We took a path that leads from the hotel across the fields, and, coming
into a wood, crosses the Rothay by a one-arched bridge and passes the
village church. The Rothay is very swift and turbulent to-day, and
hurries along with foam-specks on its surface, filling its banks from
brim to brim,--a stream perhaps twenty feet wide, perhaps more; for I am
willing that the good little river should have all it can fairly claim.
It is the St. Lawrence of several of these English lakes, through which
it flows, and carries off their superfluous waters. In its haste, and
with its rushing sound, it was pleasant both to see and hear; and it
sweeps by one side of the old churchyard where Wordsworth lies buried,---
the side where his grave is made. The church of Grasmere is a very plain
structure, with a low body, on one side of which is a small porch with a
pointed arch. The tower is square and looks ancient; but the whole is
overlaid with plaster of a buff or pale yellow hue. It was originally
built, I suppose, of rough shingly stones, as many of the houses
hereabouts are now, and, like many of them, the plaster is used to give a
finish. We found the gate of the churchyard wide open; and the grass was
lying on the graves, having probably been mowed yesterday. It is but a
small churchyard, and with few monuments of any pretension in it, most of
them being slate headstones, standing erect. From the gate at which we
entered, a distinct foot-track leads to the corner nearest the riverside,
and I turned into it by a sort of instinct, the more readily as I saw a
tourist-looking man approaching from that point, and a woman looking
among the gravestones.
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