"A thousand tons!"

"Yes! The view from the Scar was very extensive, though bounded by the distant hills; but oh! words would altogether fail to describe the scene. Wonderful! wonderful! wonderful!' was my sudden exclamation. Windermere, Morecombe Bay, the valleys, the mountains softening off in the distance like a picture, and the sky! I was in ecstasy!"

"Underbarrow Scar is the very place that I should like to see."

"I picked up a feather which had fallen, no doubt, from the wing of some flying crow, and tried to dart it down the face of the Scar, but the wind blew it back. I then tied a piece of stone to the quill, when once more the wind sent the feather over my head; again I tried, and this time the feather lodged on a projection about a foot down the crag. There is something far from being pleasant in being obliged to give up an undertaking unaccomplished, however trifling it may be; so, leaning cautiously over I regained the feather, tied to it a piece of stone heavier than a penny piece, and thus, at last, succeeded in darting it like an arrow from a bow down the fearful depth."

"That is just like my father, not to give it up till he had made the feather go over the precipice."

"By this time the sun was beginning to set, and I gazed upon it till it almost blinded me. Even when my eyes were shut, colours of intense brightness, green, crimson, and yellow, seemed visible. I cannot venture to describe the glowing sky, and the beauty of the

surrounding scene. Oh what a goodly Temple was I in, in which to worship the King of kings and Lord of lords! The sea, the lake, and the valleys widely spread below, and in the distance the everlasting hills canopied by the glittering vault of heaven! I lingered with delight and thankfulness. For a season the west was as a flood of living light, and then the king of day 'His gorgeous robes of crimson, gold, and blue,

Wrapped round his breast, and bade the world adieu." "

"What a description you have given! Why your eyes sparkle as if you were on the top of Underbarrow Scar now!"

"Do they? Well, even in remembrance, the scene is an exciting one. In returning from the Scar I fell in with a shepherd's boy, and was much amused with his odd dialect. I told him that I came from great London city, of which it was said the streets were paved with gold, but that the saying was not true, and that honest gold was no more to be picked up in the streets there, without working for it, than in other places. 'Belike not' said he. I then told him that there were three things worth a great deal more than gold,-health, God's blessing, and a grateful heart; and that all these might be enjoyed by a shepherd's boy on the moors of Westmoreland, as much as by the Lord Mayor of London. 'Belike,' was

his short reply. When I asked him how long he had served his present master, he said, 'Ize no bin wi' t'ould man but sin Wissender' (I have only been with the old man since Whitsuntide.) The hirings for farmers'

servants usually take place at Whitsuntide and Martinmas. When I questioned him as to the times he had been at church on the Sabbath, the poor lad gave me to understand that he had bin sa muckle thrangget latly wi' t' wark' (been so busy lately at his work) that he had not been to church at all."

"Poor fellow ! it was a pity that he should have 'bin sa muckle thrangget wi' t' wark.'"

"I will just mention that the Barony of Kendal in olden times was granted by William the Conqueror to one of his followers, Ivo de Taillebois. Not only was the place included in the grant, but the inhabitants also, as bond-servants, though after awhile they were made free. A bitter thing is bondage, and a blessed thing is liberty. Cowper says,

'Place me where winter breathes its keenest air,

And I will sing if Liberty be there.

And I will sing at Liberty's dear feet,

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.'

"My next account shall be of my loiterings about Windermere."

12

CHAPTER II.

LOITERINGS ABOUT WINDERMERE.

The sunny seasons of boyhood.-Windermere.-Professor Wilson's description of the Lake.-Mountains surrounding Windermere. -Stock Gill Force.-The Bee.-Church at Bowness.-Storr's Hall. -Furness Abbey. -The Abbot of Furness.- Blackcomb. accident at the ferry.-Islands of Windermere.

- The

MANY are the sunny seasons in boyhood, but not one of them is more grateful than that in which some interesting story is being poured into youth's delighted ear. Though Paul Ritter had not the knowledge and judgment of his father, he had all his ardour of disposition; so that while the one related his adventures with animation, the other listened to them with eagerness and delight.

"Windermere! Windermere!" cried Paul to his father, in allusion to the promise at the close of their last conversation, to describe his loiterings in the neighbourhood of that unrivalled lake. "I have forgotten nothing," said he, "that you told me about Kendal and Benson Knot, and the Castle and the Church, and Underbarrow Scar. Now for Windermere."

"The Lake of Windermere," said Paul's father, again entering on his narrative, "is one of the fairest sheets of