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

We overtook old Fleming at Rydale, leading his little Dutchman-like grandchild along the slippery road. The same face seemed to be natural to them both--the old man and the little child--and they went hand in hand, the grandfather cautious, yet looking proud of his charge. He had two patches of new cloth at the shoulder-blades of his faded claret-coloured coat, like eyes at each shoulder, not worn elsewhere. I found Mary at home in her riding-habit, all her clothes being put up. We were very sad about Coleridge.... We stopped to look at the stone seat at the top of the hill. There was a white cushion upon it, round at the edge like a cushion, and the rock behind looked soft as velvet, of a vivid green, and so tempting! The snow too looked as soft as a down cushion. A young foxglove, like a star, in the centre. There were a few green lichens about it, and a few withered brackens of fern here and there upon the ground near, all else was a thick snow; no footmark to it, not the foot of a sheep.... We sate snugly round the fire. I read to them the Tale of Constance and the Syrian monarch, in the Man of Lawe's Tale, also some of the Prologue.... Wednesday, 23rd.-- ... Mary wrote out the Tales from Chaucer for Coleridge. William worked at The Ruined Cottage and made himself very ill.... A broken soldier came to beg in the morning. Afterwards a tall woman, dressed somewhat in a tawdry style, with a long checked muslin apron, a beaver hat, and throughout what are called good clothes. Her daughter had gone before, with a soldier and his wife. She had buried her husband at Whitehaven, and was going back into Cheshire.