Beyond, or above, the inn you are leaving, is the residence of Mr James Garth Marshall, one of the princely manufacturers of that name in Leeds; it is surrounded by—excepting in some particulars Rydal Hall—decidedly the finest demesne in the Lake district, so far as the most beautiful combination of all the elements of natural and artificial loveliness can establish its superiority; for nowhere else have I seen wood and water, hill and valley, green sward and purple heather, rugged crag and velvet slope, grey rock and bright blossoming shrubs brought under the eye at once, in such magnificent contrast. Over the western side of the grounds, you may note the picturesquely rugged and jagged summit of Raven Crag, at the head of Yewdale, and nearer to you, but still more to the west, the wild, precipitous and lofty Yewdale crags. Over them the long ridge of Henn Crag, and higher still the broad summit of Weatherlam; and, as you row farther down the lake, the lofty undulating range connecting those with the Old Man, which last you may now contemplate in all his hoary grandeur and rugged magnificence. And, having just shewn you one of the finest demesnes and grandest mountain groups in the Lake district, I now shew you the most romantically situated village, parts nestled at the foot of the steep craggy hills, and parts stuck here and there upon the face of the adjacent declivity, every separate detachment, whether consisting of one or many houses, having its own separate designation, but forming altogether the village of Church Conistone, and containing, by the last census, twelve hundred people. Its scattered appearance suggests the idea of something having, at some former period, flown across the country with a bagful of houses, and losing a number here in irregular lots through a hole in the sack. And here, close by in the apex, or, to speak nautically, the bight of the bay, between a row of lofty sycamores and the wide-spread woods of the old park, stands Conistone Hall, the ancient seat of the once warlike family of le Fleming, but now a farm house—with a considerable portion removed, and the banquet hall, wherein, of old, knightly revellers befuddled their brains in honour of high born ladies, converted into a barn, and a mighty commodious barn it makes; but how very applicable would be a quotation from Hamlet here, were it not hackneyed. The hall's most striking features now are its massive ivy-clad chimneys, though it is well worthy a closer inspection, and I shall perhaps tell you more about it at our next confabulation. CHAPTER II. DAYLIGHT VERSUS MOONLIGHT—POSSIBLE RESULTS OF MOONLIGHT LAKING OR LOVE-MAKING—CONISTONE HALL—“THE HALL CLIPPING”—VALE OF YEWDALE—YEWDALE CRAGS—OLD YEW TREE—RAVEN CRAG—HUNTING INCIDENT. [Sidenote: MONITION.]