When the speaker on August 9 of 1906 declared Gowbarrow Fell and Aira Force open to the public for ever, under the direction of the National Trust, he said humorously: “You have all heard, I have no doubt, of how a mountain was once in labour and brought forth a mouse. On this occasion it is the mice that have been in labour and brought forth a mountain.” (p. 91)
As one of the mice who have laboured to obtain this Fell for the joy of the people, it would be well for me to put on record at once our thanks to the sixteen hundred public-spirited persons who have enabled us of the National Trust to add this noble property to our list of places, to be preserved for the nation in their ancient beauty to all time, and to ask that in future people who feel that they are passing away to the silent land, and who have no heirs and much money to bequeath, shall remember that, in addition to the Bible Society, the Infirmary, and the Homes for Dogs and Cats, there is a Society which, by its work, is doing its best to keep the Book of God’s older Scriptures—the Book of Nature—open for the people, a Society that prevents the need of the Infirmary by ministering to the holiday, the rest and health, of the toilers of the land; and that, at any rate, if the cat be a wild cat, that fast disappearing creature from our English fell-land, the National Trust will give it a chance of home. (pp. 91-92)
We have no wish to divert funds from all these gracious kindly agencies, any more than we have the wish to prevent people leaving large sums or famous pictures to the National Gallery. But when one remembers that £32,000 was subscribed for the Velasquez “Venus” a year or two ago, and that by the subscription of £12,800 the nation is now possessed of a gallery of such unrivalled pictures as may be found on any part of the Gowbarrow Estate, one does wish that the legacy-leavers, or their trusted attorneys who suggest the leaving of legacies, would have the National Trust in mind, and let their clients feel, ere they close their eyes for ever, that every penny they so leave will go to the obtaining for future generations to all time the privilege of reading of God’s revelation in this oldest Bible, of gaining health in His surest infirmary, and of finding the creatures He has made kept tenderly and with love, for the joy and delight of the wanderer. (pp. 92-93)
(Round the Lake Country, pp. 91-106)
