Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)

"O!" says the elder, "you could not serve my mother for she's dead, and my father's on at the next town--he's a potter." I persisted in my assertion, and that I would give them nothing. Says the elder, "Let's away," and away they flew like lightning. They had however sauntered so long in their road that they did not reach Ambleside before me, and I saw them go up to Matthew Harrison's house with their wallet upon the elder's shoulder, and creeping with a beggar's complaining foot. On my return through Ambleside I met in the street the mother driving her asses, in the two panniers of one of which were the two little children, whom she was chiding and threatening with a wand which she used to drive on her asses, while the little things hung in wantonness over the pannier's edge. The woman had told me in the morning that she was of Scotland, which her accent fully proved, but that she had lived (I think at Wigtoun), that they could not keep a house and so they travelled.[21] [Footnote 21: Compare the poem Beggars, in the "Poetical Works" vol. ii. pp. 276-281.--ED.] Wednesday, 13th June.[22]--A very cold morning. We went on the lake to set pike floats with John's fish. W. and J. went ... alone. Mr. Simpson called, and I accompanied him to the lake side. My brothers and I again went upon the water, and returned to dinner. We landed upon the island where I saw the whitest hawthorn I have seen this year, the generality of hawthorns are bloomless. I saw wild roses in the hedges. Wm. and John went to the pike floats. They brought in two pikes. I sowed kidney beans and spinnach. A cold evening. Molly stuck the peas. I weeded a little. Did not walk.