But the chief beauty of the prospect from above the Arnside Park wood was the wonder of flying gleam and purple shadow upon the hills out west.  Far beyond Cartmell fells the eye ranged on to Walney Scar and Coniston Old Man, and following the rampart of the hills northward to the east, saw clear Wetherlam, Crinkle Crags, Bowfell, Scafell, the Pikes, and an indistinguishable mass of lilac blue and deep cobalt where Helvellyn melted into High Street and High Street faded into the Pennine range. (p. 34)

We were soon in the park itself, lily-scent filling the air and lily leaves “for ever”; but not till one rummaged through the leafage did one find the tender stalk with its silver veles; and many more seemed to be in bud than in full flower.  It was not to be wondered at, for the past fortnight, as the keeper assured me, people had been picking hard from morn to night, “and the warst o’ t’ job is, they’re so greedy.  Our Maister ’ull likely close t’wood next year, for though he is glad folk should come and gether, he can’t abide all this basket wark.” (pp. 34-5)

“I see we are bidden pluck in moderation.”

“Ay, ay, but when you see a party of lasses coming in, each with two girt baskets on their arm, or as I fund last week, a man with a girt sack full upo’ his back, theer’s noe modration at all aboot it, ye knaw.  But you’re likely a foreigner,” he said, “and theer’s yon spot still ungethered if you’ll be content wi’ buds, and they’re the best far and away, for they come out i’ watter and lasts fer days and days, when tudder is blown and oaver.” (p. 35)

I had lost my friend—lily gatherers cannot possibly keep together—but guided by the keeper, I was soon at the place.  Impenetrable as the thicket had seemed, one did just as the keeper had done, crouched and turned one’s back to briar and oak scrub, and pushed oneself bravely unblinded and untorn to the lily sanctuary.  Through the twilight came shafts of sun, through the openings of the golden leafage shone the far-off sands in patches of opal and light.  A thrush sang his heart out as I kneeled on that scented green-tufted carpet, and plucked my hands full to my heart’s content.  Then on through a mazy wilderness where each lily bed called one, with its shining while pearls, now to this side, now to that, till tired out with the actual gathering, one straightened one’s back and leaned against a Scotch fir and looked out over a clearing enamelled with the gold rockrose, to the creeks that were filling with blue water, and to the far-away white line of the incoming tide. (pp. 35-6)

Thence by well-made paths walled up to heaven with hazel bowers, we went towards the outlet of the Park wood that leads to New Barn Farm.  A watcher asked to see my ticket as I passed, and told me much of the ways of the wild lily gatherers and their ideas of what gathering “in moderation” meant.  “It’s not my business, you know, sir, but I’ve often thowt that it is cruel to pick them the way they do.  Never no thought of anybody coming after them, and folks as pays a shilling has as much right to see the flowers to-day as they hed as paid to see ’em a week ago.  The agent used to put on sixpence, now he has to put on a shilling, and it’s my belief that he’ll have to end in making it half-a-crown, and all because them as comes is so terble greedy they don’t know, poor things, when they have got eneuf.” (p. 36)

I showed him, somewhat shamefacedly, my bunch. “Is that moderation?” said I.

“Lor, sir, you hevn’t picked nowhere near moderation, as we count moderation in lilies at Arnside, you know.”

And I went home relieved.  Past New Barn Farm with its kindly hostess, and its pleasant cup of tea for the tired lily-picker, away over the hard sands and the seaweed of the promontory, with marvellous distant vision of cobalt hills mingling with the golden opal of the far-shining sands, and the cries of stint and knot and plover at my side. (pp. 36-7)

The cuckoo called from the hill, and the curlew called from the sky, and the seagull called from the deep.  But there were other deeps and other heavens that held their winged messengers of joy, and I doubt if a heart ever heard clearer the call to praise than the heart of the man with his handful of lilies, who trudged that day homeward from the lily woodland by the western sea. (p. 37)

(Round the Lake Country, pp. 25-37)