590 With living Nature hath been intimate, Not only in that raw unpractised time Is stirred to extasy, as others are, By glittering verse; but, further, doth receive, In measure only dealt out to himself,


595 Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets. Visionary Power


Attends the motions of the viewless0 winds invisible Embodied in the mystery of words:


600 There darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes there, As in a mansion like their proper home. Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine;


605 And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognized, In flashes, and with glory not their own.


From Book Sixth Cambridge, and the Alps


["HUMAN NATURE SEEMING BORN AGAIN"]


When the third summer freed us from restraint,' A youthful Friend, he too a Mountaineer,


325 Not slow to share my wishes, took his staff, And, sallying forth, we journeyed, side by side, Bound to the distant Alps. A hardy slight Did this unprecedented course imply Of College studies and their set rewards;2


330 Nor had, in truth, the scheme been formed by me Without uneasy forethought of the pain, The censures, and ill-omening of those


1. After reviewing briefly his second and third years at Cambridge. Wordsworth here describes his trip through France and Switzerland with a college friend, Robert Jones, during the succeeding summer vacation, in 1790. France was then in the "golden hours" of the early period of the Revolution; the fall of the Bastille had occurred on July 14 of the preceding year.


2. Universities in Britain allow longer vacations than those in North America, on the assumption that they will be used for study. In the upcoming term Wordsworth faces his final examinations. His ranking in those will determine his career prospects.


.


362 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


To whom my worldly interests were dear.


But Nature then was Sovereign in my mind,


And mighty Forms, seizing a youthful fancy,


Had given a charter3 to irregular hopes.


In any age of uneventful calm


Among the Nations, surely would my heart


Have been possessed by similar desire;


But Europe at that time was thrilled with joy,


France standing on the top of golden hours,


And human nature seeming born again.


[CROSSING SIMPLON PASS]


9


* 4 That very day, From a bare ridge we also first beheld


Unveiled the summit of Mont Blanc, and grieved


To have a soulless image on the eye


Which had usurped upon a living thought


That never more could be.4 The wondrous Vale


Of Chamouny5 stretched far below, and soon


With its dumb0 cataracts, and streams of ice, silent A motionless array of mighty waves,


Five rivers broad and vast, made rich amends,


And reconciled us to realities.


There small birds warble from the leafy trees,


The eagle soars high in the element;


There doth the Reaper bind the yellow sheaf,


The Maiden spread the hay-cock in the sun,


While Winter like a well-tamed lion walks,


Descending from the Mountain to make sport


Among the Cottages by beds of flowers. Whate'er in this wide circuit we beheld,


Or heard, was fitted to our unripe state


Of intellect and heart. With such a book


Before our eyes we could not chuse but read


Lessons of genuine brotherhood, the plain


And universal reason of mankind,


The truths of Young and Old. Nor, side by side


Pacing, two social Pilgrims, or alone


Each with his humour,6 could we fail to abound


In dreams and fictions pensively composed,


Dejection taken up for pleasure's sake,


And gilded sympathies; the willow wreath,7


And sober posies8 of funereal flowers


Gathered, among those solitudes sublime,


From formal gardens of the Lady Sorrow,


Did sweeten many a meditative hour. Yet still in me with those soft luxuries


3. Privileged freedom. Mont Blanc. 4. The "image" is the actual sight of Mont Blanc, 6. Temperament, or state of mind. as against what the poet has imagined the famous 7. Cliched symbol of sorrow. "Gilded": laid on like Swiss mountain to be. gilt; i.e., superficial. 5. Chamonix, a valley in eastern France, north of 8. Small bunches of flowers.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 363


Mixed something of stern mood, an under thirst


560 Of vigor seldom utterly allayed.


And from that source how different a sadness


Would issue, let one incident make known. When from the Vallais we had turned, and clomb� climbed


Along the Simplon's steep and rugged road,9


565 Following a band of Muleteers, we reached


A halting-place where all together took


Their noon-tide meal. Hastily rose our Guide, Leaving us at the Board;0 awhile we lingered, i.e., eating the meal Then paced the beaten downward way that led


570 Right to a rough stream's edge and there broke off.


The only track now visible was one


That from the torrent's further brink held forth


Conspicuous invitation to ascend


A lofty mountain. After brief delay


575 Crossing the unbridged stream, that road we took


And clomb with eagerness, till anxious fears


Intruded, for we failed to overtake


Our Comrades gone before. By fortunate chance,


While every moment added doubt to doubt,


580 A Peasant met us, from whose mouth we learned


That to the Spot which had perplexed us first


We must descend, and there should find the road,


Which in the stony channel of the Stream


Lay a few steps, and then along its banks,


585 And that our future course, all plain to sight, Was downwards, with the current of that Stream.


Loth to believe what we so grieved to hear,


For still we had hopes that pointed to the clouds,


We questioned him again, and yet again;


590 But every word that from the Peasant's lips


Came in reply, translated by our feelings, Ended in this, that we had crossed the Alps.1 Imagination�here the Power so called


Through sad incompetence of human speech� 595 That awful0 Power rose from the Mind's abyss awe-inspiringLike an unfathered vapour2 that enwraps


At once some lonely Traveller. I was lost,


Halted without an effort to break through;


But to my conscious soul I now can say,


600 "I recognize thy glory"; in such strength


Of usurpation, when the light of sense


Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed


The invisible world, doth Greatness make abode,


There harbours, whether we be young or old;


605 Our destiny, our being's heart and home,


Is with infinitude, and only there;


9. The Simplon Pass through the Alps. time of writing the passage, as the 1805 text explic1. As Dorothy Wordsworth baldly put it later on, itly says: "Imagination! lifting up itself / Before the "The ambition of youth was disappointed at these eye and progress of my Song." tidings." The visionary experience that follows 2. Sudden vapor from no apparent source, (lines 593-617) occurred not in the Alps but at the


.


36 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


With hope it is, hope that can never die, Effort, and expectation, and desire, And something evermore about to be.


6io Under such banners militant the Soul Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils, That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts That are their own perfection and reward, Strong in herself, and in beatitude3


615 That hides her like the mighty flood of Nile Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds To fertilize the whole Egyptian plain.


The melancholy slackening that ensued Upon those tidings by the Peasant given


620 Was soon dislodged; downwards we hurried fast And, with the half-shaped road, which we had missed, Entered a narrow chasm. The brook and road Were fellow-Travellers in this gloomy Strait, And with them did we journey several hours


625 At a slow pace. The immeasurable height Of woods decaying, never to be decayed, The stationary blasts of waterfalls, And in the narrow rent at every turn Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,


630 The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky, The rocks that muttered close upon our ears, Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side As if a voice were in them, the sick sight And giddy prospect of the raving stream,


635 The unfettered clouds, and region of the Heavens, Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light� Were all like workings of one mind, the features Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree, Characters of the great Apocalypse,


640 The types and symbols of Eternity,4 Of first and last, and midst, and without end.5


From Book Seventh Residence in London1


[THE BLIND BEGGAR. BARTHOLOMEW FAIR]


As the black storm upon the mountain top 620 Sets off the sunbeam in the Valley, so That huge fermenting Mass of human-kind


3. The ultimate blessedness or happiness. 4. The objects in this natural scene are like the written words ("characters") of the Apocalypse� i.e., of the Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. "Types": signs foreshadowing the future. 5. Cf. Revelation 1.8: "1 am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord." The phrase is repeated in Revelation 21.6, after the fulfillment of the last things. In Paradise Lost 5.153� 65 Milton says that the things created declare their Creator, and calls on all to extol "him first, him last, him midst, and without end."


1. Wordsworth spent three and a half months in London in 1 791.


.


THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 36 5


Serves as a solemn background or relief To single forms and objects, whence they draw, For feeling and contemplative regard,


625 More than inherent liveliness and power. How oft amid those overflowing streets Have I gone forward with the Crowd, and said Unto myself, "The face of every one That passes by me is a mystery!"


630 Thus have I looked, nor ceased to look, oppressed By thoughts of what and whither, when and how, Until the Shapes before my eyes became A second-sight procession, such as glides Over still mountains, or appears in dreams.


635 And once, far-travelled in such mood, beyond The reach of common indication, lost Amid the moving pageant, I was smitten Abruptly with the view (a sight not rare) Of a blind Beggar who, with upright face,


640 Stood propped against a Wall; upon his chest Wearing a written paper to explain His Story, whence he came, and who he was. Caught by the spectacle, my mind turned round As with the might of waters; an apt type


645 This Label seemed, of the utmost we can know Both of ourselves and of the universe; And on the Shape of that unmoving Man, His steadfast face, and sightless eyes, I gazed As if admonished from another world.


650 Though reared upon the base of outward things, Structures like these the excited Spirit mainly Builds for herself. Scenes different there are, Full-formed, that take, with small internal help, Possession of the faculties�the peace


655 That comes with night; the deep solemnity Of Nature's intermediate hours of rest, When the great tide of human life stands still, The business of the day to come�unborn, Of that gone by�locked up as in the grave;2


660 The blended calmness of the heavens and earth,


Moonlight, and stars, and empty streets, and sounds Unfrequent as in deserts: at late hours Of winter evenings when unwholesome rains Are falling hard, with people yet astir,


665 The feeble salutation from the voice Of some unhappy woman,3 now and then Heard as we pass; when no one looks about, Nothing is listened to. But these, I fear, Are falsely catalogued;4 things that are, are not,


670 As the mind answers to them, or the heart


2. The sonnet "Composed upon Westminster 4. Mistakenly classified, because what things are Bridge" describes a similar response to London depends on the attitude with which they are per- when its "mighty heart is lying still." ceived. 3. Perhaps a prostitute.


.


36 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


Is prompt or slow to feel. What say you, then, To times when half the City shall break out Full of one passion, vengeance, rage, or fear? To executions,s to a Street on fire,


675 Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From these sights Take one, that annual Festival, the Fair Holden where Martyrs suffered in past time, And named of St. Bartholomew;6 there see A work completed to our hands, that lays,


680 If any spectacle on earth can do, The whole creative powers of Man asleep! For once the Muse's help will we implore, And she shall lodge us, wafted on her wings, Above the press and danger of the Crowd,


685 Upon some Shewman's platform. What a shock For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din Barbarian and infernal�a phantasma7 Monstrous in color, motion, shape, sight, sound! Below, the open space, through every nook


690 Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive With heads; the midway region and above Is thronged with staring pictures, and huge scrolls, Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies! With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles,


695 And children whirling in their roundabouts;0 merry-go-rounds With those that stretch the neck, and strain the eyes; And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons Grimacing, writhing, screaming, him who grinds


700 The hurdy-gurdy,8 at the fiddle weaves, Rattles the salt-box,9 thumps the Kettle-drum; And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks; The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel;0 tambourine Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys,


705 Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes. �All moveables of wonder from all parts And here, Albinos, painted-Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of Knowledge, and the learned Pig,1 The Stone-eater, the Man that swallows fire�


710 Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible-girl, The Bust that speaks, and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins,2 Wild-beasts, Puppet-shews, All out-o'th'-way, far-fetched, perverted things,3


5. Executions were public events in England until 8. A stringed instrument, sounded by a turning 1868. wheel covered by rosin. 6. This huge fair was long held in Smithfield, the 9. A wooden box, rattled and beaten with a stick. place where, on St. Bartholomew's Day, August 24, 1. Animals trained to tap out answers to arith- Protestants had been executed in Queen Mary's metic questions, etc. reign (1553-58). 2. Magicians. Merlin was the magician in Arthu7. Fantasy of a disordered mind. Perhaps sugges-rian romance. tive too of "phantasmagoria," the name given, start-3. Cf. Milton's description of Hell as containing ing in 1802, to the exhibition of optical illusions "Perverse, ail monstrous, all prodigious things" that showmen mounted by means of a kind of slide {Paradise Lost 2.625). projector.


.


THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 367


715 All freaks of Nature, all Promethean4 thoughts Of man; his dullness, madness, and their feats, All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths, Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill,


720 Are vomiting, receiving, on all sides, Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.


Oh blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself To thousands upon thousands of her Sons,


725 Living amid the same perpetual whirl Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one identity, by differences That have no law, no meaning, and no end; Oppression under which even highest minds


730 Must labour, whence the strongest are not free! But though the picture weary out the eye, By nature an unmanageable sight, It is not wholly so to him who looks In steadiness, who hath among least things


735 An undersense of greatest; sees the parts As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.


This did I feel in London's vast Domain; The Spirit of Nature was upon me there; The Soul of Beauty and enduring life Vouchsafed0 her inspirations; and diffused, granted.


770 Through meagre lines and colours, and the press Of self-destroying transitory things, Composure, and ennobling harmony.


From Book Eighth Retrospect, Love of Nature leading to Love of Man1


[THE SHEPHERD IN THE MIST]


* * * A rambling School-boy, thus I felt his� presence in his own domain the shepherd's As of a Lord and Master; or a Power Or Genius,0 under Nature, under God presiding spirit


260 Presiding; and severest solitude Had more commanding looks when he was there. When up the lonely brooks on rainy days Angling I went, or trod the trackless hills By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes


4. Of daring creativity. In Greek mythology Pro-twenty-one years of his life to trace the transfer of metheus made man out of clay and taught him the his earlier feelings for nature to the shepherds and arts. other working people who inhabited the landscape 1. In this book Wordsworth reviews the first he loved.


.


36 8 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


265 Have glanced upon him distant a few steps, In size a Giant, stalking through thick fog,2 His sheep like Greenland bears;0 or, as he stepped -polar bears Beyond the boundary line of some hill-shadow, His form hath flashed upon me, glorified


270 By the deep radiance of the setting sun:3 Or him have I descried in distant sky, A solitary object and sublime, Above all height! like an aerial cross Stationed alone upon a spiry rock


275 Of the Chartreuse,4 for worship. Thus was Man Ennobled outwardly before my sight, And thus my heart was early introduced To an unconscious love and reverence Of human nature; hence the human Form


280 To me became an index of delight, Of grace, and honor, power, and worthiness. Meanwhile this Creature, spiritual almost As those of Books, but more exalted far; Far more of an imaginative Form 285 Than the gay Corin of the groves, who lives For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour In coronal, with Phillis5 in the midst� Was, for the purposes of Kind,6 a Man With the most common; husband, father; learned, 290 Could teach, admonish, suffered with the rest From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear; Of this I little saw, cared less for it; But something must have felt. * * *


From Book Ninth Residence in France1


[PARIS AND ORLEANS. BECOMES A "PATRIOT"]


�France lured me forth, the realm that I had crossed


35 So lately, journeying toward the snow-clad Alps. But now relinquishing the scrip0 and staff2 knapsack And all enjoyment which the summer sun Sheds round the steps of those who meet the day With motion constant as his own, I went


2. Wordsworth borrows this image from James Thomson's Autumn (1730), lines 727�29. 3. A "glory" is a mountain phenomenon in which the enlarged figure of a person is seen projected by the sun on the mist, with a radiance about its head. Cf. Coleridge's "Dejection: An Ode," line 54 (p. 467). 4. In his tour of the Alps, Wordsworth had been deeply impressed by the Chartreuse, a Carthusian monastery in France, with its soaring cross visible against the sky. 5. Corin and Phillis, shepherd and shepherdess dancing in their coronals, or wreaths of flowers, were stock characters in earlier pastoral literature.


6. I.e., in carrying out the tasks of humankind. 1. Wordsworth's second visit to France, while he was twenty-one and twenty-two years of age (1791�92), came during a crucial period of the French Revolution. This book deals with his stay at Paris, Orleans, and Blois, when he developed his passionate partisanship for the French people and the revolutionary cause. 2. Emblems of the pilgrim traveling on foot.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 369


40 Prepared to sojourn in a pleasant Town3 Washed by the current of the stately Loire. Through Paris lay my readiest course, and there Sojourning a few days, I visited In haste each spot, of old or recent fame, 45 The latter chiefly; from the field of Mars4 Down to the suburbs of St. Anthony;5 And from Mont Martyr6 southward to the Dome Of Genevieve.7 In both her clamorous Halls, The National Synod and the Jacobins,8 so I saw the Revolutionary Power Toss like a Ship at anchor, rocked by storms; The Arcades I traversed, in the Palace huge Of Orleans,9 coasted round and round the line Of Tavern, Brothel, Gaming-house, and Shop, 55 Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk Of all who had a purpose, or had not; I stared, and listened with a Stranger's ears To Hawkers and Haranguers, hubbub wild! And hissing Factionists, with ardent eyes, 60 In knots, or pairs, or single. Not a look Hope takes, or Doubt or Fear are forced to wear, But seemed there present, and I scanned them all, Watched every gesture uncontrollable Of anger, and vexation, and despite, 65 All side by side, and struggling face to face With Gaiety and dissolute Idleness. �Where silent zephyrs0 sported with the dust breezes Of the Bastille,1 I sate in the open sun, And from the rubbish gathered up a stone 70 And pocketed the Relic in the guise Of an Enthusiast; yet, in honest truth, I looked for Something that I could not find, Affecting more emotion than I felt; For 'tis most certain that these various sights, 75 However potent their first shock, with me Appeared to recompence the Traveller's pains Less than the painted Magdalene of Le Brun,2 A Beauty exquisitely wrought, with hair Dishevelled, gleaming eyes, and rueful cheek so Pale, and bedropp'd with everflowing tears. But hence to my more permanent Abode3


3. Orleans, on the Loire River, where Wordsworth stayed from December 1791 until he moved to Blois early the next year. 4. The Champ de Mars, where during the Festival of the Federation in 1790 Louis XVI swore fidelity to the new constitution. 5. Faubourg St. Antoine, near the Bastille, a militant working-class district and center of revolutionary violence. 6. Montmartre, a hill on which revolutionary meetings were held. 7. Became the Pantheon, a burial place for heroes of the Revolution such as Voltaire and Rousseau. 8. The club of radical democratic revolutionists, named for the ancient convent of St. Jacques, their meeting place. "National Synod": the newly formed National Assembly. 9. The arcades in the courtyard of the Palais d'Orleans, a fashionable gathering place. 1. The political prison, which had been demolished after being stormed and sacked on July 14, 1789. 2. The painting of the weeping Mary Magdalen by Charles Le Brun (1619�1690) was a tourist attraction. 3. In Orleans.


.


37 0 / WILLIA M WORDSWORT H I hasten; there by novelties in speech, Domestic manners, customs, gestures, looks, And all the attire of ordinary life, 85 Attention was engrossed; and, thus amused, I stood 'mid those concussions unconcerned, Tranquil almost, and careless as a flower Glassed in a green-house, or a Parlour shrub That spreads its leaves in unmolested peace 90 While every bush and tree, the country through, Is shaking to the roots; indifference this Which may seem strange; but I was unprepared With needful knowledge, had abruptly passed Into a theatre whose stage was filled, 95 And busy with an action far advanced. Like Others I had skimmed, and sometimes read With care, the master pamphlets of the day;4 Nor wanted" such half-insight as grew wild lacked Upon that meagre soil, helped out by talk ioo And public news; but having never seen A Chronicle that might suffice to shew Whence the main Organs5 of the public Power Had sprung, their transmigrations when and how Accomplished, giving thus unto events 105 A form and body; all things were to me Loose and disjointed, and the affections left Without a vital interest. At that time, Moreover, the first storm was overblown, And the strong hand of outward violence i io Locked up in quiet.6 For myself, I fear Now, in connection with so great a Theme, To speak (as I must be compelled to do) Of one so unimportant; night by night Did I frequent the formal haunts of men 115 Whom, in the City, privilege of birth Sequestered from the rest: societies Polished in Arts, and in punctilio0 versed; social niceties Whence, and from deeper causes, all discourse Of good and evil of the time was shunned 120 With scrupulous care: but these restrictions soon Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew Into a noisier world, and thus erelong Became a Patriot;7 and my heart was all Given to the People, and my love was theirs.


4. Wordsworth probably refers to the numerous English pamphlets (including Paines Rights of Man, part 1, and Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Men) published in response to Edmund Burke's attack on the revolution, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). 5. Institutions, instruments. 6. The peace that followed the storming of the Bastille in 1789 was dramatically broken when, between September 2and6, 1792, three thousand prisoners suspected of Royalist sympathies were summarily executed by a Paris mob. 7. I.e., became committed to the people's side in the Revolution.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 371


From Book Tenth France continued1 [THE REVOLUTION: PARIS AND ENGLAND] Cheared with this hope,2 to Paris I returned; And ranged, with ardor heretofore unfelt, 50 The spacious City, and in progress passed The Prison3 where the unhappy Monarch lay, Associate with his Children and his Wife, In Bondage; and the Palace4 lately stormed, With roar of Cannon, by a furious Host. 55 I crossed the Square (an empty Area then!) Of the Carousel, where so late had lain The Dead, upon the Dying heaped; and gazed On this and other Spots, as doth a Man Upon a Volume whose contents he knows 60 Are memorable, but from him locked up, Being written in a tongue he cannot read; So that he questions the mute leaves0 with pain, pages And half-upbraids their silence. But, that night, I felt most deeply in what world I was, 65 What ground I trod on, and what air I breathed. High was my Room and lonely, near the roof Of a large Mansion or Hotel,0 a Lodge town house That would have pleased me in more quiet times, Nor was it wholly without pleasure, then. 70 With unextinguished taper I kept watch, Reading at intervals; the fear gone by Pressed on me almost like a fear to come. I thought of those September massacres, Divided from me by one little month, 75 Saw them and touched;5 the rest was conjured up From tragic fictions, or true history, Remembrances and dim admonishments. The Horse is taught his manage,6 and no Star Of wildest course but treads back his own steps; so For the spent hurricane the air provides As fierce a Successor; the tide retreats But to return out of its hiding place In the great Deep; all things have second birth; The earthquake is not satisfied at once; 85 And in this way I wrought upon myself


1. Book 10 deals with the period between October 1792 and August 1794. 2. I.e., hope that, with the Declaration of the Republic and the French army's recent defeat of an Austrian and Prussian invasion, there would be no more need for violence. 3. I.e., the "Temple" (it had once housed the religious Order of Templars), where starting in September 1792 the deposed king was held prisoner awaiting trial for his crimes against the people. 4. The Tuileries. On August 10, 1792, the palace was marched upon by a crowd intent on seizing Louis XVI, whose Swiss guards opened fire on the insurgents. The bodies of the thousands who died in the conflict were cremated in the great square of the "Carousel" (line 56), in front of the palace. 5. I.e., his imagination of the September massacres was so vivid as to be palpable. 6. The French manege, the prescribed action and paces of a trained horse.


.


37 2 / WILLIA M WORDSWORT H Until I seemed to hear a voice that cried To the whole City, "Sleep no more."7 The Trance Fled with the Voice to which it had given birth, But vainly comments of a calmer mind 90 Promised soft peace and sweet forgetfulness. The place, all hushed and silent as it was, Appeared unfit for the repose of Night, Defenceless as a wood where Tygers roam. * * * In this frame of mind, Dragged by a chain of harsh necessity, So seemed it,�now I thankfully acknowledge, Forced by the gracious providence of Heaven� 225 To England I returned,8 else (though assured That I both was, and must be, of small weight, No better than a Landsman on the deck Of a ship struggling with a hideous storm) Doubtless I should have then made common cause 230 With some who perished, haply0 perished too,9 perhaps A poor mistaken and bewildered offering, Should to the breast of Nature have gone back With all my resolutions, all my hopes, A Poet only to myself, to Men 235 Useless, and even, beloved Friend, a Soul To thee unknown!' � * * What then were my emotions, when in Arms Britain put forth her free-born strength in league, 265 O pity and shame! with those confederate Powers?2 Not in my single self alone I found, But in the minds of all ingenuous Youth, Change and subversion from that hour. No shock Given to my moral nature had I known 270 Down to that very moment; neither lapse Nor turn of sentiment that might be named A revolution, save at this one time; All else was progress on the self-same path On which, with a diversity of pace, 275 I had been travelling: this a stride at once Into another region.�As a light And pliant hare-bell� swinging in the breeze bluebell On some gray rock, its birth-place, so had I Wantoned, fast rooted on the ancient tower 280 Of my beloved Country, wishing not A happier fortune than to wither there.


7. Macbeth's hallucination after his murder of the king. "Methought I heard a voice cry, 'Sleep no more, / Macbeth does murder sleep' " (Shakespeare, Macbeth 2.2.33�34). Louis XVI was guillotined on January 21,1793. 8. Forced by the "harsh necessity" of a lack of money, Wordsworth returned to England late in 1792. 9. Wordsworth sympathized with the moderate party of the Girondins, almost all of whom were guillotined or committed suicide following Robespierre's rise to power in the National Convention. 1. Wordsworth did not meet Coleridge, the "beloved Friend," until 1795. 2. England joined Austria and Prussia in the war against France in February 1793.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 373


Now was I from that pleasant station torn And tossed about in whirlwind. I rejoiced, Yea, afterwards, truth most painful to record!


285 Exulted, in the triumph of my Soul, When Englishmen by thousands were o'erthrown, Left without glory on the field, or driven, Brave hearts, to shameful flight.3 It was a grief,� Grief call it not, 'twas any thing but that,�


290 A conflict of sensations without name, Of which he only who may love the sight Of a Village Steeple as I do can judge, When, in the Congregation bending all To their great Father, prayers were offered up,


295 Or praises, for our Country's victories, And, 'mid the simple Worshippers, perchance I only, like an uninvited Guest, Whom no one owned, sate silent, shall I add, Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come?


* & $ [THE REIGN OF TERROR. NIGHTMARES]


�Domestic carnage now filled the whole year With Feast-days;4 old Men from the Chimney-nook, The Maiden from the bosom of her Love, The Mother from the Cradle of her Babe,


360 The Warrior from the Field, all perished, all, Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks, Head after head, and never heads enough For those that bade them fall. They found their joy, They made it, proudly eager as a Child


365 (If like desires of innocent little ones May with such heinous appetites be compared), Pleased in some open field to exercise A toy that mimics with revolving wings The motion of a windmill, though the air


370 Do of itself blow fresh and make the Vanes Spin in his eyesight, that contents him not, But, with the play-thing at arm's length, he sets His front against the blast, and runs amain That it may whirl the faster.


* * $


Most melancholy at that time, O Friend! Were my day-thoughts, my nights were miserable; Through months, through years, long after the last beat


400 Of those atrocities, the hour of sleep To me came rarely charged with natural gifts,


3. The French defeated the English in the battle of Hondschoote, September 6, 1793. 4. I.e., festivals celebrated by human slaughter ("carnage"). Wordsworth alludes ironically to the patriotic festivals created to replace Catholic feast days within the new Republic's calendar. Lines 356�63 describe the Reign of Terror organized by Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety. In 1794 a total of 1,376 people were guillotined in Paris in forty-nine days.


.


37 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


Such ghastly Visions had I of despair And tyranny, and implements of death, And innocent victims sinking under fear,


405 And momentary hope, and worn-out prayer, Each in his separate cell, or penned in crowds For sacrifice, and struggling with forced mirth And levity in dungeons where the dust Was laid with tears. Then suddenly the scene


410 Changed, and the unbroken dream entangled me In long orations which I strove to plead Before unjust tribunals�with a voice Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense Death-like of treacherous desertion, felt


415 In the last place of refuge, my own soul.


From Book Eleventh France, concluded1


[RETROSPECT: "BLISS WAS IT IN THAT DAWN." RECOURSE TO "REASON'S NAKED SELF"]


O pleasant exercise of hope and joy!2 For mighty were the Auxiliars0 which then stood allies Upon our side, we who were strong in Love! Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! O times,


no In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways Of custom, law, and statute, took at once The attraction of a Country in Romance! When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights, When most intent on making of herself


115 A prime Enchantress�to assist the work Which then was going forward in her name! Not favored spots alone, but the whole earth The beauty wore of promise�that which sets (As at some moments might not be unfelt


120 Among the bowers of Paradise itself) The budding rose above the rose full blown. What Temper0 at the prospect did not wake temperament To happiness unthought of? The inert Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!3 125 They who had fed their Childhood upon dreams, The play-fellows of Fancy, who had made All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength Their ministers,�who in lordly wise had stirred Among the grandest objects of the Sense,


1. Book 11 deals with the year from August 1794 down. through September 1795: Wordsworth's growing 2. Wordsworth in this passage turns back to the disillusionment with the French Revolution, his summer of 1792, when his enthusiasm for the Rev- recourse to abstract theories of politics, his despair olution was at its height. and nervous breakdown, and the beginning of his 3. Enraptured; carried away by enthusiasm. recovery when he moved from London to Race


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 375


130 And dealt with whatsoever they found there As if they had within some lurking right To wield it;�they, too, who of gentle mood Had watched all gentle motions, and to these Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more mild,


135 And in the region of their peaceful selves;� Now was it that both found, the Meek and Lofty Did both find helpers to their hearts' desire, And stuff at hand, plastic" as they could wish,� malleable Were called upon to exercise their skill,


140 Not in Utopia,�subterranean Fields,� Or some secreted Island, Heaven knows where! But in the very world, which is the world Of all of us,�the place where in the end We find our happiness, or not at all!


145 Why should I not confess that Earth was then To me what an Inheritance new-fallen Seems, when the first time visited, to one Who thither comes to find in it his home? He walks about and looks upon the spot


150 With cordial transport, moulds it and remoulds, And is half-pleased with things that are amiss, 'Twill be such joy to see them disappear.


An active partisan, I thus convoked" called up From every object pleasant circumstance


155 To suit my ends; I moved among mankind With genial feelings still" predominant; always When erring, erring on the better part, And in the kinder spirit; placable," forgiving Indulgent, as not uninformed that men


160 See as they have been taught, and that Antiquity4 Gives rights to error; and aware no less That throwing off oppression must be work As well of licence as of liberty; And above all, for this was more than all,


165 Not caring if the wind did now and then Blow keen upon an eminence" that gave elevated ground Prospect so large into futurity;


In brief, a Child of Nature, as at first, Diffusing only those affections wider


170 That from the cradle had grown up with me, And losing, in no other way than light Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.


In the main outline, such, it might be said, Was my condition, till with open war


175 Britain opposed the Liberties of France;5 This threw me first out of the pale" of love, bounds Soured, and corrupted, upwards to the source, My sentiments; was not,6 as hitherto, A swallowing up of lesser things in great;


4. Tradition, long use. against France. 5. On February 11, 1793, England declared war 6. I.e., there was not (in my sentiments).


.


37 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


180 But change of them into their contraries; And thus a way was opened for mistakes And false conclusions, in degree as gross, In land more dangerous. What had been a pride Was now a shame; my likings and my loves


185 Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry, And hence a blow that in maturer age Would but have touched the judgement, struck more deep Into sensations near the heart; meantime, As from the first, wild theories were afloat


190 To whose pretensions sedulously urged7 I had but lent a careless ear, assured That time was ready to set all things right, And that the multitude so long oppressed Would be oppressed no more.


But when events


195 Brought less encouragement, and unto these The immediate proof of principles no more Could be entrusted, while the events themselves, Worn out in greatness, stripped of novelty, Less occupied the mind; and sentiments


200 Could through my understanding's natural growth No longer keep their ground, by faith maintained Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid Her hand upon her object; evidence Safer, of universal application, such


205 As could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere. But now, become Oppressors in their turn, Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence For one of Conquest, losing sight of all Which they had struggled for:8 and mounted up, 210 Openly in the eye of Earth and Heaven, The scale of Liberty.9 I read her doom With anger vexed, with disappointment sore, But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame Of a false Prophet. While resentment rose, 215 Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds Of mortified presumption, I adhered More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove1 Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat Of contest, did opinions every day 220 Grow into consequence, till round my mind They clung, as if they were its life, nay more, The very being of the immortal Soul. This was the time when, all things tending fast To depravation, speculative schemes 225 That promised to abstract the hopes of Man Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth


7. Diligently argued for. 9. I.e., the desire for power now outweighed the 8. In late 1794 and early 1795, French troops had love of liberty. successes in Spain, Italy, Holland, and Germany� 1. Test. The figure is that of testing a tempered even though, in the constitution written in 1790, steel sword, they had renounced all foreign conquest.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 377


For ever in a purer element, Found ready welcome.2 Tempting region that For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,


230 Where passions had the privilege to work, And never hear the sound of their own names: But, speaking more in charity, the dream Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least With that which makes our Reason's naked self3


235 The object of its fervour. * 4 *


[CRISIS, BREAKDOWN, AND RECOVERY]


I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent


280 To anatomize0 the frame of social life, dissect Yea, the whole body of society Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend! the wish That some dramatic tale indued with shapes Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words


285 Than suit the Work we fashion, might set forth What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth, And the errors into which I fell, betrayed By present objects, and by reasonings false From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn


290 Out of a heart that had been turned aside From Nature's way by outward accidents, And which was thus confounded more and more, Misguided and misguiding. So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,


295 Like culprits to the bar;� calling the mind, courtroom Suspiciously, to establish in plain day Her titles4 and her honors, now believing, Now disbelieving, endlessly perplexed With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground 300 Of obligation, what the rule and whence


The sanction, till, demanding formal proof And seeking it in every thing, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,0 the end


Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, 305 Yielded up moral questions in despair.


This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped, Deeming our blessed Reason of least use Where wanted most. * * *


2. I.e., schemes that undertook to separate tions on the Revolution in France (p. 152 above) of ("abstract") people's hopes for future happiness the new political theories founded on reason: "All from reliance on the emotional part of human the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. nature, and instead to ground those hopes on their All the superadded ideas, furnished from the ward- rational natures ("a purer element"). The allusion robe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, is primarily to William Godwin's Inquiry' Concern-and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to ing Political Justice (1793), which proposed that cover the defects of our naked shivering nature . . . humans' moral and political progress would be are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and anti- unstoppable if reason were allowed to function quated fashion." , freely. 4. Deeds to prove legal entitlements. 3. Cf. Edmund Burke's denunciation in Reflec


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37 8 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


* 4 ' Then it was, Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good! That the beloved Woman5 in whose sight Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice Of sudden admonition�like a brook That does but cross a lonely road, and now Seen, heard, and felt, and caught at every turn, Companion never lost through many a league� Maintained for me a saving intercourse0 communion With my true self: for, though bedimmed and changed Both as a clouded and a waning moon, She whispered still that brightness would return, She in the midst of all preserved me still A Poet, made me seek beneath that name, And that alone, my office0 upon earth. duty And lastly, as hereafter will be shewn, If willing audience fail not, Nature's self, By all varieties of human love Assisted, led me back through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart Whence grew that genuine knowledge fraught with peace Which, through the later sinkings of this cause, Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now In the catastrophe (for so they dream, And nothing less), when, finally to close And rivet down the gains of France, a Pope Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor:6 This last opprobrium,0 when we see a people disgrace That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven For manna, take a lesson from the Dog Returning to his vomit.7 * * *


Book Twelfth Imagination and Taste, how impaired and restored


[SPOTS OF TIME]


* * 4 I shook the habit off1


205 Entirely and for ever, and again In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand, A sensitive Being, a creative Soul.


There are in our existence spots of time,2


5. After a long separation Dorothy Wordsworth 1. The acquired habit of logical analysis, which came to live with her brother at Racedown in 1795 had marred his earlier feelings for the natural and remained a permanent member of his house-world. hold. 2. Wordsworth's account in the lines that follow 6. The ultimate blow to liberal hopes for France of two memories from childhood was originally occurred when on December 2, 1804, Napoleon drafted for book 1 of the two-part Prelude of 1799. summoned Pope Pius VII to officiate at the cere-By transferring these early memories to the end of mony elevating him to emperor. At the last his completed autobiography, rather than present- moment Napoleon took the crown and donned it ing them in its opening books, he enacts his own himself. theory about how remembrance of things past 7. Allusion to Proverbs 26.11: "As a dog returneth nourishes the mind. He shows that it does so, as to his vomit, a fool returneth to his folly." he says, "down to this very time" (line 327): the


.


THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 37 9


That with distinct pre-eminence retain


210 A renovating virtue,0 whence, depressed power of renewal By false opinion and contentious thought, Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight, In trivial occupations, and the round Of ordinary intercourse, our minds


215 Are nourished and invisibly repaired; A virtue by which pleasure is inhanced, That penetrates, enables us to mount, When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen. This efficacious Spirit chiefly lurks


220 Among those passages of life that give Profoundest knowledge how and to what point The mind is lord and master�outward sense3 The obedient Servant of her will. Such moments Are scattered every where, taking their date


225 From our first Childhood. I remember well That once, while yet my inexperienced hand Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes I mounted, and we journied towards the hills: An ancient Servant of my Father's house


230 Was with me, my encourager and Guide. We had not travelled long ere some mischance Disjoined me from my Comrade, and, through fear Dismounting, down the rough and stony Moor I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length


235 Came to a bottom,0 where in former times valley A Murderer had been hung in iron chains. The Gibbet mast4 had mouldered down, the bones And iron case were gone, but on the turf Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,


240 Some unknown hand had carved the Murderer's name. The monumental Letters were inscribed In times long past, but still from year to year, By superstition of the neighbourhood, The grass is cleared away, and to that hour


245 The characters0 were fresh and visible. letters A casual glance had shewn them, and I fled, Faultering and faint and ignorant of the road: Then, reascending the bare common,0 saw field A naked Pool that lay beneath the hills,


250 The Beacon5 on its summit, and, more near, A Girl who bore a Pitcher on her head, And seemed with difficult steps to force her way Against the blowing wind. It was in truth An ordinary sight; but I should need


255 Colors and words that are unknown to man To paint the visionary dreariness Which, while I looked all round for my lost Guide,


poetic imagination he brings to the composition of 4. The post with a projecting arm used for hanging this book has been revived by recollections. criminals.


3. Perception of the external world. 5. A signal beacon on a hill above Penrith.


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38 0 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


Invested Moorland waste and naked Pool, The Beacon crowning the lone eminence,


260 The Female and her garments vexed and tossed By the strong wind.�When, in the blessed hours Of early love, the loved One6 at my side, I roamed, in daily presence of this scene, Upon the naked Pool and dreary Crags,


265 And on the melancholy Beacon, fell A spirit of pleasure, and Youth's golden gleam; And think ye not with radiance more sublime For these remembrances, and for the power They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid


270 Of feeling, and diversity of strength Attends us, if but once we have been strong. Oh! mystery of Man, from what a depth Proceed thy honors! I am lost, but see In simple child-hood something of the base


275 On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel, That from thyself it comes, that thou must give, Else never canst receive. The days gone by Return upon me almost from the dawn Of life: the hiding-places of Man's power


280 Open; I would approach them, but they close. I see by glimpses now; when age comes on May scarcely see at all, and I would give, While yet we may, as far as words can give, Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,


285 Such is my hope, the spirit of the past For future restoration.�Yet another Of these memorials.


One Christmas-time,7 On the glad Eve of its dear holidays, Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth


290 Into the fields, impatient for the sight Of those led Palfreys8 that should bear us home, My Brothers and myself. There rose a Crag That, from the meeting point of two highways Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;


295 Thither, uncertain on which road to fix My expectation, thither I repaired, Scout-like, and gained the summit; 'twas a day Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass 1 sate, half-sheltered by a naked wall;


300 Upon my right hand couched a single sheep, Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood: With those Companions at my side, I sate, Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist Gave intermitting prospect of the copse


305 And plain beneath. Ere we to School returned


6. Mary Hutchinson. Hawkshead School with two of his brothers. 7. In 1783. Wordsworth, aged thirteen, was at 8. Small saddle horses.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 381


That dreary time, ere we had been ten days Sojourners in my Father's House, he died,9 And I and my three Brothers, Orphans then, Followed his Body to the Grave. The Event,


310 With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared A chastisement; and when I called to mind That day so lately passed, when from the Crag I looked in such anxiety of hope, With trite reflections of morality,


315 Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low To God, who thus corrected my desires; And afterwards, the wind and sleety rain And all the business1 of the Elements, The single Sheep, and the one blasted tree,


320 And the bleak music of that old stone wall, The noise of wood and water, and the mist That on the line of each of those two Roads Advanced in such indisputable shapes;2 All these were kindred spectacles and sounds


325 To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink As at a fountain; and on winter nights, Down to this very time, when storm and rain


Beat on my roof, or haply0 at noon-day, perhaps While in a grove I walk whose lofty trees,


330 Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rock In a strong wind, some working of the spirit, Some inward agitations, thence are brought,3 Whate'er their office, whether to beguile Thoughts over-busy in the course they took,


335 Or animate an hour of vacant ease.


From Book Thirteenth Subject concluded


[POETRY OF "UNASSUMING THINGS"]


From Nature doth emotion come, and moods Of calmness equally are Nature's gift: This is her glory; these two attributes Are sister horns that constitute her strength.1


5 Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange Of peace and excitation, finds in her His best and purest friend, from her receives That energy by which he seeks the truth, From her that happy stillness of the mind


9. John Wordsworth died on December 30, 1783. speak to thee" (Shakespeare, Hamlet 1.4.24�25). William's mother had died five years earlier. 3. Another instance of Wordsworth's inner 1. Busy-ness; motions. response to an outer breeze (cf. 1.33�38, p. 325). 2. I.e., shapes one did not dare question. Cf. Ham-1. In the Old Testament the horn of an animal let's declaration to the ghost of his father: "Thou signifies power. com'st in such questionable shape / That I will


.


38 2 / WILLIA M WORDSWORT H 10 Which fits him to receive it, when unsought. Such benefit the humblest intellects Partake of, each in their degree: 'tis mine To speak of what myself have known and felt. Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired 15 By gratitude and confidence in truth. Long time in search of knowledge did I range The field of human life, in heart and mind Benighted, but the dawn beginning now To reappear,2 'twas proved that not in vain 20 I had been taught to reverence a Power That is the visible quality and shape And image of right reason,3 that matures Her processes by steadfast laws, gives birth To no impatient or fallacious hopes, 25 No heat of passion or excessive zeal, No vain conceits,�provokes to no quick turns Of self-applauding intellect,�but trains To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;4 Holds up before the mind, intoxicate 30 With present objects, and the busy dance Of things that pass away, a temperate shew Of objects that endure; and by this course Disposes her, when over-fondly set On throwing off incumbrances,0 to seek burdens 35 In Man, and in the frame of social life, Whate'er there is desireable and good Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form And function, or through strict vicissitude Of life and death revolving.5 Above all 40 Were re-established now those watchful thoughts Which (seeing little worthy or sublime In what the Historian's pen so much delights To blazon,0 Power and Energy detached celebrate From moral purpose) early tutored me 45 To look with feelings of fraternal love Upon the unassuming things that hold A silent station in this beauteous world. [DISCOVERY OF HIS POETIC SUBJECT. SALISBURY PLAIN. SIGHT OF "A NEW WORLD"] 220 Here, calling up to mind what then I saw, A youthful Traveller, and see daily now In the familiar circuit of my home, Here might I pause and bend in reverence


2. I.e., he is beginning to recover from the spiritual crisis recorded in 11.293�309. 3. Wordsworth follows Milton's use of the term "right reason" to denote a human faculty that is inherently attuned to truth. 4. In the text of 1805: "but lifts / The being into magnanimity." 5. Cf. the 1802 Preface to Lyrical Ballads and Wordsworth's discussion of how the plain language of rural life that he draws on for his poetry expresses "the essential passions of the heart" and how, "arising out of repeated experience and regular feelings, [it] is a more permanent, and a far more philosophical language, than that which is frequently substituted for it by poets" (p. 262 above).


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 383


To Nature, and the power of human minds,


225 To Men as they are Men within themselves. How oft high service is performed within, When all the external Man is rude in shew! Not like a Temple rich with pomp and gold, But a mere mountain Chapel that protects


230 Its simple Worshippers from sun and shower. Of these, said I, shall be my song, of these, If future years mature me for the task, Will I record the praises, making Verse Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth


235 And sanctity of passion speak of these,


That justice may be done, obeisance paid Where it is due: thus haply� shall I teach, perhaps Inspire, through unadulterated0 ears uncorrupted Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope, my theme


240 No other than the very heart of Man As found among the best of those who live Not unexalted by religious faith, Nor uninformed by Books, good books, though few, In Nature's presence: thence may I select


245 Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight, And miserable love that is not pain To hear of, for the glory that redounds Therefrom to human kind and what we are.


^ $ #


* * " Dearest Friend, If thou partake the animating faith


300 That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each Connected in a mighty scheme of truth, Have each his own peculiar faculty, Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame


305 The humblest of this band6 who dares to hope That unto him hath also been vouchsafed0 given An insight, that in some sort he possesses A Privilege, whereby a Work of his, Proceeding from a source of untaught things,


310 Creative and enduring, may become A Power like one of Nature's. To a hope Not less ambitious once among the Wilds Of Sarum's Plain7 my youthful Spirit was raised; There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs8


315 Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads Lengthening in solitude their dreary line, Time with his retinue of ages fled Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw Our dim Ancestral Past in Vision clear;9


6. Wordsworth himself. Plain. 7. Salisbury Plain, which Wordsworth crossed 8. Open hills used to pasture sheep. alone on foot in the summer of 1793. The journey 9. Wordsworth shared the common, but mistaken, occasioned the poem Adventures on Salisbury belief of his time that Stonehenge, the giant meg


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38 4 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


320 Saw multitudes of men, and here and there


A single Briton clothed in Wolf-skin vest,


With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;1


The voice of Spears was heard, the rattling spear


Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength,


325 Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty. I called on Darkness�but before the word


Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take


All objects from my sight; and lo! again


The Desart visible by dismal flames;


330 It is the Sacrificial Altar, fed


With living Men�how deep the groans! the voice


Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills


The monumental hillocks,2 and the pomp


Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.


335 At other moments (for through that wide waste


Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain


Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds,


That yet survive, a work, as some divine,3


Shaped by the Druids, so to represent


340 Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth


The constellations; gently was I charmed


Into a waking dream, a reverie


That with believing eyes, where'er I turned,


Beheld long-bearded Teachers with white wands


345 Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky Alternately, and Plain below, while breath


Of music swayed their motions, and the Waste


Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet Sounds.4


$ $ $


365 Moreover, each man's mind is to herself


Witness and judge; and I remember well


That in Life's every-day appearances


I seemed about this time' to gain clear sight


Of a new world, a world, too, that was fit


370 To be transmitted and to other eyes Made visible, as ruled by those fixed laws


Whence spiritual dignity originates,


Which do both give it being and maintain


A balance, an ennobling interchange


375 Of action from without, and from within;


The excellence, pure function, and best power


Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.


alithic structure on Salisbury' Plain, had been a wicker structure in the shape of a man, filled it temple of the Celtic priests, the Druids, and that with living humans, and set it afire. the Druids had there performed the rite of human 3. Conjecture (a verb). sacrifice; hence the imaginings and vision that he 4. Many 18th-century antiquarians believed the goes on to relate. Druids to be the forerunners of the bards, the poets


1. High open country. whose songs kept alive the nation's traditions in the 2. The many Bronze Age burial mounds on Salis-era prior to the advent of writing. bury Plain. "Giant wicker": Aylett Sammes, in Bri-5. 1797, the year of the start of his friendship with tannia Antiqua Illustrata (1676), had described, as Coleridge. a rite of the ancient Britons, that they wove a huge


.


THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 38 5


From Book Fourteenth Conclusion [THE VISION ON MOUNT SNOWDON.] In one of those Excursions (may they ne'er Fade from remembrance!), through the Northern tracts Of Cambria ranging with a youthful Friend, I left Bethgellert's huts at couching-time, 5 And westward took my way, to see the sun Rise from the top of Snowdon.1 To the door Of a rude Cottage at the Mountain's base We came, and rouzed the Shepherd who attends The adventurous Stranger's steps, a trusty Guide; 10 Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. �It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night, Wan, dull, and glaring,2 with a dripping fog Low-hung and thick, that covered all the sky. But, undiscouraged, we began to climb is The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round, And, after ordinary Travellers' talk With our Conductor, pensively we sank Each into commerce with his private thoughts: Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself 20 Was nothing either seen or heard that checked Those musings or diverted, save that once The Shepherd's Lurcher,0 who, among the Crags, hunting dog Had to his joy unearthed a Hedgehog, teased His coiled-up Prey with barkings turbulent. 25 This small adventure, for even such it seemed In that wild place, and at the dead of night, Being over and forgotten, on we wound In silence as before. With forehead bent Earthward, as if in opposition set 30 Against an enemy, I panted up With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts. Thus might we wear a midnight hour away, Ascending at loose distance each from each, And I, as chanced, the foremost of the Band: 35 When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten, And with a step or two seemed brighter still; Nor was time given to ask, or learn, the cause; For instantly a light upon the turf Fell like a flash; and lo! as I looked up, 40 The Moon hung naked in a firmament


1. Wordsworth climbed Mount Snowdon�the highest peak in Wales ("Cambria"), and some ten miles from the sea�with Robert Jones, the friend with whom he had also tramped through the Alps (book 6). The climb started from the village of Bethgelert at "couching-time" (line 4), the time of night when the sheep lie down to sleep. This event had taken place in 1791 (orpossibly 1793);Wordsworth presents it out of its chronological order to introduce at this point a great natural "type" or "emblem" (lines 66, 70) for the mind, and especially for the activity of the imagination, whose "restoration" he has described in the twro preceding books.


2. In north of England dialect, glairie, applied to the weather, means dull, rainy.


.


38 6 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


Of azure without cloud, and at my feet Rested a silent sea of hoary mist. A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved All over this still Ocean;3 and beyond,


45 Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched, In Headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes, Into the main Atlantic, that appeared To dwindle, and give up his majesty, Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.


50 Not so the ethereal Vault; encroachment none Was there, nor loss;4 only the inferior stars Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon; Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed


55 Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay All meek and silent, save that through a rift Not distant from the shore whereon we stood, A fixed, abysmal, gloomy breathing-place, Mounted the roar of waters�torrents�streams


60 Innumerable, roaring with one voice! Heard over earth and sea, and in that hour, For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.


When into air had partially dissolved That Vision, given to Spirits of the night,


65 And three chance human Wanderers, in calm thought Reflected, it appeared to me the type Of a majestic Intellect, its acts And its possessions, what it has and craves, What in itself it is, and would become.


70 There I beheld the emblem of a Mind That feeds upon infinity, that broods Over the dark abyss, intent to hear Its voices issuing forth to silent light In one continuous stream; a mind sustained


75 By recognitions of transcendent power In sense, conducting to ideal form; In soul, of more than mortal privilege.5 One function, above all, of such a mind Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,


so 'Mid circumstances awful0 and sublime, awe-inspiring That mutual domination which she loves To exert upon the face of outward things, So moulded, joined, abstracted; so endowed With interchangeable supremacy, 85 That Men least sensitive see, hear, perceive, And cannot chuse but feel. The power which all Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus To bodily sense exhibits, is the express


3. In Milton's description of God's creation of the land from the waters, "the mountains huge appear / Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave / Into the clouds" (Paradise Lost 7.285-87). 4. The mist projected in various shapes over the Irish Sea, but did not "encroach" on the heavens overhead.


5. The sense of lines 74�77 seems to be that the mind of someone who is gifted beyond the ordinary lot of mortals recognizes its power to transcend the senses by converting sensory objects into ideal forms.


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THE PRELUDE, BOOK THIRTEENTH / 38 7


Resemblance of that glorious faculty


90 That higher minds bear with them as their own.6 This is the very spirit in which they deal With the whole compass of the universe: They, from their native selves, can send abroad Kindred mutations; for themselves create


95 A like existence; and whene'er it dawns Created for them, catch it;�or are caught Ry its inevitable mastery, Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound Of harmony from heaven's remotest spheres.


ioo Them the enduring and the transient both Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things From least suggestions; ever on the watch, Willing to work and to be wrought upon, They need not extraordinary calls


105 To rouse them, in a world of life they live; Ry sensible0 impressions not enthralled, sensory But, by their quickening impulse, made more prompt To hold fit converse with the spiritual world, And with the generations of mankind no Spread over time, past, present, and to come, Age after age, till Time shall be no more. Such minds are truly from the Deity, For they are powers; and hence the highest bliss That flesh can know is theirs,�the consciousness 115 Of whom they are, habitually infused Through every image, and through every thought, And all affections0 by communion raised emotions From earth to heaven, from human to divine. Hence endless occupation for the Soul, 120 Whether discursive or intuitive;7 Hence chearfulness for acts of daily life, Emotions which best foresight need not fear, Most worthy then of trust when most intense: Hence, amid ills that vex, and wrongs that crush 125 Our hearts, if here the words of holy Writ May with fit reverence be applied, that peace Which passeth understanding,8�that repose In moral judgements which from this pure source Must come, or will by Man be sought in vain.


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[CONCLUSION: "THE MIND OF MAN"]


And now, O Friend!9 this History is brought To its appointed close: the discipline


6. The "glorious faculty" is the imagination, which quality according to Raphael, undertakes to reach transfigures and re-creates what is given to it by truths through a logical sequence of premises, the senses, much as, in Wordsworth's account of observations, and conclusions; "intuitive" reason, this night on Snowdon, the moonlit mist transfig-mainly angelic, comprehends truths immediately. ures the familiar landscape. 8. Philippians 4.7: "The peace of God, which pas7. An echo of Archangel Raphael's account to seth all understanding." This passage of Christian Adam of the soul's powers of reason {Paradise Lost piety was added by Wordsworth in a late revision. 5.488�89). Discursive reason, mainly a human 9. Goleridge.


.


38 8 / WILLIAM WORDSWORTH


And consummation0 of a Poet's mind completion


305 In every thing that stood most prominent Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached The time (our guiding object from the first) When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such


310 My knowledge, as to make me capable Of building up a Work that shall endure.


* * * Having now Told what best merits mention, further pains Our present purpose seems not to require, And I have other tasks. Recall to mind


375 The mood in which this labour was begun. 0 Friend! the termination of my course Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then, In that distraction, and intense desire, 1 said unto the life which I had lived,


380 Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee Which 'tis reproach to hear?1 Anon I rose As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched Vast prospect of the world which I had been And was; and hence this Song, which like a Lark


385 I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens Singing, and often with more plaintive voice To earth attempered0 and her deep-drawn sighs, adapted Yet centering all in love, and in the end All gratulant,0 if rightly understood.2 joyful


* $ $ Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, And all will be complete, thy3 race be run, Thy monument of glory will be raised;


435 Then, though, too weak to tread the ways of truth, This Age fall back to old idolatry, Though Men return to servitude as fast As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame By Nations sink together,4 we shall still


440 Find solace�knowing what we have learnt to know, Rich in true happiness if allowed to be Faithful alike in forwarding a day Of firmer trust, joint laborers in the Work


(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe0) grant


445 Of their deliverance, surely yet to come. Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved


1. As he approaches the end, Wordsworth recalls the conclusion of Pope's An Essay on Man 1.291� the beginning of The Prelude. The reproachful 92: "All discord, harmony not understood; / All par- voice is that which asked the question, "Was it for tial evil, universal good." this?" in 1.269ff. 3. Coleridge's. 2. The poet finds that suffering and frustration are 4. I.e., though men�whole nations of them justified when seen as part of the overall design of together�sink to ignominy (disgrace) and shame. the life he has just reviewed. The passage echoes


.


D orothy W ordsworth / 38 9 Others will love, and we will teach them how, 450 Instruct them how the mind of Man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells, above this Frame of things (Which 'mid all revolutions in the hopes And fears of Men doth still remain unchanged) 455 In beauty exalted, as it is itself Of quality and fabric more divine. 1798-1839 1850


DOROTHY WORDSWORTH 1771-1855


Dorothy Wordsworth has an enduring place in English literature even though she wrote almost no word for publication. Not until long after her death did scholars gradually retrieve and print her letters, a few poems, and a series of journals that she kept sporadically between 1798 and 1828 because, she wrote, "I shall give William Pleasure by it." It has always been known, from tributes to her by her brother and Coleridge, that she exerted an important influence on the lives and writings of both these men. It is now apparent that she also possessed a power surpassing that of the two poets for precise observation of people and the natural world, together with a genius for terse, luminous, and delicately nuanced description in prose.


Dorothy was born on Christmas Day 1771, twenty-one months after William; she was the only girl of five Wordsworth children. From her seventh year, when her mother died, she lived with various relatives�some of them tolerant and affectionate, others rigid and tyrannical�and saw William and her other brothers only occasionally, during the boys' summer vacations from school. In 1795, when she was twenty- four, an inheritance that William received enabled her to carry out a long-held plan to join her brother in a house at Racedown, and the two spent the rest of their long lives together, first in Dorsetshire and Somersetshire, in the southwest of England, then in their beloved Lake District. She uncomplainingly subordinated her own talents to looking after her brother and his household. She also became William's secretary, tirelessly copying and recopying the manuscripts of his poems to ready them for publication. Despite the scolding of a great-aunt, who deemed "rambling about .. . on foot" unladylike, she accompanied her brother, too, in vigorous cross-country walks in which they sometimes covered as much as thirty-three miles in a day.


All her adult life she was overworked; after a severe illness in 1835, she suffered a physical and mental collapse. She spent the rest of her existence as an invalid. Hardest for her family to endure was the drastic change in her temperament: from a high- spirited and compassionate woman she became (save for brief intervals of lucidity) querulous, demanding, and at times violent. In this half-life she lingered for twenty years, attended devotedly by William until his death five years before her own in 1855.


Our principal selections are from the journal Dorothy kept in 1798 at Alfoxden, Somersetshire, where the Wordsworths had moved from Racedown to be near Cole- ridge at Nether Stowey, as well as from her journals while at Grasmere (1800�03), with Coleridge residing some thirteen miles away at Greta Hall, Keswick. Her records cover the period when both men emerged as major poets, and in their achievements Dorothy played an indispensable role. In book 11 of The Prelude, William says that in the time of his spiritual crisis, Dorothy "maintained for me a saving intercourse /


.


39 0 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


With my true self" and "preserved me still / A Poet"; in a letter of 1797, Coleridge stressed the delicacy and tact in the responses of William's "exquisite sister" to the world of sense: "Her manners are simple, ardent, impressive. . . . Her information various�her eye watchful in minutest observation of nature�and her taste a perfect electrometer�it bends, protrudes, and draws in, at subtlest beauties & most recondite faults."


The verbal sketches of natural scenes given in the journal passages that we reprint are often echoed in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's poems. Of at least equal importance for Wordsworth was her chronicling of the busy wayfaring life of rural England. These were exceedingly hard times for country people, when the suffering caused by the displacement of small farms and of household crafts by large-scale farms and industries was aggravated by the economic distress caused by protracted Continental wars (see Wordsworth's comment in The Ruined Cottage, lines 133ff., p. 283). Peddlers, maimed war veterans, leech gatherers, adult and infant beggars, ousted farm families, fugitives, and women abandoned by husbands or lovers streamed along the rural roads and into William's brooding poetic imagination�often by way of Dorothy's prose records.


The journals also show the intensity of Dorothy's love for her brother. Inevitably in our era, the mutual devotion of the orphaned brother and sister has evoked psychoanalytic speculation. It is important to note that Mary Hutchinson, a gentle and openhearted young woman, had been Dorothy's closest friend since childhood, and that Dorothy encouraged William's courtship and marriage, even though she realized that it entailed her own displacement as a focus of her brother's life. All the evidence indicates that their lives in a single household never strained the affectionate relationship between the two women; indeed Dorothy, until she became an invalid, added to her former functions as William's chief support, housekeeper, and scribe a loving ministration to her brother's children.


Because the manuscript of the Alfoxden journal has disappeared, the text printed here is from the transcript published by William Knight in 1897. The selections from the Grasmere journals reproduce Pamela Woof's exact transcription of the manuscripts in the Wordsworth Library at Dove Cottage (Oxford University Press, 1991). Dorothy Wordsworth's poems, written mainly for children in her brother's household and surviving as manuscripts in one or another family commonplace book, were not collected until 1987, when Susan M. Levin edited thirty of them in an appendix ("The Collected Poems of Dorothy Wordsworth") to her Dorothy Wordsivorth and Romanticism. The two poems included here are reprinted from this source.


From The Alfoxden Journal Jan. 31, 1798. Set forward to Stowey1 at half-past five. A violent storm in


the wood; sheltered under the hollies. When we left home the moon


immensely large, the sky scattered over with clouds. These soon closed in,


contracting the dimensions of the moon without concealing her.2 The sound


of the pattering shower, and the gusts of wind, very grand. Left the wood when


nothing remained of the storm but the driving wind, and a few scattering drops


of rain. Presently all clear, Venus first showing herself between the struggling


clouds; afterwards Jupiter appeared. The hawthorn hedges, black and pointed,


glittering with millions of diamond drops; the hollies shining with broader


patches of light. The road to the village of Holford glittered like another


1. I.e., to Coleridge's cottage at Nether Stowey, 2. Cf. Coleridge's Christabel, lines 16�19 three miles from Alfoxden. (p. 450).


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THE ALFOXDEN JOURNAL / 391


stream. On our return, the wind high�a violent storm of hail and rain at the


Castle of Comfort.3 All the Heavens seemed in one perpetual motion when


the rain ceased; the moon appearing, now half veiled, and now retired behind


heavy clouds, the stars still moving, the roads very dirty.


$ * *


Feb. 3. A mild morning, the windows open at breakfast, the redbreasts sing


ing in the garden. Walked with Coleridge over the hills. The sea at first


obscured by vapour; that vapour afterwards slid in one mighty mass along the


sea-shore; the islands and one point of land clear beyond it. The distant coun


try (which was purple in the clear dull air), overhung by straggling clouds that


sailed over it, appeared like the darker clouds, which are often seen at a great


distance apparently motionless, while the nearer ones pass quickly over them,


driven by the lower winds. I never saw such a union of earth, sky, and sea.


The clouds beneath our feet spread themselves to the water, and the clouds


of the sky almost joined them. Gathered sticks in the wood; a perfect stillness.


The redbreasts sang upon the leafless boughs. Of a great number of sheep in


the field, only one standing. Returned to dinner at five o'clock. The moonlight still and warm as a summer's night at nine o'clock.


Feb. 4. Walked a great part of the way to Stowey with Coleridge. The morning warm and sunny. The young lasses seen on the hill-tops, in the villages and roads, in their summer holiday clothes�pink petticoats and blue. Mothers with their children in arms, and the little ones that could just walk, tottering by their side. Midges or small flies spinning in the sunshine; the songs of the lark and redbreast; daisies upon the turf; the hazels in blossom; honeysuckles budding. I saw one solitary strawberry flower under a hedge. The furze gay with blossom. The moss rubbed from the pailings by the sheep, that leave locks of wool, and the red marks with which they are spotted, upon the wood.4


* * *


Feb. 8. Went up the Park, and over the tops of the hills, till we came to a


new and very delicious pathway, which conducted us to the Coombe.5 Sat a


considerable time upon the heath. Its surface restless and glittering with the


motion of the scattered piles of withered grass, and the waving of the spiders'


threads.6 On our return the mist still hanging over the sea, but the opposite


coast clear, and the rocky cliffs distinguishable. In the deep Coombe, as we


stood upon the sunless hill, we saw miles of grass, light and glittering, and the insects passing.


Feb. 9. William gathered sticks.


Feb. 10. Walked to Woodlands, and to the waterfall. The adder's-tongue


and the ferns green in the low damp dell. These plants now in perpetual motion


from the current of the air; in summer only moved by the drippings of the


rocks.7 A cloudy day.


$ $ #


3. A tavern halfway between Holford and Nether a hill. Stowey. 6. Cf. Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mari4. Cf. Wordsworth's Tlte Ruined Cottage, lines ner, line 184 (p. 435). 330-36 (p. 287). 7. Cf. the description of the dell in Coleridge's 5. Hodder's Coombe in the Quantock Hills, near "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," lines 13�20 Alfoxden. A combe is a deep valley on the flank of (p. 428).


.


392 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


Mar. 7. William and I drank tea at Coleridge's. A cloudy sky. Observed nothing particularly interesting�the distant prospect obscured. One only leaf upon the top of a tree�the sole remaining leaf�danced round and round like a rag blown by the wind.8


Mar. 8. Walked in the Park in the morning. I sate under the fir trees. Cole- ridge came after dinner, so we did not walk again. A foggy morning, but a clear sunny day.


Mar. 9. A clear sunny morning, went to meet Mr and Mrs Coleridge. The day very warm.


Mar. 10. Coleridge, Wm, and I walked in the evening to the top of the hill. We all passed the morning in sauntering about the park and gardens, the children playing about, the old man at the top of the hill gathering furze; interesting groups of human creatures, the young frisking and dancing in the sun, the elder quietly drinking in the life and soul of the sun and air.


Mar. 11. A cold day. The children went down towards the sea. William and I walked to the top of the hills above Holford. Met the blacksmith. Pleasant to see the labourer on Sunday jump with the friskiness of a cow upon a sunny day.


>* $ $


1798 1897


From The Grasmere Journals


1800


May 14 1800 [Wednesday]. Wm & John set off into Yorkshire1 after dinner at '/2 past 2 o'clock�cold pork in their pockets. I left them at the turning of the Low-wood bay under the trees. My heart was so full that I could hardly speak to W when I gave him a farewell kiss. I sate a long time upon a stone at the margin of the lake, & after a flood of tears my heart was easier. The lake looked to me I knew not why dull and melancholy, and the weltering on the shores seemed a heavy sound. [ walked as long as I could amongst the stones of the shore. The wood rich in flowers. A beautiful yellow, palish yellow flower, that looked thick round & double, & smelt very sweet�I supposed it was a ranunculus�Crowfoot, the grassy-leaved Rabbit-toothed white flower, strawberries, geranium�scentless violet, anemones two kinds, orchises, primroses. The heckberry very beautiful, the crab coming out as a low shrub. Met a blind man, driving a very large beautiful Bull & a cow�he walked with two sticks. Came home by Clappersgate. The valley very green, many sweet views up to Rydale head when I could juggle away the fine houses, but they disturbed me even more than when I have been happier�one beautiful view of the Bridge, without Sir Michael's.2 Sate down very often, tho' it was cold. I resolved to write a journal of the time till W & J return, & I set about keeping my resolve because I will not quarrel with myself, & because I shall give Wm Pleasure by it when he comes home again. At Rydale a woman of the village,


8. Cf. Christabel, lines 49ff. (p. 451). to marry two and a half years later. 1. William and his younger brother John, on the 2. Sir Michael le Fleming's estate, Rydal Hall. way to visit Mary Hutchinson, whom William was "Without": outside or beyond.


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THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 393


stout & well-dressed, begged a halfpenny�she had never she said done it before�but these hard times!�Arrived at home with a bad head-ache, set some slips of privett. The evening cold, had a fire�my face now flamecoloured. It is nine o'clock. I shall soon go to bed. A young woman begged at the door�she had come from Manchester on Sunday morn with two shillings & a slip of paper which she supposed a Bank note�it was a cheat. She had buried her husband & three children within a year & a half�all in one grave� burying very dear�paupers all put in one place�20 shillings paid for as much ground as will bury a man�a stone to be put over it or the right will be lost� 11/63 each time the ground is opened. Oh! that I had a letter from William!


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Friday 3rd October. Very rainy all the morning�little Sally learning to mark. Wm walked to Ambleside after dinner. I went with him part of the way�he talked much about the object of his Essay for the 2nd volume of LB.4 I returned expecting the Simpsons�they did not come. I should have met Wm but my teeth ached & it was showery & late�he returned after 10. Amos Cottle's5 death in the Morning Post. Wrote to S. Lowthian.6


N.B. When Wm & I returned from accompanying Jones we met an old man almost double,7 he had on a coat thrown over his shoulders above his waistcoat & coat. Under this he carried a bundle & had an apron on & a night cap. His face was interesting. He had dark eyes & a long nose�John who afterwards met him at Wythburn took him for a Jew. He was of Scotch parents but had been born in the army. He had had a wife "& a good woman & it pleased God to bless us with ten children"�all these were dead but one of whom he had not heard for many years, a sailor�his trade was to gather leeches, but now leeches are scarce & he had not strength for it�he lived by begging & was making his way to Carlisle where he should buy a few godly books to sell. He said leeches were very scarce partly owing to this dry season, but many years they have been scarce-�he supposed it owing to their being much sought after, that they did not breed fast, & were of slow growth. Leeches were formerly 2/ 6 [per] 100; they are now 30/. He had been hurt in driving a cart his leg broke his body driven over his skull fractured�he felt no pain till he recovered from his first insensibility. It was then late in the evening�when the light was just going away. # * *


Saturday [Oct.] 11th. A fine October morning�sat in the house working all the morning. Wm composing�Sally Ashburner learning to mark. After Dinner we walked up Greenhead Gill in search of a sheepfold.8 We went by Mr Oliff's & through his woods. It was a delightful day & the views looked excessively chearful & beautiful chiefly that from Mr Oliffs field where our house is to be built. The colours of the mountains soft & rich, with orange fern�The Cattle pasturing upon the hill-tops Kites sailing as in the sky above our heads�


3. Eleven shillings, six pence. composed one and a half years later, incorporated 4. The Preface to the second edition of Lyrical various details of Dorothy's description of the leech Ballads, 1800 . gatherer. See May 4 and 7, 1802 (pp. 398 and


5. The brother of Joseph Cottle, Bristol publisher 400), for William working on the poem he origiof the first edition of Lyrical Ballads. nally called "The Leech Gatherer."


6. Sally Lowthian, who had been a servant in the 8. The sheepfold (pen for sheep) in William's house of the Wordsworths' father. "Michael"; lines 1�17 of the poem describe the


7. William's "Resolution and Independence," walk up Greenhead Ghyll.


.


39 4 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


Sheep bleating & in lines & chains & patterns scattered over the mountains. They come down & feed on the little green islands in the beds of the torrents & so may be swept away. The Sheepfold is falling away it is built nearly in the form of a heart unequally divided. Look down the brook & see the drops rise upwards & sparkle in the air, at the little falls, the higher sparkles the tallest. We walked along the turf of the mountain till we came to a Cattle track� made by the cattle which come upon the hills. We drank tea at Mr Simpson's returned at about nine�a fine mild night.


Sunday 12th October. Beautiful day. Sate in the house writing in the morning while Wm went into the Wood to compose. Wrote to John in the morning� copied poems for the LB, in the evening wrote to Mrs Bawson. Mary Jameson & Sally Ashburner dined. We pulled apples after dinner, a large basket full. We walked before tea by Bainriggs to observe the many coloured foliage the oaks dark green with yellow leaves�The birches generally still green, some near the water yellowish. The Sycamore crimson & crimson-tufted�the mountain ash a deep orange�the common ash Lemon colour but many ashes still fresh in their summer green. Those that were discoloured chiefly near the water. William composing in the Evening. Went to bed at 12 o'clock.


# # *


1801


Tuesday [Nov.] 24th. A rainy morning. We all were well except that my head ached a little & I took my Breakfast in bed. I read a little of Chaucer, prepared the goose for dinner, & then we all walked out�I was obliged to return for my fur tippet & Spenser9 it was so cold. We had intended going to Easedale but we shaped our course to Mr Gell's cottage. It was very windy & we heard the wind everywhere about us as we went along the Lane but the walls sheltered us�John Green's house looked pretty under Silver How�as we were going along we were stopped at once, at the distance perhaps of 50 yards from our favorite Birch tree it was yielding to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs, the sun shone upon it & it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower�it was a tree in shape with stem & branches but it was like a Spirit of water�The sun went in & it resumed its purplish appearance the twigs still yielding to the wind but not so visibly to us. The other Birch trees that were near it looked bright 8c chearful�but it was a Creature by its own self among them. We could not get into Mr Gell's grounds�the old tree fallen from its undue exaltation above the Gate. A shower came on when we were at Ben- son's. We went through the wood�it became fair, there was a rainbow which spanned the lake from the Island house to the foot of Bainriggs. The village looked populous & beautiful. Catkins are coming out palm trees budding� the alder with its plumb coloured buds. We came home over the stepping stones the Lake was foamy with white waves. I saw a solitary butter flower in the wood. I found it not easy to get over the stepping stones�reached home at dinner time. Sent Peggy Ashburner some goose. She sent me some honey� with a thousand thanks�"alas the gratitude of men has & c"1 I went in to set


9. A close-fitting jacket worn by women and chil-"Alas! the gratitude of men / Has oft'ner left me dren. A tippet is a stole or scarf. mourning."


1. A quotation from William's "Simon Lee":


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THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 395


her right about this & sate a while with her. She talked about Thomas's having sold his land�"Ay" says she I said many a time "He's not come fra London to buy our Land however" then she told me with what pains & industry they had made up their taxes interest &c &c�how they all got up at 5 o'clock in the morning to spin & Thomas carded, & that they had paid off a hundred pound of the interest. She said she used to take such pleasure in the cattle & sheep� "O how pleased I used to be when they fetched them down, & when I had been a bit poorly I would gang out upon a hill & look over t' fields & see them & it used to do me so much good you cannot think"�Molly said to me when I came in "poor Body! she's very ill but one does not know how long she may last. Many a fair face may gang before her." We sate by the fire without work for some time then Mary read a poem of Daniell upon Learning.2 After tea Wm read Spenser now & then a little aloud to us. We were making his waistcoat. We had a note from Mrs C., with bad news from poor C very ill. William walked to John's grove�I went to meet him�moonlight but it rained. I met him before I had got as far as John Baty's he had been surprized & terrified by a sudden rushing of winds which seemed to bring earth sky & lake together, as if the whole were going to enclose him in�he was glad he was in a high Road.


In speaking of our walk on Sunday Evening the 22nd November I forgot to notice one most impressive sight�it was the moon & the moonlight seen through hurrying driving clouds immediately behind the Stone man upon the top of the hill on the Forest side. Every tooth & every edge of Rock was visible, & the Man stood like a Giant watching from the Roof of a lofty castle. The hill seemed perpendicular from the darkness below it. It was a sight that I could call to mind at any time it was so distinct.


$ $ $


1802


Thursday [Mar. 4]. Before we had quite finished Breakfast Calvert's man brought the horses for Wm.3 We had a deal to do to shave�pens to make� poems to put in order for writing, to settle the dress pack up &c &. The man came before the pens were made & he was obliged to leave me with only two� Since he has left me (at Vz past 11) it is now 2 I have been putting the Drawers into order, laid by his clothes which we had thrown here & there & everywhere, filed two months' newspapers & got my dinner 2 boiled eggs & 2 apple tarts. I have set Molly on to clear the garden a little, & I myself have helped. I transplanted some snowdrops�The Bees are busy�Wm has a nice bright day. It was hard frost in the night�The Robins are singing sweetly�Now for my walk. I will be busy, I will look well & be well when he comes back to me. O the Darling! Here is one of his bitten apples! I can hardly find in my heart to throw it into the fire. I must wash myself, then off�I walked round the two Lakes crossed the stepping stones at Rydale Foot. Sate down where we always sit. I was full of thoughts about my darling. Blessings on him. I came home at the foot of our own hill under Loughrigg. They are making sad ravages in the woods�Benson's Wood is going & the wood above the River. The wind has blown down a small fir tree on the Rock that terminates John's path�I


2. Samuel Daniel's long poem Musophilits: Con- 3. For a journey to Keswick, to visit Coleridge. taining a General Defense of Learning (1599).


.


39 6 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


suppose the wind of Wednesday night. I read German after my return till tea time. After tea I worked & read the LB, enchanted with the Idiot Boy. Wrote to Wm then went to Bed. It snowed when I went to Bed.


>* s $


Monday [Mar. 22]. A rainy day�William very poorly. Mr Luff came in after dinner & brought us 2 letters from Sara H. & one from poor Annette. I read Sara's letters while he was here. I finished my letters to M. & S. & wrote to my Br Richard. We talked a good deal about C. & other interesting things. We resolved to see Annette, & that Wm should go to Mary.4 We wrote to Coleridge not to expect us till Thursday or Friday.


Tuesday [Mar. 23]. A mild morning William worked at the Cuckow poem.5 I sewed beside him. After dinner he slept I read German, & at the closing in of day went to sit in the Orchard�he came to me, & walked backwards & forwards. We talked about C�Wm repeated the poem to me�I left him there & in 20 minutes he came in, rather tired with attempting to write�he is now reading Ben Jonson I am going to read German it is about 10 o'clock, a quiet night. The fire flutters & the watch ticks I hear nothing else save the Breathing of my Beloved & he now & then pushes his book forward & turns over a leaf. Fletcher is not come home. No letter from C.


* $ $ Thursday [Apr.] 15th. It was a threatening misty morning�but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere�Mrs Clarkson went a short way with us but turned back. The wind was furious & we thought we must have returned. We first rested in the large Boat-house, then under a furze Bush opposite Mr Clarksons, saw the plough going in the field. The wind seized our breath the Lake was rough. There was a Boat by itself floating in the middle of the Bay below Water Millock�We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The hawthorns are black & green, the birches here & there greenish but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the Twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows�people working, a few primroses by the roadside, wood-sorrel flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, & that starry yellow flower which Mrs C calls pile wort. When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side.6 We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up�But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the


4. It had been arranged several months earlier that from his family, or from Mary Hutchinson. William was to marry Mary Hutchinson ("Sara H" 5. 'To the Cuckoo."


is Mary's sister, with whom Coleridge had fallen in 6. William did not compose his poem on the daf


love). Now the Wordsworths resolve to go to fodils, "I wandered lonely as a cloud," until two


France to settle affairs with Annette Vallon, years later. Comparison with the poem will show


mother of William's daughter, Caroline. William how extensive was his use of Dorothy's prose


did not conceal the facts of his early love affair description (see p. 305).


.


THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 397


simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway�We rested again & again. The Bays were stormy & we heard the waves at different distances & in the middle of the water like the sea�Rain came on, we were wet when we reached Luffs but we called in. Luckily all was chearless & gloomy so we faced the storm�-we must have been wet if we had waited�put on dry clothes at Dobson's. I was very kindly treated by a young woman, the Landlady looked sour but it is her way. She gave us a goodish supper. Excellent ham & potatoes. We paid 7/ when we came away. William was sitting by a bright fire when I came downstairs. He soon made his way to the Library piled up in a corner of the window. He brought out a volume of Enfield's Speaker,7 another miscellany, & an odd volume of Congreve's plays. We had a glass of warm rum & water�We enjoyed ourselves & wished for Mary. It rained & blew when we went to bed. NB Deer in Gowbarrow park like skeletons.


Friday 16th April (Good Friday). When I undrew my curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect & the change. The sun shone, the wind has passed away, the hills looked chearful, the river was very bright as it flowed into the lake. The Church rises up behind a little knot of Rocks, the steeple not so high as an ordinary 3 story house. Bees, in a row in the garden under the wall. After Wm had shaved we set forward. The valley is at first broken by little rocky woody knolls that make retiring places, fairy valleys in the vale, the river winds along under these hills travelling not in a bustle but not slowly to the lake. We saw a fisherman in the flat meadow on the other side of the water. He came towards us & threw his line over the two arched Bridge. It is a Bridge of a heavy construction, almost bending inwards in the middle, but it is grey & there is a look of ancientry in the architecture of it that pleased me. As we go on the vale opens out more into one vale with somewhat of a cradle Bed. Cottages with groups of trees on the side of the hills. We passed a pair of twin Children 2 years old�& Sate on the next bridge which we crossed a single arch. We rested again upon the Turf & looked at the same Bridge. We observed arches in the water occasioned by the large stones sending it down in two streams�a Sheep came plunging through the river, stumbled up the Bank & passed close to us, it had been frightened by an insignificant little Dog on the other side, its fleece dropped a glittering shower under its belly�Primroses by the roadside, pile wort that shone like stars of gold in the Sun, violets, strawberries, retired & half buried among the grass. When we came to the foot of Brothers water I left William sitting on the Bridge & went along the path on the right side of the Lake through the wood�I was delighted with what I saw. The water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains & the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I repeated the Glowworm8 as I walked along�I hung over the gate, & thought I could have stayed for ever. When I returned I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights & sounds we saw & heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering lively lake, green fields without a living creature to be seen on them, behind us, a flat pasture with 42 cattle feeding to our left the road leading to the hamlet, no smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing & sowing�Lasses spreading dung, a dog's barking now & then, cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the top


7. William Enfield's The Speaker {1774), a volume things my Love had been," composed four days of selections suitable for elocution. earlier; "my Love" in this line is Dorothy.


8. William's poem beginning "Among all lovely


.


39 8 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


of the highest hills, yellow palms, purple & green twigs on the Birches, ashes with their glittering spikes quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oak glossy. We then went on, passed two sisters at work, they first passed us, one with two pitch forks in her hand. The other had a spade. We had some talk with them. They laughed aloud after we were gone perhaps half in wantonness, half boldness. William finished his poem before we got to the foot of Kirkstone.9 * * *


Thursday [Apr.] 29. A beautiful morning. The sun shone & all was pleasant. We sent off our parcel to Coleridge by the waggon. Mr Simpson heard the Cuckow today. Before we went out after I had written down the Tinker (which William finished this morning)1 Luff called. He was very lame, limped into the kitchen�he came on a little Pony. We then went to John's Grove, sate a while at first. Afterwards William lay, & I lay in the trench under the fence�he with his eyes shut & listening to the waterfalls & the Birds. There was no one waterfall above another2�it was a sound of waters in the air�the voice of the air. William heard me breathing & rustling now & then but we both lay still, & unseen by one another�-he thought that it would be as sweet thus to lie so in the grave, to hear the peaceful sounds of the earth & just to know that our dear friends were near. The Lake was still. There was a Boat out. Silver How reflected with delicate purple & yellowish hues as I have seen Spar�Lambs on the island & running races together by the half dozen in the round field near us. The copses greenish, hawthorn green.�Came home to dinner then went to Mr Simpson. We rested a long time under a wall. Sheep & Iambs were in the field�cottages smoking. As I lay down on the grass, I observed the glittering silver line on the ridges of the Backs of the sheep, owing to their situation respecting the Sun�which made them look beautiful but with something of strangeness, like animals of another kind�as if belonging to a more splendid world. Met old Mr S at the door�Mrs S poorly�I got mullens & pansies�I was sick & ill & obliged to come home soon. We went to bed immediately�I slept up stairs. The air coldish where it was felt somewhat frosty.


Tuesday May 4th. William had slept pretty well & though he went to bed nervous & jaded in the extreme he rose refreshed. I wrote the Leech Gatherer3 for him which he had begun the night before & of which he wrote several stanzas in bed this Monday morning. It was very hot, we called at Mr Simpson's door as we passed but did not go in. We rested several times by the way, read & repeated the Leech Gatherer. We were almost melted before we were at the top of the hill. We saw Coleridge on the Wytheburn side of the water. He crossed the Beck to us. Mr Simpson was fishing there. William & I ate a Luncheon, then went on towards the waterfall. It is a glorious wild solitude under that lofty purple crag. It stood upright by itself. Its own self & its shadow below, one mass�all else was sunshine. We went on further. A Bird at the top of the crags was flying round & round & looked in thinness & transparency,


9. The short lyric "Written in March." 3. The poem that was published as "Resolution 1. William never published his comic poem "The and Independence." For its origin see the entrvfor Tinker." It was first printed in 1897. October 3, 1800 (p. 393).


2. I.e., no waterfall could be heard individually.


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THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 399


shape & motion like a moth. We climbed the hill but looked in vain for a shade except at the foot of the great waterfall, & there we did not like to stay on account of the loose stones above our heads. We came down & rested upon a moss covered Rock, rising out of the bed of the River. There we lay ate our dinner & stayed there till about 4 o'clock or later�Wm & C repeated & read verses. I drank a little Brandy & water & was in Heaven. The Stags horn is very beautiful & fresh springing upon the fells. Mountain ashes, green. We drank tea at a farm house. The woman had not a pleasant countenance, but was civil enough. She had a pretty Boy a year old whom she suckled. We parted from Coleridge at Sara's Crag after having looked at the Letters which C carved in the morning. I kissed them all. Wm deepened the T with C's penknife. 4 We sate afterwards on the wall, seeing the sun go down & the reflections in the still water. C looked well & parted from us chearfully, hopping up upon the side stones. On the Rays we met a woman with 2 little girls one in her arms the other about 4 years old walking by her side, a pretty little thing, but half starved. She had on a pair of slippers that had belonged to some gentleman's child, down at the heels�it was not easy to keep them on�but, poor thing! young as she was, she walked carefully with them. Alas too young for such cares & such travels�The Mother when we accosted her told us that her husband had left her & gone off with another woman & how she "pursued" them. Then her fury kindled & her eyes rolled about. She changed again to tears. She was a Cockermouth woman�30 years of age a child at Cocker- mouth when I was�I was moved & gave her a shilling, I believe 6d more than I ought to have given. We had the crescent moon with the "auld moon in her arms."5�We rested often:�always upon the Bridges. Reached home at about


10 o'clock. The Lloyds had been here in our absence. We went soon to bed. I repeated verses to William while he was in bed�he was soothed & I left him. "This is the Spot"6 over & over again.


* * *


6th May Thursday 1802. A sweet morning we have put the finishing stroke to our Bower & here we are sitting in the orchard. It is one o'clock. We are sitting upon a seat under the wall which I found my Brother building up when I came to him with his apple�he had intended that it should have been done before I came. It is a nice cool shady spot. The small Birds are singing�Lambs bleating, Cuckow calling�The Thrush sings by Fits. Thomas Ashburner's axe is going quietly (without passion) in the orchard�Hens are cackling, Flies humming, the women talking together at their doors�Plumb & pear trees are in Blossom�apple trees greenish�the opposite woods green, the crows are cawing. We have heard Ravens. The ash trees are in blossom, Birds flying all about us. The stitchwort is coming out, there is one budding Lychnis, the primroses are passing their prime. Celandine violets & wood sorrel for ever more little�geraniums & pansies on the wall. We walked in the evening to Tail End to enquire about hurdles for the orchard shed & about Mr Luff's flower�The flower dead�no hurdles. I went to look at the falling wood� Wm also when he had been at Benson's went with me. They have left a good


4. The rock, which has since been blasted away to 5. From the "Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens." Cole- make room for a. new road, contained the carved ridge quoted the stanza, of which this phrase is


letters W. W., M. H., D. W., S.T.C., J. W., S. H. part, as epigraph to "Dejection: An Ode" (p. 466).


(M. H. and S. H. are Mary and Sara Hutchinson; 6. William never completed this poem. J. W. is John Wordsworth.)


.


40 0 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


many small oak trees but we dare not hope that they are all to remain. The Ladies are come to Mr Gell's cottage. We saw them as we went & their light when we returned. When we came in we found a Magazine & Review & a letter from Coleridge with verses to Hartley & Sara H. We read the Review,7 &c. The moon was a perfect Roat a silver Roat when we were out in the evening. The Rirch Tree is all over green in small leaf more light & elegant than when it is full out. It bent to the breezes as if for the love of its own delightful motions. Sloe thorns & Hawthorns in the hedges.


Friday 7th May. William had slept uncommonly well so, feeling himself strong, he fell to work at the Leech gatherer�He wrote hard at it till dinner time, then he gave over tired to death�he had finished the poem.8 * 4 *


* * *


[July.] On Thursday morning, 29th, we arrived in London.9 Wm left me at the Inn�I went to bed &c &c &c�After various troubles and disasters we left London on Saturday morning at Vz past 5 or 6, the 31st of July (I have forgot which). We mounted the Dover Coach at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The City, St. Paul's, with the River & a multitude of little Boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by their cloud of smoke & they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly with such a pure light that there was even something like the purity of one of nature's own grand spectacles.1 We rode on chearfully now with the Paris Diligence before us, now behind�we walked up the steep hills, beautiful prospects everywhere, till we even reached Dover.


4


* * We arrived at Calais at 4 o'clock on Sunday morning the 31st of July.2 We stayed in the vessel till V2 past 7, then Wm went for Letters, at about Vi past 8 or 9. We found out Annette & C chez Madame Avril dans la Rue de la Tete d'or. We lodged opposite two Ladies in tolerably decent-sized rooms but badly furnished, & with large store of bad smells & dirt in the yard, & all about. The weather was very hot. We walked by the sea-shore almost every evening with Annette & Caroline or Wm & I alone. I had a bad cold & could not bathe at first but William did. It was a pretty sight to see as we walked upon the Sands when the tide was low perhaps a hundred people bathing about Vi of a mile distant from us, and we had delightful walks after the heat of the day was passed away�seeing far off in the west the Coast of England Jike a cloud crested with Dover Castle, which was but like the summit of the cloud�the Evening star & the glory of the sky. The Reflections in the water were more beautiful than the sky itself, purple waves brighter than precious stones for ever melting away upon the sands. * * *


$ S fc


[Sept. 24 and following.] Mary first met us in the avenue. She looked so fat and well that we were made very happy by the sight of her�then came Sara, & last of all Joanna.3 Tom was forking corn standing upon the corn cart. We


7. The Monthly Review for March 1802. the occasion for William's sonnet "It is a beauteous 8. Later entries show, however, that William kept evening." working on the manuscript until July 4. 3. The Wordsworths have come to Gallow Hill,


9. On the way to France to visit Annette Vallon Yorkshire, for the marriage of William and Mary. and Caroline (see the entry for March 22, 1802; The people mentioned are Mary's sisters and


p. 396). brothers (Sara, Joanna, Tom, Jack, and George 1. Cf. William's sonnet "Composed upon West-Hutchinson). Out of consideration for Dorothy's minster Bridge" (p. 317). overwrought feelings, only Joanna, Jack, and Tom


2. The actual date was August 1. One of the walks attended the ceremony at Brampton Church. by the sea that Dorothy goes on to describe was


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THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 401


dressed ourselves immediately & got tea�the garden looked gay with asters & sweet peas�I looked at everything with tranquillity & happiness but I was ill both on Saturday & Sunday & continued to be poorly most of the time of our stay. Jack & George came on Friday Evening 1st October. On Saturday 2nd we rode to Hackness, William Jack George & Sara single, I behind Tom. On Sunday 3rd Mary & Sara were busy packing. On Monday 4th October 1802, my Brother William was married to Mary Hutchinson. I slept a good deal of the night & rose fresh & well in the morning�at a little after 8 o'clock I saw them go down the avenue towards the Church. William had parted from me up stairs. I gave him the wedding ring�with how deep a blessing! I took it from my forefinger where I had worn it the whole of the night before�he slipped it again onto my finger and blessed me fervently. When they were absent my dear little Sara prepared the breakfast. I kept myself as quiet as I could, but when I saw the two men running up the walk, coming to tell us it was over, I could stand it no longer & threw myself on the bed where I lay in stillness, neither hearing or seeing any thing, till Sara came upstairs to me & said "They are coming." This forced me from the bed where I lay & I moved I knew not how straight forward, faster than my strength could carry me till I met my beloved William & fell upon his bosom. He & John Hutchinson led me to the house & there I stayed to welcome my dear Mary. As soon as we had breakfasted we departed.4 It rained when we set off. Poor Mary was much agitated when she parted from her Brothers & Sisters & her home. Nothing particular occurred till we reached Kirby. We had sunshine & showers, pleasant talk, love & chearfulness. * * * It rained very hard when we reached Windermere. We sate in the rain at Wilcock's to change horses, & arrived at Grasmere at about 6 o'clock on Wednesday Evening, the 6th of October 1802. Molly was overjoyed to see us,�for my part I cannot describe what I felt, & our dear Mary's feelings would I dare say not be easy to speak of. We went by candle light into the garden & were astonished at the growth of the Brooms, Portugal Laurels, &c &c &�The next day, Thursday, we unpacked the Boxes. On Friday 8th we baked Bread, & Mary & I walked, first upon the Hill side, & then in John's Grove, then in view of Rydale, the first walk that I had taken with my Sister.


* & $ 24th December 1802, Christmas Eve. William is now sitting by me at Vz past 10 o'clock. I have been beside him ever since tea running the heel of a stocking, repeating some of his sonnets to him, listening to his own repeating, reading some of Milton's & the Allegro & Penseroso. It is a quiet keen frost. Mary is in the parlour below attending to the baking of cakes & Jenny Fletcher's pies. Sara is in bed in the tooth ache, & so we are�beloved William is turning over the leaves of Charlotte Smith's sonnets, but he keeps his hand to his poor chest pushing aside his breastplate.5 Mary is well & I am well, & Molly is as blithe as last year at this time. Coleridge came this morning with Wedgwood.6 We all turned out of Wm's bedroom one by one to meet him� he looked well. We had to tell him of the Birth of his little Girl, born yesterday morning at 6 o'clock.7 W went with them to Wytheburn in the Chaise, & M & I met Wm on the Rays. It was not an unpleasant morning to the feelings�far


4. Dorothy accompanied William and Mary on the 6. Tom Wedgwood, whose father had founded the three-day journey back to their cottage at Gras-famous pottery works, was a friend and generous


mere. patron of Coleridge.


5. Probably an undergarment covering the chest. 7. Coleridge's daughter, Sara (1802-1852).


.


40 2 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


from it�the sun shone now & then, & there was no wind, but all things looked chearless & distinct, no meltings of sky into mountains�the mountains like stone-work wrought up with huge hammers.�Last Sunday was as mild a day as I ever remember�We all set off together to walk. I went to Rydale & Wm returned with me. M & S8 went round the Lakes. There were flowers of various kinds the topmost bell of a fox-glove, geraniums, daisies�a buttercup in the water (but this I saw two or three days before) small yellow flowers (I do not know their name) in the turf a large bunch of strawberry blossoms. Wm sate a while with me, then went to meet M. & S.�Last Saturday I dined at Mr Simpson's also a beautiful mild day. Monday was a frosty day, & it has been frost ever since. On Saturday I dined with Mrs Simpson. It is today Christmas- day Saturday 25th December 1802. I am 31 years of age.�It is a dull frosty day.


1800-02 1897


Grasmere�A Fragment


Peaceful our valley, fair and green. And beautiful her cottages, Each in its nook, its sheltered hold, Or underneath its tuft of trees.


5 Many and beautiful they are; But there is one that I love best, A lowly shed, in truth, it is, A brother of the rest.


Yet when I sit on rock or hill,


10 Down looking on the valley fair, That Cottage with its clustering trees Summons my heart; it settles there.


Others there are whose small domain Of fertile fields and hedgerows green 15 Might more seduce a wanderer's mind To wish that there his home had been.


Such wish be his! I blame him not, My fancies they perchance are wild �I love that house because it is


20 The very Mountains' child.


Fields hath it of its own, green fields, But they are rocky steep and bare; Their fence is of the mountain stone, And moss and lichen flourish there.


8. Mary and her sister Sara Hutchinson.


.


GRASMERE� A FRAGMENT / 40 3 25 And when the storm comes from the North It lingers near that pastoral spot, And, piping through the mossy walls, It seems delighted with its lot. 30And let it take its own delight; And let it range the pastures bare; Until it reach that group of trees, �It may not enter there! 35A green unfading grove it is, Skirted with many a lesser tree, Hazel and holly, beech and oak, A bright and flourishing company. 40Precious the shelter of those trees; They screen the cottage that I love; The sunshine pierces to the roof, And the tall pine-trees tower above. When first I saw that dear abode, It was a lovely winter's day: After a night of perilous storm The west wind ruled with gentle sway; 45 A day so mild, it might have been The first day of the gladsome spring; The robins warbled, and I heard One solitary throstle sing. 50A Stranger, Grasmere, in thy Vale, All faces then to me unknown, I left my sole companion-friend To wander out alone. 55Lured by a little winding path, I quitted soon the public road, A smooth and tempting path it was, By sheep and shepherds trod. 60Eastward, toward the lofty hills, This pathway led me on Until I reached a stately Rock, With velvet moss o'ergrown. With russet oak and tufts of fern Its top was richly garlanded; Its sides adorned with eglantine Bedropp'd with hips of glossy red. 65 There, too, in many a sheltered chink The foxglove's broad leaves flourished fair, And silver birch whose purple twigs Bend to the softest breathing air.


.


40 4 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH


Beneath that Rock my course I stayed,


70 And, looking to its summit high, "Thou wear'st," said I, "a splendid garb, Here winter keeps his revelry.


"Full long a dweller on the Plains, I griev'd when summer days were gone; 75 No more I'll grieve; for Winter here Hath pleasure gardens of his own.


"What need of flowers? The splendid moss Is gayer than an April mead; More rich its hues of various green,


so Orange, and gold, & glittering red."


�Beside that gay and lovely Rock There came with merry voice A foaming streamlet glancing by; It seemed to say "Rejoice!"


85 My youthful wishes all fulfill'd, Wishes matured by thoughtful choice, I stood an Inmate of this vale How could I but rejoice?


ca. 1802-05 1892


Thoughts on My Sick-Bed1


And has the remnant of my life Been pilfered of this sunny Spring? And have its own prelusive sounds Touched in my heart no echoing string?


5 Ah! say not so�the hidden life Couchant� within this feeble frame lyingHath been enriched by kindred gifts, That, undesired, unsought-for, came


With joyful heart in youthful days io When fresh each season in its Round I welcomed the earliest Celandine Glittering upon the mossy ground;


1. In a letter of May 25, 1832, William Words-to her sick room." The lines refer to half a dozen worth's daughter Dora mentions this as "an affect-or more poems by William, including "I wandered


ing poem which she [her aunt Dorothy] has written lonely as a cloud" (in line 18) and "Tintern Abbey"


on the pleasure she received from the first spring (lines 45-52).


flowers that were carried up to her when confined


15


20


25


30


35


40


45


50May 1832


. THOUGHT S O N M Y SICK-BE D / 40 5 With busy eyes I pierced the lane In quest of known and unknown things, �The primrose a lamp on its fortress rock, The silent butterfly spreading its wings, The violet betrayed by its noiseless breath, The daffodil dancing in the breeze, The carolling thrush, on his naked perch, Towering above the budding trees. Our cottage-hearth no longer our home, Companions of Nature were we, The Stirring, the Still, the Loquacious, the Mute� To all we gave our sympathy. Yet never in those careless days When spring-time in rock, field, or bower Was but a fountain of earthly hope A promise of fruits & the splendid flower. No! then I never felt a bliss That might with that compare Which, piercing to my couch of rest, Came on the vernal air. When loving Friends an offering brought, The first flowers of the year, Culled from the precincts of our home, From nooks to Memory dear. With some sad thoughts the work was done, Unprompted and unbidden, But joy it brought to my hidden life, To consciousness no longer hidden. I felt a Power unfelt before, Controlling weakness, languor, pain; It bore me to the Terrace walk I trod the Hills again;� No prisoner in this lonely room, I saw the green Banks of the Wye, Recalling thy prophetic words, Bard, Brother, Friend from infancy! No need of motion, or of strength, Or even the breathing air: �I thought of Nature's loveliest scenes; And with Memory I was there. 1978


.


406


SIR WALTER SCOTT 1771-1832


Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh, but as a small boy, to improve his health, he lived for some years with his grandparents on their farm in the Scottish Border country (the part of southern Scotland lying immediately north of the border with England). This region was rich in ballad and folklore, much of it associated with the Border warfare between northern English and southern Scottish raiders. As a child Scott listened eagerly to stories about the past, especially to accounts of their experiences by survivors of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745, the last in a series of ill-fated attempts to restore to the throne of Britain the Stuart dynasty, who had been living in exile since 1688. The defeat of the ragtag army of Scottish Highland soldiers who had rallied around Charles Edward Stuart brought to an end not just the Jacobite cause but also the quasi-feudal power that the Highland chiefs had exercised over their clans. The Highlands' native traditions were suppressed by a government in London that was determined, to the point of brutality, to integrate all its Scottish subjects more fully into the United Kingdom. Ideally situated to witness these social and cultural transformations, Scott early acquired what he exploited throughout his work�a sense of history as associated with a specific place and a sense of the past that is kept alive, tenuously, in the oral traditions of the present.


Scott's father was a lawyer and he himself was trained in the law, becoming in 1799 sheriff (local judge) of Selkirkshire, a Border county, and in 1806 clerk of session� i.e., secretary to the highest civil court in Scotland�in Edinburgh. Scott viewed the law, in its development over the centuries, as embodying the changing social customs of the country and an important element in social history, and he often used it (as in The Heart of Midlothian and Redgauntlet) to give a special dimension to his fiction.


From early childhood Scott was an avid reader of ballads and poetic romances, which with his phenomenal memory he effortlessly memorized. He began his literary career as a poet, first as a translator of German ballad imitations and then as a writer of such imitations. In 1799 he set out on the collecting expedition that resulted in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border (1802�03), his compilation of Border ballads. Motivating the collection was Scott's belief that the authentic features of the Scottish character were "daily melting . . . into those of her . . . ally" (i.e., England), but he had fewer compunctions than modern folklorists about "improving" the ballads he and assistants transcribed from the recitations of elderly peasant women and shepherds. Scott turned next to composing long narrative poems set in medieval times, the best-known of which are The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), Marmion (1808), and The Lady of the Lake (1810). Although these "metrical romances" were sensational best sellers (in 1830 Scott estimated that The Lay had sold thirty thousand copies) and helped establish nineteenth-century culture's vogue for medieval chivalry, Scott eventually gave up poetry for prose fiction. "Byron beat me," he explained, referring to the fact that his metrical romances ended up eclipsed by his rival's even more exotic "Eastern tales."


Scott continued to write lyric poems, which he inserted in his novels. Some of the lyrics, including "Proud Maisie," are based on the folk ballad and capture remarkably the terse suggestiveness of the oral form. Waverley (1814), which deals with the Jacobite defeat in 1845, introduced a motif that would remain central to Scott's fiction: the protagonist mediates between a heroic but violent old world that can no longer survive and an emerging new world that will be both safer than the old one� ensuring the security of property and the rule of law�and duller, allowing few opportunities for adventure. The novels negotiate between preserving the last traces of the traditional cultures whose disappearance they chronicle�for instance, the Scots superstitions and distinctive speech forms that feature in the ghost story that Wandering Willie recounts in Redgauntlet and the song, "Proud Maisie," that Madge


.


THE LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL / 407


Wildfire sings in The Heart of Midlothian�and representing, through the long views of the novels' impersonal narrators, the iron laws of historical development, as those were expounded in the emerging Scottish Enlightenment disciplines of political economy, sociology, and anthropology. This approach to representing change, one that acquiesces in the necessity of social progress but also nostalgically acknowledges the allure of the backward past, was timely. It appealed powerfully to a generation that, following the British victory at Waterloo, was both eager to think that a new period in its history had begun and yet reluctant to turn its back on the past, not least because devotion to its shared historical heritage might help reunify a fragmented nation. Scott did not invent the historical novel, and indeed was readier than most twentieth- century critics to acknowledge that he had been influenced by the women novelists who dominated the literary scene prior to his debut, but his example established the significance the form would henceforth claim.


Scott published all his novels anonymously, an index of how a gentleman-poet, even at the start of the nineteenth century, might find fiction a disreputable occupation. However, his authorship of "the Waverley Series" was an open secret, and Scott became the most internationally famous novelist as well as the most prolific writer of the day. In 1811 he started building his palatial country house at Abbotsford, a place that, characteristically, he both equipped with up-to-date indoor plumbing and gas lighting and stocked with antiquarian relics. There he enacted his vision of himself as a country gentleman of the old school. Though in 1820 he acquired the title of baronet and thus added a "Sir" to his name, this glamorous persona of the Scottish laird depended on his hardheaded, unromantic readiness to conceive of literature as a business. To support his expenditures at Abbotsford, Scott wrote (as Thomas Carlyle put it disapprovingly in 1838) "with the ardour of a steam-engine" and participated in a number of commercial ventures in printing and publishing. In the crash of 1826, as a result of the failure of the publishing firm of Constable, Scott was financially ruined. He insisted on working off his huge debts by his pen and exhausted himself in the effort to do so. Not until after his death were his creditors finally paid off in full with the proceeds of the continuing sale of his novels.


The Lay of the Last Minstrel1


Introduction


The way was long, the wind was cold,


The Minstrel was infirm and old;


His withered cheek, and tresses gray,


Seemed to have known a better day;


5 The harp, his sole remaining joy,


Was carried by an orphan boy.


The last of all the Bards was he,


Who sung of Border chivalry;


I. Scott's first metrical romance interweaves two minstrel, who has "survived the Revolution" of stories and boasts more than a hundred pages of 1688, as a figure of historical transition. He has


historical notes. One story is set in the 16th cen-caught "somewhat of the refinement of modern


tury and combines the Border legend of the goblin poetry without losing the simplicity of his original


Gilpin Horner with a story of the magic spells cast model"�a hint that the relationship between this


by the dowager lady of Branksome, who hopes to figure and his 17th-century listeners mirrors


use a long-hidden book of black arts to avenge the Scott's relationship with his 19th-century audi


death of her husband at the hands of a neighboring ence. But in addition to allying his authorship with


clan. In the second story, which unfolds across the his minstrel's improvised vocal performance, Scott


introductions and endings of the poem's six cantos, associates himself with the power of the written


the 17th-century minstrel who tells or sings the word: the "wondrous book" that the Lady of Brank


story of this witch's plot (a lay is a song) emerges some seeks is buried inside the grave of a wizard


as hero. In his prose preface Scott described this suggestively named "Michael Scott."


.


40 8 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


For, well-a-day! their date was fled,


His tuneful brethren all were dead;


And he, neglected and oppressed,


Wished to be with them, and at rest. No more, on prancing palfrey0 borne, saddle horse He carolled, light as lark at morn;


15 No longer, courted and caressed,


High placed in hall, a welcome guest,


He poured, to lord and lady gay,


The unpremeditated lay;


Old times were changed, old manners gone,


A stranger2 filled the Stuarts' throne;


The bigots of the iron time


Had called his harmless art a crime.


A wandering harper, scorned and poor,


He begged his bread from door to door;


25 And tuned, to please a peasant's ear,


The harp, a King had loved to hear.


He passed where Newark's stately tower


Looks out from Yarrow's birchen bower:3


The Minstrel gazed with wishful eye�


No humbler resting place was nigh.


With hesitating step, at last,


The embattled portal-arch he passed,


Whose ponderous grate, and massy bar,


Had oft rolled back the tide of war,


35 But never closed the iron door


Against the desolate and poor.


The Duchess marked his weary pace,


His timid mien, and reverend face, And bade her page the menials0 tell, servants That they should tend the old man well:


For she had known adversity,


Though born in such a high degree;


In pride of power, in beauty's bloom,


Had wept o'er Monmouth's bloody tomb!4


45 When kindness had his wants supplied,


And the old man was gratified,


Began to rise his minstrel pride.


And he began to talk, anon,


Of good Earl Francis, dead and gone,


And of Earl Walter, rest him God!5


A braver ne'er to battle rode;


And how full many a tale he knew,


2. William III, who in 1688 ascended to the Brit-whose black magic will figure in the minstrel's ish throne after Parliament coerced the last Stuart story, the widow of the duke of Monmouth. A bas-


monarch, the Catholic James II, into fleeing to tard son of Charles II, Monmouth was executed in


France. 1685 after his unsuccessful insurrection against


3. Newark Castle, located in the Border district, his uncle James II. at a bend of the river Yarrow. 5. In footnotes Scott identifies Earl Francis and


4. The Duchess, identified in Scott's footnote as Earl Walter as the father and grandfather of the Anne, Duchess of Buccleuch, was, in addition to Duchess.


being a descendant of the Lady of Branksome


.


TH E LAY OF THE LAST MINSTREL / 40 9 55Of the old warriors of Buccleuch; And, would the noble Duchess deign To listen to an old man's strain, Though stiff his hand, his voice though weak, He thought even yet, the sooth0 to speak, That, if she loved the harp to hear, He could make music to her ear. truth 60657075so859095IOO The humble boon was soon obtained; The aged Minstrel audience gained. But, when he reached the room of state, Where she, with all her ladies, sate, Perchance he wished his boon denied; For, when to tune his harp he tried, His trembling hand had lost the ease, Which marks security to please; And scenes, long past, of joy and pain, Came wildering o'er his aged brain� He tried to tune his harp in vain. The pitying Duchess praised its chime, And gave him heart, and gave him time, Till every string's according glee Was blended into harmony. And then, he said, he would full fain He could recall an ancient strain, He never thought to sing again. It was not framed for village churls, But for high dames and mighty earls; He had played it to King Charles the Good When he kept court at Holyrood;6 And much he wished, yet feared, to try The long-forgotten melody. Amid the strings his fingers strayed, And an uncertain warbling made� And oft he shook his hoary0 head. But when he caught the measure wild, The old man raised his face, and smiled; And lightened up his faded eye, With all a poet's extacy! In varying cadence, soft or strong, He swept the sounding chords along; The present scene, the future lot, His toils, his wants, were all forgot; Cold diffidence, and age's frost, In the full tide of song were lost. Each blank, in faithless memory void, The poet's glowing thought supplied; And, while his harp responsive rung, 'Twas thus the LATEST MINSTREL sung. gray with age 1805


6. Having ascended to the throne of England in 1626, Charles I traveled to the palace of Holyrood in Edinburgh in 1633 to receive the crown of Scotland.


.


41 0 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


Proud Maisie1


Proud Maisie is in the wood Walking so early; Sweet Robin sits on the bush, Singing so rarely.


5 "Tell me, thou bonny bird, When shall I marry me?"� "When six braw� gentlemen fine Kirkward shall carry ye."


"Who makes the bridal bed, io Birdie, say truly?"� "The gray-headed sexton That delves the grave duly.


"The glowworm o'er grave and stone Shall light thee steady, 15 The owl from the steeple sing, 'Welcome, proud lady.' "


1818


Wandering Willie's Tale "Wandering Willie's Tale" forms part of Red- gauntlet (1824), Scott's most formally inventive novel and the last of his major fictions set in the Border Country. It is told by the blind fiddler Willie Steenson to a young gentleman of a romantic temperament, Darsie Latimer, who on a whim has joined him in his cross-country wandering and who subsequently writes down Willie's tale and sends it off in a letter to a friend in Edinburgh. (Redgauntlet begins, though after its first third does not continue, as a novel in letters, the eighteenth-century form that Scott revived for this book he called his "Tale of the Eighteenth Century.") Like most of Scott's fiction, then, "Wandering Willie's Tale" juxtaposes oral storytelling against written records, while also moving among several time frames: 1765, when Willie recounts to Darsie the tale he heard from his grandfather, the piper Steenie Steenson; the year�sometime in the early 1690s�when the events Steenie experienced occurred; and also the four decades prior to 1690, in which the central figure in the story, Sir Robert Redgauntlet, committed the wicked deeds for which, in the course of the tale, he will pay at last. The story likewise mixes fiction and history: Steenie's journey to the underworld, where he pursues the fictional Redgauntlet and thereby recovers a lost piece of his own past, gives Scott a device for making his reader acquainted with some central figures of seventeenth-century Scottish history.


We follow the text of the "Magnum Opus" edition of his works, which Scott prepared in 1832 and in which he officially acknowledged authorship of his novels; we omit, however, the long historical notes he added to that edition.


Scott's simulation of Willie's Scots dialect becomes easier to understand when one


hears rather than reads it, so reading the tale aloud is advised. For tips on pronun


ciation of Scots, consult the recordings of "Tam O' Shanter," by Robert Burns, and


"Woo'd and married and a'," by Joanna Baillie, both at Norton Literature Online.


1. The "fragment" of a song heard by the characters in The Heart of Midlothian who attend the insane gypsy Madge Wildfire on her deathbed (chap. 40).


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 411 FROM REDGAUNTLET


Wandering Willie's Tale


Ye maun1 have heard of Sir Robert Redgauntlet of that Ilk, who lived in these parts before the dear years.2 The country will lang mind him; and our fathers used to draw breath thick if ever they heard him named. He was out wi' the Hielandmen in Montrose's time; and again he was in the hills wi' Glencairn in the saxteen hundred and Bfty-twa; and sae when King Charles the Second came in, wha was in sic3 favour as the Laird of Redgauntlet?4 He was knighted at Lonon court, wi' the King's ain sword; and being a redhot prelatist, he came down here, rampauging like a lion, with commissions of lieutenancy (and of lunacy, for what I ken5), to put down a the Whigs and Covenanters in the country. Wild wark they made of it, for the Whigs were as dour as the Cavaliers were fierce, and it was which should first tire the other. Redgauntlet was aye6 for the strong hand; and his name is kend as wide in the country as Claverhouse's or Tam DalyelPs.7 Glen, nor dargle,8 nor mountain, nor cave, could hide the puir hill-folk when Redgauntlet was out with bugle and bloodhound after them, as if they had been sae mony deer. And troth when they fand them, they didna mak muckle9 mair ceremony than a Hielandman wi' a roebuck� It was just, "Will ye tak the test?"�if not, "Make ready�present�fire!"�and there lay the recusant.1


Far and wide was Sir Robert hated and feared. Men thought he had a direct compact with Satan�that he was proof against steel�and that bullets happed aff his buff-coat like hailstanes from a hearth�that he had a mear that would turn a hare on the side of Carrifra-gawns2�and muckle to the same purpose, of whilk mair anon. The best blessing they wared3 on him was, "Deil scowp wi' Redgauntlet!"4 He wasna a bad maister to his ain folk though, and was weel aneugh liked by his tenants; and as for the lackies and troopers that raid out wi' him to the persecutions, as the Whigs caa'd those killing times, they wad hae drunken themsells blind to his health at ony time.


1. Must. 2. Years of famine at the end of the 1690s. "Of that ilk": from the estate that bears the same name


as the family. Willie's story concerns Redgauntlet


of Redgauntlet.


3. Such. 4. This opening establishes Redgauntlet's past as a "prelatist"�supporter of what was, for most of


the 17th century, Scotland's established, Episcopal


Church�and a royalist. For four decades he was


the foe of the Covenanters�Presbyterians, often


members of Scotland's middle and lower classes,


who rejected episcopacy, the spiritual authority of


the bishops, and supported "Covenants" to pre


serve the purity of their worship. The conflict


between the royalists and Covenanters began dur


ing the Civil War of the 1640s, when, on behalf of


Charles I, the earl of Montrose and his Highland


army battled the Presbyterian insurgents�known


as the Whigs�who had sided in the war with


Cromwell. In 1652, during the Interregnum that


followed Charles's execution, the earl of Glencairn


continued this battle: Redgauntlet, we are to


understand, joined him. When Charles II was


restored to the throne in 1660, the royalists and


prelatists regained the upper hand. Their conflict


with the Covenanters culminated, during the "kill


ing years" of 1681�85, with massacres of the "hill


folk," called this because Presbyterian ministers


who after the Restoration had been ejected from


their churches had taken to conducting religious


sendees outdoors.


5. Know. 6. Always. 7. Royalist aristocrats who led the persecutions of Covenanters in 1681�85. Folk legends held that


both had diabolical powers, which Scott transfers


to Redgauntlet in the following paragraph.


8. A word for river valley, perhaps of Scott's coining.


9. Much. 1. To take the Test is, according to the terms of the Test Act of 1681, to swear an oath recognizing


the monarch's supremacy as head of the Church,


something a Presbyterian, who recognized Christ


alone as head, could not do. Redgauntlet and fol


lowers used this legal device to hunt down "recu


sants," i.e., those who did not conform to the


Episcopal church.


2. Redgauntlet's supematurally fleet-footed mare could turn a hare�i.e., get in front of it and


change its course1�while being ridden on Carrifra


gawns, a steep slope.


3. Bestowed. 4. "Devil take Redgauntlet!"


.


41 2 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


Now you are to ken that my gudesire5 lived on Redgauntlet's grund�they ca' the place Primrose-Knowe. We had lived on the grund, and under the Redgauntlets, since the riding days,6 and lang before. It was a pleasant bit; and I think the air is callerer7 and fresher there than ony where else in the country. It's a' deserted now; and I sat on the broken door-cheek three days since, and was glad I couldna see the plight the place was in; but that's a' wide o' the mark.8 There dwelt my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, a rambling, rattling chiel9 he had been in his young days, and could play weel on the pipes; he was famous at "Hoopers and Girders"�a' Cumberland couldna touch him at "Jockie Lattin"�and he had the finest finger for the back-lill' between Berwick and Carlisle. The like o' Steenie wasna the sort that they made Whigs o'. And so he became a Tory, as they ca' it, which we now ca' Jacobites,2 just out of a kind of needcessity, that he might belang to some side or other. He had nae ill-will to the Whig bodies, and liked little to see the blude rin, though, being obliged to follow Sir Robert in hunting and hosting, watching and warding,3 he saw muckle mischief, and maybe did some, that he couldna avoid.


Now Steenie was a kind of favourite with his master, and kend a' the folks about the castle, and was often sent for to play the pipes when they were at their merriment. Auld Dougal MacCallum, the butler, that had followed Sir Robert through gude and ill, thick and thin, pool and stream, was specially fond of the pipes, and aye gae4 my gudesire his gude word wi' the Laird; for Dougal could turn his master round his finger.


Weel, round came the Revolution,5 and it had like to have broken the hearts baith of Dougal and his master. But the change was not a'thegether sae great as they feared, and other folk thought for. The Whigs made an unco crawing6 what they wad do with their auld enemies, and in special wi' Sir Robert Red- gauntlet. Rut there were ower many great folks dipped in the same doings, to mak a spick and span new warld. So parliament passed it a' ower easy; and Sir Robert, bating7 that he was held to hunting foxes instead of Covenanters, remained just the man he was. He revel was as loud, and his hall as weel lighted, as ever it had been, though maybe he lacked the fines of the nonconformists, that used to come to stock his larder and cellar; for it is certain he began to be keener about the rents than his tenants used to find him before, and they behoved to be8 prompt to the rent-day, or else the Laird wasna pleased. And he was sic an awsome body, that naebody cared to anger him; for the oaths he swore, and the rage that he used to get into, and the looks that he put on, made men sometimes think him a devil incarnate.


Weel, my gudesire was nae manager�no that he was a very great misguider� but he hadna the saving gift, and he got twa terms' rent in arrear. He got the first brash at Whitsunday put ower wi' fair word and piping; but when Martinmas came, there was a summons from the grund-officer to come wi'


5. Grandfather. the Jacobites�supporters of the exiled James Stu6. Period of Border warfare in the 16th century. art and his heirs. 7. Cooler. 3. Guarding. 8. Beside the point. 4. Gave. 9. Lad. 5. The Revolution of 1688, which expelled the 1. Thumbhole in the melody pipe of a bagpipe. Stuart dynasty from the British throne, and in The border between Scotland and England extends Scotland reestablished Presbyterianism, ending


between Carlisle�chief city of the Northern the persecutions of the Covenanters. Jacobites


English county of Cumberland (now known as continued to resist the Revolutionary Settlement


Cumbria) on the west coast and Berwick on the until their last uprising in 1745.


east. 6. Extraordinary crowing; i.e., much noise.


2. The Tory party in Scotland included most sup-7. Except. porters of the Episcopal Church and, after 1688, 8. Were obliged to be.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 413


the rent on a day preceese, or else Steenie behoved to flit.9 Sair wark1 he had to get the siller; but he was weel-freended, and at last he got the haill2 scraped thegither�a thousand merks�the maist of it was from a neighbour they caa'd Laurie Lapraik�a sly tod.3 Laurie had walth o' gear4�could hunt wi' the hound and rin wi' the hare�and be Whig or Tory, saunt or sinner, as the wind stood. He was a professor in this Revolution warld, but he liked an orra sough of this warld;5 and a tune on the pipes weel aneugh at a bytime, and abune a',6 he thought he had gude security for the siller he lent my gudesire ower the stocking at Primrose-Knowe.7


Away trots my gudesire to Redgauntlet Castle, wi' a heavy purse and a light heart, glad to be out of the Laird's danger. Weel, the first thing he learned at the Castle was, that Sir Robert had fretted himself into a fit of the gout, because he did not appear before twelve o'clock. It wasna a'thegether for sake of the money, Dougal thought; but because he didna like to part wi' my gudesire aff the grund. Dougal was glad to see Steenie, and brought him into the great oak parlour, and there sat the Laird his leesome lane, excepting that he had beside him a great, ill-favoured jackanape,8 that was a special pet of his; a cankered beast it was, and mony an ill-natured trick it played�ill to please it was, and easily angered�ran about the haill castle, chattering and yowling, and pinching and biting folk, especially before ill weather, or disturbances in the state. Sir Robert caa'd it Major Weir, after the warlock that was burnt;9 and few folk liked either the name or the conditions of the creature�they thought there was something in it by ordinar�and my gudesire was not just easy in his mind when the door shut on him, and he saw himself in the room wi' naebody but the Laird, Dougal MacCallum, and the Major, a thing that hadna chanced to him before.


Sir Robert sat, or, I should say, lay, in a great armed chair, wi' his grand velvet gown, and his feet on a cradle; for he had baith gout and gravel, and his face looked as gash and ghastly as Satan's. Major Weir sat opposite to him, in a red laced coat, and the Laird's wig1 on his head; and aye as Sir Robert girned2 wi' pain, the jackanape girned too, like a sheep's-head between a pair of tangs�an ill-faured,3 fearsome couple they were. The Laird's buff-coat was hung on a pin behind him, and his broadsword and his pistols within reach; for he keepit up the auld fashion of having the weapons ready, and a horse saddled day and night, just as he used to do when he was able to loup on horseback, and away after ony of the hill-folk he could get speerings4 of. Some said it was for fear of the Whigs taking vengeance, but I judge it was just his auld custom�he wasna gien to fear ony thing. The rental-book, wi' its black cover and brass clasps, was lying beside him; and a book of sculduddry sangs5 was put betwixt the leaves, to keep it open at the place where it bore evidence


9. To move house. Rents were due on "quarter is "the stocking"�cattle, farm implements, etc.� days": Candlemas (February 2), Whitsunday (May of Steenie's farm.


15), Lammas (August 1), and Martinmas (Novem-8. Monkey.


ber 11). 9. Major Weir, a historical figure who fought in


1. Difficult work. the Covenanter cause in youth and in old age con2. Whole. fessed to crimes that included wizardry, for which 3. Fox. he was executed in 1670. 4. Lots of property. 1. Gentlemen in the late 17th and the 18th cen5. I.e., in this post-Revolutionary wrorld puritani-turies were in the custom of wearing wigs in public. cal Laurie adheres to ("professes") his religion but 2. Grimaced.


still likes an occasional ("orra") worldly song 3. Ugly.


("sough"). 4. News.


6. Above all. 5. Obscene songs. 7. I.e., the security for the loan of the rent money


.


41 4 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


against the Goodman of Primrose-Knowe, as behind the hand with his mails and duties.6 Sir Robert gave my gudesire a look, as if he would have withered his heart in his bosom. Ye maun ken he had a way of bending his brows, that men saw the visible mark of a horse-shoe in his forehead, deep-dinted, as if it had been stamped there.


"Are ye come light-handed, ye son of a toom whistle?" said Sir Robert. "Zounds! if you are"�


My gudesire, with as gude a countenance as he could put on, made a leg,7 and placed the bag of money on the table wi' a dash, like a man that does something clever. The Laird drew it to him hastily�"Is it all here, Steenie, man?


"Your honour will find it right," said my gudesire. "Here, Dougal," said the Laird, "gie Steenie a tass8 of brandy down stairs, till I count the siller and write the receipt."


But they werena weel out of the room, when Sir Robert gied a yelloch that garr'd9 the Castle rock! Back ran Dougal�in flew the livery-men�yell on yell gied the Laird, ilk ane mair awfu' than the ither. My gudesire knew not whether to stand or flee, but he ventured back into the parlour, where a' was gaun hirdy-girdie�naebody to say "come in," or "gae out." Terribly the Laird roared for cauld water to his feet, and wine to cool his throat; and hell, hell, hell, and its flames, was aye the word in his mouth. They brought him water, and when they plunged his swoln feet into the tub, he cried out it was burning; and folk say that it did bubble and sparkle like a seething cauldron. He flung the cup at Dougal's head, and said he had given him blood instead of burgundy; and, sure aneugh, the lass washed clotted blood aff the carpet the neist day. The jackanape they caa'd Major Weir, it jibbered and cried as if it was mocking its master; my gudesire's head was like to turn�he forgot baith siller and receipt, and down stairs he banged; but as he ran, the shrieks came faint and fainter; there was a deep-drawn shivering groan, and word gaed through the Castle, that the Laird was dead.


Weel, away came my gudesire, wi' his finger in his mouth, and his best hope was, that Dougal had seen the money-bag, and heard the Laird speak of writing the receipt. The young Laird, now Sir John, came from Edinburgh, to see things put to rights. Sir John and his father never gree'd weel. Sir John had been bred an advocate, and afterwards sat in the last Scots Parliament and voted for the Union, having gotten, it was thought, a rug of the compensations'� if his father could have come out of his grave, he would have brained him for it on his awn hearthstane. Some thought it was easier counting with the auld rough Knight than the fair-spoken young ane�but mair of that anon.


Dougal MacCallum, poor body, neither grat2 nor graned, but gaed about the house looking like a corpse, but directing, as was his duty, a' the order of the grand funeral. Now, Dougal looked aye waur and waur3 when night was coming, and was aye the last to gang to his bed, whilk was in a little round just opposite the chamber of dais,4 whilk his master occupied while he was


6. Rents. England and Scotland and by this means voting 7. I.e., he bowed. itself out of existence. Like many of his peers, Sir 8. Cup. John will take a cut ("rug") of the "compensations" 9. Made. offered the parliamentarians as a bribe. 1. Sir John is eventually to hold a seat in the Scots 2. Wept. Parliament that will make history in 1707 by pass-3. Always looked worse and worse.


ing the Act of Union that joins the kingdoms of 4. Best bedroom.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 415


living, and where he now lay in state, as they caa'd it, weel-a-day! The night before the funeral, Dougal could keep his awn counsel5 nae langer; he came doun with his proud spirit, and fairly asked auld Hutcheon to sit in his room with him for an hour. When they were in the round, Dougal took ae tass of brandy to himsell, and gave another to Hutcheon, and wished him all health and lang life, and said that, for himsell, he wasna lang for this world; for that, every night since Sir Robert's death, his silver call had sounded from the state chamber, just as it used to do at nights in his lifetime, to call Dougal to help to turn him in his bed. Dougal said, that being alone with the dead on that floor of the tower (for naebody cared to wake Sir Robert Redgauntlet like another corpse), he had never daured to answer the call, but that now his conscience checked him for neglecting his duty; for, "though death breaks service," said MacCallum, "it shall never break my service to Sir Robert; and I will answer his next whistle, so be you will stand by me, Hutcheon."


Hutcheon had nae will to the wark, but he had stood by Dougal in battle and broil, and he wad not fail him at this pinch; so down the carles6 sat ower a stoup7 of brandy, and Hutcheon, who was something of a clerk, would have read a chapter of the Rible; but Dougal would hear naething but a blaud8 of Davie Lindsay, whilk was the waur preparation.


When midnight came, and the house was quiet as the grave, sure aneugh the silver whistle sounded as sharp and shrill as if Sir Robert was blowing it, and up gat the twa auld serving-men, and tottered into the room where the dead man lay. Hutcheon saw aneugh at the first glance; for there were torches in the room, which showed him the foul fiend in his ain shape, sitting on the Laird's coffin! Over he cowped9 as if he had been dead. He could not tell how lang he lay in a trance at the door, but when he gathered himself, he cried on his neighbour, and getting nae answer, raised the house, when Dougal was found lying dead within twa steps of the bed where his master's coffin was placed. As for the whistle, it was gaen anes and aye;1 but mony a time was it heard at the top of the house on the bartizan,2 and amang the auld chimneys and turrets, where the howlets have their nests. Sir John hushed the matter up, and the funeral passed over without mair bogle-wark.3


But when a' was ower, and the Laird was beginning to settle his affairs, every tenant was called up for his arrears, and my gudesire for the full sum that stood against him in the rental-book. Weel, away he trots to the Castle, to tell his story, and there he is introduced to Sir John, sitting in his father's chair, in deep mourning, with weepers and hanging cravat,4 and a small walking rapier by his side, instead of the auld broadsword that had a hundredweight of steel about it, what with blade, chape, and basket-hilt. I have heard their communing so often tauld ower, that I almost think I was there mysell, though I couldna be born at the time. . . .


"I wuss ye joy, sir, of the head seat, and the white loaf, and the braid lairdship. 5 Your father was a kind man to friends and followers; muckle grace to


5. Keep quiet. 4. Mourning dress included hat bands of white 6. Fellows. linen ("weepers") and a "hanging cravat" instead of 7. Cup. the usual shirt frills. 8. A selection: Lindsay was a 16th-century satiri-5. A ceremonious speech wishing Sir John well in cal poet. his new position as head of a great family: white


9. Tilted. bread ("white loaf") is mentioned as a delicacy only 1. Once and always�i.e., forever. the rich could afford; a "braid lairdship" is a large 2. Parapet atop a castle. estate. 3. Ghostly occurrences.


.


41 6 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


you, Sir John, to fill his shoon�his boots, I suld say, for he seldom wore shoon, unless it were muils6 when he had the gout."


"Ay, Steenie," quoth the Laird, sighing deeply, and putting his napkin to his een, "his was a sudden call, and he will be missed in the country; no time to set his house in order�weel prepared Godward, no doubt, which is the root of the matter�but left us behind a tangled hesp to wind,7 Steenie.�Hem! hem! We maun go to business, Steenie; much to do, and little time to do it


�


in. Here he opened the fatal volume. I have heard of a thing they call Doomsday-book8�I am clear it has been a rental of back-ganging9 tenants.


"Stephen," said Sir John, still in the same soft, sleekit tone of a voice� "Stephen Stevenson, or Steenson, ye are down here for a year's rent behind the hand�due at last term."


Stephen. "Please your honour, Sir John, I paid it to your father."


Sir John. "Ye took a receipt then, doubtless, Stephen; and can produce it?"


Stephen. "Indeed I hadna time, an it like your honour; for nae sooner had I set doun the siller, and just as his honour Sir Robert, that's gaen, drew it till him to count it, and write out the receipt, he was ta'en wi' the pains that removed him."


"That was unlucky," said Sir John, after a pause. "But ye maybe paid it in the presence of somebody. I want but a talis qualis evidence,1 Stephen. I would go ower strictly to work with no poor man."


Stephen. "Troth, Sir John, there was naebody in the room but Dougal MacCallum, the butler. But, as your honour kens, he has e'en followed his auld master."


"Very unlucky again, Stephen," said Sir John, without altering his voice a single note. "The man to whom ye paid the money is dead�and the man who witnessed your payment is dead too�and the siller, which should have been to the fore, is neither seen nor heard tell of in the repositories. How am I to believe a' this?"


Stephen. "I dinna ken, your honour; but there is a bit memorandum note of the very coins; for, God help me! I had to borrow out of twenty purses; and I am sure that ilka2 men there set down will take his grit oath for what purpose I borrowed the money."


Sir John. "I have little doubt that ye borrowed the money, Steenie. It is the payment to my father that I want to have some proof of."


Stephen. "The siller maun be about the house, Sir John. And since your honour never got it, and his honour that was canna have ta'en it wi' him, maybe some of the family may have seen it."


Sir John. "We will examine the servants, Stephen; that is but reasonable."


But lackey and lass, and page and groom, all denied stoutly that they had ever seen such a bag of money as my gudesire described. What was waur, he had unluckily not mentioned to any living soul of them his purpose of paying his rent. Ae quean3 had noticed something under his arm, but she took it for the pipes.


Sir John Bedgauntlet ordered the servants out of the room, and then said


6. Slippers. 9. Behind in paying. 7. A "hesp" is a length of yarn: the deceased has 1. Law Latin for "of some kind"; used for evidence left behind him a confused state of affairs that that is acceptable only under special circum


requires disentangling (winding). N stances.


8. The property survey of England ordered by Wil- 2. Every. liam the Conqueror in 1086. \ 3. Young woman.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 417


to my gudesire, "Now, Steenie, ye see you have fair play; and, as I have little doubt ye ken better where to find the siller than ony other body, I beg, in fair terms, and for your own sake, that you will end this fasherie;4 for, Stephen, ye maun pay or flit."


"The Lord forgie your opinion," said Stephen, driven almost to his wit's end�"I am an honest man."


"So am I, Stephen," said his honour; "and so are all the folks in the house, I hope. But if there be a knave amongst us, it must be he that tells the story he cannot prove." He paused, and then added, mair sternly, "If I understand your trick, sir, you want to take advantage of some malicious reports concerning things in this family, and particularly respecting my father's sudden death, thereby to cheat me out of the money, and perhaps take away my character, by insinuating that I have received the rent I am demanding.�Where do you suppose this money to be?�I insist upon knowing."


My gudesire saw every thing look sae muckle against him that he grew nearly desperate�however, he shifted from one foot to another, looked to every corner of the room, and made no answer.


"Speak out, sirrah," said the Laird, assuming a look of his father's, a very particular ane, which he had when he was angry�it seemed as if the wrinkles of his frown made that selfsame fearful shape of a horse's shoe in the middle of his brow;�"Speak out, sir! I will know your thoughts;�do you suppose that I have this money?"


"Far be it frae me to say so," said Stephen.


"Do you charge any of my people with having taken it?"


"I wad be laith to charge them that may be innocent," said my gudesire; "and if there be any one that is guilty, I have nae proof." "Somewhere the money must be, if there is a word of truth in your story," said Sir John; "I ask where you think it is�and demand a correct answer?" "In hell, if you will have my thoughts of it," said my gudesire, driven to extremity,�"in hell! with your father, his jackanape, and his silver whistle."


Down the stairs he ran (for the parlour was nae place for him after such a word), and he heard the Laird swearing blood and wounds behind him, as fast as ever did Sir Robert, and roaring for the bailie and the baron-officer.


Away rode my gudesire to his chief creditor (him they caa'd Laurie Lapraik), to try if he could make ony thing out of him; but when he tauld his story, he got but the warst word in his wame5�thief, beggar, and dyvour,6 were the saftest terms; and to the boot of these hard terms, Laurie brought up the auld story of his dipping his hand in the blood of God's saunts, just as if a tenant could have helped riding with the Laird, and that a laird like Sir Robert Red- gauntlet. My gudesire was, by this time, far beyond the bounds of patience, and while he and Laurie were at deil speed the liars, he was wanchancie7 aneugh to abuse Lapraik's doctrine as weel as the man, and said things that garr'd folk's flesh grue8 that heard them;-�he wasna just himsell, and he had lived wi' a wild set in his day.


At last they parted, and my gudesire was to ride hame through the wood of Pitmurkie, that is a' fou of black firs, as they say.�I ken the wood, but the firs may be black or white for what I can tell.�At the entry of the wood there is a wild common, and on the edge of the common, a little lonely change


4. Annoyance. 7. Unlucky. 5. Mind. 8. Made people's flesh creep. 6. Good-for-nothing.


.


41 8 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


house, that was keepit then by an ostler-wife, they suld hae caa'd her Tibbie Faw,9 and there puir Steenie cried for a mutchkin of brandy, for he had had no refreshment the haill day. Tibbie was earnest wi' him to take a bite of meat, but he couldna think o't, nor would he take his foot out of the stirrup, and took off the brandy wholely at twa draughts, and named a toast at each:�the first was, the memory of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, and might he never lie quiet in his grave till he had righted his poor bond-tenant; and the second was, a health to Man's Enemy, if he would but get him back the pock of siller, or tell him what came o't, for he saw the haill world was like to regard him as a thief and a cheat, and he took that waur than even the ruin of his house and hauld.1


On he rode, little caring where. It was a dark night turned, and the trees made it yet darker, and he let the beast take its ain road through the wood; when, all of a sudden, from tired and wearied that it was before, the nag began to spring, and flee, and stend, that my gudesire could hardly keep the saddle� Upon the whilk, a horseman, suddenly riding up beside him, said, "That's a mettle beast of yours, freend; will you sell him?"�So saying, he touched the horse's neck with his riding-wand, and it fell into its auld heigh-ho of a stumbling trot. "Rut his spunk's soon out of him, I think," continued the stranger, "and that is like mony a man's courage, that thinks he wad do great things till he came to the proof."


My gudesire scarce listened to this, but spurred his horse, with "Gude e'en to you, freend."


But it's like the stranger was ane that doesna lightly yield his point; for, ride as Steenie liked, he was aye beside him at the selfsame pace. At last my gudesire, Steenie Steenson, grew half angry; and, to say the truth, half feared.


"What is it that ye want with me, freend?" he said. "If ye be a robber, I have nae money; if ye be a leal2 man, wanting company, I have nae heart to mirth or speaking; and if ye want to ken the road, I scarce ken it mysell."


"If you will tell me your grief," said the stranger, "I am one that, though I have been sair miscaa'd3 in the world, am the only hand for helping my freends."


So my gudesire, to ease his ain heart, mair than from any hope of help, told him the story from beginning to end.


"It's a hard pinch," said the strange; "but I think I can help you."


"If you could lend me the money, sir, and take a lang day4�I ken nae other help on earth," said my gudesire.


"But there may be some under the earth," said the stranger. "Come, I'll be frank wi' you; I could lend you the money on bond, but you would maybe scruple my terms. Now, I can tell you, that your auld Laird is disturbed in his grave by your curses, and the wailing of your family, and if ye daur venture to go to see him, he will give you the receipt."


My gudesire's hair stood on end at this proposal, but he thought his companion might be some humorsome chield that was trying to frighten him, and might end with lending him the money. Besides he was bauld wi' brandy, and desperate wi' distress; and he said, he had courage to go to the gate of hell, and a step farther, for that receipt.�The stranger laughed.


Weel, they rode on through the thickest of the wood, when, all of a sudden, the horse stopped at the door of a great house; and, but that he knew the place


9. I.e., "I am told she was called Tibbie Faw." 2. Honest. "Ostler-wife": female keeper of a hostelry (inn). 3. Much maligned.


1. Home. 4. Extend credit for a long time.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 419


was ten miles off, my father would have thought he was at Redgauntlet Castle. They rode into the outer court-yard, through the muckle faulding yetts,5 and aneath the auld portcullis; and the whole front of the house was lighted, and there were pipes and fiddles, and as much dancing and deray6 within as used to be in Sir Robert's House at Pace and Yule,7 and such high seasons. They lap off, and my gudesire, as seemed to him, fastened his horse to the very ring he had tied him to that morning, when he gaed to wait on the young Sir John.


"God!" said my gudesire, "if Sir Robert's death be but a dream!"


He knocked at the ha' door just as he was wont, and his auld acquaintance, Dougal MacCallum,�just after his wont, too,�came to open the door, and said, "Piper Steenie, are ye there, lad? Sir Robert has been crying for you."


My gudesire was like a man in a dream�he looked for the stranger, but he was gane for the time. At last he just tried to say, "Ha! Dougal Driveower,8 are ye living? I thought ye had been dead."


"Never fash9 yoursell wi' me," said Dougal, "but look to yoursell; and see ye take naething frae onybody here, neither meat, drink, or siller, except just the receipt that is your ain."


So saying, he led the way out through halls and trances that were weel kend to my gudesire, and into the auld oak parlour; and there was as much singing of profane sangs, and birling1 of red wine, and speaking blasphemy and sculduddry, as had ever been in Redgauntlet Castle when it was at the blithest.


But, Lord take us in keeping! what a set of ghastly revellers they were that sat round that table!�My gudesire kend mony that had long before gane to their place, for often had he piped to the most part in the hall of Redgauntlet. There was the fierce Middleton, and the dissolute Rothes, and the crafty Lauderdale; and Dalyell, with his bald head and a beard to his girdle; and Earlshall, with Cameron's blude on his hand; and wild Bonshaw, that tied blessed Mr Cargill's limbs till the blude sprung; and Dumbarton Douglas, the twice- turned traitor baith to country and king. There was the Bluidy Advocate MacKenyie, who, for his worldly wit and wisdom, had been to the rest as a god.2 And there was Claverhouse, as beautiful as when he lived, with his long, dark, curled locks, streaming down over his laced buff-coat, and his left hand always on his right spule-blade, to hide the wound that the silver bullet had made.3 He sat apart from them all, and looked at them with a melancholy, haughty countenance; while the rest hallooed, and sung, and laughed, that the room rang. But their smiles were fearfully contorted from time to time; and their laughter passed into such wild sounds, as made my gudesire's very nails grow blue, and chilled the marrow in his banes.


They that waited at the table were just the wicked serving-men and troopers, that had done their work and cruel bidding on earth. There was the Lang Lad of Nethertown, that helped to take Argyle; and the Bishop's summoner, that they called the Deil's Battle-bag; and the wicked guardsmen, in their laced coats; and the savage Highland Amorites,4 that shed blood like water; and


5. Great folding gates. cal figure notorious for his ruthlessness during the 6. Disorderly revelry. killing years, and the leader of the Highland army 7. Easter and Christmas. that fought for the cause of the exiled King James 8. Nickname for an idler. Stuart in 1689: he died in battle that year, and 9. Trouble. legend reported that it took a silver bullet to kill 1. Pouring. him. 2. Willie's list identifies a number of the royalist 4. The "Highland host" sent into southwest Scot- aristocrats who, while alive, took the lead in per-land in 1678 to enforce a law that legalized the


secuting the Covenanters. evictions of people who attended Presbyterian con


3. John Graham of Claverhouse, another histori-venticles rather than parish churches. Covenanter


.


42 0 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


many a proud serving-man, haughty of heart and bloody of hand, cringing to the rich, and making them wickeder than they would be; grinding the poor to powder, when the rich had broken them into fragments. And mony, mony mair were coming and ganging, a' as busy in their vocation as if they had been alive.


Sir Robert Redgauntlet, in the midst of a' this fearful riot, cried, wi' a voice like thunder, on Steenie Piper, to come to the board-head where he was sitting; his legs stretched out before him, and swathed up with flannel, with his holster pistols aside him, while the great broadsword rested against his chair, just as my gudesire had seen him the last time upon earth�the very cushion for the jackanape was close to him, but the creature itsell was not there�it wasna its hour, it's likely; for he heard them say as he came forward, "Is not the Major come yet?" And another answered, "The jackanape will be here betimes the morn." And when my gudesire came forward, Sir Robert, or his ghaist, or the deevil in his likeness, said, "Weel, piper, hae ye settled wi' my son for the year's rent?"


With much ado my father gat breath to say, that Sir John would not settle without his honour's receipt. "Ye shall hae that for a tune of the pipes, Steenie," said the appearance of Sir Robert�"Play us up, 'Weel hoddled, Luckie.' "


Now this was a tune my gudesire learned frae a warlock, that heard it when they were worshipping Satan at their meetings; and my gudesire had sometimes played it at the ranting5 suppers in Redgauntlet Castle, but never very willingly; and now he grew cauld at the very name of it, and said, for excuse, he hadna his pipes wi' him.


"MacCallum, ye limb of Beelzebub," said the fearfu' Sir Robert, "bring Steenie the pipes that I am keeping for him."


MacCallum brought a pair of pipes might have served the piper of Donald of the Isles.6 But he gave my gudesire a nudge as he offered them; and looking secretly and closely, Steenie saw that the chanter7 was of steel, and heated to a white heat; so he had fair warning not to trust his fingers with it. So he excused himself again, and said, he was faint and frightened, and had not wind aneugh to fill the bag.


"Then ye maun eat and drink, Steenie," said the figure; "for we do little else here; and it's ill speaking between a fou man and a fasting."8


Now these were the very words that the bloody Earl of Douglas said to keep the King's messenger in hand, while he cut the head off MacLellan of Bombie, at the Threave Castle;9 and that put Steenie mair and mair on his guard. So he spoke up like a man, and said he came neither to eat, or drink, or make minstrelsy; but simply for his ain�to ken what was come o' the money he had paid, and to get a discharge for it; and he was so stout-hearted by this time, that he charged Sir Robert for conscience-sake�(he had no power to say the holy name)�and as he hoped for peace and rest, to spread no snares for him, but just to give him his ain.


The appearance gnashed its teeth and laughed, but it took from a large


hymns compared this army to the Amorites, who 8. Proverb: a full man should not prevent a hungry


in the Old Testament are the enemies of the Isra-man from eating.


elites. 9. In 1452 the earl of Douglas beheaded his pris


5. Merry. oner MacLellan while the king's messenger bear6. A powerful chief of the Western Isles of Scot-ing orders for his release was detained at the table land. refreshing himself after his journey.


7. Melody pipe of a bagpipe.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 421


pocketbook the receipt, and handed it to Steenie. "There is your receipt, ye pitiful cur; and for the money, my dog-whelp of a son may go look for it in the Cat's Cradle."


My gudesire uttered mony thanks, and was about to retire, when Sir Robert roared aloud, "Stop though, thou sack-doudling son of a whore! I am not done with thee. HERE we do nothing for nothing; and you must return on this very day twelvemonth, to pay your master the homage that you owe me for my protection."


My father's tongue was loosed of a suddenly, and he said aloud, "I refer mysell to God's pleasure, and not to yours."


He had no sooner uttered the word than all was dark around him; and he sunk on the earth with such a sudden shock, that he lost both breath and sense.


How lang Steenie lay there, he could not tell; but when he came to himsell, he was lying in the auld kirkyard of Redgauntlet parochine,1 just at the door of the family aisle, and the scutcheon2 of the auld knight, Sir Robert, hanging over his head. There was a deep morning fog on the grass and gravestane around him, and his horse was feeding quietly beside the minister's twa cows. Steenie would have thought the whole was a dream, but he had the receipt in his hand, fairly written and signed by the auld Laird; only the last letters of his name were a little disorderly, written like one seized with sudden pain.


Sorely troubled in his mind, he left that dreary place, rode through the mist to Redgauntlet Castle, and with much ado he got speech of the Laird. "Well, you dyvour bankrupt," was the first word, "have you brought me my rent?" "No," answered my gudesire, "I have not; but I have brought your honour Sir Robert's receipt for it." "How, sirrah?�Sir Robert's receipt!�You told me he had not given you one."


"Will your honour please to see if that bit line is right?"


Sir John looked at every line, and at every letter, with much attention; and at last, at the date, which my gudesire had not observed,-�"From my appointed place," he read, "this twenty-fifth of November.�What!�That is yesterday!-� Villain, thou must have gone to hell for this!"


"I got it from your honour's father�whether he be in heaven or hell, I know not," said Steenie. "I will delate3 you for a warlock to the Privy Council!" said Sir John. "I will send you to your master, the devil, with the help of a tar-barrel and a torch!"


"I intend to delate mysell to the Presbytery,"4 said Steenie, "and tell them all I have seen last night, whilk are things fitter for them to judge of than a borrel5 man like me."


Sir John paused, composed himsell, and desired to hear the full history; and my gudesire told it from point to point, as I have told it you�word for word, neither more nor less.


Sir John was silent again for a long time, and at last he said, very composedly, "Steenie, this story of yours concerns the honour of many a noble family besides mine; and if it be a leasing-making,6 to keep yourself out of my danger,


1. Churchyard of Redgauntlet parish. elders from the local parishes. 2. Coat of arms. 5. Simple. 3. Report. 6. Slander. 4. Ecclesiastical court made up of ministers and


.


42 2 / SIR WALTER SCOTT


the least you can expect is to have a redhot iron driven through your tongue, and that will be as bad as scauding your fingers with a redhot chanter. But yet it may be true, Steenie; and if the money cast up, I shall not know what to think of it.�But where shall we find the Cat's Cradle? There are cats enough about the old house, but I think they kitten without the ceremony of bed or cradle."


"We were best ask Hutcheon," said my gudesire; "he kens a' the odd corners about as weel as�another serving-man that is now gane, and that I wad not like to name."


Aweel, Hutcheon, when he was asked, told them, that a ruinous turret, lang disused, next to the clock-house, only accessible by a ladder, for the opening was on the outside, and far above the battlements, was called of old the Cat's Cradle.


"There will I go immediately," said Sir John; and he took (with what purpose, Heaven kens) one of his father's pistols from the hall-table, where they had lain since the night he died, and hastened to the battlements.


It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder was auld and frail, and wanted ane or twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, and entered at the turret door, where his body stopped the only little light that was in the bit turret. Something flees at him wi' a vengeance, maist dang him back ower�bang gaed the knight's pistol, and Hutcheon, that held the ladder, and my gudesire that stood beside him, hears a loud skelloch.7 A minute after, Sir John flings the body of the jackanape down to them, and cries that the siller is fund, and that they should come up and help him. And there was the bag of siller sure aneugh, and mony orra things besides, that had been missing for mony a day. And Sir John, when he had riped8 the turret weel, led my gudesire into the dining-parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke kindly to him, and said he was sorry he should have doubted his word, and that he would hereafter be a good master to him, to make amends.


"And now, Steenie," said Sir John, "although this vision of yours tends, on the whole, to my father's credit, as an honest man, that he should, even after his death, desire to see justice done to a poor man like you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make bad constructions on it, concerning his soul's health. So, I think, we had better lay the haill dirdum9 on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir, and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taken ower muclde brandy to be very certain about ony thing; and, Steenie, this receipt," (his hand shook while he held it out,)�"it's but a queer kind of document, and we will do best, I think, to put it quietly in the fire."


"Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the voucher I have for my rent," said my gudesire, who was afraid, it may be, of losing the benefit of Sir Robert's discharge.


"I will bear the contents to your credit in the rental-book, and give you a discharge under my own hand," said Sir John, "and that on the spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue about this matter, you shall sit, from this term downward, at an easier rent."


"Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, who saw easily in what corner the wind was; "doubtless I will be conformable to all your honour's commands;


7. Screech. 9. Blame. 8. Searched.


.


WANDERING WILLIE'S TALE / 423


only I would willingly speak wi' some powerful minister on the subject, for I


do not like the sort of soumons of appointment whilk your honour's father"�


"Do not call that phantom my father!" said Sir John, interrupting him.


"Weel, then, the thing that was so like him,"�said my gudesire; "he spoke of my coming back to him this time twelvemonth, and it's a weight on my conscience."


"Aweel, then," said Sir John, "if you be much distressed in mind, you may speak to our minister of the parish; he is a douce1 man, regards the honour of our family, and the mair that he may look for some patronage from me."


Wi' that my gudesire readily agreed that the receipt should be burnt, and the Laird threw it into the chimney with his ain hand. Burn it would not for them, though; but away it flew up the lum,2 wi' a lang train of sparks at its tail, and a hissing noise like a squib.3


My gudesire gaed down to the manse,4 and the minister, when he had heard the story, said, it was his real opinion, that though my gudesire had gaen very far in tampering with such dangerous matters, yet, as he had refused the devil's arles5 (for such was the offer of meat and drink,) and had refused to do homage by piping at his bidding, he hoped, that if he held a circumspect walk hereafter, Satan could take little advantage by what was come and gane. And, indeed, my gudesire, of his ain accord, lang forswore baith the pipes and the brandy�it was not even till the year was out, and the fatal day passed, that he would so much as take the fiddle, or drink usquebaugh or tippeny.6


Sir John made up his story about the jackanape as he liked himsell; and some believe till this day there was no more in the matter than the filching nature of the brute. Indeed, ye'll no hinder some to threap,7 that it was nane o' the Auld Enemy that Dougal and my gudesire saw in the Laird's room, but only that wanchancy creature, the Major, capering on the coffin; and that as to the blawing on the Laird's whistle that was heard after he was dead, the filthy brute could do that as weel as the Laird himsell, if no better. But Heaven kens the truth, whilk first came out by the minister's wife, after Sir John and her ain gudeman8 were baith in the moulds.9 And then, my gudesire, wha was failed in his limbs, but not in his judgment or memory�at least nothing to speak of�was obliged to tell the real narrative to his freends, for the credit of his good name. He might else have been charged for a warlock.

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