Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials ‘B. H. J.,’ which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers at that time. On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow little street that curves steeply up the hill there are peeps of the dale that are quite exhilarating. The square-topped Addlebrough is separated from us by a great airy space, and looking up and down the broad dale which widens eastwards and becomes narrower and more rugged to the west, there appears to be a vastness lying around us which no plain can suggest. We can see Wether Fell, with the road we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below, where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand. All the big clouds that yesterday could scarcely hold up their showers for the shortest intervals have disappeared; perhaps they have now reached the river in liquid form, and are sparkling in the sunshine that now comes, without interruption, from their spotless cenotaph. We will follow Shelley’s metaphor no further, for there is water enough everywhere to fill the dales with all the roarings and murmurings that the forces and gills can supply, and we would gladly forget the cloud’s ‘silent laugh’ as it begins to unbuild the blue dome of heaven.