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Buttermere to Torver, on the banks of Coniston-water, and taking 

 priest's orders, soon after which he took to wife a respectable maid 

 servant, whose affections he had gained at Buttermere, and who 

 brought him a fortune of forty pounds, which he forthwith invested 

 in the funds. Shortly after marriage he obtained the curacy of 

 Seathwaite, where he lived and officiated for sixty-seven years. 

 At the time of wonderful Walker's appointment, and for many 

 years afterwards, Seathwaite church was without pews. He used 

 it as a school-room, and is described as seated in his favourite 

 place, near the communion table, wearing a cloak of his own 

 making. His great-grandson tells us that, when the family was in want 

 of cloth, he would take his spinning-wheel with him to the school, 

 where he also kept a cradle — of course of his own making. Not 

 unfrequently the wheel, the cradle, and the scholars all claiming 

 his attention at the same moment, taxed the ingenuity of even 

 wonderful Walker to keep them all going. The chapel was after- 

 wards pewed, and a new school built. To the already long 

 catalogue of his attainments and pursuits must be added a know- 

 ledge of fossils and plants, and a habit of observing the stars and 

 winds. Indeed the atmosphere was one of his favourite studies : 

 he made many experiments on its nature and properties. In 

 summer he used to collect butterflies and other insects, and by his 

 entertaining descriptions of them, amused and instructed his 

 children. After a long and useful life, which extended over nearly 

 the whole of the last century, he died on the 25th June, 1802, in 

 the ninety-third year of his age. In the course of his long life he 

 had, besides bringing up and settling in Hfe a family of twelve 

 children, amassed the sum of ^^2,000 ; the accumulation of which, 

 when we consider the marvellous industry and self-denial which 

 it represented, might of itself entitle him to the name of "wonderful." 

 He was a hero in humble life — a greater hero than many in whose 

 honour monuments have been erected. 



Many of the chapels in our fell dales were extremely small, not 

 affording room for more than half-a-dozen families ; but the former 

 chapel at Buttermere, where wonderful Walker entered on his 

 sacred duties, was the smallest of all. It was, in fact, the smallest 



