We had been talking about the sagacity of our Cumberland collies, “But there is no tale so touching, said my friend [Miss Frances Power Cobbe], “as the story of that Rizpah among dogs, who watched for three months her dead master ‘fade away’ in the ‘savage place’ by the Red Tarn, on Helvellyn.   I have been lately collecting from the Classics, from prose writers and poets in many lands, some pictures and incidents of dog-life.  The ‘Friend of Man’ has nowhere appeared so human in its tender kindness, so faithful and affectionate in its memory, as in this instance of terrible vigil. (p. 95)

“The unburied corpse with the lobe watcher on the mountain seemed more solemn to my imagination than the graves by which so many dogs have hungered till they died.  How one wishes that some record of that heroic little creature could be placed where passers by might see it and ponder.” (p. 95)

“The thing can easily be done,” I answered.  “We have but to get leave from the Lord of the Manor to erect a cairn upon Helvellyn overlooking Striding Edge, and build into it a simple slate-stone slab that shall record the fact, and shall serve to remind its readers, of the tragedy, and the pathetic incident which so touched the hearts of three poets in the memorable year 1805.  Memorable to Scott for that in the April of that year he gave his ‘Lay of the Last Minstrel’ to the world; memorable to Wordsworth because that he finished in mid-May of that year the poem that (p. 95) described the marvellous making of his own mind in ‘The Prelude.’” (p. 96)

So the thing was agreed upon, and the inscription to be engraved was written; and not without much writing in and writing out did it take final shape as follows:—

Beneath this spot were found in 1805 the remains of Charles Gough, killed by a fall from the rocks.  His dog was still guarding the skeleton. (p. 96)….

That devotion in the little watcher by the dead, has been long ago crowned with song, and when in memory of—

                That strength of feeling, great
            Beyond all human estimate!

we toiled up Helvellyn, through the heat of a long Midsummer day—June 18th, 1891—behind the sledge that, not without much difficulty, bore the record of “Fidelity” to the mountain top, we felt that the chains of love that bind man to the so-called brute creatures were stronger than had been thought of, and that the interchange of spirit between two worlds that seem so wide apart, was more possible than had been imagined. (p. 124)

There on the wind-combed mountain-top, above the dreadful precipice where Gough perished, the haulers of stone, the worker of mortar, the builder of the memorial cairn worked hard for a couple of days, and left behind them in what has been called “the Temple of the Winds and of the Sun,” a stone that may with its simple tale, touch the hearts of passers-by, for generations to come, and stand a monument to an heroic vigil, and to the Fidelity and Love, no death could quench, of the humble “Friend of Man.” (p. 124)

(Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science, 16 (1892), 95-124)

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There stands on the northern end of the high ground that separates St. John’s Vale from the Keswick valley one of the most remarkable of the pre-historic monuments in the North.  Not so large as ‘long Meg and her daughters,’ it is the most perfect of Cumberland Megalithic circles, and in a county rich in these remains from Addingham and Kirkoswald in the north-east to Burn Moor, Eskdale, Miterdale, Swinside, Lacra, and Kirksanton in the south-west, there is no circle which is so interesting.  In choice of site it is supreme.  It lies on a tableland one and a half miles from Keswick, 706 feet above sea level.  The River Greta is heard far below in the woody gorge to the north, and Naddle-beck, half a mile away, is seen flowing down the valley to the east. (p.152)….

But the interest for us who enter the charmed circle of these grey old stones is the fact that we are standing within sight of three, if not four, of the pre-historic camps and villages of the early Hiberno-Celtic race, the Brigantes, who, unless an earlier people made it, were builders of this sanctuary or burial ground.  The villages called Pictish above Threlkeld and above Falcon Crag, the refuge camps on Castle Rock in St. John’s and at the high end of Shoulthwaite Ghyll, are so well within view that curl of smoke by day or flash of fire by night would summon the tribesmen at any time to council or to rite. (p. 153)

A unique feature of this circle is the rude rectangular inner enclosure of the stones on the eastern side, and just east of the centre line north and south.  We forget the forty-eight monoliths that make the outer circle, as we dream of the days gone by, when the sun-worshipping priests performed their rites in this inner sanctuary, or the great tribal chieftains came together to bewail their fallen leader, and to lay him to rest within the holiest of holies. (pp. 153-154)

What the faith of these rude Hiberno-Celts was we cannot know.  We may guess by the fact of the inner sanctuary at the east of the Keswick circle that they honoured the sun.  The rising of the stars was probably dear to them, and we may conjecture that each stone they placed in situ was under the guardianship of its own particular star, and helped the builders to know the coming and going of the seasons. (pp. 154-155)….

There could be no better site found for such worship as at the stone circle on Castlerigg Fell.  The presence of stone cells in St. John’s Vale and of the pre-historic village within sight of the circle tends to prove the likelihood of this pre-historic monument being the work of a pre-Viking age. (pp. 156-157)

But whoever were the original builders of the Keswick stone circle, it can hardly be doubted that the Vikings who over-ran Cumberland in the ninth century, and settling down by dale and fell, never left their Lake-country home, must have utilised the stone circles of an earlier race and an earlier worship. (p. 157)….

What congregations of wild tribesmen from far-off villages, from Neolithic times to the time of our Norse forefathers, long before the Romans held their camp upon the fell that to-day gives it its name, have here taken place!  What sudden summons by fire, what processions through the well-marked gateway to the circle from north and south and west—what dooms were heard being pronounced—what deaths, what sacrifices, what cries of pain and vengeance, what oaths for war, what wail of chant or exultation of prayer! (p. 158)

The very stones themselves seem to have caught the idea of worship, and from a distance look more like great praying monks in cowls of beast-grey than mere memorial stones. (p. 158)….

That the Megalithic circle is considered of national importance by archaeologists may be gathered from the fact that it is one of the very few ancient remains of North-West England which has been deemed worthy of scheduling under the Ancient Monument Protection Act; and we congratulate the locality in having secured for the custody of the National Trust the fair nine-acre field, to be unbuilt upon, and to be kept free of access for the people for ever, wherein those ancient standing stones, the ‘Carles,’ have so well kept their secret and out-watched Time.  Since writing the above, I have heard from various friends interested in stone circles that, in their opinion, the date of these megalithic monuments is probably pre-Celtic. (pp. 161-162)

(Chapters at the English Lakes, pp. 152-167)

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Sir,—We can none of us be too grateful to Mr Chubb for his public-spirited gift of Stonehenge to the nation.  It may not be feasible, but the thought constantly recurs, why not make this great meeting-place of an ancient British race who worshipped the sun a national memorial of the immortal dead who have laid down their lives that the Son of Righteousness might arise with healing His wings for the whole civilized world?  Salisbury Plain as a military training ground has done much towards winning the war.  What could be more fitting than that here, in the midst of Salisbury Plain, there should be at this old meeting-place of pre-historic tribesmen and warriors an assemblage on Midsummer Day of each year, or at stated intervals; and that a solemn service should be held in memory not only of Wiltshire men but of all the men of the British Empire who have died for right against might—for justice, freedom, and peace.  The gates of the great stone pylons stand open wide to all the quarters of the heavens, and seem to invite the going forth of light and liberty to all the world.  Nothing would be needed but a huge stone Celtic cross in the neighbourhood of the circle, with a simple dedication thereon to the imperishable memory of the gallant dead.  I feel that such a monument in the solemn propinquity of this great British shrine would be preferable to a Priapic monument of cones and eastern Welis on a huge bare platform in Hyde Park.

(Times, 28 September 1918, p. 10)

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At Ladysmith

In English meadows were we foaled,
    In lands of peace afar,
Yet ever were our true hearts bold
    To face the flames of war;
Ah, wherefore send your friends away,
Who ask but one poor wisp of hay.

Tho’ never reared for Afric sun
    And grassless dusty plain,
We bore your scouts, we toiled at gun,
    And ne’er refused the rein.
We ask but one poor wisp of hay,
Ah, wherefore drive us pined away.

For you it was we crossed the seas,
    And, where the strife and din
Waxed fiercest, felt our riders’ knees
    And bore them safely in.
We only ask a wisp of hay,
Ah! drive us not to starve away.

Was it for this your bugle call
    Has bade our hearts rejoice?
For this, in battle as in stall,
    We heard the captain’s voice?
We ask but one poor wisp of hay,
In mercy turn us no away.

Is it in vain that night and morn
    We came a docile band,
To claim our water and our corn,
    And feel our master’s hand?
Far better, friends, outright to slay,
Than thus refuse a wisp of hay!

Note.—One of the saddest sights of the siege at Ladysmith, and one of the things that seemed to go most to the hearts of our troopers, was this: Day after day their starving chargers came crowding up to the tents to whinny piteously for food, which was perforce denied them.  Their numbers grew less, but as they grew less the difficulty of driving back from the lines those gaunt famished horses became greater. 

(Ballads of the War, p. 147)

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