The inhabitants of Borrodale were a proverb, even among their unpolished neighbours, for ignorance; and a thousand absurd and improbable stories are related of their stupidity; such as mistaking a red-deer, seen upon one of their mountains, for a horned horse; at the sight of which they assembled in considerable numbers, and provided themselves with ropes, thinking to take him by the same means as they did their horses when wild in the field, by running them into a strait, and then tripping them up with a cord. A chase of several hours proved fruitless; when they returned thoroughly convinced they had been chasing a witch. Such like is the story of the mule, which, being ridden into the dale by a stranger bound for the mountains, was left in the care of his host at the foot of a pass. The neighbours assembled to see the curious animal, and consulted the wise man of the dale as to what it could be. With his book, and his thoughts in serious deliberation, he was enabled to announce authoritatively that the brute was a peacock! So when a new light broke into Borrodale, and lime was first sent for from beyond Keswick; the carrier was an old dalesman with horse and sacks. Rain falling, it began to smoke: some water from the river was procured by him to extinguish the unnatural fire; but the evil was increased, and the smoke grew worse. Assured at length that he had got the devil in his sacks, as he must be in any fire which was aggravated by water, he tossed the whole load over into the river. The tale of the stirrups is perhaps a little too absurd even for Borrodale. A "'statesman" brought home from a distant fair or sale, what had never before been seen in the dale, a pair of stirrups. Riding home in them, when he reached his own door, his feet had become so fastened in them, that they could not be got out; so as there was no help for it, he patiently sat his horse in the pasture for a day or two, his family bringing him food, then it was proposed to bring them both into the stable, which was done; his family bringing him food as before. At length it occurred to some one that he might be lifted with the saddle from the horse, and carried thereupon into the house. There the mounted man sat spinning wool in a corner of the kitchen, till the return of one of his sons from St. Bees school, whose learning, after due consideration of the case, suggested that the good man should draw his feet out of his shoes: when to the joy of his family he was restored to his occupation and to liberty. But the story of the Cuckoo has made its local name the "Gowk" synonymous with an inhabitant of the vale. There the Spring was very charming, and the voice of the bird rare and gladsome. It occurred to the natives that a wall built across the entrance of their valley, at Grange,