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

Tuesday, 8th December 1801.--A dullish, rainyish morning. Wm. at work with Chaucer. I read Bruce's Lochleven.... William worked at The Cuckoo and the Nightingale till he was tired.... Wednesday Morning, 9th December.-- ... I read Palemon and Arcite.... William writing out his alteration of Chaucer's Cuckoo and Nightingale.... When I had finished a letter to C., ... Mary and I walked into Easedale, and backwards and forwards in that large field under George Rawson's white cottage. We had intended gathering mosses, and for that purpose we turned into the green lane, behind the tailor's, but it was too dark to see the mosses. The river came galloping past the Church, as fast as it could come; and when we got into Easedale we saw Churn Milk Force, like a broad stream of snow at the little foot-bridge. We stopped to look at the company of rivers, which came hurrying down the vale, this way and that. It was a valley of streams and islands, with that great waterfall at the head, and lesser falls in different parts of the mountains, coming down to these rivers. We could hear the sound of the lesser falls, but we could not see them. We walked backwards and forwards till all distant objects, except the white shape of the waterfall and the lines of the mountains, were gone. We had the crescent moon when we went out, and at our return there were a few stars that shone dimly, but it was a grey cloudy night.