Then soon as ceased the second song, the first-seen boat drew nigh, And promptly did the first-heard voice in harmony reply; And still I lingered on the lake unseen from either boat, While Brantwood’s echoes multiplied each bosom-thrilling note. As boat crossed boat—song after song did their fair crews repeat Across the cool and glancing mere, in alternation sweet; And still I lingered on the lake, and prayed they might prolong Till day their strife of melody, alternate song and song. And when they ceased, all nature seemed involved in sudden shade, The lake its placid brightness lost, the moonlight seemed to fade; No more I lingered on the lake—I felt the charm was fled, And feeling, too, I’d caught a cold, went sneezing home to bed. [Sidenote: FARTHER WEST.] When I commenced this tedious, but, in your case, requisite digression, you were seated in a boat upon the lake, and staring with all your might at the turret-like, ivy-clad chimneys of Conistone Hall; concerning which hall West, the precise and industrious Furnesian Antiquary, who published his great work in 1774, says therein—“Conistone Hall appears upon the bank of the lake; it was for many ages the seat of the Flemings, and though now abandoned and in ruins, it has the air of grandeur and magnificence.” And again, in his history of the family who possess it, he says—“Sir Richard le Fleming, in the reign of Henry III., married Elizabeth, daughter and heir of Adam de Urswick, by which marriage he acquired the manor of Conistone, and other considerable possessions in Furness;” and—“Upon the acquisition of the manor of Conistone, the family returned to Furness, the first seat of the Flemings. The Castle of Caernarvon was abandoned, then erased, and Conistone Hall was the family seat for seven generations. After the union of Lancaster with Le Fleming (temp. Hen. 4th), Rydal and Conistone vied with each other for seven generations more to fix the family in Westmorland or Lancashire. Sir Daniel le Fleming came and gave it against the latter; since that event (about 1650-60), the Hall of Conistone, pleasantly situated upon the banks of the lake of that name, has been deserted.” [Sidenote: MORE OF “THE HALL.”]