Duddon Daffodils

( Originally Published 1902 )

THE Spring had been a late one, a fortnight late the farmers said, and the " daffodils that come before the swallow dares and take the winds with beauty," had shown an unaccustomed fearfulness. Though they shone indeed upon southern banks in Under-Skiddaw, and in the sheltered wood of the island of Derwentwater, it was not till the swallow was seen hawking along the Derwent on April 13th, and the cuckoo two days after was heard in the Crosthwaite valley, that I felt sure that the Duddon daffodils would be in full splendour, and determined to take the first opportunity for my annual sight of them.

Meanwhile the wind went round to the south, and a sense of midsummer suddenly possessed the air ; so, taking an early train on Wednesday, the 17th April, I began a fifty mile pilgrimage for that vision of flowerland glory which whoso sees thinks that not fifty, but five hundred miles were not too far a journey to obtain a memory of.

"Never did sun more beautifully steep
In its first splendour, mountain, lake, and hill"

as passing by the coltsfoot-covered railway banks, and the amber-red plots of sweet gale, I dived through the primrose-scented woodland by the Bassenthwaite shore, on by Wordsworth's birthplace, on by the shining Derwent, to Workington, with its memories of Mary Queen of Scots, and that sight of ` the glimmering western sea,' which charmed Matthew Arnold. Criffel stood up in lilac haze across the Solway, the Isle of Man lay like a giant whale upon the waterflood. On by Whitehaven, or as it would be better called Blackhaven that Spenser may have seen and Shelley once knew; so by St. Bees with its tradition of the Abbess and her Irish broideresses, of Algrind, Spenser's friend, the brave and blind Elizabethan bishop, on by the huts by the sea the Viking fishers knew, the Wastdale hills shining inland milky-white, with their rain-blanched winter grasses shot with cobalt shadows from wandering clouds ; so by Raven-glass where the Roman general built him a lordly house and where the Britons of an earlier day buried their dead seafarers, by Irt, Mite, and Esk, and the harbour of King Averling's town we went, and the black-headed gulls sailed over us, and when we paused at little seaside stations the larks sang loud in our ears. Black Combe, russet red, shone down in solemn sunlit beauty ; Whicham with its memory of Faber the poet over its grassy valley, Millom with its torches by the sea on the one hand, and its gibbet field and echo of feudal days on the other, were hurried by ; we got a glimpse of the level meads and the shining sands of the Duddon Estuary, and at last Foxfield bade us change our train for the little line that leads to Broughton and Coniston. Doubtless the time to arrive at Broughton is not midday but eventide: then the long range of Black Combe stands like a solid amethyst against a saffron sky, then the gradual muster of the stars begins; one sees beyond the church and its dark yews, the range from Bleasby Bank that lifts gradually to the broken Dow Craggs to Walna Scar and the Coniston Old Man, in all variety of shadowy grey to purple hue, and far up in the folds of the hills shine white the pleasant fellside farms.

But I had come to see the daffodils, and making my way through the quaint little street, with its 'Brown Cow' here and its Black Cock' there, I paused at the old ' King's Head' to renew my acquaintance with the comely dame, who, as the presiding genius, had in former years supplied me with rest and food. But the sun was out and the daffodils were calling, and I would not linger now, so after ordering an afternoon meal I strolled up the steep road to climb the hill which separates Broughton from the Duddon valley. A sturdy kindly dalesman, whose for-bears had been on the soil for centuries stood at the cross roads at the top, and to refresh my memory with the names of the hills in the neighbourhood I fell to talk with him.

" Well, well," he said, " there was a bishop yance coom'd on your errand to see the daffies and axed me just sic-like questions, they caw'd him Selwyn, savages got at him and kilt him in some islands over sea. I was nowt but a young un then, and he axed me hoo far it was over fells to Whitehaven, and I tell't him I couldn't for certain tell, and he slapt his hand into his pocket and out wi' a shilling, and he said, 'That's for telling truth' ; and I tell't him I couldn't help it I was made that way."

I learnt that evening in Broughton that the man was still called ' Honest John' throughout the village.

" Well," he said, gazing out south, " sea, so the ald folks say in t'ald daays coom'd reet up over midders to church. Well, well, yon fell beyon Keppelray they ca' Goatthwaite," and he pointed out to the moor beyond Eccleriggfell ; and here in a single sentence one got a glimpse of medieval times when the monks at Furness Abbey said mass at the Chapel on the Church ridge, and the goat-herds drove their goats afield from morn till eventide. " Aye, aye," said the old fellow, " it's tied to be an ald plaace, this Broughton of ours, there's a Norman tower they say in't middle of Broughton Hall, and there's a bit of a Roman road runs from Duddon Brig yonder down to Greety Gate."

I asked for particulars about Greety Gate. All he knew about it was that the boats used to come thither, and it is just possible that the good wives wept when the Broughton fisher-men set forth, and gave them greeting when the tide brought nets and fishermen home. Then we turned our faces to the north and west, and the old fellow named the various ridges and hills all up the estuary to beyond Donner-dale Hill.

" Ridge at the back," he said, "is Black Combe, ridge in front mostly what gets Barrow. Druids' Temple is just over Barrow there, there's a great sale on there to-day, best way is over the brig and up by the forge, it's a grand circle of stones, girt plaace in Druid daays I suppoase."

" What about the forge ? " I said.

" Well," he said, " it's nowt but a ruin nowadaays, beyond Duddon Brig there, but in auld time there was a deal of smelting of this red ore with charcoal went on there."

" And what's that house," I said, "above it."

" Lower Duddon Hall," he replied, "and t'other a mile up the Vale is Duddon Hall proper, and there's daffies all the way between them."

"What is that great conical fell," I said, " that rises above Duddon Hall ?"

" It mostly-what gets Pen " he said, "and Loggan beck comes down on left side of it, and there's a lile hill much same mack behind it they call " Pen Jennet," and big fell a back of baith is Hest Fell."

How interesting it was ! What memories were awakened of the British time long since passed away, and there across the Duddon dwelt the Cymri folk who went to their Logan stone beside the beck and climbed their pens for safety, or the Vikings who drove their horses on to the horse or ` Hest Fell,' and for all I know kept their mares on the enclosure of the ' little Pen.'

" Is there much water in the Duddon ? " I said, " for I hear the Furness folk are going to drink it dry."

" At times," he answered, " it is window-high in yon cottage by the brig, but it runs off very sharp and scours a deal. Millom folks say that it'll make sad work for the shipping there if they prevent the scour, but I suppose Parliament-men will likely see to that job."

" What are those hills," I asked, " on the right-hand side of the Duddon mouth, with the cluster of cottages rising picturesquely against the wooden background ? "

" They call it Bleasley Banks, and if you wad see sic a sight of primroses as nivver was, you mud coom back fra' daffies, cross th' brig, and up beyont houses, intil t' meadows beneath the plantings. Last year theer was acres of them, you might smell them for far enuff."

"Do many people come to see the daffodils?" I said.

" Noa, noa," he replied, " charabongs hasn't begun to run yet from Barrow, and though when daffies goes, whole plaace is a sheet of bluebells, there mostly what aw beneath grund agin before tourist folk cooms this waay, beside what, daffies is nowt but daffies efter aw."

I bade adieu to my friend, the truth speaker, and diving down into the Lickle " valley, passed a road made beautiful on either side of it by the stately wands of the osier hedge, so reached the Lickle bridge which the Lancashire County Council had apparently renamed " Little to judge by the inscription on the central parapet stone, and so gained the Duddon Bridge. There as I stood watching the water, crystal-clear, cast the shadows of its dimpling upon the grey blue shallows, I was suddenly attracted to a gleam of gold in the sparse woodland by the bank, and passing by the forge up the road through the open copse towards Duddon Hall, the scent, not of violets, but of garlic for the moment troubled me ; but I forgot all about the wild garlic in the beauty of the white anemones and the scentless grey blue violets which spangled the under growth, and after about a hundred yards I found myself at the beginning of such a woodland field of the cloth of gold as ever was laid for the coming of a May Queen, or the royal pageant of spring. I had no right to leave the road, but if all the retinue of the laird of Donnerdale had come out against me, I feel I should have made a dash for it, for here, in the copse of grey ash shoots, and purpling birches, and glossy hazels, filled with the song of birds innumerable, with the sound of Duddon lisping among its pebbles and chiming merrily in my ear, were thousands upon tens of thousands of the bright-eyed daffodils growing in silent splendour unimaginable.

The children of countless years, they seemed to have possessed themselves of every square foot of the tender undergrowth, they found foothold on the runnel edges, they glowed within the shadow of the woodland trenches, they dazzled the sun itself from the rocky knolls, they shook with delight upon the river islands and nodded and moved to their own shadows in the quiet pools. " A poet could not but be gay in such a jocund company." One felt oneself smiling all over with pure gladness to think of the happiness of this vast multitude of April children, and one thanked the poet of the Duddon for having put into such simple verse his faith to make it the faith of others, namely, that " every flower enjoys the air it breathes." We strolled slowly on through the golden company. From Barrow, russet red with fern above and russet brown with budding oak below, there came the sweet mellow cush of the wood-pigeon's note, that 'churring' of content that drives all care away, and the thrush hid in the tassels of the birch sang,

"Summer is coming, summer is coming,
I know it, I know it, I know it."

True little poet indeed, for here was "light again, leaf again, light again, love again," in the valley of the golden daffodil.

Sunshine showered upon me as I passed along the Duddon, and the old disused mill-race. At my side, the shells of the wind-flower, opened so wide for delight, one felt they would not care to close again. Here and there like bits of lapis lazuli, the first bluebell was seen, and there in deepest gold, the marigold clusters shone. Lifting one's eyes from the daffodils for a moment, and looking up towards the copses on the opposite shore one saw, as my honest friend had told me, "sic sheets of primroses as nivver waur" They broidered the hedgerows, they sheeted the meadow lands and filled the cool interspace of shade and sun with tender light, and the blackbirds carolled with their deepest altos, the thrushes called with their highest trebles, and the chiffchaffs quavered and thrilled from the fragrant larch tresses, and with the sound of water in my ears, and melody of birds filling the air, I passed to where nearer Duddon Hall the daffodil myriads shone in their royallest splendour. Here in their wanton love of wandering they had passed beyond the edges of the copse-land, and madcap revellers were tossing their heads in the open meadow-land with such sense of exuberance of joy as made one just sit down amongst them and let their golden frolic fill one's blood. The inexorable hours would not allow of one's remaining, or one might have been sitting there in daffodil delight now. Never did Duddon valley, with its blue distance, and its hanging woods by Osier and Donnerdale, its crystal river, and its blue grey shadows, seem more fair.

I passed back a happier man and leaned upon the Duddon Bridge; I was in good company, the Poet of the daffodil was at my side ; it was for all I knew the last time I should be permitted to see so fair an April day, the river " gliding at its own sweet will " down-ward to the sea had glided thus, before the druids went a-worshipping beneath yonder hill, and if the Barrow Waterworks Company will permit, will go on gliding for ten thousand years, with just such crystal clearness, just such sound. These daffodils that lay their golden light along the stream, and fill the woodland with their " stationary sunshine," so grew, and so lightened the copses, when the Britons clomb the Pen, or the Roman soldiers made their great coast road, or the Vikings grazed their horses on Hest Fell. Ten thousand years hence these daffodils shall shine for other eyes with just the same power to touch the human heart with tender gratitude and springtide joy. How could one help thinking that afterthought that possessed Wordsworth's mind, as years ago he leaned upon this bridge and thought of coming change and nature's changelessness :

" I thought of thee my partner and my guide As being passed away. Vain sympathies ! For, backward, Duddon ! as I cast my eyes, I see what was, and is, and will abide ; Still glides the stream, and shall for ever glide ; The form remains, the function never dies ; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish ; be it so !

Enough, if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know."