'LUCY GRAY'.--In one of the editions of Wordsworth's
works the scene of this ballad is said to have been near Halifax, in
Yorkshire. I do not think the poet was acquainted with the locality
beyond a sight of the country in travelling through on some journey. I
know of no spot where all the little incidents mentioned in the poem
would exactly fit in, and a few of the local allusions are evidently
by a stranger. There is no 'minster'; the church at Halifax from time
immemorial has always been known as the 'parish church,' and sometimes
as the 'old church,' but has never been styled 'the minster.' The
'mountain roe,' which of course may be brought in as poetically
illustrative, has not been seen on these hills for generations, and I
scarcely think even the 'fawn at play' for more than a hundred years.
These misapplications, it is almost unnecessary to say, do not detract
from the beauty of the poetry. Some of the touches are graphically
true to the neighbourhood, as, for instance, 'the wide moor,' the
'many a hill,' the 'steep hill's edge,' the 'long stone wall,' and the
hint of the general loneliness of the region where Lucy 'no mate, no
comrade, knew.' I think I can point out the exact spot--no longer a
'plank,' but a broad, safe bridge--where Lucy fell into the water.
Taking a common-sense view, that she would not be sent many miles at
two o'clock on a winter afternoon to the town (Halifax, of course),
over so lonely a mountain moor--bearing in mind also that this moor
overlooked the river, and that the river was deep and strong enough to
carry the child down the current--I know only one place where such an
accident could have occurred. The clue is in this verse:

'At day-break on a hill they stood
That overlooked the moor;
And thence they saw the bridge of wood,
A furlong from their door.'

The hill I take to be the high ridge of Greetland and Norland Moor,
and the plank she had to cross Sterne Mill Bridge, which there spans
the Calder, broad and rapid enough at any season to drown either a
young girl or a grown-up person. The mountain burns, romantic and wild
though they be, are not dangerous to cross, especially for a child old
enough to go and seek her mother. To sum up the matter, the hill
overlooking the moor, the path to and distance from the town, the
bridge, the current, all indicate one point, and one point only, where
this ac