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DERWENT WATER.
The first object of attention will be the lake itself; and
it will probably be viewed by boat. The uppermost thought at
all points about the foot of the lake is of the Derwentwater
family. They had once a castle on the hill called
Castlehead, where they built upon the site of a Druidical
circle. This hill should be visited for the view. The
Ratcliffes also possessed Lord's Island, the largest on the
lake, where their mansion is said to have been built, from
the stones of the old one on Castlehead. Ramps Holme,
another of the islands, was their's also; and the hermit,
the dear friend of St. Cuthbert, who lived in St. Herbert's
Isle in the seventh century, is somehow mixed up in legends,
in local imaginations which are careless of dates, with the
same family. All that is known of St. Herbert is, that he
really had a hermitage in that island, and that St. Cuthbert
and he used to meet, either at Lindisfarn or Derwentwater,
once a-year. The legend about their deaths is well known;
that, according to their prayer, they died on the same day.
There is beauty in the tradition that the man of action and
the man of meditation, the propagandist and the recluse,
were so dear to each other, and so congenial. Vicar's, or
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