But his ears were open also to the quaint sayings and superstitions, and his eyes were on the quaint ways and customs of the dalesmen {138} amongst whom he dwelt and moved, and these observations bore good fruit in the paper written in 1841, the year before his marriage, for the Kendal Natural History Society, entitled 'A Sketch of some of the Existing and Recent Superstitions of Westmoreland.' It was doubtless a source of gratification to William Pearson that the son of the poet should be the officiating minister in Bowness Church the day he led his wife to the altar, in May of 1842. And he must needs have been pleased on his return to Low House after a wedding jaunt through the lakes, to find that Hartley Coleridge, who had called to congratulate him on his marriage, left behind him an impromptu sonnet. It had, as most of Hartley's sonnets have, a little touch of description of the life both of himself and of his friend, the gentle estatesman: 'A little man of solitary life And half an idiot too--more helpless still-- Can wish all joy to thee and to thy wife; Thy love must be as constant as thy will. My gentle friend, how happy mayst thou be! Thou hast a wife to pray--and pray with thee.' During the coming June of 1842 Pearson took his wife to the Continent. He had long {139} planned this trip; writing to his friend Thomas Smith in April of 1841, to tell him of his intended venture on 'that variety of untried being,' marriage, he says that Mr. Wordsworth has advised him to make a Swiss and Italian tour before age renders him unfit for foot-travel, and adds that his future wife 'is an excellent walker, and is quite willing to share the fatigue, and he is sure she will share the pleasure.' There is a note of simplicity in this intention to see the Swiss and Italian lakes afoot--the bridegroom now more than three score years, but a 'young heart travels many a mile,' and William Pearson's heart was young to the last. Wordsworth supplied him with an itinerary which he faithfully followed. After the tour they stayed on until the spring at Versoix, near Geneva, and his journal shows that he was busy making naturalist notes all the while. There is a touching note in his journal of his delight on getting back to his Westmoreland home. The blue mountains and the well-known fells, and the ivy-covered cottage of Low House, and the happy greetings from beloved friends. These deeply moved him. There was no suitable house for the happy couple in Crosthwaite, and after staying at {140} Low House for the winter, he went into lodgings at High Crag. Lodgings were not William Pearson's ideal of home life, and though he was a man of sixty-seven he determined in 1847 to build a house on his own estate.