NOTE.—I ought, in this tenth division of my discourse, to have remembered my promise relative to the floating island. I make the best reparation I can by telling you now, that the last time I saw the said island, it was stranded amongst the reeds between the Copper Quay at Nibthwaite and the outlet of the lake, and when I looked for it again, it had left that berth, and gone I knew not whither; but on enquiring after it at the Commodore of the Copper fleet, I was informed that the erratic object of my solicitude is now occupying a berth in juxta-position to Mr Harrison’s quay, below Waterpark, where it may be inspected. Ben’s memory is failing, or he would have told me the number of trees upon it, having counted them one day whilst on duty in its vicinity. However, it may suffice to inform you that it is a piece of earth about twenty yards square, well covered with herbage and young birches of decent growth. Altogether, were it not for its unfortunate preference of short to long voyages, it would be a highly important addition to the attractions of Conistone Water, and decidedly the best specimen of its genus in the kingdom. CHAPTER XI. YEWDALE BECK—THE PARSONAGE—OAK COTTAGE—HOLLIN-HOW—FAR-END—THE SAW MILLS—YEWDALE—“GIRT WILL’S GRAVE”—HOLME GROUND—TILBERTHWAITE—HODGECLOSE—SLATE-QUARRIES. This ramble being, in play-bill phrase, positively our last performance here this season, I am inclined to make it a pretty long one; therefore, you had better order out your pony, and be off without loss of time. You may canter along the road to the village as far as Yewdale bridge, and, crossing it, turn to your right, and proceed along a narrow, shaded, and rugged lane up the banks of the stream. The house across a field or two to your left, with some fine oaks beside it, is the Parsonage, both the house and grounds of which have been much beautified and extended by the present incumbent. You soon gain the high road at a neat little house called Oak Cottage; and may notice a little beyond it a handsome, but not very large residence, called Hollin-how, and near to that, close under the beetling precipice, a picturesque group of new cottages and old farm buildings, bearing the odd title of Far-end. Continuing to skirt the brook, you pass a pool close under the road, and divided from it only by a few trees and bushes growing upon the steep high bank, and I may now inform you that this pool, called Cawdrell, or Cauldron Dub, has been haunted, as also has Yewdale Bridge, for a century or two, by certain apparitions who develope their incorporealities in a somewhat eccentric manner, of which I shall tell you more directly. [Sidenote: AN EXORDIUM.]