The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 69

When from the restlessness of crowded life Back to my native vales I turned, and fixed My habitation in this peaceful spot, Sharp season was it of continuous storm In deepest winter; and, from week to week, Pathway, and lane, and public way were clogged With frequent showers of snow ...

When first attracted by this happy Vale Hither I came, among old Shepherd Swains To fix my habitation,'t was a time Of deepest winter, and from week to week Pathway, and lane, and public way were clogged

When to the { cares and pleasures of the world { attractions of the busy world

Preferring {ease and liberty } I chose {peace and liberty } I chose {studious leisure I had chosen A habitation in this peaceful vale Sharp season {was it of } continuous storm {followed by } continuous storm

NOTE II.--THE HAWKSHEAD BECK

(See pp. 188-89, 'The Prelude', book iv.)

Mr. Rawnsley, formerly of Wray Vicarage--now Canon Rawnsley of Crosthwaite Vicarage, Keswick--sent me the following letter in reference to:

... that unruly child of mountain birth, The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed Within our garden, found himself at once, As if by trick insidious and unkind, Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down ...

I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again, ...

'Ha,' quoth I, 'pretty prisoner, are you there!'

"I was not quite content with Dr. Cradock's identification of this brook, or of the garden; partly because, beyond the present garden square I found, on going up the brook, other garden squares, which were much more likely to have been the garden belonging to Anne Tyson's cottage, and because in these garden plots the stream was not 'stripped of his voice,' by the covering of Coniston flags, as is the case lower down towards the market place; and partly because--as you notice--you can both hear and see the stream through the interstices of the flags, and that it can hardly be described (by one who will listen) as stripped of its voice.

At the same time I was bound to admit that in comparing the voice of the stream here in the 'channel paved by man's officious care' with the sound of it up in the fields beyond the vicarage, nearer its birth-place, it certainly might be said to be softer voiced; and as the poet speaks of it as 'that unruly child of mountain birth,' it looks as if he too had realised the difference.

But whilst I thought that the identification of Dr. Cradock and yourself was very happy (in absence of other possibilities), I had not thought that Wordsworth would describe the stream as 'dimpling down,'

or address it as a 'pretty prisoner.' A smaller stream seemed necessary.

It was, therefore, not a little curious that, in poking about among the garden plots on the west bank of the stream, fronting (as nearly as I could judge) Anne Tyson's cottage, to seek for remains of the ash tree, in which so often the poet--as he lay awake on summer nights--had watched 'the moon in splendour couched among the leaves,'

rocking 'with every impulse of the breeze,' I not only stumbled upon the remains of an ash tree--now a 'pollard'--which is evidently sprung from a larger tree since decayed (and which for all I know may be one of the actual parts of the ancient tree itself); but also had the good luck to fall into conversation with a certain Isaac Hodgson, who volunteered the following information.

First, that Wordsworth, it was commonly said, had lodged part of his time with one Betty Braithwaite, in the very house called Church Hill House.

She was a widow, and kept a confectionery shop, and 'did a deal of baking,' he believed.

Secondly, that there was a little patch of garden at the back of the house, with a famous spring well--still called Old Betty's Well--in it, and that only a few paces from where I was then standing by the pollard ash.

On jumping over the fence I found myself on the western side of the quaint old Church Hill House, with magnificent views of the whole of the western side of Hawkshead Vale; gra.s.sy swell and wooded rises taking the eye up to the moorland ridge between us and Coniston.

'But,' said I, 'what about Betty's Well.' 'Oh,' said my friend, 'that's a noted spring, that never freezes, and always runs; we all drink of it, and neighbours send to it. Here it is,' he continued; and, gazing down, I saw a little dripping well of water, l.u.s.trous, clear, coming evidently in continuous force from the springs or secret channels up hill, pausing for a moment at the trough, thence falling into a box or 'channel paved by man's officious care,' and in a moment out of sight and soundless, to pursue its way, 'stripped of its voice,' towards the main Town beck, that ran at the north-east border of the garden plot. 'Ha, pretty prisoner,' and the words 'dimple down'

came to my mind at once as appropriate. 'Old Betty's Well gave the key-note of the 'famous brook'; and 'boxed within our garden' seemed an appropriate and exact description.

Trace of 'the sunny seat Round the stone table under the dark pine,'

was there none. Not so, however, the Ash tree, the remains of which I have spoken of. From the bedroom of Betty Braithwaite's house the boy could have watched the moon,

'while to and fro In the dark summit of the waving tree She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.'

'In old times,' said my friend, 'the wall fence ran across the garden, just beyond this spring well, so you see it was but a small spot, was this garden close.' Yes; but the

'crowd of things About its narrow precincts all beloved,'

were known the better, and loved the more on that account. Certainly, thought I to myself, here is the famous spring; a brook that Wordsworth must have known, and that may have been the centre of memory to him in his description of those early Hawkshead days, with its metaphor of fountain life.

May we not, as we gaze on this little fountain well, in a garden plot at the back of one of the grey huts of this 'one dear vale,' point as with a wand, and say,

'This portion of the river of his mind Came from yon fountain.'

Is it not possible that the old dame whose

'Clear though shallow stream of piety, Ran on the Sabbath days a fresher course,'

was Betty Braithwaite, the aged dame who owned the cottage hard by?"

The following additional extract from a letter of Mr. Rawnsley's (Christmas, 1882) casts light, both on the Hawkshead beck and fountain, and on the stone seat in the market square, referred to in the fourth book of 'The Prelude'.

"Postlethwaite of the Sun Inn at Hawkshead, has a father aged 82, who can remember that there was a _stone_ bench, not called old Betty's, but Old Jane's Stone, on which she used to spread nuts and cakes for the scholars of the Grammar School, but that it did not stand where the Market Hall now is, and no one ever remembers a stone or stone-bench standing there. This stone or stone-bench stood about opposite the Red Lion inn, in front of the little row of houses that run east and west, just as you pa.s.s out of the village in a northerly direction by the Red Lion. This stone or stone-bench is not a.s.sociated with dark pine trees, but they may have pa.s.sed away root and branch in an earlier generation.

Next and most interesting, I think, as showing that I was right in the matter of the _famous fountain,_ or spring in the garden, behind Betty Braithwaite's house. There exists in Hawkshead near this house a covered-in place or shed, to which all the village repair for their drinking-water, and always have done so. It is known by the name of the Spout House, and the water--which flows all the year from a longish spout, with an overflow one by its side--comes direct from the little drop well in Betty B.'s garden, after having its voice stripped and boxed therein; and, falling out of the spout into a deep stone basin and culvert, runs through the town to join the Town Beck.

So wedded are the Hawkshead folk to this, their familiar fountainhead, that though water is supplied in stand-pipes now from a Reservoir, the folks won't have it, and come here to this spout-house, bucket and jug in hand, morn, noon and night. I have never seen anything so like a continental scene at the gathering at Hawkshead spout-house.

Lastly, there is a very aged thorn-tree in the churchyard--blown over but propped up--in which the forefathers of the hamlet used to sit as boys (in the thorn, that is, not the churchyard), and which has been worn smooth by many Hawkshead generations. The tradition is, that _Wordsworth used to sit a deal in it when at school._"

Ed.

NOTE III.--THE HAWKSHEAD MORNING WALK: SUMMER VACATION