Many of the
houses look old, and are probably the cottages and farm-houses which
composed the rude village a century ago; but there are stuccoed shops and
dwellings, such as may have been built within a year or two; and three
hotels, one of which has the look of a good old village inn; and the
others are fashionable or commercial establishments. Through the midst
of the village comes tumbling and rumbling a mountain streamlet, rushing
through a deep, rocky dell, gliding under an old stone inch, and turning,
when occasion calls, the great block of a water-mill. This is the only
very striking feature of the village,--the stream taking its rough
pathway to the lake as it used to do before the poets had made this
region fashionable.
In the evening, just before eight o'clock, I took a walk alone, by a road
which goes up the hill, back of our hotel, and which I supposed might be
the road to the town of Windermere. But it went up higher and higher,
and for the mile or two that it led me along, winding up, I saw no traces
of a town; but at last it turned into a valley between two high ridges,
leading quite away from the lake, within view of which the town of
Windermere is situated. It was a very lonely road, though as smooth,
hard, and well kept as any thoroughfare in the suburbs of a city; hardly
a dwelling on either side, except one, half barn, half farm-house, and
one gentleman's gateway, near the beginning of the road, and another more
than a mile above.
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