THE VILLAGE AND CHURCH AGAIN—THE DEER PARK—HIGH GROUND, LITTLE ARROW, AND HAWTHWAITE—TORVER—HEM HALL—TORVER MILL—SUNNY BANK—OXNESS—BROWN HOW—WATER-YEAT—ARKLID—NIBTHWAITE—WATERPARK—THE LAKE FOOT—“THE GRIDIRON,” AND FIR ISLAND—BRANTWOOD—CONISTONE BANK—BANK GROUND—T’ HO'PENNY YALL 'US—TENT LODGE. I intend now to treat you to a fourteen miles’ ride, namely, down the western side of the Lake and up the eastern, to accomplish which it is necessary again to pass through the village by Yewdale Bridge, the Crown Inn and the Church. When I last mentioned the Church to you, I think I alluded to “an old oak chest,” with a very oddly constructed padlock, in which chest is deposited a mass of ancient documents connected with the ecclesiastical business of the chapelry. Since then, through the polite attention of my urbane and erudite friend, the parish clerk, I have had an opportunity of rummaging at will through these parochial archives, but the only papers possessing the least interest were a number of slips, each recording the oaths of two people—always females by the bye—as to the costume in which defunct persons were carried to their long home. As these afford a striking and instructive instance of the wisdom of our ancestors, and refer to an act of Parliament, of the existence of which, at any period of our national annals, perhaps you were not cognizant, any more than I was myself, I have taken the liberty of transcribing one of the most legible; and here it is:— [Sidenote: AN OLD MONOPOLY.] Parociall Chappell de Coniston. We Elizabeth Grigg widdow and Agnes Fleming widow—doe severally make oath that ye corps of Elizabeth wife of George Towers was buryed April ye 3d day Anno Dmi 1688 And was not put in wrapt or wound up in any shirt shift sheet or shroud made or mingled with Flax Hemp Hair Gold or Silver &c; nor in any coffin lined or faced with Cloath &c; nor now other material but sheeps wooll only According to Act of Parliamt. In Testemony whereof we ye sd. Eliz Grigg and Agnes Fleming have hereunto set our hands and seals Capt. et. Jurat Septimo die Elizabeth Grigg Aprilis Anno Dmie 1688 Her X mark Coram me Agnes Fleming Rogero Atkinsonne Her X mark You cross the Church Bridge, and, riding down the village in the same direction as before, leave it at Parkgate, where the road enters the old deer park, still pretty well covered with coppice wood, oaks and other trees from the Lake side, about half a mile to your left to the top of Bleathwaite, the same distance to your right. Looking back from the little height beyond Parkgate, you have a delicious view of the scenery around the upper part of the Lake, and it is, perhaps, as well that the wooded park soon screens this view from your admiring retrospection, or it is possible that your progress southward might be seriously retarded by your “longing, lingering looks behind.”