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WE

THE LOW PEAK.

E were awakened by the early sun shining through the casements of the "Charles Cotton," reproaching us with the smiling lightsomeness of its greeting. From the next room the nasal strains of the Man from Town jarred mournfully through the corridors, eloquently demonstrating the efficacy of yesterday's fresh air and exercise. On our own part we were loth to quit bed, but the deep melody of the sluggard's voice was too intolerable, so we presently bestirred ourselves, dressed, rescued the Man from the clutches of Morpheus, and after a substantial breakfast of homecured ham and the freshest of eggs we got out of doors into the cool of the morning.

Yesternight's chatter over the pipes and ale' had provided us with plenty of subjects for investigation. The Man, of course, had duly rejected (as was his custom) a good deal of supposition and improbability, but there still remained the topography of the PoetAngler's country, together with other realities of which he had taken careful note. Consequently it transpired that the church and the village were not the only things worth seeing before we bade adieu to Hartington.

A path from the road through the meadows intercepts and crosses the Dove at one of its many curves, leading directly to what is the only well-preserved relic of the Poet-Angler-the Fishing House.

And my poor Fishing House, my seat's chief grace,
Still stands of old in its accustomed place.

So Cotton wrote to Walton, and so it remains. This classic retreat is a small kiosk, four square, occupying a most advantageous position upon the verge of a peninsula formed by an abrupt double of the stream. Many of the fine trees which fringe the opposite shore he must have planted himself, for he was a practical forester as well as a writer upon arboriculture. The thick foliage effectually

'See "Dovedale," Gentleman's Magazine, September 1898.

protects the current from the south sun, along a course where the backwater makes a favourite feeding ground. The selection of such a site is worthy of the judgment of the author of "How to Catch a Grayling in a clear stream." Here it was that year by year the precise, respectable "Father Walton" was accustomed to wile away the time of his annual visits. He and Cotton were a queerly assorted Damon and Pythias, and in spite of their common pastime, it is really marvellous how they contrived to maintain the balance of friendship.

The boy carried pipes and ale of Derbyshire brew from Beresford Hall to the Fishing House, where he laid them for Venator and Viator. The progress of time has carried before it all these things, from the pipes to the Hall. All have vanished save the Fishing House with its monogram and its dedicatory "piscatoribus sacrum," and even it has been restored from the decay into which it had fallen at the beginning of the present century. The Dove, like Tennyson's Brook, continues to flow on clear and sprightly as ever, regardless of changes; and if her finny favours are not more numerous than in Cotton's day, they are at any rate more eagerly sought after.

The Fishing House stands at the entrance of Beresford Dale. The broad sweep of the Dove Valley abruptly narrows into a gorge, through which for a little over half a mile the river traverses a course of singular beauty. Both sides of the dell are richly clad with timber, a trellised tangle of shrub growth with patches of delicate blues and pinks and yellows warming and brightening the shades of green. Derbyshire dales are famous for their kaleidoscopic effects, but here, for the brief length of Beresford Dale, it is as though the two shires of Derby and Stafford ran side by side to make the way of little Dove the most chaste and lovely of them all. Cliffs and trees, deeps and shallows, lights and shades, all are modulated into a perfect whole, orderly and beautiful as Longfellow's conception, where

Reflected in the tide the grey rocks stand,

And trembling shadows throw,

And the fair trees lean over side by side,

And see themselves below.

We abandon the attempt to realise our impressions and follow a climbing footpath with the Man as guide. This leads to the bold eminence upon which are the ruins of Prospect Tower, where Mistress Cotton used to light a beacon for the guidance of her erratic husband At the foot of this hill are some fragments of VOL. CCLXXXV. NO. 2015.

LL

Beresford, or more Tradition is that the

masonry, all that remains of Beresford Hall. correctly Bearsford, is a commemorative word. last wild bruin of England met his fate here. Wolfscote Bridge, a short distance away, is likewise an indicative place-name, significant of bygone days and our extinct fauna.

Presently we clamber down from Prospect Tower to the site of Beresford. The Man, usually oblivious to the finer perceptions, recollects that something was remarked at the Fishing House about the pipes and ale which Cotton had laid for the Essex wayfarer. He illustrates the pensive thought by taking us over the cellars of the Hall where Cotton's "nappy" ale was stored, and where the barrel marks upon the sandstone walls are still to be seen. Alas for sentiment! Cotton founded no family, and so the Beresford domains passed to strangers, through whom, "by divers mesne assignments and acts in the law," they became vested in the late Right Hon. A. J. Beresford Hope. At one time, somewhat recently, it was anticipated that the Hall was going to be rebuilt, but the idea of restoration now appears to have lapsed.

After Beresford Dale the slopes of the valley rise higher, their sides becoming more and more rugged. The delicate colouring of the plants and the sweet propriety of Nature's arrangement gradually give place to a more lofty grandeur. The narrow pathway rises and falls precipitously; the cliffs lift higher and higher; the weatherbeaten crags writhe upwards and outwards in every fashion of monstrous shape; some are studded with gnarled trees and half clothed with frowsy herbage, others rear up in bleak nakedness. Sometimes too it is a lengthened bulwark of carboniferous limestone unbroken by crack or crevice, save where some cavern mouth opens out like a Gothic arch; mighty barriers and mighty gateways dwarfing into insignificance even the rampart walls one reads of in Eastern fables.

Adam Bede exclaimed enthusiastically, when he talked of Dovedale: "Elegant poetry and eloquent prose have long since done for Dovedale all that words are capable of doing in the way of description." But, where every step opens up a fresh vista and presents a varied impression to the mind, it is useless to expect the poor detail of plodding words to keep pace. Generations of artists have tried the subtler language of form and colour. Foremost among these is Chantrey, who, like the patriotic Derbyshire man that he was, laid aside his chisel to employ for a time his pencil for the interpretation of this rare beauty. Still, all these vicarious methods, which writers and painters essay, are ineffective, and Dovedale, like

many another place, must be seen to be appreciated. And they do come-which, by the way, is a most hopeful and pleasing sign of the times. If one reads Cotton's part of the "Compleat Angler" one sees how lightly the seventeenth century folks regarded the beautiful in nature. "These hills," remarks Cotton apologetically, "though high, bleak, and craggy, breed and feed good beef and mutton above ground, and afford good store of lead within." "They had need of all these commodities," replies Viator contemptuously, "to make amends for the ill landscape." Sampson Erdeswick, in his "Survey of Staffordshire," a generation earlier, remarks that "Dove having past by the side of Alstonefield [a village abutting on the dale] for three or four miles, without any matter worth the noting," &c., &c. To-day, and every day during summer time, in spite of its remoteness, visitors may be seen traversing the course of the Dove, excursionists from Lancashire and the Midlands at holiday times, and on quieter days parties of picnicking visitors who are making this part of Peakland their temporary retreat in the wilderness. It is a happy sign in our social evolution that we no longer shun the hill because it is steep, or the climbing path because it is not smooth; that we feel a pleasant interest in the rustic, just because he is a grinning chawbacon, and not a mere biped of the conventional kind. If the poet said true when he asserted that

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small,

we must surely, notwithstanding warring creeds, be progressing in our spiritual development.

Dovedale proper, from the termination of Beresford Dale to the village of Thorpe, rakes north and south some four miles. At the latter place the river bends abruptly to the west, flanked on either side by two huge moels, Thorpe Cloud and Bunster. These twin smooth-pated sentinels mark the boundary of the rocks. Henceforward the Dove, escaping from the wild ferocity of its late environment, sinks once more into quiet placidity; the precarious gangway over all sorts of irregularities becomes a path through the meadows; rich woods lie upon the slopes. We traverse a few gentle undulations, and then, buried in the very bottom of a clough, out of the world in a quiet paradise of its own, we come to Ilam-on-Dove.

The distance from Thorpe Cloud (three-quarters of a mile), short as it is, marks the difference between storm and repose. Nature has done much for Ilam by outlining the lofty terraces that shut it in; but the hand of man has also largely contributed to the perfection of

its beauty, by planting and so forth. Such a striking situation not only pleases one in prospect, but, in our case, inspires a listening ear. The Man from Town, who rarely misses any printed information worth knowing, produces a booklet entitled "Three Ancient Cross Shafts, the Font, and St. Bertram's Shrine at Ilam," by Dr. Browne, Bishop of Stepney, very helpful to the close student of archæology. There appears to be considerable doubt as to who St. Bertram really was, and the Man confesses that he has not referred to Mr. BaringGould's "Lives." We understand, however, that he is supposed to have come from Stafford and settled down here. Ilam has not, however, remained exclusively a refuge of the saints. Its old ecclesiastical fabric and venerable crosses show that the churchman was, as usual, easily first in this fair spot; but others ultimately followed. In the seventeenth century, while Cotton was grumbling over the wild savagery of the Peak and sighing for a genteel neighbourhood, fashionable Congreve was glad to rusticate on his patrimonial estate at Ilam, where it was possible to make better pace with his literary work than amid the dissipation of town life. It was in a grotto near the Hall that he wrote the "Old Bachelor" and part of the "Mourning Bride." Furthermore, the happy retirement of this Arcadia was specially distinguished by the appreciation of that most uncertain critic of landscape scenery-Dr. Johnson. The Doctor, as everybody knows, was very "viewy" in regard to such-like matters. What was currently pronounced to be beautiful did not always please him. Circumstances frequently brought him into this locality, partly, no doubt, owing to the fact that his birthplace was in the county, and that his old grandfather, famous locally as a pugilist, had lived at Cubley, on the Derbyshire side. During these visits he used to be the guest of Dr. Taylor, who taught Ashbourne School. In connection with one of these visits we have recorded a delightful bit of Boswelliana. "Dr. Johnson obligingly proposed to carry me to see Ilam, a romantic scene. . . Johnson described it, distinctly and vividly, at which I could not but express to him my wonder; because, though my eyes, as he observed, were better than his, I could not by any means equal him in representing visible objects. I said the difference between us in this respect was as between a man who has a bad instrument but plays well on it, and a man who has a good instrument on which he can play very imperfectly." It is easy to adapt one's mind to circumstances. Try, dear reader, to picture the great lexicographer, with all his pedantry and ponderosity, hectoring away upon the what is and what is not of natural beauty; the rapt biographer standing by in silent admiration, while old Dr. Taylor

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