YORKSHIRE

PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY

GORDON HOME

Contents

CHAPTER IACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY

CHAPTER IIALONG THE ESK VALLEY

CHAPTER IIITHE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR

CHAPTER IVTHE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH

CHAPTER VSCARBOROUGH

CHAPTER VIWHITBY

CHAPTER VIITHE CLEVELAND HILLS

CHAPTER VIIIGUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY

CHAPTER IXFROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY

CHAPTER XDESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE

CHAPTER XIRICHMOND

CHAPTER XIISWALEDALE

CHAPTER XIIIWENSLEYDALE

CHAPTER XIVRIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY

CHAPTER XVKNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE

CHAPTER XVIWHARFEDALE

CHAPTER XVIISKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE

CHAPTER XVIIISETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS

CHAPTER XIXCONCERNING THE WOLDS

CHAPTER XXFROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD

CHAPTER XXIBEVERLEY

CHAPTER XXIIALONG THE HUMBER

CHAPTER XXIIITHE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS

CHAPTER XXIVA BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK

CHAPTER XXVTHE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT

INDEX

List of Illustrations

1. York from the Central Tower of the Minster

2. Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross

3. An Autumn Scene on the Esk

4. Runswick Bay

5. Sunrise from Staithes Beck

6. Robin Hood's Bay

7. Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs

8. The Red Roofs of Whitby

9. An Autumn Day at Guisborough

10. The Skelton Valley

11. In Pickering Church

12. The Market-Place, Helmsley

13. Richmond Castle from the River

14. A Rugged View above Wensleydale

15. A Jacobean House at Askrigg

16. Aysgarth Force

17. View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl

18. Ripon Minster from the South

19. Fountains Abbey

20. Knaresborough

21. Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale

22. Settle

23. Wind and Sunshine on the Wolds

24. Filey Brig

25. The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head

26. Hornsea Mere

27. The Market-Place, Beverley

28. Patrington Church

29. Coxwold Village

30. The West Front of the Church of Byland Abbey

31. Bootham Bar, York

32. Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

_Sketch Map_

YORKSHIRE

CHAPTER I

ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY

The ancient stone-built town of Pickering is to a great extent thegateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at thefoot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and isthe meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east, and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And thisview of the little town is by no means original, for the strategicimportance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as thedays of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command theapproach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale ofPickering. 

The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing ofNewton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, andthen, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almostdue north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right throughthe gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of PickeringBeck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gazeat the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known totravellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has beenbrought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited, and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with itsaccompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the greatbluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laidfor long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though thereare steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily, there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishingscenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of thehuge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on eitherside. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must makethe journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance whencrossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would bea source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for thefirst seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surroundingcountry gradually loses its cultivation, at first gorse and bracken, and then heather, taking the place of the green pastures. 

At the village of Newton, perched on high ground far above the dale, wecome to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. Thecottages are scattered along the wide roadway and the strip of grass, broken by two large ponds, which just now reflect the pale evening sky. Straight in front, across the green, some ancient barns are thrown upagainst the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, thegeese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tonesof the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewymeadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. Atfirst there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of thedale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunsetlight; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, wherethe foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is onlyemphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which nowand then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last thefriendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appearjust below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting thesteep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of thewaning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. Thehuge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, andtowards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in oneunfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolationbecome almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of theconstellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. Insomething less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and, although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need totrouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on theheather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we aresoon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of theSaltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flaggedroom. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow ofthe fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gunhooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, anda fox's mask and brush. A gamekeeper is warming himself at the fire, for the evening is chilly, and the firelight falls on his box-clothgaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and thedangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almostbury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soonwe are discussing the superstitions which still survive among thesimple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just leftmake this a subject of great fascination. 

Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intenseinterest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to afamily in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form ofillness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even themilk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butterrefused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when asusual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to thesixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun inhand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing duskhe saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly, the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. Thatsame night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspectedof bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, andhenceforward the farmer and his family prospered. 

In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent thanat night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on theopposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-lookingcottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with lingand heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send aflood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we canhear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levishamis Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, anda few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get upSaltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl ofHorcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings canbe seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a brightgreen, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evidentlongings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a littlemountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole. ' A fewpatches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is notknown south of the Cheviots. 

Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like apale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feetat Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, onGoathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up toSleights Moor, nearly 1, 000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch ofmoorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is theprecipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, andbeyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with theblue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon. 

The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevicesbetween the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale liesto the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reachthe lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where therailway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a naturalcutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is arough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown overwith trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern andbare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seemscompletely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming throughthe Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed forthe shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for thetell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scalingthe perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at KillingnobleScar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of therailway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed ofhawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use ofJames I. , and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by theincursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently becameextinct. 

We can cross the line near Eller Beck, and, going over Goathland Moor, explore the wooded sides of Wheeldale Beck and its water-falls. Mallyan's Spout is the most imposing, having a drop of about 76 feet. The village of Goathland has thrown out skirmishers towards the heatherin the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a lowcentral tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well intoits surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a largetriangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is astation named after the village. 

CHAPTER II

ALONG THE ESK VALLEY

To see the valley of the Esk in its richest garb, one must wait for aspell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made alongthe riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the densewoodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, becomeastonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takeson its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send downa plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushingstreams. 

Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint oldWhitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints ofEnglish towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. Butalthough every feature is plainly visible--the church, the abbey, thetwo piers, the harbour, the old town and the new--the detail is alllost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find anenthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, whichis sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that theprints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go onrejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not troubleus, for the world is ablaze with colour. 

Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by theriver far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woodsnear Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, withthe little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goesover the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil everyview of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley. 

The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way toSleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflectingthe overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growingat the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that hereand there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deeppurple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdalescenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who wouldwish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passingof boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge weleave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find astone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with greatdeliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificentsweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowingfreshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor. 

A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steepclimb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influenceswhich have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, andthus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, withpicturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionshipwith the painfully ugly modern stone house, with its thin slate roof. The big house of the village stands on the very edge of the descent, surrounded by high trees now swept bare of leaves. 

The first time I visited Aislaby I reached the little hamlet when itwas nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west toshow up the large house standing in the midst of the swaying branches. One dim light appeared in the blue-grey mass, and the dead leaves wereblown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of theroad stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening wellsupported the statement that it was haunted. 

I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on theheather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart HoueCross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. Alight gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided mysteps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my stepshomeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, anddemanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at myrequest, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to allthe neighbourhood by this unusual name. 

The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton LowMoor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carriedup to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and whentheir atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorlandheights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away theslightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and togive in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, thewhole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation beingalmost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards theend of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distantmoors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generallyassume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on thehorizon. 

Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at onetime more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone wassent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway wasopened. 

We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a longstiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finestin this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We aresufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the seabeyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of theling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles islimited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be lookingat a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us onthe western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which westand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluencewith the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion ofroofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in thedirection of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of EgtonHigh Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed bythe coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of theheather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit ofGallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges. 

The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also beseen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, onthe ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs alongwithin a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crossesWheeldale Beck, and skirts the ancient dyke round July or Julian Park, at one time a hunting-seat of the great De Mauley family. The road isabout 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightlyraised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore befollowed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build wallsfor enclosures. 

If we go down into the valley beneath us by a road bearing south-west, we shall find ourselves at Beck Hole, where there is a pretty group ofstone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed bya stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above thebridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side ofthe rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in twoor three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses ofoverhanging rock, shaded by a leafy roof, shut in the brimming waters. 

It is not difficult to find the way from Beck Hole to the Roman camp onthe hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goesright through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, althoughfragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing toWhitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come downagain to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reachGlaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch standsover the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the dateappear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge. It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but thepopular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed theold name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights ofthe neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar'sBridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are verybeautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and thepresence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to haveattracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the loveinterest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, theAlderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewellto his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of theriver. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determinedthat if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up abridge on the spot he had been prevented from crossing. 

CHAPTER III

THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR

Along the three miles of sand running northwards from Whitby at thefoot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finestsea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seenbeautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember morethan any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low inthe heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, oneseemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky sotransparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundingsthat have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind. It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has itseffect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery, for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, thatsuch scenes 'make one feel good'?

Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment ofthe smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder. The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouettethe twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns thefoaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the longshadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a boldheadland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea, across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, nodoubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can bepicked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seemto go down too far to recover. 

The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend arelovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparentbefore the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridgesacross the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with thesebridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine upthe coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think ofthe picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It wasin this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background forthe pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, whichmake up East Row, [1] that the Saxons chose a home for their god Thor. Here they built some rude form of temple, afterwards, it seems, converted into a hermitage. This was how the spot obtained the nameThordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements ofworkmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to buildingoperations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose becameknown afterwards as East Row. 

[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have beenallowed to mar the simplicity of the valley. --G. H. ]

Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinatingwoodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the brokenwalls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines oneither hand--for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea offoliage--are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliantcolours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency tofind the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorgeis hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into thiscanon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almostdisappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribedcourse. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growthof many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but thenewly-fallen rocks. 

We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's moderncastle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where agreat view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The longcurving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as theentrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness asof yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs endingat Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyardfull of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although itsmuch-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior isdevoid of any interest. 

The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless thetide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village isnot particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use therailway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by meansof two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near thecentre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends ofthe tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is smallcomfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towardsSandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the traingets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where aprecipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished. 

The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and toreach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad andsolid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of agoat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which theenormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rockconstantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makesthe track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of ahistory, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottagesoriginally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impendingdanger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, theybetook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise movehad not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the groundoccupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morningthere was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at thefoot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their propertyby digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottagesare still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where thepath joins the shore. 

This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one ofthe finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rockycoast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea tothe rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the furtherside of the bay you see tiny Runswick's red roofs, one above the other, on the face of the cliff. Here it is always cool and pleasant in thehottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipicesabove one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishyodour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning toclimb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything isbathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across thebay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will berepaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. Thefisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairyor hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of theworld of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And thesebeliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that untilrecent times a mother would carry her child suffering fromwhooping-cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she wouldcall in a loud voice, 'Hob-hole Hob! my bairn's getten t'kink cough. Tak't off, tak't off. '

The same form of disaster which destroyed Kettleness village caused thecomplete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of thefisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakablewarnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and thevillagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slidedownwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as onlyone house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved fromdestitution by the sums of money collected for their relief. 

Scarcely two miles from Hinderwell is the fishing-hamlet of Staithes, wedged into the side of a deep and exceedingly picturesque beck. 

The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village, giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle woodenfoot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books andpicture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here thesmell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the placethis overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismalaspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are ofcomparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a veryfew--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claimsto picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable lookone is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay. 

I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facingthe sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of thelittle bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbleswere drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began tofind excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state ofrepair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups ofstalwart fisherfolk, men and women. 

The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. Theywere also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous workof hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. Atackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith wasbeing hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in alistless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. Withthe last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of thenets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowingin the boat again. 

A change has come over the inhabitants of Staithes since 1846, when Mr. Ord describes the fishermen as 'exceedingly civil and courteous tostrangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiarto the larger class of fishing-towns. ' Without wishing to beunreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that thischaracter is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even whenMr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown bythem to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes fora long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk werehostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirelyinoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being atarget for stones. 

No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languishedor died out in recent years, and among these may be included aparticularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had beenunusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of someevil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to beprocured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt ina bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who dancedround the flames. 

In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolutionentered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835, binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling onSundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on theSaturday or Sunday evenings. ' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillingsfor every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated inthis way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of agedcouples and widows and orphans. 

The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of GreatBritain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles, which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brillianceof their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, arethe most favoured colours, but orange, pink, yellow, and many others, are to be seen. 

Looking northwards there is a grand piece of coast scenery. The massesof Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on theYorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fillthe air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray intobeards which stream backwards from the incoming crests. 

The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowingthrough deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses veryclose to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extendfrom Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through anotherlovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richestwoodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus, and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and opento the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland miningdistrict, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to aconsiderable size. But although the miners' new cottages areunpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation ispretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, hasrailway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hillabove the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight theyare merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of thepotency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steelcylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silentmasses of flame leaping into the heavens. 

It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the oldalum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort offame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted byMr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefullyrecorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen ofSkinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact torecord that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old menthat would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a staledate, report confidently that . . . A _sea-man_ was taken by thefishers. ' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him therefor many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistentlyrefused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flockedfrom far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems tohave been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him, for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if hisphlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love. '

The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsendterminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which isfamiliar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place ofthe rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as youapproach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. Theoriginal Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages, still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side ofthe beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modernSaltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets andblocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge ofthe grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled. 

The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck arethe pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast tothe bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towardsKirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to beheard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me thatthey have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such astory would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds maybe afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'whenall wyndes are whiste and the rea restes unmoved as a standing poole. 'At times they were so loud as to be heard at least six miles inland, and the fishermen feared to put out to sea, believing that the oceanwas 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyedwith men's carcases. '

In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map thanSaltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a greatwatering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and otherfeatures, which I am glad to leave to those for whom they were made, and betake myself to the more romantic spots so plentiful in this broadcounty. 

CHAPTER IV

THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH

Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to RobinHood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of thecliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so manygullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measureddistance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, forotherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine asthe first stages. 

As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass afarm, and come out on a great expanse of close-growing smooth turf, where the whole world seems to be made up of grass and sky. Thefootpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it hasgone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversionscan be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of therock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay thereis a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing outalone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arminto the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along thewindward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself adazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence theinnumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes andlow trees grow to the limits of the shelter afforded by the ravines;but in the open there is nothing higher than the waving corn or thestone walls dividing the pastures--a silent testimony to the power ofthe north-east wind. 

After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay issuddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the widesweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and thehigh escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except wherethe afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers. Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headlandof the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Buttson the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worthrepeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, andare now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden awayin a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached thetwo bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing tobe seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past therailway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villasare to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of thefishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last beginsto drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath atthe side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and ina few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, hasswallowed you up. 

Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the housesare very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibitingin every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and wornstone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows. Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, andyou seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which thewomen love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleekwith blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotlesscurtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep openingbetween the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on anotherbastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strongstone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of galesfrom the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby thecoast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vesselshave been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship wasdriven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed intoa window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the presentone. 

The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in andout to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finallysteams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over thePeak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of themoors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a stationnamed Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way toRavenscar. 

Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights abovethe Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful viewfrom the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest theremains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothingto be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774. While the building operations were in progress, however, a Romaninscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states thatthe 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This wasone of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A. D. Togive warning of the approach of hostile ships. 

Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where astream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock. 

There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to befound without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Manwill scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thicklyhoney-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is noparticularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where thisstone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a carefulstudy of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at thehotel. 

CHAPTER V

SCARBOROUGH

Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowdsof fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on thesea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough. By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails wereold houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, andabove them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outlinedefined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had madeScarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earliertimes. 

The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which lookedcapable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemedharmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or tengrey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless. 

From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrilyattempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out thegreat mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of thebay. 

I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-likewatering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and oneor two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and insteadfell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters thelong lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasantrecollections of the various types I had encountered that I determinedto go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which Istood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this positionto a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, Idetermined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which makeup the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steepcliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a morestriking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of theshops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you anidea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as wellas the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough'spopularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa, discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wellsand Epsom. 

The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining theharbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had stillto be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal springhad not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as littleresemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town atRobin Hood's Bay. 

We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and othernotabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough'shistory, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, theswitchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-lovingvisitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part thestory of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far moreentertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of thecommercial attempts to amuse. 

This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest officein the municipality took place in the reign of James II. , and theKing's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble. 

On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience waspublished, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read inevery Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor ofScarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handedit to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in churchon the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that theworthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of theKing, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growthof the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attainedsufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was thereforeinformed that the declaration would not be read. On Sunday morning(August 11) when the omission had been made, the Mayor left his pew, and, stick in hand, walked up the aisle, seized the minister, and canedhim as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did notoccur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation andexcitement among the members of the congregation did not subside soquickly as it had risen. 

The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by acertain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on thebowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayorshould be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of acourteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated thesummons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime manysuggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner weredoubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, somesettled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do nothear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of theMayor, whose rage must by this time have been bordering upon apoplexy. A strong blanket was ready, and Captains Carvil, Fitzherbert, Hanmer, and Rodney, led by Captain Ouseley and assisted by as many others ascould find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor wasrevolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weightat all. 

If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keepand the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerningit that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able togrumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses inQuay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb byvarious rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing themainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrowarchway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century andearlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking acrossan open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely duringthe sieges of the castle. The maimed church--for the chancel has neverbeen rebuilt--is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and soapparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no onerequires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted theirordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equallyobvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly. 

The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison wassmall, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmleyseems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughoutthis long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful andcourageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age offifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigueborne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almostworshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describingher perfections. 

'She was of the middle stature of women, ' he writes, 'and well shaped, yet in that not so singular as in the beauty of her face, which was butof a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes blackand full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, asif drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, whichsometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up intoan incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexionbrown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness inher looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful asweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceedher, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of hermind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuousperson, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things. '

On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentarycommander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompaniedwith savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted hewould make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the eventof one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for ageneral massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman. 

To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat ofthis nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to holdout. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves SirHugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of thecause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of theinward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinkingnature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, andimplored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision tothe detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs. 

Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrisonprepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11. 

The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention wasturned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, anotherattack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, whereuntil the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this pointwas greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division oftroops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent withwonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on thepart of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it wasdiscovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating tohis thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed. Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had beenchecked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point therush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower ofstones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steeppathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such areception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife inthe knowledge that the great attack had failed. 

At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh wasforced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourablysurrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession thatwound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris ofbroken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were insuch a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets orhelped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rathertersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march. ' The scurvy haddepleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women inthe castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stonethe Governor unless he capitulated. 

Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentaryforces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for theKing. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms weremade with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers, gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drumsbeating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, andbullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common, ' where they laiddown their arms. 

Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order thatthe antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission ofany reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count ofNorthumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold whofought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of theNorthumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revengedhimself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. TheNorseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his familyand an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joinedhim. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain untilthey reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight theinhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was, apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for theNorsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance, tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed ahuge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazingbrands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hutto another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in theconfusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy. 

This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeatedthe Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurrysouthwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is notsurprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's surveyshould have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers ofwhat had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could notlong remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William leGros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the naturaldefensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstoodso many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature ofScarborough. 

Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Romanoccupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavationsmade in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower wasmaintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain. This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along theYorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of theGerman rivers had become serious. 

CHAPTER VI

WHITBY

 Behold the glorious summer sea As night's dark wings unfold, And o'er the waters, 'neath the stars, The harbour lights behold. 

_E. Teschemacher_. 

Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern townwhich has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the moststrikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if oneexcepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcelyany architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place doesnot lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets haveno surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelleddoorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone stepsabound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from adistance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel. 

In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale greysilhouette with a square projection representing the church, and afretted one the abbey. 

But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of thehaze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. Atmidday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of housesclustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantlycoloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs andstray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water'sedge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many placesthe sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while abovethem all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There isscarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contributeto the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of thecliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and detailsare subdued in the haze. 

In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular thanthe attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in somedistressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even benecessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features hehas come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm tothe appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a sceneof fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and thewharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour isat its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King'sCross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered. 

In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers toitself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among thelong-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneaththe lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outerharbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into thewaves, holding aloft the steady lights that

 'Safely guide the mighty ships Into the harbour bay. '

If we keep to the waterside, modern Whitby has no terrors for us. It isout of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we havecrossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known asChurch Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we mustprepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top ofthe West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-colouredlodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, withcorner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, wherethere are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea. '

Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmosthouses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel ithas carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorlandheights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river downbelow are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep inthe heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, withits Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcelygreater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such aponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internalaspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series ofbeehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church. They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposedone abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the slopingtiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it wouldhave otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has beento give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance. 

The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Romansoldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with theabbey founded by Hilda about two years after the battle of Winwidfield, fought on November 15, A. D. 654; but I will not venture to state anopinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh beforethe building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since becomeknown as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Suchmatters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeologyof Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinitepleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of thosepainstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr. Lionel Charlton. 

Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbeyare now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a mostremarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her apassion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact thatthey worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed, most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church atGreenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others, such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet asCaedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed besidethe story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossilammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda, who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, thedaughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in theabbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried onsuccessfully the beneficent work of the foundress. 

Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wisecounsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh, after having been driven from his own sphere of work by thedepredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda diedat the age of fifty-nine, but from that year--probably 713--a completesilence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were madeduring the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. Aboutthe year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know thatthey laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but theinvaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys, ' and Whitby mustcertainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edwardthe Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessedfor Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to £3, 500 at the presenttime. 

After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving amonastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained thepermission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The newestablishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some timemerely a priory. 

The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until thebuilding of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen, is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few factsto go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, abuilding of rude construction, scarcely better than the humbledwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probablythatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards piercedwith small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would haveled to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed bythe Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as maystill be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth. 

The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence thenprevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon thedestroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor, Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the buildingoperations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed thechurch during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passedthrough at that time. But this was not the structure which survived, for towards the end of Stephen's reign, or during that of Henry II. , the unfortunate convent was devastated by the King of Norway, whoentered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid wasteeverything, both within doors and without. ' The abbey slowly recoveredfrom this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, stillmakes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolutionthat the abbey buildings came into the hands of Sir Richard Cholmley, who paid over to Henry VIII. The sum of £333 8s. 4d. The manors ofEskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members andappurtenances as they formerly had belonged to the abbey of Whiby, 'henceforward belonged to Sir Richard and his successors. 

Sir Hugh Cholmley, whose defence of Scarborough Castle has made him aname in history, was born on July 22, 1600, at Roxby, near Pickering. He has been justly called 'the father of Whitby, ' and it is to him weowe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobeantimes. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of theabbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which thenwas very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber andplaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or ratherre-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened theoutwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wallround about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved verymuch, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, forthere was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almostby my own hand. '

In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house wasfinished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife, ' hesays '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome withindoors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many goodthings, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, ofmy rank, exceeded it. . . . I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant andColonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand, Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my fatherbeing dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family. '

'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain whosaid prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper, a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up beforedinner, when the bell rung to prayers, and not opened till one o'clock, except for some strangers who came to dinner, which was ever fit toreceive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; andwhatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As adefinite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the westend of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though itwas the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea, the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitatedby force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart, ' he exclaims, 'thenext generation may have more public spirit. '

CHAPTER VII

THE CLEVELAND HILLS

On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a mostimposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes donot aspire to more than about 1, 500 feet. But they rise so suddenly totheir full height out of the flat sea of green country that they oftenappear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. RoseberryTopping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, likea huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1, 000 feet high. But thisstrangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broadmeadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with thelower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for thepeople who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as asign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to theeasily-remembered couplet:

 'When Roseberry Topping wears a cap, Let Cleveland then beware of a clap. '

From the fact that you can see this remarkable peak from almost everypoint of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that fromthe top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to seeso much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone. Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread outa huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network ofhedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of theworld where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Lookingacross the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of thehills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshireseems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in thenorth. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the greatmanufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the countyof Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towardsthe brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyondridge of total desolation--a huge tract of land in this crowded Englandwhere the population for many square miles at a time consists of theinmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areasof the dales. 

Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up withforests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to thehill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of theirsettlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing thatmany of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarelyvisited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of thelast representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in thesewild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in theseparts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, ofstrange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you thespot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there aretraditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by variousvaliant men. 

On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tallcolumn to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on thisinland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown andpurply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract ofthe sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, thevillage of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame, and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the successwhich attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy. 

The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the fieldin which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes, generally spoken of as a 'huckster's, ' where Cook was apprenticed as aboy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story ofhis having taken a shilling from his master's till, when theattractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistentlyclings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence toconvict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which toclear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term ofemployment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went tosea, and Professor J. K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes'after some disagreement with his master, ' there seems every reason tobelieve that the story is untrue. 

I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking countrythan the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to thesouth-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisboroughto Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totallyalone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boywho was on his way to Hutton with a heavy basket of bread and cakes. Hutton, which is somewhat of a model village for the retainers attachedto Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. Thesteep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace andseclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastesabove. When I climbed the steep road on that autumn afternoon, and, passing the zone of tall, withered bracken, reached the open moorland, I seemed to have come out merely to be the plaything of the elements;for the south-westerly gale, when it chose to do so, blew so fiercelythat it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a darkroof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines ofgrey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn roadthe heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretchedright away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between thefierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivuletsdeep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep wouldstare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse mighthover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signsof living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plungeddownwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, witha lonely farm on the further slope. There was a fir-wood above this, and as I passed over the hill, among the tall, bare stems, the cloudsparted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into thewood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the darkshoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against theglory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, thewood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped. 

The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave awide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowingwest, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigoclouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village ofKildale nestled down below, its church half buried in yellow foliage. 

The ruined Danby Castle can still be seen on the slope above the Esk, but the ancient Bow Bridge at Castleton, which was built at the end ofthe twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873. A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in CanonAtkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish. ' That book has been sowidely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, butwithout the help of the Vicar, who knew every inch of his wild parish, the Danby district must seem much less interesting. 

CHAPTER VIII

GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY

Although a mere fragment of the Augustinian Priory of Guisborough isstanding to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerfulimpression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church. This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, whichrises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stoneworkis now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally alook of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great eastwindow, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with theever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the greenwoods and pastures. 

The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reignof Henry VIII. , but there are no recorded facts to give the date of thespoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold tothe highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scatteredmany fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historiansof Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, andindignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves ofGod's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house. '

The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert deBrus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walterof Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailedaccount of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin, he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumedour church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costlychalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because pastevents are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thoughtit desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of thecatastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided throughthis calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which wasvery destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt ourchurch whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter. For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, andplaced his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, orsteps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and othercombustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church, where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before theprocession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out byhis workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without havingcompletely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoalrevived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from thesparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and othercombustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the leadmelted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fireincreased prodigiously, and consumed everything. ' Hemingburgh concludesby saying that all that they could get from the culprits was theexclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Priorand convent wrote to Edward II. , excusing themselves from granting acorrody owing to their great losses through the burning of themonastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots. But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richestestablishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arosefrom the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in theEarly Decorated style. 

One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is thealtar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. Thestone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch ofGuisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey forsafety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chroniclefor the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve ofGood Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King ofEngland, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as heordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with greathonour, beside his own father. ' A great number of other famous peoplewere buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has evenbeen claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion ofScottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that hisheart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey. 

The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross andthe two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the longstreet as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages, inevitable in a mining country. 

Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since thetime of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from thatperiod, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced bythe iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in histravels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, sawthe Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start theindustry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alumcould be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential tohave one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of themanufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavybribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act wereterrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to HisHoliness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capitalpunishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to getinto large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship whichwas shortly sailing for England. 

When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, hethundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful andcomprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughlyin every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and fromthe thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to besequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and deliveredover with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, "Depart from us; we desire not to know thy ways. "'

The broad valley stretching from Guisborough to the sea contains thebeautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great massescover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almosthide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancientcastle of the Bruces, who were Lords of Skelton for many years. 

CHAPTER IX

FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY

The broad Vale of Pickering, watered by the Derwent, the Rye and theirmany tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have beenexploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfieldsabound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by manyleagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that thehorizon to the north is formed by lofty moors only a few miles distant. 

Just where the low meadows are beginning to rise steadily from the valestands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of itsparish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a widestreet, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from theriver to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but wehave learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, foronly the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out fromthe grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some ofthe houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows anddoors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickeringwould have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which weshall pass on our way to Rievaulx. 

Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, thechurch is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but thecramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of theNorman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during thefourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated bythe slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautifulporch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfectpaintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearlyall the available wall-space between the arches and the top of theclerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the firsthalf of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spiritedrepresentation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, andclose by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with bothhands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comesHerod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests areshown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, andall the royal folk are wearing ermine. The coronation of the Virgin, the martyrdom of St. Thomas ą Becket, and the martyrdom of St. Edmund, who is perforated with arrows, complete the series on the north side. Along the south wall the paintings show the story of St. Catherine ofAlexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenesfrom the life of our Lord. 

The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain roundcolumns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to laterNorman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one memberof the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce'sHall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned, was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by thelectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is asumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame MargeryRoucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on hissurcoat. 

When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII. , cameto Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfectstate than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure. ' Also of theinner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one. ' This keepand Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, arestill to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of viewthe ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large, and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. Butduring the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quarteredthere, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for thedefence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls showsbetter than any description the importance of the position it occupied, and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, thatthis was the dominant power over the whole countryside. 

Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additionalmiles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a churchwhich, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in thecounty, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wifekept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcelybe believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little bookpublished in 1806. 

The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slendersalary of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not haveallowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but thispoor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keenfisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentifulsupply of fish--in fact, more than his family could consume. But this, even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, wasnot sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures hadto be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people wereobliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemedpossible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to theparishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seemsthat the meals between the services soon became popular. But the storyof 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of thediocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truthof the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that, far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was aninfluence for good. 'I take down my violin, ' he continued, 'and playthem a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they getno more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young peoplepropose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when Iannounce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands. ' TheArchdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did notreprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mentionof an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued thisstrange anomaly. 

The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for hetells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monasterythere. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, sothat the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century. No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered thewhole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is ofTransitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has anapse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure. 

The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surroundedby moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich. 

Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered bybecks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way toRyedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, alittle town which has gained a place in history as the scene of thedeath of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, onApril 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of theKing's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entryunder the date of April 19th, 'Gorges viluas, Lord dooke of Bookingam, etc. ' Further down the street stands an inn with a curious porch, supported by turned wooden pillars, bearing the inscription:

 'Anno: Dom 1632 October xi William Wood'

Kirkdale, with its world-renowned cave, to which we have alreadyreferred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxonchurch there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date, ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which hadsurvived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch. A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, boughtSt. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he causedit to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in thedays of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wroughtme and Brand the prior (priest or priests). ' By this we are plainlytold that a church was built there in the reign of Edward theConfessor. 

A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town ofHelmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary ofthe place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way fromRievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street. 

A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelledfragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatchedroofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and fromthis point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderfulpicture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King duringthe Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York, Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a woundin the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrenderedon honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should bedismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions werecarried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep wasblown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else wasdestroyed. 

All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated inRyedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles toRievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey, we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valleyoverlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothedwith luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear thesolemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteriesestablished in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace thatbroods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old andpicturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and, beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing ofsome cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing ofbirds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to theabbey ruins. 

The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts standastonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portionsof the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses ofgrass-grown débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-drapedhill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by thecolumns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed tothe weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clusteredpillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almostuninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restoredcathedral. 

CHAPTER X

DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE

When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the nameof that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, theyouthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolongedseries of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range. ' His imaginationpictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free froma mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the PennineRange, ' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the schoolgeography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older andmore able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision, until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains inthe Moon which have a name so similar. 

This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially staticas a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the nameof this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'CumbrianHills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District, ' so is a largesection of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'YorkshireDales. '

It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it isowing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales arebeautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers inEngland. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fellsover 2, 000 feet, and looks over the mountainous ridges on every side, one sees, as a rule, no peak or isolated height of any description toattract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projectionsfrom the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainousdistrict, there are great expanses of brown table-land that formthemselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a senseof wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks ofScotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestonethat rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling ordistortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of havinghad all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plasticcondition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs haveworn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrowdales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many otherparts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharplydefining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks belowgenerally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone tothe riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, wherewater-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, nearHawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see therapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocksoverhanging above. 

Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells arenot prolific in heather. It is possible to pass throughWensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heatherat all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches ofmoor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells andmoors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass, generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by anoutcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation. 

In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riversidepastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour byexposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network ofthese enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitousascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Valeof York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as onegets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stilesthat are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite aninteresting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the moreenduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds anexcessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space forthe thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage ofthe smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stoneprojecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping theother, so that one can only pass through by making a very carefulS-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making aflight of precarious steps on each side of the wall. 

Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they aresubject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirelyinnocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages, barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers tobeautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man fromjarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of thefamiliar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow aneatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part isgenerally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay orstraw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided, and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a savingof this nature is a benefit easily understood. 

The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright coloursof a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in softshades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stonehouses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of thefoliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times, except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, thescenery of the dales has a thousand charms. 

CHAPTER XI

RICHMOND

For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gatewayof the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some ofwhich may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond asstarting-places for an exploration of this description, but for mypart, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region soentirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn, there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dalebegins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, foron reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle andthe town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and fromthat point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steepsides, which become narrower and grander with every mile. 

The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its workin a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hillon which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to havea strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element inwhich railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and wecan congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and itssense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with astrong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness isenhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thuswelcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows bythe river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form abeautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from thefantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemlychanges, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline offeudal times. 

From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some finecombination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and ofrocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the mostsumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as theartists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one ofthese views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Normankeep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else withprecisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon asthe builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stonein place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it wasthen, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that theBretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pridewere they able to see how their ambitious work has come down thecenturies unharmed. 

We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, andclimb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way theparish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribedlimits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times. Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled streetthat climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly directfashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is asleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite ashort distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in thewide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunnyafternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time forconversation and loitering. 

On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and squarefront has just that air of respectable importance that one expects tofind in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbledspace to the curious block of buildings that seems to have beenintended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering ofsecular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiarin parts of France that this market place has an almost Continentalflavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under theprotection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus ofBrittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be apossession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II. , butthere had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals topercolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise canwe account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred buildingwhich is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one finda pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or atobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lowerparts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one onlyrealizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to seethe sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lowerportions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which isrung at 6 a. M. And 8 p. M. , a custom, according to one writer, 'that hascontinued ever since the time of William the Conqueror. '

All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the greatkeep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us togo on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and, resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow littlestreet leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs atthe base of the ivy-draped walls. 

From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing itsrocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You candistinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledgesinto deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken waterbetween the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. Themasses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery tothe picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owingto its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short pieceof water beyond the bridge. 

The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edgeof the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there islittle to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices thatcover the heights above the river. 

There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. Itresponds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glowsacross the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quiteunlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who canwatch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulentevenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea ofglory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beautyin the flaming woods and the pale river. 

On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that wasprobably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubtwhatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins hisdescription of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne iswaullid, ' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waulis now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine. ' Wecannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gatesas York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient toretain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The twoposterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, onthe north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thickadjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something muchfiner than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over whatRichmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell themarket-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before thatyear there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine crosswhich Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being thegreatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps ledup to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wallabout 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmountedwith a dog seated on its hind-legs. Within the wall rose the cross, with its shaft made from one piece of stone. There were 'many curiouscompartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened intothe middle of the square, ' but this may have been merely an archedopening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall, included four shields bearing the arms of the great families ofFitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From thedescription there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautifulexample of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of whichwe have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt(!) A. D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq. , Mayor'; it should surely haveread: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth. '

Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentionsFrenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down, ' yet they must have beenonly partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker, writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many yearsago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can belittle doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after thedemolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attackthe remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion ofeither remains. But even here we have not completed the list ofbarbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, whichstood near the larger one, must have been quite an interesting feature. It consisted of a lofty pillar with a cross at the top, and rings werefastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, sothat the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillorystood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned. 

But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should havebeen the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of theGrey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of thechief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery areincorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. TheGrey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limitsof the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness thedispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that itwas part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolutionof the Monasteries made the work of no account except as buildingmaterials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender wasJanuary 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and thefourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations thatmust have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one timethe friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living andscanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in theselater times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways ofliving, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering. 

Going back to the reign of Henry VII. Or there-abouts, we come acrossthe curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres ofRichmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in'Rokeby. ' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good wayof getting rid of such a terrible beast, that

 'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill, The fryers of Richmond gave her till. '

Friar Middleton, who with two lusty men was sent to fetch the sow fromRokeby, could scarcely have known that she was

 'The grisliest beast that ere might be, Her head was great and gray: She was bred in Rokeby Wood; There were few that thither goed, That came on live [= alive] away. 

 'She was so grisley for to meete, She rave the earth up with her feete, And bark came fro the tree; When fryer Middleton her saugh, Weet ye well he might not laugh, Full earnestly look'd hee. '

To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to holdher, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell, ' but

 'The sow she would not Latin heare, But rudely rushed at the frear, '

who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he sawwith horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At thistheir courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along theWatling Street. When they came to Richmond and told their tale of the'feind of hell' in the garb of a sow, the warden decided to hire on thenext day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne. ' These two, Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine, ' went to Rokeby clad inarmour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then theyonly just overcame the grisly sow. 

If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humbleremains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. Theruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway. Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might noteclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging toSt. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapiferto the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscansin the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord ofMiddleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzagmouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of itremain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well staythere for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up thesteep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle. 

On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane fromthe market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its greatheight of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit, and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of themasonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left thetower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conansaw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting thekeep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosedby the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached itspresent form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, thefifth Earl of Richmond, left the tower externally as we see it to-day. This puts the date of the completion of the keep between 1146 and 1171. The floors are now a store for the uniforms and accoutrements of thesoldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen aswe climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach thebattlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into thechimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the townpacked closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tinypeople are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web ofdrifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely uponus from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the westernhorizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though thecultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting dayswhen these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbraywhich we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extentfertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl ofRichmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshirepossessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far morethrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by acrumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and everydetail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It didnot thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man andhis clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as thesoldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much wouldwe not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of asecond, with a good camera in our hands?

In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel ofSt. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long andnarrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is theNorman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly usedas the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one ofthe best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings thatare to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbelsremain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are wellpreserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep hasdetails of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland'sHall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapiferto the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants ofthe Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in theregular guarding of the castle. 

There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumblingcurtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still tobe seen. 

Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of EarlEdwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received thissplendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of theSaxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, havingcrushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gavehim peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxonlands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Merciafell to this Breton. 

The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and thename, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time, unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it asRice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soonhave ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that thecastle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by thewalls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place wasnot realized until the time of the fifth Earl, who, as we have seen, was most probably the builder of the keep in its final form, as well asother parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been consideredalmost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appearsto have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotlandwas invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle thatHenry II. , anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, andperhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il enRichemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatenedfrom several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him toknow that a stronghold of such importance was under the personalcommand of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the dangerfrom the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fightGlanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and heprobably led the men of Richmondshire. 

It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its greatpre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign ofEdward III. --a time when castles had obviously lost none of theadvantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. Theonly explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners, for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their Englishpossessions were frequently endangered when France and England were atwar. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his supportto the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessionsnorth of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition ofaffairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand, but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. Wason the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to RalphNeville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given toEdmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V. Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress ofJohn of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcelyfourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to thethrone of England as Henry VII. He was Earl of Richmond from his birth, and it was he who carried the name to the Thames by giving it to hissplendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lassof Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it iscommonly considered a possession of Surrey. 

Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town ofRichmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packedclosely together to provide the numerous people with quarters insidethe wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots. The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and althoughin this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran agreater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form ofpestilences of a most virulent character. After one of thesevisitations the town of Richmond would be left in a pitiable plight. Many houses would be deserted, and fields became 'over-run with briars, nettles, and other noxious weeds. '

Easby Abbey is so much a possession of Richmond that we cannot gotowards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. Theruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the placeis well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which havebeen so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any ofthe dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha'syawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river isbeautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls andtraceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, atEasby that makes a striking picture, although there are manyarchitectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulxand Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enoughhere with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thoughtto know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by theSwale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon thereis something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcelymore than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, andmany of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range ofdomestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore, the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We canwander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain somesemblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesqueremains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and thesacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads intothe infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkableas being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart forthis object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Normanarch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This isprobably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said, by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of anextensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time inthese sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin'sPriory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever mayhave been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that thegreat family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessedby the Constable, and they added so much to the property of themonastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. The Scropes were consideredthe original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place ofthe family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of theirchurch were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of thelords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stoneeffigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by laySir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many othersof the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from thestatement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but forthe record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything ofthese ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely asthough they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that arejust beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, thetombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but acrossthe hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and inthe little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclosescreen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescuedwhen the monastery was being stripped and plundered. 

The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state ofpreservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and thegranary is even now in use. 

On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are thearms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremelyinteresting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings, some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This wouldmake them earlier than those at Pickering. 

CHAPTER XII

SWALEDALE

There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than along mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent ofromantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of afair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse, to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar isfree from both objections. In magnificent September weather one mayspend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without beingdisturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer orshepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here, the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them asefficaciously as the keepers of any public parks. 

The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the factthat one is situated at the dividing-line between the richestcultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the MountPisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promisedland of solitude, 'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell, And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been. '

The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful, but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the tracklessmountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in themysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of themoorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cutout in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmeringtransparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe thesides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, whichare thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valleyextends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bendwhere the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale, disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills. 

In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilizedmood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in theillustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and thegaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control ofthe scenery. 

From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed, comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, andfrom the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. Norailway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as onemay look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibilityof this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining itsisolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore, are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, andthe purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of aland where chimneys have never been. 

Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkableview-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap. 'In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to havebeen a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood, when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have beensufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, withoutany warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, andbefore he could check his horse both were precipitated over the cliff. We have no detailed account of whether the fall was broken in any way;but, although his horse was killed instantly, Willance, by some almostmiraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothingworse than a broken leg. 

It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive meansof exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom ofthe valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country aremissed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really toexplore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reethavoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups andits downs make the traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way. 

But this ought not to deter anyone from using the road; for the view ofthe village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights thatrise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road alongthe banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village isaccentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills thehollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of thegolden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty toevery object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across MarskeBeck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in thereign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuriesolder. 

The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient fromthe town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast ofWhitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as thenearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left, however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that theyseem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings, and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that someof the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in thebeauty spots of the country. 

As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenerythat invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap. ' There is aScottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in thesteeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other denseplantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards thesouth there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance ofthe scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a darkgreen wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage, the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyonda strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as theyclimb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays ofsunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime intothe fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully representedat Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gauntobelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, andshows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur. 

Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for ablazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are alarge portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either theold road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one hadcrossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a verysteep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland thatis at its best in the full light of a clear morning. 

The clouds are big, but they carry no threat of rain, for right down tothe far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches ofblue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white masspasses across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres inextent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comesover the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholmevillage lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt ofsunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coatswith a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights, stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliantcontrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moorpossesses. 

A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, thereis an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of thechapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. Thebuildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enoughsuggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was acentre of feudal power. 

Turning back to Swaledale by a lane on the south side of Gill Beck, Downholme village is passed a mile away on the right, and the boldscenery of the dale once more becomes impressive. 

Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden andHarkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently. Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, untilthey are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threatento envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in thedark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequentlychanges its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence inno way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears tobecome huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have beenmerely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysteriousforests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become apale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where noliving creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell. 

In such surroundings as these there were established in the MiddleAges, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on oppositesides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrickvillage, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautifulsituation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describesMarrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes. 'It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded orendowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on theother side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of theCistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has beendiscovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothidNunnes. ' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided allover the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in searchof plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence. 

Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley ofArkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton isreached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance northof the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire. It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50, 000acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailedhistory of Richmondshire, more than 30, 000 acres of this consist ofmountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church issuitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must notexpect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofsand plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in theneighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building thathas passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to thatperiod. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain someinteresting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosedby old screens. 

Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come toReeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must havethrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, forit has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is gladof the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houseslook upon, have made it something of a holiday resort. 

When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' roadwhich makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. Thesurface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker, although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with everymile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widelyseparated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and thegaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten thenarrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to theriver margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-greenheights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill, the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farmsand hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys, greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stonewalls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest thefortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there isno encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so oftenwelcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity ofthe widely scattered farms and villages may seem a littleunaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove thisimpression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worstwinter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of triflinginconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on thefells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms, flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother ofwhiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over thedesolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are stilldestructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that weseldom encounter in the lower levels. 

The great rapidity with which the Swale, or such streams as the Arkle, can produce a devastating flood can scarcely be comprehended by thosewho have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells. When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upperparts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not moreoften in jeopardy. 

Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetnessby their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is onlyabout seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall ofabout 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certainspots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year. 

The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to findthat no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Somenotes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr. Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in theeighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for JohnHutchinson, when the field was covered with snow, ' and: '1799, Nov. 10. Much corn to cut and carry. A hard frost. '

Muker, notwithstanding all these climatic difficulties, has some claimto picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen ata distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-strickenstate. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above theweathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tonedown the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make onehouse much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings wouldreduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there isa steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale justbelow. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thusrestricted to one side of the way. 

Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is StagsFell, 2, 213 feet above the sea, and something like 1, 300 feet aboveMuker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated massof Kisdon Hill, on two sides of which the Swale, now a mountain stream, rushes and boils among boulders and ledges of rock. This is one of thefinest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the riverand passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goesthrough the glen, and brings one to the road again at Keld. 

Just before you reach Keld, the Swale drops 30 feet at Kisdon Force, and after a night of rain there are many other waterfalls to be seen inthis district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions ofthe head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills andnarrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It isthe stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainousviews from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such afascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a hugepanorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumbleof blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits ofYorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorlandhills hold the charms of Lakeland. 

If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and excitingwalks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in thehillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they arenot tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that areequally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rareflowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes, and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk intheir fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing toany but those who are glad to leave them growing where they are. 

CHAPTER XIII

WENSLEYDALE

The approach from Muker to the upper part of Wensleydale is by amountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have neverexplored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it aroad, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not toohigh-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loosestones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the roadgoes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge ofthe pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way throughthe mountain ridge dividing the Swale from the Ure. 

Such a lonely and dangerous road should no doubt be avoided at night, but yet I am always grateful for the delays which made me so late thatdarkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It waslate in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which haddrawn to that small town farmers and their wives, and most, if not all, the young men and maidens within a considerable radius. I made my wayslowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loosestones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in thedim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close inmore and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell, its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clearevening sky; while further away to the north-west there were bluemountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Thenthe road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply thanever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to theverge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see whatdangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beckfalling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to theroad, there is on the other side the still greater menace of theButtertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require anyemphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with muchlabour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stoutrope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep thatdisappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This roadis surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the'Pilgrim's Progress, ' for the track is steep and narrow and painfullyrough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found bykeeping in the middle of the road. 

What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who ondifferent occasions had to go over the pass at night in those stillrecent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In theparts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used toenliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesomecreatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in myreading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass. 

Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads atnight, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. Thepot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into theblackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then onesees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolatedpieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices fardown delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as thecool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw offfall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has itsbeginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply togaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down inthese shadowy places is pleasant after gazing on the dry fell-sides. 

Just beyond the head of the pass, where the descent to Hawes begins, the shoulders of Great Shunnor Fell drop down, so that not onlystraight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountainview. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in everydirection there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hardstratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many ofthe summits of the hills their level character, and forms thesharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violentchanges of weather that take place among these watersheds would almostseem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularitiesof the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can seethree or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many placestorrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazingsunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange inpowerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapidchanges from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to thehardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still morepalpable process of denudation in active operation. 

Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkablewaterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads upthe glen leaves the road at the side of the 'Green Dragon' at Hardraw, where the innkeeper hands us a key to open the gate we must passthrough. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have thewhole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitaryangler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for thecarefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was sweptaway half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood clearedits course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, andmake our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale, with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sunhas turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rockwalls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On theopposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except thefoliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leapinto a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishingsplendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream, and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestoneinto the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the waterdrifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers untilthe sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in thehorseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more insympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout ofwater is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardrawamong the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shalethat lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by thewater until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten ortwelve feet, so that the water falls sheer into the circular basin, leaving a space between the cliff and the fall where it is safe to walkon a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayedfrom the surface of the pool. 

John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '_Uredale_ verilitle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes, 'and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so muchwider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the samedisabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony roadabove the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage. The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very largemesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is oftenexceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until allaround us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravineswhose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed therocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1, 600feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goeson past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grasstrack sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summitof Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling uponthe top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side arebrowny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purpleone sees in the Cleveland Hills. 

The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so thatwe look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as faras the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view fromthis very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; butbehind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderfulexpanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, andPenhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side ofWensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, butthat can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that waswitnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, whichblocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly themiddle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either sidefrom 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almostobliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. InLandstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties ofthe dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvationowing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways throughthe drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliestplaces to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges. 

When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the tracktaking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightnessis so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival ofone of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, justabove the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. Thetrack goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but Icannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descendedonly a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the onlypiece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake. It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lyingamong the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way thatits area might be far greater than 105 acres. 

Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, nodoubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made atthe edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and overthe mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make thedullest potato-field thrilling. 

A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we geta really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenlyfrom our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient littletracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the poolsamong the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in thesteep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep. 

We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side ofthe branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautifulviews of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the furtherside of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand outagainst a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall, surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge liesclose at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surroundedby a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; forBainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resortfor holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content toabandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called theBam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rockin many cascades along one side of the green. 

There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching thewaterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, andthere are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The prettyinn called the 'Rose and Crown, ' overlooking a corner of the greenstates upon a board that it was established in 1445. 

A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes placeat ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) andShrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has beenforgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns byforesters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedlyassociate the custom with early times, and this happy old villagecertainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such aremote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museumthere an old horn from Bainbridge. 

Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with orwithout the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particularpossession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romanticdales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above thelake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest ofRichard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials'B. H. J. , ' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakersat that time. 

On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile fromBainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbourwith a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezysituation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrowlittle street that curves steeply up the hill there are quiteexhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the roadwe traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below, where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist ofsmoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are thespurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the bluesummit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from thedistant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have animportance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand. 

We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restoredmarket-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking thethree-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building, for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domumMDCLXXVIII. ' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignityabout the house which must have been still more apparent when thesurrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery thatis constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenientplace for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In thegrass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring wassecured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the littlemarket-place, so that there is an open view on that side, madeinteresting by the Perpendicular church. 

The simple square tower and the unbroken roof-lines are battlemented, like so many of the churches of the dales; inside we find Normanpillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they werebrought from the site of Fors Abbey, a little to the west of the town. 

Wensleydale generally used to be famed for its hand-knitting, but Ithink Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in thevalley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled inthis employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the openair 'while gossiping with their neighbours. ' This statement is, nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'TheCostume of Yorkshire. ' In that work of 1814, which contains a number ofGeorge Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find apicture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is agroup of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of themarket-cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seendriving some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting. 

From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the littlestreet at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really lessformidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, butthat is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I oncehad the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoythe great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, witha sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his idealwhen he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told methat he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. Thepicturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he canfind, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down betweengaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to passthrough. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thusenters Swaledale. 

There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distanceis scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and throughthe curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is thegrowth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of thewaters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion offoliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing downamong the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascadesappear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold ahigh place among their rivals in the dale. 

Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at adistance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now afarmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its formerimportance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of thehouse is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet inthickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir RichardScrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from thefield of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who builtthe existing house. 

The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going downclose to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village ofCarperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At theeast end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms areornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat andpleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the placethan one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to AysgarthStation, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right afootpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. Therainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force, at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swellthe main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behindthe bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steadyroar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rockybottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of thesplendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble downsome natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along eachside of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone, and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves andfroth, until there come other descents which alter the course of partsof the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can seethe waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-colouredfoam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then, becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each lowterrace. 

Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether todisregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance ofnearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stonehouses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, withmossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg andBainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a veryconsiderable district. There is quite a network of roads to the south, connecting the villages of Thoralby and West Burton with Bishop Dale, and the main road through Wensleydale. Thoralby is very old, and isbeautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlookedby little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill withcurious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill therenestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequentlyin the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. Thehuge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, issuggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which ittapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house. 

The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosedbetween grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. Awide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when theroad begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers upto his imposing height of 2, 302 feet. We shall see him again when wemake our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale bya mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck fromStarbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and TorMere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remoteis this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of thedales, survived there until almost recent times. 

When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the UpperFall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to themain highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmirein order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vastquadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as theothers. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a fewexceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower atthe north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen onestormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened duringthe siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yardthrough a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on theside facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in thesouth-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having beenused by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after theBattle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had thecustody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary, no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despitethe magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to havecommanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessonsin English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes asher 'good schoolmaster. ' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to himher first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neusfrom Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse herwriting, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor, ' and was 'hestet. 'The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey Godheuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R. '

On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands outprominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the settingsun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot areal beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It wasduring the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and thelighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers ofWensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman onPenhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, whatwould happen to him if the dreaded invasion were really to come about, saw, far away across the Vale of Mowbray, a light which he at once tookto be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues offlame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spreadup the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, andwith drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as wascaused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all therest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and onthe way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with reliefor disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirskthey heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for thelight seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused byaccident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit. 

Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has givenits name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctivecharacter. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it issmall enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming thevalley. It is suggested that the name is derived from _Wodenslag_, and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts theplace named after their chief god would be the most important. 

In the little church standing on the south side of the green there isso much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what toexamine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with abeautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclosescreen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sideswe see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the northaisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely differentappearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in anyecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with everyexcuse, called it 'the opera box. ' In the panels of the early part ofthe screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering along period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it ispossible to make them more complete with the help of the record made bythe heralds in 1665. 

A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks fornearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road fromLeyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by twovery formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, weenter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearancein sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of theNevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southernside, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but thecastle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of asquare Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a shortdistance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerableheight, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were inpossession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190, when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl ofRichmond, began to build the Castle. 

It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to theNevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in thisfortress. It was here that Warwick, the 'King-maker, ' held Edward IV. Prisoner in 1467, and in Part III. Of the play of 'King Henry VI. , 'Scene V. Of the fourth act is laid in a park near Middleham Castle. Richard III. 's only son, Edward Prince of Wales, was born here in 1467, the property having come into Richard's possession by his marriage withAnne Neville. 

We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm canonly be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from itslarch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing ofWensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be moreinclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many viewsof a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista issomewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with amodern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensivemarket-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great openspace, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has fewattractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place fromwhich to explore the romantic neighbourhood. 

As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with thetwo Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of thevalley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valleyfrom which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finestpictures of this most remarkable portion of Yorkshire. 

CHAPTER XIV

RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY

We have come out of Wensleydale past the ruins of the great Cistercianabbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg toa kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town ofMasham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as70, 000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed, are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seensince we lost sight of Richmond in the wooded recesses of Swaledale, and though we are still close to the Ure, we are on the very edge ofthe dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. Theevening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place isrunning with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows andthe dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection issuspiciously called 'the Cross, ' and it made its appearance nearlyseventy years before the one at Richmond. Gent says it cost £564 11s. 9d. , and that it is 'one of the finest in England. ' I could, no doubt, with the smallest trouble discover a description of the real cross itsupplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one atRichmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of JohnAislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, andtherefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, anun-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with thedeeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any tracesof the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive. With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-outblast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands thewhole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp anold-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the lastquavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walksslowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch himwind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then athird, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappearsdown a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn wasblown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears theinscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh invain. ' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrongimpression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period soplainly that one scarcely needs to be told that it was built in 1801, although it could not so easily be attributed to the notorious Wyatt. Notwithstanding much reconstruction there are still a few quaint housesto be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavourof antiquity. It is the minster, nevertheless, that raises the 'city'above the average Yorkshire town. The west front, with its twin towers, is to some extent the most memorable portion of the great church. It isthe work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example ofthe pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal oftransitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built inthis period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing toits partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that facesthe nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and inthe later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in whichto study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcelythink it possible to find anything better, all the periods being veryclearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, andthe misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is acollection of very early printed books and other relics of the minsterthat add very greatly to the interest of the place. 

The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon andfirst Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing theentrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle. ' Arather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leadinginto a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At thenorth-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thoughtto have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent personbeing able to squeeze through the narrow opening. 

In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lightingtwo cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, andis so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted asdating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there canbe little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those earlytimes. 

At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasantlane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containingthe ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs theSkell, but so transformed from its early character that you wouldimagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give adozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bendof the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovelyview of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm isunmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless archesfilled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost asmemorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that aretentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England. 

Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasantmerely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenlylaid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemndouble line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of theChapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective ofthe dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the mostfascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared withthe last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post, forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varrafole and a misereble ideote, ' if I attempted in the short spaceavailable to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderfulpast. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I knowthat all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, readwith delight the books that are devoted to its story. 

CHAPTER XV

KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE

It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from thepoint of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends verymuch upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lastingpleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic littleexhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may beprepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lastingcharms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular andmuch-advertised 'sights. ' The first view of the town from the 'high'bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else tointerest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd, flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which thechurch and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct. This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresboroughwould have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just thereverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlementedparapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted intoits surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago asthe oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to theheights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handfulof later buildings down by the river margin. 

When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadwayperched well above the river, we come to one of the many interestinghouses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Onlya few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and ratherremarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a largeblack and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailingcreepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. Therestoration which recently took place has entirely altered thecharacter of the exterior, but inside everything has been preservedwith just the care that should have been expended outside as well. There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carvedfireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture ofthe period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroomlined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest isgreatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in thehouse, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom. 

Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central towersurmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire madeby the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire afterEdward II. 's defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancelcontains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby. The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of FrancisSlingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument showsSir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring atHarrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in thecause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658, 'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, . . . Was translated toa better place. ' So says the inscription on a large slab of blackmarble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of thefamily was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned bythe upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869. 

When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon anelevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whoseperpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us arescattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small accountif we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposingmass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the loweststory is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only twosides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The wallsenclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatlydestroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position. There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remainfragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthousethere are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port openinginto the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading fromthe castle yard. 

The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built inthe reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark andhorrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tinyair-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals athickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heartsick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II. Such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keephe occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now amere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen(sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof ofheavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collectionof interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poorlight that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest usamong the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of theNidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of thecastle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is thefirst mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-wornDropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn. 

The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and afterpassing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. Wefollow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, andare soon in the centre of the great watering-place. 

There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early daysof the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almostjoin the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room thatmade its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counteris still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wanderthrough the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, thebaths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smartshops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of thebuildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which towatch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stampof a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; thencome two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wearbrown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down onthe backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass, followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her twopretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people, we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood forsimplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with thepleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time ofthe scenes we have left behind. 

CHAPTER XVI

WHARFEDALE

Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley ofthe Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery ismanufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to thesouth rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the samepurpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; theelevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, ofcourse commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clearweather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the IngletonFells on the west. 

Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan housedating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account ofTurner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for thevery fine collection of his paintings preserved there. Theoak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among thehistorical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in thesword that Cromwell carried during the battle. 

Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water'spurity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also threepre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkleyis Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fineview. 

About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by abend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed onground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domesticbuildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church, the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremelybeautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at thepresent time, and it is probable that services have been held in thebuilding practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding theEarly English west end is the lower half of a fine Perpendicular tower, commenced by Richard Moone, the last Prior. 

The great east window of the choir has lost its tracery, and theDecorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with theexception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those onthe north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect andvery graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcadingresting on carved corbels. 

From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to theexceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of theWharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course arereally enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion partiesfrequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It isalways possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions forseeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiledby the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when thewoods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives aregenerally left to the birds and the rabbits. At the Strid the river, except in flood-times, is confined to a deep channel through the rocks, in places scarcely more than a yard in width. It is one of those spotsthat accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have losttheir lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel. That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for thetemptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more thanmany can resist. 

Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, afine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayredat the charge of the whole West R . . . 1676. ' To the south of the bridgestands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was atone time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It wasenlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford--the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strangelife-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection withSkipton--but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by thatindefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford. 

At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, inNidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is nowpartially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd forBradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keepto the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village ofBurnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made itsappearance from Skipton. 

The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fellsbecome gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on eitherside. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having agood view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come toKettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of GreatWhernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head ofCoverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns makeKettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run uptowards the head of Wharfedale. 

Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road fromAysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chasestretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come tothe curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, andforming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge andthe masses of trees just beyond. At Raisgill we leave the road, which, if continued, would take us over the moors by Dodd Fell, and then downto Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so veryslightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. Itis steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly2, 000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildnessspread all around, are more impressive when we are right away fromanything that can even be called a path. 

When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent intoLittondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at handand Fountains Fell more to the south. 

CHAPTER XVII

SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE

When I think of Skipton I am never quite sure whether to look upon itas a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns ofthe dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the stationupon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustlingactivity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easilyimagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-makingportion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, youenter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the marginof the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well asthe church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place. 

The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They arecircular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which ishigher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords, 'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gatewaystands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just infront; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern andinhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all ourattention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyardbeyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautifulquadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by agreat yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level ofthe roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height itspreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, coveringalmost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. Thebase of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plainshields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that ofa manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purelyTudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong tothe time of Edward II. , and there is also a round-headed door thatcannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé, one of theConqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle arevery much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an olddining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries, some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destructioncaused during the siege which took place during the Civil War mighthave brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresboroughbut for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady AnneClifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving childof George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care ofher mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used tospeak as 'my blessed mother. ' After her first marriage with RichardSackville, Earl of Dorset, Lady Anne married the profligate Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. She was widowed a second time in 1649, and after that began the period of her munificence and usefulness. Withimmense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castlesthat belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, andPendragon being restored as well as Skipton. 

Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no lessthan seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of theparish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred buildingeven before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In herprivate memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 . . . At her owncharge, she caus'd the steeple of Skipton Church to be built up againe, which was pull'd down in the time of the late Warrs, and leaded itover, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd theWindows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellowcolour, these two letters--viz. , A. P. , and under them the year1655. . . Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memoryof her Warlike Father. ' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands withinthe Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adornedwith seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great anassemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any otherEnglishman. ' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign ofElizabeth, and having for a time been a great favourite with the Queen, he received many of the posts of honour she loved to bestow. He was askilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, andbuilding at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of histime. 

The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in themanner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like herFather's, " we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and adimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown andvery thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs whenshe stood upright. "

We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going backto the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where hismerciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher. " He died by achance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to thecause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge inher father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, wasplaced under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy'smother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as anentirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in theprimitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he wasabout twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that thewhereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and hiswife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. Heremained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle ofBosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord wasbrought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had beenrestored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his newlife being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time inBarden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for hisown use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with thecanons of Bolton. 

At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that byhis life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished thetraditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him atBolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successordied after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" wasthe last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe. 

Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of thissouthern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a prettylittle village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; arushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, andthere is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages. 

We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black andmoss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. Theinterior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman fontand the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for theold pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recordingtheir names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initialsand dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down tothe accepted height of the present day with the exception of some onthe north side which were occupied by the more important families, andthese still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above thepanelled lower portions. 

Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the othervillage of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintryafternoon. The houses look on to a strip of uneven green, cut in two, lengthways, by the Aire. We go across the clear and sparkling waters bya rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, findourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon theswitchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along theside of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, andin the failing light there seems no object in following the stream anyfurther, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands outfrom a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of theopening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right intothe heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so thatwhen we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestonecliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for thefirst time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise themost thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishingsight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that Iwas Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of theeighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imaginedthat their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhangingrocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word. The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not muchspace to get out of reach of the water that drips from every portion. Great masses of stone were lying upon the bright strip of turf, andamong them I noticed some that could not have been there long; thismade me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall. I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, butcompletely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those oldwriters had underrated the horrors of the place. 

Wordsworth writes of

 "Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch, "

and he also describes it as one of the grandest objects in nature. 

A further result of the Craven fault that produced Gordale Scar can beseen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curvedfront 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestoneis formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliffinto three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencementof each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. Ahard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of theseprecarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried toturn, and in doing so fell and was killed. 

At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows froma very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkablestream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is largeenough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is agreat loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in thehidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rationalmethods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitateitself in majestic fashion into a great pool below. 

CHAPTER XVIII

SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS

The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot berecommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty ofkeeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard ofthe way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintrynight the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the roadthat goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lampfrom the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor Iwas enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisibleeven where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk atMalham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks ofthe pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The littletown of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession ofCastleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the verytop, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the treeswere planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of thehill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No oneremembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbersfixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lostits curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of goodTudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shamblesthat occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with bigarches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and othershops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has beenrestored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term. 

In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there maystill be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten itsoriginal purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to theirdoorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'TheNaked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very mucholder, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than thedate of the figure. 

The Ribble divides Settle from its former parish church at Giggleswick, and until 1838 the townsfolk had to go over the bridge and along ashort lane to the village which held its church. Settle having beenformed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient villageno longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able toshare the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a greatmany years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square andplaced in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first thingswe see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocksstanding by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very wellpreserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture aswe look at the battlemented tower of the church through thestone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine oldchurch, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has beenwritten by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the oldbuilding from the chalice inscribed "[Illustration] THE. COMMVNION. CVPP. BELONGINGE. TO. THE. PARISHE. OF. IYGGELSWICKE. MADE. IN. ANO. 1585. " to the inverted Norman capitals now forming the bases of thepillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the restof the structure is about 100 years older. 

"The Black Horse" Inn has still two niches for small figures of saints, that proclaim its ecclesiastical connections in early times. It is saidthat in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens tosee that no one was drinking there during the hours of service theinspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when thecustom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly. Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. Ithas grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment, and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can beseen anywhere in the country. 

The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed oflimestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground watersand pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns. In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895. Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly1, 000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for itsstalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Claphamto the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the smallportion discovered in 1837. 

In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountainwalks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes iscomparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, frommost of the fells that reach 2, 000 feet, there are magnificent viewsacross the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by thebare rocky scars. 

CHAPTER XIX

CONCERNING THE WOLDS

On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purityand a sparkle, not to be found in lowlands. There may be no streams, perhaps not even a pond; you may find few large trees, and scarcely anyparks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, andyet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This isexactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristicsare not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses ofwindswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge haveresisted sun and storm for ages. 

When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by theWolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land withscarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the airowing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due tothe whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezesthat for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots. 

Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deepand sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makesits appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north atWharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sidesbreak up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the highcountry, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and nettedwith roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headlandof Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, andlacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flintychalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of thesea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuriesbeen becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast ofEngland, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shoresof Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still moreconspicuous. 

The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedgesthat lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wideviews to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of wavingcorn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different incharacter from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean. 

At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of theglacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thicknessof the chalk is estimated to be from I, 000 to I, 500 feet, the greatestheight above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills risesharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremelygood, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwentand the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaietycharacterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering andconverging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you candistinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting intothe soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie thebeautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in theirembrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park. 

Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama ofthe Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough toHelmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies thecircumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolatedhillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearanceeverywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land evenat the present day. 

There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the YorkshireWolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As longago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of apastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famousfor the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts. 

It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Woldsmade this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture ofimplements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, andno doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive materialwould give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanencesufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great andcontinuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to goslowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairlycertain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, oran implement of less obvious purpose. 

To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Manin this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quitethe reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and theprehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are mostinvariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or onlyrecently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely beendisturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mournedthe loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from theirdouble or triple lines of defence. 

In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible toforget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above theroad will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from theregular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the ploughhas never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted thedisintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. Ifsuch relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stirthe imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mindrather than in the subject under discussion. 

In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is theold-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in fivedirections, including the line to Great Driffield, which takesadvantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnelsits way through the high ground. 

Choosing a day when the weather is in a congenial mood for rambling, lingering, or picnicking, or, in other words, when the sun is not toohot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our starttowards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or towhat they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white roadmay not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed, and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along thesteep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spirehigh above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton, which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated fromit only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-redbrick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretchesthe Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of thenight's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up, showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with longlines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawlingalong the horizon. 

The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stonespire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copiedfrom Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of thearcades of the nave belongs to the same period. 

Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the prettyvillage of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find thechurch standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spirelooking much like the one just left behind. The interior isinteresting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and withacorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed redtiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the sameperiod, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by woodenscreens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to theeast we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a newchurch in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament throughthe generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whoseenthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In hisown park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, EastHeslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern churchbuilding, in which the architect has not been hampered by having toproduce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in thesevillages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract fromtheir charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search ofecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them. 

As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe hasa church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribedSaxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near KirbyMoorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in bothchurches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect, this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggeststhat the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLIARCHIEPISCOPI. " Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVMFECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN. " Here the inscription suddenly stops andleaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built. There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggestedcompletion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPOREREGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI], " which would have just filled a completeline. 

The coins of Regnald II. Of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and itis known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of thatname appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the firstwords of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placedearlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeededWulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so repletewith antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of theVikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to findanother village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousandyears ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving itsinfusion of Scandinavian strength. 

The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have thenarrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more thanthis it is unwise to say. 

And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadowssweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that theground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, andtaking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not longago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even nowthere are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-colouredroofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tilesgradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles allthrough the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in thebrilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blueslates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouringin the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties. 

We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over thechurch door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the risingground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims tobe the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage ispointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the Seeof York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is saidthat he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say, "Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village isderived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly. 

Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passingArgam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateauwith scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms aredotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can seea windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds thatassail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that wasraised more than a few feet above the furrows. 

The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself inits bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the hugeperpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottageshave a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weatheredtiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises thelow square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnaclesin the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blewthem into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough neverto put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts. 

Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore ofHolderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, withBridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at thewest end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall andrichly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of soberred houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow greenvalley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along thefertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscapewith a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of thepark surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The familyhas been connected with the village for several centuries, and some oftheir richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church. One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart. , and another to LadyStrickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, thegallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the CivilWar. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "mysister Strickland. "

After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot, commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone standsconspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the churchtower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene incomparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreementthat huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remoteperiod, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggestthat they were regarded with a traditional veneration. 

The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village, and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, whereNorth Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to theleft, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge ofthe chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood, Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to thearchaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous. Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, aswell as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautifulNorman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevronmouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however, are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying closetogether, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about fivemiles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all thatnow exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In thechurch is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with thewonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, themost remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the actof swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside thecapacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behindthe dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation ofthe martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Treeof Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, andwhat seems to be another dragon. 

On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without theleast difficulty the ground-plan of many houses under the short turf. The early writers do not mention Cottam, and so far I have come upon noexplanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinctionwas due to the Black Death in 1349. 

It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches areonly about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there isnot much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way tothe church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speakingeloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the otherinstance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing muchperambulation of the farm. 

At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests theeye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings arethe figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from thevillage of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The twofigures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped roundthe waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip theother, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at theGrasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that thesubject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel. 

At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for andreposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made itpossible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by agreen canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of theWolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded, owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many yearsago. 

The village well is dignified with a domed roof raised on tall columns, put up about seventy years ago by the previous Sir Tatton to the memoryof his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how muchthe Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting, and enclosing, ' from a bleak and barren track of country into what isnow considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districtsof Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man thatYorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial, conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. Onmarket days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects ofconversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up tohis memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over halfHolderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squirethat years after the advent of railways he continued to make hisjourney to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback. 

A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with theexception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wallsurrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor theslightest alteration in the smooth turf. 

The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the styleof the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, butsomething in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable, but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhereyou look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, theworkmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be foundin the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, thetimber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spiteof the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of thescreen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping withthe rest of the work. 

Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erectedabout ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the Europeanwar. 

As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges ofthe Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plungesinto the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine allday, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pilethemselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain, driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lyingjust below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture. The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valleyof the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresquegloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape anelement of unreality. 

Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Streetstands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower, where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonrythat suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxonchurch, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there isevery reason to associate this lonely little building with the middleof the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crossesand barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between thetower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having aMoorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsycapitals. 

The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence inremote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately, there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additionalfact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to thesouth. 

With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow whereNorth Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over theroad, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled withivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancelarch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is justenough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape tothose at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is takenup with a wonderful 'Last Supper, ' and on the remaining space thecarvings show the 'Descent from the Cross, ' and a figure, possiblyrepresenting St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church. 

When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of explorationis at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen. 

CHAPTER XX

FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD

'As the shore winds itself back from hence, ' says Camden, afterdescribing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tonguethrust out) shoots into the sea. ' This is the long natural breakwaterknown as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasantwatering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey issingularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore, and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose thebroad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for ahealthy seaside haunt. 

The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, theheadland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed ofsandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to theparticular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joysof Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, andthen walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry wavesheaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder thatthere has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives inpromoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realizethat Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitelymore attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. Thereis a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to itsinterest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless thetide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholywarning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of theheadland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the seaby the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need notfrighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinarycare in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedyrocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to thegrassy top in order to get back to Filey. 

The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed fromthe top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north ornorth-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projectingrocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wavethan any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder downbelow comes steadily onward, and reaching the foam-streaked area, becomes still more sinister. As it approaches within striking distance, a spent wave, sweeping backwards, seems as though it may weaken theonrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up anddissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow ofcreamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullestheight, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown offin long white beards. 

The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of therocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its headdown with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns ofwater shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inchshells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar theimprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible ina vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen runningwith creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron ofseething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veinedwith white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and thepounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until themoment for another great _coup_ arrives. 

Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet, ' and the senseconveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness andprimness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from thevulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon thecoast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsymeretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitatingBlackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet andsemi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred itsappearance with a jetty. 

From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown overwith trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Withoutclaiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietlyunobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so manywatering-places. 

Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, anddensely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdytower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outlineand slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The highpitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened withoutcutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain aconspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columnsalternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestoryabove pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively thatthe nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that awestern tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusualfeature is the descent by two steps into the chancel. 

A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of thebay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending abouteight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending fromSpeeton to Flamborough Head. 

The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs inthe neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of overtwo miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short afew fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to theprecipitous wall of gleaming white chalk. 

We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a freshmorning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarinebroken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of thecliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straightdownwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is thesurrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. Thecrumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seenwith such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. Onthe ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countlessguillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs, and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodicallynoticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes nonest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away bythose who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird laysanother egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third. 

Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the firstnoticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turninto a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of theremarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point itappears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across thepromontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench ispurely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side hasbeen worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have beendeeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given thedwellers on the headland a very complete security. 

Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the diggingof this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it wouldhave been less misleading and far more popular if the work had beenattributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dugseveral trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the roadfrom Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in orderthat the excavations might be close to the small stream which runsinside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weaponsbeing dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders beingconsidered important. The results of the excavations provedconclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampartwere users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the groundon the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below thesurface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in ahorizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From thisfact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade runningalong the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit ofchipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The greatentrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-usingpeople, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period. '

And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation ofits inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred forstrangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof fromoutside influences. They have married among themselves for so long, that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics havebeen reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks, for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars ofninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered thatthey were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were, with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or notrace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of thispart of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory, when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivatedwolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without somedanger. 

We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards thevillage. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking, unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; forthe church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin ofwhat is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to theattractiveness of the place. 

All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing fortheir livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a totalindifference to their incursions in the way of catering for theirentertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and thecliffs nearly two miles away. 

Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stonetower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there isa delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopiedniches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places thered, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of thechancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of SirMarmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel, is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events inthe life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminentand potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. Thegreatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughtydeeds: of his passing over to France 'with Kyng Edwarde the fourith, y[t] noble knyght. '

 'And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482] And by ky[n]g Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone And rewllid and governid ther his tyme without blame But for all that, as ye se, he lieth under this stone. '

The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at FloddenField when he was seventy, 'nothyng hedyng his age. '

Sir Marmaduke's daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley, called 'the Great Black Knight of the North, ' who was the first of hisfamily to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receivinghis knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots. 

Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonlylong-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn backfrom going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, awoman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is alsoextremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, arabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fishermanwill abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentionedin his presence[1]. 

[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland, ' Colonel A. H. Armytage. ]

On the north and south sides of the headland there are precariousbeaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have noprotection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even suchminiature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having beenmade. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that sideis useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steepslope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances theSouth Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northernone, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is lesspicturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposedbetween the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea. Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackishgreen, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clayslopes back to the grass above. 

When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions, blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worthseeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost totheir hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the basketspannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge upthe steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, wherecarts take the fish to the station four miles away. 

In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of thepeninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. Thechalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed withcaves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesquegroups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interestof watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floatingunconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wingas they circle just above the waves. 

Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built ofchalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs ofage it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin andpurpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubtthat the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, beingextremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harderstone of the windows and doors now projects several inches. 

In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armadawas sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons inthe East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted, and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It saysbriefly:

 'Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost, takinge lighte from Bridlington, and geving lighte to Rudstone. '

There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seemmerely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day bytwo, and every night by three 'honest householders . . . Above the age ofthirty years. ' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been putup as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, thedangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized asexceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failedto have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been amatter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old towerever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowedon the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so greatthat no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose theearly structure came into existence. 

Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness, with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred andseventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. Itremained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr. Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren ofTrinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerfullight has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate resultwas that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was'lost on that station when the lights could be seen. '

The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown tohave nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame, ' being possiblya corruption of _Fleinn_, a Norse surname, and _borg_ or_burgh_, meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt 'Flaneburg, 'and _flane_ is the Norse for an arrow or sword. 

At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast ofHolderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place ofBridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, andeven now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish, place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holidayresort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and therailway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'ThreeTowns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wideparades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potentialenergies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. Thereare seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks, refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, andeven a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused, and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the longcurving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-troddensand. 

The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting featurein the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old BridlingtonQuay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque. 

In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. Shehad just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms andammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutchships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intendedto land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earlof Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in propersecurity. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however, conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar atTynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened istold in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25, 1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalryarrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning therest of the loyal army came to wait on her. 

'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continuehis favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the ParliamentShips arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and atfoure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us tosend speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which werebut newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to plyus so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of ourbeds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for theSouldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case theirforces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck uponthe house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; andbefore She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loudabout her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasingto Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of thehouse, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouringhouses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome ofthe house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went onfoot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of aDitch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, theCannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed withintwenty paces of Her. '

In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the AugustinianPriory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structureknown as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery. They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves toform a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of anyreal charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. TheBayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of itserection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, whenpermission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappilyfor Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon afterthe Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been sparedonly because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, thegatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it containshaving been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of thechurch towers are modern restorations, and their different heights andstyles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. Atthe west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window, occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side thevaulted porch is a very beautiful feature. 

The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columnsbuilt in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium onthe north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have beendestroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel ismerely a portion of the nave separated with screens. 

Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the lowcoast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There isnothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for itsfeatureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea. The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting powerto the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were ofgingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries, and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met withall the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington wecome to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines ofbreaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolishedvillages of Auburn and Hartburn. 

From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importanceto it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in thelordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also inferthat it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain havingpractically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary, and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surroundedby a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences existson the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen onthe grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, oncecrowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small pieceof stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but lateropinion labels them post-Conquest. [1] In the time of the DomesdaySurvey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, aFlemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England andreceived his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given theKing's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having forsome reason seen fit to poison her, he fled from England, it is said, during the last few months of William's reign. The Barony of Holdernesswas forfeited, but Drogo was never captured. 

[Footnote 1: A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr. J. L. Kirk, of Pickering. ]

Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. Gaveorders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl ofAlbemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. WhenEdward II. Ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companionPiers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earlof Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the greatSeigniory of Holderness. 

Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross ona large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further oncome to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the seaand the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surpriseto the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lakein a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to befound. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet thatday is likely to be put further off year by year on account of thegrowth of a new town on the shore. 

The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road toBeverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surfaceseen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many ofthem having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, beingsupported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands andthe swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countlesswater-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach. 

It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led toa hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St. Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot ofMeaux, laid claim to fishing rights in the southern half of the lake, only to find his brother Abbot of York determined to resist the claim. The cloisters of the two abbeys must have buzzed with excitement overthe _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the onlymethod of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit tothe result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the twomonasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the numberof champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horsewas first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits ofthe claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbotappeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning untilevening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to theground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of theMere. 

Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in betweenthe western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerkutilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at workthere on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore theroof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralyticseizure of which he died. 

By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up inthis new position and supplied with a modern head. 

As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with thedesolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only punywaves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrainfrom feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, andthe waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay beforesatisfying a fresh appetite. 

The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbourand pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirelydisappeared since the time of James I. , and so also has the placecalled Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-sevenacres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acresremained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far fromWithernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of theeastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar anda cloud of dust. 

Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even thechurchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houseswere absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map. 

The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and moreattenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearerto the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has beenfortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered witha thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effectgiven by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral. 

At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to thewaves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded withsalt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often notmore than fifteen feet high. 

CHAPTER XXI

BEVERLEY

When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forthits deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience anuplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, thaneven that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaultedspaces of a cathedral. 

Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for itstands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards theWolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solelyupon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as wecome over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We arejust sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster, with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and closeat hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of darktrees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every wayprepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, treelined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind thefoliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the lastof Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark redbrick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modernhouses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the townrecords long before his day tell us that there were three gates, butnothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng. '

We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with thebeautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgianhouses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side, while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its verypicturesque 'cross. ' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir CharlesHotham, Bart. , and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for theCorporation at that time. 

Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me littlepleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lessertransepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in properproportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. Theeulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the EarlyEnglish work of this great church, and the strangely adverse commentsthe same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do notblind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the partof these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions ofthe Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design ofone master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried outin the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to considerthe result beautiful. 

In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is ingraceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of theturrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines. 

A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbyterywere added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time togive this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a markedadvance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the otherportions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in thedark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster tookplace of which there is a record:

'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church wasburnt, in the month of September, the night after the Feast of St. Matthew the Apostle, and in the year 1197, the sixth of the ides ofMarch, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed Johnin this place, and these bones were found in the east part of hissepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was foundlikewise, and re-interred. '

This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden platediscovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was openedand found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. Thepicture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a greatextent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been oneof the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled theEarly Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about theyear 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded byforest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelveyears, he retired here for the rest of his life. When he died, in 721, his memory became more and more sacred, and his powers of intercessionwere constantly invoked. The splendid shrine provided for his relics in1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metalsemployed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, itdisappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its veryfoundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everythingexcept the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and surviveduntil the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussionhas centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of thetriforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that theearly nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last greataddition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porchand the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transeptsand chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in thatperfection of form characterizing York. 

A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work ofthe sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of thesixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection thanany other in the country. The subjects range from a horriblerepresentation of the devil with a second face in the middle of hisbody to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on herway to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand theear of the man who is wheeling her. 

In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to thelesser transept on that side, is the tomb of Lady Eleanor FitzAllen, wife of Henry, first Lord Percy of Alnwick. It is considered to be, without a rival, the most beautiful tomb in this country. The canopy iscomposed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literallyencrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion thatthe general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, isalways magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steepgable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apexfor an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides ofthe monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figurerepresents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne, holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undrapedfigure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in oneof those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with twofingers on her head. 

In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual doublestaircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs alongthe aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at aslight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind themarble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed atthe Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early Englishstairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair ofsanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with ironclamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. Theprivileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished inthe reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of allsorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen andminstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the securityof St. John of Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr. Charles Hiatt in his admirable account of the Minster:

'John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum that John Spret, of Barton uponUmber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the firstday of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked thelybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton, husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to beat the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August. '

On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicularchurch which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of theMinster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular windowflanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which arerun up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upperportions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face, and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and iscrowned by sixteen pinnacles. 

In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, likethe greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch isNorman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the naveis ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrelscarved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each ispainted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can beseen that the centre figure, who is dressed as an alderman, had a harp, and the others a pipe, a lute, a drum, and a violin. From Saxon timesthere had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperousfraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in hismonumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts, at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excusefor music. 

CHAPTER XXII

ALONG THE HUMBER

 'Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; But if you faint, as fearing to do so, Stay and be secret, and myself will go. ' _Richard II_, Act II, Scene 1. 

The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches ofthe Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the widerpatch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge ofsand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable andpopulous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middleof the fourteenth century. 

Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway forshipping, where merchant vessels were constantly coming and going, bearing away the wool of Holderness and bringing in foreign goods, which the Humber towns were eager to buy. This traffic soondemonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where theestuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on allvessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up aboutthat time by a benevolent hermit. 

No doubt the site of this early structure has long ago been submerged. The same fate came upon the two lights erected on Kilnsea Common byJustinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from CharlesII to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point. 

In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up twolighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurryin completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were notcompleted until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the lowlight, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentionsthe loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth wastaken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laidthe foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century theillumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from thewind, ' and its power was consequently most uncertain. 

Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and thecircular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter fromwind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there forthe lifeboat and other purposes. 

The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fittedwith the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of519, 000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coastof England. The need for a second structure has been obviated byplacing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twentyseconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seenin clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles. 

In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on theHumber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise, and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It wasprobably owing to his great wealth that his son was made aknight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another ofthe De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been noless opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to EdwardIII, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer andalso presented with the Lordship of Holderness. 

The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in anumber of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happenedin this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the manydifferent spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous portof Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this mighthave continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into thematter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers whichhave been discovered. 

There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was aDanish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being acompound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning anarrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga thesailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army fromRavenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, ismentioned in the lines:

 'The King the swift ships with the flood Set out, with the autumn approaching, And sailed from the port, called Hrafnseyrr (the raven tongue of land). '

From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of smallconsequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, andthen only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spitof land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridgeof Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in theearly part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliestrecorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it atavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or fourhouses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a smallport was created, its development being fostered by William deFortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such successthat, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance, and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. Todistinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on anisland, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed oflarge yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in theChronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generallywritten Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and nolonger on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous portas Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison toRavenserodd, the busy port, it is often merely referred to as Ravenser, spelt with many variations. 

The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due toa remarkable keenness for business on the part of its citizens, amounting, in the opinion of the Grimsby traders, to sharp practice. For, being just within Spurn Head, the men of Ravenserodd would go outto incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell theircargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquotingthe prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, theywould force the ships to enter their harbour and trade with them, whether they liked it or not. All this came out in the hearing of anaction brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although theplaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of theCourt was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shownthat any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace. 

The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340and 1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux. Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:

'Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerningthe effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton. 

'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd. . Was totallyannihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of thegreat sea . . . And when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had halfan acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town, pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolitionduring the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of thesea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing intheir accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing theswallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measurethe height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side, threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with thisterrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons, with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, whichremained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticumof the body of Christ in the hands of the priest, flocking together, mournfully imploring grace, warded off at that time their destruction. And afterwards, daily removing thence with their possession, they leftthat town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which, with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuousfloods, was irreparably destroyed. '

The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull andother towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters. 

When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within SpurnHead, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the onlyincident recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp, who was at the time building a chapel. 

The very beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along awinding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over themeadows. 

We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in thisdiminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and lessthan four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen ofHolderness, ' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the mostbeautiful village church in England. With the exception of the eastwindow, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built inthe Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth ofdetail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within andwithout. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transeptsas well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Abovethe tower rises a tall stone spire, enriched, at a third of its height, with what might be compared to an earl's coronet, the spikes beingrepresented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supportingpillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons whenthat rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with thecolour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing onthe clustered columns. 

In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were threechantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the southtransept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recessfor the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In thegroined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant ofconsiderable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing theAnnunciation, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist, and on the under side is a Tudor rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the_Archaeological Journal_, states that this pendant was used for alamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time, that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. Analternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained arelic where it would have been safe even if visible. 

Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and althoughlacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasantplace, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found inall the Holderness towns. 

On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we passWinestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and wherewe may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards ofWinestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI. 

The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; andwhen we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty, and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place thatwas decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. Nodoubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon fromher high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place wasscarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance hadbeen at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, gluttedwith their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of thedisintegrated town in the waterway of the other. 

The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of thatperiod. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, witha fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtlecolours we saw at Patrington. 

In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zoneof its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waitingfor works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom ofthe city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomescopper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holdernessloses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils ofblackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinctbehind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusionof buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousandpoints. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses ofcellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rearsits offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, founded by Edward I at the close of the thirteenth century. 

It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of theEdwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercialdevelopment the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even thesmallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of Englisharchitecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets, where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; andthere are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringingdignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, ispractically all. 

When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defendedwith towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filledthe winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--weunderstand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely asRavenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de laPole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteenCarthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house inLowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brickmansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII duringhis visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuiltand restored that its interest is much diminished. 

The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is, therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the littletown founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building andhas a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts andchancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period. The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed withbrick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by thefounder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcadesof both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, andthe interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey anypleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, itappears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated apile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised. 

William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in alarge house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric columnsurmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner ofthe city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and isa pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part ofthe city. 

In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to thesouthern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden theyshow as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of thechurch stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. Thecobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antiquehouses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these thatwe have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window haslost most of its tracery, and has the appearance of a great archway;its date, together with the whole of the chancel, is late Decorated, but the exquisite little chapterhouse is later still, and may be betterdescribed as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has ineach side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed areremarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting ofogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to theloss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fastdisappearing. 

About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand theruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread outgreen and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches, it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is broughtcloser by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seemto be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country. 

The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country isthe only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment ofthe former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since afire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two greattowers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs. 

Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to thePercys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudalgrandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by theParliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earlof Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and anorder was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed. Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June duringthat year, and had held out so persistently that any fortifiedbuilding, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possiblesource of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order wastherefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commandingthem to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this wasdone with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts madeby the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the factthat, of the four sides of the square, three have totally disappeared, except for slight indications in the uneven grass. 

The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildingsspared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a centuryago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, thefifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book. The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, andother apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and thesides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancientsculpture, finely executed in wood, exhibiting the bearings, crests, badges, and devises, of the Percy family, in a great variety of forms, set off with all the advantages of painting, gilding and imagery. '

There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and afifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In oneof the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery, ' larder, andkitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in thetwo-storied building and the other tower of the south side were thechief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and orderedhis great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We wouldprobably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for theconduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to hislowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl ofNorthumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. Byreading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up acomplete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512and later. 

From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartmentswere hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds andbedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, thealtar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, everyone's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts eachtime my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following isone of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:

'ITEM. --Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn SubdeanPrestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman andGrome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at everyRemevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes afterii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to aBedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Beddefor the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furstCariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher therStuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said iiCariages allowid theime. '

We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church fromthe battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last lookat the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavytracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us atlength to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twicethat of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion withthe rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that thisgreat spire could have been different without robbing the church of itsstriking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Normanarches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decoratedor Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the southtransept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light theyallow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends inthe nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefullyrepaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong tothe period when the church was a collegiate foundation of Durham. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS

Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of threeseparate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, apleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensivesuburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there itsattractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on aslope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arrangesthe backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches, although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been soextensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight. 

On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form oftwo rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of somethree or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probabilityidentified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary. 

Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottageshere and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture asyou come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees onthe left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately abovethe humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about themiddle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert ofSempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long lifesent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dearsons. ' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of thechurch, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of thetwo western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles, two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. Theabbreviated nave now serves as a parish church. 

Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hillycountry we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known asthe Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst. The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood containscan be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through theWolds. 

There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has apark-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on eachside, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the leftare most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslandsinto the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between thedistant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castleof the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architectof early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing. In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a fewsentences. '. . . I can say with exact truth, ' he writes to GeorgeSelwyn, ' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as withthe first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and howSir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told methat I should see one of the finest places in Yorkshire; but nobody . . . Had informed me that should at one view see a palace, a town, afortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being eachmetropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, thenoblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleumthat would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen giganticplaces before, but never a sublime one. '

The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole'sdescription applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The picturesinclude some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens, Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and AnnibaleCaracci. 

Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to thedeep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall treeswhose dense foliage only allows a soft green light to filter through, goes steeply down to the river. We cross the deep and placid river by astone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruinpartially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkablefashion the detail of its outward face. 

The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according toa tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with theevent which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord ofHelmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who wasfond of riding with exceeding swiftness. 

One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a smallstone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breakinghis neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent issaid to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one ofthem being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place. 

Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain totell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed oneof the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is allthat has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a fewwalls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alonesurvive. 

Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey, is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a timeto see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the EnglishKing, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold'sbrother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from theright bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partiallyarmed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, itappears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay fora time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall onthe left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just abovethe village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took placethere Freeman has no doubt. 

Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site ofthe Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village shouldhave grown up at such an important crossing of the river. 

An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes fromStamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. Ifwe take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distanttrees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reacha silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangularspace, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls, is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as weapproach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possiblethat this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'Isaw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges, ' he says, andalso describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being verymagnificent. 

We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline tothe distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with treesappearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we haveno difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres, which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates ofYork. 

In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence onlyintensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of thetowers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate theformer grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, firstEarl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertramde Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death ofWarwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor ofSheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and itwas he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner withinthese massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, theeldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, wasalso incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper, when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, butthe unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Huttonuntil August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on thethrone. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle, and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sentfor at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelledtogether does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of thissimultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was toplay the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chiefbutler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl ofWarwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised upElizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of thePrince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after hisexecution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eightyears old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he couldhardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from allthe common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it wassaid 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon. '

Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house calledNewburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and somecurious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, thehistorian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year ofhis death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his wholelife there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictionsof the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburghwas given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whosefamily was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants wascreated Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The lastowner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart. --inherited the property from hisgrandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir Georgewas one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge ofthe Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854. 

The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupyingwhat is generally called 'the Duke's Room. ' Rear-Admiral Lord AdolphusFitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bedstill kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallerycrowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements SirGeorge wore at Balaclava. 

The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank ofEarl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in theCivil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary. This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon avault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a smallmetal plate is written:

'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed, by his daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, whenhis remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey. '

The letters 'R. I. P. ' below are only just visible, an attempt havingbeen made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finallyclearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell'sremains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII. 's Chapel atWestminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--thetwelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head wasplaced upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separatehistory, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become aRoyalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhapshave been able to secure the decapitated remains of his father-in-law, after their burial at the foot of the gallows at Tyburn. It has oftenbeen stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging toCromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has beenconclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced toone of the Belasyses. 

Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which isso often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the landstill spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of thevillage. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses oneach side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree withtwisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at thetop of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to thevillage. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaintlittle house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stoneball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of theFauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort andcleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662. 

The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonaltower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but theFauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, whoreceived the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, showshim with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of thedrawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with greatcarved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the spacein the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening thecommunion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from thecentre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpitLaurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eightyears of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode inthe charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall. ' It is on theopposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and oneof those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteadsof the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on theright-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothingassociated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outsideof the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter. 

During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterousspirits were much subdued, Sterne completed his 'Sentimental Journey. 'He also relished more than before the country delights of the village, describing it in one of his letters as 'a land of plenty. ' Every day hedrove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one dayhis postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, whichwent off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees, ' wrote Sterne, 'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--atwhich, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more ofit. '

The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two milesnorth of Coxwold, and there we come upon the ruins of Byland Abbey. Their chief feature is the west end of the church, with its one turretpointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a hugecircular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example ofEarly English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears tobe the original structure built soon after 1177, for it showseverywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was takingplace at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelvemonks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, andafter some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother ofRoger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One accountpictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, withall their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describeshow they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed nearThirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four yearsreceived land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. Thisposition was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could betoo plainly heard, so that five years later the restless communityobtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place calledStocking, where they remained until they came to Byland. 

Recent excavation and preservation operations carried out by H. M. Office of Works have added many lost features to the ruins includingthe exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hithertoburied under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east gothrough surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons, roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along openhill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and moredistant moors in the north. 

In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of theFairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the mostbeautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. Thewalls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space beingfilled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake ofYorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the greatfamilies of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours againstthe dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniformbrown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself, the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with densefoliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything Ihave seen elsewhere. 

CHAPTER XXIV

A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK

Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to knowpractically the whole of English history. Its importance from theearliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events thathave take place in the North of England; and right up to the time ofthe Civil War the great happenings of the country always affected York, and brought the northern capital into the vortex of affairs. And yet, despite the prominent part the city has played in ecclesiastical, military, and civil affairs through so many centuries of strife, it hascontrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by anytown in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunatefact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has neverbecome a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses beingunable to rob the city of its romance and charm. 

There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than thatfurnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, weare confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlementedwall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can weenter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ageswithin. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right downto the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Barwith their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments. Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times duringthe last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the barsand where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbingthe walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamycolour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York'satmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to theextent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamourof every view would gradually disappear. 

Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts ofthe wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion whileembedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal ofRoman walling. 

The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers haveeach a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys ofYork, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrowstreets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which weknow from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty wereach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find aflight of stone steps leading to the top of the wall. We climb them, and find spread out before us our first notable view of the city. Thebattlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on thebank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while abovethe old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appearthe stately towers of the Minster. 

On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backsto the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene whenopen country came right up to encircling fortifications, and withinwere to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet soadmirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm ofage. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, havingreached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Itsbold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlementsare three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city. In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approachedYork from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of theportcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of somePlantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering thatabove this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York, after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and along list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times ofpageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, inarchitecture, and in ornament of every description, there was ablood-thirstiness that makes us shiver. 

The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the riverand come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts noantiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by theeighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor'shouse. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is theartificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is calledClifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restoredthe ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords canstill be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole datesfrom the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horribletragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Thosemerchants who escaped from their houses with their families and werenot killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that theywere unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyedthemselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but wereafterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople. 

On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse justoutside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, apicturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line offortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows itsbattlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived. The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design toMicklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethantimber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned, was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. Itwas soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that Yorkcapitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellentterms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minstersuffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and theonly disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, nearSt. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed. Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldierwho rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of allthe records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfaxhad paid a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum. 

Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond wecome to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John deRowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in thefifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautifulsurvivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. Onthe left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is theinteresting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern wasilluminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way toYork. The north door has a sanctuary knocker. 

The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close toAll Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, wherebutchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides ofthe way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shopshas a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across thepassage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, andeither plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spacesbetween the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles, too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting andoriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite sorich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large numberof shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques, ' and, as the pleasure of buyingan old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledgethat the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets ofYork, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses arein no danger. In walking through these streets we are very littledisturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seemsto surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower ofthe Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so manycharming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it ishard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such asLisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, hasonly one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, inKingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' untilyou have at least seen what England can show at York and Chester?Skirting the west end of the Minster, and having a close view of itstwo towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not sobeautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways themost romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an openspace faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behindare the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond themrises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however, destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and lookout of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed inearly times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway thatarmed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeyingnorthwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to befeared in the Middle Ages. 

Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened bytrees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old housewhere, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived instately fashion. 

When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimageof Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. Thecitizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was grantedthree years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke ofNorfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, andresulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. Thebeautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and thesite is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum buildingitself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug upwhen the new railway-station was being built. One inscription isparticularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars intheir palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing toenter the praetorium at Jerusalem when Christ was made prisoner, because it was the Feast of the Passover. 

We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the riverfrom Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, butto reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal andturn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and istherefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on eachside support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled withexcellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in thehistory of the city, from the election of Constantine to be RomanEmperor, which took place at York in A. D. 306, down to the great dinnerto the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850. 

The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as theGuildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave andaisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of muchgreater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and someof them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in thewindows. 

St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with thesigns of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English orTransitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containingRoman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages ifthere were space. 

We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transeptdoor, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we havereached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling thelofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond pettythings. 

Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the ChristianChurch nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replacedby a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments inthe crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and cityin ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirelyto the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being stilllater. 

CHAPTER XXV

THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT

It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that ofSelby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet thisactually happened not many years ago. 

It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were firstseen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. TheSelby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a taskentirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically, they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofsof the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable withinthe tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds andYork had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, itwas hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, butthe fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4. 30 a correspondenttelegraphed:

'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building willnow be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out ofthe roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in moltenstreams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the wholeof the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is afiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are inconsiderable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is nowburned through. 

'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feetabove the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out. '

When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work ofdestruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timberin the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windowshad been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitalsreduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept, where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became socalcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerouscondition. 

Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after anew roof had been built, it was easily made ready for holding services. The two bays nearest to the transept are early Norman, and on the southside the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooveddiaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at DurhamCathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except theEarly English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress fromearly Norman to Early English. 

On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is aslab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaintfashion:

 'Here Lyes ye Body of poor Frank Raw Parish Clark and Gravestone Cutter And ys is writt to let yw know: Wht Frank for Othrs us'd to do Is now for Frank done by Another. Buried March ye 31, 1706. '

A stone on the floor of the retro-choir to John Johnson, master andmariner, dated 1737, is crowded with nautical metaphor. 

 'Tho' Boreas with his Blustring blasts Has tos't me to and fro, Yet by the handy work of God I'm here Inclos'd below And in this Silent Bay I lie With many of our Fleet Untill the Day that I Set Sail My Admiral Christ to meet. '

The great Perpendicular east window was considered by Pugin to be oneof the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran ofbeing entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design ofthe glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and aconsiderable portion of it is original. 

Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet itsgreatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. Atthe eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous archesof the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in thenorth of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south. 

Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual bordersof the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history ofPontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed ofnearly every building associated with the great events of its past, andits present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on ahill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing aneighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classicstructure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier, Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolentIntention Anno Dom' 1734. '

The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminencejust suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the statelytowers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above thescarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base ofthe great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in thetime of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towersand some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of thehistoric site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight ofsteps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carvedthe names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Belowthe castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with itsruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentarycannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, thestately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to themelancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortificationsconstructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, incase it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whosecannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of oneembedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seenon carved stones on the front walls over the entrance. The date, 1591, is believed to be later than the time of the erection of the house, which, in the form of its parapets and other details, suggests thestyle of Henry VIII's reign. 

Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals ofPontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanishedcastle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are thegreat personages and famous events of English history connected withits owners, its prisoners, and its sieges. 

The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, fromthe early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been madeto discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, whichreplaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, andthe absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarlyhopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, wherethe Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and theCalder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The presentname does not make any appearance until several years after the NormanConquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards tobecome the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle ofHastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and eitherto him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman wallsand chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sidesof the castle yard. 

The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died withoutissue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to RichardFitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, whenThomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy. Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar andConstable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of ChateauGaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowedPhilip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attemptat relief. Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, who was a cousin of Edward II, was more or less in continual opposition to the king, on account of hisdetermination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was withLancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at BlacklowHill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin, and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of theDespensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle ofBoroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his owncastle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused ofrebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being inleague with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he wascondemned to death as a traitor, and the next day, June 19, 1322, mounted on a sorry nag without a bridle, he was led to a hill outsidethe town, and executed with his face towards Scotland. 

In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment inthe castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposedKing should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place. Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to anotherin the lines:

 'The Kyng the[n] sent Kyng Richard to Ledis, There to be kepte surely in previtee, Fro the[n]s after to Pykeryng we[n]t he nedes, And to Knauesburgh after led was he, But to Pountfrete last where he did die. '

Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, whileShakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer. 

During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up tothe rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the followingcentury came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followedafter the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined theParliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining throughmost of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved theRoyalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornlyand losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of justthree weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, andlasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, thebesieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within thecastle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists aunique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of thegarrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible torealize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes, and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege beforerecent times. 

In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summonedthe garrison, and remained a month with the Parliamentary forces, without seeing any immediate prospect of the surrender of the castle. When the Royalists had been reduced to a mere handful, Colonel Morris, their commander, agreed to terms of capitulation on March 24, 1649. Thedismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as amatter of course, and now we have practically nothing butseventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers whichfor so many months defied Cromwell and his generals. 

Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry haslanguished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still producesthose curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the sizeof a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes. '

The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in thetwelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state ofcompleteness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception ofFountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearlythe whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless naveis in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house andrefectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and thesituation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing tothe smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of thecountless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of theirinterest, unless viewed solely from a detached architecturalstandpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in thisneighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great roundedhills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village ofHaworth. 

More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away inthat melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that periodthe church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has givenHaworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley, destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they reallyare, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what theywere in the days when the members of that ill-fated household werestill united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage, ' as it isinvariably called by Mrs. Gaskell. 

We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deepvalley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even thoughit turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent aspossible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'BlackBull, ' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began, owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick, ' as he was familiarlycalled, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more importantpatrons. 

The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstonesdating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to thisdismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked, as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such anunfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top shouldhave given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had onlybeen placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face thesouth, it is conceivable that the Brontės would have enjoyed betterhealth and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account ofa visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and herfather were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impressionof how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:

'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre. " She looked smallerthan ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like alittle bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds arejoyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it wasfirst built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took homehis bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house, even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quenchcheerfulness and hope. '

Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when theeldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there havingbeen any childish laughter about the house, we are told that thechildren were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliestwalks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them underseven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above theirhome rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, andpractically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, sothat we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-handover the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we hadtravelled back over the intervening years. 

The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the CalderValley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to thePeak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2, 000 feet in height. Within easyreach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest andugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steelworks become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emitcrimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzlingbrilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activityreigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men workingduring each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works comeevery form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair ofscissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.