CHAP, n SCENERY OF WENSLEYDALE 5 



In this quiet spot, far from the busy haunts of men, 

 Fothergill was born, and here he must have spent his 

 early boyhood. He would roam along these dales and 

 climb the fells, and visit the waterfalls hidden in their 

 wooded clefts. He would seek the sheep in the high 

 pastures, then unwalled, and help perhaps to fetch peat 

 from the bogs on the summit. He knew the labours of 

 haytime, and the toil of the cheese-press. Often he 

 would watch the moving patch of sunshine that travels 

 along the hillside, often listen to the curlew's scream as 

 it circles about the fell top in summer, and often gaze at 

 the cattle standing deep in the water of the lake to cool 

 their feet. The face of the heavens in this hill country 

 is ever changing, and its changes form a chief topic of 

 thought and speech. Sunrise and sunset, the fair sky 

 that favours the shepherd's toil, the masses of cloud that 

 darken the earth, the storms that come from west or 

 from east these seem to be on a grander scale, and to be 

 more instinct with life and movement, among the hills 

 than in the lowland or the town. All the imagery of the 

 eighth Psalm, in praise of the Power behind Nature, 

 might have been taken from Wensleydale. Old legends, 

 too, cling to the dark shapes of rock or mountain. Did 

 not giants once on Addlebrough and on Stake Fell hurl 

 great boulders at one another ? The Carlow Stone lies 

 where then it fell at the foot of the lake. A wandering 

 beggar's curse tells of the time when a town stood in 

 the dale : 



Simmer water rise, Simmer water sink, 

 And swallow all the town, 

 Save yon li'le house, 



Where they gave me meat and drink. 



cupboards, 'cabinets, desk, etc., also a small " tinder box cupboard " on the 

 first floor. The fine curved staircase at the back seems to belong to Dr. 

 Fothergill's time, and may have been added at his instance and expense : the 

 house was mortgaged to him in 1778. The original wooden beams of the 

 " houseplace " and other low rooms on the ground floor remain : the roof of 

 the upper floor has been raised. The eastern end of the house, with separate 

 staircase, is said to have been added for a certain John Fothergill on his 

 marriage. There is a description of the house, under the name of Scar Foot, 

 and of the surrounding scenery, in a well-known tale, Kith and Kin, written 

 by Jessie Fothergill, grand-daughter of the last Fothergill owner of Carr End, 

 and published in 1881. She died at Berne in 1891. 



