In 1844 there were living between Carlisle and Keswick, Robert
Radcliffe and his only child Kate. They belonged to an ancient
Roman Catholic family, remotely connected with the Earl of
Derwentwater who was executed in 1716; but Robert Radcliffe's father
had departed from the faith of his ancestors, and his descendants,
excepting one, had remained Protestant. Robert had inherited a
small estate and had not been brought up to any profession. He had
been at Cambridge, and at one time it was thought he might become a
clergyman, but he had no call that way, and returned to Cumberland
after his father's death to occupy himself with his garden and
books. He was a good scholar and had a library of some three
thousand volumes. He married when he was about eight-and-twenty,
but his wife died two years after Kate was born, and he did not
marry again. He took no particular pleasure in field sports except
angling, nor in the gaieties of county society, although he was not
a recluse and was on friendly terms with most of his neighbours. He
was fond of wandering in his own country, and knew every mountain
and every pass for twenty miles round him. His daughter was
generally his companion, sometimes on her pony and sometimes on
foot. Neither of them had been abroad, save once to France when she
was about sixteen. They cared little for travelling in foreign
parts, and he always said he got nothing out of a place in which he
was a lodger. He went once a Sunday to the village church: he was
patron of the living. The sermons were short and simple.
Theological questions did not much concern him, and he found in
Horace, Montaigne, Swift, and the County History whatever mental
exercise he needed. So far he was the son of his father, but his