Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.Jenkinson, Emily J.
General
Barbara Lynn: A Tale of the Dales and Fells.
Jenkinson, Emily J.
Westmorland (England) -- Fiction
The church is rarely used now, for the village has sunk into ruins.
Among the roofless cottages the stonechats may be seen flitting in and
out all through the long spring and summer days, and they build their
nests in the whin-bushes that grow in the old house-places. The sheep
come there to crop the grass, for it has a greener tinge, and tastes
sweeter than that but a few steps away on the fellside; and a great grey
mountain fox once made its home in a chimney. But the Brownriggs, the
Yewdales, the Idles, the Flemings--those worthy families who had lived
there for many grandfathers back, as they used to say, are all gone from
the old homesteads, allured by that will-o'-the-wisp which shines so
brightly and persistently in the streets of our great cities, and yet
rarely brings the traveller to anything better than the peat-pots, and
marsh mosses of Quaking Hag.
The change had come quickly, within two generations. It came with the
power loom and the whirling of wheels, with the dying down of the old
industries, and the introduction of the new, which screamed out, like a
mad midwife, that they were bringing in the Golden Age.
Forty years ago, smoke could still be seen issuing from the chimneys of
High Fold. The old folk left behind, used to meet at the well of a
summer's morning, and gossip about the days gone by. At that time the
pillar was still standing in the kirk-garth--a tall, finely-formed
column resting upon a Greek pedestal, but broken off roughly across the
top to show that it commemorated a life untimely ended. Travellers
rarely came that way, but those who did would stop to read the words
engraved upon it, and enquire further about Barbara Lynn, and ask who
Peter and Lucy Fleming were, that had raised the monument to her memory.
Now moss, and the action of the weather, have partly obliterated the
lettering, yet a careful hand and a sharp eye may still lay it bare.
Kneeling on the grass beside it you can read this inscription:
"Barbara Lynn died with her great-grandmother at the fall of Mickle
Crags in Boar Dale. Their bodies lie buried in the Great Barrow
erected over them by Nature; their souls are free and immortal."
Then follow the date and their ages. Barbara was only twenty-six; her
great-grandmother was one hundred years old. Below that, Peter had
caused to be engraved these words:
"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail,
Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,
Dispraise or blame, nothing but well and fair
And what may quiet us in a death so noble."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account