WELCOME BACK TO Murder on the Mind, with your host, Freddie Miller. In today’s interlude, I’m taking you back to the nineteenth century, 1852 to be exact. Queen Victoria was on the throne, Charles Dickens had started his serialization of Bleak House, and a young romantic poet by the name of Samuel Bickerstaff moved from the bustling city of Liverpool to a small cottage on the outskirts of Green Beck. He had it in mind that he would walk the same hills and mountains that William Wordsworth himself had walked, and be so inspired that he would finally be able to write the great works that had so far eluded him.
An Oxford scholar adopted Bickerstaff as a project a few years back, including him in a short book titled The Shadow of Wordsworth; I highly recommend it, if you can track down a copy. This is why Bickerstaff’s letters, and particularly those written to his lover, Patrick McClory, are a matter of public record. McClory was at that time on his Grand Tour; Samuel intended to spend two months in Cumberland, as it was known then, and then join Patrick in his final destination of Rome. I’ll read now from a few of these letters.
* * *
March 13th
Dearest Pat,
You were right, of course, that the cottage itself is as basic as a rude shepherd’s hut, but despite this, I love it (which you will not be much surprised to hear). At night, the wind bellows down off of the mountains like a beast, and I cower around my meagre fire like a peasant in the days of King Harry; you would laugh to see it so, I’m sure. Yet, in the mornings, the wild wind has scrubbed the sky clear again, and the sheep cluster together, black and white, while noisy jackdaws chatter. Dear Wordsworth saw the shivering connection between Man and Nature in this beautiful, wild place, and I think I begin to glimpse it too.
* * *
April 4th
… the weather here is delightfully unpredictable, Pat. I walk about in all weathers, but I must confess that there are times when it blows up so black and stormy that I fear I will be blown into a lake if I am not careful in my wanderings. My notebooks are filled daily with gushing observation – I have yet to weave a skein of poetry from this bountiful matter, yet I feel soon that I will be moved to do so. My evenings I spend drinking ale in the only tavern in Green Beck, or in my cosy abode reading back through my notes. I have been saving ‘the red mountain’ for my bravest day, for it looms over us tiny creatures at all times, and there is something magnificently unknowable about it. My bravest day must come soon.
* * *
June 29th
Today I followed a sheep trail up alongside the River Keckle, which I then followed into the lower reaches of Red Rigg Fell. There were more sheep here and lambs with their thick legs and large heads, but none of them ventured onto the rocky sides of the mountain itself. I sat on a low rock nearby, and, Pat, my words came and flowed as never before – just to look upon the fell is to be filled with a cascade of thoughts, images, dreams, and phrases. I could scarcely write fast enough to keep up with my muse, and this evening I find that my fingers are stiff and cramped. No matter. I am eager to return tomorrow and see what else this wild landscape has to tell me.
* * *
June 30th
I slept late this morning, borne to consciousness on a tide of dark dreams of great ill-feeling. Nevertheless, I was eager to be out, pursuing my art; even the violent storm that blew in around three o’clock in the afternoon could not chase me inside. I made my way to the same rock that had served me so well the previous day, and with no sheep in sight, I set to work again, scribbling away with the graphite pencil you so kindly gifted me for this very purpose. Eventually, the weather pushed me so that I had to move, and I took my first steps onto the flanks of the mountain that had so teased the corners of my imagination all week.
* * *
July 3rd
I returned to the mountain again today. It draws me back like a tide. I think that I could spend my whole life in examination of its crags and gorse, its tarns and scree. There is a silence up there, Pat, which I feel I have never experienced elsewhere. It is a waiting silence. Does that worry you? It worries me at times, but my notes continue unabated.
* * *
August 30th
On my explorations of the mountain today, I was not alone. I glimpsed a figure briefly, held in black against the light of the setting sun, yet when I hurried forward to see who I shared the mountain with, I could find no trace. Is that not curious? The southernmost flank, where I stood today, is a landscape of boulder and gorse and pine, so it seems likely I simply lost the man in the befuddlement of sunset. I stayed until dark, listening.
* * *
October 1st
The mountain has caught me in a dream. I went to it at sunrise this morning and return now in the deepest inky night, but I could not tell you where I have roamed and what I have seen. I am cold to my bones. I sit here now by the fire and I think of you, darling Pat, with the good strong Italian sunlight on your skin, and deep within me a worm begins to creep. Do you miss me, Pat? Do you think of me at all? Or do you keep the company of other men? Forgive me.
* * *
October 5th
I found my way to the summit of the mountain, Pat. The view was uncanny; I could see so far I almost thought I could see you. Is that not strange? But it was not you that I saw, it was a distant world of antiquity, a place where gods still trod their cloven hoofs across grass as green as Eden’s fair garden. That world reaches out to us in wild places like these. Beneath me, deep in the bloody bedrock of this cursed place, I felt something old move and shift. I think that there is no poetry in me, after all, Pat.
* * *
Samuel Bickerstaff was seen again after this final letter to Patrick McClory; he was spotted by the people of the village of Green Beck, wandering the roads. They all reported that the young man looked like he was sickening for something. One day, he came to the church and left most of his belongings with them, insisting that they be given to the poor and needy. After that, all record of Samuel Bickerstaff ends. The vicar of the parish did as he was asked and gave away Samuel’s good coats and vests to those who needed them, but he kept the man’s notebooks, which is why I have in my possession fragments of the writings Bickerstaff did while sitting gazing at Red Rigg Fell, or walking in its high places. Below is a small sample – every page was the same: It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers and we must feed it. It hungers …