Melmerby Rounds.

Melmerby Rounds.

Melmerby is one of the finest types of a fell-side rural village left in Cumberland, with its cheerful dwellings scattered here and theresingle or in groups,its old manor hall and miniature church, and its spacious green spreading over fully fourteen acres of land. The village nestles close under Hartside, one of the Crossfell range of mountains, on the direct road from Penrith to Alston, over which the pack-horse bell continued to tinkle, clear and loud, to a much more recent period than it did on the great highways of commerce. This interesting fact has not been overlooked by Miss Powley, in her Echoes of Old Cumberland.

When the staunch pack-horse gang of yore
The Fell's unbroken rigours faced,
With stores for miners 'mid the moor,
The Dane's stronghold at ten miles passed;
Then up the steeps their burden bore,
For trackless, treeless, ten miles more.

*....*....*....*

When the staunch troop, with travel sore,
Passed up within the Helm-cloud's veil,
And 'scaped the blastyet heard it roar
Below in many a western dale;
When they, to crown the march severe,
Defiled through summits bleak and brown;
With sudden speed, and louder cheer,
Came clattering down to Alston town,
Round which the wide fells darkly peer,
And grasping winter cheats the year.