoolmaster, bore away the palm. Billy Dawson, the fiddler, boasted to me of having been the officiating minstrel at this ceremony for the last six and forty years.... The dance was kept up to a quarter of twelve, when a livery servant entered and delivered the following verbal message to Billy: 'Master's respects, and will thank you to lend him the fiddle-stick.' Billy took the hint, the Sabbath was at hand, and the pastor of the parish (Sir Richard le Fleming) had adopted this gentle mode of apprising the a.s.sembled revellers that they ought to cease their revelry. The servant departed with the fiddle-stick, the chandelier was removed, and when the village clock struck twelve not an individual was to be seen out of doors in the village."

Since then many notices of the Grasmere rush-bearings have been printed, the most illuminating being that of the Rev. Canon Rawnsley, 1890, now included in one of his several collections of Lake Country sketches. He calls attention to the presence, among the bearings, of designs that suggest a Miracle Play connection, as Moses in the bulrushes, the serpent on a pole, and the harps of David and Miriam,--emblems which were all in glowing evidence this past summer.

A merry and sympathetic account is given in a ballad of 1864, ascribed to Mr. Edward b.u.t.ton, formerly the Grasmere schoolmaster:

"In Grasmere's hill-girt valley, 'Tis pleasant to recall The children of the dalesmen hold A pretty festival.

"The children of the valley To this day faithful keep The custom of their hardy sires Who in the churchyard sleep.

"For when hot summer's waning, They to the lake repair To pull the reeds and lilies white That grow in plenty there.