Page:Lancashire Legends, Traditions, Pageants, Sports, Etc., with an Appendix Containing a Rare Tract.djvu/246

 There is an old school rhyme—

An old farmer in Furness, whose worldly goods had been subjected to the tender mercies of the law, is said to have added to this the following couplet:—

that is, at Ulverston and Dalton, pronounced as in the rhyme. In High Fumess it is said that "the towns are finished and the country unfinished." The first part of this paradoxical adage has arisen from the custom of distinguishing Hawkshead, the only town the district boasts, as "a finished town," because it has shown no increase, either in extent or population, probably for centuries. The second part refers chiefly to the western border of High Furness, where the chapelry of Seathwaite extends along the Lancashire side of the river Duddon, in the upper part of its course, and the scenery is remarkably wild; so that the arrangement, or rather the non-arrangement, of—

has given to the minds of certain imaginative observers the impression that the fair work of creation has been left somewhat incomplete there. Wordsworth tells of a traveller who, having arrived at Seathwaite over-night, walked out before breakfast; and being asked, on his return to the little public-house, how far he had been, replied, "As far as it is finished!" The soil and climate of Seathwaite are not favourable to the