winding round the hills on a broad road,
bringing the new cotton fabrics to the
"statesmen's" dwellings, but still carrying away the
"homespun," in which the Westmoreland
folks were as yet dressed. The "single thread"
wheels were destined to whirr for some time
longer; but a new source of profit was
opening to those who held land. There was
a call for an infinity of bobbins for the new
spinning-machines; and the proprietors of
bobbin-mills came from a distance to buy up
the coppices of the district. At first, the
effect of this new demand was to lay the
hill-sides barer than ever; but, as the wood
grew again, and its owners saw that the
demand was likely to be a lasting one, they
began to foster their woods, and to plant
anew on soil which could not grow anything
more immediately profitable. They arranged
a succession of coppices, so as to render it
feasible to sell to the axe one after another, as
it reached the age of from fifteen to twenty-one
years. Thus, with every extension of the growth
of cotton abroad, and of its manufacture
at home, there has been a new cherishing of
coppice in the Lake District; and much is
the beauty of the scenery enhanced by this,
and very valuable is the shelter given to
flocks, and to human habitations, and to the
tilled lands which lie between the woods.

There are myriads of bobbins sent from the
neighbourhood of Windermere, all over
Lancashire and Yorkshire, and into Scotland and
Ireland, and to the United States, and our own
colonies, and many to busy Belgium, where
the sound of the loom is heard in clusters of
towns. The bobbin-mills round Windermere
are, five mills (belonging to three establishments)
at Stavely; one at Troutbeck; one at
Hawkshead; one at Skelwith; and one at
Ambleside; all, probably, visible at once from
the top of Wansfell. That Ambleside mill was
a very humble affair a quarter of a century
ago. Let us see what may be found there now.

The viewers have made up their minds
about some tracts of coppice on the sides of
Wansfell, and we see by their looks that
before the primroses and wood anemones
cover the ground, in some dearly loved dells,
every sheltering twig will be gone, and only
stumps left. The axe will soon be calling out
the echoes from the rocks above, and then we
shall see piles of fagots, and stacks of bark,
awaiting the wains which will come clinking
and clanging and creaking along the wintry
road. While the viewers go down one side
of the mountains to see such portions of
Bishop Watson's woods, at Calgarth, as are on
sale this year, we will go down the other to
Horrox's mill at Ambleside.

Down we go, among the red ferns and green
mosses, and through many a boggy spot, to
the road, and within hearing of the Stock—
the beck (brook) which scampers down the
hollow between Wansfell and the road to
Patterdale. There lies Ambleside, nestling at
the base of the mountain—a mile inland from
the lake; and between us and Ambleside is
the exquisite waterfall, called Stockghyll Force.
Grander cataracts there may be—scarcely a
more beautiful one. A breast of rock,
feathered with wood, divides the stream
exactly in two—and each current takes two
leaps; so that the symmetry of the picture is
singular. The two lesser falls above, and the
two greater below, answer to each other, as
by the nicest art; yet the ravine is as wild as
if nobody had been here since the old Briton
and the wolf hid themselves together from
the Romans who were making a camp at
Ambleside, and a road along the ridge of the
Troutbeck hills. Along the verge of the
ravine and of the woods we go down, catching
glimpses through the foliage of white foam,
of green and brown stones, of clear gushes
of water below, until we see a humble grey
roof before us, and observe that the woods
are opening, and that the waters are smooth
as the oily flow of Niagara above Table Rock—
smooth, but rapid, as we see by a red and
yellow leaf here and there. Those leaves
danced merrily down from the bough, and
now they are sailing joyously into the midst
of a prodigious hubbub. They are close upon
the Weir; and we are close upon the old
mill, and the great brown water-wheel—a
very dark brown, but shedding diamonds
when touched by the sun; and now, in its
wet sheen, reflecting the emerald colour of the
opposite slope of the dell.

This is not much like visiting Birmingham
or Manchester manufactories. For the muddy
canal, we have a cataract of water "softer
than rain-water," the proprietor assures us,
and clear as starlight. The very sight of it,
slipping over the Weir, and drowning the
stones below, makes one thirsty. Instead of
the coiling smoke, we have the balancing
gossamer above the stream. The stir from
the fall shakes, but spares it. Instead of attic-
windows opposite, we have the old rookery.
The rooks are our spies and gossips here;
and they and the babbling waters seem to be
telling tales against each other, all the year
round. The rooks never fail, and the noise
never fails. We asked the proprietor whether
he had ever to complain of want of water.
"Very rarely, indeed," said he. "It is
scant only in very hot and dry summers,
and has not been so for some years now."
"And the noise; is it always like this?"
Does he live in the sound of a cataract?
O yes! and he never knows it, unless
reminded of it. And perhaps his men do not
know what an infernal din they are living in,
with those circular saws, and the whirring of
a multitude of wheels and lathes. We begin
to shrink from it, though we have as yet got
no further than the old mill. We just look
into it as we pass, and find it a mere room,
packed now with materials. The path which
winds up into the wood was the old road to
the mill; and this little yard held all the
timber.