Nooks and Corners of Lancashire and Cheshire.: A Wayfarer's Notes in the Palatine Counties, Historical, Legendary, Genealogical, and Descriptive.Croston, James
History
Nooks and Corners of Lancashire and Cheshire.: A Wayfarer's Notes in the Palatine Counties, Historical, Legendary, Genealogical, and Descriptive.
Croston, James
Cheshire (England); Lancashire (England)
the trackless waste, the incongruous grouping suggesting the idea
of an Eastern caravan on its passage across the desert. If nothing
else, the journey had the charm of novelty and adventure, which in
some degree compensated for the hazard incurred; and the scenes of
danger and disaster witnessed have furnished the theme for more than
one exciting story, as “Carlyon’s Year” and the “Sexton’s Hero” bear
witness. But the romance of the sands is fast passing away. The guides
have now comparatively little to do, the perilous path is traversed
less and less frequently every year, so that ere long we shall probably
only hear of it as a traditional feature of the times when the name of
Stephenson was unknown and railways were only in the womb of time.
On the western side of the Milnthorpe Sands, nestling at the foot of
the green slopes of Yewbarrow, with its whitened dwellings peeping
from their garniture of leaves, and its rock-strewn beach lipped by the
capricious sea, is the slowly-rising village of Grange, with its sands
and its sea, its pleasant walks and cheerful drives, all sheltered from
the north winds by the great Cartmel fells clustering at its back. A
place that lures you by the peaceful quietude that prevails, for here
Ethiopian serenaders and blind bag-pipers are unknown, and youthful
lazzaroni with white mice and pink-eyed guinea pigs are beings the
people wot not of. It is not “dressy,” nor is it fashionable in the
sense that Scarborough is, so that you can take your ease in your
inn without risk of being chilled by the freezing presence of Lord
Shingleton or my Lady Marina. The wandering creature who calls himself
a tourist, and is always in search of some new sensation, passes it by
as slow and unexciting, and the herd of holiday-makers who delight to
perform aquatic _poses plastiques_ once a year prefer to do so in such
over-crammed places as Southport, or that marine Babylon—Blackpool.
Nevertheless, it is a pleasant place to stay at when you have nothing
to do, and all the day to do it in; a retreat where you can shake off
those fancies associated with everyday life that cloud the brow and
spoil the digestion, and get rid of that
Army of phantoms vast and wan
That beleaguer the human soul.
But our present purpose is not to write a description of Grange, for
though it is a pleasant place to stay at it is also a pleasant place
to go away from—a convenient spot from whence little excursions can
be made to neighbouring places of interest and attraction, and this
time it is Wraysholme Tower, the ruined home of the once powerful
Harringtons, and the rocky promontory of Humphrey Head, where tradition
says the last wolf “in England’s spacious realm” was hunted down, that
attracts our wandering steps.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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