120 BOREOWDALB. 



Grange. The plan did not answer ; but that was, 

 according- to the popular belief from generation 

 to generation^ because the wall was not built one 

 course higher. It is simply for want of a top- 

 course in that wall that eternal spring does not 

 reign in Borrowdale. Another anecdote shows, 

 however, that a bright wit did occasionally show 

 himself among them. A "statesman" (an '^ estates- 

 man/' or small proprietor) went one day to a 

 distant fair, or sale, and brought home what neither 

 he nor his neighbours had ever seen before — a pair 

 of stirrups. Home he came jogging, with his feet 

 in his stirrups ; but, by the time he reached his 

 own door, he had jammed his feet in so fast that 

 they would not come out. There was great alarm 

 and lamentation; but as it could not be helped 

 now, the good man patiently sat his horse in the 

 pasture for a day or two, his family bringing him 

 food, till the eldest son, vexed to see the hoi^e 

 suiiering by exposure, proposed to bring them both 

 into the stable. This was done ; and there sat 

 the farmer for several days, — his food being 

 brought to him as before. At length it struck 

 the second son that it was a pity not to make his 

 father useful, and release the horse ; so he proposed 

 to carry him, on the saddle, into the hoase. By 

 immense exertion it was done; the horse being^ 

 taken alongside the midden in the yard, to ease*the 

 fall : and the good man found himself imder his 

 own roof again, — spinning' wool in a corner of the 

 kitchen. There the mounted man sat spinning', 

 through the cleverness of his second son, till the 

 lucky hour arrived of the youngest son^s return,- — 

 he being a scholar, — a learned student from St. 



