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[suc]cessful. No sooner was the tankard finished, than
Huddlestone, (after expressing the highest approbation of
all the clergyman had said,) without the least anger either
in his voice or countenance, again proposed the battle to
Harrison, which was again accepted with as little anger by
him: they accordingly fought, and after a terrible
engagement, victory declared itself for Harrison; nor did
this battle ever after raise the least enmity between the
competitors. A brother of this Harrison, (a blacksmith at
Penruddock,) named Lancelot, was equally remarkable for his
great strength and stature. Some idea of his enormous bulk
the reader may form from this: he was buried at Greystock,
and as the sexton was digging a grave some years afterwards,
he opened Harrison's; he took the jaw-bone to examine it,
and found it of that prodigious magnitude, that applying
over his own jaws, he was able to put his hand on each side
between the bone and his own face. We may judge then of
Harrison's gigantic stature from this, as the sexton is a
stout well-made man, and measures five feet eleven inches
and an half.
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A little beyond the eight-mile post, on the right hand, is
an hill called Lofts-Cross, on which is a stone pillar, said
by some to have been erected by the Romans for a guide over
these morasses: its appearance, however, contradicts this
opinion; and if I may be allowed to give my sentiments, its
date must be much posterior to the Roman aera in Great
Britain. On the left is Mell-Fell, a beautiful, smooth,
verdant mountain, of a shape almost conical, and between the
hill and the mile-post is a piece of antiquity of a very
singular structure; it consists of a kind of flooring of
large stones, about seven yards long and five broad; its
figure resembles an egg with a piece cut off the smaller
end, and the stones are so large and close laid, as
evidently evinces it to have been a work of art; it is about
300 yards from the road, lyes low, and may be easily
discovered by the very high rushes that grow round it. Under
Mell-Fell lies Little Troutbeck, remarkable for its
insular appearance; it consists of four small houses,
prettily surrounded with trees and a few acres of meadow; no
road to it can be perceived, and the whole is surrounded by
barren mosses. At the ninth-mile post a beautiful view opens
upon the eye; on the one hand is a distinct view of greatest
part of the manor of Grisdale, and in front is a delightful
prospect of the environs of Keswick. The mountains on each
side bound the landscape, and the woody vale which lyes
between them is interspersed with innumerable sparkling
rills, which, when the sun shines in the East, appear like
so many chains of silver: the whole scene is coloured with
all the elegance of variety; in one part is a spot of
verdant meadow, in another a yellow field of ripening corn;
here a silent gloomy thicket, there a peaceful cottage; on
one side, the mountains, now deserted by the sun, form a
shade of majestic darkness; on the other, the light is
reflected by such a variety of rocky promontories, that
every hill merits the attention of a painter; whilst all
these, seen at once, cannot but impress the mind of the
traveller with pleasure and admiration. Some travellers will
be almost deterred from proceeding any farther, so awful is
the appearance of the impending mountains. Something similar
to this was Mr Grey's situation at Keswick when he wished to
see the other side of Skiddow: he took a chaise, and
travelled under the mountain with the blinds up till he got
to Ousebridge; by this means he avoided seeing the
precipices of the mountains, (the very things he went to
see,) and as such gives a very poor account of them. If we
look northward, we see the mountain called Carrick,
(by Camden Gold Scalp,) remarkable for being little more
than an heap of loose stones. Next to Carrick is the
mountain under which stands Grisdale Chapel,a perpetual
curacy under Greystock, but not consecrated.
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