BY TROUTBECK TO KIRKSTONE PASS AND PATTERDALE, AND HOME BY AMBLESIDE

The country people will tell the traveller, as he turns up to Troutbeck at Cook's House, that he is going to see “the handsomest view in these parts,—especially at the back end of the year.” And wonderfully fine the views are, as the road ascends, commanding the entire lake, and the whole range of mountains from Coniston Old Man to Fairfield. The singular valley of Troutbeck was once a wooded basin, where the terrified Britons took refuge from the Romans, while the latter were making their great road from Kendal to Penrith. That road actually ran along the very ridge of the Troutbeck hills, as any one may see who will climb the mountain called, for this reason, High Street. What a sight it must have been—the pioneers felling the trees, and paving the way, and the soldiers following, with their armour and weapons gleaming in the sun, while the trembling natives cowered in the forest below,—listening now to the blows of the workmen, and now to the warlike music of the troops, marching up from Kendal! After Romans and Saxons were gone, the valley was a great park, and the inhabitants were virtually serfs, in danger of the gallows, (which had a hill to itself, named after it to this day) at the will and pleasure of the one great man.