168 
HARDY FERNS. 
gone down amidst the Westmoreland hills. At 
the Carlisle station, Wordsworth's little grand- 
child met me with a basket of grapes. I took 
them with me into the land so sacred to his 
memory ; and not to his memory alone, for the 
whole district seemed haunted by spirit shapes, 
jainging at me choice bits of sparkling wit or 
caustic humour, with here and there strange 
touches of tender melody. Sometimes I seemed 
to hail Professor Wilson, sometimes Coleridge ; 
while Southey and Wordsworth gave me more 
friendly greeting, lingering wdth me by every lake 
and tarn, speaking to me out of the rushing 
waterfall, setting their own sweet rhymes to 
Nature's harmonies. 
Our first halt was at Windermere, from which 
we made many excursions amongst the hills. We 
found Hymenophyllum Wilsoni at Dungeon Gill 
Force, to which we drove by Loughrigg Fell, 
seeing a curious sort of haymaking going on by 
the way, where men took the place of pitchforks, 
and cast the hay abroad " with their hands. 
