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+Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire Painted And Described
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: August 13, 2004 [EBook #9973]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE PAINTED AND DESCRIBED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders. Illustrated HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+YORKSHIRE
+
+PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
+
+GORDON HOME
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER I
+ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER II
+ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER V
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER VI
+WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER IX
+FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER X
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+CHAPTER XI
+RICHMOND
+
+CHAPTER XII
+SWALEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+WENSLEYDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER XV
+KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+WHARFEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+CHAPTER XX
+FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+BEVERLEY
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+ALONG THE HUMBER
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+THE 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 the
+gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+Pickering.
+
+The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+the gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+country 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, we
+come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+cottages 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 up
+against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+a 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-cloth
+gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+make this a subject of great fascination.
+
+Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+
+In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+known south of the Cheviots.
+
+Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+
+The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+extinct.
+
+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 heather
+in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+station 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 a
+spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+streams.
+
+Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+although every feature is plainly visible--the church, the abbey, the
+two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new--the detail is all
+lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+
+Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+
+The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+
+A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+with 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 it
+was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+show 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 were
+blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+supported the statement that it was haunted.
+
+I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+
+The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+horizon.
+
+Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+opened.
+
+We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+
+The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+Wheeldale 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 is
+about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+for 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 of
+stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+overhanging 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 on
+the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+bridge 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 the
+foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+
+Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+to go down too far to recover.
+
+The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+make 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 name
+Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+known afterwards as East Row.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.--G.H.]
+
+Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+either hand--for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+foliage--are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+newly-fallen rocks.
+
+We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+devoid of any interest.
+
+The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+
+The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+path joins the shore.
+
+This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+side 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 the
+hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from
+whooping-cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would
+call 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 the
+complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+destitution 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 wooden
+foot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a very
+few--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facing
+the sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+
+The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+in 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 to
+strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+target for stones.
+
+No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+round the flames.
+
+In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+couples and widows and orphans.
+
+The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+the 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 masses
+of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+
+The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+
+It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefully
+recorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen of
+Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+date, report confidently that ... a _sea-man_ was taken by the
+fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+
+The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+
+The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+all 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 ocean
+was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+with men's carcases.'
+
+In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+features, 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 broad
+county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+the first stages.
+
+As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+farm, 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. The
+footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+low 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 the
+stone walls dividing the pastures--a silent testimony to the power of
+the north-east wind.
+
+After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+swallowed you up.
+
+Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+one.
+
+The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+Ravenscar.
+
+Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+
+Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+
+There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+times.
+
+The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+
+From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+bay.
+
+I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+and Epsom.
+
+The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+commercial attempts to amuse.
+
+This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+
+On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+informed 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 caned
+him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+quickly as it had risen.
+
+The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+Mayor, 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 as
+could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+at all.
+
+If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+the sieges of the castle. The maimed church--for the chancel has never
+been rebuilt--is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+
+The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+her 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 but
+of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+
+On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+
+To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+
+Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+
+The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+
+At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh was
+forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+the Governor unless he capitulated.
+
+Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+down their arms.
+
+Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+
+This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+Scarborough.
+
+Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+German 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 town
+which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+
+In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+fretted one the abbey.
+
+But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+are subdued in the haze.
+
+In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+
+In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+waves, 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 is
+out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+
+Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+
+The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+abbey 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 an
+opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+of Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+Lionel Charlton.
+
+Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+
+Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year--probably 713--a complete
+silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to £3,500 at the present
+time.
+
+After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+merely a priory.
+
+The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+
+The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+through 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, who
+entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+that 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 of
+Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+appurtenances 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 a
+name 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 we
+owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+by my own hand.'
+
+In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+
+'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+dinner, 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 to
+receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+next generation may have more public spirit.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+
+On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+easily-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 every
+point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+ridge of total desolation--a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+of the dales.
+
+Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+valiant men.
+
+On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+
+The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+believe that the story is untrue.
+
+I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+who 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 attached
+to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+above. 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 fiercely
+that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+a 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 clouds
+parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+
+The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+Kildale 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 of
+the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+without 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 is
+standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+woods and pastures.
+
+The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+
+The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+Early Decorated style.
+
+One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+
+The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+inevitable in a mining country.
+
+Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+was shortly sailing for England.
+
+When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+over 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 the
+beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+castle 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 their
+many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+horizon 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 vale
+stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+
+Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+Herod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests are
+shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+all 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 of
+Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+from the life of our Lord.
+
+The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+surcoat.
+
+When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+
+Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+published in 1806.
+
+The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+salary of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+supply of fish--in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+strange anomaly.
+
+The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+
+The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+
+Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+under 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 already
+referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+Confessor.
+
+A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+
+A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+destroyed.
+
+All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+abbey ruins.
+
+The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+grass-grown débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+
+When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+the Moon which have a name so similar.
+
+This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+Dales.'
+
+It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+over 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 to
+attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+water-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, near
+Hawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+overhanging above.
+
+Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+Wensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heather
+at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+
+In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riverside
+pastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+
+Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+
+The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RICHMOND
+
+
+For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+
+The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+feudal times.
+
+From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+centuries unharmed.
+
+We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+conversation and loitering.
+
+On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+
+All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+
+From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+of water beyond the bridge.
+
+The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+cover the heights above the river.
+
+There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+
+On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+description of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne is
+waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+posterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+adjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+with 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 curious
+compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+(!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+
+Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+stood 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 were
+fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+
+But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+
+Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+of 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 from
+Rokeby, 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 hold
+her, 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 saw
+with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+Watling 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 the
+next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+only just overcame the grisly sow.
+
+If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+
+On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+fifth 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 the
+soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+second, with a good camera in our hands?
+
+In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+regular guarding of the castle.
+
+There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+be seen.
+
+Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+fell to this Breton.
+
+The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+Rice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+not 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 as
+other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+
+It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+Edward III.--a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcely
+fourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+throne 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 his
+splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+
+Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+visitations 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 go
+towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+effigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by lay
+Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+
+The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+granary is even now in use.
+
+On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SWALEDALE
+
+
+There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+
+The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+land 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 trackless
+mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+where 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 civilized
+mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+the scenery.
+
+From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+land where chimneys have never been.
+
+Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+before 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 almost
+miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+worse than a broken leg.
+
+It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+its 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 of
+the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+older.
+
+The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+beauty spots of the country.
+
+As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+Scottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in the
+steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+
+Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+is 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 to
+the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+possesses.
+
+A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+centre 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 bold
+scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+
+Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+
+In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+
+Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+by old screens.
+
+Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+
+When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+seldom 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 those
+who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+often in jeopardy.
+
+Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+
+The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+Hutchinson, 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 claim
+to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+restricted to one side of the way.
+
+Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+of 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 the
+finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+through 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 in
+this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+
+If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+any 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 a
+mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+the 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 that
+darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+drawn 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 way
+slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+keeping in the middle of the road.
+
+What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+
+Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+these 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 only
+straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+
+Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+the 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 pass
+through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+twelve 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 walk
+on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+from the surface of the pool.
+
+John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '_Uredale_ veri
+litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+
+The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+
+When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+
+Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+dullest potato-field thrilling.
+
+A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+
+We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+in many cascades along one side of the green.
+
+There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+
+A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+
+Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+at that time.
+
+On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+
+We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+interesting 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 Norman
+pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+brought 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 I
+think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a
+group of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the
+market-cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen
+driving some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+
+From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+enters Swaledale.
+
+There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+high place among their rivals in the dale.
+
+Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+the existing house.
+
+The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+terrace.
+
+Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+considerable 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 is
+beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+
+The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+
+When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+
+On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+would 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 took
+to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+
+Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from _Wodenslag_,
+and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+
+In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+the heralds in 1665.
+
+A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+
+It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+fortress. 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 with
+Anne Neville.
+
+We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+
+As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+pictures 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 Cistercian
+abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+since 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 of
+the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+seventy 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 it
+supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+plainly 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 houses
+to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+of 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 is
+the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+
+The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+
+In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+times.
+
+At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+
+Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+with 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 the
+point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+of later buildings down by the river margin.
+
+When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+
+Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+
+When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account
+if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+the castle yard.
+
+The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+(sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+
+The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+
+There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+the scenes we have left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHARFEDALE
+
+
+Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+Fells on the west.
+
+Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+
+Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+view.
+
+About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+Early 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 the
+Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+resting on carved corbels.
+
+From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+generally 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 spots
+that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+many can resist.
+
+Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford--the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+Skipton--but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+
+At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+appearance from Skipton.
+
+The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+towards the head of Wharfedale.
+
+Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+the 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 down
+to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+anything that can even be called a path.
+
+When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+and 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 it
+as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+
+The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé, one of the
+Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+Sackville, 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. With
+immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+
+Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+charge, 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 it
+over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+colour, these two letters--viz., A. P., and under them the year
+1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+Elizabeth, 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 a
+skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+time.
+
+The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+she stood upright."
+
+We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+canons of Bolton.
+
+At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+
+Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+
+We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+panelled lower portions.
+
+Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+afternoon. 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 by
+a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+space 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, and
+among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+writers 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 be
+seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+
+At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+itself 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 be
+recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+
+In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+date 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 a
+short lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been
+formed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village
+no longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to
+share the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great
+many years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and
+placed in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things
+we see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks
+standing by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well
+preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as
+we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the
+stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old
+church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been
+written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old
+building 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 the
+pillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest
+of 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 said
+that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+seen anywhere in the country.
+
+The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+portion discovered in 1837.
+
+In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+bare rocky scars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+
+On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+and 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 any
+parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+resisted sun and storm for ages.
+
+When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+
+Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+conspicuous.
+
+The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+
+At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+
+Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+at the present day.
+
+There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+
+It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+an implement of less obvious purpose.
+
+To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+prehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are most
+invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+double or triple lines of defence.
+
+In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+has never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted the
+disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+rather than in the subject under discussion.
+
+In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+its 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 too
+hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+towards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or to
+what they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white road
+may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+along the horizon.
+
+The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+
+Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+
+As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+line.
+
+The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+
+The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+this it is unwise to say.
+
+And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+
+We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+"Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+derived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly.
+
+Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+
+The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+
+Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+west end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall and
+richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+sister Strickland."
+
+After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+that 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, where
+North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+what seems to be another dragon.
+
+On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+least 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 no
+explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+
+It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+perambulation of the farm.
+
+At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel.
+
+At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+ago.
+
+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 memory
+of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+
+A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+
+The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+the rest of the work.
+
+Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+war.
+
+As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+element of unreality.
+
+Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+capitals.
+
+The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+south.
+
+With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+
+When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+is 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, after
+describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+healthy seaside haunt.
+
+The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+
+The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+below 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 the
+onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+in long white beards.
+
+The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+moment for another great _coup_ arrives.
+
+Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+appearance with a jetty.
+
+From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+watering-places.
+
+Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+
+A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+
+The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+
+We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+
+Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
+purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
+been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
+deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+
+Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of
+chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+
+And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+danger.
+
+We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+attractiveness of the place.
+
+All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+cliffs nearly two miles away.
+
+Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+deeds: 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 Flodden
+Field 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 his
+family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+
+Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+in his presence[1].
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland,' Colonel A.H.
+Armytage.]
+
+On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+slopes 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 worth
+seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+
+In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+as they circle just above the waves.
+
+Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+
+In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+briefly:
+
+  '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 seem
+merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+early 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 and
+seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.
+Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+was 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 to
+have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+a 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 of
+Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+sand.
+
+The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+
+In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+
+'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+twenty paces of Her.'
+
+In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+
+The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+
+Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+
+From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday
+Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+some 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 Holderness
+was 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. gave
+orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+Seigniory of Holderness.
+
+Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+growth of a new town on the shore.
+
+The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+
+It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+Meaux, 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 over
+the _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the only
+method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+Mere.
+
+Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+seizure of which he died.
+
+By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+
+As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+satisfying a fresh appetite.
+
+The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+a cloud of dust.
+
+Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+
+The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+
+At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+more than fifteen feet high.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEVERLEY
+
+
+When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+uplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+spaces of a cathedral.
+
+Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the last
+of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+
+We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+Corporation at that time.
+
+Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+the result beautiful.
+
+In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+
+A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+place of which there is a record:
+
+'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+burnt, 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 of
+March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+likewise, and re-interred.'
+
+This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+years, 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 intercession
+were constantly invoked. The splendid shrine provided for his relics in
+1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+and the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+perfection of form characterizing York.
+
+A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+
+In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+lesser 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 is
+composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+fingers on her head.
+
+In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+of 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 upon
+Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+at 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 Perpendicular
+church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+
+In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+seen 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 times
+there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+for 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 of
+the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+of the fourteenth century.
+
+Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+shipping, 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 soon
+demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+that 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 by
+Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+
+In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+
+Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+the lifeboat and other purposes.
+
+The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+
+In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+
+The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+have been discovered.
+
+There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+mentioned 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 small
+consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliest
+recorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it a
+tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+Ravenserodd, 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 to
+a 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 out
+to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+would 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 an
+action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+
+The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+and 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 concerning
+the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+
+'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+of 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 left
+that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+
+The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+
+When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+incident 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 a
+winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+meadows.
+
+We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+the 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 being
+represented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supporting
+pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+the clustered columns.
+
+In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+Annunciation, 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 a
+lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+
+Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+all the Holderness towns.
+
+On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+we may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards of
+Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+
+The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+
+The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+colours we saw at Patrington.
+
+In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+its 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 the
+Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+practically all.
+
+When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+the winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--we
+understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+and 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 little
+town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+brick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+
+William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+the city.
+
+In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+lost 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 better
+described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+disappearing.
+
+About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+
+The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+
+Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+that, 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 buildings
+spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+sculpture, 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 a
+fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+and later.
+
+From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every
+one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each
+time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+
+'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+Cariages allowid theime.'
+
+We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+the 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 three
+separate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+
+On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+identified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary.
+
+Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+
+Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+Wolds.
+
+There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+that 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, a
+fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+places before, but never a sublime one.'
+
+The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+Caracci.
+
+Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+whose 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 a
+stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+fashion the detail of its outward face.
+
+The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+
+One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+
+Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+survive.
+
+Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+there Freeman has no doubt.
+
+Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+the Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village should
+have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+
+An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+magnificent.
+
+We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+York.
+
+In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+
+Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year of
+his death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+family was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants was
+created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+owner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart.--inherited the property from his
+grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+
+The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+George wore at Balaclava.
+
+The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+metal 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, when
+his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+
+The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--the
+twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head was
+placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+have 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 often
+been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+one of the Belasyses.
+
+Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+twisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at the
+top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+
+The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+communion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from the
+centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+
+During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+spirits 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 he
+drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--at
+which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+it.'
+
+The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+north 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 turret
+pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+Stocking, 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 including
+the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+distant moors in the north.
+
+In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+have seen elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+
+Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+the 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 has
+contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+
+There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+of every view would gradually disappear.
+
+Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+Roman walling.
+
+The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+flight 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. The
+battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+the stately towers of the Minster.
+
+On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+
+The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+
+On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+had 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 we
+come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+
+The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+you 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 its
+two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+feared in the Middle Ages.
+
+Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+stately fashion.
+
+When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+enter 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 river
+from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+
+The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+windows.
+
+St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+there were space.
+
+We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+things.
+
+Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+
+
+It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+actually happened not many years ago.
+
+It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+telegraphed:
+
+'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+burned through.
+
+'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+
+When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+condition.
+
+Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+new 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 south
+side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+early Norman to Early English.
+
+On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+fashion:
+
+  '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 and
+mariner, 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 one
+of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+considerable portion of it is original.
+
+Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+
+Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+
+The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+on 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 the
+style of Henry VIII's reign.
+
+Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+
+The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+of the castle yard.
+
+The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+at 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 his
+determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+condemned 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 outside
+the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+
+In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+in 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, while
+Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+
+During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+recent times.
+
+In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+the 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. The
+dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+
+Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+
+The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+Haworth.
+
+More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away in
+that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began,
+owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+patrons.
+
+The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked,
+as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+south, it is conceivable that the Brontės would have enjoyed better
+health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+
+'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+cheerfulness and hope.'
+
+Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when the
+eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+walks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them under
+seven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+travelled back over the intervening years.
+
+The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the Calder
+Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
+
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diff --git a/9973-8.zip b/9973-8.zip
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+++ b/9973-h/9973-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,7452 @@
+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Yorkshire, Painted and Described, by Gordon Home.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+    
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 2em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 20%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 25%;}
+    div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    pre     { font-family: Times; font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+    <h1>
+      <a href="#linkstart">YORKSHIRE</a>
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      by<br /> Gordon Home
+    </h2>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire Painted And Described
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: August 13, 2004 [EBook #9973]
+Last Updated: October 22, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE PAINTED AND DESCRIBED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders. Illustrated HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkstart" id="linkstart"></a> <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="title2 (260K)" src="images/title2.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      YORKSHIRE
+    </h1>
+    <h2>
+      PAINTED AND DESCRIBED
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BY
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      GORDON HOME
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-1" id="linkimage-1">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/01.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="York from the Central Tower of The Minster " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="title (74K)" src="images/title.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH2"> CHAPTER I </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH3"> CHAPTER II </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH4"> CHAPTER III </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH5"> CHAPTER IV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH6"> CHAPTER V </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH7"> CHAPTER VI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH8"> CHAPTER VII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH9"> CHAPTER VIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH10"> CHAPTER IX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH11"> CHAPTER X </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH12"> CHAPTER XI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH13"> CHAPTER XII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH14"> CHAPTER XIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH15"> CHAPTER XIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH16"> CHAPTER XV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH17"> CHAPTER XVI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH18"> CHAPTER XVII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH19"> CHAPTER XVIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH20"> CHAPTER XIX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH21"> CHAPTER XX </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH22"> CHAPTER XXI </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH23"> CHAPTER XXII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH24"> CHAPTER XXIII </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH25"> CHAPTER XXIV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH26"> CHAPTER XXV </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /><br /><br />
+      </p>
+      <hr />
+      <p>
+        <br /><br /><br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-1"> York from the Central Tower of The Minster </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-3"> Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-5"> Runswick Bay </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-6"> Robin Hood's Bay </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-7"> Sunrise from Staithes Beck </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-8"> The Red Roofs of Whitby </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-9"> Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-10"> An Autumn Day at Guisborough </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-11"> The Skelton Valley </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-12"> In Pickering Church </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-13"> The Market-place, Helmsley </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-14"> Richmond Castle from the River </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-15"> A Rugged View Above Wensleydale </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-16"> A Jacobean House at Askrigg </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-17"> Aysgarth Force </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-18"> View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-19"> Ripon Minster from the South </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-20"> Fountains Abbey </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-21"> Knaresborough </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-22"> Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-23"> Settle </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-24"> Wolds </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-25"> Filey Brig </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-26"> The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-27"> Hornsea Mere </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-28"> The Market-place, Beverley </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-29"> Patrington Church </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-30"> Coxwold Village </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-31"> The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey
+        </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-32"> Bootham Bar, York </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#linkimage-33"> Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds </a>
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      YORKSHIRE
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH2" id="link2HCH2">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br /> <a href="images/34.jpg">ENLARGE TO FULL SIZE</a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img alt="34th (79K)" src="images/34th.jpg" width="100%" />
+    </div>
+    <p>
+      <br /><br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ancient stone-built town of Pickering is to a great extent the gateway
+      to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the foot of that
+      formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is the meeting-place
+      of the four great roads running north, south, east, and west, as well as
+      of railways going in the same directions. And this view of the little town
+      is by no means original, for the strategic importance of the position was
+      recognised at least as long ago as the days of the early Edwards, when the
+      castle was built to command the approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace
+      to the whole of the Vale of Pickering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+      Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and then,
+      on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost due
+      north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through the
+      gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering Beck,
+      and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze at the
+      frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to travellers and
+      a few shepherds. But although this great change has been brought about by
+      railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited, and has lost little of
+      its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its accompanying white cloud,
+      has disappeared round one of the great bluffs, there is nothing left but
+      the two pairs of shining rails, laid for long distances almost on the
+      floor of the ravine. But though there are steep gradients to be climbed,
+      and the engine labours heavily, there is scarcely sufficient time to get
+      any idea of the astonishing scenery from the windows of the train, and you
+      can see nothing of the huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the
+      precipices on either side. So that we, who would learn something of this
+      region, must make the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an
+      encumbrance when crossing the heather, and there are many places where a
+      horse would be a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely
+      wooded for the first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the
+      surrounding country gradually loses its cultivation, at first gorse and
+      bracken, and then heather, taking the place of the green pastures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the village of Newton, perched on high ground far above the dale, we
+      come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The cottages
+      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 up against the
+      golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the geese, and some
+      whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones of the grass and
+      trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy meadows to the woods,
+      above Levisham Station in the valley below. At first there are glimpses of
+      the lofty moors on the opposite side of the dale where the sides of the
+      bluffs are still glowing in the sunset light; but soon the pathway plunges
+      steeply into a close wood, where the foxes are barking, and where the
+      intense darkness is only emphasized by the momentary illumination given by
+      lightning, which now and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor.
+      At last the friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station
+      appear just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+      steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the waning
+      light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The huge
+      shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and towards the
+      west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one unfathomable
+      blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation become almost
+      oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the constellations
+      gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In something less than
+      an hour a light glows in the distance, and, although the darkness is now
+      complete, there is no further need to trouble ourselves with the thought
+      of spending the night on the heather. The point of light develops into a
+      lighted window, and we are soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road
+      in front of the Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large
+      stone-flagged room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the
+      cheery glow of the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed
+      settles, a gun hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak
+      stools, and a 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-cloth
+      gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+      dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost bury
+      the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon we are
+      discussing the superstitions which still survive among the simple
+      country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left make this a
+      subject of great fascination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense interest
+      the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a family in these
+      parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of illness, their cows
+      died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the milk was so far under
+      the spell that on churning-days the butter refused to come unless helped
+      by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as usual they had been churning in
+      vain, instead of resorting to the sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in
+      an outbuilding, and, gun in hand, watched the garden from a small opening.
+      As it was growing dusk he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge.
+      He fired instantly, the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the
+      butter came. That same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had
+      long suspected of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as
+      the hare, and henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than at
+      night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+      opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+      cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling and
+      heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a flood of
+      light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can hear the
+      hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham is Gallows
+      Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and a few yards
+      off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up Saltersgate Brow, the
+      hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of Horcum Hole, where
+      Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can be seen down below
+      contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright green, but the ling
+      comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident longings to absorb the
+      scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little mountain-plant which flowers
+      in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few patches have been discovered in
+      the locality, but elsewhere it is not known south of the Cheviots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a pale-green
+      ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet at Tom Cross
+      Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on Goathland Moor,
+      coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to Sleights Moor, nearly
+      1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of moorland spreads itself
+      out towards the west. Near at hand is the precipitous gorge of Upper
+      Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and beyond are the heights of
+      Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the blue outlines of Ralph Cross
+      and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-3" id="linkimage-3">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/03.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices between
+      the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards; but the
+      sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies to the
+      left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach the lip
+      of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the railway
+      runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural cutting 500
+      feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for 200 feet, and
+      the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a rough slope, quite
+      bare in places, and in others densely grown over with trees; but on every
+      side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and bare as any that face the
+      ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems completely shut in. There is
+      much the same effect when steaming through the Kyles of Bute, for there
+      the ship seems to be going full speed for the shore of an entirely
+      enclosed sea, and here, saving for the tell-tale railway, there seems no
+      way out of the abyss without scaling the perpendicular walls. The rocks
+      are at their finest at Killingnoble Scar, where they take the form of a
+      semicircle on the west side of the railway. The scar was for a very long
+      period famous for the breed of hawks, which were specially watched by the
+      Goathland men for the use of James I., and the hawks were not displaced
+      from their eyrie even by the incursion of the railway into the glen, and
+      only recently became extinct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 heather in the form of an
+      ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low central tower, and a
+      little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into its surroundings. The rest
+      of the village is scattered round a large triangular green, and extends
+      down to the railway, where there is a station named after the village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH3" id="link2HCH3">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To see the valley of the Esk in its richest garb, one must wait for a
+      spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+      the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+      woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+      astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes on
+      its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down a
+      plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+      streams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+      Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+      English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+      although every feature is plainly visible&mdash;the church, the abbey, the
+      two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new&mdash;the detail is all
+      lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+      enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which is
+      sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the prints,
+      however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on rejoicing
+      that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble us, for the
+      world is ablaze with colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the river
+      far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods near Cock
+      Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with the little
+      village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes over the Esk
+      just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every view of the great
+      mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+      Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+      the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing at
+      the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here and
+      there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep purple
+      tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale scenery
+      are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would wish to have
+      the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing of boatloads of
+      holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we leave the
+      tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a stone-flagged
+      pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great deliberation, so
+      that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent sweep of landscape
+      towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing freshly from the great
+      table-land of Egton High Moor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+      climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+      which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and thus
+      we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with picturesque
+      stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship with 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.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first time I visited Aislaby I reached the little hamlet when it was
+      nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to show 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 were blown
+      fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the road stood
+      an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well supported the
+      statement that it was haunted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the heather.
+      Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe Cross, on Egton
+      Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A light gleamed from
+      one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my steps, being determined to
+      partake of tea before turning my steps homeward. I stepped into the little
+      parlour, with its sanded floor, and demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The
+      girl was not surprised at my request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at
+      the inn are known to all the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+      Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried up
+      to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when their
+      atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland heights
+      rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the slightest sense
+      of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to give in its place a
+      vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the whole world seems left
+      to Nature, the levels of cultivation being almost out of sight, and
+      anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the end of August the heights
+      are capped with purple, although the distant moors, however brilliant they
+      may appear when close at hand, generally assume more delicate shades,
+      fading into greys and blues on the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+      time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was sent
+      from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was opened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+      stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest in
+      this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+      sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea beyond,
+      a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the ling. Away
+      towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is limited only by
+      the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking at a section of a
+      very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on the western side runs
+      the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we stand as well as Egton
+      High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence with the Esk at Grosmont is
+      lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of roofs and railway lines; and
+      the course of the larger river in the direction of Glaisdale is also
+      hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton High Moor. Towards the south we
+      gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by the coach-road to York as it rises
+      and falls over the swells of the heather. The queer isolated cone of
+      Blakey Topping and the summit of Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate,
+      appear above the distant ridges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+      seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on the
+      ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along within a
+      few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses Wheeldale
+      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 is about 12 feet
+      wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly raised above the
+      general level of the ground, and can therefore be followed fairly easily
+      where it has not been taken up to build walls for enclosures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 of stone
+      cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by a stone
+      bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the bridge, a
+      footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of the rushing
+      beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two or three broad
+      silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of overhanging rock,
+      shaded by a leafy roof, shut in the brimming waters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not difficult to find the way from Beck Hole to the Roman camp on
+      the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+      right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+      fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to Whitby
+      or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down again to the
+      deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach Glaisdale End, where
+      a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands over the rushing stream.
+      The initials of the builder and the date appear on the eastern side of
+      what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge. It was formerly called Firris
+      Bridge, after the builder, but the popular interest in the story of its
+      origin seems to have killed the old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to
+      mention some of the sights of the neighbourhood, he will probably head his
+      list with the Beggar's Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The
+      woods are very beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest
+      dales, and the presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem
+      sufficient to have attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it
+      to the love interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine,
+      the Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+      to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the river.
+      Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined that if he
+      came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a bridge on the
+      spot he had been prevented from crossing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH4" id="link2HCH4">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Along the three miles of sand running northwards from Whitby at the foot
+      of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest sea-pictures on
+      this part of the coast. But although I have seen beautiful effects at all
+      times of the day, those that I remember more than any others are the early
+      mornings, when the sun was still low in the heavens, when, standing on
+      that fine stretch of yellow sand, one seemed to breathe an atmosphere so
+      pure, and to gaze at a sky so transparent, that some of those undefined
+      longings for surroundings that have never been realized were instinctively
+      uppermost in the mind. It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of
+      perfection which has its effect on even superficial minds when impressed
+      with beautiful scenery, for to what other cause can be attributed the
+      remark one hears, that such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of the
+      smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder. The
+      sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette the twin
+      lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the foaming
+      wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long shadows of early
+      day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold headland full of
+      purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea, across the white-capped
+      waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no doubt, for South Shields or some
+      port where a cargo of coal can be picked up. They are plunging heavily,
+      and every moment their bows seem to go down too far to recover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+      lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent before
+      the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges across
+      the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these bridges,
+      which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up the coast-line
+      to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of the picturesqueness
+      of East Row without remembering the railway. It was in this glen, where
+      Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for the pretty tiled
+      cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which make up East Row,<a
+      href="#linknote-1"><small><sup>1</sup></small></a> 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 name Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the
+      requirements of workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led
+      to building operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose
+      became known afterwards as East Row.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linknote-1" id="linknote-1">
+      <!-- Note --></a>
+    </p>
+    <p class="foot">
+      <sup>1</sup> [ Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+      allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.&mdash;G.H.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating woodland
+      scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken walls and
+      towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on either hand&mdash;for
+      the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of foliage&mdash;are
+      entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant colours with which
+      autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to find the ordinary
+      woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge is hundreds of feet
+      deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this canon in the form of a
+      water-fall at the upper end, and then almost disappears among the enormous
+      rocks strewn along its circumscribed course. The humid, hot-house
+      atmosphere down here encourages the growth of many of the rarer mosses,
+      which entirely cover all but the newly-fallen rocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+      castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a great
+      view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long curving
+      line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the entrance to
+      Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as of yore, and
+      beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending at Saltwick
+      Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard full of blackened
+      tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its much-modernized exterior
+      is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is devoid of any interest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the tide
+      is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is not
+      particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the railway, which
+      cuts right through the intervening high ground by means of two tunnels.
+      The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the centre has a passage
+      out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of the tunnel collapsed there
+      would be a way of escape. But this is small comfort when travelling from
+      Kettleness, for the down gradient towards Sandsend is very steep, and in
+      the darkness of the tunnel the train gets up a tremendous speed, bursting
+      into the open just where a precipitous drop into the sea could be most
+      easily accomplished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to reach
+      the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and solid
+      pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+      goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+      enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+      constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes the
+      track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a history,
+      for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages originally
+      forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending danger by
+      subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they betook
+      themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move had not
+      long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground occupied by the
+      cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning there was little
+      to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the foot of the precipice.
+      The villagers recovered some of their property by digging, and some pieces
+      of broken crockery from one of the cottages are still to be seen on the
+      shore near the ferryman's hut, where the path joins the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-5" id="linkimage-5">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/05.jpg" width="100%" alt="Runswick Bay " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of the
+      finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky coast-line of
+      Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to the rocky heights
+      hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further side 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 the hottest weather, and
+      from the broad shadows cast by the precipices above one can revel in the
+      sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy odour so unavoidable in the
+      villages. When the sun is beginning to climb down the sky in the direction
+      of Hinderwell, and everything is bathed in a glorious golden light, the
+      ferryman will row you across the bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the
+      rocks on the beach will be repaid by a closer view of the now
+      half-filled-up Hob Hole. The fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home
+      of a kindly-disposed fairy or hob, who seems to have been one of the
+      slow-dying inhabitants of the world of mythology implicitly believed in by
+      the Saxons. And these beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire
+      villages that until recent times a mother would carry her child suffering
+      from whooping-cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she
+      would call in a loud voice, 'Hob-hole Hob! my bairn's getten t'kink cough.
+      Tak't off, tak't off.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The same form of disaster which destroyed Kettleness village caused the
+      complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+      fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+      warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+      villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+      downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+      one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+      destitution by the sums of money collected for their relief.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Scarcely two miles from Hinderwell is the fishing-hamlet of Staithes,
+      wedged into the side of a deep and exceedingly picturesque beck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village,
+      giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle wooden foot-bridge&mdash;the
+      view one has been prepared for by guide-books and picture postcards. Lower
+      down you enter the village street. Here the smell of fish comes out to
+      greet you, and one would forgive the place this overflowing welcome if one
+      were not so shocked at the dismal aspect of the houses on either side of
+      the way. Many are of comparatively recent origin, others are quite new,
+      and a few&mdash;a very few&mdash;are old; but none have any architectural
+      pretensions or any claims to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat
+      and respectable look one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's
+      Bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-6" id="linkimage-6">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/06.jpg" width="100%" alt="Robin Hood's Bay " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf&mdash;a wooden structure facing
+      the sea&mdash;hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+      little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+      were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to find
+      excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of repair, like
+      most things in the place, was occupied by groups of stalwart fisherfolk,
+      men and women.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They were
+      also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work of
+      hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A tackle
+      hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was being hauled
+      at by five women and two men! Two others were in a listless fashion
+      leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With the last 'Heave-ho!'
+      at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the nets, and with casual
+      male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of
+      fish, and generally prepared them for stowing in the boat again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A change has come over the inhabitants of Staithes since 1846, when Mr.
+      Ord describes the fishermen as 'exceedingly civil and courteous to
+      strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar to
+      the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be unreasonably
+      hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this character is
+      infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when Mr. Ord wrote of
+      the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by them to strangers.
+      It is, according to some who have known Staithes for a long long while,
+      less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were hostile to a stranger
+      on very small provocation, and only the entirely inoffensive could expect
+      to sojourn in the village without being a target for stones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished or
+      died out in recent years, and among these may be included a particularly
+      primitive custom when the catches of fish had been unusually small. Bad
+      luck of this sort could only be the work of some evil influence, and to
+      break the spell a sheep's heart had to be procured, into which many pins
+      were stuck. The heart was then burnt in a bonfire on the beach, in the
+      presence of the fishermen, who danced round the flames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution entered
+      into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835, binding
+      themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on Sundays,
+      'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the Saturday or
+      Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings for every
+      offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in this way, and
+      by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged couples and
+      widows and orphans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great Britain
+      as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles, which vary
+      in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance of their
+      paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are the most
+      favoured colours, but orange, pink, yellow, and many others, are to be
+      seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking northwards there is a grand piece of coast scenery. The masses of
+      Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+      Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill the
+      air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into beards
+      which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-7" id="linkimage-7">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/07.jpg" width="100%" alt="Sunrise from Staithes Beck " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing through
+      deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very close to
+      one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend from
+      Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another lovely
+      valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest woodland scenery.
+      It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus, and from thence to
+      the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open to the heavens.
+      Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining district, and it is for
+      this reason that the town has grown to a considerable size. But although
+      the miners' new cottages are unpicturesque, and the church only dates from
+      1811, the situation is pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the
+      houses, has railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on
+      the hill above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In
+      daylight they are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they
+      speak of the potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of
+      steel cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with
+      silent masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+      alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+      fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+      Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535&mdash;for the event is most carefully
+      recorded in a manuscript of the period&mdash;that some fishermen of
+      Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to record
+      that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men that would be
+      loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale date, report
+      confidently that ... a <i>sea-man</i> was taken by the fishers.' They took
+      him up to an old disused house, and kept him there for many weeks, feeding
+      him on raw fish, because he persistently refused the other sorts of food
+      offered him. To the people who flocked from far and near to visit him he
+      was very courteous, and he seems to have been particularly pleased with
+      any 'fayre maydes' who visited him, for he would gaze at them with a very
+      earnest countenance, 'as if his phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with
+      a sparke of love.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend terminates
+      abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is familiar to
+      visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of the rocky
+      precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you approach
+      Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The original
+      Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages, still stands
+      entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of the beck, and from
+      the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern Saltburn to be seen
+      besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and blocks of houses have
+      been wisely placed some distance from the edge of the grassy cliffs,
+      leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+      the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to the
+      bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+      Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be heard
+      horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that they have
+      altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a story would not
+      be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may be afraid to speak
+      of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when all 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 ocean was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge
+      for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed with men's carcases.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+      Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+      watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+      features, 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 broad
+      county.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH5" id="link2HCH5">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH <a name="linkimage-8" id="linkimage-8">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/08.jpg" width="100%" alt="The Red Roofs of Whitby " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+      Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+      cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+      gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured distance
+      is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for otherwise the
+      scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as the first stages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a farm,
+      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. The footpath goes close
+      to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has gone too close, and has
+      disappeared altogether. But these diversions can be avoided without
+      spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet
+      below. From above Saltwick Bay there is a grand view across the level
+      grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out alone on the green horizon. Down
+      below, Nab runs out a bare black arm into the sea, which even in the
+      calmest weather angrily foams along the windward side. Beyond the sturdy
+      lighthouse that shows itself a dazzling white against the hot blue of the
+      heavens commence the innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling
+      stream, and bushes and low 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 the stone walls dividing the pastures&mdash;a silent
+      testimony to the power of the north-east wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-9" id="linkimage-9">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/09.jpg" width="100%" alt="Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is suddenly
+      laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide sweep of sea,
+      which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the high escarpments of
+      rock that were in deep purple shade, except where the afternoon sun turned
+      them into the brightest greens and umbers. Three miles away, but seemingly
+      very much closer, was the bold headland of the Peak, and more inland was
+      Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts on the hill-top. The fable connected
+      with the outlaw is scarcely worth repeating, but on the site of these
+      butts urns have been dug up, and are now to be found in Scarborough
+      Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away in a most astonishing fashion, for,
+      until you have almost reached the two bastions which guard the way up from
+      the beach, there is nothing to be seen of the charming old place. If you
+      approach by the road past the railway station it is the same, for only
+      garishly new hotels and villas are to be seen on the high ground, and not
+      a vestige of the fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay
+      at last begins to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear.
+      The oath at the side of the road develops into a very lone series of
+      steps, and in a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses,
+      has swallowed you up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses are
+      very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting in
+      every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn stone
+      walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows. Over
+      their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and you
+      seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the women
+      love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek with
+      blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless curtains.
+      At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening between the
+      coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another bastion, and
+      in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong stone walls,
+      for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales from the east or
+      north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the coast offers no
+      shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels have been lost on
+      the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was driven right into this
+      bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into a window of the little
+      hotel that occupied the place of the present one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and out
+      to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally steams
+      very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the Peak and
+      630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the moors inland,
+      and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station named Fyling
+      Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to Ravenscar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above the
+      Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view from the
+      castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the remains of some
+      ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing to be seen older
+      than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774. While the building
+      operations were in progress, however, a Roman inscribed stone, now in
+      Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that the 'Castrum' was built by
+      two prefects whose names are given. This was one of the fortified signal
+      stations built in the 4th century A.D. to give warning of the approach of
+      hostile ships.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+      stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+      found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man will
+      scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly honey-combed
+      with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no particularly plain
+      pathway through the fields to the valley where this stone circle can be
+      seen, but it can easily be found after a careful study of the large-scale
+      Ordnance Map which they will show you at the hotel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH6" id="link2HCH6">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SCARBOROUGH
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds of
+      fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+      sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough. By
+      degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were old
+      houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and above them
+      appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline defined by the
+      curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made Scarborough a place
+      of importance in the Civil War and in earlier times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+      capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+      harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+      grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily attempting
+      to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the great mass of grey
+      buildings stretching right to the extremity of the bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+      watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one or
+      two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead fell to
+      wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the long lines
+      of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant recollections of
+      the various types I had encountered that I determined to go no nearer to
+      modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I stood. A specially big
+      wave, however, soon drove me from this position to a drier if more crowded
+      spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I determined to see something of
+      the innumerable grey streets which make up the fashionable watering-place.
+      The terraced gardens on the steep cliffs along the sea-front were most
+      elaborately well kept, but a more striking feature of Scarborough is the
+      magnificence of so many of the shops. They suggest a city rather than a
+      seaside town, and give you an idea of the magnitude of the permanent
+      population of the place as well as the flood of summer and winter
+      visitors. The origin of Scarborough's popularity was undoubtedly due to
+      the chalybeate waters of the Spa, discovered in 1620, almost at the same
+      time as those of Tunbridge Wells and Epsom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+      harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still to
+      be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring had
+      not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little resemblance
+      to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at Robin Hood's Bay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+      notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+      history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+      switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+      visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the story
+      of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+      entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the commercial
+      attempts to amuse.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office in
+      the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the King's
+      leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was published,
+      and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in every
+      Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+      Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed it
+      to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church on
+      the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the worthy Mr.
+      Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the King, who under
+      the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth of the Roman
+      religion until such time as the Catholics had attained sufficient power to
+      suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore informed 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 caned him as he stood at his
+      reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not occur every day even in
+      1688, and the storm of indignation and excitement among the members of the
+      congregation did not subside so quickly as it had risen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a certain
+      Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the bowling-green on
+      the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor should be sent for
+      to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a courteous message
+      requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the summons accompanied by
+      a file of musketeers. In the meantime many suggestions for dealing with
+      Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were doubtless made by the Captain's
+      brother officers, and, further, some settled course of action seems to
+      have been agreed upon, for we do not hear of any hesitation on the part of
+      the Captain on the arrival of the Mayor, 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 as could find room, seizing the sides, in a
+      very few moments Mr. Mayor was revolving and bumping, rising and falling,
+      as though he were no weight at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep and
+      the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning it that
+      is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to grumble if
+      there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in Quay Street
+      rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by various rough
+      pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the mainland, a
+      hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow archway, in
+      place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and earlier times. On
+      the same side is a massive barbican, looking across an open space to St.
+      Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during the sieges of the castle.
+      The maimed church&mdash;for the chancel has never been rebuilt&mdash;is
+      close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so apparent are the results
+      of the cannonading between them that no one requires to be told that the
+      Parliamentary forces mounted their ordnance in the chancel and tower of
+      the church, and it is equally obvious that the Royalists returned the fire
+      hotly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+      small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+      seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout this
+      long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and courageous
+      wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of fifty-four, must to
+      some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue borne during these
+      months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost worshipped his wife, for
+      in his memoirs he is never weary of describing her perfections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      '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 but of a
+      little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black and full
+      of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as if drawn with
+      a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which sometimes
+      (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into an incredible
+      little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion brown, but clear,
+      with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in her looks
+      inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a sweet
+      creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed her, in the
+      nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her mind did exceed
+      those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous person, of great
+      integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+      commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied with
+      savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he would
+      make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event of one
+      drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a general
+      massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+      this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+      out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+      Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the cause
+      of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the inward
+      misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking nature, must
+      have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and implored him to on no
+      account let her peril influence his decision to the detriment of his own
+      honour or the King's affairs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison prepared
+      itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+      turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another attack
+      was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where until the
+      year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point was greater
+      than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of troops, Sir John
+      Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with wonderful courage, only
+      to meet with such spirited resistance on the part of the besieged that,
+      when the attack was abandoned, it was discovered that Meldrum had received
+      a dangerous wound penetrating to his thigh, and that several of his
+      officers and men had been killed. Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first
+      success of the assailants had been checked at the foot of the Grand Tower
+      or Keep, for at that point the rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was
+      received by such a shower of stones and missiles that many stumbled and
+      were crushed on the steep pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue
+      to face such a reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace
+      his wife in the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, on July 22, 1645&mdash;his forty-fifth birthday&mdash;Sir Hugh
+      was forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+      surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+      wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of broken
+      masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in such a weak
+      condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or helped along
+      between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather tersely, that
+      'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had depleted the ranks
+      of the defenders to such an extent that the women in the castle, despite
+      the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone the Governor unless he
+      capitulated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+      forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+      King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were made
+      with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers, gentlemen, and
+      soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums beating, musquets
+      loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and bullet in mouth, to a
+      close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid down their arms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+      the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+      any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+      Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+      fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+      Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+      himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+      Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family and
+      an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined him. The
+      united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until they reached
+      Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the inhabitants. The
+      town was then built entirely of timber, and there was, apparently, no
+      castle of any description on the great hill, for the Norsemen, finding
+      their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance, tried other tactics.
+      They gained possession of the hill, constructed a huge fire, and when the
+      wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing brands down on to the wooden
+      houses below. The fire spread from one hut to another with sufficient
+      speed to drive out the defenders, who in the confusion which followed were
+      slaughtered by the enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated the
+      Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+      southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not surprising,
+      therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey should have failed
+      to record the existence of the blackened embers of what had once been a
+      town. But such a site as the castle hill could not long remain idle in the
+      stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le Gros, Earl of Albemarle
+      and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural defensibility of the rock,
+      built the massive walls which have withstood so many assaults, and even
+      now form the most prominent feature of Scarborough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+      occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+      made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+      maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain. This
+      was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+      Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the German
+      rivers had become serious.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH7" id="link2HCH7">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WHITBY
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          Behold the glorious summer sea<br /> As night's dark wings unfold,<br />
+          And o'er the waters, 'neath the stars,<br /> The harbour lights behold.<br />
+          <i>E. Teschemacher</i>.
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern town
+      which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+      strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+      excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+      any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does not
+      lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have no
+      surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled doorways,
+      although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps abound. On the
+      other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a distance, are
+      always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+      silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a fretted
+      one the abbey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the haze
+      of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At midday,
+      when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses clustered along the
+      face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly coloured. The predominant note
+      is the red of the chimneys and roofs and stray patches of brickwork, but
+      the walls that go down to the water's edge are green below and full of
+      rich browns above, and in many places the sides of the cottages are
+      coloured with an ochre wash, while above them all the top of the cliff
+      appears covered with grass. There is scarcely a chimney in this old part
+      of Whitby that does not contribute to the mist of blue-grey smoke that
+      slowly drifts up the face of the cliff, and thus, when there is no bright
+      sunshine, colour and details are subdued in the haze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+      the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some distressingly
+      ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be necessary for a
+      stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he has come to see. But
+      at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to the appearance of the
+      town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene of fishing-life as he
+      will ever find. When the tide is up and the wharves are crowded with
+      boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is at its best, and to step
+      from the railway compartment entered at King's Cross into this picturesque
+      scene is an experience to be remembered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to itself
+      the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+      long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+      the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer harbour,
+      one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the waves, holding
+      aloft the steady lights that
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Safely guide the mighty ships<br /> Into the harbour bay.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      If we keep to the waterside, modern Whitby has no terrors for us. It is
+      out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+      crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+      Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+      prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of the
+      West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured lodging-houses,
+      relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with corner turrets, that
+      frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where there are many
+      apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost houses,
+      and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it has carved
+      for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland heights, brown
+      and blue, where the sources of the broad river down below are fed by the
+      united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in the heather. Behind us
+      stands the massive-looking parish church, with its Norman tower, so
+      sturdily built that its height seems scarcely greater than its breadth.
+      There is surely no other church with such a ponderous exterior that is so
+      completely deceptive as to its internal aspect, for St. Mary's contains
+      the most remarkable series of beehive-like galleries that were ever
+      crammed into a parish church. They are not merely very wide and
+      ill-arranged, but they are superposed one abode the other. The free use of
+      white paint all over the sloping tiers of pews has prevented the interior
+      from being as dark as it would have otherwise been, but the result of all
+      this painted deal has been to give the building the most eccentric and
+      indecorous appearance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman soldiers
+      in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the abbey 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 an opinion here as to
+      whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before the building of the
+      abbey, or whether the place that has since become known as Whitby grew on
+      account of the presence of the abbey. Such matters as these have been
+      fought out by an expert in the archaeology of Cleveland&mdash;the late
+      Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite pleasure in demolishing the
+      elaborately constructed theories of those painstaking historians of the
+      eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr. Lionel Charlton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey are
+      now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most remarkable woman
+      for her times, instilling into those around her a passion for learning as
+      well as right-living, for despite the fact that they worked and prayed in
+      rude wooden buildings, with walls formed, most probably, of split
+      tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at Greenstead in Essex, we
+      find the institution producing, among others, such men as Bosa and John,
+      both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as Caedmon. The legend of his
+      inspiration, however, may be placed beside the story of how the saintly
+      Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil ammonites with which the liassic
+      shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda, who probably died in the year 680, was
+      succeeded by Aelfleda, the daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she
+      had trained in the abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil
+      carried on successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+      counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh, after
+      having been driven from his own sphere of work by the depredations of the
+      Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died at the age of
+      fifty-nine, but from that year&mdash;probably 713&mdash;a complete silence
+      falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made during the
+      next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About the year 867
+      the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that they laid waste
+      the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the invaders gradually
+      started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must certainly have grown
+      into a place of some size by the time of Edward the Confessor, for just
+      previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed for Danegeld to the extent
+      of a sum equivalent to £3,500 at the present time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a monastery
+      on the site of the old one, having probably gained the permission of
+      William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new establishment,
+      however, was for monks only, and was for some time merely a priory.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+      building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen, is a
+      subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts to go
+      upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a building
+      of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble dwellings of the
+      monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably thatched, and the
+      windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced with small holes.
+      Gradually the improvements brought about would have led to the use of
+      stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by the Danes may have
+      resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may still be seen in the
+      churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+      prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the destroyed
+      fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor, Serlo de Percy,
+      there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building operations, and
+      there is every reason to believe that he completed the church during the
+      fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed through 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, who entered the harbour, and, in the
+      words of the chronicle, 'laid waste everything, both within doors and
+      without.' The abbey slowly recovered from this disaster, and the
+      reconstruction commenced in 1220, still makes a conspicuous landmark from
+      the sea. It was after the Dissolution that 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 of Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their
+      rights, members and appurtenances as they formerly had belonged to the
+      abbey of Whiby,' henceforward belonged to Sir Richard and his successors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Hugh Cholmley, whose defence of Scarborough Castle has made him a name
+      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 we owe a
+      fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean times. He
+      describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the abbey
+      buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then was very
+      ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and plaster, and
+      ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather re-edifying the
+      house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the outwalls of the court
+      double to what they were, and made all the wall round about the paddock;
+      so that the place hath been improved very much, both for beauty and
+      profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for there was not a tree about
+      the house but was set in my time, and almost by my own hand.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was finished,
+      and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he says '(who was
+      excellent at dressing and making all handsome within doors), had put it
+      into a fine posture, and furnished with many good things, so that, I
+      believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of my rank, exceeded
+      it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and Colonel over the
+      Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand, Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe
+      and Scarborough town; for that, my father being dead, the country looked
+      upon me as the chief of my family.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who said
+      prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper, a porter
+      who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before dinner, 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 to receive three or four
+      besides my family, without any trouble; and whatever their fare was, they
+      were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a definite result of his efforts,
+      'all that part of the pier to the west end of the harbour' was erected,
+      and yet he complains that, though it was the means of preserving a large
+      section of the town from the sea, the townsfolk would not interest
+      themselves in the repairs necessitated by force of the waves. 'I wish,
+      with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the next generation may have more public
+      spirit.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH8" id="link2HCH8">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+      imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do not
+      aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to their
+      full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often appear as
+      a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry Topping stands
+      out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like a huge sea-worn
+      crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this strangely menacing peak
+      raises his defiant head over nothing but broad meadows, arable land, and
+      woodlands, and his only warfare is with the lower strata of storm-clouds,
+      which is a convenient thing for the people who live in these parts; for
+      long ago they used the peak as a sign of approaching storms, having
+      reduced the warning to the easily-remembered couplet:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'When Roseberry Topping wears a cap,<br /> Let Cleveland then beware of
+          a clap.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      From the fact that you can see this remarkable peak from almost every
+      point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from the
+      top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see so
+      much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone. Stretching
+      inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out a huge tract
+      of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of hedges, which
+      gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the world where the
+      hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking across the little town
+      of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the hills, to the broad sweep of
+      the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire seems so small that one almost
+      expects to see the Cheviots away in the north. But, beyond the winding
+      Tees and the drifting smoke of the great manufacturing towns on its banks,
+      one must be content with the county of Durham, a huge section of which is
+      plainly visible. Turning towards the brown moorlands, the cultivation is
+      exchanged for ridge beyond ridge of total desolation&mdash;a huge tract of
+      land in this crowded England where the population for many square miles at
+      a time consists of the inmates of a lonely farm or two in the
+      circumscribed cultivated areas of the dales.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-10" id="linkimage-10">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/10.jpg" width="100%" alt="An Autumn Day at Guisborough " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with forests.
+      The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the hill-tops than the
+      hollows, if the innumerable indications of their settlements be any guide,
+      and there is every reason for believing that many of the hollows in the
+      folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely visited by man. Thus, the
+      suggestion has been made that a few of the last representatives of now
+      extinct monsters may have survived in these wild retreats, for how
+      otherwise do we find persistent stories in these parts of Yorkshire,
+      handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of strange creatures
+      described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the spot where a 'grisly
+      worm' had its lair, and in many places there are traditions of strange
+      long-bodied dragons who were slain by various valiant men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+      column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+      inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+      purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of the
+      sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the village of
+      his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame, and the country
+      lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success which attended the
+      industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field in
+      which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes, generally
+      spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a boy, has also
+      disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of his having taken
+      a shilling from his master's till, when the attractions of the sea proved
+      too much for him to resist, persistently clings to all accounts of his
+      early life. There seems no evidence to convict him of this theft, but
+      there are equally no facts by which to clear him. But if we put into the
+      balance his subsequent term of employment at Whitby, the excellent
+      character he gained when he went to sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's
+      statement that he left Staithes 'after some disagreement with his master,'
+      there seems every reason to believe that the story is untrue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+      than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the south-west
+      from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough to Kildale on
+      a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally alone for the whole
+      distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy who 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 attached to Hutton Hall, stands in a
+      lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The steep hills are richly clothed
+      with sombre woods, and the peace and seclusion reigning there is in marked
+      contrast to the bleak wastes above. 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
+      fiercely that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a
+      dark roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines
+      of grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+      the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched right
+      away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the fierce
+      blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets deep down in
+      the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would stare at me from
+      a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might hover over a piece of
+      rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs of living creatures.
+      Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged downwards to a stream flowing
+      through a green, cultivated valley, with a 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 clouds parted a little in the west, and
+      let a flood of golden light into the wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to
+      disappear, and beyond the dark shoulder of moorland, where the Cook
+      monument appeared against the glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign
+      an all-pervading peace, the wood being quite silent, for the wind had
+      dropped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+      wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+      west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+      clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+      Kildale nestled down below, its church half buried in yellow foliage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 of the
+      twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873. A
+      picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon Atkinson's
+      'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so widely read that
+      it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but without the help of
+      the Vicar, who knew every inch of his wild parish, the Danby district must
+      seem much less interesting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH9" id="link2HCH9">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although a mere fragment of the Augustinian Priory of Guisborough is
+      standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+      impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+      This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+      rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework is
+      now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a look
+      of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east window,
+      now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the ever-formidable
+      Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green woods and pastures.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign of
+      Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+      spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to the
+      highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered many
+      fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians of
+      Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and indignation,
+      the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of God's temple
+      supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de Brus
+      of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter of
+      Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+      account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin, he
+      says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed our
+      church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly chalices,
+      as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past events are
+      serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought it desirable,
+      in the present little treatise, to give an account of the catastrophe,
+      that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through this calamity
+      allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was very destructive to
+      us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our church whilst
+      soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter. For some days he
+      had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and placed his iron
+      crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or steps of a great
+      height, upon dry wood with some turf and other combustibles. About noon
+      (in the cross, in the body of the church, where he remained at his work
+      until after Mass) he descended before the procession of the convent,
+      thinking that the fire had been put out by his workmen. They, however,
+      came down quickly after him, without having completely extinguished the
+      fire; and the fire among the charcoal revived, and partly from the heat of
+      the iron, and partly from the sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread
+      itself to the wood and other combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus
+      commenced, the lead melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and
+      then the fire increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.'
+      Hemingburgh concludes by saying that all that they could get from the
+      culprits was the exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this
+      disaster the Prior and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves
+      from granting a corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of
+      the monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+      But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest establishment
+      in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose from the Norman
+      foundations a stately church and convent built in the Early Decorated
+      style.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the altar-tomb,
+      believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The stone slabs are
+      now built into the walls on each side of the porch of Guisborough Church.
+      They may have been removed there from the abbey for safety at the time of
+      the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle for the year 1294, says:
+      'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of Good Friday; who disputed
+      with John de Balliol, before the King of England, about the succession to
+      the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he ordered when alive, he was buried in
+      the priory of Gysburn with great honour, beside his own father.' A great
+      number of other famous people were buried here in accordance with their
+      wills. Guisborough has even been claimed as the resting place of Robert
+      Bruce, the champion of Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for
+      believing that his heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in
+      Dunfermline Abbey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+      the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long street
+      as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages, inevitable in
+      a mining country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the time
+      of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that period, and
+      when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by the iron mines
+      of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his travels on the
+      Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw the Pope's alum
+      works near Rome, and was determined to start the industry in his native
+      parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum could be worked with
+      profit in his own country. As it was essential to have one or two men who
+      were thoroughly versed in the processes of the manufacture, Mr. Chaloner
+      induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy bribes to come to England. The
+      risks attending this overt act were terrible, for the alum works brought
+      in a large revenue to His Holiness, and the discovery of such a design
+      would have meant capital punishment to the offender. The workmen were
+      therefore induced to get into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on
+      board a ship which was shortly sailing for England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he thundered
+      forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+      comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly in
+      every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from the
+      thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be sequestered,
+      that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered over with Dathan
+      and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God, "Depart from us; we
+      desire not to know thy ways."'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-11" id="linkimage-11">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/11.jpg" width="100%" alt="The Skelton Valley " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The broad valley stretching from Guisborough to the sea contains the
+      beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses cover
+      the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost hide the
+      modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient castle of the
+      Bruces, who were Lords of Skelton for many years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH10" id="link2HCH10">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The broad Vale of Pickering, watered by the Derwent, the Rye and their
+      many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+      exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields abound,
+      seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many leagues;
+      but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the horizon to
+      the north is formed by lofty moors only a few miles distant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-12" id="linkimage-12">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/12.jpg" width="100%" alt="In Pickering Church " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Just where the low meadows are beginning to rise steadily from the vale
+      stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+      parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+      street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+      river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+      have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for only
+      the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from the grey
+      austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of the houses
+      are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and doors, and if
+      these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering would have as
+      cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we shall pass on our
+      way to Rievaulx.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+      church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+      cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+      Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+      fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by the
+      slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful porch, and
+      are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect paintings which
+      cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly all the available
+      wall-space between the arches and the top of the clerestory, and their
+      crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first half of the fifteenth
+      century vividly before us. There is a spirited representation of St.
+      George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and close by we see a bearded
+      St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both hands, and bearing on his
+      shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes Herod's feast, with the King
+      labelled <i>Herodi</i>. The guests are shown with their arms on the table
+      in the most curious positions, and all 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 of Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy.
+      Further on come scenes from the life of our Lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+      columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+      Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member of
+      the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's Hall,
+      and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned, was buried
+      here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the lectern probably
+      represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a sumptuous monument
+      bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery Roucliffe. The knight
+      wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his surcoat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came to
+      Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect state than
+      it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4 Toures, of the
+      which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the inner court he writes
+      of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep and Rosamund's Tower, as
+      well as the ruins of some of the others, are still to be seen on the outer
+      walls, so that from some points of view the ruins are dignified and
+      picturesque. The area enclosed was large, and in early times the castle
+      must have been almost impregnable. But during the Civil War it was much
+      damaged by the soldiers quartered there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead,
+      wood, and iron from it for the defence of Scarborough. The wide view from
+      the castle walls shows better than any description the importance of the
+      position it occupied, and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards
+      to the moors, that this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+      miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church which,
+      besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the county,
+      is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife kept a
+      public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely be
+      believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+      published in 1806.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender salary
+      of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have allowed any
+      margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this poor man was
+      married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen fisherman, and his
+      angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful supply of fish&mdash;in
+      fact, more than his family could consume. But this, even though he often
+      exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was not sufficient to keep
+      the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had to be taken. The parish
+      was large, and, as many of the people were obliged to come 'from ten to
+      fifteen miles' to church, it seemed possible that some profit might be
+      made by serving refreshments to the parishioners. Mrs. Carter
+      superintended this department, and it seems that the meals between the
+      services soon became popular. But the story of 'a parson-publican' was
+      soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the diocese, who at the next visitation
+      endeavoured to find out the truth of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the
+      circumstances, and showed that, far from being a source of disorder, his
+      wife's public-house was an influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he
+      continued, 'and play them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of
+      seeing that they get no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if
+      the young people propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative;
+      nevertheless, when I announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey
+      my commands.' The Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for
+      he did not reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no
+      mention of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued
+      this strange anomaly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-13" id="linkimage-13">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/13.jpg" width="100%" alt="The Market-place, Helmsley " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he tells
+      us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery there.
+      The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so that the
+      present church cannot be associated with the seventh century. No doubt the
+      destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the whole of this
+      part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of Transitional Norman
+      date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an apse, nave and aisles,
+      is coeval with the superstructure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded by
+      moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by becks
+      whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to Ryedale, the
+      loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a little town which
+      has gained a place in history as the scene of the death of the notorious
+      George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on April 17, 1687. The house
+      in which he died is on the south side of the King's Head, and in one of
+      the parish registers there is the entry under 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:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Anno: Dom 1632 October xi<br /> William Wood'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      Kirkdale, with its world-renowned cave, to which we have already referred,
+      lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon church there is
+      one of the few bearing evidences of its own date, ascertained by the
+      discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had survived under a layer of
+      plaster, and was also protected by the porch. A translation of the
+      inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought St. Gregory's Minster
+      when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused it to be made anew from
+      the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the days of King Edward and in
+      the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought me and Brand the prior (priest
+      or priests).' By this we are plainly told that a church was built there in
+      the reign of Edward the Confessor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+      Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of the
+      place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from Rievaulx
+      Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+      fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched roofs
+      in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from this
+      point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful picture.
+      Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during the Civil
+      War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York, Fairfax came
+      to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound in the shoulder
+      during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered on honourable terms,
+      the Parliament ordered that the castle should be dismantled, and the
+      thoroughness with which the instructions were carried out remind one of
+      Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was blown to pieces by a terrific
+      explosion and nearly everything else was destroyed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+      Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+      Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey, we
+      seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley overlooked
+      on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed with luxuriant
+      woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows; and beneath the
+      tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the solemn, roofless remains
+      of one of the first Cistercian monasteries established in this country.
+      There is nothing to disturb the peace that broods here, for the village
+      consists of a mere handful of old and picturesque cottages, and we might
+      stay on the terrace for hours, and, beyond the distant shouts of a few
+      children at play and the crowing of some cocks, hear nothing but the hum
+      of insects and the singing of birds. We take a steep path through the wood
+      which leads us down to the abbey ruins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+      astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions of
+      the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of grass-grown
+      débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped hill-sides appear as a
+      succession of beautiful pictures framed by the columns and arches on each
+      side of the choir. As they stand exposed to the weather, the perfectly
+      proportioned mouldings, the clustered pillars in a wonderfully good state
+      of preservation, and the almost uninjured clerestory are more impressive
+      than in an elaborately-restored cathedral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH11" id="link2HCH11">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name of
+      that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the youthful
+      scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged series of
+      lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination pictures
+      Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from a mantle of
+      clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine Range,' and do
+      they not appear in almost as large type in the school geography as Snowdon
+      and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and more able to travel, so
+      does the Pennine Range recede from his vision, until it becomes almost as
+      remote as those crater-strewn mountains in the Moon which have a name so
+      similar.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static as
+      a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name of
+      this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+      Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large section
+      of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire Dales.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+      owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+      beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in England.
+      In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells over 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 to attract one's
+      attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections from the horizon
+      that are usually associated with a mountainous district, there are great
+      expanses of brown table-land that form themselves into long parallel lines
+      in the distance, and give a sense of wild desolation in some ways more
+      striking than the peaks of Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of
+      millstone grit and limestone that rest upon the shale have generally
+      avoided crumpling or distortion, and thus give the mountain views the
+      appearance of having had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were
+      in a plastic condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial
+      epochs have worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and
+      narrow dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+      parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply defining
+      the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below generally take a
+      gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to the riverside pastures
+      below. At the edges of the dales, where water-falls pour over the wall of
+      limestone&mdash;as at Hardraw Scar, near Hawes&mdash;the action of water
+      is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the rapidity with which the shale
+      crumbles, leaving the harder rocks overhanging above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+      not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through Wensleydale&mdash;or,
+      indeed, most of the dales&mdash;without seeing any heather at all. On the
+      broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of moor partially
+      covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and moors are grown
+      over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass, generally of a
+      browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an outcrop of limestone
+      that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the upper portions of the dales&mdash;even in the narrow riverside
+      pastures&mdash;the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+      exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+      these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous ascents.
+      Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale of York,
+      quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one gets further
+      eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles that are the
+      fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an interesting study to
+      strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury, and stone being extremely
+      cheap, everything is formed of the more enduring material. Instead of a
+      trap-gate, one generally finds an excessively narrow opening in the
+      fences, only just giving space for the thickness of the average knee, and
+      thus preventing the passage of the smallest lamb. Some stiles are
+      constructed with a large flat stone projecting from each side, one
+      slightly in front and overlapping the other, so that one can only pass
+      through by making a very careful S-shaped movement. More common are the
+      projecting stones, making a flight of precarious steps on each side of the
+      wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are subject
+      to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely innocent of red
+      tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages, barns and mansions,
+      are always of the local stone, that weathers to beautiful shades of green
+      and grey, and prevents the works of man from jarring with the great
+      sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the familiar grey-brown haystack,
+      one sees in almost every meadow a neatly-built stone house with an upper
+      storey. The lower part is generally used as a shelter for cattle, while
+      above is stored hay or straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary
+      carting is avoided, and where roads are few and generally of exceeding
+      steepness a saving of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours of a
+      level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft shades of
+      green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone houses are
+      contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the foliage, and the
+      villages become full of bright colours. At all times, except when the
+      country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the scenery of the dales
+      has a thousand charms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH12" id="link2HCH12">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      RICHMOND
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway of
+      the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of which may
+      have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+      starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my part, I
+      can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so entirely
+      satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn, there is no
+      exact point where the open country ceases and the dale begins; but here at
+      Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for on reaching the foot of
+      the mass of rock dominated by the castle and the town, Swaledale commences
+      in the form of a narrow ravine, and from that point westwards the valley
+      never ceases to be shut in by steep sides, which become narrower and
+      grander with every mile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work in a
+      most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill on which
+      the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have a strong
+      hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in which
+      railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we can
+      congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its sense of
+      fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a strong
+      flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is enhanced
+      by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus welcomed to
+      the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by the river,
+      crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a beautiful setting of
+      green for the town, which has come down from the fantastic days of the
+      Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly changes, and thus has
+      still the compactness and the romantic outline of feudal times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+      combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+      rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+      sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+      artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of these
+      views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman keep of
+      the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with precisely
+      the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as the builders
+      of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone in place.
+      Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was then, and as
+      there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the Bretons who built
+      it in that long distant time would swell with pride were they able to see
+      how their ambitious work has come down the centuries unharmed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+      climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+      parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+      limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times. Turning
+      towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street that climbs
+      resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct fashion, which might
+      be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a sleepy quietness about
+      this way up from the station, which is quite a short distance, and we look
+      for much movement and human activity in the wide space we have reached;
+      but here, too, on this warm and sunny afternoon, the few folks who are
+      about seem to find ample time for conversation and loitering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+      front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to find
+      in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled space to
+      the curious block of buildings that seems to have been intended for a
+      church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of secular buildings
+      against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar in parts of France
+      that this market place has an almost Continental flavour, in keeping with
+      the fact that Richmond grew up under the protection of the formidable
+      castle built by that Alan Rufus of Brittany who was the Conqueror's second
+      cousin. The town ceased to be a possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the
+      reign of Richard II., but there had evidently been sufficient time to
+      allow French ideals to percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond,
+      for how otherwise can we account for this strange familiarity of shops
+      with a sacred building which is unheard of in any other English town?
+      Where else can one find a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower
+      and the nave, or a tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church?
+      Even the lower parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so
+      that one only realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough
+      away to see the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated
+      lower portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which
+      is rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+      continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great keep
+      has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to go on at
+      once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and, resisting the
+      appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little street leading out
+      to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at the base of the
+      ivy-draped walls.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+      rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can distinguish
+      the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges into deep pools,
+      and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water between the old stone
+      bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The masses of trees clothing the
+      side of the gorge add a note of mystery to the picture by swallowing up
+      the river in their heavy shade, for, owing to its sinuous course among the
+      cliffs, one can see only a short piece of water beyond the bridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge of
+      the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is little to
+      be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that cover the heights
+      above the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+      responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows across
+      the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite unlike any
+      other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can watch the face
+      of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent evenings of the
+      fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of glory, studded with
+      strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty in the flaming woods
+      and the pale river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+      probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+      whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+      description of the town with the words '<i>Richemont</i> Towne is
+      waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul is
+      now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We cannot
+      help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates as York has
+      done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to retain a
+      single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two posterns&mdash;one we
+      have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on the north side of
+      the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick adjoining&mdash;are
+      interesting, but we would have preferred something much finer than these
+      mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what Richmond has lost, we
+      may also measure the disaster which befell the market-place in 1771, when
+      the old cross was destroyed. Before that year there stood on the site of
+      the present obelisk a very fine cross which Clarkson, who wrote about a
+      century ago, mentions as being the greatest beauty of the town to an
+      antiquary. A high flight of steps led up to a square platform, which was
+      enclosed by a richly ornamented wall about 6 feet high, having buttresses
+      at the corners, each surmounted with 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 curious compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a
+      door that opened into the middle of the square,' but this may have been
+      merely an arched opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or
+      the wall, included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+      Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+      description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+      example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which we
+      have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt (!)
+      A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have read:
+      'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions Frenchgate
+      and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been only partially
+      destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker, writing in 1823,
+      mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years ago' to allow the
+      passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be little doubt,
+      therefore, that, swollen with success after the demolition of the cross,
+      the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack the remaining gateways, so
+      that now not the smallest suggestion of either remains. But even here we
+      have not completed the list of barbarisms that took place about this time.
+      The Barley Cross, which stood 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 were fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon
+      which it stood, so that the cross might answer the purpose of a
+      whipping-post. The pillory stood not far away, and the May-pole is also
+      mentioned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have been
+      the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the Grey
+      Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the chief
+      ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+      incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The Grey
+      Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits of the
+      walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the dispersal of
+      the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it was part of a new
+      church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution of the Monasteries
+      made the work of no account except as building materials for the
+      townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was January 19, 1538, and we
+      wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the fourteen brethren under
+      him, suffered much from the privations that must have attended them at
+      that coldest period of the year. At one time the friars, being of a
+      mendicant order, and inured to hard living and scanty fare, might have
+      made light of such a disaster, but in these later times they had expanded
+      somewhat from their austere ways of living, and the dispersal must have
+      cost them much suffering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across the
+      curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of Richmond'
+      quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in 'Rokeby.' It may have
+      been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way of getting rid of such a
+      terrible beast, that
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill,<br /> The fryers of Richmond gave her
+          till.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      Friar Middleton, who with two lusty men was sent to fetch the sow from
+      Rokeby, could scarcely have known that she was
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'The grisliest beast that ere might be,<br /> Her head was great and
+          gray:<br /> She was bred in Rokeby Wood;<br /> There were few that
+          thither goed,<br /> That came on live [= alive] away.<br /> <br /> 'She
+          was so grisley for to meete,<br /> She rave the earth up with her
+          feete,<br /> And bark came fro the tree;<br /> When fryer Middleton her
+          saugh,<br /> Weet ye well he might not laugh,<br /> Full earnestly
+          look'd hee.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to hold
+      her, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell,' but
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'The sow she would not Latin heare,<br /> But rudely rushed at the
+          frear,'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw
+      with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this their
+      courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the Watling
+      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 the next day two
+      of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two, Gilbert Griffin and
+      a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in armour and carrying
+      their shields and swords of war, and even then they only just overcame the
+      grisly sow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+      remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+      ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+      Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+      eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to St.
+      Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer to the
+      Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans in the town
+      owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of Middleham in
+      1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag mouldings must be part
+      of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it remain. Having come back so
+      rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay there for a time while we make
+      our way over the bridge again and up the steep ascent of Frenchgate to the
+      castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from the
+      market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great height of
+      nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit, and the flat
+      buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the masonry has also
+      taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the tower with almost
+      the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan saw it completed.
+      Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the keep, we come into the
+      grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed by the ramparts. It is
+      not known by what stages the keep reached its present form, though there
+      is every reason to believe that Conan, the fifth 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 the soldiers quartered at Richmond,
+      so that there is little to be seen as we climb a staircase in the walls 11
+      feet thick, and reach the battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze
+      right into the chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of
+      the town packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few
+      tiny people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web
+      of drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+      even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon us
+      from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western horizon. It
+      is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the cultivated area
+      must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days when these
+      battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray which we gaze
+      upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent fertile, when
+      that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of Richmond looked out
+      over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire possessions. I can
+      imagine his eye glancing down on a far more thrilling scene than the green
+      three-sided courtyard enclosed by a crumbling grey wall, though to him the
+      buildings, the men, and every detail that filled the great space, were no
+      doubt quite prosaic. It did not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning
+      weapons, when the man and his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern
+      and everyday as the soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves,
+      but how much would we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a
+      part of a second, with a good camera in our hands?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+      St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+      narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+      Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used as
+      the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of the
+      best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that are to
+      be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels remain in
+      a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well preserved. The
+      builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has details of much the same
+      character. It is generally called Scolland's Hall, after the Lord of
+      Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer to the first Earl Alan of
+      Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of the Earl, and under the
+      feudal system of tenure he took part in the regular guarding of the
+      castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+      curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to be
+      seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl Edwin,
+      was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this splendid
+      reward for his services soon after the suppression of the Saxon efforts
+      for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having crushed out the
+      rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave him peace in his
+      new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon lands among his
+      supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia fell to this
+      Breton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the name,
+      with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time, unless the
+      suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as Rice-munt&mdash;the
+      hill of rule&mdash;is correct. After this Gilling must soon have ceased to
+      be of any account. There can be little doubt that the castle was at once
+      planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the walls as they exist
+      to-day, although the full strength of the place was not 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 as other parts of the
+      castle. Richmond must then have been considered almost impregnable, and
+      this may account for the fact that it appears to have never been besieged.
+      In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland was invading England, we are
+      told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that Henry II., anxious for the safety
+      of the honour of Richmond, and perhaps of its custodian as well, asked:
+      'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en Richemunt?' The King was in France, his
+      possessions were threatened from several quarters, and it would doubtless
+      be a relief to him to know that a stronghold of such importance was under
+      the personal command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year
+      the danger from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which
+      fight Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+      probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+      pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+      Edward III.&mdash;a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+      advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+      only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners, for,
+      as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+      possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+      war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support to
+      the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions north of
+      the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of affairs could
+      have continued for so long is difficult to understand, but the final
+      severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was on the throne of
+      England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph Neville, the first
+      Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to Edmund Tudor, whose
+      mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V. Edmund Tudor, as all
+      know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of John of Gaunt, and died
+      about two months before his wife&mdash;then scarcely fourteen years old&mdash;gave
+      birth to his only son, who succeeded to the throne 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 his splendid palace which he built at
+      Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass of Richmond Hill' is said to come from
+      Yorkshire, although it is commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-14" id="linkimage-14">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/14.jpg" width="100%" alt="Richmond Castle from the River " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+      Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+      closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside the
+      wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots. The area
+      of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although in this way
+      the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a greater risk
+      from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of pestilences of a
+      most virulent character. After one of these visitations 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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Easby Abbey is so much a possession of Richmond that we cannot go towards
+      the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The ruins
+      slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place is well
+      suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have been so
+      long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of the dull
+      times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's yawning. The walk
+      along the steep shady bank above the river is beautiful all the way, and
+      the surroundings of the broken walls and traceried windows are singularly
+      rich. There is nothing, however, at Easby that makes a striking picture,
+      although there are many architectural fragments that are full of beauty.
+      Fountains, Rievaulx and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are
+      charms enough here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a
+      pleasant thought to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these
+      meadows by the Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of
+      Ripon there is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church
+      scarcely more than enough has survived for the preparation of a
+      ground-plan, and many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The
+      range of domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are,
+      therefore, the chief interest, although these also are broken and
+      roofless. We can wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory,
+      retain some semblance of their original form, and we can see the
+      picturesque remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house,
+      and the sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads
+      into the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is
+      remarkable as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart
+      for this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+      arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+      probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said, by
+      Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an extensive
+      character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in these sloping
+      meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's Priory, close to the
+      town, had not long been completed. Whoever may have been the founder of
+      the abbey, it is definitely known that the great family of Scrope obtained
+      the privileges that had been possessed by the Constable, and they added so
+      much to the property of the monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the
+      Scropes were considered the original founders. Easby thus became the
+      stately burying-place of the family and the splendid tombs that appeared
+      in the choir of their church were a constant reminder to the canons of the
+      greatness of the lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a
+      great stone effigy, bearing the arms&mdash;azure, a bend or&mdash;of his
+      house. Near by lay Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about
+      were many others of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this
+      from the statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but
+      for the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+      these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as though
+      they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are just
+      beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the tombs, and
+      even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across the hills, in
+      the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in the little church
+      of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose screen of Perpendicular
+      date that one of the Scropes must have rescued when the monastery was
+      being stripped and plundered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+      preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+      granary is even now in use.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+      arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+      interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+      some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would make
+      them earlier than those at Pickering.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH13" id="link2HCH13">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SWALEDALE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a long
+      mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of romantic
+      country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a fair-sized
+      town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse, to be spoiled
+      by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is free from both
+      objections. In magnificent September weather one may spend many hours in
+      the midst of this great panorama without being disturbed by a single human
+      being, besides a possible farm labourer or shepherd; and if scraps of
+      paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here, the keen winds that come from
+      across the moors dispose of them as efficaciously as the keepers of any
+      public parks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact that
+      one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest cultivation and
+      the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount Pisgah from whence the
+      jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised land of solitude,
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,<br /> And mortal foot
+          hath ne'er or rarely been.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful,
+      but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless
+      mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+      mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the moorland
+      horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut out in the
+      softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering transparency of the
+      western sky, and the plantations that clothe the sides of the dale beneath
+      one are filled with wonderful shadows, which are thrown out with golden
+      outlines. The view along the steep valley extends for a few miles, and
+      then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend where the Swale, a silver ribbon
+      along the bottom of the dale, disappears among the sombre woods and the
+      shoulders of the hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilized mood;
+      for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the illustration,
+      cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the gaunt moors, broken
+      by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of the scenery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed, comes
+      the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and from the
+      green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No railway has
+      penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one may look into
+      the future in such matters, there seems every possibility of this
+      loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its isolation in
+      this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore, are borne on the
+      keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and the purity of the air
+      whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a land where chimneys have
+      never been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable view-point
+      has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.' In that year a
+      certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have been a successful
+      draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood, when he found
+      himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been sufficiently dense to shut
+      out even the nearest objects; for, without any warning, Willance found
+      himself on the verge of the scar, and before 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 almost miraculous good fortune, found himself
+      alive at the bottom with nothing worse than a broken leg.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means of
+      exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of the
+      valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are missed,
+      and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to explore the
+      recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth avoids the dale
+      altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and its downs make the
+      traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But this ought not to deter anyone from using the road; for the view of
+      the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that rise
+      above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along the
+      banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is accentuated
+      towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the hollows. The higher
+      woods may be still glowing with the light of the golden west, while down
+      below a softness of outline adds beauty to every object. The old bridge
+      that takes the road to Reeth across Marske Beck needs no such
+      fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the reign of Elizabeth, and,
+      from its appearance, it is probably centuries older.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from the
+      town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+      Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+      nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+      however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they seem
+      to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings, and might
+      almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some of the vilest
+      chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the beauty spots of
+      the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery that
+      invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+      Scottish feeling&mdash;perhaps Alpine would be more correct&mdash;in the
+      steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+      plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+      south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of the
+      scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark green wall
+      entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage, the river
+      swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond a strip of
+      pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they climb out of the
+      depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of sunlight that turns
+      the first leaves that have passed their prime into the fierce yellows and
+      burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented at Burlington House, are
+      often considered overdone. Even the gaunt obelisk near Marske Hall
+      responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and shows a gilded side that gives
+      it almost a touch of grandeur.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+      blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+      large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the old
+      road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had crossed
+      the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very steep road
+      that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that is at its
+      best in the full light of a clear morning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The clouds are big, but they carry no threat of rain, for right down to
+      the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of blue
+      proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass passes
+      across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in extent: but the
+      sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes over the edge of the
+      plain, just above the hollow where Downholme village lies hidden from
+      sight, and in a few minutes that belt of sunshine has reached some sheep
+      not far off, and rimmed their coats with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts
+      of whiteness, like searchlights, stream from behind a distant cloud, and
+      everywhere there is brilliant contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs
+      that only a Yorkshire moor possesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there is
+      an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the chapel
+      belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The buildings
+      are now used as a farm, but there are still enough suggestions of a
+      dignified past to revivify the times when this was a centre of feudal
+      power.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 bold scenery
+      of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+      Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+      Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+      they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten to
+      envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the dark
+      cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently changes its
+      shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in no way weakens
+      the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to become huger and
+      steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been merely woods and
+      plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious forests. The river, too,
+      seems to change its character, and become a pale serpent, uncoiling itself
+      from some mountain fastness where no living creatures besides great auks
+      and carrion birds, dwell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle Ages,
+      two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite sides of
+      the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick village, you
+      may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful situation much
+      as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes Marrick as 'a Priory
+      of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.' It was, we know, an
+      establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or endowed by Roger de Aske in
+      the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the other side of the river a little
+      lower down, the nunnery was of the Cistercian Order; for, although very
+      little of its history has been discovered, Leland writes of the house as
+      'a Priori of White clothid Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when
+      the Scots raided all over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along
+      Swaledale in search of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered
+      from their violence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+      Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is reached
+      first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north of the
+      river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire. It is
+      more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000 acres, and
+      according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed history of
+      Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of mountain,
+      grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is suitable in size,
+      but in the upper portions of the dales one must not expect any very
+      remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs and plain
+      battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the neighbourhood.
+      Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that has passed away,
+      and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that period. The two
+      chapels opening from the chancel contain some interesting features, which
+      include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed by old screens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+      Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+      thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for it
+      has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad of
+      the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses look
+      upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road which
+      makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The surface
+      is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker, although the
+      scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every mile. The dale
+      narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely separated, and almost
+      entirely disappear on the southern side; and the gaunt moors, creeping
+      down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the narrow belt of
+      cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the river margins.
+      Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green heights in many
+      places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill, the great bare height
+      that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms and hamlets of these
+      upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys, greens, and browns as the
+      moors and scars that surround them. The stone walls, that are often high
+      and forbidding, seem to suggest the fortifications required for man's
+      fight with Nature, in which there is no encouragement for the weak. In the
+      splendid weather that so often welcomes the mere summer rambler in the
+      upper dales the austerity of the widely scattered farms and villages may
+      seem a little unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove
+      this impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+      winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+      inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+      fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+      flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of whiteness,
+      there are still the winds that go shrieking over the desolate heights,
+      there is still the high rainfall, and there are still destructive
+      thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we seldom encounter
+      in the lower levels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great rapidity with which the Swale, or such streams as the Arkle, can
+      produce a devastating flood can scarcely be comprehended by those who have
+      not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells. When,
+      however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper parts of
+      the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more often in
+      jeopardy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness by
+      their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only about
+      seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of about 62
+      inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain spots in
+      Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find that
+      no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some notes, found
+      in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr. Joseph Morris. They
+      show the painful difficulties experienced in the eighteenth century from
+      such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John Hutchinson, when the field
+      was covered with snow,' and: '1799, Nov. 10. Much corn to cut and carry. A
+      hard frost.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Muker, notwithstanding all these climatic difficulties, has some claim to
+      picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at a
+      distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+      state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+      weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+      down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+      house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+      reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is a
+      steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+      below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+      restricted to one side of the way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags Fell,
+      2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above Muker.
+      Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass of 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 the finest
+      portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river and passes
+      round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes through the
+      glen, and brings one to the road again at Keld.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 in this
+      district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of the head
+      of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and narrow
+      ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is the stern
+      grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous views from the
+      heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a fascination. If you climb
+      to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge panorama of desolate country
+      spread out before you. The confused jumble of blue-grey mountains to the
+      north-west is beyond the limits of Yorkshire at last, and in their strong
+      embrace those stern Westmorland hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting walks
+      available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the hillsides that
+      encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are not tripper-worn,
+      and there are endless heights to be climbed that are equally free from the
+      smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare flowers, ferns, and mosses
+      flourish in these inaccessible solitudes, and will continue to do so, on
+      account of the dangers that lurk in their fastnesses, and also from the
+      fact that their value is nothing to any but those who are glad to leave
+      them growing where they are.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH14" id="link2HCH14">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WENSLEYDALE <a name="linkimage-15" id="linkimage-15">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/15.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="A Rugged View Above Wensleydale " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The approach from Muker to the upper part of Wensleydale is by a mountain
+      road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never explored the
+      dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a road, but it is,
+      perhaps, questionable whether this is not too high-sounding a term for a
+      track so invariably covered with large loose stones and furrowed with
+      water-courses. At its highest point the road goes through the Buttertubs
+      Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of the pot-holes that have given
+      their name to this thrilling way through the mountain ridge dividing the
+      Swale from the Ure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 that
+      darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+      late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+      drawn 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 way
+      slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+      stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the dim
+      twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in more and
+      more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell, its vast
+      brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear evening sky;
+      while further away to the north-west there were blue mountains going to
+      sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then the road made a sudden
+      zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than ever, until at last I
+      found that the stony track had brought me to the verge of a precipice.
+      There was not sufficient light to see what dangers lay beneath me, but I
+      could hear the angry sound of a beck falling upon quantities of bare
+      rocks. If one does not keep to the road, there is on the other side the
+      still greater menace of the Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well
+      known to require any emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been
+      explored with much labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great
+      deal of stout rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of
+      sheep that disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton.
+      This road is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations
+      to the 'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and
+      painfully rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found
+      by keeping in the middle of the road.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+      different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still recent
+      times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the parts of
+      Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to enliven the
+      dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome creatures were to be
+      found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my reading I shall discover
+      an account of those that haunted this pass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+      night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+      pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+      blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one sees
+      the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated pieces of
+      rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far down delicate
+      ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the cool water drips
+      upon them from above, and the drops they throw off fall down lower still
+      into a stream of underground water that has its beginnings no man knows
+      where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to gaze into the Buttertubs, and
+      the sound of the falling waters down in these shadowy places is pleasant
+      after gazing on the dry fell-sides.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just beyond the head of the pass, where the descent to Hawes begins, the
+      shoulders of Great Shunnor Fell drop down, so that not only straight
+      ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain view.
+      Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+      direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+      stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of the
+      summits of the hills their level character, and forms the sharply-defined
+      scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent changes of weather that
+      take place among these watersheds would almost seem to be cause enough to
+      explain the wearing down of the angularities of the heights. Even while we
+      stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see three or four ragged cloud edges
+      letting down on as many places torrential rains, while in between there
+      are intervals of blazing sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright
+      yellow and orange in powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every
+      side. Such rapid changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are
+      trying to the hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a
+      still more palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable waterfall
+      known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up the 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 pass through. Being September, and
+      an uncertain day for weather, we have the whole glen to ourselves, until
+      behind some rocks we discover a solitary angler. There is nothing but the
+      roughest of tracks to follow, for the carefully-made pathway that used to
+      go right up to the fall was swept away half a dozen years ago, when the
+      stream in a fierce mood cleared its course of any traces of artificiality.
+      We are deeply grateful, and make our among the big rocks and across the
+      slippery surfaces of shale, with the roar of the waters becoming more and
+      more insistent. The sun has turned into the ravine a great searchlight
+      that has lit up the rock walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with
+      sparkling jewels. On the opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over
+      everything except the foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong
+      autumn colours leap into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into
+      an astonishing splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of
+      the stream, and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging
+      limestone into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the
+      water drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers
+      until the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+      horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in sympathy
+      with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of water is a
+      memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw among the small
+      group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale that lies beneath
+      this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the water until the
+      limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or twelve 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 walk on a rather moist and slippery
+      path that is constantly being sprayed from the surface of the pool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '<i>Uredale</i> veri
+      litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,' and
+      although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much wider
+      than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same disabilities.
+      Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road above the beck
+      until we are soon above the level of green pasturage. The stone walls
+      still cover the hillsides with a net of very large mesh, but the sheep
+      find more bent than grass, and the ground is often exceedingly steep.
+      Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all around us is a vast
+      tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines whose sides are scarred
+      with runnels of water, which have exposed the rocks and left miniature
+      screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600 feet there is a gate, where
+      we will turn away from the road that goes on past Dodd Fell into
+      Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass track sprinkled with
+      half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit of Wether Fell, 400
+      feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon the top of this height,
+      but the hills that lie about on every side are browny-green or of an ochre
+      colour, and there is little of the purple one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that we
+      look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far as the
+      blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from this very
+      summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but behind us,
+      as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful expanse that
+      includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and Penhill Beacon, which
+      stand out boldly on the southern side of Wensleydale. I have seen these
+      hills lightly covered with snow, but that can give scarcely the smallest
+      suggestion of the scene that was witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm
+      of January, 1895, which blocked the roads between Wensleydale and
+      Swaledale until nearly the middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls
+      of snow on either side from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and
+      fresh falls almost obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut.
+      In Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+      the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+      owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+      the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest places
+      to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+      taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness is
+      so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of one of
+      the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just above the
+      village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The track goes
+      right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I cannot
+      recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended only a short
+      distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only piece of water
+      in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake. It is a pleasant
+      surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying among the hills, and
+      partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that its area might be far
+      greater than 105 acres.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+      doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at the
+      edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over the
+      mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the dullest
+      potato-field thrilling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get a
+      really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly from
+      our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little tracks,
+      but there are places where water that overflows from the pools among the
+      bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the steep places
+      that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of the
+      branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful views of
+      the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further side of the
+      valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out against a steep
+      fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall, surrounded by trees, just
+      above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies close at hand. We soon come
+      to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded by a picturesque scattering of
+      old but well preserved cottages; for Bainbridge has sufficient charms to
+      make it a pleasant inland resort for holiday times that is quite ideal for
+      those who are content to abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater,
+      which is called the Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over
+      ledges or rock in many cascades along one side of the green.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+      waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and there
+      are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty inn
+      called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green states upon
+      a board that it was established in 1445.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place at
+      ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and Shrovetide,
+      but somehow the reason for the observance has been forgotten. The medieval
+      regulations as to the carrying of horns by foresters and those who passed
+      through forests would undoubtedly associate the custom with early times,
+      and this happy old village certainly gains our respect for having
+      preserved anything from such a remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle
+      we shall find in the museum there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+      without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+      possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+      dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the lake,
+      has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of Richard
+      Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials 'B.H.J.,' which may
+      be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers at that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+      Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+      with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+      situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow little
+      street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite exhilarating peeps
+      of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road we traversed yesterday
+      plainly marked on the slopes, and down below, where the Ure takes its way
+      through bright pastures, there is a mist of smoke ascending from Hawes.
+      Blocking up the head of the dale are the spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells,
+      while beyond them appears the blue summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to
+      keep our eyes away from the distant mountains, which fascinate one by
+      appearing to have an importance that is perhaps diminished when they are
+      close at hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-16" id="linkimage-16">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/16.jpg" width="100%" alt="A Jacobean House at Askrigg " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored market-cross
+      to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the three-sided
+      space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building, for a plain
+      inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum MDCLXXVIII.' The
+      bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity about the house
+      which must have been still more apparent when the surrounding houses were
+      lower than at present. The wooden gallery that is constructed between the
+      bays was, it is said, built as a convenient place for watching the
+      bull-fights that took place just below. In the grass there can still be
+      seen the stone to which the bull-ring was secured. The churchyard runs
+      along the west side of the little market-place, so that there is an open
+      view on that side, made interesting by the Perpendicular church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The simple square tower and the unbroken roof-lines are battlemented, like
+      so many of the churches of the dales; inside we find Norman pillars that
+      are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were brought from
+      the site of Fors Abbey, a little to the west of the town.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wensleydale generally used to be famed for its hand-knitting, but I think
+      Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the valley, for
+      the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in this employment,
+      and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open air 'while gossiping
+      with their neighbours.' This statement is, nevertheless, exceeded by what
+      appears in a volume entitled 'The Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of
+      1814, which contains a number of George Walker's quaint drawings,
+      reproduced by lithography, we find a picture having a strong suggestion of
+      Askrigg in which there is a group of old and young of both sexes seated on
+      the steps of the market-cross, all knitting, and a little way off a
+      shepherd is seen driving some sheep through a gate, and he also is
+      knitting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+      street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+      formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but that
+      is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once had the
+      privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy the great
+      expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with a sunburnt
+      face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal when he was a
+      mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me that he couldn't
+      be happier if he were the King of England. The picturesque road where we
+      leave him, breaking every large stone he can find, goes on across a belt
+      of brown moor, and then drops down between gaunt scars that only just
+      leave space for the winding track to pass through. It afterwards descends
+      rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus enters Swaledale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance is
+      scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through the
+      curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the growth of
+      trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the waters close at
+      hand without seeing anything but the profusion of foliage overhanging and
+      growing among the rocks. After climbing down among the moist ferns and
+      moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades appear suddenly set in a frame of
+      such lavish beauty that they hold a high place among their rivals in the
+      dale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+      distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+      farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former importance
+      as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the house is
+      about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in thickness.
+      The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard Scrope of Bolton
+      Castle shortly after his return to England from the field of Agincourt,
+      and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built the existing house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+      close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of Carperby.
+      It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the east end
+      stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are ornamented
+      with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and pleasant
+      appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place than one sees
+      higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth Station, and just
+      where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a footpath goes across a
+      smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The rainfall of the last few days,
+      which showed itself at Mill Gill Force, at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other
+      falls, has been sufficient to swell the main stream at Wensleydale into a
+      considerable flood, and behind the bushes that grow thickly along the
+      riverside we can hear the steady roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The
+      waters have worn down the rocky bottom to such an extent that in order to
+      stand in full view of the splendid fall we must make for a gap in the
+      foliage, and scramble down some natural steps in the wall of rock forming
+      low cliffs along each side of the flood. The water comes over three
+      terraces of solid stone, and then sweeps across wide ledges in a
+      tempestuous sea of waves and froth, until there come other descents which
+      alter the course of parts of the stream, so that as we look across the
+      riotous flood we can see the waters flowing in many opposite directions.
+      Lines of cream-coloured foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join
+      together, and then, becoming detached, again float across the smooth
+      portions of each low terrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-17" id="linkimage-17">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/17.jpg" width="100%" alt="Aysgarth Force " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+      disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of nearly
+      half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone houses
+      irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with mossy
+      roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and Bainbridge, is
+      ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very considerable 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 is beautifully situated under a
+      steep hillside. It has a green overlooked by little grey cottages, and
+      lower down there is a tall mill with curious windows built upon Bishop
+      Dale Beck. Close to this mill there nestles a long, low house of that
+      dignified type to be seen frequently in the North Riding, as well as in
+      the villages of Westmorland. The huge chimney, occupying a large
+      proportion of one gable-end, is suggestive of much cosiness within, and
+      its many shoulders, by which it tapers towards the top, make it an
+      interesting feature of the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed between
+      grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A wide view
+      of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the road begins to
+      drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up to his imposing
+      height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we make our way through
+      Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by a mountain-path that
+      climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from Starbottom, and then, crossing
+      the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor Mere Top, it goes down into the
+      wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote is this valley that wild animals,
+      long extinct in other parts of the dales, survived there until almost
+      recent times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+      Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the main
+      highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire in
+      order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+      quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+      others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+      exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at the
+      north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one stormy
+      night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during the siege of
+      the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard through a vaulted
+      archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the side facing us are
+      in good preservation, and an apartment in the south-west tower, which has
+      a fireplace, is pointed out as having been used by Mary Queen of Scots
+      when she was imprisoned here after the Battle of Langside in 1568. It was
+      the ninth Lord Scrope who had the custody of the Queen, and he was
+      assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary, no doubt, found the time of her
+      imprisonment irksome enough, despite the magnificent views over the dale
+      which her windows appear to have commanded; but the monotony was relieved
+      to some extent by the lessons in English which she received from Sir
+      Francis, whom she describes as her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a
+      prisoner, Mary addressed to him her first English letter, which begins:
+      'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus from Scotland'; and half-way through she
+      begs that he will excuse her writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it
+      afor,' and was 'hestet.' The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my
+      commendations, I prey God heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind,
+      MARIE R.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+      prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+      sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a real
+      beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was during the
+      time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the lighting of
+      this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of Wensleydale to
+      muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on Penhill, as he sat
+      by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what would 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 took to be the beacon upon
+      Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of flame and smoke were pouring
+      from his own hilltop, and the news spread up the dale like wildfire. The
+      volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and with drums beating they marched
+      away, with only such delay as was caused by the hurried leave-takings with
+      wives and mothers, and all the rest who crowded round. The contingent took
+      the road to Thirsk, and on the way were joined by the Mashamshire men.
+      Whether it was with relief or disappointment I do not know; but when the
+      volunteers reached Thirsk they heard that they had been called out by a
+      false alarm, for the light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had
+      been caused by accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given its
+      name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive character.
+      The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is small enough to
+      cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the valley. It is
+      suggested that the name is derived from <i>Wodenslag</i>, and that in the
+      time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the place named after
+      their chief god would be the most important.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is so
+      much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to examine
+      first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a beautiful
+      relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose screen. It
+      surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides we see the
+      Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north aisle. The
+      side that fronts the nave has an entirely different appearance, being
+      painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any ecclesiastical
+      flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every excuse, called it
+      'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of the screen are carved
+      inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a long period, and, though
+      many words and letters are missing, it is possible to make them more
+      complete with the help of the record made by the heralds in 1665.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+      nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+      Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two very
+      formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we enter
+      the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance in
+      sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+      Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern side,
+      in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the castle
+      buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a square
+      Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short distance by a
+      strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable height, built in the
+      Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in possession of the stronghold.
+      The Norman keep dates from the year 1190, when Robert Fitz Randolph,
+      grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of Richmond, began to build the
+      Castle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the Nevilles
+      by marriage, that really notable events took place in this fortress. 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 with Anne Neville.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+      only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its larch-crowned
+      termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of Wensleydale, and the
+      wonderful views it offers, we should be more inclined to regard this
+      somewhat popular spot with greater veneration; but after having explored
+      both sides of the dale, and seen many views of a very similar character,
+      we cannot help thinking that the vista is somewhat overrated. Leyburn
+      itself is a cheerful little town, with a modern church and a very wide
+      main street which forms a most extensive market-place. There is a
+      bull-ring still visible in the great open space, but beyond this and the
+      view from the Shawl Leyburn has few attractions, except its position as a
+      centre or a starting-place from which to explore the romantic
+      neighbourhood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-18" id="linkimage-18">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/18.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+      two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the valley,
+      and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley from which it
+      branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest pictures of this
+      most remarkable portion of Yorkshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH15" id="link2HCH15">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have come out of Wensleydale past the ruins of the great Cistercian
+      abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to a
+      kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+      Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as 70,000
+      sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed, are sold,
+      and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen since 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 of the dale country, and
+      miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The evening has settled down
+      to steady rain, and the market-place is running with water that reflects
+      the lights in the shop-windows and the dark outline of the obelisk in the
+      centre. This erection is suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its
+      appearance nearly seventy 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 it supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one
+      at Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+      Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+      therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+      un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the deeds
+      of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces of the
+      centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive. With this
+      thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out blast on a
+      horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the whole of the
+      market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an old-fashioned
+      figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last quavering note has come
+      from the great circular horn, the man walks slowly across the wet
+      cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him wind another blast just
+      like the first, and then another, and then a third, immediately after
+      which he walks briskly away and disappears down a turning. In the light of
+      morning I discover that the horn was blown in front of the Town Hall,
+      whose stucco front bears the inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie,
+      ye Wakeman waketh in vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to
+      give a wrong impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its
+      period so plainly 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
+      houses to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain
+      flavour of 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 is the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example
+      of the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+      transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in this
+      period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to its
+      partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces the
+      nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in the later
+      style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which to study the
+      growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely think it possible to
+      find anything better, all the periods being very clearly represented. The
+      choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and the misereres are full of
+      quaint detail. In the library there is a collection of very early printed
+      books and other relics of the minster that add very greatly to the
+      interest of the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-19" id="linkimage-19">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/19.jpg" width="100%" alt="Ripon Minster from the South " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and first
+      Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the entrance to the
+      crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A rather difficult flight
+      of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading into a cylindrically
+      vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the north-east corner is the
+      curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought to have been used for
+      purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person being able to squeeze
+      through the narrow opening.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+      two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and is
+      so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as dating
+      from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can be little
+      doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+      lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+      the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the Skell,
+      but so transformed from its early character that you would imagine the
+      pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a dozen different
+      views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend of the river. At
+      last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely view of the abbey
+      ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is unmistakable, and
+      even if no stately tower and no roofless arches filled the centre of the
+      prospect, the scene would be almost as memorable. It is only one of the
+      many pictures in the park that a retentive memory will hold as some of the
+      most remarkable in England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+      merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+      laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+      double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the Chapel
+      of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of the dark
+      cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most fascinating portions
+      of the buildings. I might be well compared with the last abbot but one,
+      William Thirsk, who resigned his post, forseeing the coming Dissolution,
+      and was therefore called 'a varra fole and a misereble ideote,' if I
+      attempted in the short space available to give any detailed account of the
+      abbey or its wonderful past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its
+      charms, and I know that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing
+      Fountains, read with delight the books that are devoted to its story.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-20" id="linkimage-20">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/20.jpg" width="100%" alt="Fountains Abbey " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH16" id="link2HCH16">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from the
+      point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+      much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+      pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+      exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+      prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+      charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+      much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+      bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to interest
+      us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd, flowing
+      smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the church and
+      the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct. This might have
+      been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough would have lost
+      half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the reverse is the case,
+      for this railway bridge, with its battlemented parapets and massive piers,
+      is now so weathered that it has melted into its surroundings as though it
+      had come into existence as long ago as the oldest building visible. The
+      old Knaresborough kept well to the heights adjoining the castle, and even
+      to-day there are only a handful of later buildings down by the river
+      margin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+      perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+      houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only a
+      few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+      remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large black
+      and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing creepers gave
+      it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The restoration which
+      recently took place has entirely altered the character of the exterior,
+      but inside everything has been preserved with just the care that should
+      have been expended outside as well. There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak
+      dressers, and richly-carved fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one
+      containing furniture of the period of the house. Upstairs there is a
+      beautiful old bedroom lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and
+      its interest is greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's
+      residence in the house, for he is believed to have used this particular
+      bedroom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-21" id="linkimage-21">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/21.jpg" width="100%" alt="Knaresborough " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+      surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made by
+      the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after Edward
+      II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel contains
+      interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby. The
+      altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis Slingsby,
+      who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows Sir William
+      Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at Harrogate. The
+      Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the cause of Charles
+      I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658, 'being beheaded by
+      order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to a better place.' So
+      says the inscription on a large slab of black marble in the floor of the
+      chapel. The last of the male line of the family was Sir Charles Slingsby,
+      who was most unfortunately drowned by the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the
+      Ure in February, 1869.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+      elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+      perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+      scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle&mdash;poor and of small
+      account if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very
+      similar; where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most
+      imposing mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the
+      lowest story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only
+      two sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+      enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+      destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+      There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain fragments
+      of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse there are
+      evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening into the
+      moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from the castle
+      yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in the
+      reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+      horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+      air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+      thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+      sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II. such
+      confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep he
+      occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a mere
+      platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+      (sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of heavy
+      groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection of
+      interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor light that
+      the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us among the
+      wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the Nidd, and we
+      would rather stay here and trace back the history of the castle and town
+      to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the first mentioned in
+      its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn Dropping Well and the Mother
+      Shipton Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+      passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+      follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and are
+      soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days of
+      the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost join
+      the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that made
+      its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter is still
+      crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander through the
+      hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the baths, the huge
+      Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart shops, and the many
+      churches, and then, having seen enough of the buildings, we find a seat
+      supported by green serpents, from which to watch the passers-by. A
+      white-haired and withered man, having the stamp of a military life in his
+      still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then come two elaborately dressed
+      men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear brown suits and patent boots, and
+      their bowler hats are pressed down on the backs of their heads. Then
+      nursemaids with perambulators pass, followed by a lady in expensive
+      garments, who talks volubly to her two pretty daughters. When we have
+      tired of the pavements and the people, we bid farewell to them without
+      much regret, being in a mood for simplicity and solitude, and go away
+      towards Wharfedale with the pleasant tune that a band was playing still to
+      remind us for a time of the scenes we have left behind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH17" id="link2HCH17">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      WHARFEDALE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+      the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+      manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the south
+      rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same purpose as
+      Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the elevation of over
+      900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of course commands a far more
+      extensive panorama, and thus, in clear weather, York Minster appears on
+      the eastern horizon and the Ingleton Fells on the west.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+      dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+      Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+      very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The oak-panelling
+      and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the historical
+      relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the sword that
+      Cromwell carried during the battle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's purity
+      is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-century effigy
+      of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three pre-Norman crosses without
+      arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley is Rumbles Moor, and from the
+      Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a bend
+      of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on ground
+      slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic buildings
+      practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church, the central
+      tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely beautiful ruins. The
+      nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the present time, and it is
+      probable that services have been held in the building practically without
+      any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the Early English west end is the
+      lower half of a fine Perpendicular tower, commenced by Richard Moone, the
+      last Prior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great east window of the choir has lost its tracery, and the Decorated
+      windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the exception of
+      one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on the north side,
+      but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and very graceful. Lower
+      down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading resting on carved
+      corbels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-22" id="linkimage-22">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/22.jpg" width="100%" alt="Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+      exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+      Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+      really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+      frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+      always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+      seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled by
+      the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the woods
+      have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are generally
+      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 spots that
+      accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost their
+      lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel. That
+      several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+      temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than many
+      can resist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+      fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred at
+      the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+      stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at one
+      time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+      enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford&mdash;the 'Shepherd Lord' whose
+      strange life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+      Skipton&mdash;but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+      indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+      Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now partially
+      filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for Bradford's
+      water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep to the more
+      beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of Burnsall to
+      Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its appearance from
+      Skipton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells become
+      gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either side. We
+      keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a good view up
+      Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to Kettlewell. This tidy
+      and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great Whernside, one of the
+      twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of Coverdale when we were at
+      Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make Kettlewell a very fine centre
+      for rambles in the wild dales that run up towards the head of Wharfedale.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+      Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+      stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+      the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+      forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and the
+      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 down to
+      Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very slightly
+      marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It is steep in
+      places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly 2,000 feet. The
+      tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness spread all around,
+      are more impressive when we are right away from anything that can even be
+      called a path.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into Littondale
+      we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand and Fountains
+      Fell more to the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH18" id="link2HCH18">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I think of Skipton I am never quite sure whether to look upon it as a
+      manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of the dale
+      country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station upon such
+      vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling activity of
+      the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily imagine that the
+      capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making portion of the county.
+      But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you enter the place at a
+      considerable height, and, passing round the margin of the wooded Haw Beck,
+      you have a fine view of the castle, as well as the church and the broad
+      and not unpleasing market-place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+      circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+      higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+      'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway stands
+      a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in front; to
+      the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and inhabited
+      portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our attention, but
+      as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard beyond, we are scarcely
+      prepared for the astonishingly beautiful quadrangle that awaits us. It is
+      small, and the centre is occupied by a great yew-tree, whose tall,
+      purply-red trunk goes up to the level of the roofs without any branches or
+      even twigs, but at that height it spreads out freely into a feathery
+      canopy of dark green, covering almost the whole of the square of sky
+      visible from the courtyard. The base of the trunk is surrounded by a
+      massive stone seat, with plain shields on each side. The aspect of the
+      courtyard suggests more that of a manor-house than a castle, the windows
+      and doorways being purely Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of
+      the walls belong to the time of Edward II., and there is also a
+      round-headed door that cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé,
+      one of the Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady
+      quadrangle are very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an
+      old dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and
+      butteries, some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The
+      destruction caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War
+      might have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as
+      Knaresborough but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady
+      Anne Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+      of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of her
+      mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to speak
+      as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard Sackville,
+      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. With immense
+      enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles that belonged
+      to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and Pendragon being
+      restored as well as Skipton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+      than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+      parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+      even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+      private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+      charge, 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 it over,
+      and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the Windows, in
+      ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow colour, these
+      two letters&mdash;viz., A. P., and under them the year 1655... Besides,
+      she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory of her Warlike
+      Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within the Communion
+      rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned with seventeen
+      shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an assemblage of noble
+      bearings can be found on the tomb of any other Englishman.' This third
+      Earl was a notable figure in the reign of Elizabeth, 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 a skilful and daring sailor, helping to
+      defeat the Spanish Armada, and building at his own expense one of the
+      greatest fighting ships of his time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+      manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her Father's,"
+      we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a dimple in her
+      chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and very thick, and
+      so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when she stood upright."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back to
+      the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford" who was
+      one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his merciless
+      slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a chance arrow
+      the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the cause of Lancaster,
+      and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in her father's castle at
+      Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was placed under the care of a
+      shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's mother when a child. In this way
+      the future baron grew up as an entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending
+      his days on the fells in the primitive fashion of the peasants of the
+      fifteenth century. When he was about twelve years old Lady Clifford,
+      hearing rumours that the whereabouts of her children had become known,
+      sent the shepherd and his wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible
+      part of Cumberland. He remained there until his thirty-second year, when
+      the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd
+      lord was brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+      restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new life
+      being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in Barden
+      Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his own use.
+      There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the canons of
+      Bolton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+      his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the traditional
+      valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at Bolton Abbey,
+      where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor died after the
+      dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was the last to be
+      buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+      southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+      little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a rushing
+      beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and there is an
+      old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+      moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+      interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font and
+      the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the old pews.
+      The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording their names
+      on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials and dates
+      appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to the accepted
+      height of the present day with the exception of some on the north side
+      which were occupied by the more important families, and these still retain
+      their squareness and the high balustrades above the panelled lower
+      portions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+      village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+      afternoon. 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 by a
+      rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find ourselves in
+      a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the switchback lane, and,
+      climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the side of the beck. The
+      fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and in the failing light
+      there seems no object in following the stream any further, when quite
+      suddenly the green slope on the right stands out from a scarred wall of
+      rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the opening we find ourselves
+      before a vast fissure that leads right into the heart of the fell. The
+      great split is S-shaped in plan, so that when we advance into its yawning
+      mouth we are surrounded by limestone cliffs more than 300 feet high. If
+      one visits Gordale Scar for the first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I
+      have done, I can promise the most thrilling sensations to those who have
+      yet to see this astonishing sight. It almost appeared to me as though I
+      were dreaming, and that I was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I
+      had read some of the eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the
+      place, and imagined that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by
+      the overhanging rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with
+      every word. The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not
+      much space 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, and among
+      them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this made me keep
+      close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall. I stared with
+      apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but completely bury,
+      anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old writers had underrated
+      the horrors of the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wordsworth writes of
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          "Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch,"<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      and he also describes it as one of the grandest objects in nature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A further result of the Craven fault that produced Gordale Scar can be
+      seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+      front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone is
+      formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff into
+      three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement of each
+      stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A hard-pressed
+      fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these precarious ledges, and
+      finding his way stopped in front, he tried to turn, and in doing so fell
+      and was killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from a
+      very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable stream
+      in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large enough at
+      its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a great loss to
+      Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the hidden places in
+      the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational methods, it would
+      flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate itself in majestic
+      fashion into a great pool below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH19" id="link2HCH19">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot be recommended
+      to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of keeping to the path
+      without a very great familiarity with every yard of the way, so that when
+      I merely suggested taking that route one wintry night the villagers
+      protested vigorously. I therefore took the road that goes up from Kirby
+      Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp from the "Buck" Inn at
+      Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I was enveloped in a mist that
+      would have made the track quite invisible even where it was most plainly
+      marked, and I blessed the good folk at Malham who had advised me to take
+      the road rather than run the risks of the pot-holes that are a feature of
+      the limestone fells. The little town of Settle has a most distinctive
+      feature in the possession of Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely
+      wooded except at the very top, that rises sharply just behind the
+      market-place. Before the trees were planted there seems to have been a
+      sundial on the side of the hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming
+      the gnomon. No one remembers this curious feature, although a print
+      showing the numbers fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The
+      market-place has lost its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a
+      town hall of good Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the
+      old Shambles that occupy a central position in the square. The lower
+      story, with big arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's
+      and other shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has
+      been restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-23" id="linkimage-23">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/23.jpg" width="100%" alt="Settle " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may still
+      be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its original
+      purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their doorways
+      and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The Naked Man'
+      Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much older, the year of
+      rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the date of the figure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Ribble divides Settle from its former parish church at Giggleswick,
+      and until 1838 the townsfolk had to go over the bridge and along a short
+      lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been formed into
+      a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village no longer has
+      the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to share the church,
+      the two places had stocks of their own for a great many years. At Settle
+      they have been taken from the market square and placed in the court-house,
+      and at Giggleswick one of the first things we see on entering the village
+      is one of the stone posts of the stocks standing by the steps of the
+      market cross. This cross has a very well preserved head, and it makes the
+      foreground of a very pretty picture as we look at the battlemented tower
+      of the church through the stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The
+      history of this fine old church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St
+      Alkelda, has been written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail
+      of the old building from the chalice inscribed "THE. COMMVNION. CVPP.
+      BELONGINGE. TO. THE. PARISHE. OF. IYGGELSWICKE. MADE. IN. ANO. 1585." to
+      the inverted Norman capitals now forming the bases of the pillars. The
+      tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest of the structure
+      is about 100 years older.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The Black Horse" Inn has still two niches for small figures of saints,
+      that proclaim its ecclesiastical connections in early times. It is said
+      that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to see
+      that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the inspection
+      used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the custom was
+      abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly. Giggleswick is
+      also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It has grown from a
+      very small beginning to a considerable establishment, and it possesses one
+      of the most remarkable school chapels that can be seen anywhere in the
+      country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of limestone,
+      forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters and pot-holes,
+      which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns. In Ingleborough
+      itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly 350 feet deep. It
+      was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895. Ingleborough Cave
+      penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly 1,000 yards, and is
+      one of the best of these limestone caverns for its stalactite formations.
+      Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham to the inmost recesses
+      and chambers that branch out of the small portion discovered in 1837.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+      walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+      comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+      most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+      across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the bare
+      rocky scars.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH20" id="link2HCH20">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity and
+      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 any parks;
+      ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and yet the
+      landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is exactly the
+      case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics are not unlike
+      the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of windswept downs,
+      where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have resisted sun and storm
+      for ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-24" id="linkimage-24">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/24.jpg" width="100%" alt="Wolds " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the Wolds,
+      we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with scarcely a
+      house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air owing to the
+      absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to the whiteness
+      of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes that for ever blow
+      across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep and
+      sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes its
+      appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+      Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides break
+      up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high country,
+      scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted with roads of
+      almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland of Flamborough,
+      where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and lacerates the cliffs
+      during the stormy months. The masses of flinty chalk have shown themselves
+      so capable of resisting the erosion of the sea that the seaward
+      termination of the Wolds has for many centuries been becoming more and
+      more a pronounced feature of the east coast of England, and if the present
+      rate of encroachment along the low shores of Holderness is continued, this
+      accentuation will become still more conspicuous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+      that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide views
+      to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving corn, of
+      distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in character from
+      the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+      glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness of
+      the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest height
+      above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise sharply from
+      the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23 feet lower. On
+      this western side of the plateau the views are extremely good, extending
+      for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent and the Ouse,
+      having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety characterizing their
+      youth in the dales, take their wandering and converging courses towards
+      the Humber. In the distance you can distinguish a group of towers, a
+      stately blue-grey outline cutting into the soft horizon. It is York
+      Minster. To the north-west lie the beautifully wooded hills that rise
+      above the Derwent, and hold in their embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh
+      Priory, and many a stately park.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of the
+      Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to Helmsley
+      far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+      circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated hillocks.
+      The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance everywhere,
+      showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even at the present
+      day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+      Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long ago
+      as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a pastime than
+      a science, this corner of the country had become famous for the rich
+      discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds made
+      this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of implements and
+      weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and no doubt the
+      possession of this ample supply of offensive material would give the tribe
+      in possession a power, wealth, and permanence sufficient to account for
+      the wonderful evidences of a great and continuous population. In these
+      districts it is only necessary to go slowly over a ploughed field after a
+      period of heavy rain to be fairly certain to pick up a flint knife, a
+      beautifully chipped arrow-head, or an implement of less obvious purpose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man in
+      this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite the
+      reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+      prehistoric sites generally&mdash;omitting lake dwellings&mdash;are most
+      invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+      recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been disturbed
+      since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned the loss of
+      a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their double or
+      triple lines of defence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+      forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the road
+      will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the regular
+      line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough has never
+      levelled&mdash;heaps of earth that have resisted the disintegrating action
+      of weather and man for thousands of years. If such relics of the primitive
+      inhabitants of this island fail to stir the imagination, then the
+      mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind rather than in the subject
+      under discussion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+      old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five directions,
+      including the line to Great Driffield, which takes advantage of the valley
+      leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels its way through the high
+      ground.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 too hot,
+      nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start towards the
+      hills. We go on wheels&mdash;it is unimportant how many, or to what they
+      are attached&mdash;in order that the long stretches of white road may not
+      become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed, and,
+      glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the steep
+      ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire high
+      above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton, which is
+      scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from it only by
+      the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red brick, until
+      their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches the Vale of
+      Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the night's mist.
+      Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up, showing a wall
+      chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long lines of plantations
+      appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling along the horizon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+      spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied from
+      Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the arcades
+      of the nave belongs to the same period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+      village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the church
+      standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire looking
+      much like the one just left behind. The interior is interesting. The pews
+      are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with acorn knobs at the ends;
+      the floor is entirely covered with glazed red tiles. The late Norman
+      chancel, the plain circular font of the same period, and the massive
+      altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden screens on the north side,
+      are the most notable features. Going to the east we reach Helperthorpe,
+      one of the Wold villages adorned with a new church in the Decorated style.
+      The village gained this ornament through the generosity of the present Sir
+      Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose enthusiasm for church building is not
+      confined to one place. In his own park at Sledmere four miles to the
+      south, at West Lutton, East Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other
+      examples of modern church building, in which the architect has not been
+      hampered by having to produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost.
+      And thus in these villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not
+      detract from their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+      ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has a
+      church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed Saxon
+      stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby Moorside. The
+      inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both churches; but
+      while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect, this one has words
+      missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests that the half-destroyed
+      words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt
+      comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and leaves
+      us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built. There seems
+      little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested completion of the
+      sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE REGN[ALDI REGIS
+      SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete line.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it is
+      known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that name
+      appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first words of the
+      inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed earlier than the year
+      952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded Wulstan to the See of
+      York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete with antiquities this is
+      sufficiently far back in the age of the Vikings to be of thrilling
+      interest, for you must travel far to find another village church with an
+      inscription carved nearly a thousand years ago, at a time when the English
+      nation was still receiving its infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the narrowness
+      and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than this it is
+      unwise to say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows sweep
+      across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the ground is more
+      white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and taking note of the
+      different characteristics of each village. Not long ago the houses, even
+      in the small towns, were thatched, and even now there are hamlets still
+      cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured roofs; but in most
+      instances you see a transition state of tiles gradually ousting the
+      inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all through the Wolds are of
+      the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the brilliance of their colour,
+      and unspeakably preferable to thin blue slates, they do not seem to
+      weather or gather moss and rich colouring in the same manner as the usual
+      flat tile of the southern counties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the church
+      door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising ground to the
+      south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to be the only other
+      Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is pointed out as the
+      birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See of York from 1688 to
+      1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said that he would often pause
+      in conversation to slap his legs and say, "Just fancy me being Archbishop
+      of York!" The name of the village is derived from the Norse word <i>Thing</i>,
+      meaning an assembly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+      Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+      with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are dotted
+      here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see a
+      windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that assail
+      the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was raised
+      more than a few feet above the furrows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in its
+      bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+      perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages have
+      a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered tiles and
+      white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the low square
+      tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles in the past,
+      it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew them into the
+      sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never to put such
+      obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of Holderness,
+      curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with Bridlington down
+      below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the west end of its priory&mdash;one
+      short and plain, and the other tall and richly ornamented with pinnacles.
+      Going through the streets of sober red houses of the old town, we come at
+      length into a shallow green valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows
+      intermittently along the fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the
+      pleasant landscape with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under
+      the trees of the park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the
+      Stricklands. The family has been connected with the village for several
+      centuries, and some of their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be
+      seen in the church. One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and
+      another to Lady Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh
+      Cholmley, the gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle
+      during the Civil War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid
+      him by "my sister Strickland."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot, commanding
+      wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands conspicuously by
+      the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church tower is Norman, it
+      would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in comparison with the
+      stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement that huge standing
+      stones of this type belong to some very remote period, and also that they
+      are "associated with sepulchral purposes"; and the fact that they are
+      usually found in churchyards would suggest that they were regarded with a
+      traditional veneration.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village, and,
+      turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where North Burton
+      lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the left, and find
+      ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of the chalk hills.
+      Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood, Kilham is situated
+      in a district of extraordinary interest to the archaeologist, the
+      prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous. Chariot burials of the
+      Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as well as large numbers of
+      Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful Norman doorway in the nave of
+      the church, ornamented with chevron mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far
+      more interesting than this, however, are the fonts in the two villages of
+      Cottam and Cowlam, lying close together, although separated by a
+      thinly-wooded hollow, about five miles to the west. Cottam Church and the
+      farm adjoining it are all that now exists of what must once have been an
+      extensive village. In the church is a Norman font of cylindrical form,
+      covered with the wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six
+      subjects, the most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail
+      in the act of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown
+      inside the capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere
+      behind the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation
+      of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+      of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+      what seems to be another dragon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+      least 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 no
+      explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+      was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+      only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+      not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to the
+      church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking eloquently
+      of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other instance, a
+      search has to be made for the key, entailing much perambulation of the
+      farm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+      eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are the
+      figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+      village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two figures
+      are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round the waist of
+      the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the other, after
+      the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the Grasmere sports.
+      It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the subject represented is
+      Jacob wrestling with the <i>man</i> at Penuel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+      reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+      possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a green
+      canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the Wolds. The
+      park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded, owing to much
+      planting on what were bare slopes not very many years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 memory of
+      his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much the
+      Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting, and
+      enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is now
+      considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts of
+      Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that Yorkshire
+      folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial, conservative
+      type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On market days all
+      over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of conversation was how
+      Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to his memory by the road
+      leading to Garton can be seen over half Holderness. So great was the
+      conservatism of this remarkable squire that years after the advent of
+      railways he continued to make his journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on
+      horseback.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+      exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+      surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+      slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style of
+      the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+      something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable, but
+      the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere you look,
+      whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the workmanship is perfect,
+      and without a trace of that crudity to be found in the carvings of so many
+      modern churches. The clustered columns, the timber roof, and the tracery
+      of the windows are all dignified, in spite of the richness of form they
+      display. Only in the upper portion of the screen does the ornament seem a
+      trifle worried and out of keeping with the rest of the work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+      about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European war.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of the
+      Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges into the
+      valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all day, changes
+      at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile themselves up
+      fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain, driven by the
+      wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying just below, but
+      leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture. The widespread views
+      all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley of the Derwent become
+      impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque gloom, relieved by sudden
+      floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an element of unreality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+      stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower, where
+      the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry that
+      suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon church,
+      but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is every reason
+      to associate this lonely little building with the middle of the eleventh
+      century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses and barbed lines on
+      the south wall of the nave. The opening between the tower and the nave is
+      an almost unique feature, having a Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape
+      resting on plain and clumsy capitals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in remote
+      times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately, there is very
+      little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional fact of there being
+      another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where North
+      Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the road, come
+      to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with ivy, and has a
+      statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel arch with zigzag
+      moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just enough light to see
+      the splendid font, of similar age and shape to those at Cowlam and Cottam.
+      A large proportion of the surface is taken up with a wonderful 'Last
+      Supper,' and on the remaining space the carvings show the 'Descent from
+      the Cross,' and a figure, possibly representing St. Nicholas, the patron
+      saint of the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration is
+      at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH21" id="link2HCH21">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'As the shore winds itself back from hence,' says Camden, after describing
+      Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue thrust out)
+      shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater known as Filey
+      Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant watering-place. In its wide,
+      open, and gently curving bay, Filey is singularly lucky; for it avoids the
+      monotony of a featureless shore, and yet is not sufficiently embraced
+      between headlands to lose the broad horizon and sense of airiness and
+      space so essential for a healthy seaside haunt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-25" id="linkimage-25">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/25.jpg" width="100%" alt="Filey Brig " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the headland
+      of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of sandstone (of
+      the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the particular and
+      ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys of Filey to go
+      along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and then walk along the
+      uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves heaving and foaming within
+      a few yards on either hand. No wonder that there has been sufficient sense
+      among those who spend their lives in promoting schemes for ugly piers and
+      senseless promenades, to realize that Nature has supplied Filey with a
+      more permanent and infinitely more attractive pier than their fatuous
+      ingenuity could produce. There is a spice of danger associated with the
+      Brig, adding much to its interest; for no one should venture along the
+      spit of rocks unless the tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe
+      return. A melancholy warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the
+      rocky wall of the headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was
+      swept into the sea by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but
+      this need not frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who
+      use ordinary care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over
+      the seaweedy rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to
+      climb to the grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from the
+      top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+      north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting rocks.
+      You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave than any of
+      the others that are creating a continuous thunder down below 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 the onrush of the
+      towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and dissipated in
+      the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of creamy-white water
+      in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest height, its thin crest
+      being at once caught by the wind, and blown off in long white beards.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the rocks,
+      and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head down with
+      terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of water shoot
+      up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch shells had
+      exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the imprisoned air
+      escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in a vast cloud of
+      spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running with creamy water, and
+      the scene of the impact is a cauldron of seething foam, backed by a smooth
+      surface of pale green marble, veined with white. Then the waters gather
+      themselves together again, and the pounding of lesser waves keeps up a
+      thrilling spectacle until the moment for another great <i>coup</i>
+      arrives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+      conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+      primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+      vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the coast
+      in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy meretricious
+      buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating Blackpool and
+      Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and semi-rural front to
+      the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its appearance with a
+      jetty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over with
+      trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without claiming
+      any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly unobtrusive, and
+      has not the untidy, half-built character of so many watering-places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+      densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+      tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+      and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high pitched-roofs
+      of Early English times have been flattened without cutting away the
+      projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a conspicuous feature.
+      The interior is quite impressive. Round columns alternated with octagonal
+      ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory above pierced with
+      roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that the nave was built in
+      the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a western tower was
+      projected, but never carried out, and an unusual feature is the descent by
+      two steps into the chancel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the bay,
+      cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about eight miles
+      away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from Speeton to
+      Flamborough Head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-26" id="linkimage-26">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/26.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+      the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over two
+      miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a few
+      fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+      precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+      morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+      broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the cliffs
+      and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight downwards
+      into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the surrounding light
+      that every detail is microscopically clear. The crumpling and distortion
+      of the successive layers of chalk can be seen with such ease that we might
+      be looking at a geological textbook. On the ledges, too, can be seen rows
+      of little whitebreasted puffins; razor-bills are perched here and there,
+      as well as countless guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also
+      breeds on the cliffs, and a number of other types of northern sea-birds
+      are periodically noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The
+      guillemot makes no nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is
+      taken away by those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the
+      bird lays another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+      noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn into
+      a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the remarkable
+      entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it appears to follow
+      the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the promontory&mdash;that
+      is, for two-thirds of its length&mdash;the huge trench is purely
+      artificial. No doubt the <i>vallum</i> on the seaward side has been worn
+      down very considerably, and the <i>fosse</i> would have been deeper,
+      making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the dwellers on the
+      headland a very complete security.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging of
+      this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would have
+      been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been attributed
+      to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug several
+      trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road from
+      Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order that the
+      excavations might be close to the small stream which runs inside the Dyke
+      at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons being dropped close
+      to the water-supply of the defenders being considered important. The
+      results of the excavations proved conclusively that the people who dug the
+      ditch and threw up the rampart were users of flint. The most remarkable
+      discovery was that the ground on the inner slope of the rampart, at a
+      short distance below the surface, contained innumerable artificial flint
+      flakes, all lying in a horizontal position, but none were found on the
+      outer slope. From this fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the
+      stockade running along the top of the <i>vallum</i> the defenders were in
+      the habit of chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The
+      great entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+      people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of its
+      inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+      strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from outside
+      influences. They have married among themselves for so long, that it is
+      quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have been reproduced,
+      with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks, for an exceptionally
+      long period. On taking minute particulars of ninety Flamborough men and
+      women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that they were above the average
+      stature of the neighbourhood, and were, with only one or two exceptions,
+      dark-haired. They showed little or no trace of the fair-haired element
+      usually found in the people of this part of Yorkshire. It is also stated
+      that almost within living memory, when the headland was still further
+      isolated by a belt of uncultivated wolds, the village could not be
+      approached by a stranger without some danger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the village.
+      It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking, unfortunately,
+      anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for the church stands
+      alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of what is called 'The
+      Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the attractiveness of the
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+      their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+      indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+      entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the cliffs
+      nearly two miles away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone tower
+      being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is a
+      delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied niches
+      richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the red, blue,
+      and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the chancel is
+      patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir Marmaduke Constable,
+      of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel, is remarkable for its
+      long inscription, detailing the chief events in the life of this great
+      man, who was considered one of the most eminent and potent persons in the
+      county in the reign of Henry VIII. The greatness of the man is borne out
+      first in a recital of his doughty deeds: of his passing over to France
+      'with Kyng Edwarde the fourith, y[t] noble knyght.'
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name<br /> He was
+          also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same [1482]<br /> And by ky[n]g
+          Edward chosy[n] Captey[n] there first of anyone<br /> And rewllid and
+          governid ther his tyme without blame<br /> But for all that, as ye se,
+          he lieth under this stone.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden Field
+      when he was seventy, 'nothyng hedyng his age.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sir Marmaduke's daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley,
+      called 'the Great Black Knight of the North,' who was the first of his
+      family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving his
+      knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly long-lived
+      it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back from going to
+      his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a woman, or a hare, as
+      any one of these brings bad luck. It is also extremely unwise to mention
+      to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg.
+      This sounds foolish, but a fisherman will abandon his work till the next
+      day if these animals are mentioned in his presence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious beaches
+      for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no protection at all
+      from the weather, no attempt at forming even such miniature harbours as
+      may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been made. When the wind
+      blows hard from the north, the landing on that side is useless, and the
+      boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep slope with the help of a
+      steam windlass. Under these circumstances the South Landing is used. It is
+      similar in most respects to the northern one, but, owing to the cliffs
+      being lower, the cove is less picturesque. At low tide a beach of very
+      rough shingle is exposed between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten
+      away by the sea. Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the
+      cliffs a blackish green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy
+      brown clay slopes back to the grass above.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions, blues,
+      and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth seeing. The
+      men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to their hips, land
+      their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets pannier-wise on the backs
+      of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up the steep slope to the road,
+      nearly 200 feet above the boats, where carts take the fish to the station
+      four miles away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+      peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+      chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with caves.
+      Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque groups in
+      some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest of watching
+      the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating unconcernedly on
+      the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing as they circle just
+      above the waves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of chalk
+      in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of age it
+      bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and purpose
+      would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt that the
+      tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being extremely
+      soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder stone of the
+      windows and doors now projects several inches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada was
+      sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in the East
+      Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted, and what
+      action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says briefly:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost,<br /> takinge lighte
+          from Bridlington,<br /> and geving lighte to Rudstone.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem merely
+      to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by two, and
+      every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of thirty
+      years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put up as a
+      lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the dangers of the
+      headland to shipping must have been recognized as exceedingly great
+      several centuries ago. A light could not have failed to have been a boon
+      to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a matter of importance to
+      all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower ever held a lantern, the
+      hiatus between the last night when it glowed on the headland, and the
+      erection of the present lighthouse is so great that no one seems to be
+      able to state definitely for what purpose the early structure came into
+      existence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness,
+      with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and
+      seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+      remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington&mdash;a
+      Mr. Milne&mdash;to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder
+      Brethren of Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a
+      powerful light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate
+      result was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel
+      was 'lost on that station when the lights could be seen.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to have
+      nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly a
+      corruption of <i>Fleinn</i>, a Norse surname, and <i>borg</i> or <i>burgh</i>,
+      meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt 'Flaneburg,' and <i>flane</i> is
+      the Norse for an arrow or sword.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of
+      Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+      Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+      even now there are two towns&mdash;the solemn and serious, almost
+      Quakerish, place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous
+      holiday resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and
+      the railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+      Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+      parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential energies
+      on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There are seats,
+      concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks, refreshment-bars,
+      boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and even a spa, by which
+      means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused, and given every excuse
+      for loitering within a few yards of the long curving line of waves that
+      advances and retreats over the much-trodden sand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature in
+      the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington Quay
+      that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+      had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and ammunition
+      for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch ships to
+      Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended to land,
+      and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl of Newcastle
+      in order that her landing might be effected in proper security. News of
+      the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however, conveyed to four
+      Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at Tynemouth, and no time was
+      lost in sailing southwards. What happened is told in a letter published in
+      the same year, and dated February 25, 1642. It describes how, after two
+      days' riding at anchor, the cavalry arrived, upon which the Queen
+      disembarked, and the next morning the rest of the loyal army came to wait
+      on her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue his
+      favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament Ships
+      arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at foure a
+      clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to send speedily
+      to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were but newly
+      landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply us so fast
+      with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our beds with
+      diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the Souldiers
+      staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their forces
+      should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon the house
+      where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and before She was
+      out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud about her, (which
+      Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing to Her) that all the
+      company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the house, their Cannon having
+      totally beaten downe all the neighbouring houses, and two Cannon bullets
+      falling from the top to the bottome of the house where She was; so that
+      (clothed as She could) She went on foot some little distance out of the
+      Towne, under the shelter of a Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither
+      before She could get, the Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a
+      Sergeant was killed within twenty paces of Her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian Priory
+      we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure known as
+      the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery. They stand at
+      no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to form a picture,
+      which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any real charm in the
+      domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The Bayle Gate has a large
+      pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its erection appears to be the
+      end of the fourteenth century, when permission was given to the prior to
+      fortify the monastery. Unhappily for Bridlington, an order to destroy the
+      buildings was given soon after the Dissolution, and the nave of the church
+      seems to have been spared only because it was used as the parish church.
+      Quite probably, too, the gatehouse was saved from destruction on account
+      of the room it contains having been utilized for holding courts. The upper
+      portions of the church towers are modern restorations, and their different
+      heights and styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful
+      outline. At the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular
+      window, occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+      vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns built
+      in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on the north
+      side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been destroyed with
+      the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is merely a portion of
+      the nave separated with screens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low coast
+      of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is nothing
+      comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its featureless
+      monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea. The low brown
+      cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power to the capacious
+      appetite of the waves than if they were of gingerbread. The progress of
+      the sea has been continued for centuries, and stories of lost villages and
+      of overwhelmed churches are met with all the way to Spurn Head. Four or
+      five miles south of Bridlington we come to a point on the shore where,
+      looking out among the lines of breaking waves, we are including the sides
+      of the two demolished villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance to
+      it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the lordship of
+      Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer that it was
+      the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having practically no
+      defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary, and these we find
+      at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded by a ditch, and a
+      segment of the great outer circle of defences exists on the south-west
+      side. No masonry of any description can be seen on the grass-covered
+      embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once crowned, it is surmised,
+      by a Norman keep, there is one small piece of stonework. These earthworks
+      have been considered Saxon, but later opinion labels them post-Conquest.
+      In the time of the Domesday Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by
+      Drogo de Bevere, a Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of
+      England and received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was
+      given the King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having
+      for some 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 Holderness
+      was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      [A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr. J. L. Kirk, of
+      Pickering.]
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave orders
+      for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of Albemarle,
+      its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When Edward II. ascended
+      the throne, he recalled his profligate companion Piers Gaveston, and
+      besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl of Cornwall, he
+      presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great Seigniory of
+      Holderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on a
+      large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on come to
+      Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea and the
+      Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise to the
+      stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake in a
+      perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be found.
+      Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that day is
+      likely to be put further off year by year on account of the growth of a
+      new town on the shore.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to Beverley
+      skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface seen
+      through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of them
+      having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being supported in a
+      horizontal position by their branches. The islands and the swampy margins
+      form secure breeding-places for the countless water-fowl, and the lake
+      abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-27" id="linkimage-27">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/27.jpg" width="100%" alt="Hornsea Mere " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to a
+      hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St. Mary's
+      Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of Meaux, 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 over the <i>impasse</i> and
+      relations became so strained that the only method of determining the issue
+      was by each side agreeing to submit to the result of a judicial combat
+      between champions selected by the two monasteries. Where the fight took
+      place I do not know, and the number of champions is not mentioned in the
+      record. It is stated that a horse was first swum across the lake, and
+      stakes fixed to mark the limits of the claim. On the day appointed the
+      combatants chosen by each abbot appeared properly accoutred, and they
+      fought from morning until evening, when, at last, the men representing
+      Meaux were beaten to the ground, and the York abbot retained the whole
+      fishing rights of the Mere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between the
+      western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk utilized
+      the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work there on a
+      stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the roof off the
+      church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic seizure of which he
+      died.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+      this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+      desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny waves
+      tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain from feeling
+      that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and the waters are
+      merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before satisfying a fresh
+      appetite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour and
+      pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely disappeared since
+      the time of James I., and so also has the place called Hornsea Burton,
+      where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven acres of arable land. At the
+      end of that century not one of those acres remained. The fate of Owthorne,
+      a village once existing not far from Withernsea, is pathetic. The
+      churchyard was steadily destroyed, until 1816, when in a great storm the
+      waves undermined the foundations of the eastern end of the church, so that
+      the walls collapsed with a roar and a cloud of dust.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+      churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses were
+      absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more attenuated,
+      and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer to the sea,
+      winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been fortunate in
+      preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with a thatched roof.
+      The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect given by huge posts and
+      beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the waves
+      has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with salt
+      water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not more than
+      fifteen feet high.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH22" id="link2HCH22">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      BEVERLEY
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth its
+      deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+      uplifting of the mind&mdash;a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+      even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+      spaces of a cathedral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-28" id="linkimage-28">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/28.jpg" width="100%" alt="The Market-place, Beverley " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+      stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+      Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely upon
+      its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we come over
+      the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are just
+      sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster, with its
+      graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close at hand the
+      pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark trees. The
+      entry to the city from this direction is in every way prepossessing, for
+      the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree lined road, with
+      old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the foliage, and the end of
+      the avenue is closed by the North Bar&mdash;the last of Beverley's gates.
+      It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red brick, with one arch
+      only, the footways being taken through the modern houses, shouldering it
+      on each side. Leland's account and the town records long before his day
+      tell us that there were three gates, but nothing remains of 'Keldgate
+      barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+      beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+      houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+      while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+      picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles Hotham,
+      Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the Corporation
+      at that time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little pleasure,
+      for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser transepts, although
+      imposing and massive, are lacking in proper proportion, and in that
+      deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The eulogies so many architects and
+      writers have poured out upon the Early English work of this great church,
+      and the strangely adverse comments the same critics have levelled at the
+      Perpendicular additions, do not blind me to what I regard as a most
+      strange misconception on the part of these people. The homogeneity of the
+      central and eastern portions of the Minster is undeniable, but because
+      what appears to be the design of one master-builder of the thirteenth
+      century was apparently carried out in the short period of twenty years, I
+      do not feel obliged to consider the result beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in graceful
+      proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the turrets, jars
+      with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+      were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+      'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+      give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+      advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+      portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the dark
+      as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took place of
+      which there is a record:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was burnt,
+      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 of March, there was
+      an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John in this place, and
+      these bones were found in the east part of his sepulchre, and reposited;
+      and dust mixed with mortar was found likewise, and re-interred.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+      discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened and
+      found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The picture
+      history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great extent hazy
+      with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one of the greatest
+      and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the Early Church in
+      England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the year 700, on what
+      appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by forest and swamp, and
+      after holding the See of York for some twelve years, 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 intercession were constantly invoked. The
+      splendid shrine provided for his relics in 1037 was encrusted with jewels
+      and shone with the precious metals employed. Like the tomb of William the
+      Conqueror at Caen, it disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the
+      central tower to its very foundations came the vast Early English
+      reconstruction of everything except the nave, which was possibly of
+      pre-Conquest date, and survived until the present Decorated successor took
+      its place. Much discussion has centred round certain semicircular arches
+      at the back of the triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman,
+      suggesting that the early nave was merely remodelled in the later period.
+      The last great addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular
+      north porch and the west end&mdash;the glory of Beverley. The interior of
+      the transepts and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking
+      in that perfection of form characterizing York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+      the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the sixty-eight
+      seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than any other in
+      the country. The subjects range from a horrible representation of the
+      devil with a second face in the middle of his body to humorous pictures of
+      a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her way to the ducking-stool in a
+      wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the ear of the man who is wheeling
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+      lesser 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 is composed of
+      sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally encrusted with
+      ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that the general
+      effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is always
+      magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep gable with
+      an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex for an
+      elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of the
+      monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+      represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+      holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped figure
+      representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one of those
+      of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two fingers on
+      her head.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+      staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+      the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+      slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the marble
+      columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at the
+      Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+      stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+      sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+      clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+      privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in the
+      reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all sorts and
+      conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and minstrels,
+      frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security of St. John of
+      Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr. Charles Hiatt in
+      his admirable account of the Minster:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum that John Spret, of Barton upon Umber,
+      in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first day of
+      October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the lybertes
+      of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton, husbondman, of
+      the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be at the kyllyng of
+      the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicular
+      church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the Minster.
+      At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window flanked by
+      octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are run up to a
+      considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper portions being
+      made light and graceful, with an opening on each face, and a pierced
+      parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is crowned by sixteen
+      pinnacles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like the
+      greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is Norman,
+      and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave is
+      ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels carved
+      in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is painted. The
+      musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be seen 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 times there had existed in
+      Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous fraternity bound by
+      regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his monumental work on
+      Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts, at weddings, on
+      market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse for music.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH23" id="link2HCH23">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      ALONG THE HUMBER
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;<br /> But if you faint, as
+          fearing to do so,<br /> Stay and be secret, and myself will go.'<br />
+          <i>Richard II</i>, Act II, Scene 1.<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of the
+      Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider patch
+      of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of sand and
+      shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and populous area
+      possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle of the fourteenth
+      century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for shipping,
+      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 soon demonstrated the need of some light
+      on the point of land where the estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry
+      VI granted a toll on all vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first
+      lighthouse put up about that time by a benevolent hermit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      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 by Justinian
+      Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles II to
+      'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two lighthouses,
+      one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry in completing
+      the work, for the foundations of the high light were not completed until
+      six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low light, owing to the
+      waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions the loss of three
+      structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was taken down after a brief
+      life of fourteen years, the sea having laid the foundations bare. As late
+      as the beginning of last century the illumination was produced by 'a naked
+      coal fire, unprotected from the wind,' and its power was consequently most
+      uncertain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+      circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+      wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+      the lifeboat and other purposes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+      with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of 519,000
+      candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast of
+      England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by placing the
+      low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty seconds the
+      upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen in clear
+      weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the Humber.
+      Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise, and the
+      most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was probably owing to
+      his great wealth that his son was made a knight-banneret, and his grandson
+      became Earl of Suffolk. Another of the De la Poles was the first Mayor of
+      Hull, and seems to have been no less opulent than his brother, who lent
+      large sums of money to Edward III, and was in consequence appointed Chief
+      Baron of the Exchequer and also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+      number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened in
+      this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+      different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port of
+      Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might have
+      continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the matter,
+      bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which have been
+      discovered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a Danish
+      settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a compound of the
+      raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a narrow strip of
+      land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the sailing of the
+      defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from Ravenser, after the defeat
+      of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is mentioned in the lines:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'The King the swift ships with the flood<br /> Set out, with the autumn
+          approaching,<br /> And sailed from the port, called Hrafnseyrr (the
+          raven tongue of land).'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of small
+      consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+      then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit of
+      land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge of
+      Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the early
+      part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man&mdash;the earliest
+      recorded Peggotty&mdash;converted it into a house, and even made it a
+      tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+      houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small port
+      was created, its development being fostered by William de Fortibus, Earl
+      of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success that, by the year
+      1274, the place had grown to be of some importance, and a serious trade
+      rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To distinguish the two
+      Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an island, being only
+      connected with the mainland by a bank composed of large yellow boulders
+      and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the Chronicles of Meaux Abbey
+      and other records the name is generally written Ravenserodd. The original
+      place was about a mile away, and no longer on the shore, and it is
+      distinguished from the prosperous port as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to
+      its insignificance in comparison to Ravenserodd, the busy port, it is
+      often merely referred to as Ravenser, spelt with many variations.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due to a
+      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 out to incoming vessels
+      bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their cargoes in Ravenserodd by
+      all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting the prices paid in the rival
+      town. If their arguments failed, they would 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 an action brought by the town of Grimsby against
+      Ravenserodd. Although the plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case,
+      the decision of the Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had
+      not been shown that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340 and
+      1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux.
+      Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerning
+      the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+      annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the great
+      sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half an acre
+      of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town, pertaining to the
+      said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition during the few
+      preceding years, those floods and inundations of the sea, within a year
+      before the destruction of that town, increasing in their accustomed way
+      without limit fifteen fold, announcing the swallowing up of the said town,
+      and sometimes exceeding beyond measure the height of the town, and
+      surrounding it like a wall on every side, threatened the final destruction
+      of that town. And so, with this terrible vision of waters seen on every
+      side, the enclosed persons, with the reliques, crosses, and other
+      ecclesiastical ornaments, which remained secretly in their possession and
+      accompanied by the viaticum of 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 left that town totally without defence, to be shortly
+      swallowed up, which, with a short intervening period of time by those
+      merciless tempestuous floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+      other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn Head,
+      the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only incident
+      recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp, who was at
+      the time building a chapel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The very beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along a
+      winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+      meadows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-29" id="linkimage-29">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/29.jpg" width="100%" alt="Patrington Church " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+      diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+      than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+      Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+      beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+      window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+      the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of detail
+      and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and without. The
+      plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts as well as the
+      nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above the 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 being represented by crocketed
+      pinnacles&mdash;the terminals of the supporting pillars. The interior is
+      seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when that rich yellow light Mr.
+      W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the colour of the daffodil is
+      flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on the clustered columns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three chantry
+      chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south transept
+      is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess for the altar,
+      with three richly ornamented niches above. In the groined roof above, the
+      central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of considerable interest. On
+      the three sides are carvings representing the Annunciation, St. Catherine
+      of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist, and on the under side is a Tudor
+      rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the <i>Archaeological Journal</i>, states that
+      this pendant was used for a lamp to light the altar below, but he points
+      out, at the same time, that the sacrist would have required a ladder to
+      reach it. An alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche
+      contained a relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+      lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant place,
+      with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in all the
+      Holderness towns.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+      Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where we
+      may see the memorials of a fine old family&mdash;the Hildyards of
+      Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and when
+      we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty, and by
+      the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that was
+      decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No doubt
+      the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from her high
+      place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was scarcely less
+      disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had been at
+      Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted with their
+      rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the disintegrated town in
+      the waterway of the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+      period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with a
+      fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+      colours we saw at Patrington.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone of
+      its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting for
+      works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of the city
+      still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes copper-coloured,
+      and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness loses its vigour.
+      Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of blackness stand in pairs
+      or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct behind a veil of steam and
+      smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion of buildings sending forth
+      jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand points. Hemmed in by this
+      industrial belt and compact masses of cellular brickwork, where labour
+      skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears its offspring, is the nucleus of
+      the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull, founded by Edward I at the close
+      of the thirteenth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the Edwardian
+      port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial development
+      the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century; and Hull has
+      only one old street which can lay claim to even the smallest suggestion of
+      picturesqueness. The renaissance of English architecture is beginning to
+      make itself felt in the chief streets, where some good buildings are
+      taking the places of ugly fronts; and there are one or two more ambitious
+      schemes of improvement bringing dignity into the city; but that, with the
+      exception of two churches, is practically all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+      with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled the
+      winding streets&mdash;the windmills, the churches and monasteries&mdash;we
+      understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as Ravenserodd.
+      It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la Pole of
+      Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen Carthusian
+      monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in Lowgate
+      opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick mansion,
+      which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during his visit in
+      1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt and restored that
+      its interest is much diminished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is,
+      therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little town
+      founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and has a
+      fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and chancel
+      built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period. The De la
+      Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with brick&mdash;no
+      doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the founder of
+      the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades of both the
+      nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and the interior as
+      a whole, although spacious, does not convey any pleasing sensations. The
+      slenderness of the columns was necessary, it appears, owing to the soft
+      and insecure ground, which necessitated a pile foundation and as light a
+      weight above as could be devised.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a large
+      house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column surmounted by
+      a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of the city. The
+      old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is a pleasant relief
+      from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of the city.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the southern
+      horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they show as a
+      level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the church stands
+      out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The cobbled streets at
+      the east end of the church possess a few antique houses coloured with warm
+      ochre, and it is over and between these that we have the first close view
+      of the ruined chancel. The east window has lost 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 better described as early Perpendicular. It is
+      octagonal in plan, and has in each side a window with an ogee arch above.
+      The stones employed are remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading
+      inside, consisting of ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so
+      long, owing to the loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is
+      fast disappearing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+      ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+      green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches, it
+      is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought closer by
+      the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem to be looking
+      into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is the
+      only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of the
+      former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a fire in
+      1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great towers and the
+      walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the Percys,
+      and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal grandeur
+      unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the Parliament to be
+      a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl of Northumberland,
+      its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an order was issued in 1648
+      commanding that it should be destroyed. Pontefract Castle had been
+      suddenly seized for the King in June during that year, and had held out so
+      persistently that any fortified building, even if owned by a supporter,
+      was looked upon as a possible source of danger to the Parliamentary
+      Government. An order was therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers
+      at Wressle commanding them to pull down all but the south side of the
+      castle. That this was done with great thoroughness, despite the most
+      strenuous efforts made by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen
+      to-day in the fact that, of the four sides of the square, three have
+      totally disappeared, except for slight indications in the uneven grass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings spared
+      by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century ago
+      nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the fifth
+      Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book. The Great
+      Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and other
+      apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the sides of
+      the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient sculpture,
+      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.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a
+      fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one of
+      the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and kitchen;
+      in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the two-storied building
+      and the other tower of the south side were the chief apartments, where my
+      lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered his great household with a vast
+      care and minuteness of detail. We would probably have never known how
+      elaborate were the arrangements for the conduct and duties of every one,
+      from my lord's eldest son down to his lowest servant, had not the
+      Household Book of the fifth Earl of Northumberland been, by great good
+      fortune, preserved intact. By reading this extraordinary compilation it is
+      possible to build up a complete picture of the daily life at Wressle
+      Castle in the year 1512 and later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments were
+      hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and bedding,
+      all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the altar
+      hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel&mdash;in fact, every
+      one's bed, tools, and clothing&mdash;were removed in seventeen carts each
+      time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is one
+      of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'ITEM.&mdash;Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean Prestes
+      Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and Grome of
+      the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every Remevall Viz.
+      One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after ii to a Bedde For
+      x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a Bedde And for vi
+      Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde for the Yoman and Grom
+      o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage
+      for ther Aparells and all outher ther Stuff and to have no mo Cariage
+      allowed them but onely the said ii Cariages allowid theime.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from the
+      battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look at the
+      grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy tracery, we
+      betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at length to the
+      river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice that of the
+      tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with the rest of the
+      building; yet I do not think for a moment that this great spire could have
+      been different without robbing the church of its striking and pleasing
+      individuality. There are Transitional Norman arches at the east end of the
+      nave, but most of the work is Decorated or Perpendicular. The windows of
+      the latter period in the south transept are singularly happy in the
+      wonderful amount of light they allow to flood through their pale yellow
+      glass. The oak bench-ends in the nave, which are carved with many devices,
+      and the carefully repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no
+      doubt belong to the period when the church was a collegiate foundation of
+      Durham.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH24" id="link2HCH24">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three
+      separate places&mdash;Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+      pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive suburb.
+      The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its attractions
+      begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a slope well above
+      the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges the backs of its
+      houses with unconscious charm. The two churches, although both containing
+      Norman pillars and arches, have been so extensively rebuilt that their
+      antiquarian interest is slight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of two
+      rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some three or
+      four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability identified
+      with the <i>Delgovitia</i> of the Antonine Itinerary.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages here
+      and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as you come
+      along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on the left and
+      the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above the humble roofs.
+      A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the middle of the twelfth
+      century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of Sempringham in
+      Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life sent a letter to
+      the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear sons.' Little remains of
+      Malton Priory with the exception of the church, built at the very
+      beginning of the Early English period. Of the two western towers, the
+      southern one only survives, and both aisles, two bays of the nave, and
+      everything else to the east has gone. The abbreviated nave now serves as a
+      parish church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+      country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as the
+      Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst. The many
+      interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains can be
+      realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the Wolds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+      park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+      side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left are
+      most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands into the
+      great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the distant masses
+      of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle of the Howards
+      having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect of early Georgian
+      times, designed the enormous building now standing. In 1772 Horace Walpole
+      compressed the glories of the place into a few sentences. '... I can say
+      with exact truth,' he writes to George Selwyn,' that I never was so
+      agreeably astonished in my days as with the first vision of the whole
+      place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood
+      spitting and swearing at one another; nay, I had heard of glorious woods,
+      and Lord Strafford alone had told me that 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, a fortified city; temples on high places, woods
+      worthy of being each metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by
+      other woods, the noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and
+      a mausoleum that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen
+      gigantic places before, but never a sublime one.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's description
+      applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures include some of the
+      masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens, Tintoretto, Canaletto,
+      Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale Caracci.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the deep
+      valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees whose
+      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 a stone
+      bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin partially
+      mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable fashion the detail
+      of its outward face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to a
+      tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the event
+      which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of Helmsley.
+      He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was fond of
+      riding with exceeding swiftness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+      stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking his
+      neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is said
+      to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of them
+      being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to tell
+      us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one of the
+      most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all that has
+      been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few walls, a
+      beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone survive.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey, is
+      so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time to see
+      the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English King, and
+      the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's brother Tostig. The
+      English host made their sudden attack from the right bank of the river,
+      and the Northmen on that side, being partially armed, were driven back
+      across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it appears, played the part
+      of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for a time. When he fell, the
+      Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on the left bank of the river,
+      no doubt on the rising ground just above the village. That the final and
+      decisive phase of the battle took place there Freeman has no doubt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of the
+      Roman <i>Derventio</i>, it was natural that some village should have grown
+      up at such an important crossing of the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+      Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If we
+      take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant trees, the
+      lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach a silent
+      village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular space,
+      enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls, is now
+      utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we approach by a
+      footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible that this is the
+      castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I saw no House in the
+      North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and also describes 'the
+      stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very magnificent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to the
+      distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+      appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have no
+      difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres, which
+      reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of York.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only intensified
+      by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the towers, we in
+      imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the former grandeur of
+      the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmorland. It
+      was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram de Bulmer, Sheriff of
+      Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of Warwick, the Kingmaker,
+      in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of Sheriff Hutton to his
+      brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it was he who kept Edward
+      IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within these massive walls. The
+      unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the eldest son of George, Duke of
+      Clarence, when only eight years old, was also incarcerated here for about
+      three years. Richard III, the usurper, when he lost his only son, had
+      thought of making this boy his heir, but the unfortunate child was passed
+      over in favour of John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close
+      confinement at Sheriff Hutton until August, 1485, when the Battle of
+      Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon
+      afterwards arrived at the castle, and took the little Earl to London.
+      Princess Elizabeth was also sent for at the same time, but whether both
+      the Royal prisoners travelled together does not appear to be recorded. The
+      terrible pathos of this simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the
+      fact that Edward was to play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and
+      Elizabeth that of the chief butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower
+      of London, the Earl of Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five
+      months, raised up Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times
+      the fate of the Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after
+      his execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was
+      eight years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+      hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all the
+      common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was said
+      'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+      Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+      curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+      historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198&mdash;probably the year of
+      his death&mdash;was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+      life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions of
+      the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh was
+      given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose family
+      was <i>Bonne et belle assez</i>. One of his descendants was created Lord
+      Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in 1815, on the
+      death of the seventh to bear the title. The last owner&mdash;Sir George
+      Wombwell, Bart.&mdash;inherited the property from his grandmother, who was
+      a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George was one of the three
+      surviving officers who took part in the charge of the Light Brigade at
+      Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying what
+      is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+      Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed still
+      kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery crowded
+      with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir George wore at
+      Balaclava.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+      Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the Civil
+      War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary. This
+      close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a vault
+      immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small metal
+      plate is written:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed, by his
+      daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, when his
+      remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having been
+      made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally clearing up
+      the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's remains. The body was
+      exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster, and hung on
+      the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661&mdash;the twelfth anniversary of
+      the execution of Charles I&mdash;and the head was placed upon a pole
+      raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate history, which is
+      known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a Royalist at the
+      Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps have 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 often been stated that a sword,
+      bridle, and other articles belonging to Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh
+      Priory, but this has been conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects
+      having been traced to one of the Belasyses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-30" id="linkimage-30">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/30.jpg" width="100%" alt="Coxwold Village " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is so
+      often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land still
+      spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the village.
+      There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on each side,
+      which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with twisted branches&mdash;whether
+      oak or elm, I cannot remember&mdash;stands at the top of the street
+      opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the village. The inn has
+      recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint little house with the
+      typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone ball. On the great sign
+      fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the Fauconbergs, and the
+      interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and cleanliness. Nearly opposite
+      stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+      tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+      Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+      received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+      1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+      him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the drawing-rooms
+      of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great carved figures, are
+      all interesting. They encroach so much on the space in the narrow chancel
+      that a most curious method for lengthening the communion-rail has been
+      resorted to&mdash;that of bringing forward from the centre a long narrow
+      space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit Laurence Sterne preached
+      when he was incumbent here for the last eight years of his life. He came
+      to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in the charming old house he
+      quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the opposite side of the road to
+      the church, and has a stone roof and one of those enormous chimneys so
+      often to be found in the older farmsteads of the north of England.
+      Sterne's study was the very small room on the right-hand side of the
+      entrance doorway; it now contains nothing associated with him, and there
+      is more pleasure in viewing the outside of the house than is gained by
+      obtaining permission to enter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous spirits
+      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 he drove out in
+      his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day his postilion
+      met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which went off in his
+      hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne, 'and said "Our
+      Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"&mdash;at which, like a
+      good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+      north 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 turret pointing
+      a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge circular window,
+      without any sign of tracery. This fine example of Early English work is
+      illustrated here. The whole building appears to be the original structure
+      built soon after 1177, for it shows everywhere the transition from Norman
+      to Early English which was taking place at the close of the twelfth
+      century. The founders were twelve monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who
+      left Furness Abbey in 1134, and after some vicissitudes came to the notice
+      of Gundred, the mother of Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by
+      accident. One account pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop
+      Thurstan at York, with all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight
+      oxen, and describes how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they
+      journeyed near Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after
+      four years received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an
+      abbey. This position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells
+      could be too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless
+      community obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place
+      called Stocking, where they remained until they came to Byland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-31" id="linkimage-31">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/31.jpg" width="100%"
+      alt="The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Recent excavation and preservation operations carried out by H.M. Office
+      of Works have added many lost features to the ruins including the exposure
+      of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto buried under grassy
+      mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go through surprisingly
+      attractive scenery. There are heathery commons, roads embowered with great
+      spreading trees, or running along open hill-sides, and frequently lovely
+      views of the Hambletons and more distant moors in the north.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+      Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most beautiful
+      Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The walls are
+      panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being filled with
+      paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of Yorkshire. Each
+      tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great families of that time
+      in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against the dark green of the
+      trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform brown of the panelling.
+      In addition to the charm of the room itself, the view from the windows
+      into a deep hollow clothed with dense foliage, with a distant glimpse of
+      country beyond, is unlike anything I have seen elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH25" id="link2HCH25">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know practically
+      the whole of English history. Its importance from the earliest times has
+      made York the centre of all the chief events that have take place in the
+      North of England; and right up to the time of the 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 has contrived to retain a medieval
+      character in many ways unequalled by any town in the kingdom. This is due,
+      in a large measure, to the fortunate fact that York is well outside the
+      area of coal and iron, and has never become a manufacturing centre, the
+      few factories it now possesses being unable to rob the city of its romance
+      and charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+      furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we are
+      confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented wall,
+      and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we enter the
+      city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages within. It is no
+      dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down to the siege of 1644,
+      when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar with their artillery, it
+      has withstood many assaults and investments. Repairs and restorations have
+      been carried out at various times during the last century, and additional
+      arches have been inserted by the bars and where openings have been made
+      necessary, luckily without robbing the walls of their picturesqueness or
+      interest. The bright, creamy colour of the stonework is a pleasant
+      reminder of the purity of York's atmosphere, for should the smoke of the
+      city ever increase to the extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns,
+      the beauty and glamour of every view would gradually disappear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+      the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+      embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of Roman
+      walling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have each a
+      particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of York, we
+      cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow streets full
+      of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we know from prints
+      and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we reach a wide arch across
+      the roadway, and on the inner side find a flight 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. The battlemented stone parapet of the wall
+      stops at a tower standing on the bank of the river, and on the further
+      side rises another, while above the old houses, closely packed together
+      beyond Lendal Bridge, appear the stately towers of the Minster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs to
+      the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when open
+      country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within were to be
+      found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and fifteenth
+      centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so admirably designed
+      as to be beautiful without the additional charm of age. Then, suddenly, we
+      find no need to imagine any longer, having reached the splendid
+      twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its bold turrets are pierced
+      with arrow-slits, and above the battlements are three stone figures. The
+      archway is a survival of the Norman city. In gazing at this imposing
+      gateway, which confronted all who approached York from the south, we seem
+      to hear the clanking sound of the portcullis as it is raised and lowered
+      to allow the entry of some Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue,
+      and, remembering that above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of
+      Richard, Duke of York, after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon,
+      after Towton, and a long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in
+      those times of pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in
+      costume, in architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was
+      a blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river and
+      come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no antiquity,
+      and the courtyard within is surrounded by the eighteenth-century assize
+      courts, a military prison, and the governor's house. Hemmed in by these
+      buildings and a massive wall is the artificial mound surmounted by the
+      tottering castle keep. It is called Clifford's Tower because Francis
+      Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal
+      Arms and those of the Cliffords can still be seen above the doorway, but
+      the structure as a whole dates from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was
+      the scene of a horrible tragedy, when the people of York determined to
+      massacre the Jews. Those merchants who escaped from their houses with
+      their families and were not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but
+      finding that they were unable to defend the place, they burnt the
+      buildings and destroyed themselves. A few exceptions consented to become
+      Christians, but were afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+      outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+      picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of fortifications
+      turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its battlemented turrets and
+      its barbican, the only one which has survived. The gateway itself, on the
+      outside, is very similar in design to Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was
+      built in the thirteenth century; inside, however, the stonework is hidden
+      behind a quaint Elizabethan timber front supported on two pillars. This
+      gate, as already mentioned, was much battered during the siege of 1644,
+      which lasted six weeks. It was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston
+      Moor that York capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the
+      city excellent terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too,
+      the Minster suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery,
+      and the only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower,
+      near St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+      Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier who
+      rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all the
+      records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax had paid
+      a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we
+      come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+      Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the fifteenth
+      century, and many interesting details, are beautiful survivals of the days
+      when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On the left, a few yards
+      further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the interesting little
+      church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was illuminated at night as
+      a guiding light to travellers on their way to York. The north door has a
+      sanctuary knocker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to All
+      Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where butchers'
+      shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of the way. On
+      the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops has a depressed
+      ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the passage leading to
+      the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and either plastered and
+      coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces between the oak filled
+      with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles, too, there are many curious
+      details in the high gables, pargeting and oriel windows. Petergate is a
+      charming old street, though not quite so rich in antique houses as
+      Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number of shops in Stonegate sell
+      'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying an old pair of silver
+      candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge that the purchase will
+      be associated with the old-world streets of York, there is every reason
+      for believing that these quaint houses are in no danger. In walking
+      through these streets we are very little disturbed by traffic, and the
+      atmosphere of centuries long dead seems to surround us. We constantly get
+      peeps of the great central tower of the Minster or the Early English south
+      transept, and there are so many charming glimpses down passages and along
+      narrow streets that it is hard to realize that we are not in some town in
+      Normandy such as Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls,
+      and Falaise, has only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely
+      justifiable to ask, in Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the
+      nations round' until you 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 its two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+      beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the most
+      romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open space
+      faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind are the
+      weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them rises the
+      stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in 1831, and the
+      interior has been much restored, without, however, destroying its
+      fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look out of the narrow
+      windows through which the watchmen have gazed in early times at
+      approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that armed guides could be
+      obtained to protect those who were journeying northwards through the
+      Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be feared in the Middle Ages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-32" id="linkimage-32">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/32.jpg" width="100%" alt="Bootham Bar, York " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+      trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house where,
+      before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in stately
+      fashion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage of
+      Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The citizens
+      who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted three years
+      afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of Norfolk as its
+      president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and resulted in the Mayor
+      and Corporation losing most of their powers. The beautiful fragments of
+      St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the site is now included in
+      the museum grounds. In the museum building itself there is a wonderfully
+      fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up when the new railway-station was
+      being built. One inscription is particularly interesting in showing that
+      the Romans set up altars in their palaces, thus explaining the reason for
+      the Jews refusing to enter the praetorium at Jerusalem when Christ was
+      made prisoner, because it was the Feast of the Passover.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the river from
+      Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but to reach
+      the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and turn into a
+      narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is therefore in the
+      Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each side support the
+      roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with excellent modern
+      stained glass representing several incidents in the history of the city,
+      from the election of Constantine to be Roman Emperor, which took place at
+      York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner to the Prince Consort, held in
+      the hall in 1850.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+      Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+      aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+      greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some of
+      them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the signs
+      of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or Transitional
+      building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times; St. Mary's
+      Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing Roman
+      materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if there were
+      space.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+      door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+      reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+      lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+      Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced by a
+      stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in the
+      crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in 1069, the
+      Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city in ruins, so
+      that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely to the
+      thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still later.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH26" id="link2HCH26">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of Selby
+      Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this actually
+      happened not many years ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+      seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+      Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+      entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically, they
+      were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs of the
+      chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within the tower.
+      By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and York had
+      arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it was hoped
+      that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but the fire had
+      obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent telegraphed:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will now be
+      destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of the roof, and the
+      lead of the roof is running down in molten streams. The scene is
+      magnificent but pathetic, and the whole of the noble building is now
+      doomed. The whole of the inside is a fiery furnace. The seating is in
+      flames, and the firemen are in considerable danger if they stay any
+      longer, as the false roof is now burned through.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet above
+      the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+      destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber in
+      the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows had
+      been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals reduced to
+      powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept, where the
+      furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so calcined and
+      cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous condition.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+      new 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 south
+      side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+      diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham Cathedral.
+      All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the Early English
+      clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from early Norman to
+      Early English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a slab
+      to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint fashion:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Here Lyes ye Body of poor Frank Raw<br /> Parish Clark and Gravestone
+          Cutter<br /> And ys is writt to let yw know:<br /> Wht Frank for Othrs
+          us'd to do<br /> Is now for Frank done by Another.<br /> Buried March ye
+          31, 1706.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      A stone on the floor of the retro-choir to John Johnson, master and
+      mariner, dated 1737, is crowded with nautical metaphor.
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'Tho' Boreas with his Blustring blasts<br /> Has tos't me to and fro,<br />
+          Yet by the handy work of God I'm here<br /> Inclos'd below<br /> And in
+          this Silent Bay<br /> I lie With many of our Fleet<br /> Untill the Day
+          that I Set Sail<br /> My Admiral Christ to meet.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      The great Perpendicular east window was considered by Pugin to be one of
+      the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of being
+      entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of the glass
+      illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a considerable portion
+      of it is original.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+      greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+      the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches of
+      the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in 1069 as
+      a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the north of
+      England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders of
+      the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+      Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+      nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+      its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+      hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+      eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+      structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+      Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent Intention
+      Anno Dom' 1734.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence just
+      suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately towers
+      and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the scarps,
+      practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of the great
+      round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the time of its
+      greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers and some
+      dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the historic
+      site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of steps leads
+      into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved the names of
+      various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below the castle, on the
+      east side, is the old church of All Saints with its ruined nave, eloquent
+      of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary cannon in the successive
+      sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the stately Tudor mansion of
+      Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the melancholy wreck depicted in these
+      pages. The girdle of fortifications constructed by the besiegers round the
+      castle included New Hall, in case it might have been reached by a sally of
+      the Royalists, whose cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the
+      discovery of one embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can
+      still be seen on 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 the
+      style of Henry VIII's reign.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+      Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished castle
+      and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the great
+      personages and famous events of English history connected with its owners,
+      its prisoners, and its sieges.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+      the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made to
+      discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which replaced the
+      Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and the absence of
+      any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly hopeless. At
+      Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where the Roman Ermine
+      Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the Calder, it is definitely
+      known that there was only a ford. The present name does not make any
+      appearance until several years after the Norman Conquest, though Ilbert de
+      Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to become the Honour of
+      Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of Hastings. Ilbert built
+      the first stone castle on the rock, and either to him or his immediate
+      successors may be attributed the Norman walls and chapel, whose
+      foundations still exist on the north and east sides of the castle yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without issue,
+      the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard Fitz-Eustace; and the
+      male line again became extinct in 1310, when Thomas, Earl of Lancaster,
+      married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy. Henry's great-grandfather was
+      the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and Constable of Chester, who is famous for
+      his heroic defence of Chateau Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year,
+      when John weakly allowed Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making
+      only one feeble attempt at 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 his determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites,
+      and it was with Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded
+      at Blacklow Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his
+      cousin, and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+      Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+      Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+      castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of rebellion,
+      of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in league with
+      the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was condemned 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 outside the town, and executed with
+      his face towards Scotland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+      the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+      King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place. Hardyng's
+      Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another in the lines:
+    </p>
+    <table summary="">
+      <tr>
+        <td>
+          'The Kyng the[n] sent Kyng Richard to Ledis,<br /> There to be kepte
+          surely in previtee,<br /> Fro the[n]s after to Pykeryng we[n]t he
+          nedes,<br /> And to Knauesburgh after led was he,<br /> But to
+          Pountfrete last where he did die.'<br />
+        </td>
+      </tr>
+    </table>
+    <p>
+      Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while
+      Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+      the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+      century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+      after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+      Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through most
+      of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the Royalist
+      garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly and losing
+      some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just three weeks to
+      reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and lasted until July
+      19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the besieging force having
+      lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the castle. Of these two sieges,
+      often looked upon as one, there exists a unique diary kept by Nathan
+      Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the garrison, and from its wonderfully
+      graphic details it is possible to realize the condition of the defence,
+      their sufferings, their hopes, and their losses, almost more completely
+      than of any other siege before recent times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned the
+      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. The
+      dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+      matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+      seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which for
+      so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+      languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+      those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size of
+      a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkimage-33" id="linkimage-33">
+      <!-- IMG --></a>
+    </p>
+    <div class="fig" style="width:80%;">
+      <img src="images/33.jpg" width="100%" alt="Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds " />
+    </div>
+    <!-- IMAGE END -->
+    <p>
+      The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+      twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+      completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+      Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly the
+      whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave is in a
+      wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and refectory,
+      as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the situation by the
+      Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to the smoke-laden
+      atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the countless visitors from
+      the city, the ruins have lost much of their interest, unless viewed solely
+      from a detached architectural standpoint. We do not feel much inclination
+      to linger in this neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards
+      the great rounded hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey
+      village of Haworth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away in
+      that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period the
+      church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, her
+      home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given Haworth a
+      railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley, destroying
+      its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really are, for in
+      many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they were in the days
+      when the members of that ill-fated household were still united under the
+      grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+      valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though it
+      turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+      possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+      Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began, owing
+      to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly called, was
+      sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important patrons.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones dating
+      back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this dismal piece of
+      ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked, as they continue to
+      do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an unfortunate arrangement
+      of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should have given a gloomy
+      outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only been placed a little
+      higher up the hill, and been built to face the south, it is conceivable
+      that the Brontės would have enjoyed better health and a less melancholy
+      and tragic outlook on life. An account of a visit to Haworth Parsonage by
+      a neighbour, when Charlotte and her father were the only survivors of the
+      family, gives a clear impression of how the house appeared to those who
+      lived brighter lives:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+      than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a little
+      bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are joyous, and that
+      joy can never have entered that house since it was first built, and yet,
+      perhaps, when that old man married, and took home his bride, and
+      children's voices and feet were heard about the house, even that desolate
+      crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench cheerfulness and
+      hope.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when the
+      eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having been
+      any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the children were
+      unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest walks, the five
+      little girls with their one brother&mdash;all of them under seven years&mdash;directed
+      their steps towards the wild moors above their home rather than into the
+      village. Over a century has passed, and practically no change has come to
+      the moorland side of the house, so that we can imagine the precocious
+      toddling children going hand-in-hand over the grass-lands towards the
+      moors beyond, as though we had travelled back over the intervening years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the Calder
+      Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the Peak
+      of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy reach
+      of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and ugliest city
+      in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel works become
+      wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit crimson flames, and
+      glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling brilliance show between
+      the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity reigns in these industrial
+      infernos, with three shifts of men working during each twenty-four hours;
+      and from the innumerable works come every form of manufactured steel and
+      iron goods, from a pair of scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails
+      and armour plate.
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
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+  </body>
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+Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire Painted And Described
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: August 13, 2004 [EBook #9973]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE PAINTED AND DESCRIBED ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders. Illustrated HTML file produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+YORKSHIRE
+
+PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
+
+GORDON HOME
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER I
+ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER II
+ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER V
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER VI
+WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER IX
+FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER X
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+CHAPTER XI
+RICHMOND
+
+CHAPTER XII
+SWALEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+WENSLEYDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER XV
+KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+WHARFEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+CHAPTER XX
+FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+BEVERLEY
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+ALONG THE HUMBER
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+THE 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 the
+gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+Pickering.
+
+The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+the gloomy canon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+country 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, we
+come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+cottages 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 up
+against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+a 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-cloth
+gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+make this a subject of great fascination.
+
+Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+
+In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+known south of the Cheviots.
+
+Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+
+The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+extinct.
+
+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 heather
+in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+station 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 a
+spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+streams.
+
+Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+although every feature is plainly visible--the church, the abbey, the
+two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new--the detail is all
+lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+
+Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+
+The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+
+A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+with 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 it
+was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+show 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 were
+blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+supported the statement that it was haunted.
+
+I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+
+The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+horizon.
+
+Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+opened.
+
+We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+
+The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+Wheeldale 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 is
+about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+for 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 of
+stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+overhanging 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 on
+the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+bridge 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 the
+foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+
+Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+to go down too far to recover.
+
+The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+make 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 name
+Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+known afterwards as East Row.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.--G.H.]
+
+Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+either hand--for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+foliage--are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+newly-fallen rocks.
+
+We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+devoid of any interest.
+
+The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+
+The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+path joins the shore.
+
+This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+side 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 the
+hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from
+whooping-cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would
+call 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 the
+complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+destitution 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 wooden
+foot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a very
+few--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facing
+the sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+
+The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+in 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 to
+strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+target for stones.
+
+No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+round the flames.
+
+In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+couples and widows and orphans.
+
+The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+the 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 masses
+of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+
+The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+
+It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefully
+recorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen of
+Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+date, report confidently that ... a _sea-man_ was taken by the
+fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+
+The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+
+The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+all 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 ocean
+was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+with men's carcases.'
+
+In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+features, 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 broad
+county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+the first stages.
+
+As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+farm, 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. The
+footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+low 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 the
+stone walls dividing the pastures--a silent testimony to the power of
+the north-east wind.
+
+After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+swallowed you up.
+
+Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+one.
+
+The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+Ravenscar.
+
+Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+
+Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+
+There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+times.
+
+The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+
+From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+bay.
+
+I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+and Epsom.
+
+The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+commercial attempts to amuse.
+
+This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+
+On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+informed 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 caned
+him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+quickly as it had risen.
+
+The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+Mayor, 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 as
+could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+at all.
+
+If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+the sieges of the castle. The maimed church--for the chancel has never
+been rebuilt--is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+
+The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+her 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 but
+of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+
+On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+
+To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+
+Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+
+The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+
+At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh was
+forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+the Governor unless he capitulated.
+
+Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+down their arms.
+
+Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+
+This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+Scarborough.
+
+Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+German 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 town
+which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+
+In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+fretted one the abbey.
+
+But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+are subdued in the haze.
+
+In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+
+In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+waves, 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 is
+out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+
+Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+
+The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+abbey 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 an
+opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+of Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+Lionel Charlton.
+
+Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+
+Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year--probably 713--a complete
+silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to L3,500 at the present
+time.
+
+After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+merely a priory.
+
+The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+
+The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+through 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, who
+entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+that the abbey buildings came into the hands of Sir Richard Cholmley,
+who paid over to Henry VIII. the sum of L333 8s. 4d. The manors of
+Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+appurtenances 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 a
+name 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 we
+owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+by my own hand.'
+
+In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+
+'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+dinner, 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 to
+receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+next generation may have more public spirit.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+
+On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+easily-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 every
+point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+ridge of total desolation--a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+of the dales.
+
+Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+valiant men.
+
+On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+
+The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+believe that the story is untrue.
+
+I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+who 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 attached
+to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+above. 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 fiercely
+that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+a 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 clouds
+parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+
+The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+Kildale 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 of
+the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+without 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 is
+standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+woods and pastures.
+
+The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+
+The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+Early Decorated style.
+
+One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+
+The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+inevitable in a mining country.
+
+Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+was shortly sailing for England.
+
+When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+over 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 the
+beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+castle 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 their
+many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+horizon 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 vale
+stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+
+Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+Herod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests are
+shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+all the royal folk are wearing ermine. The coronation of the Virgin,
+the martyrdom of St. Thomas a 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 of
+Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+from the life of our Lord.
+
+The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+surcoat.
+
+When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+
+Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+published in 1806.
+
+The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+salary of L20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+supply of fish--in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+strange anomaly.
+
+The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+
+The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+
+Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+under 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 already
+referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+Confessor.
+
+A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+
+A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+destroyed.
+
+All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+abbey ruins.
+
+The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+grass-grown debris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+
+When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+the Moon which have a name so similar.
+
+This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+Dales.'
+
+It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+over 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 to
+attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+water-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, near
+Hawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+overhanging above.
+
+Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+Wensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heather
+at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+
+In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riverside
+pastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+
+Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+
+The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RICHMOND
+
+
+For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+
+The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+feudal times.
+
+From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+centuries unharmed.
+
+We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+conversation and loitering.
+
+On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+
+All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+
+From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+of water beyond the bridge.
+
+The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+cover the heights above the river.
+
+There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+
+On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+description of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne is
+waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+posterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+adjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+with 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 curious
+compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+(!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+
+Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+stood 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 were
+fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+
+But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+
+Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+of 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 from
+Rokeby, 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 hold
+her, 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 saw
+with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+Watling 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 the
+next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+only just overcame the grisly sow.
+
+If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+
+On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+fifth 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 the
+soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+second, with a good camera in our hands?
+
+In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+regular guarding of the castle.
+
+There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+be seen.
+
+Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+fell to this Breton.
+
+The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+Rice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+not 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 as
+other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+
+It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+Edward III.--a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcely
+fourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+throne 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 his
+splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+
+Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+visitations 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 go
+towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+effigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by lay
+Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+
+The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+granary is even now in use.
+
+On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SWALEDALE
+
+
+There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+
+The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+land 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 trackless
+mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+where 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 civilized
+mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+the scenery.
+
+From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+land where chimneys have never been.
+
+Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+before 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 almost
+miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+worse than a broken leg.
+
+It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+its 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 of
+the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+older.
+
+The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+beauty spots of the country.
+
+As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+Scottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in the
+steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+
+Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+is 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 to
+the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+possesses.
+
+A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+centre 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 bold
+scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+
+Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+
+In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+
+Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+by old screens.
+
+Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+
+When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+seldom 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 those
+who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+often in jeopardy.
+
+Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+
+The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+Hutchinson, 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 claim
+to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+restricted to one side of the way.
+
+Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+of 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 the
+finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+through 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 in
+this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+
+If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+any 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 a
+mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+the 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 that
+darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+drawn 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 way
+slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+keeping in the middle of the road.
+
+What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+
+Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+these 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 only
+straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+
+Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+the 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 pass
+through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+twelve 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 walk
+on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+from the surface of the pool.
+
+John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '_Uredale_ veri
+litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+
+The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+
+When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+
+Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+dullest potato-field thrilling.
+
+A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+
+We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+in many cascades along one side of the green.
+
+There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+
+A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+
+Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+at that time.
+
+On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+
+We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+interesting 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 Norman
+pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+brought 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 I
+think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a
+group of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the
+market-cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen
+driving some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+
+From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+enters Swaledale.
+
+There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+high place among their rivals in the dale.
+
+Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+the existing house.
+
+The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+terrace.
+
+Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+considerable 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 is
+beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+
+The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+
+When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+
+On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+would 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 took
+to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+
+Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from _Wodenslag_,
+and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+
+In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+the heralds in 1665.
+
+A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+
+It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+fortress. 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 with
+Anne Neville.
+
+We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+
+As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+pictures 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 Cistercian
+abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+since 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 of
+the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+seventy years before the one at Richmond. Gent says it cost L564 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 it
+supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+plainly 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 houses
+to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+of 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 is
+the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+
+The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+
+In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+times.
+
+At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+
+Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+with 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 the
+point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+of later buildings down by the river margin.
+
+When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+
+Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+
+When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account
+if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+the castle yard.
+
+The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+(sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+
+The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+
+There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+the scenes we have left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHARFEDALE
+
+
+Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+Fells on the west.
+
+Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+
+Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+view.
+
+About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+Early 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 the
+Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+resting on carved corbels.
+
+From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+generally 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 spots
+that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+many can resist.
+
+Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford--the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+Skipton--but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+
+At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+appearance from Skipton.
+
+The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+towards the head of Wharfedale.
+
+Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+the 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 down
+to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+anything that can even be called a path.
+
+When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+and 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 it
+as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+
+The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romille, one of the
+Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+Sackville, 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. With
+immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+
+Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+charge, 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 it
+over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+colour, these two letters--viz., A. P., and under them the year
+1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+Elizabeth, 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 a
+skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+time.
+
+The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+she stood upright."
+
+We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+canons of Bolton.
+
+At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+
+Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+
+We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+panelled lower portions.
+
+Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+afternoon. 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 by
+a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+space 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, and
+among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+writers 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 be
+seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+
+At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+itself 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 be
+recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+
+In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+date 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 a
+short lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been
+formed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village
+no longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to
+share the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great
+many years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and
+placed in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things
+we see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks
+standing by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well
+preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as
+we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the
+stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old
+church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been
+written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old
+building 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 the
+pillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest
+of 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 said
+that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+seen anywhere in the country.
+
+The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+portion discovered in 1837.
+
+In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+bare rocky scars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+
+On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+and 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 any
+parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+resisted sun and storm for ages.
+
+When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+
+Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+conspicuous.
+
+The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+
+At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+
+Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+at the present day.
+
+There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+
+It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+an implement of less obvious purpose.
+
+To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+prehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are most
+invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+double or triple lines of defence.
+
+In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+has never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted the
+disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+rather than in the subject under discussion.
+
+In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+its 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 too
+hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+towards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or to
+what they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white road
+may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+along the horizon.
+
+The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+
+Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+
+As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+line.
+
+The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+
+The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+this it is unwise to say.
+
+And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+
+We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+"Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+derived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly.
+
+Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+
+The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+
+Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+west end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall and
+richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+sister Strickland."
+
+After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+that 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, where
+North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+what seems to be another dragon.
+
+On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+least 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 no
+explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+
+It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+perambulation of the farm.
+
+At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel.
+
+At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+ago.
+
+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 memory
+of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+
+A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+
+The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+the rest of the work.
+
+Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+war.
+
+As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+element of unreality.
+
+Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+capitals.
+
+The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+south.
+
+With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+
+When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+is 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, after
+describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+healthy seaside haunt.
+
+The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+
+The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+below 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 the
+onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+in long white beards.
+
+The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+moment for another great _coup_ arrives.
+
+Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+appearance with a jetty.
+
+From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+watering-places.
+
+Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+
+A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+
+The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+
+We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+
+Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
+purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
+been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
+deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+
+Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of
+chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+
+And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+danger.
+
+We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+attractiveness of the place.
+
+All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+cliffs nearly two miles away.
+
+Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+deeds: 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 Flodden
+Field 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 his
+family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+
+Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+in his presence[1].
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland,' Colonel A.H.
+Armytage.]
+
+On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+slopes 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 worth
+seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+
+In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+as they circle just above the waves.
+
+Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+
+In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+briefly:
+
+  '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 seem
+merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+early 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 and
+seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.
+Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+was 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 to
+have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+a 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 of
+Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+sand.
+
+The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+
+In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+
+'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+twenty paces of Her.'
+
+In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+
+The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+
+Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+
+From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday
+Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+some 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 Holderness
+was 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. gave
+orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+Seigniory of Holderness.
+
+Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+growth of a new town on the shore.
+
+The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+
+It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+Meaux, 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 over
+the _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the only
+method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+Mere.
+
+Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+seizure of which he died.
+
+By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+
+As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+satisfying a fresh appetite.
+
+The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+a cloud of dust.
+
+Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+
+The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+
+At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+more than fifteen feet high.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEVERLEY
+
+
+When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+uplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+spaces of a cathedral.
+
+Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the last
+of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+
+We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+Corporation at that time.
+
+Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+the result beautiful.
+
+In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+
+A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+place of which there is a record:
+
+'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+burnt, 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 of
+March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+likewise, and re-interred.'
+
+This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+years, 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 intercession
+were constantly invoked. The splendid shrine provided for his relics in
+1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+and the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+perfection of form characterizing York.
+
+A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+
+In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+lesser 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 is
+composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+fingers on her head.
+
+In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+of 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 upon
+Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+at 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 Perpendicular
+church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+
+In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+seen 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 times
+there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+for 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 of
+the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+of the fourteenth century.
+
+Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+shipping, 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 soon
+demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+that 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 by
+Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+
+In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+
+Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+the lifeboat and other purposes.
+
+The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+
+In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+
+The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+have been discovered.
+
+There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+mentioned 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 small
+consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliest
+recorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it a
+tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+Ravenserodd, 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 to
+a 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 out
+to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+would 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 an
+action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+
+The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+and 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 concerning
+the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+
+'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+of 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 left
+that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+
+The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+
+When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+incident 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 a
+winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+meadows.
+
+We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+the 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 being
+represented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supporting
+pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+the clustered columns.
+
+In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+Annunciation, 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 a
+lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+
+Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+all the Holderness towns.
+
+On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+we may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards of
+Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+
+The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+
+The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+colours we saw at Patrington.
+
+In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+its 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 the
+Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+practically all.
+
+When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+the winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--we
+understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+and 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 little
+town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+brick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+
+William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+the city.
+
+In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+lost 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 better
+described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+disappearing.
+
+About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+
+The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+
+Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+that, 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 buildings
+spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+sculpture, 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 a
+fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+and later.
+
+From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every
+one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each
+time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+
+'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+Cariages allowid theime.'
+
+We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+the 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 three
+separate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+
+On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+identified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary.
+
+Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+
+Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+Wolds.
+
+There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+that 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, a
+fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+places before, but never a sublime one.'
+
+The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+Caracci.
+
+Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+whose 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 a
+stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+fashion the detail of its outward face.
+
+The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+
+One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+
+Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+survive.
+
+Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+there Freeman has no doubt.
+
+Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+the Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village should
+have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+
+An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+magnificent.
+
+We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+York.
+
+In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+
+Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year of
+his death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+family was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants was
+created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+owner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart.--inherited the property from his
+grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+
+The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+George wore at Balaclava.
+
+The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+metal 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, when
+his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+
+The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--the
+twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head was
+placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+have 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 often
+been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+one of the Belasyses.
+
+Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+twisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at the
+top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+
+The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+communion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from the
+centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+
+During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+spirits 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 he
+drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--at
+which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+it.'
+
+The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+north 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 turret
+pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+Stocking, 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 including
+the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+distant moors in the north.
+
+In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+have seen elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+
+Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+the 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 has
+contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+
+There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+of every view would gradually disappear.
+
+Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+Roman walling.
+
+The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+flight 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. The
+battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+the stately towers of the Minster.
+
+On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+
+The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+
+On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+had 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 we
+come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+
+The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+you 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 its
+two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+feared in the Middle Ages.
+
+Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+stately fashion.
+
+When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+enter 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 river
+from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+
+The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+windows.
+
+St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+there were space.
+
+We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+things.
+
+Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+
+
+It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+actually happened not many years ago.
+
+It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+telegraphed:
+
+'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+burned through.
+
+'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+
+When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+condition.
+
+Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+new 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 south
+side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+early Norman to Early English.
+
+On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+fashion:
+
+  '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 and
+mariner, 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 one
+of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+considerable portion of it is original.
+
+Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+
+Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+
+The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+on 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 the
+style of Henry VIII's reign.
+
+Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+
+The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+of the castle yard.
+
+The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+at 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 his
+determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+condemned 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 outside
+the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+
+In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+in 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, while
+Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+
+During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+recent times.
+
+In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+the 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. The
+dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+
+Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+
+The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+Haworth.
+
+More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Bronte passed away in
+that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Bronte began,
+owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+patrons.
+
+The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontes' house looked,
+as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+south, it is conceivable that the Brontes would have enjoyed better
+health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+
+'Miss Bronte put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+cheerfulness and hope.'
+
+Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Bronte died, when the
+eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+walks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them under
+seven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+travelled back over the intervening years.
+
+The purple moors so beloved by the Brontes stretch away to the Calder
+Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Yorkshire Painted And Described, by Gordon Home
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
+
+This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
+Gutenberg file.  Please do not remove it.  Do not change or edit the
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+Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
+eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file.  Included is
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+**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
+
+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9973]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders.
+
+
+
+
+YORKSHIRE
+
+PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
+
+GORDON HOME
+
+1923
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER I
+ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER II
+ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER V
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER VI
+WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER IX
+FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER X
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+CHAPTER XI
+RICHMOND
+
+CHAPTER XII
+SWALEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+WENSLEYDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER XV
+KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+WHARFEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+CHAPTER XX
+FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+BEVERLEY
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+ALONG THE HUMBER
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+THE 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 the
+gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+Pickering.
+
+The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+the gloomy canon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+country 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, we
+come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+cottages 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 up
+against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+a 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-cloth
+gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+make this a subject of great fascination.
+
+Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+
+In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+known south of the Cheviots.
+
+Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+
+The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+extinct.
+
+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 heather
+in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+station 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 a
+spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+streams.
+
+Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+although every feature is plainly visible--the church, the abbey, the
+two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new--the detail is all
+lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+
+Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+
+The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+
+A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+with 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 it
+was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+show 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 were
+blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+supported the statement that it was haunted.
+
+I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+
+The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+horizon.
+
+Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+opened.
+
+We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+
+The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+Wheeldale 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 is
+about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+for 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 of
+stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+overhanging 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 on
+the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+bridge 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 the
+foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+
+Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+to go down too far to recover.
+
+The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+make 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 name
+Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+known afterwards as East Row.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.--G.H.]
+
+Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+either hand--for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+foliage--are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+newly-fallen rocks.
+
+We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+devoid of any interest.
+
+The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+
+The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+path joins the shore.
+
+This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+side 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 the
+hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from whooping-
+cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would call 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 the
+complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+destitution 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 wooden
+foot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a very
+few--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facing
+the sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+
+The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+in 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 to
+strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+target for stones.
+
+No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+round the flames.
+
+In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+couples and widows and orphans.
+
+The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+the 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 masses
+of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+
+The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+
+It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefully
+recorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen of
+Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+date, report confidently that ... a _sea-man_ was taken by the
+fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+
+The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+
+The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+all 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 ocean
+was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+with men's carcases.'
+
+In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+features, 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 broad
+county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+the first stages.
+
+As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+farm, 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. The
+footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+low 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 the
+stone walls dividing the pastures--a silent testimony to the power of
+the north-east wind.
+
+After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+swallowed you up.
+
+Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+one.
+
+The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+Ravenscar.
+
+Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+
+Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+
+There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+times.
+
+The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+
+From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+bay.
+
+I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+and Epsom.
+
+The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+commercial attempts to amuse.
+
+This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+
+On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+informed 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 caned
+him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+quickly as it had risen.
+
+The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+Mayor, 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 as
+could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+at all.
+
+If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+the sieges of the castle. The maimed church--for the chancel has never
+been rebuilt--is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+
+The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+her 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 but
+of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+
+On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+
+To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+
+Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+
+The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+
+At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh was
+forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+the Governor unless he capitulated.
+
+Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+down their arms.
+
+Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+
+This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+Scarborough.
+
+Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+German 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 town
+which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+
+In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+fretted one the abbey.
+
+But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+are subdued in the haze.
+
+In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+
+In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+waves, 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 is
+out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+
+Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+
+The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+abbey 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 an
+opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+of Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+Lionel Charlton.
+
+Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+
+Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year--probably 713--a complete
+silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to L3,500 at the present
+time.
+
+After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+merely a priory.
+
+The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+
+The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+through 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, who
+entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+that the abbey buildings came into the hands of Sir Richard Cholmley,
+who paid over to Henry VIII. the sum of L333 8s. 4d. The manors of
+Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+appurtenances 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 a
+name 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 we
+owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+by my own hand.'
+
+In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+
+'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+dinner, 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 to
+receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+next generation may have more public spirit.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+
+On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+easily-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 every
+point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+ridge of total desolation--a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+of the dales.
+
+Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+valiant men.
+
+On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+
+The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+believe that the story is untrue.
+
+I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+who 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 attached
+to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+above. 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 fiercely
+that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+a 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 clouds
+parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+
+The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+Kildale 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 of
+the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+without 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 is
+standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+woods and pastures.
+
+The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+
+The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+Early Decorated style.
+
+One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+
+The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+inevitable in a mining country.
+
+Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+was shortly sailing for England.
+
+When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+over 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 the
+beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+castle 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 their
+many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+horizon 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 vale
+stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+
+Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+Herod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests are
+shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+all the royal folk are wearing ermine. The coronation of the Virgin,
+the martyrdom of St. Thomas a 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 of
+Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+from the life of our Lord.
+
+The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+surcoat.
+
+When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+
+Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+published in 1806.
+
+The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+salary of L20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+supply of fish--in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+strange anomaly.
+
+The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+
+The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+
+Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+under 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 already
+referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+Confessor.
+
+A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+
+A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+destroyed.
+
+All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+abbey ruins.
+
+The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+grass-grown debris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+
+When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+the Moon which have a name so similar.
+
+This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+Dales.'
+
+It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+over 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 to
+attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+water-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, near
+Hawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+overhanging above.
+
+Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+Wensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heather
+at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+
+In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riverside
+pastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+
+Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+
+The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RICHMOND
+
+
+For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+
+The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+feudal times.
+
+From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+centuries unharmed.
+
+We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+conversation and loitering.
+
+On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+
+All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+
+From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+of water beyond the bridge.
+
+The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+cover the heights above the river.
+
+There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+
+On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+description of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne is
+waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+posterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+adjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+with 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 curious
+compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+(!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+
+Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+stood 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 were
+fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+
+But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+
+Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+of 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 from
+Rokeby, 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 hold
+her, 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 saw
+with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+Watling 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 the
+next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+only just overcame the grisly sow.
+
+If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+
+On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+fifth 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 the
+soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+second, with a good camera in our hands?
+
+In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+regular guarding of the castle.
+
+There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+be seen.
+
+Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+fell to this Breton.
+
+The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+Rice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+not 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 as
+other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+
+It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+Edward III.--a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcely
+fourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+throne 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 his
+splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+
+Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+visitations 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 go
+towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+effigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by lay
+Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+
+The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+granary is even now in use.
+
+On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SWALEDALE
+
+
+There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+
+The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+land 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 trackless
+mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+where 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 civilized
+mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+the scenery.
+
+From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+land where chimneys have never been.
+
+Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+before 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 almost
+miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+worse than a broken leg.
+
+It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+its 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 of
+the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+older.
+
+The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+beauty spots of the country.
+
+As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+Scottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in the
+steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+
+Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+is 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 to
+the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+possesses.
+
+A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+centre 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 bold
+scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+
+Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+
+In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+
+Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+by old screens.
+
+Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+
+When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+seldom 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 those
+who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+often in jeopardy.
+
+Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+
+The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+Hutchinson, 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 claim
+to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+restricted to one side of the way.
+
+Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+of 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 the
+finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+through 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 in
+this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+
+If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+any 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 a
+mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+the 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 that
+darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+drawn 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 way
+slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+keeping in the middle of the road.
+
+What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+
+Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+these 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 only
+straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+
+Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+the 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 pass
+through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+twelve 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 walk
+on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+from the surface of the pool.
+
+John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '_Uredale_ veri
+litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+
+The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+
+When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+
+Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+dullest potato-field thrilling.
+
+A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+
+We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+in many cascades along one side of the green.
+
+There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+
+A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+
+Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+at that time.
+
+On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+
+We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+interesting 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 Norman
+pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+brought 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 I
+think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a group
+of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the market-
+cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen driving
+some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+
+From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+enters Swaledale.
+
+There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+high place among their rivals in the dale.
+
+Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+the existing house.
+
+The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+terrace.
+
+Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+considerable 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 is
+beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+
+The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+
+When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+
+On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+would 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 took
+to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+
+Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from _Wodenslag_,
+and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+
+In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+the heralds in 1665.
+
+A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+
+It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+fortress. 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 with
+Anne Neville.
+
+We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+
+As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+pictures 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 Cistercian
+abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+since 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 of
+the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+seventy years before the one at Richmond. Gent says it cost L564 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 it
+supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+plainly 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 houses
+to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+of 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 is
+the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+
+The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+
+In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+times.
+
+At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+
+Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+with 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 the
+point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+of later buildings down by the river margin.
+
+When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+
+Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+
+When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account
+if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+the castle yard.
+
+The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+(sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+
+The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+
+There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+the scenes we have left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHARFEDALE
+
+
+Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+Fells on the west.
+
+Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+
+Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+view.
+
+About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+Early 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 the
+Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+resting on carved corbels.
+
+From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+generally 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 spots
+that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+many can resist.
+
+Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford--the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+Skipton--but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+
+At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+appearance from Skipton.
+
+The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+towards the head of Wharfedale.
+
+Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+the 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 down
+to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+anything that can even be called a path.
+
+When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+and 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 it
+as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+
+The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romille, one of the
+Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+Sackville, 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. With
+immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+
+Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+charge, 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 it
+over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+colour, these two letters--viz., A. P., and under them the year
+1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+Elizabeth, 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 a
+skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+time.
+
+The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+she stood upright."
+
+We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+canons of Bolton.
+
+At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+
+Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+
+We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+panelled lower portions.
+
+Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+afternoon. 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 by
+a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+space 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, and
+among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+writers 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 be
+seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+
+At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+itself 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 be
+recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+
+In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+date 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 a
+short lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been
+formed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village
+no longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to
+share the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great
+many years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and
+placed in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things
+we see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks
+standing by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well
+preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as
+we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the
+stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old
+church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been
+written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old
+building 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 the
+pillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest
+of 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 said
+that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+seen anywhere in the country.
+
+The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+portion discovered in 1837.
+
+In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+bare rocky scars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+
+On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+and 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 any
+parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+resisted sun and storm for ages.
+
+When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+
+Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+conspicuous.
+
+The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+
+At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+
+Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+at the present day.
+
+There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+
+It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+an implement of less obvious purpose.
+
+To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+prehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are most
+invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+double or triple lines of defence.
+
+In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+has never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted the
+disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+rather than in the subject under discussion.
+
+In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+its 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 too
+hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+towards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or to
+what they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white road
+may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+along the horizon.
+
+The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+
+Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+
+As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+line.
+
+The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+
+The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+this it is unwise to say.
+
+And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+
+We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+"Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+derived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly.
+
+Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+
+The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+
+Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+west end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall and
+richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+sister Strickland."
+
+After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+that 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, where
+North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+what seems to be another dragon.
+
+On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+least 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 no
+explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+
+It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+perambulation of the farm.
+
+At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel.
+
+At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+ago.
+
+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 memory
+of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+
+A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+
+The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+the rest of the work.
+
+Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+war.
+
+As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+element of unreality.
+
+Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+capitals.
+
+The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+south.
+
+With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+
+When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+is 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, after
+describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+healthy seaside haunt.
+
+The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+
+The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+below 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 the
+onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+in long white beards.
+
+The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+moment for another great _coup_ arrives.
+
+Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+appearance with a jetty.
+
+From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+watering-places.
+
+Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+
+A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+
+The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+
+We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+
+Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
+purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
+been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
+deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+
+Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of
+chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+
+And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+danger.
+
+We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+attractiveness of the place.
+
+All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+cliffs nearly two miles away.
+
+Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+deeds: 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 Flodden
+Field 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 his
+family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+
+Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+in his presence[1].
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland,' Colonel A.H.
+Armytage.]
+
+On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+slopes 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 worth
+seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+
+In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+as they circle just above the waves.
+
+Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+
+In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+briefly:
+
+  '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 seem
+merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+early 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 and
+seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.
+Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+was 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 to
+have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+a 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 of
+Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+sand.
+
+The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+
+In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+
+'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+twenty paces of Her.'
+
+In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+
+The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+
+Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+
+From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday
+Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+some 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 Holderness
+was 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. gave
+orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+Seigniory of Holderness.
+
+Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+growth of a new town on the shore.
+
+The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+
+It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+Meaux, 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 over
+the _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the only
+method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+Mere.
+
+Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+seizure of which he died.
+
+By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+
+As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+satisfying a fresh appetite.
+
+The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+a cloud of dust.
+
+Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+
+The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+
+At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+more than fifteen feet high.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEVERLEY
+
+
+When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+uplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+spaces of a cathedral.
+
+Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the last
+of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+
+We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+Corporation at that time.
+
+Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+the result beautiful.
+
+In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+
+A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+place of which there is a record:
+
+'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+burnt, 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 of
+March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+likewise, and re-interred.'
+
+This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+years, 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 intercession
+were constantly invoked. The splended shrine provided for his relics in
+1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+and the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+perfection of form characterizing York.
+
+A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+
+In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+lesser 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 is
+composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+fingers on her head.
+
+In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+of 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 upon
+Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+at 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 Perpendicular
+church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+
+In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+seen 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 times
+there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+for 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 of
+the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+of the fourteenth century.
+
+Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+shipping, 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 soon
+demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+that 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 by
+Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+
+In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+
+Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+the lifeboat and other purposes.
+
+The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+
+In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+
+The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+have been discovered.
+
+There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+mentioned 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 small
+consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliest
+recorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it a
+tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+Ravenserodd, 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 to
+a 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 out
+to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+would 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 an
+action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+
+The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+and 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 concerning
+the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+
+'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+of 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 left
+that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+
+The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+
+When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+incident 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 a
+winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+meadows.
+
+We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+the 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 being
+represented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supporting
+pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+the clustered columns.
+
+In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+Annunciation, 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 a
+lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+
+Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+all the Holderness towns.
+
+On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+we may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards of
+Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+
+The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+
+The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+colours we saw at Patrington.
+
+In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+its 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 the
+Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+practically all.
+
+When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+the winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--we
+understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+and 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 little
+town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+brick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+
+William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+the city.
+
+In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+lost 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 better
+described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+disappearing.
+
+About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+
+The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+
+Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+that, 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 buildings
+spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+sculpture, 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 a
+fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+and later.
+
+From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every
+one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each
+time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+
+'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+Cariages allowid theime.'
+
+We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+the 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 three
+separate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+
+On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+identified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary.
+
+Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+
+Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+Wolds.
+
+There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+that 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, a
+fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+places before, but never a sublime one.'
+
+The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+Caracci.
+
+Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+whose 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 a
+stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+fashion the detail of its outward face.
+
+The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+
+One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+
+Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+survive.
+
+Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+there Freeman has no doubt.
+
+Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+the Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village should
+have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+
+An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+magnificent.
+
+We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+York.
+
+In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+
+Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year of
+his death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+family was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants was
+created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+owner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart.--inherited the property from his
+grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+
+The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+George wore at Balaclava.
+
+The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+metal 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, when
+his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+
+The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--the
+twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head was
+placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+have 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 often
+been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+one of the Belasyses.
+
+Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+twisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at the
+top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+
+The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+communion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from the
+centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+
+During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+spirits 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 he
+drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--at
+which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+it.'
+
+The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+north 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 turret
+pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+Stocking, 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 including
+the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+distant moors in the north.
+
+In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+have seen elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+
+Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+the 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 has
+contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+
+There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+of every view would gradually disappear.
+
+Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+Roman walling.
+
+The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+flight 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. The
+battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+the stately towers of the Minster.
+
+On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+
+The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+
+On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+had 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 we
+come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+
+The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+you 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 its
+two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+feared in the Middle Ages.
+
+Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+stately fashion.
+
+When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+enter 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 river
+from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+
+The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+windows.
+
+St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+there were space.
+
+We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+things.
+
+Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+
+
+It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+actually happened not many years ago.
+
+It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+telegraphed:
+
+'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+burned through.
+
+'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+
+When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+condition.
+
+Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+new 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 south
+side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+early Norman to Early English.
+
+On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+fashion:
+
+  '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 and
+mariner, 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 one
+of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+considerable portion of it is original.
+
+Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+
+Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+
+The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+on 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 the
+style of Henry VIII's reign.
+
+Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+
+The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+of the castle yard.
+
+The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+at 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 his
+determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+condemned 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 outside
+the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+
+In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+in 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, while
+Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+
+During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+recent times.
+
+In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+the 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. The
+dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+
+Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+
+The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+Haworth.
+
+More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Bronte passed away in
+that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Bronte began,
+owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+patrons.
+
+The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontes' house looked,
+as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+south, it is conceivable that the Brontes would have enjoyed better
+health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+
+'Miss Bronte put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+cheerfulness and hope.'
+
+Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Bronte died, when the
+eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+walks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them under
+seven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+travelled back over the intervening years.
+
+The purple moors so beloved by the Brontes stretch away to the Calder
+Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
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+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of
+    Painted and Described,
+    by Gordon Home.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+		body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%}
+    * { font-family:   Times;
+      }
+    P { text-indent:   1em;
+        margin-top:    .75em;
+        font-size:     14pt;
+        text-align:    justify;
+        margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; color:#A82C28}
+    HR  { width: 33%; }
+    PRE { font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;}
+    .toc  { margin-left: 15%; font-size: 14pt; margin-bottom: 0em;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+    // -->
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+<h1><a href="#start">YORKSHIRE</a></h1>
+ <h2>by<br>
+  Gordon Home</h2>
+<pre>
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
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+Title: Yorkshire
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9973]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger, Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+<a name="start"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="title2 (260K)" src="title2.jpg" height="1163" width="765" />
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<center>
+    <h1>YORKSHIRE</h1>
+</center>
+<h2>
+    PAINTED AND DESCRIBED
+</h2>
+<center>
+   <h3> BY</h3>
+</center>
+<center><h2>
+    GORDON HOME
+</h2></center>
+<a name="image-1"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="01.jpg" height="842" width="579"
+alt="York from the Central Tower of The Minster 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="title (74K)" src="title.jpg" height="879" width="631" />
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<hr>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH2">
+CHAPTER I
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH3">
+CHAPTER II
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH4">
+CHAPTER III
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH5">
+CHAPTER IV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH6">
+CHAPTER V
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH7">
+CHAPTER VI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH8">
+CHAPTER VII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH9">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH10">
+CHAPTER IX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH11">
+CHAPTER X
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH12">
+CHAPTER XI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH13">
+CHAPTER XII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH14">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH15">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH16">
+CHAPTER XV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH17">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH18">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH19">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH20">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH21">
+CHAPTER XX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH22">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH23">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH24">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH25">
+CHAPTER XXIV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH26">
+CHAPTER XXV
+</a></p>
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<hr>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-1">
+York from the Central Tower of The Minster 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-3">
+Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-5">
+Runswick Bay 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-6">
+Robin Hood's Bay 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-7">
+Sunrise from Staithes Beck 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-8">
+The Red Roofs of Whitby 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-9">
+Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-10">
+An Autumn Day at Guisborough 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-11">
+The Skelton Valley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-12">
+In Pickering Church 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-13">
+The Market-place, Helmsley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-14">
+Richmond Castle from the River 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-15">
+A Rugged View Above Wensleydale 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-16">
+A Jacobean House at Askrigg 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-17">
+Aysgarth Force 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-18">
+View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-19">
+Ripon Minster from the South 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-20">
+Fountains Abbey 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-21">
+Knaresborough 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-22">
+Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-23">
+Settle 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-24">
+Wolds 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-25">
+Filey Brig 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-26">
+The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-27">
+Hornsea Mere 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-28">
+The Market-place, Beverley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-29">
+Patrington Church 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-30">
+Coxwold Village 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-31">
+The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-32">
+Bootham Bar, York 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-33">
+Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds 
+</a></p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<hr>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+
+<h1>
+YORKSHIRE
+</h1>
+<a name="2HCH2"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<a href="34.jpg"><img alt="34th (79K)" src="34th.jpg" height="505" width="641" /></a>
+
+<br>Click on the Map for an enlargement.
+
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+</center>
+<p>
+    The ancient stone-built town of Pickering is to a great extent the
+    gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+    foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+    the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+    and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+    view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+    importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+    days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+    approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+    Pickering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+    Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+    then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+    due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+    the gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+    Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+    at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+    travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+    brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+    and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+    accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+    bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+    for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+    are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+    there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+    scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+    huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+    side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+    the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+    crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+    a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+    first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+    country gradually loses its cultivation, at first gorse and bracken,
+    and then heather, taking the place of the green pastures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the village of Newton, perched on high ground far above the dale, we
+    come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+    cottages 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 up
+    against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+    geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+    of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+    meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+    first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+    dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+    light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+    the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+    emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+    and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+    friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+    just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+    steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+    waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+    huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+    towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+    unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+    become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+    constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+    something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+    although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+    trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+    heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+    soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+    Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+    room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+    the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+    hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+    a 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-cloth
+    gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+    dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+    bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+    we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+    simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+    make this a subject of great fascination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+    interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+    family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+    illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+    milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+    refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+    usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+    sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+    hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+    he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+    the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+    same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+    of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+    henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+    at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+    opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+    cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+    and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+    flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+    hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+    is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+    a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+    Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+    Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+    be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+    green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+    longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+    mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+    patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+    known south of the Cheviots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+    pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+    at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+    Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+    Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+    moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+    precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+    beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+    blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+</p>
+<a name="image-3"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="03.jpg" height="563" width="796"
+alt="Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+    between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+    but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+    to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+    the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+    railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+    cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+    200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+    rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+    with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+    bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+    completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+    the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+    the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+    tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+    the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+    Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+    railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+    hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+    James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+    incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+    extinct.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 heather
+    in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+    central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+    its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+    triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+    station named after the village.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH3"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER II
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    To see the valley of the Esk in its richest garb, one must wait for a
+    spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+    the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+    woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+    astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+    on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+    a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+    streams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+    Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+    English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+    although every feature is plainly visible&mdash;the church, the abbey, the
+    two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new&mdash;the detail is all
+    lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+    enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+    is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+    prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+    rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+    us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+    river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+    near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+    the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+    over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+    view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+    Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+    the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+    at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+    and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+    purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+    scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+    wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+    of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+    leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+    stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+    deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+    sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+    freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+    climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+    which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+    thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+    picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+    with 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first time I visited Aislaby I reached the little hamlet when it
+    was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+    show 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 were
+    blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+    road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+    supported the statement that it was haunted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+    heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+    Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+    light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+    steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+    homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+    demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+    request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+    the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+    Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+    up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+    their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+    heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+    slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+    give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+    whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+    almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+    end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+    moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+    assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+    horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+    time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+    sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+    opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+    stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+    in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+    sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+    beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+    ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+    limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+    at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+    the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+    stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+    with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+    roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+    direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+    High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+    the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+    heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+    Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+    seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+    the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+    within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+    Wheeldale 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 is
+    about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+    raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+    followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+    for enclosures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 of
+    stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+    a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+    bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+    the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+    or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+    overhanging rock, shaded by a leafy roof, shut in the brimming waters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not difficult to find the way from Beck Hole to the Roman camp on
+    the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+    right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+    fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+    Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+    again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+    Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+    over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+    appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+    It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+    popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+    old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+    the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+    Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+    beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+    presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+    attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+    interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+    Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+    to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+    river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+    that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+    bridge on the spot he had been prevented from crossing.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH4"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER III
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+</center>
+<p>
+    Along the three miles of sand running northwards from Whitby at the
+    foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+    sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+    beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+    than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+    the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+    seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+    transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+    that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+    It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+    effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+    for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+    such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+</p>
+<p>
+    Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+    the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+    The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+    the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+    foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+    shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+    headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+    across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+    doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+    picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+    to go down too far to recover.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+    lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+    before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+    across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+    bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+    the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+    the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+    in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+    the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+    make up East Row,<a href="#note-1"><small><sup>1</sup></small></a> 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 name
+    Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+    workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+    operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+    known afterwards as East Row.
+</p>
+<a name="note-1"><!--Note--></a>
+<p class="foot">
+<sup><u>1</u></sup>    [ Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+    allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.&mdash;G.H.]
+</p>
+<p>
+    Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+    woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+    walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+    either hand&mdash;for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+    foliage&mdash;are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+    colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+    find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+    is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+    canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+    disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+    course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+    of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+    newly-fallen rocks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+    castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+    great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+    curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+    entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+    of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+    at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+    full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+    much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+    devoid of any interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+    tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+    not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+    railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+    of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+    centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+    the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+    comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+    Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+    gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+    precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+    reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+    solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+    goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+    enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+    constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+    the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+    history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+    originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+    danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+    betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+    had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+    occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+    there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+    foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+    by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+    are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+    path joins the shore.
+</p>
+<a name="image-5"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="05.jpg" height="618" width="794"
+alt="Runswick Bay 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+    the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+    coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+    the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+    side 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 the
+    hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+    above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+    odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+    climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+    bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+    bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+    repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+    fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+    or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+    world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+    beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+    recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from whooping-
+    cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would call in
+    a loud voice, 'Hob-hole Hob! my bairn's getten t'kink cough. Tak't off,
+    tak't off.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same form of disaster which destroyed Kettleness village caused the
+    complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+    fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+    warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+    villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+    downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+    one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+    destitution by the sums of money collected for their relief.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Scarcely two miles from Hinderwell is the fishing-hamlet of Staithes,
+    wedged into the side of a deep and exceedingly picturesque beck.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village,
+    giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle wooden
+    foot-bridge&mdash;the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+    picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+    smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+    this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+    aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+    comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few&mdash;a very
+    few&mdash;are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+    to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+    one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+</p>
+<a name="image-6"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="06.jpg" height="611" width="808"
+alt="Robin Hood's Bay 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf&mdash;a wooden structure facing
+    the sea&mdash;hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+    little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+    were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+    find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+    repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+    stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+    were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+    of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+    tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+    being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+    listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+    the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+    nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+    removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+    in the boat again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A change has come over the inhabitants of Staithes since 1846, when Mr.
+    Ord describes the fishermen as 'exceedingly civil and courteous to
+    strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+    to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+    unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+    character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+    Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+    them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+    a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+    hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+    inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+    target for stones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+    or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+    particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+    unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+    evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+    procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+    a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+    round the flames.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+    entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+    binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+    Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+    Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+    for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+    this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+    couples and widows and orphans.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+    Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+    which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+    of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+    the most favoured colours, but orange, pink, yellow, and many others,
+    are to be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking northwards there is a grand piece of coast scenery. The masses
+    of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+    Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+    the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+    beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+</p>
+<a name="image-7"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="07.jpg" height="798" width="584"
+alt="Sunrise from Staithes Beck 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+    through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+    close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+    from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+    lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+    woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+    and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+    to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+    district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+    considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+    unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+    pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+    railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+    above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+    are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+    potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+    cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+    masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+    alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+    fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+    Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535&mdash;for the event is most carefully
+    recorded in a manuscript of the period&mdash;that some fishermen of
+    Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+    record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+    that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+    date, report confidently that ... a <i>sea-man</i> was taken by the
+    fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+    for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+    refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+    from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+    have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+    for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+    phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+    terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+    familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+    the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+    approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+    original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+    still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+    the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+    Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+    blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+    the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+    the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+    the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+    Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+    heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+    they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+    story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+    be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+    all 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 ocean
+    was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+    with men's carcases.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+    Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+    watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+    features, 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 broad
+    county.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH5"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER IV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+</center>
+<a name="image-8"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="08.jpg" height="808" width="573"
+alt="The Red Roofs of Whitby 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+    Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+    cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+    gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+    distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+    otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+    the first stages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+    farm, 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. The
+    footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+    gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+    can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+    rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+    is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+    alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+    into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+    windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+    dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+    innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+    low 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 the
+    stone walls dividing the pastures&mdash;a silent testimony to the power of
+    the north-east wind.
+</p>
+<a name="image-9"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="09.jpg" height="530" width="816"
+alt="Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+    suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+    sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+    high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+    the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+    Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+    of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+    on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+    repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+    are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+    in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+    two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+    be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+    railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+    are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+    fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+    to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+    the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+    a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+    swallowed you up.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+    are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+    in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+    stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+    Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+    you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+    women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+    with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+    curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+    between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+    bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+    stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+    from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+    coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+    have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+    driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+    a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+    one.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+    out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+    steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+    Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+    moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+    named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+    Ravenscar.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+    the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+    from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+    remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+    to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+    While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+    inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+    the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+    one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+    give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+    stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+    found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+    will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+    honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+    particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+    stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+    study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+    hotel.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH6"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER V
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SCARBOROUGH
+</center>
+<p>
+    Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+    of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+    sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+    By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+    old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+    above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+    defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+    Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+    times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+    capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+    harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+    grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+    attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+    great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+    bay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+    watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+    or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+    fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+    long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+    recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+    to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+    stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+    to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+    determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+    up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+    cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+    striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+    shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+    idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+    as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+    popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+    discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+    and Epsom.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+    harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+    to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+    had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+    resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+    Robin Hood's Bay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+    notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+    history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+    switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+    visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+    story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+    entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+    commercial attempts to amuse.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+    in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+    King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+    published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+    every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+    Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+    it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+    on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+    worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+    King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+    of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+    sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+    informed 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 caned
+    him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+    occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+    excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+    quickly as it had risen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+    certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+    bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+    should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+    courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+    summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+    suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+    doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+    settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+    hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+    Mayor, 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 as
+    could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+    revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+    at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+    and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+    it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+    grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+    Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+    various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+    mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+    archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+    earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+    an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+    the sieges of the castle. The maimed church&mdash;for the chancel has never
+    been rebuilt&mdash;is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+    apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+    requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+    ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+    obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+    small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+    seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+    this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+    courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+    fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+    borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+    worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+    her perfections.
+</p>
+<p>
+    '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 but
+    of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+    and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+    if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+    sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+    an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+    brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+    her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+    sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+    her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+    mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+    person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+    commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+    with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+    would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+    of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+    general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+    this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+    out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+    Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+    cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+    inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+    nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+    implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+    the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+    prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+    turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+    attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+    until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+    was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+    troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+    wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+    part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+    discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+    his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+    Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+    checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+    rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+    stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+    pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+    reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+    the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last, on July 22, 1645&mdash;his forty-fifth birthday&mdash;Sir Hugh was
+    forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+    surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+    wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+    broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+    such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+    helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+    tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+    depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+    the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+    the Governor unless he capitulated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+    forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+    King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+    made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+    gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+    beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+    bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+    down their arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+    the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+    any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+    Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+    fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+    Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+    himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+    Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+    and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+    him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+    they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+    inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+    apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+    Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+    tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+    huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+    brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+    to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+    confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+    the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+    southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+    surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+    should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+    what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+    long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+    Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+    defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+    so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+    Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+    occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+    made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+    maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+    This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+    Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+    German rivers had become serious.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH7"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WHITBY
+</center>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  Behold the glorious summer sea
+    As night's dark wings unfold,
+  And o'er the waters, 'neath the stars,
+    The harbour lights behold.
+		
+		<i>E. Teschemacher</i>.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<p>
+    Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern town
+    which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+    strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+    excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+    any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+    not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+    no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+    doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+    abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+    distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+    silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+    fretted one the abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+    haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+    midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+    clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+    coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+    stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+    edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+    the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+    them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+    scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+    to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+    cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+    are subdued in the haze.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+    the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+    distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+    necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+    has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+    the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+    of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+    wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+    at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+    Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+    itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+    long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+    the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+    harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+    waves, holding aloft the steady lights that
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Safely guide the mighty ships
+     Into the harbour bay.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    If we keep to the waterside, modern Whitby has no terrors for us. It is
+    out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+    crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+    Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+    prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+    the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+    lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+    corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+    there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+    houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+    has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+    heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+    below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+    the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+    its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+    greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+    ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+    aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+    beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+    They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+    one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+    tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+    have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+    to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+    soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+    abbey 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 an
+    opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+    the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+    known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+    matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+    of Cleveland&mdash;the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+    pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+    painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+    Lionel Charlton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+    are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+    remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+    passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+    they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+    most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+    Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+    such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+    Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+    the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+    ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+    who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+    daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+    abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+    successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+    counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+    after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+    depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+    at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year&mdash;probably 713&mdash;a complete
+    silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+    during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+    the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+    they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+    invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+    certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+    the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+    for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to £3,500 at the present
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+    monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+    permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+    establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+    merely a priory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+    building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+    is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+    to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+    building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+    dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+    thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+    with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+    led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+    the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+    still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+    prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+    destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+    Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+    operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+    church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+    through 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, who
+    entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+    everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+    from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+    makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+    that 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 of
+    Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+    appurtenances as they formerly had belonged to the abbey of Whiby,'
+    henceforward belonged to Sir Richard and his successors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Hugh Cholmley, whose defence of Scarborough Castle has made him a
+    name 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 we
+    owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+    times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+    abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+    was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+    plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+    re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+    outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+    round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+    much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+    there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+    by my own hand.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+    finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+    says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+    doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+    things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+    my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+    Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+    Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+    being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+    said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+    a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+    dinner, 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 to
+    receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+    whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+    definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+    end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+    was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+    the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+    by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+    next generation may have more public spirit.'
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH8"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+    imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+    not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+    their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+    appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+    Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+    a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+    strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+    meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+    lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+    people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+    sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+    easily-remembered couplet:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'When Roseberry Topping wears a cap,
+  Let Cleveland then beware of a clap.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    From the fact that you can see this remarkable peak from almost every
+    point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+    the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+    so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+    Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+    a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+    hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+    world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+    across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+    hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+    seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+    north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+    manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+    of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+    the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+    ridge of total desolation&mdash;a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+    where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+    inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+    of the dales.
+</p>
+<a name="image-10"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="10.jpg" height="806" width="584"
+alt="An Autumn Day at Guisborough 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+    forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+    hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+    settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+    many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+    visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+    last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+    wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+    parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+    strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+    spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+    traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+    valiant men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+    column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+    inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+    purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+    the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+    village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+    and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+    which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+    in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+    generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+    boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+    his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+    attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+    clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+    convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+    clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+    employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+    sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+    'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+    believe that the story is untrue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+    than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+    south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+    to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+    alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+    who 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 attached
+    to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+    steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+    seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+    above. 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 fiercely
+    that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+    roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+    grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+    the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+    right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+    fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+    deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+    stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+    hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+    of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+    downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+    a 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 clouds
+    parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+    wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+    shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+    glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+    wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+    wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+    west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+    clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+    Kildale nestled down below, its church half buried in yellow foliage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 of
+    the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+    A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+    Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+    widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+    without the help of the Vicar, who knew every inch of his wild parish,
+    the Danby district must seem much less interesting.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH9"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    Although a mere fragment of the Augustinian Priory of Guisborough is
+    standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+    impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+    This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+    rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+    is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+    look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+    window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+    ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+    woods and pastures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+    of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+    spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+    the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+    many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+    of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+    indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+    God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+    Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+    of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+    account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+    he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+    our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+    chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+    events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+    it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+    catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+    this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+    very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+    church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+    For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+    placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+    steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+    combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+    where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+    procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+    his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+    completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+    revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+    sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+    combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+    melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+    increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+    by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+    exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+    and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+    corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+    monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+    But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+    establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+    from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+    Early Decorated style.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+    altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+    stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+    Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+    safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+    for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+    Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+    England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+    ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+    honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+    were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+    been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+    Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+    heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+    the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+    street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+    inevitable in a mining country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+    time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+    period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+    the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+    travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+    the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+    industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+    could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+    have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+    manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+    bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+    terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+    Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+    punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+    into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+    was shortly sailing for England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+    thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+    comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+    in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+    the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+    sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+    over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God,
+    "Depart from us; we desire not to know thy ways."'
+</p>
+<a name="image-11"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="11.jpg" height="541" width="839"
+alt="The Skelton Valley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The broad valley stretching from Guisborough to the sea contains the
+    beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+    cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+    hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+    castle of the Bruces, who were Lords of Skelton for many years.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH10"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER IX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    The broad Vale of Pickering, watered by the Derwent, the Rye and their
+    many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+    exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+    abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+    leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+    horizon to the north is formed by lofty moors only a few miles distant.
+</p>
+<a name="image-12"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="12.jpg" height="800" width="618"
+alt="In Pickering Church 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Just where the low meadows are beginning to rise steadily from the vale
+    stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+    parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+    street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+    river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+    have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+    only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+    the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+    the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+    doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+    would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+    shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+    church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+    cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+    Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+    fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+    the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+    porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+    paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+    all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+    clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+    half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+    representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+    close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+    hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+    Herod's feast, with the King labelled <i>Herodi</i>. The guests are
+    shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+    all 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 of
+    Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+    from the life of our Lord.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+    columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+    Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+    of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+    Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+    was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+    lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+    sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+    Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+    surcoat.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+    to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+    state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+    Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+    inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+    and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+    still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+    the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+    and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+    during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+    there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+    defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+    better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+    and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+    this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+    miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+    which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+    county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+    kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+    be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+    published in 1806.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+    salary of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+    allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+    poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+    fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+    supply of fish&mdash;in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+    even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+    not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+    to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+    obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+    possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+    parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+    that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+    of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+    diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+    of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+    far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+    influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+    them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+    no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+    propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+    announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+    Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+    reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+    of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+    strange anomaly.
+</p>
+<a name="image-13"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="13.jpg" height="812" width="584"
+alt="The Market-place, Helmsley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+    tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+    there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+    that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+    No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+    whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+    Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+    apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+    by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+    becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+    Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+    little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+    death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+    April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+    King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+    under 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:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Anno: Dom 1632 October xi
+      William Wood'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Kirkdale, with its world-renowned cave, to which we have already
+    referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+    church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+    ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+    survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+    A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+    St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+    it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+    days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+    me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+    told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+    Confessor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+    Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+    the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+    Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+    fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+    roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+    this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+    picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+    the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+    Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+    in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+    on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+    dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+    carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+    blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+    destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+    Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+    Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+    we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+    overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+    with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+    and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+    solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+    established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+    broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+    picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+    beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+    some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+    birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+    abbey ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+    astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+    of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+    grass-grown débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+    hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+    columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+    the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+    pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+    uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+    cathedral.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH11"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER X
+</h2>
+<center>
+    DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+</center>
+<p>
+    When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+    of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+    youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+    series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+    pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+    a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+    Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+    geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+    more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+    until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+    the Moon which have a name so similar.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+    as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+    of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+    Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+    section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+    Dales.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+    owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+    beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+    England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+    over 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 to
+    attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+    from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+    district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+    themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+    of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+    Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+    that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+    distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+    had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+    condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+    worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+    dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+    parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+    defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+    generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+    the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+    water-falls pour over the wall of limestone&mdash;as at Hardraw Scar, near
+    Hawes&mdash;the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+    rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+    overhanging above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+    not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+    Wensleydale&mdash;or, indeed, most of the dales&mdash;without seeing any heather
+    at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+    moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+    moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+    generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+    outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the upper portions of the dales&mdash;even in the narrow riverside
+    pastures&mdash;the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+    exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+    these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+    ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+    of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+    gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+    that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+    interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+    and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+    enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+    excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+    the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+    the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+    projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+    other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+    S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+    flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+    subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+    innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+    barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+    beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+    jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+    familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+    neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+    generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+    straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+    and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+    of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+    of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+    shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+    houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+    foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+    except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+    scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH12"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    RICHMOND
+</center>
+<p>
+    For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+    of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+    which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+    starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+    part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+    entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+    there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+    begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+    on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+    the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+    that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+    sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+    in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+    on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+    a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+    which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+    can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+    sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+    strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+    enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+    welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+    the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+    beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+    fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+    changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+    feudal times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+    combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+    rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+    sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+    artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+    these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+    keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+    precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+    the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+    in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+    then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+    Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+    were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+    centuries unharmed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+    climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+    parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+    limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+    Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+    that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+    fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+    sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+    short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+    wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+    afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+    conversation and loitering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+    front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+    find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+    space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+    intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+    secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+    in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+    flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+    protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+    Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+    possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+    there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+    percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+    we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+    which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+    a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+    tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+    parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+    realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+    the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+    portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+    rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+    continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+    keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+    go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+    resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+    street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+    the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+    rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+    distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+    into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+    between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+    masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+    the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+    to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+    of water beyond the bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+    of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+    little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+    cover the heights above the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+    responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+    across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+    unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+    watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+    evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+    glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+    in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+    probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+    whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+    description of the town with the words '<i>Richemont</i> Towne is
+    waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+    is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+    cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+    as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+    retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+    posterns&mdash;one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+    the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+    adjoining&mdash;are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+    finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+    Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+    market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+    year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+    which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+    greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+    up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+    about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+    with 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 curious
+    compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+    the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+    opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+    included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+    Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+    description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+    example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+    we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+    (!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+    read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+    Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+    only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+    writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+    ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+    little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+    demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+    the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+    either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+    barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+    stood 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 were
+    fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+    that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+    stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+    been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+    Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+    chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+    incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+    Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+    of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+    dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+    was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+    of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+    materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+    January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+    fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+    must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+    the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+    scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+    later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+    living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+    the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+    Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+    'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+    of getting rid of such a terrible beast, that
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill,
+  The fryers of Richmond gave her till.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Friar Middleton, who with two lusty men was sent to fetch the sow from
+    Rokeby, could scarcely have known that she was
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to hold
+    her, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell,' but
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'The sow she would not Latin heare,
+  But rudely rushed at the frear,'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw
+    with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+    their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+    Watling 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 the
+    next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+    Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+    armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+    only just overcame the grisly sow.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+    remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+    ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+    Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+    eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+    St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+    to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+    in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+    Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+    mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+    remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+    there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+    steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+    the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+    height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+    and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+    masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+    tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+    saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+    keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+    by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+    present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+    fifth 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 the
+    soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+    we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+    battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+    chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+    packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+    people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+    drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+    even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+    us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+    horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+    cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+    when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+    which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+    fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+    Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+    possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+    thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+    crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+    detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+    not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+    his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+    soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+    we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+    second, with a good camera in our hands?
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+    St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+    narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+    Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+    as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+    the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+    are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+    remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+    preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+    details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+    Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+    to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+    the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+    regular guarding of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+    curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+    be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+    Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+    splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+    Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+    crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+    him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+    lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+    fell to this Breton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+    name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+    unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+    Rice-munt&mdash;the hill of rule&mdash;is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+    have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+    castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+    walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+    not 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 as
+    other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+    almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+    to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+    was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+    Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+    perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+    Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+    from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+    know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+    command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+    from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+    Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+    probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+    pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+    Edward III.&mdash;a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+    advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+    only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+    for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+    possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+    war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+    to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+    north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+    affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+    but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+    on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+    Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+    Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+    Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+    John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife&mdash;then scarcely
+    fourteen years old&mdash;gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+    throne 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 his
+    splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+    of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+    commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+</p>
+<a name="image-14"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="14.jpg" height="781" width="610"
+alt="Richmond Castle from the River 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+    Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+    closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+    the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+    The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+    in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+    greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+    pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+    visitations 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.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Easby Abbey is so much a possession of Richmond that we cannot go
+    towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+    ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+    is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+    been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+    the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+    yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+    beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+    traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+    Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+    architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+    and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+    here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+    to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+    Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+    is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+    more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+    many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+    domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+    the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+    wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+    semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+    remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+    sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+    the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+    as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+    this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+    arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+    probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+    by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+    extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+    these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+    Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+    have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+    great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+    by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+    monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+    the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+    the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+    church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+    lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+    effigy, bearing the arms&mdash;azure, a bend or&mdash;of his house. Near by lay
+    Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+    of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+    statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+    the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+    these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+    though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+    just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+    tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+    the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+    the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+    screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+    when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+    preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+    granary is even now in use.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+    arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+    interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+    some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+    make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH13"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SWALEDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+    long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+    romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+    fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+    to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+    free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+    spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+    disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+    shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+    the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+    efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+    that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+    cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+    Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+    land of solitude,
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
+  And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful,
+    but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless
+    mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+    mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+    moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+    out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+    transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+    sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+    are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+    extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+    where the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale,
+    disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilized
+    mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+    illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+    gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+    the scenery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+    comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+    from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+    railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+    may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+    of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+    isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+    are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+    the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+    land where chimneys have never been.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+    view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+    In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+    been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+    when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+    sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+    any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+    before 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 almost
+    miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+    worse than a broken leg.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+    of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+    the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+    missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+    explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+    avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+    its downs make the traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But this ought not to deter anyone from using the road; for the view of
+    the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+    rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+    the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+    accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+    hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+    golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+    every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+    Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+    reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+    older.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+    the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+    Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+    nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+    however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+    seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+    and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+    of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+    beauty spots of the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+    that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+    Scottish feeling&mdash;perhaps Alpine would be more correct&mdash;in the
+    steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+    plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+    south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+    the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+    green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+    the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+    a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+    climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+    sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+    the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+    at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+    obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+    shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+    blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+    large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+    old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+    crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+    steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+    is at its best in the full light of a clear morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The clouds are big, but they carry no threat of rain, for right down to
+    the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+    blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+    passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+    extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+    over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+    village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+    sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+    with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+    stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+    contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+    possesses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+    is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+    chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+    buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+    suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+    centre of feudal power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 bold
+    scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+    Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+    Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+    they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+    to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+    dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+    changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+    no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+    become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+    merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+    forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+    pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+    living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+    Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+    sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+    village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+    situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+    Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+    It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+    endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+    other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+    Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+    discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+    Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+    over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+    of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+    Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+    reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+    of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+    It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+    acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+    history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+    mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+    suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+    expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+    and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+    neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+    has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+    period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+    interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+    by old screens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+    Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+    thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+    it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+    of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+    look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+    which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+    surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+    although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+    mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+    separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+    gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+    narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+    river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+    heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+    the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+    and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+    greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+    walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+    fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+    no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+    welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+    the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+    unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+    impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+    winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+    inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+    fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+    flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+    whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+    desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+    destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+    seldom encounter in the lower levels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great rapidity with which the Swale, or such streams as the Arkle,
+    can produce a devastating flood can scarcely be comprehended by those
+    who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+    When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+    parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+    often in jeopardy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+    by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+    about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+    about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+    spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+    that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+    notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+    Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+    eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+    Hutchinson, when the field was covered with snow,' and: '1799, Nov. 10.
+    Much corn to cut and carry. A hard frost.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Muker, notwithstanding all these climatic difficulties, has some claim
+    to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+    a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+    state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+    weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+    down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+    house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+    reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+    a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+    below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+    restricted to one side of the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+    Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+    Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+    of 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 the
+    finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+    and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+    through the glen, and brings one to the road again at Keld.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 in
+    this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+    the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+    narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+    the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+    views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+    fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+    panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+    of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+    Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+    hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+    walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+    hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+    not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+    equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+    flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+    and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+    their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+    any but those who are glad to leave them growing where they are.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH14"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WENSLEYDALE
+</center>
+<a name="image-15"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="15.jpg" height="597" width="809"
+alt="A Rugged View Above Wensleydale 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The approach from Muker to the upper part of Wensleydale is by a
+    mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+    explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+    road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+    high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+    stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+    goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+    the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+    the mountain ridge dividing the Swale from the Ure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 that
+    darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+    late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+    drawn 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 way
+    slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+    stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+    dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+    more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+    its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+    evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+    mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+    the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+    ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+    verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+    dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+    falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+    road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+    Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+    emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+    labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+    rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+    disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+    is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+    'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+    rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+    keeping in the middle of the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+    different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+    recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+    parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+    enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+    creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+    reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+    night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+    pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+    blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+    sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+    pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+    down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+    cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+    fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+    beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+    gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+    these shadowy places is pleasant after gazing on the dry fell-sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Just beyond the head of the pass, where the descent to Hawes begins,
+    the shoulders of Great Shunnor Fell drop down, so that not only
+    straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+    view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+    direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+    stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+    the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+    sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+    changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+    seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+    of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+    three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+    torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+    sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+    powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+    changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+    hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+    palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+    waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+    the 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 pass
+    through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+    whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+    angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+    carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+    away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+    its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+    make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+    with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+    has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+    walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+    opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+    foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+    into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+    splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+    and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+    into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+    drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+    the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+    horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+    sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+    water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+    among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+    that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+    water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+    twelve 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 walk
+    on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+    from the surface of the pool.
+</p>
+<p>
+    John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '<i>Uredale</i> veri
+    litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+    and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+    wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+    disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+    above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+    The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+    mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+    exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+    around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+    whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+    rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+    feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+    on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+    track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+    of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+    the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+    browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+    one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+    we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+    as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+    this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+    behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+    expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+    Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+    Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+    that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+    witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+    blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+    middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+    from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+    obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+    Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+    the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+    owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+    the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+    places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+    taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+    is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+    one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+    above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+    track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+    cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+    only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+    piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+    It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+    among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+    its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+    doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+    the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+    the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+    dullest potato-field thrilling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+    a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+    from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+    tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+    among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+    steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+    the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+    views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+    side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+    against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+    surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+    close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+    by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+    Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+    for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+    abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+    Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+    in many cascades along one side of the green.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+    waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+    there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+    inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+    states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+    at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+    Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+    forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+    foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+    associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+    certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+    remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+    there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+    without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+    possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+    dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+    lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+    Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+    'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+    at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+    Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+    with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+    situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+    little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+    exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+    we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+    where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+    smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+    spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+    summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+    distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+    importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+</p>
+<a name="image-16"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="16.jpg" height="795" width="571"
+alt="A Jacobean House at Askrigg 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+    market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+    three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+    for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+    MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+    about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+    surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+    is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+    place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+    grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+    secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+    market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+    interesting by the Perpendicular church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The simple square tower and the unbroken roof-lines are battlemented,
+    like so many of the churches of the dales; inside we find Norman
+    pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+    brought from the site of Fors Abbey, a little to the west of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wensleydale generally used to be famed for its hand-knitting, but I
+    think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+    valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+    this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+    air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+    nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+    Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+    George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+    picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a group
+    of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the market-
+    cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen driving
+    some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+    street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+    formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+    that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+    had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+    the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+    a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+    when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+    that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+    picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+    find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+    gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+    through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+    enters Swaledale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+    is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+    the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+    growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+    waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+    foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+    among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+    appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+    high place among their rivals in the dale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+    distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+    farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+    importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+    house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+    thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+    Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+    field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+    the existing house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+    close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+    Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+    east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+    ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+    pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+    than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+    Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+    footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+    rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+    at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+    the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+    the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+    roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+    bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+    splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+    some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+    side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+    and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+    froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+    of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+    the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+    foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+    becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+    terrace.
+</p>
+<a name="image-17"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="17.jpg" height="571" width="807"
+alt="Aysgarth Force 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+    disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+    nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+    houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+    mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+    Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+    considerable 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 is
+    beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+    by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+    curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+    nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+    in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+    huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+    suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+    tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+    between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+    wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+    road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+    to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+    make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+    a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+    Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+    Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+    is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+    dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+    Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+    main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+    in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+    quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+    others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+    exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+    the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+    stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+    the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+    through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+    side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+    south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+    used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+    Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+    custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+    no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+    the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+    commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+    in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+    her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+    her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+    from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+    writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+    The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+    heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+    prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+    sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+    real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+    during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+    lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+    Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+    Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+    would 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 took
+    to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+    flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+    up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+    with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+    caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+    rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+    the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+    or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+    they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+    light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+    accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+    its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+    character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+    small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+    valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from <i>Wodenslag</i>,
+    and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+    place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+    so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+    examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+    beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+    screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+    we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+    aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+    appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+    ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+    excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+    the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+    long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+    possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+    the heralds in 1665.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+    nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+    Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+    very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+    enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+    in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+    Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+    side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+    castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+    square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+    distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+    height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+    possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+    when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+    Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+    Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+    fortress. 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 with
+    Anne Neville.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+    only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+    larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+    Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+    inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+    but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+    of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+    somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+    modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+    market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+    space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+    attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+    which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+</p>
+<a name="image-18"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="18.jpg" height="791" width="596"
+alt="View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+    two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+    valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+    from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+    pictures of this most remarkable portion of Yorkshire.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH15"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    We have come out of Wensleydale past the ruins of the great Cistercian
+    abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+    a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+    Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+    70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+    are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+    since 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 of
+    the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+    evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+    running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+    the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+    suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+    seventy 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 it
+    supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+    Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+    Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+    therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+    un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+    deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+    of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+    With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+    blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+    whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+    old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+    quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+    slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+    wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+    third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+    down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+    blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+    inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+    vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+    impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+    plainly 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 houses
+    to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+    of 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 is
+    the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+    the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+    transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+    this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+    its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+    the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+    the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+    to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+    think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+    clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+    the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+    collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+    that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+</p>
+<a name="image-19"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="19.jpg" height="568" width="822"
+alt="Ripon Minster from the South 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+    first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+    entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+    rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+    into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+    north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+    to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+    being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+    two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+    is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+    dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+    be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+    times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+    lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+    the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+    Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+    imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+    dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+    of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+    view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+    unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+    filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+    memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+    retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+    merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+    laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+    double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+    Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+    the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+    fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+    the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+    forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+    fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+    available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+    past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+    that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+    with delight the books that are devoted to its story.
+</p>
+<a name="image-20"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="20.jpg" height="842" width="549"
+alt="Fountains Abbey 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<a name="2HCH16"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+</center>
+<p>
+    It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from the
+    point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+    much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+    pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+    exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+    prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+    charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+    much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+    bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+    interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+    flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+    church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+    This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+    would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+    reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+    parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+    its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+    the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+    heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+    of later buildings down by the river margin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+    perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+    houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+    a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+    remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+    black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+    creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+    restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+    character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+    with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+    There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+    fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+    the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+    lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+    greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+    house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+</p>
+<a name="image-21"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="21.jpg" height="583" width="846"
+alt="Knaresborough 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+    surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+    by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+    Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+    contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+    The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+    Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+    Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+    Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+    cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+    'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+    a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+    marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+    family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+    the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+    elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+    perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+    scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle&mdash;poor and of small account
+    if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+    where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+    mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+    story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+    sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+    enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+    destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+    There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+    fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+    there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+    into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+    the castle yard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+    the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+    horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+    air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+    thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+    sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+    such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+    he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+    mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+    (sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+    heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+    of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+    light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+    among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+    Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+    castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+    first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+    Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+    passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+    follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+    are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+    of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+    join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+    made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+    is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+    through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+    baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+    shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+    buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+    watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+    of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+    come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+    brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+    the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+    followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+    pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+    we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+    simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+    pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+    the scenes we have left behind.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH17"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WHARFEDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+    the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+    manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+    south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+    purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+    elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+    course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+    weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+    Fells on the west.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+    dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+    Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+    very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+    oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+    historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+    sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+    purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+    century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+    pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+    is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+    view.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+    bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+    ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+    buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+    the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+    beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+    present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+    building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+    Early English west end is the lower half of a fine Perpendicular tower,
+    commenced by Richard Moone, the last Prior.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great east window of the choir has lost its tracery, and the
+    Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+    exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+    the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+    very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+    resting on carved corbels.
+</p>
+<a name="image-22"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="22.jpg" height="815" width="568"
+alt="Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+    exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+    Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+    really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+    frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+    always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+    seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+    by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+    woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+    generally 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 spots
+    that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+    their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+    That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+    temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+    many can resist.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+    fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+    at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+    stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+    one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+    enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford&mdash;the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+    life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+    Skipton&mdash;but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+    indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+    Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+    partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+    Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+    to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+    Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+    appearance from Skipton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+    become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+    side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+    good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+    Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+    Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+    Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+    Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+    towards the head of Wharfedale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+    Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+    stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+    the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+    forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+    the 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 down
+    to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+    slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+    is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+    2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+    spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+    anything that can even be called a path.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+    Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+    and Fountains Fell more to the south.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH18"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    When I think of Skipton I am never quite sure whether to look upon it
+    as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+    the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+    upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+    activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+    imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+    portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+    enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+    of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+    the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+    circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+    higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+    'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+    stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+    front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+    inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+    attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+    beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+    quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+    great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+    the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+    spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+    almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+    base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+    shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+    a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+    Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+    the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+    cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé, one of the
+    Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+    very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+    dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+    some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+    caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+    have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+    but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+    Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+    of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+    her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+    speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+    Sackville, 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. With
+    immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+    that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+    Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+    than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+    parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+    even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+    private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+    charge, 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 it
+    over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+    Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+    colour, these two letters&mdash;viz., A. P., and under them the year
+    1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+    of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+    the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+    with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+    assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+    Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+    Elizabeth, 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 a
+    skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+    building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+    manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+    Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+    dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+    very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+    she stood upright."
+</p>
+<p>
+    We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+    to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+    who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+    merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+    chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+    cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+    her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+    placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+    mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+    entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+    primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+    about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+    whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+    wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+    remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+    Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+    brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+    restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+    life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+    Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+    own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+    canons of Bolton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+    his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+    traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+    Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+    died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+    the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+    southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+    little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+    rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+    there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+    moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+    interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+    and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+    old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+    their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+    and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+    the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+    the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+    these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+    panelled lower portions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+    village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+    afternoon. 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 by
+    a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+    ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+    switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+    side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+    in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+    further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+    from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+    opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+    the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+    when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+    cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+    first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+    most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+    sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+    was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+    eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+    that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+    rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+    The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+    space 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, and
+    among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+    made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+    I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+    completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+    writers had underrated the horrors of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wordsworth writes of
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch,"
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    and he also describes it as one of the grandest objects in nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A further result of the Craven fault that produced Gordale Scar can be
+    seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+    front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+    is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+    into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+    of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+    hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+    precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+    turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+    a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+    stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+    enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+    great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+    hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+    methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+    itself in majestic fashion into a great pool below.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH19"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot be
+    recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+    keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+    the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+    night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+    that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+    from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+    was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+    even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+    Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+    the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+    town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+    Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+    top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+    were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+    hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+    remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+    fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+    its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+    Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+    that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+    arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+    shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+    restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+</p>
+<a name="image-23"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="23.jpg" height="564" width="879"
+alt="Settle 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+    still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+    original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+    doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+    Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+    older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+    date of the figure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Ribble divides Settle from its former parish church at Giggleswick,
+    and until 1838 the townsfolk had to go over the bridge and along a short
+    lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been formed
+    into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village no
+    longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to share
+    the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great many
+    years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and placed
+    in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things we see on
+    entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks standing by
+    the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well preserved
+    head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as we look at
+    the battlemented tower of the church through the stone-roofed lichgate
+    grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old church, dedicated,
+    like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been written by Mr. Thomas
+    Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old building from the chalice
+    inscribed "THE. COMMVNION. CVPP. BELONGINGE. TO. THE. PARISHE. OF.
+    IYGGELSWICKE. MADE. IN. ANO. 1585." to the inverted Norman capitals now
+    forming the bases of the pillars. The tower and the arcades date from
+    about 1400, and the rest of the structure is about 100 years older.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The Black Horse" Inn has still two niches for small figures of saints,
+    that proclaim its ecclesiastical connections in early times. It is said
+    that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+    see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+    inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+    custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+    Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+    has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+    and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+    seen anywhere in the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+    limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+    and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+    In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+    350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+    Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+    1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+    stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+    to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+    portion discovered in 1837.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+    walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+    comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+    most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+    across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+    bare rocky scars.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH20"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+</center>
+<p>
+    On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+    and 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 any
+    parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+    yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+    exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+    are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+    windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+    resisted sun and storm for ages.
+</p>
+<a name="image-24"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="24.jpg" height="573" width="803"
+alt="Wolds 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+    Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+    scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+    owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+    the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+    that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+    and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+    its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+    Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+    break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+    country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+    with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+    of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+    lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+    chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+    sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+    been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+    England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+    of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+    conspicuous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+    that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+    views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+    corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+    character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+    glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+    of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+    height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+    sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+    feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+    good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+    and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+    characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+    converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+    distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+    the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+    beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+    embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+    the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+    Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+    circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+    hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+    everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+    at the present day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+    Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+    ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+    pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+    for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+    made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+    implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+    no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+    would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+    sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+    continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+    slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+    certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+    an implement of less obvious purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+    in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+    the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+    prehistoric sites generally&mdash;omitting lake dwellings&mdash;are most
+    invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+    recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+    disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+    the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+    double or triple lines of defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+    forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+    road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+    regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+    has never levelled&mdash;heaps of earth that have resisted the
+    disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+    such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+    the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+    rather than in the subject under discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+    old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+    directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+    advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+    its way through the high ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 too
+    hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+    towards the hills. We go on wheels&mdash;it is unimportant how many, or to
+    what they are attached&mdash;in order that the long stretches of white road
+    may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+    and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+    steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+    high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+    which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+    it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+    brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+    the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+    night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+    showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+    lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+    along the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+    spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+    from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+    arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+    village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+    church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+    looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+    interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+    acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+    tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+    period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+    screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+    east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+    church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+    the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+    enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+    own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+    Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+    building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+    produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+    villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+    their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+    ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+    a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+    Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+    Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+    churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+    this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+    that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+    ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+</p>
+<center>
+    HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+</center>
+<p>
+    FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+    leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+    There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+    completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+    REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+    line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+    is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+    name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+    words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+    earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+    Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+    with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+    Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+    another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+    years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+    infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+    narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+    this it is unwise to say.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+    sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+    ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+    taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+    ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+    there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+    roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+    gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+    through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+    brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+    slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+    in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+    church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+    ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+    be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+    pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+    of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+    that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+    "Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+    derived from the Norse word <i>Thing</i>, meaning an assembly.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+    Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+    with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+    dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+    a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+    assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+    raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+    its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+    perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+    have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+    tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+    low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+    in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+    them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+    to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+    Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+    Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+    west end of its priory&mdash;one short and plain, and the other tall and
+    richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+    red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+    valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+    fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+    with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+    park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+    has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+    their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+    One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+    Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+    gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+    War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+    sister Strickland."
+</p>
+<p>
+    After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+    commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+    conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+    tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+    comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+    that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+    period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+    and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+    that they were regarded with a traditional veneration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village,
+    and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where
+    North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+    left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+    the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+    Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+    archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+    Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+    well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+    Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+    mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+    are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+    together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+    miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+    now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+    church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+    wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+    most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+    of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+    capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+    the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+    the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+    of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+    what seems to be another dragon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+    least 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 no
+    explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+    was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+    only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+    not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+    the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+    eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+    instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+    perambulation of the farm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+    eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+    the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+    village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+    figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+    the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+    other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+    Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+    subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the <i>man</i> at Penuel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+    reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+    possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+    green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+    Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+    owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+    ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 memory
+    of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+    the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+    and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+    now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+    of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+    Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+    conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+    market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+    conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+    his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+    Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+    that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+    journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+    exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+    surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+    slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+    of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+    something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+    but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+    you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+    workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+    in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+    timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+    of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+    screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+    the rest of the work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+    about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+    war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+    the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+    into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+    day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+    themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+    driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+    just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+    The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+    of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+    gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+    element of unreality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+    stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+    where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+    that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+    church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+    every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+    of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+    and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+    tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+    Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+    capitals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+    remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+    there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+    fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+    south.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+    North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+    road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+    ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+    arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+    enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+    those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+    up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+    carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+    representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+    is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH21"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+</center>
+<p>
+    'As the shore winds itself back from hence,' says Camden, after
+    describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+    thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+    known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+    watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+    singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+    and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+    broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+    healthy seaside haunt.
+</p>
+<a name="image-25"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="25.jpg" height="546" width="822"
+alt="Filey Brig 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+    headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+    sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+    particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+    of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+    then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+    heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+    there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+    promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+    that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+    more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+    is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+    interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+    tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+    warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+    headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+    by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+    frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+    care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+    rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+    grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+    the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+    north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+    rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+    than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+    below 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 the
+    onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+    dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+    creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+    height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+    in long white beards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+    rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+    down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+    water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+    shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+    imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+    a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+    with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+    seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+    with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+    pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+    moment for another great <i>coup</i> arrives.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+    conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+    primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+    vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+    coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+    meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+    Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+    semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+    appearance with a jetty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+    with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+    claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+    unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+    watering-places.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+    densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+    tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+    and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+    pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+    cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+    conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+    alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+    above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+    the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+    western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+    feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+    bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+    eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+    Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+</p>
+<a name="image-26"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="26.jpg" height="802" width="589"
+alt="The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+    the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+    two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+    few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+    precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+    morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+    broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+    cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+    downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+    surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+    crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+    with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+    the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+    razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+    guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+    and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+    noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+    nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+    those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+    another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+    noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+    into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+    remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+    appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+    promontory&mdash;that is, for two-thirds of its length&mdash;the huge trench is
+    purely artificial. No doubt the <i>vallum</i> on the seaward side has
+    been worn down very considerably, and the <i>fosse</i> would have been
+    deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+    dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+    of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+    have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+    attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+    several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+    from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+    that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+    inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+    being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+    considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+    conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+    were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+    on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+    surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+    horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+    fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+    along the top of the <i>vallum</i> the defenders were in the habit of
+    chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+    entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+    people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+    its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+    strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+    outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+    that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+    been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+    for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+    ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+    they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+    with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+    trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+    part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+    when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+    wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+    danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+    village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+    unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+    the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+    what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+    attractiveness of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+    their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+    indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+    entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+    cliffs nearly two miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+    tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+    a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+    niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+    red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+    chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+    Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+    is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+    the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+    and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+    greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+    deeds: of his passing over to France 'with Kyng Edwarde the fourith,
+    y[t] noble knyght.'
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name
+  He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same <a href="#note-1482"><small>1482</small></a>
+  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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden
+    Field when he was seventy, 'nothyng hedyng his age.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Marmaduke's daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley,
+    called 'the Great Black Knight of the North,' who was the first of his
+    family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+    his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+    long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+    from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+    woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+    extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+    rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+    will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+    in his presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+    beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+    protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+    miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+    made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+    is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+    slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+    South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+    one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+    picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+    between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+    Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+    green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+    slopes back to the grass above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions,
+    blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth
+    seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+    their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+    pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+    the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+    carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+    peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+    chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+    caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+    groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+    of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+    unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+    as they circle just above the waves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+    chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+    age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+    purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+    that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+    extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+    stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+    was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+    the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+    and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+    briefly:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost,
+  takinge lighte from Bridlington,
+  and geving lighte to Rudstone.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem
+    merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+    two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+    thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+    up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+    dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+    exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+    to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+    matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+    ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+    on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+    that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+    early structure came into existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness,
+    with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and
+    seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+    remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington&mdash;a Mr.
+    Milne&mdash;to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+    Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+    light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+    was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was
+    'lost on that station when the lights could be seen.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to
+    have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+    a corruption of <i>Fleinn</i>, a Norse surname, and <i>borg</i> or
+    <i>burgh</i>, meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt 'Flaneburg,'
+    and <i>flane</i> is the Norse for an arrow or sword.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of
+    Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+    Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+    even now there are two towns&mdash;the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+    place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+    resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+    railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+    Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+    parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+    energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+    are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+    refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+    even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+    and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+    curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+    sand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+    in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+    Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+    had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+    ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+    ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+    to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+    of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+    security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+    conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+    Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+    told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+    1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+    arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+    rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+    his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+    Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+    foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+    send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+    but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+    us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+    beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+    Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+    forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+    the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+    before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+    about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+    to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+    house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+    houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+    the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+    foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+    Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+    Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+    twenty paces of Her.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+    Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+    known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+    They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+    form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+    real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+    Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+    erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+    permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+    for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+    the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+    only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+    gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+    having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+    church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+    styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+    the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+    occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+    vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+    built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+    the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+    destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+    merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+    coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+    nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+    featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+    The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+    to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+    gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+    and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+    all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+    come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+    breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+    villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+    to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+    lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+    that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+    practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+    and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+    by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+    on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+    the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+    crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+    of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+    opinion labels them post-Conquest. In the time of the Domesday
+    Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+    Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+    received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+    King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+    some 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 Holderness
+    was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.
+</p>
+
+<p>[A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr.
+    J. L. Kirk, of Pickering.]
+</p>
+<p>
+    Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave
+    orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+    Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+    Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+    Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+    of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+    Seigniory of Holderness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+    a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+    come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+    and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+    to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+    in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+    found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+    day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+    growth of a new town on the shore.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+    Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+    seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+    them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+    supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+    the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+    water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+</p>
+<a name="image-27"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="27.jpg" height="569" width="819"
+alt="Hornsea Mere 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+    a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+    Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+    Meaux, 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 over
+    the <i>impasse</i> and relations became so strained that the only
+    method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+    the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+    monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+    of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+    was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+    the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+    appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+    evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+    ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+    Mere.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+    the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+    utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+    there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+    roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+    seizure of which he died.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+    this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+    desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+    waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+    from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+    the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+    satisfying a fresh appetite.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+    and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+    disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+    called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+    acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+    remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+    Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+    1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+    eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+    a cloud of dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+    churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+    were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+    attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+    to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+    fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+    a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+    given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+    waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+    salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+    more than fifteen feet high.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH22"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    BEVERLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+    its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+    uplifting of the mind&mdash;a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+    even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+    spaces of a cathedral.
+</p>
+<a name="image-28"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="28.jpg" height="570" width="810"
+alt="The Market-place, Beverley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+    stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+    Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+    upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+    come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+    just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+    with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+    at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+    trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+    prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+    lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+    foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar&mdash;the last
+    of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+    brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+    houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+    records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+    nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+    beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+    houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+    while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+    picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+    Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+    Corporation at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+    pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+    transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+    proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+    eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+    English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+    the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+    blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+    of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+    the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+    one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+    in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+    the result beautiful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+    graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+    turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+    were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+    'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+    give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+    advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+    portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+    dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+    place of which there is a record:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+    burnt, 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 of
+    March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+    in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+    sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+    likewise, and re-interred.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+    discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+    and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+    picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+    extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+    of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+    Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+    year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+    forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+    years, 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 intercession
+    were constantly invoked. The splended shrine provided for his relics in
+    1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+    employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+    disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+    foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+    except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+    until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+    has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+    triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+    early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+    addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+    and the west end&mdash;the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+    and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+    perfection of form characterizing York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+    the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+    sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+    any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+    representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+    body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+    way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+    ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+    lesser 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 is
+    composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+    encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+    the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+    always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+    gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+    for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+    the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+    represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+    holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+    figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+    of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+    fingers on her head.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+    staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+    the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+    slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+    marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+    the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+    stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+    sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+    clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+    privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+    the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+    sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+    minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+    of St. John of Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr.
+    Charles Hiatt in his admirable account of the Minster:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum that John Spret, of Barton upon
+    Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+    day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+    lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+    husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+    at the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicular
+    church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+    Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+    flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+    run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+    portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+    and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+    crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+    the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+    Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+    is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+    carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+    painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+    seen 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 times
+    there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+    fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+    monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+    at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+    for music.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH23"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ALONG THE HUMBER
+</center>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
+  But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
+  Stay and be secret, and myself will go.'
+       <i>Richard II</i>, Act II, Scene 1.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of
+    the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+    patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+    sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+    populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+    of the fourteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+    shipping, 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 soon
+    demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+    estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+    vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+    that time by a benevolent hermit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 by
+    Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+    II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+    lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+    in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+    completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+    light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+    the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+    taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+    the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+    illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+    wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+    circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+    wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+    the lifeboat and other purposes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+    with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+    519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+    of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+    placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+    seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+    in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+    Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+    and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+    probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+    knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+    the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+    less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+    III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+    also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+    number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+    in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+    different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+    of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+    have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+    matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+    have been discovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+    Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+    compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+    narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+    sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+    Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+    mentioned in the lines:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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).'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of small
+    consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+    then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+    of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+    of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+    early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man&mdash;the earliest
+    recorded Peggotty&mdash;converted it into a house, and even made it a
+    tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+    houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+    port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+    Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+    that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+    and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+    distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+    island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+    large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+    Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+    written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+    longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+    as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+    Ravenserodd, the busy port, it is often merely referred to as Ravenser,
+    spelt with many variations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due to
+    a 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 out
+    to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+    cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+    the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+    would 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 an
+    action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+    plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+    Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+    that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+    and 1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux.
+    Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerning
+    the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+    annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+    great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+    an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+    pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+    during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+    sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+    their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+    swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+    the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+    threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+    terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+    with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+    remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+    of 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 left
+    that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+    with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+    floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+    other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+    Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+    incident recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp,
+    who was at the time building a chapel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The very beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along a
+    winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+    meadows.
+</p>
+<a name="image-29"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="29.jpg" height="806" width="558"
+alt="Patrington Church 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+    diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+    than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+    Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+    beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+    window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+    the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+    detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+    without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+    as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+    the 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 being
+    represented by crocketed pinnacles&mdash;the terminals of the supporting
+    pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+    that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+    colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+    the clustered columns.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+    chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+    transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+    for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+    groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+    considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+    Annunciation, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist,
+    and on the under side is a Tudor rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the
+    <i>Archaeological Journal</i>, states that this pendant was used for a
+    lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+    that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+    alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+    relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+    lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+    place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+    all the Holderness towns.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+    Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+    we may see the memorials of a fine old family&mdash;the Hildyards of
+    Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+    when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+    and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+    was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+    doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+    her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+    scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+    been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+    with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+    disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+    period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+    a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+    colours we saw at Patrington.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+    of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+    for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+    the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+    copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+    loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+    blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+    behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+    of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+    points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+    cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+    its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull,
+    founded by Edward I at the close of the thirteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the
+    Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+    development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+    and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+    smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+    architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+    where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+    there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+    dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+    practically all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+    with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+    the winding streets&mdash;the windmills, the churches and monasteries&mdash;we
+    understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+    Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+    Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+    Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+    Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+    mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+    his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+    and restored that its interest is much diminished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is,
+    therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little
+    town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+    has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+    chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+    The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+    brick&mdash;no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+    founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+    of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+    the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+    pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+    appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+    pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+</p>
+<p>
+    William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+    large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+    surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+    the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+    a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+    the city.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+    southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+    show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+    church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+    cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+    houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+    we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+    lost 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 better
+    described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+    each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+    remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+    ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+    loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+    disappearing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+    ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+    green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+    it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+    closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+    to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+    the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+    the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+    fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+    towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+    Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+    grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+    Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+    of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+    order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+    Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+    that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+    building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+    source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+    therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+    them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+    done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+    by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+    that, of the four sides of the square, three have totally disappeared,
+    except for slight indications in the uneven grass.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings
+    spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+    ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+    fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+    The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+    other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+    sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+    sculpture, 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.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a
+    fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+    of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+    kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+    two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+    chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+    his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+    probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+    conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+    lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+    Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+    reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+    complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+    and later.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+    were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+    bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+    altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel&mdash;in fact, every
+    one's bed, tools, and clothing&mdash;were removed in seventeen carts each
+    time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+    one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'ITEM.&mdash;Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+    Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+    Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+    Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+    ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+    Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+    for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+    Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+    Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+    Cariages allowid theime.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+    the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+    at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+    tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+    length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+    that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+    the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+    great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+    striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+    arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+    or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+    transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+    allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+    the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+    repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+    the period when the church was a collegiate foundation of Durham.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH24"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three
+    separate places&mdash;Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+    pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+    suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+    attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+    slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+    the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+    although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+    extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+    two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+    three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+    identified with the <i>Delgovitia</i> of the Antonine Itinerary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+    here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+    you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+    the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+    the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+    middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+    Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+    sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+    sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+    church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+    two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+    two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+    abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+    country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+    the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+    The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+    can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+    Wolds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+    park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+    side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+    are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+    into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+    distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+    of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+    of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+    In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+    sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+    Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+    the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+    Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+    nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+    that 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, a
+    fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+    metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+    noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+    that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+    places before, but never a sublime one.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+    description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+    include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+    Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+    Caracci.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+    deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+    whose 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 a
+    stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+    partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+    fashion the detail of its outward face.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+    a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+    event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+    Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+    fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+    stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+    his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+    said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+    them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+    tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+    of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+    that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+    walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+    survive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+    is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+    to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+    King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+    brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+    right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+    armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+    appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+    a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+    the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+    the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+    there Freeman has no doubt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+    the Roman <i>Derventio</i>, it was natural that some village should
+    have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+    Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+    we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+    trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+    a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+    space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+    is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+    approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+    that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+    saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+    also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+    magnificent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+    the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+    appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+    no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+    which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+    York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+    intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+    towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+    former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+    Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+    de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+    Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+    Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+    was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+    these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+    eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+    also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+    when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+    the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+    Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+    until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+    throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+    and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+    for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+    together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+    simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+    play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+    butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+    Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+    Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+    Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+    execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+    years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+    hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+    the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+    said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+    Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+    curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+    historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198&mdash;probably the year of
+    his death&mdash;was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+    life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+    of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+    was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+    family was <i>Bonne et belle assez</i>. One of his descendants was
+    created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+    1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+    owner&mdash;Sir George Wombwell, Bart.&mdash;inherited the property from his
+    grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+    was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+    the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+    what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+    Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+    still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+    crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+    George wore at Balaclava.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+    Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+    Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+    This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+    vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+    metal plate is written:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed,
+    by his daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, when
+    his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+    been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+    clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+    remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+    Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661&mdash;the
+    twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I&mdash;and the head was
+    placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+    history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+    Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+    have 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 often
+    been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+    Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+    conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+    one of the Belasyses.
+</p>
+<a name="image-30"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="30.jpg" height="530" width="805"
+alt="Coxwold Village 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+    so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+    still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+    village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+    each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+    twisted branches&mdash;whether oak or elm, I cannot remember&mdash;stands at the
+    top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+    village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+    little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+    ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+    Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+    cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+    tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+    Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+    received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+    1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+    him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+    drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+    carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+    in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+    communion-rail has been resorted to&mdash;that of bringing forward from the
+    centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+    Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+    years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+    the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+    opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+    of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+    of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+    right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+    associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+    of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+    spirits 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 he
+    drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+    his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+    went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+    'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"&mdash;at
+    which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+    it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+    north 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 turret
+    pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+    circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+    Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+    be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+    everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+    place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+    monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+    after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+    Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+    pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+    all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+    how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+    Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+    received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+    position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+    too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+    obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+    Stocking, where they remained until they came to Byland.
+</p>
+<a name="image-31"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="31.jpg" height="808" width="577"
+alt="The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Recent excavation and preservation operations carried out by H.M.
+    Office of Works have added many lost features to the ruins including
+    the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+    buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+    through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+    roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+    hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+    distant moors in the north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+    Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+    beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+    walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+    filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+    Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+    families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+    the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+    brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+    the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+    foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+    have seen elsewhere.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH25"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXIV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+</center>
+<p>
+    Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+    practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+    earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+    have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+    the 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 has
+    contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+    town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+    fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+    become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+    unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+    furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+    are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+    wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+    enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+    within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+    to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+    with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+    Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+    the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+    and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+    the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+    colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+    atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+    extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+    of every view would gradually disappear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+    the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+    embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+    Roman walling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+    each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+    York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+    streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+    know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+    reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+    flight 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. The
+    battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+    bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+    the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+    the stately towers of the Minster.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+    to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+    open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+    were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+    fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+    admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+    age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+    reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+    bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+    are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+    In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+    York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+    portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+    Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+    above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+    after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+    long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+    pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+    architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+    blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+    and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+    antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+    eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+    house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+    artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+    Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+    the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+    still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+    from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+    tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+    merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+    not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+    were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+    themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+    afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+    outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+    picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+    fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+    battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+    The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+    Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+    inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+    timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+    was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+    was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+    capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+    terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+    suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+    only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+    St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+    Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+    who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+    the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+    had paid a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we
+    come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+    Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+    fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+    survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+    the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+    interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+    illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+    York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+    All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+    butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+    the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+    has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+    passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+    either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+    between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+    too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+    oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+    rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+    of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+    an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+    that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+    York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+    in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+    disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+    to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+    the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+    charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+    hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+    Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+    only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+    Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+    you 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 its
+    two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+    beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+    most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+    space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+    are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+    rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+    1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+    destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+    out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+    early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+    armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+    northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+    feared in the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<a name="image-32"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="32.jpg" height="639" width="800"
+alt="Bootham Bar, York 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+    trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+    where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+    stately fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+    of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+    citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+    three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+    Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+    resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+    beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+    site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+    itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+    when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+    particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+    their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+    enter the praetorium at Jerusalem when Christ was made prisoner,
+    because it was the Feast of the Passover.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the river
+    from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+    to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+    turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+    therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+    side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+    excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+    history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+    Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+    to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+    Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+    aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+    greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+    of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+    windows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+    signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+    Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+    St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+    Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+    there were space.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+    door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+    reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+    lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+    things.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+    Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+    by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+    the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+    1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+    in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+    to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+    later.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH26"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+</center>
+<p>
+    It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+    Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+    actually happened not many years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+    seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+    Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+    entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+    they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+    of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+    the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+    York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+    was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+    the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+    telegraphed:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+    now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+    the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+    streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+    of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+    fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+    considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+    burned through.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+    above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+    destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+    in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+    had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+    reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+    where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+    calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+    condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+    new 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 south
+    side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+    diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+    Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+    Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+    early Norman to Early English.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+    slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+    fashion:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    A stone on the floor of the retro-choir to John Johnson, master and
+    mariner, dated 1737, is crowded with nautical metaphor.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The great Perpendicular east window was considered by Pugin to be one
+    of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+    being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+    the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+    considerable portion of it is original.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+    greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+    the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+    of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+    1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+    north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+    of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+    Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+    nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+    its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+    hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+    eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+    structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+    Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+    Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+    just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+    towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+    scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+    the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+    time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+    and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+    historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+    steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+    the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+    the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+    ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+    cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+    stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+    melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+    constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+    case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+    cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+    embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+    on 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 the
+    style of Henry VIII's reign.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+    Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+    castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+    great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+    its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+    the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+    to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+    replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+    the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+    hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+    the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+    Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+    name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+    Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+    become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+    Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+    to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+    and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+    of the castle yard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+    issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+    Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+    Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+    Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+    Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+    Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+    Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+    at 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 his
+    determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+    Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+    Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+    and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+    Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+    Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+    castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+    rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+    league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+    condemned 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 outside
+    the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+    the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+    King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+    Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+    in the lines:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while
+    Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+    the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+    century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+    after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+    Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+    most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+    Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+    and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+    three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+    lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+    besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+    castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+    unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+    garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+    realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+    and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+    recent times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+    the 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. The
+    dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+    matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+    seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+    for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+    languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+    those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+    of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+</p>
+<a name="image-33"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="33.jpg" height="579" width="817"
+alt="Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+    twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+    completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+    Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+    the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+    is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+    refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+    situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+    the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+    countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+    interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+    standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+    neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+    hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+    Haworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away in
+    that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+    the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+    her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+    Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+    destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+    are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+    were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+    still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+    invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+    valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+    it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+    possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+    Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began,
+    owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+    called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+    patrons.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+    dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+    dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked,
+    as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+    unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+    have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+    been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+    south, it is conceivable that the Brontės would have enjoyed better
+    health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+    a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+    father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+    of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+    than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+    little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+    joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+    first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+    his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+    even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+    cheerfulness and hope.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when the
+    eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+    been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+    children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+    walks, the five little girls with their one brother&mdash;all of them under
+    seven years&mdash;directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+    home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+    practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+    that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+    over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+    travelled back over the intervening years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the Calder
+    Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+    Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+    reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+    ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+    works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+    crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+    brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+    reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+    during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+    every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+    scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
+
+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9973]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey and PG Distributed
+Proofreaders.
+
+
+
+
+YORKSHIRE
+
+PAINTED AND DESCRIBED BY
+
+GORDON HOME
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+CHAPTER I
+ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER II
+ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER III
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+
+CHAPTER IV
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER V
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+CHAPTER VI
+WHITBY
+
+CHAPTER VII
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+
+CHAPTER IX
+FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER X
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+CHAPTER XI
+RICHMOND
+
+CHAPTER XII
+SWALEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+WENSLEYDALE
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+
+CHAPTER XV
+KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+WHARFEDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+CHAPTER XX
+FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+BEVERLEY
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+ALONG THE HUMBER
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+THE 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 the
+gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+Pickering.
+
+The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+the gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+country 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, we
+come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+cottages 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 up
+against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+a 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-cloth
+gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+make this a subject of great fascination.
+
+Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+
+In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+known south of the Cheviots.
+
+Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+
+The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+extinct.
+
+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 heather
+in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+station 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 a
+spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+streams.
+
+Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+although every feature is plainly visible--the church, the abbey, the
+two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new--the detail is all
+lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+
+Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+
+The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+
+A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+with 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 it
+was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+show 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 were
+blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+supported the statement that it was haunted.
+
+I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+
+The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+horizon.
+
+Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+opened.
+
+We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+
+The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+Wheeldale 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 is
+about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+for 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 of
+stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+overhanging 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 on
+the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+bridge 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 the
+foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+
+Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+to go down too far to recover.
+
+The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+make 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 name
+Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+known afterwards as East Row.
+
+[Footnote 1: Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.--G.H.]
+
+Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+either hand--for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+foliage--are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+newly-fallen rocks.
+
+We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+devoid of any interest.
+
+The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+
+The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+path joins the shore.
+
+This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+side 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 the
+hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from whooping-
+cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would call 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 the
+complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+destitution 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 wooden
+foot-bridge--the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few--a very
+few--are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf--a wooden structure facing
+the sea--hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+
+The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+in 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 to
+strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+target for stones.
+
+No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+round the flames.
+
+In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+couples and widows and orphans.
+
+The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+the 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 masses
+of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+
+The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+
+It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535--for the event is most carefully
+recorded in a manuscript of the period--that some fishermen of
+Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+date, report confidently that ... a _sea-man_ was taken by the
+fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+
+The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+
+The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+all 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 ocean
+was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+with men's carcases.'
+
+In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+features, 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 broad
+county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+the first stages.
+
+As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+farm, 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. The
+footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+low 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 the
+stone walls dividing the pastures--a silent testimony to the power of
+the north-east wind.
+
+After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+swallowed you up.
+
+Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+one.
+
+The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+Ravenscar.
+
+Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+
+Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+
+There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+hotel.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SCARBOROUGH
+
+
+Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+times.
+
+The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+
+From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+bay.
+
+I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+and Epsom.
+
+The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+Robin Hood's Bay.
+
+We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+commercial attempts to amuse.
+
+This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+
+On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+informed 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 caned
+him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+quickly as it had risen.
+
+The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+Mayor, 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 as
+could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+at all.
+
+If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+the sieges of the castle. The maimed church--for the chancel has never
+been rebuilt--is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+
+The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+her 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 but
+of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+
+On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+
+To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+
+Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+
+The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+
+At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh was
+forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+the Governor unless he capitulated.
+
+Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+down their arms.
+
+Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+
+This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+Scarborough.
+
+Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+German 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 town
+which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+
+In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+fretted one the abbey.
+
+But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+are subdued in the haze.
+
+In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+
+In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+waves, 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 is
+out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+
+Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+
+The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+abbey 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 an
+opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+of Cleveland--the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+Lionel Charlton.
+
+Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+
+Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year--probably 713--a complete
+silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to £3,500 at the present
+time.
+
+After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+merely a priory.
+
+The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+
+The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+through 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, who
+entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+that 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 of
+Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+appurtenances 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 a
+name 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 we
+owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+by my own hand.'
+
+In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+
+'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+dinner, 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 to
+receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+next generation may have more public spirit.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+
+
+On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+easily-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 every
+point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+ridge of total desolation--a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+of the dales.
+
+Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+valiant men.
+
+On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+
+The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+believe that the story is untrue.
+
+I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+who 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 attached
+to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+above. 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 fiercely
+that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+a 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 clouds
+parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+
+The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+Kildale 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 of
+the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+without 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 is
+standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+woods and pastures.
+
+The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+
+The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+Early Decorated style.
+
+One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+
+The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+inevitable in a mining country.
+
+Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+was shortly sailing for England.
+
+When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+over 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 the
+beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+castle 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 their
+many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+horizon 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 vale
+stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+
+Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+Herod's feast, with the King labelled _Herodi_. The guests are
+shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+all 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 of
+Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+from the life of our Lord.
+
+The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+surcoat.
+
+When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+
+Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+published in 1806.
+
+The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+salary of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+supply of fish--in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+strange anomaly.
+
+The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+
+The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+
+Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+under 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 already
+referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+Confessor.
+
+A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+
+A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+destroyed.
+
+All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+abbey ruins.
+
+The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+grass-grown débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+cathedral.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+
+
+When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+the Moon which have a name so similar.
+
+This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+Dales.'
+
+It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+over 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 to
+attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+water-falls pour over the wall of limestone--as at Hardraw Scar, near
+Hawes--the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+overhanging above.
+
+Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+Wensleydale--or, indeed, most of the dales--without seeing any heather
+at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+
+In the upper portions of the dales--even in the narrow riverside
+pastures--the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+
+Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+
+The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+RICHMOND
+
+
+For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+
+The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+feudal times.
+
+From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+centuries unharmed.
+
+We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+conversation and loitering.
+
+On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+
+All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+
+From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+of water beyond the bridge.
+
+The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+cover the heights above the river.
+
+There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+
+On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+description of the town with the words '_Richemont_ Towne is
+waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+posterns--one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+adjoining--are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+with 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 curious
+compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+(!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+
+Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+stood 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 were
+fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+
+But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+
+Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+of 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 from
+Rokeby, 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 hold
+her, 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 saw
+with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+Watling 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 the
+next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+only just overcame the grisly sow.
+
+If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+
+On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+fifth 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 the
+soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+second, with a good camera in our hands?
+
+In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+regular guarding of the castle.
+
+There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+be seen.
+
+Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+fell to this Breton.
+
+The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+Rice-munt--the hill of rule--is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+not 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 as
+other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+
+It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+Edward III.--a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife--then scarcely
+fourteen years old--gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+throne 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 his
+splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+
+Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+visitations 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 go
+towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+effigy, bearing the arms--azure, a bend or--of his house. Near by lay
+Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+
+The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+granary is even now in use.
+
+On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+SWALEDALE
+
+
+There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+
+The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+land 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 trackless
+mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+where 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 civilized
+mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+the scenery.
+
+From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+land where chimneys have never been.
+
+Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+before 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 almost
+miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+worse than a broken leg.
+
+It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+its 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 of
+the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+older.
+
+The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+beauty spots of the country.
+
+As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+Scottish feeling--perhaps Alpine would be more correct--in the
+steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+
+Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+is 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 to
+the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+possesses.
+
+A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+centre 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 bold
+scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+
+Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+
+In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+
+Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+by old screens.
+
+Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+
+When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+seldom 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 those
+who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+often in jeopardy.
+
+Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+
+The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+Hutchinson, 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 claim
+to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+restricted to one side of the way.
+
+Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+of 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 the
+finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+through 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 in
+this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+
+If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+any 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 a
+mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+the 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 that
+darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+drawn 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 way
+slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+keeping in the middle of the road.
+
+What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+
+Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+these 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 only
+straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+
+Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+the 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 pass
+through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+twelve 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 walk
+on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+from the surface of the pool.
+
+John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '_Uredale_ veri
+litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+
+The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+
+When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+
+Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+dullest potato-field thrilling.
+
+A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+
+We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+in many cascades along one side of the green.
+
+There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+
+A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+
+Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+at that time.
+
+On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+
+We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+interesting 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 Norman
+pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+brought 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 I
+think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a group
+of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the market-
+cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen driving
+some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+
+From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+enters Swaledale.
+
+There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+high place among their rivals in the dale.
+
+Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+the existing house.
+
+The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+terrace.
+
+Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+considerable 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 is
+beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+
+The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+
+When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+
+On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+would 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 took
+to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+
+Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from _Wodenslag_,
+and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+
+In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+the heralds in 1665.
+
+A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+
+It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+fortress. 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 with
+Anne Neville.
+
+We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+
+As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+pictures 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 Cistercian
+abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+since 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 of
+the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+seventy 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 it
+supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+plainly 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 houses
+to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+of 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 is
+the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+
+The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+
+In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+times.
+
+At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+
+Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+with 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 the
+point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+of later buildings down by the river margin.
+
+When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+
+Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+
+When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle--poor and of small account
+if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+the castle yard.
+
+The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+(sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+
+The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+
+There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+the scenes we have left behind.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+WHARFEDALE
+
+
+Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+Fells on the west.
+
+Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+
+Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+view.
+
+About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+Early 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 the
+Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+resting on carved corbels.
+
+From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+generally 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 spots
+that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+many can resist.
+
+Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford--the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+Skipton--but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+
+At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+appearance from Skipton.
+
+The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+towards the head of Wharfedale.
+
+Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+the 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 down
+to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+anything that can even be called a path.
+
+When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+and 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 it
+as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+
+The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé, one of the
+Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+Sackville, 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. With
+immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+
+Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+charge, 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 it
+over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+colour, these two letters--viz., A. P., and under them the year
+1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+Elizabeth, 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 a
+skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+time.
+
+The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+she stood upright."
+
+We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+canons of Bolton.
+
+At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+
+Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+
+We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+panelled lower portions.
+
+Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+afternoon. 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 by
+a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+space 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, and
+among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+writers 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 be
+seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+
+At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+itself 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 be
+recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+
+In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+date 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 a
+short lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been
+formed into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village
+no longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to
+share the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great
+many years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and
+placed in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things
+we see on entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks
+standing by the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well
+preserved head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as
+we look at the battlemented tower of the church through the
+stone-roofed lichgate grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old
+church, dedicated, like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been
+written by Mr. Thomas Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old
+building 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 the
+pillars. The tower and the arcades date from about 1400, and the rest
+of 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 said
+that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+seen anywhere in the country.
+
+The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+portion discovered in 1837.
+
+In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+bare rocky scars.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+
+
+On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+and 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 any
+parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+resisted sun and storm for ages.
+
+When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+
+Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+conspicuous.
+
+The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+
+At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+
+Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+at the present day.
+
+There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+
+It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+an implement of less obvious purpose.
+
+To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+prehistoric sites generally--omitting lake dwellings--are most
+invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+double or triple lines of defence.
+
+In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+has never levelled--heaps of earth that have resisted the
+disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+rather than in the subject under discussion.
+
+In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+its 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 too
+hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+towards the hills. We go on wheels--it is unimportant how many, or to
+what they are attached--in order that the long stretches of white road
+may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+along the horizon.
+
+The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+
+Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+
+As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+line.
+
+The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+
+The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+this it is unwise to say.
+
+And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+
+We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+"Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+derived from the Norse word _Thing_, meaning an assembly.
+
+Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+
+The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+
+Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+west end of its priory--one short and plain, and the other tall and
+richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+sister Strickland."
+
+After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+that 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, where
+North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+what seems to be another dragon.
+
+On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+least 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 no
+explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+
+It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+perambulation of the farm.
+
+At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the _man_ at Penuel.
+
+At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+ago.
+
+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 memory
+of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+
+A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+
+The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+the rest of the work.
+
+Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+war.
+
+As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+element of unreality.
+
+Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+capitals.
+
+The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+south.
+
+With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+
+When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+is 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, after
+describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+healthy seaside haunt.
+
+The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+
+The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+below 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 the
+onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+in long white beards.
+
+The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+moment for another great _coup_ arrives.
+
+Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+appearance with a jetty.
+
+From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+watering-places.
+
+Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+
+A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+
+The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+
+We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+
+Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+promontory--that is, for two-thirds of its length--the huge trench is
+purely artificial. No doubt the _vallum_ on the seaward side has
+been worn down very considerably, and the _fosse_ would have been
+deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+
+Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+along the top of the _vallum_ the defenders were in the habit of
+chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+
+And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+danger.
+
+We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+attractiveness of the place.
+
+All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+cliffs nearly two miles away.
+
+Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+deeds: 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 Flodden
+Field 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 his
+family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+
+Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+in his presence[1].
+
+[Footnote 1: 'Flamborough Village and Headland,' Colonel A.H.
+Armytage.]
+
+On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+slopes 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 worth
+seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+
+In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+as they circle just above the waves.
+
+Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+
+In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+briefly:
+
+  '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 seem
+merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+early 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 and
+seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington--a Mr.
+Milne--to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+was 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 to
+have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+a 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 of
+Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+even now there are two towns--the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+sand.
+
+The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+
+In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+
+'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+twenty paces of Her.'
+
+In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+
+The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+
+Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+
+From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+opinion labels them post-Conquest.[1] In the time of the Domesday
+Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+some 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 Holderness
+was 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. gave
+orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+Seigniory of Holderness.
+
+Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+growth of a new town on the shore.
+
+The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+
+It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+Meaux, 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 over
+the _impasse_ and relations became so strained that the only
+method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+Mere.
+
+Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+seizure of which he died.
+
+By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+
+As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+satisfying a fresh appetite.
+
+The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+a cloud of dust.
+
+Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+
+The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+
+At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+more than fifteen feet high.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+BEVERLEY
+
+
+When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+uplifting of the mind--a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+spaces of a cathedral.
+
+Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar--the last
+of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+
+We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+Corporation at that time.
+
+Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+the result beautiful.
+
+In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+
+A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+place of which there is a record:
+
+'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+burnt, 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 of
+March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+likewise, and re-interred.'
+
+This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+years, 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 intercession
+were constantly invoked. The splended shrine provided for his relics in
+1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+and the west end--the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+perfection of form characterizing York.
+
+A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+
+In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+lesser 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 is
+composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+fingers on her head.
+
+In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+of 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 upon
+Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+at 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 Perpendicular
+church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+
+In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+seen 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 times
+there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+for 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 of
+the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+of the fourteenth century.
+
+Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+shipping, 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 soon
+demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+that 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 by
+Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+
+In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+
+Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+the lifeboat and other purposes.
+
+The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+
+In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+
+The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+have been discovered.
+
+There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+mentioned 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 small
+consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man--the earliest
+recorded Peggotty--converted it into a house, and even made it a
+tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+Ravenserodd, 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 to
+a 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 out
+to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+would 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 an
+action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+
+The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+and 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 concerning
+the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+
+'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+of 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 left
+that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+
+The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+
+When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+incident 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 a
+winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+meadows.
+
+We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+the 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 being
+represented by crocketed pinnacles--the terminals of the supporting
+pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+the clustered columns.
+
+In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+Annunciation, 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 a
+lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+
+Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+all the Holderness towns.
+
+On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+we may see the memorials of a fine old family--the Hildyards of
+Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+
+The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+
+The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+colours we saw at Patrington.
+
+In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+its 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 the
+Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+practically all.
+
+When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+the winding streets--the windmills, the churches and monasteries--we
+understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+and 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 little
+town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+brick--no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+
+William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+the city.
+
+In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+lost 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 better
+described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+disappearing.
+
+About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+
+The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+
+Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+that, 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 buildings
+spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+sculpture, 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 a
+fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+and later.
+
+From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel--in fact, every
+one's bed, tools, and clothing--were removed in seventeen carts each
+time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+
+'ITEM.--Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+Cariages allowid theime.'
+
+We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+the 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 three
+separate places--Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+
+On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+identified with the _Delgovitia_ of the Antonine Itinerary.
+
+Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+
+Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+Wolds.
+
+There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+that 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, a
+fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+places before, but never a sublime one.'
+
+The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+Caracci.
+
+Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+whose 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 a
+stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+fashion the detail of its outward face.
+
+The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+
+One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+
+Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+survive.
+
+Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+there Freeman has no doubt.
+
+Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+the Roman _Derventio_, it was natural that some village should
+have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+
+An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+magnificent.
+
+We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+York.
+
+In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+
+Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198--probably the year of
+his death--was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+family was _Bonne et belle assez_. One of his descendants was
+created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+owner--Sir George Wombwell, Bart.--inherited the property from his
+grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+
+The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+George wore at Balaclava.
+
+The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+metal 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, when
+his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+
+The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661--the
+twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I--and the head was
+placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+have 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 often
+been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+one of the Belasyses.
+
+Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+twisted branches--whether oak or elm, I cannot remember--stands at the
+top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+
+The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+communion-rail has been resorted to--that of bringing forward from the
+centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+
+During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+spirits 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 he
+drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"--at
+which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+it.'
+
+The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+north 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 turret
+pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+Stocking, 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 including
+the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+distant moors in the north.
+
+In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+have seen elsewhere.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+
+
+Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+the 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 has
+contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+
+There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+of every view would gradually disappear.
+
+Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+Roman walling.
+
+The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+flight 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. The
+battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+the stately towers of the Minster.
+
+On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+
+The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+
+On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+had 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 we
+come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+
+The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+you 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 its
+two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+feared in the Middle Ages.
+
+Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+stately fashion.
+
+When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+enter 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 river
+from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+
+The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+windows.
+
+St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+there were space.
+
+We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+things.
+
+Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+later.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+
+
+It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+actually happened not many years ago.
+
+It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+telegraphed:
+
+'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+burned through.
+
+'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+
+When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+condition.
+
+Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+new 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 south
+side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+early Norman to Early English.
+
+On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+fashion:
+
+  '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 and
+mariner, 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 one
+of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+considerable portion of it is original.
+
+Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+
+Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+
+The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+on 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 the
+style of Henry VIII's reign.
+
+Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+
+The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+of the castle yard.
+
+The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+at 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 his
+determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+condemned 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 outside
+the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+
+In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+in 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, while
+Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+
+During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+recent times.
+
+In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+the 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. The
+dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+
+Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+
+The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+Haworth.
+
+More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away in
+that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began,
+owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+patrons.
+
+The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked,
+as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+south, it is conceivable that the Brontės would have enjoyed better
+health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+
+'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+cheerfulness and hope.'
+
+Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when the
+eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+walks, the five little girls with their one brother--all of them under
+seven years--directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+travelled back over the intervening years.
+
+The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the Calder
+Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
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@@ -0,0 +1,7410 @@
+<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
+<html>
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type"
+    content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of
+    Painted and Described,
+    by Gordon Home.
+</title>
+<style type="text/css">
+    <!--
+		body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%}
+    * { font-family:   Times;
+      }
+    P { text-indent:   1em;
+        margin-top:    .75em;
+        font-size:     14pt;
+        text-align:    justify;
+        margin-bottom: .75em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; color:#A82C28}
+    HR  { width: 33%; }
+    PRE { font-family: Times; font-size: 14pt;}
+    .toc  { margin-left: 15%; font-size: 14pt; margin-bottom: 0em;}
+    CENTER { padding: 10px;}
+    // -->
+</style>
+</head>
+<body>
+
+<h1><a href="#start">YORKSHIRE</a></h1>
+ <h2>by<br>
+  Gordon Home</h2>
+<pre>
+
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
+copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing
+this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
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+**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Yorkshire
+
+Author: Gordon Home
+
+Release Date: February, 2006 [EBook #9973]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on November 5, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK YORKSHIRE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger, Ted Garvin, Michael Lockey
+and PG Distributed Proofreaders.
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+<a name="start"></a>
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="title2 (260K)" src="title2.jpg" height="1163" width="765" />
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<center>
+    <h1>YORKSHIRE</h1>
+</center>
+<h2>
+    PAINTED AND DESCRIBED
+</h2>
+<center>
+   <h3> BY</h3>
+</center>
+<center><h2>
+    GORDON HOME
+</h2></center>
+<a name="image-1"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="01.jpg" height="842" width="579"
+alt="York from the Central Tower of The Minster 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<img alt="title (74K)" src="title.jpg" height="879" width="631" />
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+<hr>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH2">
+CHAPTER I
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH3">
+CHAPTER II
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH4">
+CHAPTER III
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH5">
+CHAPTER IV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH6">
+CHAPTER V
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH7">
+CHAPTER VI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH8">
+CHAPTER VII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH9">
+CHAPTER VIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH10">
+CHAPTER IX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH11">
+CHAPTER X
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH12">
+CHAPTER XI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH13">
+CHAPTER XII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH14">
+CHAPTER XIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH15">
+CHAPTER XIV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH16">
+CHAPTER XV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH17">
+CHAPTER XVI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH18">
+CHAPTER XVII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH19">
+CHAPTER XVIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH20">
+CHAPTER XIX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH21">
+CHAPTER XX
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH22">
+CHAPTER XXI
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH23">
+CHAPTER XXII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH24">
+CHAPTER XXIII
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH25">
+CHAPTER XXIV
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#2HCH26">
+CHAPTER XXV
+</a></p>
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<hr>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+
+
+
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-1">
+York from the Central Tower of The Minster 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-3">
+Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-5">
+Runswick Bay 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-6">
+Robin Hood's Bay 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-7">
+Sunrise from Staithes Beck 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-8">
+The Red Roofs of Whitby 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-9">
+Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-10">
+An Autumn Day at Guisborough 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-11">
+The Skelton Valley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-12">
+In Pickering Church 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-13">
+The Market-place, Helmsley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-14">
+Richmond Castle from the River 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-15">
+A Rugged View Above Wensleydale 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-16">
+A Jacobean House at Askrigg 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-17">
+Aysgarth Force 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-18">
+View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-19">
+Ripon Minster from the South 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-20">
+Fountains Abbey 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-21">
+Knaresborough 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-22">
+Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-23">
+Settle 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-24">
+Wolds 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-25">
+Filey Brig 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-26">
+The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-27">
+Hornsea Mere 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-28">
+The Market-place, Beverley 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-29">
+Patrington Church 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-30">
+Coxwold Village 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-31">
+The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-32">
+Bootham Bar, York 
+</a></p>
+<p class="toc"><a href="#image-33">
+Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds 
+</a></p>
+
+
+
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+
+<br /><br /><br />
+<hr>
+<br /><br /><br />
+
+
+<h1>
+YORKSHIRE
+</h1>
+<a name="2HCH2"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+
+
+<br><br>
+<center>
+<a href="34.jpg"><img alt="34th (79K)" src="34th.jpg" height="505" width="641" /></a>
+
+<br>Click on the Map for an enlargement.
+
+</center>
+<br><br>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>
+CHAPTER I
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ACROSS THE MOORS FROM PICKERING TO WHITBY
+</center>
+<p>
+    The ancient stone-built town of Pickering is to a great extent the
+    gateway to the moors of North-eastern Yorkshire, for it stands at the
+    foot of that formerly inaccessible gorge known as Newton Dale, and is
+    the meeting-place of the four great roads running north, south, east,
+    and west, as well as of railways going in the same directions. And this
+    view of the little town is by no means original, for the strategic
+    importance of the position was recognised at least as long ago as the
+    days of the early Edwards, when the castle was built to command the
+    approach to Newton Dale and to be a menace to the whole of the Vale of
+    Pickering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old-time traveller from York to Whitby saw practically nothing of
+    Newton Dale, for the great coach-road bore him towards the east, and
+    then, on climbing the steep hill up to Lockton Low Moor, he went almost
+    due north as far as Sleights. But to-day everyone passes right through
+    the gloomy cańon, for the railway now follows the windings of Pickering
+    Beck, and nursemaids and children on their way to the seaside may gaze
+    at the frowning cliffs which seventy years ago were only known to
+    travellers and a few shepherds. But although this great change has been
+    brought about by railway enterprise, the gorge is still uninhabited,
+    and has lost little of its grandeur; for when the puny train, with its
+    accompanying white cloud, has disappeared round one of the great
+    bluffs, there is nothing left but the two pairs of shining rails, laid
+    for long distances almost on the floor of the ravine. But though there
+    are steep gradients to be climbed, and the engine labours heavily,
+    there is scarcely sufficient time to get any idea of the astonishing
+    scenery from the windows of the train, and you can see nothing of the
+    huge expanses of moorland stretching away from the precipices on either
+    side. So that we, who would learn something of this region, must make
+    the journey on foot; for a bicycle would be an encumbrance when
+    crossing the heather, and there are many places where a horse would be
+    a source of danger. The sides of the valley are closely wooded for the
+    first seven or eight miles north of Pickering, but the surrounding
+    country gradually loses its cultivation, at first gorse and bracken,
+    and then heather, taking the place of the green pastures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the village of Newton, perched on high ground far above the dale, we
+    come to the limit of civilization. The sun is nearly setting. The
+    cottages 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 up
+    against the golden sunset, and the long perspective of white road, the
+    geese, and some whitewashed gables, stand out from the deepening tones
+    of the grass and trees. A footpath by the inn leads through some dewy
+    meadows to the woods, above Levisham Station in the valley below. At
+    first there are glimpses of the lofty moors on the opposite side of the
+    dale where the sides of the bluffs are still glowing in the sunset
+    light; but soon the pathway plunges steeply into a close wood, where
+    the foxes are barking, and where the intense darkness is only
+    emphasized by the momentary illumination given by lightning, which now
+    and then flickers in the direction of Lockton Moor. At last the
+    friendly little oil-lamps on the platform at Levisham Station appear
+    just below, and soon the railway is crossed and we are mounting the
+    steep road on the opposite side of the valley. What is left of the
+    waning light shows the rough track over the heather to High Horcum. The
+    huge shoulders of the moors are now majestically indistinct, and
+    towards the west the browns, purples, and greens are all merged in one
+    unfathomable blackness. The tremendous silence and the desolation
+    become almost oppressive, but overhead the familiar arrangement of the
+    constellations gives a sense of companionship not to be slighted. In
+    something less than an hour a light glows in the distance, and,
+    although the darkness is now complete, there is no further need to
+    trouble ourselves with the thought of spending the night on the
+    heather. The point of light develops into a lighted window, and we are
+    soon stamping our feet on the hard, smooth road in front of the
+    Saltersgate Inn. The door opens straight into a large stone-flagged
+    room. Everything is redolent of coaching days, for the cheery glow of
+    the fire shows a spotlessly clean floor, old high-backed settles, a gun
+    hooked to one of the beams overhead, quaint chairs, and oak stools, and
+    a 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-cloth
+    gaiters and heavy boots as we begin to talk of the loneliness and the
+    dangers of the moors, and of the snow-storms in winter, that almost
+    bury the low cottages and blot out all but the boldest landmarks. Soon
+    we are discussing the superstitions which still survive among the
+    simple country-folk, and the dark and lonely wilds we have just left
+    make this a subject of great fascination.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although we have heard it before, we hear over again with intense
+    interest the story of the witch who brought constant ill-luck to a
+    family in these parts. Their pigs were never free from some form of
+    illness, their cows died, their horses lamed themselves, and even the
+    milk was so far under the spell that on churning-days the butter
+    refused to come unless helped by a crooked sixpence. One day, when as
+    usual they had been churning in vain, instead of resorting to the
+    sixpence, the farmer secreted himself in an outbuilding, and, gun in
+    hand, watched the garden from a small opening. As it was growing dusk
+    he saw a hare coming cautiously through the hedge. He fired instantly,
+    the hare rolled over, dead, and almost as quickly the butter came. That
+    same night they heard that the old woman, whom they had long suspected
+    of bewitching them, had suddenly died at the same time as the hare, and
+    henceforward the farmer and his family prospered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the light of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than
+    at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the
+    opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking
+    cottages, but everywhere else the world is purple and brown with ling
+    and heather. The morning sun has just climbed high enough to send a
+    flood of light down the steep hill at the back of the barns, and we can
+    hear the hum of the bees in the heather. In the direction of Levisham
+    is Gallows Dyke, the great purple bluff we passed in the darkness, and
+    a few yards off the road makes a sharp double bend to get up
+    Saltersgate Brow, the hill that overlooks the enormous circular bowl of
+    Horcum Hole, where Levisham Beck rises. The farmer whose buildings can
+    be seen down below contrives to paint the bottom of the bowl a bright
+    green, but the ling comes hungrily down on all sides, with evident
+    longings to absorb the scanty cultivation. The Dwarf Cornel a little
+    mountain-plant which flowers in July, is found in this 'hole.' A few
+    patches have been discovered in the locality, but elsewhere it is not
+    known south of the Cheviots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Away to the north the road crosses the desolate country like a
+    pale-green ribbon. It passes over Lockton High Moor, climbs to 700 feet
+    at Tom Cross Rigg and then disappears into the valley of Eller Beck, on
+    Goathland Moor, coming into view again as it climbs steadily up to
+    Sleights Moor, nearly 1,000 feet above the sea. An enormous stretch of
+    moorland spreads itself out towards the west. Near at hand is the
+    precipitous gorge of Upper Newton Dale, backed by Pickering Moor, and
+    beyond are the heights of Northdale Rigg and Rosedale Common, with the
+    blue outlines of Ralph Cross and Danby Head right on the horizon.
+</p>
+<a name="image-3"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="03.jpg" height="563" width="796"
+alt="Sleights Moor from Swart Houe Cross 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The smooth, well-built road, with short grass filling the crevices
+    between the stones, urges us to follow its straight course northwards;
+    but the sternest and most remarkable portion of Upper Newton Dale lies
+    to the left, across the deep heather, and we are tempted aside to reach
+    the lip of the sinuous gorge nearly a mile away to the west, where the
+    railway runs along the marshy and boulder-strewn bottom of a natural
+    cutting 500 feet deep. The cliffs drop down quite perpendicularly for
+    200 feet, and the remaining distance to the bed of the stream is a
+    rough slope, quite bare in places, and in others densely grown over
+    with trees; but on every side the fortress-like scarps are as stern and
+    bare as any that face the ocean. Looking north or south the gorge seems
+    completely shut in. There is much the same effect when steaming through
+    the Kyles of Bute, for there the ship seems to be going full speed for
+    the shore of an entirely enclosed sea, and here, saving for the
+    tell-tale railway, there seems no way out of the abyss without scaling
+    the perpendicular walls. The rocks are at their finest at Killingnoble
+    Scar, where they take the form of a semicircle on the west side of the
+    railway. The scar was for a very long period famous for the breed of
+    hawks, which were specially watched by the Goathland men for the use of
+    James I., and the hawks were not displaced from their eyrie even by the
+    incursion of the railway into the glen, and only recently became
+    extinct.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 heather
+    in the form of an ancient-looking but quite modern church, with a low
+    central tower, and a little hotel, stone-built and fitting well into
+    its surroundings. The rest of the village is scattered round a large
+    triangular green, and extends down to the railway, where there is a
+    station named after the village.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH3"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER II
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ALONG THE ESK VALLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    To see the valley of the Esk in its richest garb, one must wait for a
+    spell of fine autumn weather, when a prolonged ramble can be made along
+    the riverside and up on the moorland heights above. For the dense
+    woodlands, which are often merely pretty in midsummer, become
+    astonishingly lovely as the foliage draping the steep hill-sides takes
+    on its gorgeous colours, and the gills and becks on the moors send down
+    a plentiful supply of water to fill the dales with the music of rushing
+    streams.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    Climbing up the road towards Larpool, we take a last look at quaint old
+    Whitby, spread out before us almost like those wonderful old prints of
+    English towns they loved to publish in the eighteenth century. But
+    although every feature is plainly visible&mdash;the church, the abbey, the
+    two piers, the harbour, the old town and the new&mdash;the detail is all
+    lost in that soft mellowness of a sunny autumn day. We find an
+    enthusiastic photographer expending plates on this familiar view, which
+    is sold all over the town; but we do not dare to suggest that the
+    prints, however successful, will be painfully hackneyed, and we go on
+    rejoicing that the questions of stops and exposures need not trouble
+    us, for the world is ablaze with colour.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Beyond the great red viaduct, whose central piers are washed by the
+    river far below, the road plunges into the golden shade of the woods
+    near Cock Mill, and then comes out by the river's bank down below, with
+    the little village of Ruswarp on the opposite shore. The railway goes
+    over the Esk just below the dam, and does is very best to spoil every
+    view of the great mill built in 1752 by Mr. Nathaniel Cholmley.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road follows close beside the winding river and all the way to
+    Sleights there are lovely glimpses of the shimmering waters, reflecting
+    the overhanging masses of foliage. The golden yellow of a bush growing
+    at the water's edge will be backed by masses of brown woods that here
+    and there have retained suggestions of green, contrasted with the deep
+    purple tones of their shadowy recesses. These lovely phases of Eskdale
+    scenery are denied to the summer visitor, but there are few who would
+    wish to have the riverside solitudes rudely broken into by the passing
+    of boatloads of holiday-makers. Just before reaching Sleights Bridge we
+    leave the tree-embowered road, and, going through a gate, find a
+    stone-flagged pathway that climbs up the side of the valley with great
+    deliberation, so that we are soon at a great height, with a magnificent
+    sweep of landscape towards the south-west, and the keen air blowing
+    freshly from the great table-land of Egton High Moor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A little higher, and we are on the road in Aislaby village. The steep
+    climb from the river and railway has kept off those modern influences
+    which have made Sleights and Grosmont architecturally depressing, and
+    thus we find a simple village on the edge of the heather, with
+    picturesque stone cottages and pretty gardens, free from companionship
+    with 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.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first time I visited Aislaby I reached the little hamlet when it
+    was nearly dark. Sufficient light, however, remained in the west to
+    show 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 were
+    blown fiercely by the strong gusts of wind. On the other side of the
+    road stood an old grey house, whose appearance that gloomy evening well
+    supported the statement that it was haunted.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I left the village in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the
+    heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe
+    Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A
+    light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my
+    steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps
+    homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and
+    demanded 'fat rascals' and tea. The girl was not surprised at my
+    request, for the hot turf cakes supplied at the inn are known to all
+    the neighbourhood by this unusual name.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The course of the river itself is hidden by the shoulders of Egton Low
+    Moor beneath us, but faint sounds of the shunting of trucks are carried
+    up to the heights. Even when the deep valleys are warmest, and when
+    their atmosphere is most suggestive of a hot-house, these moorland
+    heights rejoice in a keen, dry air, which seems to drive away the
+    slightest sense of fatigue, so easily felt on the lower levels, and to
+    give in its place a vigour that laughs at distance. Up here, too, the
+    whole world seems left to Nature, the levels of cultivation being
+    almost out of sight, and anything under 800 feet seems low. Towards the
+    end of August the heights are capped with purple, although the distant
+    moors, however brilliant they may appear when close at hand, generally
+    assume more delicate shades, fading into greys and blues on the
+    horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Grosmont was the birthplace of the Cleveland Ironworks, and was at one
+    time more famous than Middlesbrough. The first cargo of ironstone was
+    sent from here in 1836, when the Pickering and Whitby Railway was
+    opened.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We will go up the steep road to the top of Sleights Moor. It is a long
+    stiff climb of nearly 900 feet, but the view is one of the very finest
+    in this country, where wide expanses soon become commonplace. We are
+    sufficiently high to look right across Fylingdales Moor to the sea
+    beyond, a soft haze of pearly blue over the hard, rugged outline of the
+    ling. Away towards the north, too, the landscape for many miles is
+    limited only by the same horizon of sea, so that we seem to be looking
+    at a section of a very large-scale contour map of England. Below us on
+    the western side runs the Mirk Esk, draining the heights upon which we
+    stand as well as Egton High Moor and Wheeldale Moor. The confluence
+    with the Esk at Grosmont is lost in a haze of smoke and a confusion of
+    roofs and railway lines; and the course of the larger river in the
+    direction of Glaisdale is also hidden behind the steep slopes of Egton
+    High Moor. Towards the south we gaze over a vast desolation, crossed by
+    the coach-road to York as it rises and falls over the swells of the
+    heather. The queer isolated cone of Blakey Topping and the summit of
+    Gallows Dyke, close to Saltersgate, appear above the distant ridges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The route of the great Roman road from the south to Whitby can also be
+    seen from these heights. It passes straight through Cawthorn Camp, on
+    the ridge to the west of the village of Newton, and then runs along
+    within a few yards of the by-road from Pickering to Egton. It crosses
+    Wheeldale 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 is
+    about 12 feet wide, and is now deep in heather; but it is slightly
+    raised above the general level of the ground, and can therefore be
+    followed fairly easily where it has not been taken up to build walls
+    for enclosures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 of
+    stone cottages, backed by some tall firs. The Eller Beck is crossed by
+    a stone bridge close to its confluence with the Mirk Esk. Above the
+    bridge, a footpath among the huge boulders winds its way by the side of
+    the rushing beck to Thomasin Foss, where the little river falls in two
+    or three broad silver bands into a considerable pool. Great masses of
+    overhanging rock, shaded by a leafy roof, shut in the brimming waters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is not difficult to find the way from Beck Hole to the Roman camp on
+    the hill-side towards Egton Bridge. The Roman road from Cawthorn goes
+    right through it, but beyond this it is not easy to trace, although
+    fragments have been discovered as far as Aislaby, all pointing to
+    Whitby or Sandsend Bay. Round the shoulder of the hill we come down
+    again to the deeply-wooded valley of the Esk. And in time we reach
+    Glaisdale End, where a graceful stone bridge of a single arch stands
+    over the rushing stream. The initials of the builder and the date
+    appear on the eastern side of what is now known as the Beggar's Bridge.
+    It was formerly called Firris Bridge, after the builder, but the
+    popular interest in the story of its origin seems to have killed the
+    old name. If you ask anyone in Whitby to mention some of the sights of
+    the neighbourhood, he will probably head his list with the Beggar's
+    Bridge, but why this is so I cannot imagine. The woods are very
+    beautiful, but this is a country full of the loveliest dales, and the
+    presence of this single-arched bridge does not seem sufficient to have
+    attracted so much popularity. I can only attribute it to the love
+    interest associated with the beggar. He was, we may imagine, the
+    Alderman Thomas Firris who, as a penniless youth, came to bid farewell
+    to his betrothed, who lived somewhere on the opposite side of the
+    river. Finding the stream impassable, he is said to have determined
+    that if he came back from his travels as a rich man he would put up a
+    bridge on the spot he had been prevented from crossing.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH4"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER III
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO REDCAR
+</center>
+<p>
+    Along the three miles of sand running northwards from Whitby at the
+    foot of low alluvial cliffs, I have seen some of the finest
+    sea-pictures on this part of the coast. But although I have seen
+    beautiful effects at all times of the day, those that I remember more
+    than any others are the early mornings, when the sun was still low in
+    the heavens, when, standing on that fine stretch of yellow sand, one
+    seemed to breathe an atmosphere so pure, and to gaze at a sky so
+    transparent, that some of those undefined longings for surroundings
+    that have never been realized were instinctively uppermost in the mind.
+    It is, I imagine, that vague recognition of perfection which has its
+    effect on even superficial minds when impressed with beautiful scenery,
+    for to what other cause can be attributed the remark one hears, that
+    such scenes 'make one feel good'?
+</p>
+<p>
+    Heavy waves, overlapping one another in their fruitless bombardment of
+    the smooth shelving sand, are filling the air with a ceaseless thunder.
+    The sun, shining from a sky of burnished gold, throws into silhouette
+    the twin lighthouses at the entrance to Whitby Harbour, and turns the
+    foaming wave-tops into a dazzling white, accentuated by the long
+    shadows of early day. Away to the north-west is Sandsend Ness, a bold
+    headland full of purple and blue shadows, and straight out to sea,
+    across the white-capped waves, are two tramp steamers, making, no
+    doubt, for South Shields or some port where a cargo of coal can be
+    picked up. They are plunging heavily, and every moment their bows seem
+    to go down too far to recover.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The two little becks finding their outlet at East Row and Sandsend are
+    lovely to-day; but their beauty must have been much more apparent
+    before the North-Eastern Railway put their black lattice girder bridges
+    across the mouth of each valley. But now that familiarity with these
+    bridges, which are of the same pattern across every wooded ravine up
+    the coast-line to Redcar, has blunted my impressions, I can think of
+    the picturesqueness of East Row without remembering the railway. It was
+    in this glen, where Lord Normanby's lovely woods make a background for
+    the pretty tiled cottages, the mill, and the old stone bridge, which
+    make up East Row,<a href="#note-1"><small><sup>1</sup></small></a> 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 name
+    Thordisa, a name it retained down to 1620, when the requirements of
+    workmen from the newly-started alum-works at Sandsend led to building
+    operations by the side of the stream. The cottages which arose became
+    known afterwards as East Row.
+</p>
+<a name="note-1"><!--Note--></a>
+<p class="foot">
+<sup><u>1</u></sup>    [ Since this was written one or two new houses have been
+    allowed to mar the simplicity of the valley.&mdash;G.H.]
+</p>
+<p>
+    Go where you will in Yorkshire, you will find no more fascinating
+    woodland scenery than that of the gorges of Mulgrave. From the broken
+    walls and towers of the old Norman castle the views over the ravines on
+    either hand&mdash;for the castle stands on a lofty promontory in a sea of
+    foliage&mdash;are entrancing; and after seeing the astoundingly brilliant
+    colours with which autumn paints these trees, there is a tendency to
+    find the ordinary woodland commonplace. The narrowest and deepest gorge
+    is hundreds of feet deep in the shale. East Row Beck drops into this
+    canon in the form of a water-fall at the upper end, and then almost
+    disappears among the enormous rocks strewn along its circumscribed
+    course. The humid, hot-house atmosphere down here encourages the growth
+    of many of the rarer mosses, which entirely cover all but the
+    newly-fallen rocks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can leave the woods by a path leading near Lord Normanby's modern
+    castle, and come out on to the road close to Lythe Church, where a
+    great view of sea and land is spread out towards the south. The long
+    curving line of white marks the limits of the tide as far as the
+    entrance to Whitby Harbour. The abbey stands out in its loneliness as
+    of yore, and beyond it are the black-looking, precipitous cliffs ending
+    at Saltwick Nab. Lythe Church, standing in its wind-swept graveyard
+    full of blackened tombstones, need not keep us, for, although its
+    much-modernized exterior is simple and ancient-looking, the interior is
+    devoid of any interest.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The walk along the rocky shore to Kettleness is dangerous unless the
+    tide is carefully watched, and the road inland through Lythe village is
+    not particularly interesting, so that one is tempted to use the
+    railway, which cuts right through the intervening high ground by means
+    of two tunnels. The first one is a mile long, and somewhere near the
+    centre has a passage out to the cliffs, so that even if both ends of
+    the tunnel collapsed there would be a way of escape. But this is small
+    comfort when travelling from Kettleness, for the down gradient towards
+    Sandsend is very steep, and in the darkness of the tunnel the train
+    gets up a tremendous speed, bursting into the open just where a
+    precipitous drop into the sea could be most easily accomplished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The station at Kettleness is on the top of the huge cliffs, and to
+    reach the shore one must climb down a zigzag path. It is a broad and
+    solid pathway until half-way down, where it assumes the character of a
+    goat-track, being a mere treading down of the loose shale of which the
+    enormous cliff is formed. The sliding down of the crumbling rock
+    constantly carries away the path, but a little spade-work soon makes
+    the track firm again. This portion of the cliff has something of a
+    history, for one night in 1829 the inhabitants of many of the cottages
+    originally forming the village of Kettleness were warned of impending
+    danger by subterranean noises. Fearing a subsidence of the cliff, they
+    betook themselves to a small schooner lying in the bay. This wise move
+    had not long been accomplished, when a huge section of the ground
+    occupied by the cottages slid down the great cliff and the next morning
+    there was little to be seen but a sloping mound of lias shale at the
+    foot of the precipice. The villagers recovered some of their property
+    by digging, and some pieces of broken crockery from one of the cottages
+    are still to be seen on the shore near the ferryman's hut, where the
+    path joins the shore.
+</p>
+<a name="image-5"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="05.jpg" height="618" width="794"
+alt="Runswick Bay 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    This sandy beach, lapped by the blue waves of Runswick Bay, is one of
+    the finest and most spectacular spots to be found on the rocky
+    coast-line of Yorkshire. You look northwards across the sunlit sea to
+    the rocky heights hiding Port Mulgrave and Staithes, and on the further
+    side 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 the
+    hottest weather, and from the broad shadows cast by the precipices
+    above one can revel in the sunny land- and sea-scapes without that fishy
+    odour so unavoidable in the villages. When the sun is beginning to
+    climb down the sky in the direction of Hinderwell, and everything is
+    bathed in a glorious golden light, the ferryman will row you across the
+    bay to Runswick, but a scramble over the rocks on the beach will be
+    repaid by a closer view of the now half-filled-up Hob Hole. The
+    fisherfolk believed this cave to be the home of a kindly-disposed fairy
+    or hob, who seems to have been one of the slow-dying inhabitants of the
+    world of mythology implicitly believed in by the Saxons. And these
+    beliefs died so hard in these lonely Yorkshire villages that until
+    recent times a mother would carry her child suffering from whooping-
+    cough along the beach to the mouth of the cave. There she would call in
+    a loud voice, 'Hob-hole Hob! my bairn's getten t'kink cough. Tak't off,
+    tak't off.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The same form of disaster which destroyed Kettleness village caused the
+    complete ruin of Runswick in 1666, for one night, when some of the
+    fisherfolk were holding a wake over a corpse, they had unmistakable
+    warnings of an approaching landslip. The alarm was given, and the
+    villagers, hurriedly leaving their cottages, saw the whole place slide
+    downwards, and become a mass of ruins. No lives were lost, but, as only
+    one house remained standing, the poor fishermen were only saved from
+    destitution by the sums of money collected for their relief.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Scarcely two miles from Hinderwell is the fishing-hamlet of Staithes,
+    wedged into the side of a deep and exceedingly picturesque beck.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The steep road leading past the station drops down into the village,
+    giving a glimpse of the beck crossed by its ramshackle wooden
+    foot-bridge&mdash;the view one has been prepared for by guide-books and
+    picture postcards. Lower down you enter the village street. Here the
+    smell of fish comes out to greet you, and one would forgive the place
+    this overflowing welcome if one were not so shocked at the dismal
+    aspect of the houses on either side of the way. Many are of
+    comparatively recent origin, others are quite new, and a few&mdash;a very
+    few&mdash;are old; but none have any architectural pretensions or any claims
+    to picturesqueness, and only a few have the neat and respectable look
+    one is accustomed to expect after seeing Robin Hood's Bay.
+</p>
+<a name="image-6"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="06.jpg" height="611" width="808"
+alt="Robin Hood's Bay 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    I hurried down on to the little fish-wharf&mdash;a wooden structure facing
+    the sea&mdash;hoping to find something more cheering in the view of the
+    little bay, with its bold cliffs, and the busy scene where the cobbles
+    were drawn up on the shingle. Here my spirits revived, and I began to
+    find excuses for the painters. The little wharf, in a bad state of
+    repair, like most things in the place, was occupied by groups of
+    stalwart fisherfolk, men and women.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men were for the most part watching their womenfolk at work. They
+    were also to an astonishing extent mere spectators in the arduous work
+    of hauling the cobbles one by one on to the steep bank of shingle. A
+    tackle hooked to one of the baulks of timber forming the staith was
+    being hauled at by five women and two men! Two others were in a
+    listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With
+    the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the
+    nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle,
+    removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing
+    in the boat again.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A change has come over the inhabitants of Staithes since 1846, when Mr.
+    Ord describes the fishermen as 'exceedingly civil and courteous to
+    strangers, and altogether free from that low, grasping knavery peculiar
+    to the larger class of fishing-towns.' Without wishing to be
+    unreasonably hard on Staithes, I am inclined to believe that this
+    character is infinitely better than these folk deserve, and even when
+    Mr. Ord wrote of the place I have reason to doubt the civility shown by
+    them to strangers. It is, according to some who have known Staithes for
+    a long long while, less than fifty years ago that the fisherfolk were
+    hostile to a stranger on very small provocation, and only the entirely
+    inoffensive could expect to sojourn in the village without being a
+    target for stones.
+</p>
+<p>
+    No doubt many of the superstitions of Staithes people have languished
+    or died out in recent years, and among these may be included a
+    particularly primitive custom when the catches of fish had been
+    unusually small. Bad luck of this sort could only be the work of some
+    evil influence, and to break the spell a sheep's heart had to be
+    procured, into which many pins were stuck. The heart was then burnt in
+    a bonfire on the beach, in the presence of the fishermen, who danced
+    round the flames.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In happy contrast to these heathenish practices was the resolution
+    entered into and signed by the fishermen of Staithes, in August, 1835,
+    binding themselves 'on no account whatever' to follow their calling on
+    Sundays, 'nor to go out without boats or cobbles to sea, either on the
+    Saturday or Sunday evenings.' They also agreed to forfeit ten shillings
+    for every offence against the resolution, and the fund accumulated in
+    this way, and by other means, was administered for the benefit of aged
+    couples and widows and orphans.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The men of Staithes are known up and down the east coast of Great
+    Britain as some of the very finest types of fishermen. Their cobbles,
+    which vary in size and colour, are uniform in design and the brilliance
+    of their paint. Brick red, emerald green, pungent blue and white, are
+    the most favoured colours, but orange, pink, yellow, and many others,
+    are to be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Looking northwards there is a grand piece of coast scenery. The masses
+    of Boulby Cliffs, rising 660 feet from the sea, are the highest on the
+    Yorkshire coast. The waves break all round the rocky scaur, and fill
+    the air with their thunder, while the strong wind blows the spray into
+    beards which stream backwards from the incoming crests.
+</p>
+<a name="image-7"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="07.jpg" height="798" width="584"
+alt="Sunrise from Staithes Beck 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The upper course of Staithes Beck consists of two streams, flowing
+    through deep, richly-wooded ravines. They follow parallel courses very
+    close to one another for three or four miles, but their sources extend
+    from Lealholm Moor to Wapley Moor. Kilton Beck runs through another
+    lovely valley densely clothed in trees, and full of the richest
+    woodland scenery. It becomes more open in the neighbourhood of Loftus,
+    and from thence to the sea at Skinningrove the valley is green and open
+    to the heavens. Loftus is on the borders of the Cleveland mining
+    district, and it is for this reason that the town has grown to a
+    considerable size. But although the miners' new cottages are
+    unpicturesque, and the church only dates from 1811, the situation is
+    pretty, owing to the profusion of trees among the houses, has
+    railway-sidings and branch-lines running down to it, and on the hill
+    above the cottages stands a cluster of blast-furnaces. In daylight they
+    are merely ugly, but at night, with tongues of flame, they speak of the
+    potency of labour. I can still see that strange silhouette of steel
+    cylinders and connecting girders against a blue-black sky, with silent
+    masses of flame leaping into the heavens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was long before iron-ore was smelted here, before even the old
+    alum-works had been started, that Skinningrove attained to some sort of
+    fame through a wonderful visit, as strange as any of those recounted by
+    Mr. Wells. It was in the year 1535&mdash;for the event is most carefully
+    recorded in a manuscript of the period&mdash;that some fishermen of
+    Skinningrove caught a Sea Man. This was such an astounding fact to
+    record that the writer of the old manuscript explains that 'old men
+    that would be loath to have their credyt crackt by a tale of a stale
+    date, report confidently that ... a <i>sea-man</i> was taken by the
+    fishers.' They took him up to an old disused house, and kept him there
+    for many weeks, feeding him on raw fish, because he persistently
+    refused the other sorts of food offered him. To the people who flocked
+    from far and near to visit him he was very courteous, and he seems to
+    have been particularly pleased with any 'fayre maydes' who visited him,
+    for he would gaze at them with a very earnest countenance, 'as if his
+    phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The lofty coast-line we have followed all the way from Sandsend
+    terminates abruptly at Huntcliff Nab, the great promontory which is
+    familiar to visitors to Saltburn. Low alluvial cliffs take the place of
+    the rocky precipices, and the coast becomes flatter and flatter as you
+    approach Redcar and the marshy country at the mouth of the Tees. The
+    original Saltburn, consisting of a row of quaint fishermen's cottages,
+    still stands entirely alone, facing the sea on the Huntcliff side of
+    the beck, and from the wide, smooth sands there is little of modern
+    Saltburn to be seen besides the pier. For the rectangular streets and
+    blocks of houses have been wisely placed some distance from the edge of
+    the grassy cliffs, leaving the sea-front quite unspoiled.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The elaborately-laid-out gardens on the steep banks of Skelton Beck are
+    the pride and joy of Saltburn, for they offer a pleasant contrast to
+    the bare slopes on the Huntcliff side and the flat country towards
+    Kirkleatham. But in this seemingly harmless retreat there used to be
+    heard horrible groanings, and I have no evidence to satisfy me that
+    they have altogether ceased. For in this matter-of-fact age such a
+    story would not be listened to, and thus those who hear the sounds may
+    be afraid to speak of them. The groanings were heard, they say, 'when
+    all 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 ocean
+    was 'as a greedy Beaste raginge for Hunger, desyers to be satisfyed
+    with men's carcases.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1842 Redcar was a mere village, though more apparent on the map than
+    Saltburn; but, like its neighbour, it has grown into a great
+    watering-place, having developed two piers, a long esplanade, and other
+    features, 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 broad
+    county.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH5"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER IV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE COAST FROM WHITBY TO SCARBOROUGH
+</center>
+<a name="image-8"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="08.jpg" height="808" width="573"
+alt="The Red Roofs of Whitby 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Although it is only six miles as the crow flies from Whitby to Robin
+    Hood's Bay, the exertion required to walk there along the top of the
+    cliffs is equal to quite double that distance, for there are so many
+    gullies to be climbed into and crawled out of that the measured
+    distance is considerably increased. It is well to remember this, for
+    otherwise the scenery of the last mile or two may not seem as fine as
+    the first stages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As soon as the abbey and the jet-sellers are left behind, you pass a
+    farm, 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. The
+    footpath goes close to the edge of the cliff; in some places it has
+    gone too close, and has disappeared altogether. But these diversions
+    can be avoided without spoiling the magnificent glimpses of the
+    rock-strewn beach nearly 200 feet below. From above Saltwick Bay there
+    is a grand view across the level grass to Whitby Abbey, standing out
+    alone on the green horizon. Down below, Nab runs out a bare black arm
+    into the sea, which even in the calmest weather angrily foams along the
+    windward side. Beyond the sturdy lighthouse that shows itself a
+    dazzling white against the hot blue of the heavens commence the
+    innumerable gullies. Each one has its trickling stream, and bushes and
+    low 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 the
+    stone walls dividing the pastures&mdash;a silent testimony to the power of
+    the north-east wind.
+</p>
+<a name="image-9"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="09.jpg" height="530" width="816"
+alt="Whitby Abbey from the Cliffs 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    After rounding the North Cheek, the whole of Robin Hood's Bay is
+    suddenly laid before you. I well remember my first view of the wide
+    sweep of sea, which lay like a blue carpet edged with white, and the
+    high escarpments of rock that were in deep purple shade, except where
+    the afternoon sun turned them into the brightest greens and umbers.
+    Three miles away, but seemingly very much closer, was the bold headland
+    of the Peak, and more inland was Stoupe Brow, with Robin Hood's Butts
+    on the hill-top. The fable connected with the outlaw is scarcely worth
+    repeating, but on the site of these butts urns have been dug up, and
+    are now to be found in Scarborough Museum. The Bay Town is hidden away
+    in a most astonishing fashion, for, until you have almost reached the
+    two bastions which guard the way up from the beach, there is nothing to
+    be seen of the charming old place. If you approach by the road past the
+    railway station it is the same, for only garishly new hotels and villas
+    are to be seen on the high ground, and not a vestige of the
+    fishing-town can be discovered. But the road to the bay at last begins
+    to drop down very steeply, and the first old roofs appear. The oath at
+    the side of the road develops into a very lone series of steps, and in
+    a few minutes the narrow street flanked by very tall houses, has
+    swallowed you up.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Everything is very clean and orderly, and, although most of the houses
+    are very old, they are generally in a good state of repair, exhibiting
+    in every case the seaman's love of fresh paint. Thus, the dark and worn
+    stone walls have bright eyes in their newly-painted doors and windows.
+    Over their door-steps the fishermen's wives are quite fastidious, and
+    you seldom see a mark on the ochre-coloured hearth-stone with which the
+    women love to brighten the worn stones. Even the scrapers are sleek
+    with blacklead, and it is not easy to find a window without spotless
+    curtains. At high tide the sea comes half-way up the steep opening
+    between the coastguards' quarters and the inn which is built on another
+    bastion, and in rough weather the waves break hungrily on to the strong
+    stone walls, for the bay is entirely open to the full force of gales
+    from the east or north-east. All the way from Scarborough to Whitby the
+    coast offers no shelter of any sort in heavy weather, and many vessels
+    have been lost on the rocks. On one occasion a small sailing-ship was
+    driven right into this bay at high tide, and the bowsprit smashed into
+    a window of the little hotel that occupied the place of the present
+    one.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The railway southwards takes a curve inland, and, after winding in and
+    out to make the best of the contour of the hills, the train finally
+    steams very heavily and slowly into Ravenscar Station, right over the
+    Peak and 630 feet above the sea. On the way you get glimpses of the
+    moors inland, and grand views over the curving bay. There is a station
+    named Fyling Hall, after Sir Hugh Cholmley's old house, half-way to
+    Ravenscar.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Raven Hall, the large house conspicuously perched on the heights above
+    the Peak, is now converted into an hotel. There is a wonderful view
+    from the castellated terraces, which in the distance suggest the
+    remains of some ruined fortress. At the present time there is nothing
+    to be seen older than the house whose foundations were dug in 1774.
+    While the building operations were in progress, however, a Roman
+    inscribed stone, now in Whitby Museum, was unearthed. It states that
+    the 'Castrum' was built by two prefects whose names are given. This was
+    one of the fortified signal stations built in the 4th century A.D. to
+    give warning of the approach of hostile ships.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Following this lofty coast southwards, you reach Hayburn Wyke, where a
+    stream drops perpendicularly over some square masses of rock.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a small stone circle not far from Hayburn Wyke Station, to be
+    found without much trouble, and those who are interested in Early Man
+    will scarcely find a neighbourhood in this country more thickly
+    honey-combed with tumuli and ancient earth-works. There is no
+    particularly plain pathway through the fields to the valley where this
+    stone circle can be seen, but it can easily be found after a careful
+    study of the large-scale Ordnance Map which they will show you at the
+    hotel.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH6"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER V
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SCARBOROUGH
+</center>
+<p>
+    Dazzling sunshine, a furious wind, flapping and screaming gulls, crowds
+    of fishing-boats, and innumerable people jostling one another on the
+    sea-front, made up the chief features of my first view of Scarborough.
+    By degrees I discovered that behind the gulls and the brown sails were
+    old houses, their roofs dimly red through the transparent haze, and
+    above them appeared a great green cliff, with its uneven outline
+    defined by the curtain walls and towers of the castle which had made
+    Scarborough a place of importance in the Civil War and in earlier
+    times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wide-curving bay was filled with huge breaking waves which looked
+    capable of destroying everything within their reach, but they seemed
+    harmless enough when I looked a little further out, where eight or ten
+    grey war-ships were riding at their anchors, apparently motionless.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the outer arm of the harbour, where the seas were angrily
+    attempting to dislodge the top row of stones, I could make out the
+    great mass of grey buildings stretching right to the extremity of the
+    bay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I tried to pick out individual buildings from this city-like
+    watering-place, but, beyond discovering the position of the Spa and one
+    or two of the mightier hotels, I could see very little, and instead
+    fell to wondering how many landladies and how many foreign waiters the
+    long lines of grey roofs represented. This raised so many unpleasant
+    recollections of the various types I had encountered that I determined
+    to go no nearer to modern Scarborough than the pier-head upon which I
+    stood. A specially big wave, however, soon drove me from this position
+    to a drier if more crowded spot, and, reconsidering my objections, I
+    determined to see something of the innumerable grey streets which make
+    up the fashionable watering-place. The terraced gardens on the steep
+    cliffs along the sea-front were most elaborately well kept, but a more
+    striking feature of Scarborough is the magnificence of so many of the
+    shops. They suggest a city rather than a seaside town, and give you an
+    idea of the magnitude of the permanent population of the place as well
+    as the flood of summer and winter visitors. The origin of Scarborough's
+    popularity was undoubtedly due to the chalybeate waters of the Spa,
+    discovered in 1620, almost at the same time as those of Tunbridge Wells
+    and Epsom.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The unmistakable signs of antiquity in the narrow streets adjoining the
+    harbour irresistibly remind one of the days when sea-bathing had still
+    to be popularized, when the efficacy of Scarborough's medicinal spring
+    had not been discovered, of the days when the place bore as little
+    resemblance to its present size or appearance as the fishing-town at
+    Robin Hood's Bay.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We do not know that Piers Gaveston, Sir Hugh Cholmley, and other
+    notabilities who have left their mark on the pages of Scarborough's
+    history, might not, were they with us to-day, welcome the pierrot, the
+    switchback, the restaurant, and other means by which pleasure-loving
+    visitors wile away their hardly-earned holidays; but for my part the
+    story of Scarborough's Mayor who was tossed in a blanket is far more
+    entertaining than the songs of nigger minstrels or any of the
+    commercial attempts to amuse.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This strangely improper procedure with one who held the highest office
+    in the municipality took place in the reign of James II., and the
+    King's leanings towards Popery were the cause of all the trouble.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On April 27, 1688, a declaration for liberty of conscience was
+    published, and by royal command the said declaration was to be read in
+    every Protestant church in the land. Mr. Thomas Aislabie, the Mayor of
+    Scarborough, duly received a copy of the document, and, having handed
+    it to the clergyman, Mr. Noel Boteler, ordered him to read it in church
+    on the following Sunday morning. There seems little doubt that the
+    worthy Mr. Boteler at once recognized a wily move on the part of the
+    King, who under the cover of general tolerance would foster the growth
+    of the Roman religion until such time as the Catholics had attained
+    sufficient power to suppress Protestantism. Mr. Mayor was therefore
+    informed 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 caned
+    him as he stood at his reading-desk. Scenes of such a nature did not
+    occur every day even in 1688, and the storm of indignation and
+    excitement among the members of the congregation did not subside so
+    quickly as it had risen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cause of the poor minister was championed in particular by a
+    certain Captain Ouseley, and the discussion of the matter on the
+    bowling-green on the following day led to the suggestion that the Mayor
+    should be sent for to explain his conduct. As he took no notice of a
+    courteous message requesting his attendance, the Captain repeated the
+    summons accompanied by a file of musketeers. In the meantime many
+    suggestions for dealing with Mr. Aislabie in a fitting manner were
+    doubtless made by the Captain's brother officers, and, further, some
+    settled course of action seems to have been agreed upon, for we do not
+    hear of any hesitation on the part of the Captain on the arrival of the
+    Mayor, 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 as
+    could find room, seizing the sides, in a very few moments Mr. Mayor was
+    revolving and bumping, rising and falling, as though he were no weight
+    at all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If the castle does not show many interesting buildings beyond the keep
+    and the long line of walls and drumtowers, there is so much concerning
+    it that is of great human interest that I should scarcely feel able to
+    grumble if there were still fewer remains. Behind the ancient houses in
+    Quay Street rises the steep, grassy cliff, up which one must climb by
+    various rough pathways to the fortified summit. On the side facing the
+    mainland, a hollow, known as the Dyke, is bridged by a tall and narrow
+    archway, in place of the drawbridge of the seventeenth century and
+    earlier times. On the same side is a massive barbican, looking across
+    an open space to St. Mary's Church, which suffered so severely during
+    the sieges of the castle. The maimed church&mdash;for the chancel has never
+    been rebuilt&mdash;is close to the Dyke and the shattered keep, and so
+    apparent are the results of the cannonading between them that no one
+    requires to be told that the Parliamentary forces mounted their
+    ordnance in the chancel and tower of the church, and it is equally
+    obvious that the Royalists returned the fire hotly.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great siege lasted for nearly a year, and although his garrison was
+    small, and there was practically no hope of relief, Sir Hugh Cholmley
+    seems to have kept a stout heart up to the end. With him throughout
+    this long period of privation and suffering was his beautiful and
+    courageous wife, whose comparatively early death, at the age of
+    fifty-four, must to some extent be attributed to the strain and fatigue
+    borne during these months of warfare. Sir Hugh seems to have almost
+    worshipped his wife, for in his memoirs he is never weary of describing
+    her perfections.
+</p>
+<p>
+    '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 but
+    of a little model, and yet proportionable to her body; her eyes black
+    and full of loveliness and sweetness, her eyebrows small and even, as
+    if drawn with a pencil, a very little, pretty, well-shaped mouth, which
+    sometimes (especially when in a muse or study) she would draw up into
+    an incredible little compass; her hair a sad chestnut; her complexion
+    brown, but clear, with a fresh colour in her cheeks, a loveliness in
+    her looks inexpressible; and by her whole composure was so beautiful a
+    sweet creature at her marriage as not many did parallel, few exceed
+    her, in the nation; yet the inward endowments and perfections of her
+    mind did exceed those outward of her body, being a most pious virtuous
+    person, of great integrity and discerning judgment in most things.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On one occasion during the siege Sir John Meldrum, the Parliamentary
+    commander, sent proposals to Sir Hugh Cholmley, which he accompanied
+    with savage threats, that if his terms were not immediately accepted he
+    would make a general assault on the castle that night, and in the event
+    of one drop of his men's blood being shed he would give orders for a
+    general massacre of the garrison, sparing neither man nor woman.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To a man whose devotion to his beautiful wife was so great, a threat of
+    this nature must have been a severe shock to his determination to hold
+    out. But from his own writings we are able to picture for ourselves Sir
+    Hugh's anxious and troubled face lighting up on the approach of the
+    cause of his chief concern. Lady Cholmley, without any sign of the
+    inward misgivings or dejection which, with her gentle and shrinking
+    nature, must have been a great struggle, came to her husband, and
+    implored him to on no account let her peril influence his decision to
+    the detriment of his own honour or the King's affairs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir John Meldrum's proposals having been rejected, the garrison
+    prepared itself for the furious attack commenced on May 11.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The assault was well planned, for while the Governor's attention was
+    turned towards the gateway leading to the castle entrance, another
+    attack was made at the southern end of the wall towards the sea, where
+    until the year 1730 Charles's Tower stood. The bloodshed at this point
+    was greater than at the gateway. At the head of a chosen division of
+    troops, Sir John Meldrum climbed the almost precipitous ascent with
+    wonderful courage, only to meet with such spirited resistance on the
+    part of the besieged that, when the attack was abandoned, it was
+    discovered that Meldrum had received a dangerous wound penetrating to
+    his thigh, and that several of his officers and men had been killed.
+    Meanwhile, at the gateway, the first success of the assailants had been
+    checked at the foot of the Grand Tower or Keep, for at that point the
+    rush of drab-coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
+    stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
+    pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
+    reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
+    the knowledge that the great attack had failed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At last, on July 22, 1645&mdash;his forty-fifth birthday&mdash;Sir Hugh was
+    forced to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
+    surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
+    wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of
+    broken masonry: for many of Sir Hugh's officers and soldiers were in
+    such a weak condition that they had to be carried out in sheets or
+    helped along between two men, and the Parliamentary officer adds rather
+    tersely, that 'the rest were not very fit to march.' The scurvy had
+    depleted the ranks of the defenders to such an extent that the women in
+    the castle, despite the presence of Lady Cholmley, threatened to stone
+    the Governor unless he capitulated.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Three years later the castle was again besieged by the Parliamentary
+    forces, for Colonel Matthew Boynton, the Governor, had declared for the
+    King. The garrison held out from August to December, when terms were
+    made with Colonel Hugh Bethell, by which the Governor, officers,
+    gentlemen, and soldiers, marched out with 'their colours flying, drums
+    beating, musquets loaden, bandeleers filled, matches lighted, and
+    bullet in mouth, to a close called Scarborough Common,' where they laid
+    down their arms.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Before I leave Scarborough I must go back to early times, in order that
+    the antiquity of the place may not be slighted owing to the omission of
+    any reference to the town in the Domesday Book. Tosti, Count of
+    Northumberland, who, as everyone knows, was brother of the Harold who
+    fought at Senlac Hill, had brought about an insurrection of the
+    Northumbrians, and having been dispossessed by his brother, he revenged
+    himself by inviting the help of Haralld Hadrada, King of Norway. The
+    Norseman promptly accepted the offer, and, taking with him his family
+    and an army of warriors, sailed for the Shetlands, where Tosti joined
+    him. The united forces then came down the east coast of Britain until
+    they reached Scardaburgum, where they landed and prepared to fight the
+    inhabitants. The town was then built entirely of timber, and there was,
+    apparently, no castle of any description on the great hill, for the
+    Norsemen, finding their opponents inclined to offer a stout resistance,
+    tried other tactics. They gained possession of the hill, constructed a
+    huge fire, and when the wood was burning fiercely, flung the blazing
+    brands down on to the wooden houses below. The fire spread from one hut
+    to another with sufficient speed to drive out the defenders, who in the
+    confusion which followed were slaughtered by the enemy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This occurred in the momentous year 1066, when Harold, having defeated
+    the Norsemen and slain Haralld Hadrada at Stamford Bridge, had to hurry
+    southwards to meet William the Norman at Hastings. It is not
+    surprising, therefore, that the compilers of the Conqueror's survey
+    should have failed to record the existence of the blackened embers of
+    what had once been a town. But such a site as the castle hill could not
+    long remain idle in the stormy days of the Norman Kings, and William le
+    Gros, Earl of Albemarle and Lord of Holderness, recognising the natural
+    defensibility of the rock, built the massive walls which have withstood
+    so many assaults, and even now form the most prominent feature of
+    Scarborough.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Until 1923 there was no knowledge of there having been any Roman
+    occupation of the promontory upon which the castle stands. Excavations
+    made in that year have shown that a massively-built watch tower was
+    maintained there during the last phase of Roman control in Britain.
+    This was one of a chain of signal or lookout stations placed along the
+    Yorkshire coast when the threat of raiders from the mouths of the
+    German rivers had become serious.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH7"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WHITBY
+</center>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  Behold the glorious summer sea
+    As night's dark wings unfold,
+  And o'er the waters, 'neath the stars,
+    The harbour lights behold.
+		
+		<i>E. Teschemacher</i>.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+
+<p>
+    Despite a huge influx of summer visitors, and despite the modern town
+    which has grown up to receive them, Whitby is still one of the most
+    strikingly picturesque towns in England. But at the same time, if one
+    excepts the abbey, the church, and the market-house, there are scarcely
+    any architectural attractions in the town. The charm of the place does
+    not lie so much in detail as in broad effects. The narrow streets have
+    no surprises in the way of carved-oak brackets or curious panelled
+    doorways, although narrow passages and steep flights of stone steps
+    abound. On the other hand, the old parts of the town, when seen from a
+    distance, are always presenting themselves in new apparel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the early morning the East Cliff generally appears as a pale grey
+    silhouette with a square projection representing the church, and a
+    fretted one the abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But as the sun climbs upwards, colour and definition grow out of the
+    haze of smoke and shadows, and the roofs assume their ruddy tones. At
+    midday, when the sunlight pours down upon the medley of houses
+    clustered along the face of the cliff, the scene is brilliantly
+    coloured. The predominant note is the red of the chimneys and roofs and
+    stray patches of brickwork, but the walls that go down to the water's
+    edge are green below and full of rich browns above, and in many places
+    the sides of the cottages are coloured with an ochre wash, while above
+    them all the top of the cliff appears covered with grass. There is
+    scarcely a chimney in this old part of Whitby that does not contribute
+    to the mist of blue-grey smoke that slowly drifts up the face of the
+    cliff, and thus, when there is no bright sunshine, colour and details
+    are subdued in the haze.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In many towns whose antiquity and picturesqueness are more popular than
+    the attractions of Whitby, the railway deposits one in some
+    distressingly ugly modern excrescence, from which it may even be
+    necessary for a stranger to ask his way to the old-world features he
+    has come to see. But at Whitby the railway, without doing any harm to
+    the appearance of the town, at once gives a visitor as typical a scene
+    of fishing-life as he will ever find. When the tide is up and the
+    wharves are crowded with boats, this upper portion of Whitby Harbour is
+    at its best, and to step from the railway compartment entered at King's
+    Cross into this picturesque scene is an experience to be remembered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the deepening twilight of a clear evening the harbour gathers to
+    itself the additional charm of mysterious indefiniteness, and among the
+    long-drawn-out reflections appear sinuous lines of yellow light beneath
+    the lamps by the bridge. Looking towards the ocean from the outer
+    harbour, one sees the massive arms which Whitby has thrust into the
+    waves, holding aloft the steady lights that
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Safely guide the mighty ships
+     Into the harbour bay.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    If we keep to the waterside, modern Whitby has no terrors for us. It is
+    out of sight, and might therefore have never existed. But when we have
+    crossed the bridge, and passed along the narrow thoroughfare known as
+    Church Street to the steps leading up the face of the cliff, we must
+    prepare ourselves for a new aspect of the town. There, upon the top of
+    the West Cliff, stand rows of sad-looking and dun-coloured
+    lodging-houses, relieved by the aggressive bulk of a huge hotel, with
+    corner turrets, that frowns savagely at the unfinished crescent, where
+    there are many apartments with 'rooms facing the sea.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning landwards we look over the chimney stacks of the topmost
+    houses, and see the silver Esk winding placidly in the deep channel it
+    has carved for itself; and further away we see the far off moorland
+    heights, brown and blue, where the sources of the broad river down
+    below are fed by the united efforts of innumerable tiny streams deep in
+    the heather. Behind us stands the massive-looking parish church, with
+    its Norman tower, so sturdily built that its height seems scarcely
+    greater than its breadth. There is surely no other church with such a
+    ponderous exterior that is so completely deceptive as to its internal
+    aspect, for St. Mary's contains the most remarkable series of
+    beehive-like galleries that were ever crammed into a parish church.
+    They are not merely very wide and ill-arranged, but they are superposed
+    one abode the other. The free use of white paint all over the sloping
+    tiers of pews has prevented the interior from being as dark as it would
+    have otherwise been, but the result of all this painted deal has been
+    to give the building the most eccentric and indecorous appearance.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The early history of Whitby from the time of the landing of Roman
+    soldiers in the inlet seems to be very closely associated with the
+    abbey 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 an
+    opinion here as to whether there was any town at Streoneshalh before
+    the building of the abbey, or whether the place that has since become
+    known as Whitby grew on account of the presence of the abbey. Such
+    matters as these have been fought out by an expert in the archaeology
+    of Cleveland&mdash;the late Canon Atkinson, who seemed to take infinite
+    pleasure in demolishing the elaborately constructed theories of those
+    painstaking historians of the eighteenth century, Dr. Young and Mr.
+    Lionel Charlton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Many facts, however, which throw light on the early days of the abbey
+    are now unassailable. We see that Hilda must have been a most
+    remarkable woman for her times, instilling into those around her a
+    passion for learning as well as right-living, for despite the fact that
+    they worked and prayed in rude wooden buildings, with walls formed,
+    most probably, of split tree-trunks, after the fashion of the church at
+    Greenstead in Essex, we find the institution producing, among others,
+    such men as Bosa and John, both Archbishops of York, and such a poet as
+    Caedmon. The legend of his inspiration, however, may be placed beside
+    the story of how the saintly Abbess turned the snakes into the fossil
+    ammonites with which the liassic shores of Whitby are strewn. Hilda,
+    who probably died in the year 680, was succeeded by Aelfleda, the
+    daughter of King Oswiu of Northumbria, whom she had trained in the
+    abbey, and there seems little doubt that her pupil carried on
+    successfully the beneficent work of the foundress.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Aelfleda had the support of her mother's presence as well as the wise
+    counsels of Bishop Trumwine, who had taken refuge at Streoneshalh,
+    after having been driven from his own sphere of work by the
+    depredations of the Picts and Scots. We then learn that Aelfleda died
+    at the age of fifty-nine, but from that year&mdash;probably 713&mdash;a complete
+    silence falls upon the work of the abbey; for if any records were made
+    during the next century and a half, they have been totally lost. About
+    the year 867 the Danes reached this part of Yorkshire, and we know that
+    they laid waste the abbey, and most probably the town also; but the
+    invaders gradually started new settlements, or 'bys,' and Whitby must
+    certainly have grown into a place of some size by the time of Edward
+    the Confessor, for just previous to the Norman invasion it was assessed
+    for Danegeld to the extent of a sum equivalent to £3,500 at the present
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    After the Conquest a monk named Reinfrid succeeded in reviving a
+    monastery on the site of the old one, having probably gained the
+    permission of William de Percy, the lord of the district. The new
+    establishment, however, was for monks only, and was for some time
+    merely a priory.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The form of the successive buildings from the time of Hilda until the
+    building of the stately abbey church, whose ruins are now to be seen,
+    is a subject of great interest, but, unfortunately, there are few facts
+    to go upon. The very first church was, as I have already suggested, a
+    building of rude construction, scarcely better than the humble
+    dwellings of the monks and nuns. The timber walls were most probably
+    thatched, and the windows would be of small lattice or boards pierced
+    with small holes. Gradually the improvements brought about would have
+    led to the use of stone for the walls, and the buildings destroyed by
+    the Danes may have resembled such examples of Anglo-Saxon work as may
+    still be seen in the churches of Bradford-on-Avon and Monkwearmouth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The buildings erected by Reinfrid under the Norman influence then
+    prevailing in England must have been a slight advance upon the
+    destroyed fabric, and we know that during the time of his successor,
+    Serlo de Percy, there was a certain Godfrey in charge of the building
+    operations, and there is every reason to believe that he completed the
+    church during the fifty years of prosperity the monastery passed
+    through 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, who
+    entered the harbour, and, in the words of the chronicle, 'laid waste
+    everything, both within doors and without.' The abbey slowly recovered
+    from this disaster, and the reconstruction commenced in 1220, still
+    makes a conspicuous landmark from the sea. It was after the Dissolution
+    that 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 of
+    Eskdaleside and Ugglebarnby, with all 'their rights, members and
+    appurtenances as they formerly had belonged to the abbey of Whiby,'
+    henceforward belonged to Sir Richard and his successors.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Hugh Cholmley, whose defence of Scarborough Castle has made him a
+    name 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 we
+    owe a fascinating account of his life at Whitby in Stuart and Jacobean
+    times. He describes how he lived for some time in the gate-house of the
+    abbey buildings, 'till my house was repaired and habitable, which then
+    was very ruinous and all unhandsome, the wall being only of timber and
+    plaster, and ill-contrived within: and besides the repairs, or rather
+    re-edifying the house, I built the stable and barn, I heightened the
+    outwalls of the court double to what they were, and made all the wall
+    round about the paddock; so that the place hath been improved very
+    much, both for beauty and profit, by me more than all my ancestors, for
+    there was not a tree about the house but was set in my time, and almost
+    by my own hand.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the spring of 1636 the reconstruction of the abbey house was
+    finished, and Sir Hugh moved in with his family. 'My dear wife,' he
+    says '(who was excellent at dressing and making all handsome within
+    doors), had put it into a fine posture, and furnished with many good
+    things, so that, I believe, there were few gentlemen in the country, of
+    my rank, exceeded it.... I was at this time made Deputy-lieutenant and
+    Colonel over the Train-bands within the hundred of Whitby Strand,
+    Ruedale, Pickering, Lythe and Scarborough town; for that, my father
+    being dead, the country looked upon me as the chief of my family.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    'I had between thirty and forty in my ordinary family, a chaplain who
+    said prayers every morning at six, and again before dinner and supper,
+    a porter who merely attended the gates, which were ever shut up before
+    dinner, 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 to
+    receive three or four besides my family, without any trouble; and
+    whatever their fare was, they were sure to have a hearty welcome. As a
+    definite result of his efforts, 'all that part of the pier to the west
+    end of the harbour' was erected, and yet he complains that, though it
+    was the means of preserving a large section of the town from the sea,
+    the townsfolk would not interest themselves in the repairs necessitated
+    by force of the waves. 'I wish, with all my heart,' he exclaims, 'the
+    next generation may have more public spirit.'
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH8"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE CLEVELAND HILLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    On their northern and western flanks the Cleveland Hills have a most
+    imposing and mountainous aspect, although their greatest altitudes do
+    not aspire to more than about 1,500 feet. But they rise so suddenly to
+    their full height out of the flat sea of green country that they often
+    appear as a coast defended by a bold range of mountains. Roseberry
+    Topping stands out in grim isolation, on its masses of alum rock, like
+    a huge sea-worn crag, considerably over 1,000 feet high. But this
+    strangely menacing peak raises his defiant head over nothing but broad
+    meadows, arable land, and woodlands, and his only warfare is with the
+    lower strata of storm-clouds, which is a convenient thing for the
+    people who live in these parts; for long ago they used the peak as a
+    sign of approaching storms, having reduced the warning to the
+    easily-remembered couplet:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'When Roseberry Topping wears a cap,
+  Let Cleveland then beware of a clap.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    From the fact that you can see this remarkable peak from almost every
+    point of the compass except south-westwards, it must follow that from
+    the top of the hill there are views in all those directions. But to see
+    so much of the country at once comes as a surprise to everyone.
+    Stretching inland towards the backbone of England, there is spread out
+    a huge tract of smiling country, covered with a most complex network of
+    hedges, which gradually melt away into the indefinite blue edge of the
+    world where the hills of Wensleydale rise from the plain. Looking
+    across the little town of Guisborough, lying near the shelter of the
+    hills, to the broad sweep of the North Sea, this piece of Yorkshire
+    seems so small that one almost expects to see the Cheviots away in the
+    north. But, beyond the winding Tees and the drifting smoke of the great
+    manufacturing towns on its banks, one must be content with the county
+    of Durham, a huge section of which is plainly visible. Turning towards
+    the brown moorlands, the cultivation is exchanged for ridge beyond
+    ridge of total desolation&mdash;a huge tract of land in this crowded England
+    where the population for many square miles at a time consists of the
+    inmates of a lonely farm or two in the circumscribed cultivated areas
+    of the dales.
+</p>
+<a name="image-10"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="10.jpg" height="806" width="584"
+alt="An Autumn Day at Guisborough 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Eight or nine hundred years ago these valleys were choked up with
+    forests. The Early British inhabitants were more inclined to the
+    hill-tops than the hollows, if the innumerable indications of their
+    settlements be any guide, and there is every reason for believing that
+    many of the hollows in the folds of the heathery moorlands were rarely
+    visited by man. Thus, the suggestion has been made that a few of the
+    last representatives of now extinct monsters may have survived in these
+    wild retreats, for how otherwise do we find persistent stories in these
+    parts of Yorkshire, handed down we cannot tell how many centuries, of
+    strange creatures described as 'worms'? At Loftus they show you the
+    spot where a 'grisly worm' had its lair, and in many places there are
+    traditions of strange long-bodied dragons who were slain by various
+    valiant men.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On Easby Moor, a few miles to the south of Roseberry Topping, the tall
+    column to the memory of Captain Cook stands like a lighthouse on this
+    inland coastline. The lofty position it occupies among these brown and
+    purply-green heights makes the monument visible over a great tract of
+    the sailor's native Cleveland. The people who live in Marton, the
+    village of his birthplace, can see the memorial of their hero's fame,
+    and the country lads of to-day are constantly reminded of the success
+    which attended the industry and perseverance of a humble Marton boy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cottage where James Cook was born in 1728 has gone, but the field
+    in which it stood is called Cook's Garth. The shop at Staithes,
+    generally spoken of as a 'huckster's,' where Cook was apprenticed as a
+    boy, has also disappeared; but, unfortunately, that unpleasant story of
+    his having taken a shilling from his master's till, when the
+    attractions of the sea proved too much for him to resist, persistently
+    clings to all accounts of his early life. There seems no evidence to
+    convict him of this theft, but there are equally no facts by which to
+    clear him. But if we put into the balance his subsequent term of
+    employment at Whitby, the excellent character he gained when he went to
+    sea, and Professor J.K. Laughton's statement that he left Staithes
+    'after some disagreement with his master,' there seems every reason to
+    believe that the story is untrue.
+</p>
+<p>
+    I have seldom seen a more uninhabited and inhospitable-looking country
+    than the broad extent of purple hills that stretch away to the
+    south-west from Great Ayton and Kildale Moors. Walking from Guisborough
+    to Kildale on a wild and stormy afternoon in October, I was totally
+    alone for the whole distance when I had left behind me the baker's boy
+    who 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 attached
+    to Hutton Hall, stands in a lovely hollow at the edge of the moors. The
+    steep hills are richly clothed with sombre woods, and the peace and
+    seclusion reigning there is in marked contrast to the bleak wastes
+    above. 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 fiercely
+    that it was difficult to make any progress at all. Overhead was a dark
+    roof composed of heavy masses of cloud, forming long parallel lines of
+    grey right to the horizon. On each side of the rough, water-worn road
+    the heather made a low wall, two or three feet high, and stretched
+    right away to the horizon in every direction. In the lulls, between the
+    fierce blasts, I could hear the trickle of the water in the rivulets
+    deep down in the springy cushion of heather. A few nimble sheep would
+    stare at me from a distance, and then disappear, or some grouse might
+    hover over a piece of rising ground; but otherwise there were no signs
+    of living creatures. Nearing Kildale, the road suddenly plunged
+    downwards to a stream flowing through a green, cultivated valley, with
+    a 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 clouds
+    parted a little in the west, and let a flood of golden light into the
+    wood. Instantly the gloom seemed to disappear, and beyond the dark
+    shoulder of moorland, where the Cook monument appeared against the
+    glory of the sunset, there seemed to reign an all-pervading peace, the
+    wood being quite silent, for the wind had dropped.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The rough track through the trees descended hurriedly, and soon gave a
+    wide view over Kildale. The valley was full of colour from the glowing
+    west, and the steep hillsides opposite appeared lighter than the indigo
+    clouds above, now slightly tinged with purple. The little village of
+    Kildale nestled down below, its church half buried in yellow foliage.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 of
+    the twelfth century, was barbarously and needlessly destroyed in 1873.
+    A picture of the bridge has, fortunately, been preserved in Canon
+    Atkinson's 'Forty Years in a Moorland Parish.' That book has been so
+    widely read that it seems scarcely necessary to refer to it here, but
+    without the help of the Vicar, who knew every inch of his wild parish,
+    the Danby district must seem much less interesting.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH9"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER VIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    GUISBOROUGH AND THE SKELTON VALLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    Although a mere fragment of the Augustinian Priory of Guisborough is
+    standing to-day, it is sufficiently imposing to convey a powerful
+    impression of the former size and magnificence of the monastic church.
+    This fragment is the gracefully buttressed east-end of the choir, which
+    rises from the level meadow-land to the east of the town. The stonework
+    is now of a greenish-grey tone, but in the shadows there is generally a
+    look of blue. Beyond the ruin and through the opening of the great east
+    window, now bare of tracery, you see the purple moors, with the
+    ever-formidable Roseberry Topping holding its head above the green
+    woods and pastures.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The destruction of the priory took place most probably during the reign
+    of Henry VIII., but there are no recorded facts to give the date of the
+    spoiling of the stately buildings. The materials were probably sold to
+    the highest bidder, for in the town of Guisborough there are scattered
+    many fragments of richly-carved stone, and Ord, one of the historians
+    of Cleveland, says: 'I have beheld with sorrow, and shame, and
+    indignation, the richly ornamented columns and carved architraves of
+    God's temple supporting the thatch of a pig-house.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Norman priory church, founded in 1119, by the wealthy Robert de
+    Brus of Skelton, was, unfortunately, burnt down on May 16, 1289. Walter
+    of Hemingburgh, a canon of Guisborough, has written a quaintly detailed
+    account of the origin of the fire. Translated from the monkish Latin,
+    he says 'On the first day of rogation-week, a devouring flame consumed
+    our church of Gysburn, with many theological books and nine costly
+    chalices, as well as vestments and sumptuous images; and because past
+    events are serviceable as a guide to future inquiries, I have thought
+    it desirable, in the present little treatise, to give an account of the
+    catastrophe, that accidents of a similar nature may be avoided through
+    this calamity allotted to us. On the day above mentioned, which was
+    very destructive to us, a vile plumber, with his two workmen, burnt our
+    church whilst soldering up two holes in the old lead with fresh pewter.
+    For some days he had already, with a wicked disposition, commenced, and
+    placed his iron crucibles, along with charcoal and fire, on rubbish, or
+    steps of a great height, upon dry wood with some turf and other
+    combustibles. About noon (in the cross, in the body of the church,
+    where he remained at his work until after Mass) he descended before the
+    procession of the convent, thinking that the fire had been put out by
+    his workmen. They, however, came down quickly after him, without having
+    completely extinguished the fire; and the fire among the charcoal
+    revived, and partly from the heat of the iron, and partly from the
+    sparks of the charcoal, the fire spread itself to the wood and other
+    combustibles beneath. After the fire was thus commenced, the lead
+    melted, and the joists upon the beams ignited; and then the fire
+    increased prodigiously, and consumed everything.' Hemingburgh concludes
+    by saying that all that they could get from the culprits was the
+    exclamation, 'Quid potui ego?' Shortly after this disaster the Prior
+    and convent wrote to Edward II., excusing themselves from granting a
+    corrody owing to their great losses through the burning of the
+    monastery, as well as the destruction of their property by the Scots.
+    But Guisborough, next to Fountains, was almost the richest
+    establishment in Yorkshire, and thus in a few years' time there arose
+    from the Norman foundations a stately church and convent built in the
+    Early Decorated style.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One of the most interesting relics of the great priory is the
+    altar-tomb, believed to be that of Robert de Brus of Annandale. The
+    stone slabs are now built into the walls on each side of the porch of
+    Guisborough Church. They may have been removed there from the abbey for
+    safety at the time of the dissolution. Hemingburgh, in his chronicle
+    for the year 1294, says: 'Robert de Brus the fourth died on the eve of
+    Good Friday; who disputed with John de Balliol, before the King of
+    England, about the succession to the kingdom of Scotland. And, as he
+    ordered when alive, he was buried in the priory of Gysburn with great
+    honour, beside his own father.' A great number of other famous people
+    were buried here in accordance with their wills. Guisborough has even
+    been claimed as the resting place of Robert Bruce, the champion of
+    Scottish freedom, but there is ample evidence for believing that his
+    heart was buried at Melrose Abbey and his body in Dunfermline Abbey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The central portion of the town of Guisborough, by the market-cross and
+    the two chief inns, is quaint and fairly picturesque, but the long
+    street as it goes westward deteriorates into rows of new cottages,
+    inevitable in a mining country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Mining operations have been carried on around Guisborough since the
+    time of Queen Elizabeth, for the discovery of alum dates from that
+    period, and when that industry gradually declined, it was replaced by
+    the iron mines of today. Mr. Thomas Chaloner of Guisborough, in his
+    travels on the Continent about the end of the sixteenth century, saw
+    the Pope's alum works near Rome, and was determined to start the
+    industry in his native parish of Guisborough, feeling certain that alum
+    could be worked with profit in his own country. As it was essential to
+    have one or two men who were thoroughly versed in the processes of the
+    manufacture, Mr. Chaloner induced some of the Pope's workmen by heavy
+    bribes to come to England. The risks attending this overt act were
+    terrible, for the alum works brought in a large revenue to His
+    Holiness, and the discovery of such a design would have meant capital
+    punishment to the offender. The workmen were therefore induced to get
+    into large casks, which were secretly conveyed on board a ship which
+    was shortly sailing for England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the Pope received the intelligence some time afterwards, he
+    thundered forth against Mr. Chaloner and the workmen the most awful and
+    comprehensive curse. They were to be cursed most wholly and thoroughly
+    in every part of their bodies, every saint was to curse them, and from
+    the thresholds of the holy church of God Almighty they were to be
+    sequestered, that they might 'be tormented, disposed of, and delivered
+    over with Dathan and Abiram, and with those who say unto the Lord God,
+    "Depart from us; we desire not to know thy ways."'
+</p>
+<a name="image-11"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="11.jpg" height="541" width="839"
+alt="The Skelton Valley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The broad valley stretching from Guisborough to the sea contains the
+    beautifully wooded park of Skelton Castle. The trees in great masses
+    cover the gentle slopes on either side of the Skelton Beck, and almost
+    hide the modern mansion. The buildings include part of the ancient
+    castle of the Bruces, who were Lords of Skelton for many years.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH10"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER IX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    FROM PICKERING TO RIEVAULX ABBEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    The broad Vale of Pickering, watered by the Derwent, the Rye and their
+    many tributaries, is a wonderful contrast to the country we have been
+    exploring. The level pastures, where cattle graze and cornfields
+    abound, seem to suggest that we are separated from the heather by many
+    leagues; but we have only to look beyond the hedgerows to see that the
+    horizon to the north is formed by lofty moors only a few miles distant.
+</p>
+<a name="image-12"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="12.jpg" height="800" width="618"
+alt="In Pickering Church 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Just where the low meadows are beginning to rise steadily from the vale
+    stands the town of Pickering, dominated by the lofty stone spire of its
+    parish church and by the broken towers of the castle. There is a wide
+    street, bordered by dark stone buildings, that leads steeply from the
+    river to the church. The houses are as a rule quite featureless, but we
+    have learnt to expect this in a county where stone is abundant, for
+    only the extremely old and the palpably new buildings stand out from
+    the grey austerity of the average Yorkshire town. In rare cases some of
+    the houses are brightened with white and cream paint on windows and
+    doors, and if these commendable efforts became less rare, Pickering
+    would have as cheerful an aspect to the stranger as Helmsley, which we
+    shall pass on our way to Rievaulx.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Approached by narrow passages between the grey houses and shops, the
+    church is most imposing, for it is not only a large building, but the
+    cramped position magnifies its bulk and emphasizes the height of the
+    Norman tower, surmounted by the tall stone spire added during the
+    fourteenth century. Going up a wide flight of steps, necessitated by
+    the slope of the ground, we enter the church through the beautiful
+    porch, and are at once confronted with the astonishingly perfect
+    paintings which cover the walls of the nave. The pictures occupy nearly
+    all the available wall-space between the arches and the top of the
+    clerestory, and their crude quaintnesses bring the ideas of the first
+    half of the fifteenth century vividly before us. There is a spirited
+    representation of St. George in conflict with a terrible dragon, and
+    close by we see a bearded St. Christopher holding a palm-tree with both
+    hands, and bearing on his shoulder the infant Christ. Then comes
+    Herod's feast, with the King labelled <i>Herodi</i>. The guests are
+    shown with their arms on the table in the most curious positions, and
+    all 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 of
+    Alexandria and the seven Corporal Acts of Mercy. Further on come scenes
+    from the life of our Lord.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The simple Norman arcade on the north side of the nave has plain round
+    columns and semicircular arches, but the south side belongs to later
+    Norman times, and has ornate columns and capitals. At least one member
+    of the great Bruce family, who had a house at Pickering called Bruce's
+    Hall, and whose ascendency at Guisborough has already been mentioned,
+    was buried here, for the figure of a knight in chain-mail by the
+    lectern probably represents Sir William Bruce. In the chapel there is a
+    sumptuous monument bearing the effigies of Sir David and Dame Margery
+    Roucliffe. The knight wears the collar of SS, and his arms are on his
+    surcoat.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When John Leland, the 'Royal Antiquary' employed by Henry VIII., came
+    to Pickering, he described the castle, which was in a more perfect
+    state than it is to-day. He says: 'In the first Court of it be a 4
+    Toures, of the which one is caullid Rosamunde's Toure.' Also of the
+    inner court he writes of '4 Toures, wherof the Kepe is one.' This keep
+    and Rosamund's Tower, as well as the ruins of some of the others, are
+    still to be seen on the outer walls, so that from some points of view
+    the ruins are dignified and picturesque. The area enclosed was large,
+    and in early times the castle must have been almost impregnable. But
+    during the Civil War it was much damaged by the soldiers quartered
+    there, and Sir Hugh Cholmley took lead, wood, and iron from it for the
+    defence of Scarborough. The wide view from the castle walls shows
+    better than any description the importance of the position it occupied,
+    and we feel, as we gaze over the vale or northwards to the moors, that
+    this was the dominant power over the whole countryside.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although Lastingham is not on the road to Helmsley, the few additional
+    miles will scarcely be counted when we are on our way to a church
+    which, besides being architecturally one of the most interesting in the
+    county, is perhaps unique in having at one time had a curate whose wife
+    kept a public-house adjoining the church. Although this will scarcely
+    be believed, we have a detailed account of the matter in a little book
+    published in 1806.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The clergyman, whose name was Carter, had to subsist on the slender
+    salary of £20 a year and a few surplice fees. This would not have
+    allowed any margin for luxuries in the case of a bachelor; but this
+    poor man was married, and he had thirteen children. He was a keen
+    fisherman, and his angling in the moorland streams produced a plentiful
+    supply of fish&mdash;in fact, more than his family could consume. But this,
+    even though he often exchanged part of his catches with neighbours, was
+    not sufficient to keep the wolf from the door, and drastic measures had
+    to be taken. The parish was large, and, as many of the people were
+    obliged to come 'from ten to fifteen miles' to church, it seemed
+    possible that some profit might be made by serving refreshments to the
+    parishioners. Mrs. Carter superintended this department, and it seems
+    that the meals between the services soon became popular. But the story
+    of 'a parson-publican' was soon conveyed to the Archdeacon of the
+    diocese, who at the next visitation endeavoured to find out the truth
+    of the matter. Mr. Carter explained the circumstances, and showed that,
+    far from being a source of disorder, his wife's public-house was an
+    influence for good. 'I take down my violin,' he continued, 'and play
+    them a few tunes, which gives me an opportunity of seeing that they get
+    no more liquor than necessary for refreshment; and if the young people
+    propose a dance, I seldom answer in the negative; nevertheless, when I
+    announce time for return, they are ever ready to obey my commands.' The
+    Archdeacon appears to have been a broad-minded man, for he did not
+    reprimand Mr. Carter at all; and as there seems to have been no mention
+    of an increased stipend, the parson publican must have continued this
+    strange anomaly.
+</p>
+<a name="image-13"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="13.jpg" height="812" width="584"
+alt="The Market-place, Helmsley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The writings of Bede give a special interest to Lastingham, for he
+    tells us how King Oidilward requested Bishop Cedd to build a monastery
+    there. The Saxon buildings that appeared at that time have gone, so
+    that the present church cannot be associated with the seventh century.
+    No doubt the destruction was the work of the Danes, who plundered the
+    whole of this part of Yorkshire. The church that exists today is of
+    Transitional Norman date, and the beautiful little crypt, which has an
+    apse, nave and aisles, is coeval with the superstructure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The situation of Lastingham in a deep and picturesque valley surrounded
+    by moors and overhung by woods is extremely rich.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Further to the west there are a series of beautiful dales watered by
+    becks whose sources are among the Cleveland Hills. On our way to
+    Ryedale, the loveliest of these, we pass through Kirby Moorside, a
+    little town which has gained a place in history as the scene of the
+    death of the notorious George Villiers, second Duke of Buckingham, on
+    April 17, 1687. The house in which he died is on the south side of the
+    King's Head, and in one of the parish registers there is the entry
+    under 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:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Anno: Dom 1632 October xi
+      William Wood'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Kirkdale, with its world-renowned cave, to which we have already
+    referred, lies about two miles to the west. The quaint little Saxon
+    church there is one of the few bearing evidences of its own date,
+    ascertained by the discovery in 1771 of a Saxon sun-dial, which had
+    survived under a layer of plaster, and was also protected by the porch.
+    A translation of the inscription reads: 'Orm, the son of Gamal, bought
+    St. Gregory's Minster when it was all broken and fallen, and he caused
+    it to be made anew from the ground, for Christ and St. Gregory, in the
+    days of King Edward and in the days of Earl Tosti, and Hawarth wrought
+    me and Brand the prior (priest or priests).' By this we are plainly
+    told that a church was built there in the reign of Edward the
+    Confessor.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A pleasant road leads through Nawton to the beautiful little town of
+    Helmsley. A bend of the broad, swift-flowing Rye forms one boundary of
+    the place, and is fed by a gushing brook that finds its way from
+    Rievaulx Moor, and forms a pretty feature of the main street.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A narrow turning by the market-house shows the torn and dishevelled
+    fragment of the keep of Helmsley Castle towering above the thatched
+    roofs in the foreground. The ruin is surrounded by tall elms, and from
+    this point of view, when backed by a cloudy sunset makes a wonderful
+    picture. Like Scarborough, this stronghold was held for the King during
+    the Civil War. After the Battle of Marston Moor and the fall of York,
+    Fairfax came to Helmsley and invested the castle. He received a wound
+    in the shoulder during the siege; but the garrison having surrendered
+    on honourable terms, the Parliament ordered that the castle should be
+    dismantled, and the thoroughness with which the instructions were
+    carried out remind one of Knaresborough, for one side of the keep was
+    blown to pieces by a terrific explosion and nearly everything else was
+    destroyed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the beauty and charm of this lovely district is accentuated in
+    Ryedale, and when we have accomplished the three long uphill miles to
+    Rievaulx, and come out upon the broad grassy terrace above the abbey,
+    we seem to have entered a Land of Beulah. We see a peaceful valley
+    overlooked on all sides by lofty hills, whose steep sides are clothed
+    with luxuriant woods; we see the Rye flowing past broad green meadows;
+    and beneath the tree-covered precipice below our feet appear the
+    solemn, roofless remains of one of the first Cistercian monasteries
+    established in this country. There is nothing to disturb the peace that
+    broods here, for the village consists of a mere handful of old and
+    picturesque cottages, and we might stay on the terrace for hours, and,
+    beyond the distant shouts of a few children at play and the crowing of
+    some cocks, hear nothing but the hum of insects and the singing of
+    birds. We take a steep path through the wood which leads us down to the
+    abbey ruins.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The magnificent Early English choir and the Norman transepts stand
+    astonishingly complete in their splendid decay, and the lower portions
+    of the nave, which, until 1922, lay buried beneath masses of
+    grass-grown débris, are now exposed to view. The richly-draped
+    hill-sides appear as a succession of beautiful pictures framed by the
+    columns and arches on each side of the choir. As they stand exposed to
+    the weather, the perfectly proportioned mouldings, the clustered
+    pillars in a wonderfully good state of preservation, and the almost
+    uninjured clerestory are more impressive than in an elaborately-restored
+    cathedral.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH11"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER X
+</h2>
+<center>
+    DESCRIBES THE DALE COUNTRY AS A WHOLE
+</center>
+<p>
+    When in the early years of life one learns for the first time the name
+    of that range of mountains forming the backbone of England, the
+    youthful scholar looks forward to seeing in later years the prolonged
+    series of lofty hills known as the 'Pennine Range.' His imagination
+    pictures Pen-y-ghent and Ingleborough as great peaks, seldom free from
+    a mantle of clouds, for are they not called 'mountains of the Pennine
+    Range,' and do they not appear in almost as large type in the school
+    geography as Snowdon and Ben Nevis? But as the scholar grows older and
+    more able to travel, so does the Pennine Range recede from his vision,
+    until it becomes almost as remote as those crater-strewn mountains in
+    the Moon which have a name so similar.
+</p>
+<p>
+    This elusiveness on the part of a natural feature so essentially static
+    as a mountain range is attributable to the total disregard of the name
+    of this particular chain of hills. In the same way as the term 'Cumbrian
+    Hills' is exchanged for the popular 'Lake District,' so is a large
+    section of the Pennine Range paradoxically known as the 'Yorkshire
+    Dales.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is because the hills are so big that the valleys are deep and it is
+    owing to the great watersheds that these long and narrow dales are
+    beautified by some of the most copious and picturesque rivers in
+    England. In spite of this, however, when one climbs any of the fells
+    over 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 to
+    attract one's attention. Instead of the rounded or angular projections
+    from the horizon that are usually associated with a mountainous
+    district, there are great expanses of brown table-land that form
+    themselves into long parallel lines in the distance, and give a sense
+    of wild desolation in some ways more striking than the peaks of
+    Scotland or Wales. The thick formations of millstone grit and limestone
+    that rest upon the shale have generally avoided crumpling or
+    distortion, and thus give the mountain views the appearance of having
+    had all the upper surfaces rolled flat when they were in a plastic
+    condition. Denudation and the action of ice in the glacial epochs have
+    worn through the hard upper stratum, and formed the long and narrow
+    dales; and in Littondale, Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and many other
+    parts, one may plainly see the perpendicular wall of rock sharply
+    defining the upper edges of the valleys. The softer rocks below
+    generally take a gentle slope from the base of the hard gritstone to
+    the riverside pastures below. At the edges of the dales, where
+    water-falls pour over the wall of limestone&mdash;as at Hardraw Scar, near
+    Hawes&mdash;the action of water is plainly demonstrated, for one can see the
+    rapidity with which the shale crumbles, leaving the harder rocks
+    overhanging above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Unlike the moors of the north-eastern parts of Yorkshire, the fells are
+    not prolific in heather. It is possible to pass through
+    Wensleydale&mdash;or, indeed, most of the dales&mdash;without seeing any heather
+    at all. On the broad plateaux between the dales there are stretches of
+    moor partially covered with ling; but in most instances the fells and
+    moors are grown over at their higher levels with bent and coarse grass,
+    generally of a browny-ochrish colour, broken here and there by an
+    outcrop of limestone that shows grey against the swarthy vegetation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the upper portions of the dales&mdash;even in the narrow riverside
+    pastures&mdash;the fences are of stone, turned a very dark colour by
+    exposure, and everywhere on the slopes of the hills a wide network of
+    these enclosures can be seen traversing even the most precipitous
+    ascents. Where the dales widen out towards the fat plains of the Vale
+    of York, quickset hedges intermingle with the gaunt stone, and as one
+    gets further eastwards the green hedge becomes triumphant. The stiles
+    that are the fashion in the stone-fence districts make quite an
+    interesting study to strangers, for, wood being an expensive luxury,
+    and stone being extremely cheap, everything is formed of the more
+    enduring material. Instead of a trap-gate, one generally finds an
+    excessively narrow opening in the fences, only just giving space for
+    the thickness of the average knee, and thus preventing the passage of
+    the smallest lamb. Some stiles are constructed with a large flat stone
+    projecting from each side, one slightly in front and overlapping the
+    other, so that one can only pass through by making a very careful
+    S-shaped movement. More common are the projecting stones, making a
+    flight of precarious steps on each side of the wall.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Except in their lowest and least mountainous parts, where they are
+    subject to the influences of the plains, the dales are entirely
+    innocent of red tiles and haystacks. The roofs of churches, cottages,
+    barns and mansions, are always of the local stone, that weathers to
+    beautiful shades of green and grey, and prevents the works of man from
+    jarring with the great sweeping hill-sides. Then, instead of the
+    familiar grey-brown haystack, one sees in almost every meadow a
+    neatly-built stone house with an upper storey. The lower part is
+    generally used as a shelter for cattle, while above is stored hay or
+    straw. By this system a huge amount of unnecessary carting is avoided,
+    and where roads are few and generally of exceeding steepness a saving
+    of this nature is a benefit easily understood.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The villages of the dales, although having none of the bright colours
+    of a level country, are often exceedingly quaint, and rich in soft
+    shades of green and grey. In the autumn the mellowed tints of the stone
+    houses are contrasted with the fierce yellows and browny-reds of the
+    foliage, and the villages become full of bright colours. At all times,
+    except when the country is shrivelled by an icy northern wind, the
+    scenery of the dales has a thousand charms.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH12"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    RICHMOND
+</center>
+<p>
+    For the purposes of this book we may consider Richmond as the gateway
+    of the dale country. There are other gates and approaches, some of
+    which may have advocates who claim their superiority over Richmond as
+    starting-places for an exploration of this description, but for my
+    part, I can find no spot on any side of the mountainous region so
+    entirely satisfactory. If we were to commence at Bedale or Leyburn,
+    there is no exact point where the open country ceases and the dale
+    begins; but here at Richmond there is not the very smallest doubt, for
+    on reaching the foot of the mass of rock dominated by the castle and
+    the town, Swaledale commences in the form of a narrow ravine, and from
+    that point westwards the valley never ceases to be shut in by steep
+    sides, which become narrower and grander with every mile.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The railway that keeps Richmond in touch with the world does its work
+    in a most inoffensive manner, and by running to the bottom of the hill
+    on which the town stands, and by there stopping short, we seem to have
+    a strong hint that we have been brought to the edge of a new element in
+    which railways have no rights whatever. This is as it should be, and we
+    can congratulate the North-Eastern Company for its discretion and its
+    sense of fitness. Even the station is built of solid stonework, with a
+    strong flavour of medievalism in its design, and its attractiveness is
+    enhanced by the complete absence of other modern buildings. We are thus
+    welcomed to the charms of Richmond at once. The rich sloping meadows by
+    the river, crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a
+    beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the
+    fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly
+    changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of
+    feudal times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From whatever side you approach it, Richmond has always some fine
+    combination of towers overlooking a confusion of old red roofs and of
+    rocky heights crowned with ivy-mantled walls, all set in the most
+    sumptuous surroundings of silvery river and wooded hills, such as the
+    artists of the age of steel-engraving loved to depict. Every one of
+    these views has in it one dominating feature in the magnificent Norman
+    keep of the castle. It overlooks church towers and everything else with
+    precisely the same aloofness of manner it must have assumed as soon as
+    the builders of nearly eight hundred years ago had put the last stone
+    in place. Externally, at least, it is as complete to-day as it was
+    then, and as there is no ivy upon it, I cannot help thinking that the
+    Bretons who built it in that long distant time would swell with pride
+    were they able to see how their ambitious work has come down the
+    centuries unharmed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can go across the modern bridge, with its castellated parapets, and
+    climb up the steep ascent on the further side, passing on the way the
+    parish church, standing on the steep ground outside the circumscribed
+    limits of the wall which used to enclose the town in early times.
+    Turning towards the castle, we go breathlessly up the cobbled street
+    that climbs resolutely to the market-place in a foolishly direct
+    fashion, which might be understood if it were a Roman road. There is a
+    sleepy quietness about this way up from the station, which is quite a
+    short distance, and we look for much movement and human activity in the
+    wide space we have reached; but here, too, on this warm and sunny
+    afternoon, the few folks who are about seem to find ample time for
+    conversation and loitering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On one side of us is the King's Head, whose steep tiled roof and square
+    front has just that air of respectable importance that one expects to
+    find in an old established English hotel. It looks across the cobbled
+    space to the curious block of buildings that seems to have been
+    intended for a church but has relapsed into shops. The shouldering of
+    secular buildings against the walls of churches is a sight so familiar
+    in parts of France that this market place has an almost Continental
+    flavour, in keeping with the fact that Richmond grew up under the
+    protection of the formidable castle built by that Alan Rufus of
+    Brittany who was the Conqueror's second cousin. The town ceased to be a
+    possession of the Dukes of Brittany in the reign of Richard II., but
+    there had evidently been sufficient time to allow French ideals to
+    percolate into the minds of the men of Richmond, for how otherwise can
+    we account for this strange familiarity of shops with a sacred building
+    which is unheard of in any other English town? Where else can one find
+    a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a
+    tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower
+    parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only
+    realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see
+    the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower
+    portions of the building. In this tower hangs the curfew-bell, which is
+    rung at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m., a custom, according to one writer, 'that has
+    continued ever since the time of William the Conqueror.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the while we have been lingering in the market-place the great
+    keep has been looking at us over some old red roofs, and urging us to
+    go on at once to the finest sight that Richmond can offer, and,
+    resisting the appeal no longer, we make our way down a narrow little
+    street leading out to a walk that goes right round the castle cliffs at
+    the base of the ivy-draped walls.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From down below comes the sound of the river, ceaselessly chafing its
+    rocky bottom and the big boulders that lie in the way. You can
+    distinguish the hollow sound of the waters as they fall over ledges
+    into deep pools, and you can watch the silvery gleams of broken water
+    between the old stone bridge and the dark shade of the woods. The
+    masses of trees clothing the side of the gorge add a note of mystery to
+    the picture by swallowing up the river in their heavy shade, for, owing
+    to its sinuous course among the cliffs, one can see only a short piece
+    of water beyond the bridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The old corner of the town at the foot of Bargate appears over the edge
+    of the rocky slope, but on the opposite side of the Swale there is
+    little to be seen beside the green meadows and shady coppices that
+    cover the heights above the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a fascination in this view in its capacity for change. It
+    responds to every mood of the weather, and every sunset that glows
+    across the sombre woods has some freshness, some feature that is quite
+    unlike any other. Autumn, too, is a memorable time for those who can
+    watch the face of Nature from this spot, for when one of those opulent
+    evenings of the fall of the year turns the sky into a golden sea of
+    glory, studded with strange purple islands, there is unutterable beauty
+    in the flaming woods and the pale river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the way back to the market-place we pass a decayed arch that was
+    probably a postern in the walls of the town. There can be no doubt
+    whatever of the existence of these walls, for Leland begins his
+    description of the town with the words '<i>Richemont</i> Towne is
+    waullid,' and in another place he says: 'Waullid it was, but the waul
+    is now decayid. The Names and Partes of 4 or 5 Gates yet remaine.' We
+    cannot help wondering why Richmond could not have preserved her gates
+    as York has done, or why she did not even make the effort sufficient to
+    retain a single one, as Bridlington and Beverley did. The two
+    posterns&mdash;one we have just mentioned, and the other in Friar's Wynd, on
+    the north side of the market-place, with a piece of wall 6 feet thick
+    adjoining&mdash;are interesting, but we would have preferred something much
+    finer than these mere arches; and while we are grumbling over what
+    Richmond has lost, we may also measure the disaster which befell the
+    market-place in 1771, when the old cross was destroyed. Before that
+    year there stood on the site of the present obelisk a very fine cross
+    which Clarkson, who wrote about a century ago, mentions as being the
+    greatest beauty of the town to an antiquary. A high flight of steps led
+    up to a square platform, which was enclosed by a richly ornamented wall
+    about 6 feet high, having buttresses at the corners, each surmounted
+    with 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 curious
+    compartments' in the wall, says Clarkson, and 'a door that opened into
+    the middle of the square,' but this may have been merely an arched
+    opening. The enrichments, either of the cross itself or the wall,
+    included four shields bearing the arms of the great families of
+    Fitz-Hugh, Scrope (quartering Tibetot), Conyers, and Neville. From the
+    description there is little doubt that this cross was a very beautiful
+    example of Perpendicular or perhaps Decorated Gothic, in place of which
+    we have a crude and bulging obelisk bearing the inscription: 'Rebuilt
+    (!) A.D. 1771, Christopher Wayne, Esq., Mayor'; it should surely have
+    read: 'Perpetrated during the Mayoralty of Christopher Wayne Goth.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although, as we have seen, Leland, who wrote in 1538, mentions
+    Frenchgate and Finkel Street Gate as 'down,' yet they must have been
+    only partially destroyed, or were rebuilt afterwards, for Whitaker,
+    writing in 1823, mentions that they were pulled down 'not many years
+    ago' to allow the passage of broad and high-laden waggons. There can be
+    little doubt, therefore, that, swollen with success after the
+    demolition of the cross, the Mayor and Corporation proceeded to attack
+    the remaining gateways, so that now not the smallest suggestion of
+    either remains. But even here we have not completed the list of
+    barbarisms that took place about this time. The Barley Cross, which
+    stood 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 were
+    fastened either on the shaft or to the steps upon which it stood, so
+    that the cross might answer the purpose of a whipping-post. The pillory
+    stood not far away, and the May-pole is also mentioned.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But despite all this squandering of the treasures that it should have
+    been the business of the town authorities to preserve, the tower of the
+    Grey Friars has survived, and, next to the castle, it is one of the
+    chief ornaments of the town. Some other portions of the monastery are
+    incorporated in the buildings which now form the Grammar School. The
+    Grey Friars is on the north side of the town, outside the narrow limits
+    of the walls, and was probably only finished in time to witness the
+    dispersal of the friars who had built it. It is even possible that it
+    was part of a new church that was still incomplete when the Dissolution
+    of the Monasteries made the work of no account except as building
+    materials for the townsfolk. The actual day of the surrender was
+    January 19, 1538, and we wonder if Robert Sanderson, the Prior, and the
+    fourteen brethren under him, suffered much from the privations that
+    must have attended them at that coldest period of the year. At one time
+    the friars, being of a mendicant order, and inured to hard living and
+    scanty fare, might have made light of such a disaster, but in these
+    later times they had expanded somewhat from their austere ways of
+    living, and the dispersal must have cost them much suffering.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going back to the reign of Henry VII. or there-abouts, we come across
+    the curious ballad of 'The Felon Sow of Rokeby and the Freres of
+    Richmond' quoted from an old manuscript by Sir Walter Scott in
+    'Rokeby.' It may have been as a practical joke, or merely as a good way
+    of getting rid of such a terrible beast, that
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Ralph of Rokeby, with goodwill,
+  The fryers of Richmond gave her till.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Friar Middleton, who with two lusty men was sent to fetch the sow from
+    Rokeby, could scarcely have known that she was
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    To calm the terrible beast when they found it almost impossible to hold
+    her, the friar began to read 'in St. John his Gospell,' but
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'The sow she would not Latin heare,
+  But rudely rushed at the frear,'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    who, turning very white, dodged to the shelter of a tree, whence he saw
+    with horror that the sow had got clear of the other two men. At this
+    their courage evaporated, and all three fled for their lives along the
+    Watling 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 the
+    next day two of the 'boldest men that ever were borne.' These two,
+    Gilbert Griffin and a 'bastard son of Spaine,' went to Rokeby clad in
+    armour and carrying their shields and swords of war, and even then they
+    only just overcame the grisly sow.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If we go across the river by the modern bridge, we can see the humble
+    remains of St. Martin's Priory standing in a meadow by the railway. The
+    ruins consist of part of a Perpendicular tower and a Norman doorway.
+    Perhaps the tower was built in order that the Grey Friars might not
+    eclipse the older foundation, for St. Martin's was a cell belonging to
+    St. Mary's Abbey at York and was founded by Wyman, steward or dapifer
+    to the Earl of Richmond, about the year 1100, whereas the Franciscans
+    in the town owed their establishment to Radulph Fitz-Ranulph, a lord of
+    Middleham in 1258. The doorway of St. Martin's, with its zigzag
+    mouldings must be part of Wyman's building, but no other traces of it
+    remain. Having come back so rapidly to the Norman age, we may well stay
+    there for a time while we make our way over the bridge again and up the
+    steep ascent of Frenchgate to the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On entering the small outer barbican, which is reached by a lane from
+    the market-place, we come to the base of the Norman keep. Its great
+    height of nearly 100 feet is quite unbroken from foundations to summit,
+    and the flat buttresses are featureless. The recent pointing of the
+    masonry has also taken away any pronounced weathering, and has left the
+    tower with almost the same gaunt appearance that it had when Duke Conan
+    saw it completed. Passing through the arch in the wall abutting the
+    keep, we come into the grassy space of over two acres, that is enclosed
+    by the ramparts. It is not known by what stages the keep reached its
+    present form, though there is every reason to believe that Conan, the
+    fifth 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 the
+    soldiers quartered at Richmond, so that there is little to be seen as
+    we climb a staircase in the walls 11 feet thick, and reach the
+    battlemented turrets. Looking downwards, we gaze right into the
+    chimneys of the nearest houses, and we see the old roofs of the town
+    packed closely together in the shelter of the mighty tower. A few tiny
+    people are moving about in the market-place, and there is a thin web of
+    drifting smoke between us and them. Everything is peaceful and remote;
+    even the sound of the river is lost in the wind that blows freely upon
+    us from the great moorland wastes stretching away to the western
+    horizon. It is a romantic country that lies around us, and though the
+    cultivated area must be infinitely greater than in the fighting days
+    when these battlements were finished, yet I suppose the Vale of Mowbray
+    which we gaze upon to the east must have been green, and to some extent
+    fertile, when that Conan who was Duke of Brittany and also Earl of
+    Richmond looked out over the innumerable manors that were his Yorkshire
+    possessions. I can imagine his eye glancing down on a far more
+    thrilling scene than the green three-sided courtyard enclosed by a
+    crumbling grey wall, though to him the buildings, the men, and every
+    detail that filled the great space, were no doubt quite prosaic. It did
+    not thrill him to see a man-at-arms cleaning weapons, when the man and
+    his clothes, and even the sword, were as modern and everyday as the
+    soldier's wife and child that we can see ourselves, but how much would
+    we not give for a half-an-hour of his vision, or even a part of a
+    second, with a good camera in our hands?
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the lower part of what is called Robin Hood's Tower is the Chapel of
+    St. Nicholas, with arcaded walls of early Norman date, and a long and
+    narrow slit forming the east window. More interesting than this is the
+    Norman hall at the south-east angle of the walls. It was possibly used
+    as the banqueting-room of the castle, and is remarkable as being one of
+    the best preserved of the Norman halls forming separate buildings that
+    are to be found in this country. The hall is roofless, but the corbels
+    remain in a perfect state, and the windows on each side are well
+    preserved. The builder was probably Earl Conan, for the keep has
+    details of much the same character. It is generally called Scolland's
+    Hall, after the Lord of Bedale of that name, who was a sewer or dapifer
+    to the first Earl Alan of Richmond. Scolland was one of the tenants of
+    the Earl, and under the feudal system of tenure he took part in the
+    regular guarding of the castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is probably much Norman work in various parts of the crumbling
+    curtain walls, and at the south-west corner a Norman turret is still to
+    be seen.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Alan, who received from the Conqueror the vast possessions of Earl
+    Edwin, was no doubt the founder of Richmond. He probably received this
+    splendid reward for his services soon after the suppression of the
+    Saxon efforts for liberty under the northern Earls. William, having
+    crushed out the rebellion in the remorseless fashion which finally gave
+    him peace in his new possessions, distributed the devastated Saxon
+    lands among his supporters; thus a great part of the earldom of Mercia
+    fell to this Breton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The site of Richmond was fixed as the new centre of power, and the
+    name, with its apparently obvious meaning, may date from that time,
+    unless the suggested Anglo-Saxon derivation which gives it as
+    Rice-munt&mdash;the hill of rule&mdash;is correct. After this Gilling must soon
+    have ceased to be of any account. There can be little doubt that the
+    castle was at once planned to occupy the whole area enclosed by the
+    walls as they exist to-day, although the full strength of the place was
+    not 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 as
+    other parts of the castle. Richmond must then have been considered
+    almost impregnable, and this may account for the fact that it appears
+    to have never been besieged. In 1174, when William the Lion of Scotland
+    was invading England, we are told in Jordan Fantosme's Chronicle that
+    Henry II., anxious for the safety of the honour of Richmond, and
+    perhaps of its custodian as well, asked: 'Randulf de Glanvile est-il en
+    Richemunt?' The King was in France, his possessions were threatened
+    from several quarters, and it would doubtless be a relief to him to
+    know that a stronghold of such importance was under the personal
+    command of so able a man as Glanville. In July of that year the danger
+    from the Scots was averted by a victory at Alnwick, in which fight
+    Glanville was one of the chief commanders of the English, and he
+    probably led the men of Richmondshire.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is a strange thing that Richmond Castle, despite its great
+    pre-eminence, should have been allowed to become a ruin in the reign of
+    Edward III.&mdash;a time when castles had obviously lost none of the
+    advantages to the barons which they had possessed in Norman times. The
+    only explanation must have been the divided interests of the owners,
+    for, as Dukes of Brittany, as well as Earls of Richmond, their English
+    possessions were frequently endangered when France and England were at
+    war. And so it came about that when a Duke of Brittany gave his support
+    to the King of France in a quarrel with the English, his possessions
+    north of the Channel became Crown property. How such a condition of
+    affairs could have continued for so long is difficult to understand,
+    but the final severing came at last, when the unhappy Richard II. was
+    on the throne of England. The honour of Richmond then passed to Ralph
+    Neville, the first Earl of Westmoreland, but the title was given to
+    Edmund Tudor, whose mother was Queen Catherine, the widow of Henry V.
+    Edmund Tudor, as all know, married Margaret Beaufort, the heiress of
+    John of Gaunt, and died about two months before his wife&mdash;then scarcely
+    fourteen years old&mdash;gave birth to his only son, who succeeded to the
+    throne 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 his
+    splendid palace which he built at Shene. Even the ballad of 'The Lass
+    of Richmond Hill' is said to come from Yorkshire, although it is
+    commonly considered a possession of Surrey.
+</p>
+<a name="image-14"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="14.jpg" height="781" width="610"
+alt="Richmond Castle from the River 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Protected by the great castle, there came into existence the town of
+    Richmond, which grew and flourished. The houses must have been packed
+    closely together to provide the numerous people with quarters inside
+    the wall which was built to protect the place from the raiding Scots.
+    The area of the town was scarcely larger than the castle, and although
+    in this way the inhabitants gained security from one danger, they ran a
+    greater risk from a far more insidious foe, which took the form of
+    pestilences of a most virulent character. After one of these
+    visitations 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.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Easby Abbey is so much a possession of Richmond that we cannot go
+    towards the mountains until we have seen something of its charms. The
+    ruins slumber in such unutterable peace by the riverside that the place
+    is well suited to our mood to go a-dreaming of the centuries which have
+    been so long dead that our imaginations are not cumbered with any of
+    the dull times that may have often set the canons of St. Agatha's
+    yawning. The walk along the steep shady bank above the river is
+    beautiful all the way, and the surroundings of the broken walls and
+    traceried windows are singularly rich. There is nothing, however, at
+    Easby that makes a striking picture, although there are many
+    architectural fragments that are full of beauty. Fountains, Rievaulx
+    and Tintern, all leave Easby far behind, but there are charms enough
+    here with which to be content, and it is, perhaps, a pleasant thought
+    to know that, although on this sunny afternoon these meadows by the
+    Swale seem to reach perfection, yet in the neighbourhood of Ripon there
+    is something still finer waiting for us. Of the abbey church scarcely
+    more than enough has survived for the preparation of a ground-plan, and
+    many of the evidences are now concealed by the grass. The range of
+    domestic buildings that surrounded the cloister garth are, therefore,
+    the chief interest, although these also are broken and roofless. We can
+    wander among the ivy-grown walls which, in the refectory, retain some
+    semblance of their original form, and we can see the picturesque
+    remains of the common-room, the guest-hall, the chapter-house, and the
+    sacristy. Beyond the ruins of the north transept, a corridor leads into
+    the infirmary, which, besides having an unusual position, is remarkable
+    as being one of the most complete groups of buildings set apart for
+    this object. A noticeable feature of the cloister garth is a Norman
+    arch belonging to a doorway that appears to be of later date. This is
+    probably the only survival of the first monastery founded, it is said,
+    by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, in 1152. Building of an
+    extensive character was, therefore, in progress at the same time in
+    these sloping meadows, as on the castle heights, and St. Martin's
+    Priory, close to the town, had not long been completed. Whoever may
+    have been the founder of the abbey, it is definitely known that the
+    great family of Scrope obtained the privileges that had been possessed
+    by the Constable, and they added so much to the property of the
+    monastery that in the reign of Henry VIII. the Scropes were considered
+    the original founders. Easby thus became the stately burying-place of
+    the family and the splendid tombs that appeared in the choir of their
+    church were a constant reminder to the canons of the greatness of the
+    lords of Bolton. Sir Henry le Scrope was buried beneath a great stone
+    effigy, bearing the arms&mdash;azure, a bend or&mdash;of his house. Near by lay
+    Sir William le Scrope's armed figure, and round about were many others
+    of the family buried beneath flat stones. We know this from the
+    statement of an Abbot of Easby in the fourteenth century; and but for
+    the record of his words there would be nothing to tell us anything of
+    these ponderous memorials, which have disappeared as completely as
+    though they had had no more permanence than the yellow leaves that are
+    just beginning to flutter from the trees. The splendid church, the
+    tombs, and even the very family of Scrope, have disappeared; but across
+    the hills, in the valley of the Ure, their castle still stands, and in
+    the little church of Wensley there can still be seen the parclose
+    screen of Perpendicular date that one of the Scropes must have rescued
+    when the monastery was being stripped and plundered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fine gate-house of Easby Abbey, which is in a good state of
+    preservation, stands a little to the east of the parish church, and the
+    granary is even now in use.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the sides of the parvise over the porch of the parish church are the
+    arms of Scrope, Conyers, and Aske; and in the chancel of this extremely
+    interesting old building there can be seen a series of wall-paintings,
+    some of which probably date from the reign of Henry III. This would
+    make them earlier than those at Pickering.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH13"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SWALEDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    There is a certain elevated and wind-swept spot, scarcely more than a
+    long mile from Richmond, that commands a view over a wide extent of
+    romantic country. Vantage-points of this type, within easy reach of a
+    fair-sized town, are inclined to be overrated, and, what is far worse,
+    to be spoiled by the litter of picnic parties; but Whitcliffe Scar is
+    free from both objections. In magnificent September weather one may
+    spend many hours in the midst of this great panorama without being
+    disturbed by a single human being, besides a possible farm labourer or
+    shepherd; and if scraps of paper and orange-peel are ever dropped here,
+    the keen winds that come from across the moors dispose of them as
+    efficaciously as the keepers of any public parks.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The view is removed from a comparison with many others from the fact
+    that one is situated at the dividing-line between the richest
+    cultivation and the wildest moorlands. Whitcliffe Scar is the Mount
+    Pisgah from whence the jaded dweller in towns can gaze into a promised
+    land of solitude,
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
+  And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The eastward view of green and smiling country is undeniably beautiful,
+    but to those who can appreciate Byron's enthusiasm for the trackless
+    mountain there is something more indefinable and inspiring in the
+    mysterious loneliness of the west. The long, level lines of the
+    moorland horizon, when the sun is beginning to climb downwards, are cut
+    out in the softest blue and mauve tints against the shimmering
+    transparency of the western sky, and the plantations that clothe the
+    sides of the dale beneath one are filled with wonderful shadows, which
+    are thrown out with golden outlines. The view along the steep valley
+    extends for a few miles, and then is suddenly cut off by a sharp bend
+    where the Swale, a silver ribbon along the bottom of the dale,
+    disappears among the sombre woods and the shoulders of the hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In this aspect of Swaledale one sees its mildest and most civilized
+    mood; for beyond the purple hill-side that may be seen in the
+    illustration, cultivation becomes more palpably a struggle, and the
+    gaunt moors, broken by lines of precipitous scars, assume control of
+    the scenery.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From 200 feet below, where the river is flowing along its stony bed,
+    comes the sound of the waters ceaselessly grinding the pebbles, and
+    from the green pastures there floats upwards a distant ba-baaing. No
+    railway has penetrated the solitudes of Swaledale, and, as far as one
+    may look into the future in such matters, there seems every possibility
+    of this loneliest and grandest of the Yorkshire dales retaining its
+    isolation in this respect. None but the simplest of sounds, therefore,
+    are borne on the keen winds that come from the moorland heights, and
+    the purity of the air whispers in the ear the pleasing message of a
+    land where chimneys have never been.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides the original name of Whitcliffe Scar, this remarkable
+    view-point has, since 1606, been popularly known as 'Willance's Leap.'
+    In that year a certain Robert Willance, whose father appears to have
+    been a successful draper in Richmond, was hunting in the neighbourhood,
+    when he found himself enveloped in a fog. It must have been
+    sufficiently dense to shut out even the nearest objects; for, without
+    any warning, Willance found himself on the verge of the scar, and
+    before 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 almost
+    miraculous good fortune, found himself alive at the bottom with nothing
+    worse than a broken leg.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is a difficult matter to decide which is the more attractive means
+    of exploring Swaledale; for if one keeps to the road at the bottom of
+    the valley many beautiful and remarkable aspects of the country are
+    missed, and yet if one goes over the moors it is impossible really to
+    explore the recesses of the dale. The old road from Richmond to Reeth
+    avoids the dale altogether, except for the last mile, and its ups and
+    its downs make the traveller pay handsomely for the scenery by the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    But this ought not to deter anyone from using the road; for the view of
+    the village of Marske, cosily situated among the wooded heights that
+    rise above the beck, is missed by those who keep to the new road along
+    the banks of the Swale. The romantic seclusion of this village is
+    accentuated towards evening, when a shadowy stillness fills the
+    hollows. The higher woods may be still glowing with the light of the
+    golden west, while down below a softness of outline adds beauty to
+    every object. The old bridge that takes the road to Reeth across Marske
+    Beck needs no such fault-forgiving light, for it was standing in the
+    reign of Elizabeth, and, from its appearance, it is probably centuries
+    older.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The new road to Reeth from Richmond goes down at an easy gradient from
+    the town to the banks of the river, which it crosses when abreast of
+    Whitcliffe Scar, the view in front being at first much the same as the
+    nearer portions of the dale seen from that height. Down on the left,
+    however, there are some chimney-shafts, so recklessly black that they
+    seem to be no part whatever of their sumptuous natural surroundings,
+    and might almost suggest a nightmare in which one discovered that some
+    of the vilest chimneys of the Black Country had taken to touring in the
+    beauty spots of the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As one goes westward, the road penetrates right into the bold scenery
+    that invites exploration when viewed from 'Willance's Leap.' There is a
+    Scottish feeling&mdash;perhaps Alpine would be more correct&mdash;in the
+    steeply-falling sides of the dale, all clothed in firs and other dense
+    plantations; and just where the Swale takes a decided turn towards the
+    south there is a view up Marske Beck that adds much to the romance of
+    the scene. Behind one's back the side of the dale rises like a dark
+    green wall entirely in shadow, and down below half buried in foliage,
+    the river swirls and laps its gravelly beaches, also in shadow. Beyond
+    a strip of pasture begin the tumbled masses of trees which, as they
+    climb out of the depths of the valley, reach the warm, level rays of
+    sunlight that turns the first leaves that have passed their prime into
+    the fierce yellows and burnt siennas which, when faithfully represented
+    at Burlington House, are often considered overdone. Even the gaunt
+    obelisk near Marske Hall responds to a fine sunset of this sort, and
+    shows a gilded side that gives it almost a touch of grandeur.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Evening is by no means necessary to the attractions of Swaledale, for a
+    blazing noon gives lights and shades and contrasts of colour that are a
+    large portion of Swaledale's charms. If instead of taking either the
+    old road by way of Marske, or the new one by the riverside, one had
+    crossed the old bridge below the castle, and left Richmond by a very
+    steep road that goes to Leyburn, one would have reached a moorland that
+    is at its best in the full light of a clear morning.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The clouds are big, but they carry no threat of rain, for right down to
+    the far horizon from whence this wind is coming there are patches of
+    blue proportionate to the vast spaces overhead. As each white mass
+    passes across the sun, we are immersed in a shadow many acres in
+    extent: but the sunlight has scarcely fled when a rim of light comes
+    over the edge of the plain, just above the hollow where Downholme
+    village lies hidden from sight, and in a few minutes that belt of
+    sunshine has reached some sheep not far off, and rimmed their coats
+    with a brilliant edge of white. Shafts of whiteness, like searchlights,
+    stream from behind a distant cloud, and everywhere there is brilliant
+    contrast and a purity to the eye and lungs that only a Yorkshire moor
+    possesses.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short two miles up the road to Leyburn, just above Gill Beck, there
+    is an ancient house known as Walburn Hall, and also the remains of the
+    chapel belonging to it, which dates from the Perpendicular period. The
+    buildings are now used as a farm, but there are still enough
+    suggestions of a dignified past to revivify the times when this was a
+    centre of feudal power.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 bold
+    scenery of the dale once more becomes impressive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two great headlands, formed by the wall-like terminations of Cogden and
+    Harkerside Moors, rising one above the other, stand out magnificently.
+    Their huge sides tower up nearly a thousand feet from the river, until
+    they are within reach of the lowering clouds that every moment threaten
+    to envelop them in their indigo embrace. There is a curious rift in the
+    dark cumulus revealing a thin line of dull carmine that frequently
+    changes its shape and becomes nearly obliterated, but its presence in
+    no way weakens the awesomeness of the picture. The dale appears to
+    become huger and steeper as the clouds thicken, and what have been
+    merely woods and plantations in this heavy gloom become mysterious
+    forests. The river, too, seems to change its character, and become a
+    pale serpent, uncoiling itself from some mountain fastness where no
+    living creatures besides great auks and carrion birds, dwell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In such surroundings as these there were established in the Middle
+    Ages, two religious houses, within a mile of one another, on opposite
+    sides of the swirling river. On the north bank, not far from Marrick
+    village, you may still see the ruins of Marrick Priory in its beautiful
+    situation much as Turner painted it a century ago. Leland describes
+    Marrick as 'a Priory of Blake Nunnes of the Foundation of the Askes.'
+    It was, we know, an establishment for Benedictine Nuns, founded or
+    endowed by Roger de Aske in the twelfth century. At Ellerton, on the
+    other side of the river a little lower down, the nunnery was of the
+    Cistercian Order; for, although very little of its history has been
+    discovered, Leland writes of the house as 'a Priori of White clothid
+    Nunnes.' After the Battle of Bannockburn, when the Scots raided all
+    over the North Riding of Yorkshire, they came along Swaledale in search
+    of plunder, and we are told that Ellerton suffered from their violence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Where the dale becomes wider, owing to the branch valley of
+    Arkengarthdale, there are two villages close together. Grinton is
+    reached first, and is older than Reeth, which is a short distance north
+    of the river. The parish of Grinton is one of the largest in Yorkshire.
+    It is more than twenty miles long, containing something near 50,000
+    acres, and according to Mr. Speight, who has written a very detailed
+    history of Richmondshire, more than 30,000 acres of this consist of
+    mountain, grouse-moor and scar. For so huge a parish the church is
+    suitable in size, but in the upper portions of the dales one must not
+    expect any very remarkable exteriors; and Grinton, with its low roofs
+    and plain battlemented tower, is much like other churches in the
+    neighbourhood. Inside there are suggestions of a Norman building that
+    has passed away, and the bowl of the font seems also to belong to that
+    period. The two chapels opening from the chancel contain some
+    interesting features, which include a hagioscope, and both are enclosed
+    by old screens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Leaving the village behind, and crossing the Swale, you soon come to
+    Reeth, which may, perhaps, be described as a little town. It must have
+    thrived with the lead-mines in Arkengarthdale and along the Swale, for
+    it has gone back since the period of its former prosperity, and is glad
+    of the fact that its situation, and the cheerful green which the houses
+    look upon, have made it something of a holiday resort.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Reeth is left behind, there is no more of the fine 'new' road
+    which makes travelling so easy for the eleven miles from Richmond. The
+    surface is, however, by no means rough along the nine miles to Muker,
+    although the scenery becomes far wilder and more mountainous with every
+    mile. The dale narrows most perceptibly; the woods become widely
+    separated, and almost entirely disappear on the southern side; and the
+    gaunt moors, creeping down the sides of the valley seem to threaten the
+    narrow belt of cultivation, that becomes increasingly restricted to the
+    river margins. Precipitous limestone scars fringe the browny-green
+    heights in many places, and almost girdle the summit of Calver Hill,
+    the great bare height that rises a thousand feet above Reeth. The farms
+    and hamlets of these upper parts of Swaledale are of the same greys,
+    greens, and browns as the moors and scars that surround them. The stone
+    walls, that are often high and forbidding, seem to suggest the
+    fortifications required for man's fight with Nature, in which there is
+    no encouragement for the weak. In the splendid weather that so often
+    welcomes the mere summer rambler in the upper dales the austerity of
+    the widely scattered farms and villages may seem a little
+    unaccountable; but a visit in January would quite remove this
+    impression, though even in these lofty parts of England the worst
+    winter snowstorm has, in quite recent years, been of trifling
+    inconvenience. Bad winters will, no doubt, be experienced again on the
+    fells; but leaving out of the account the snow that used to bury farms,
+    flocks, roads, and even the smaller gills, in a vast smother of
+    whiteness, there are still the winds that go shrieking over the
+    desolate heights, there is still the high rainfall, and there are still
+    destructive thunderstorms that bring with them hail of a size that we
+    seldom encounter in the lower levels.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great rapidity with which the Swale, or such streams as the Arkle,
+    can produce a devastating flood can scarcely be comprehended by those
+    who have not seen the results of even moderate rainstorms on the fells.
+    When, however, some really wet days have been experienced in the upper
+    parts of the dales, it seems a wonder that the bridges are not more
+    often in jeopardy.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of course, even the highest hills of Yorkshire are surpassed in wetness
+    by their Lakeland neighbours; for whereas Hawes Junction, which is only
+    about seven miles south of Muker, has an average yearly rainfall of
+    about 62 inches, Mickleden, in Westmorland, can show 137, and certain
+    spots in Cumberland aspire towards 200 inches in a year.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The weather conditions being so severe, it is not surprising to find
+    that no corn at all is grown in Swaledale at the present day. Some
+    notes, found in an old family Bible in Teesdale, are quoted by Mr.
+    Joseph Morris. They show the painful difficulties experienced in the
+    eighteenth century from such entries as: '1782. I reaped oats for John
+    Hutchinson, when the field was covered with snow,' and: '1799, Nov. 10.
+    Much corn to cut and carry. A hard frost.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Muker, notwithstanding all these climatic difficulties, has some claim
+    to picturesqueness, despite the fact that its church is better seen at
+    a distance, for a close inspection reveals its rather poverty-stricken
+    state. The square tower, so typical of the dales, stands well above the
+    weathered roofs of the village, and there are sufficient trees to tone
+    down the severities of the stone walls, that are inclined to make one
+    house much like its neighbour, and but for natural surroundings would
+    reduce the hamlets to the same uniformity. At Muker, however, there is
+    a steep bridge and a rushing mountain stream that joins the Swale just
+    below. The road keeps close to this beck, and the houses are thus
+    restricted to one side of the way.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Away to the south, in the direction of the Buttertubs Pass, is Stags
+    Fell, 2,213 feet above the sea, and something like 1,300 feet above
+    Muker. Northwards, and towering over the village, is the isolated mass
+    of 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 the
+    finest portions of the dale, and, although the road leaves the river
+    and passes round the western side of Kisdon, there is a path that goes
+    through the glen, and brings one to the road again at Keld.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 in
+    this district. These are not to me, however, the chief attractions of
+    the head of Swaledale, although without the angry waters the gills and
+    narrow ravines that open from the dale would lose much interest. It is
+    the stern grandeur of the scarred hillsides and the wide mountainous
+    views from the heights that give this part of Yorkshire such a
+    fascination. If you climb to the top of Rogan's Seat, you have a huge
+    panorama of desolate country spread out before you. The confused jumble
+    of blue-grey mountains to the north-west is beyond the limits of
+    Yorkshire at last, and in their strong embrace those stern Westmorland
+    hills hold the charms of Lakeland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    If one stays in this mountainous region, there are new and exciting
+    walks available for every day. There are gloomy recesses in the
+    hillsides that encourage exploration from the knowledge that they are
+    not tripper-worn, and there are endless heights to be climbed that are
+    equally free from the smallest traces of desecrating mankind. Rare
+    flowers, ferns, and mosses flourish in these inaccessible solitudes,
+    and will continue to do so, on account of the dangers that lurk in
+    their fastnesses, and also from the fact that their value is nothing to
+    any but those who are glad to leave them growing where they are.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH14"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WENSLEYDALE
+</center>
+<a name="image-15"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="15.jpg" height="597" width="809"
+alt="A Rugged View Above Wensleydale 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The approach from Muker to the upper part of Wensleydale is by a
+    mountain road that can claim a grandeur which, to those who have never
+    explored the dales, might almost seem impossible. I have called it a
+    road, but it is, perhaps, questionable whether this is not too
+    high-sounding a term for a track so invariably covered with large loose
+    stones and furrowed with water-courses. At its highest point the road
+    goes through the Buttertubs Pass, taking the traveller to the edge of
+    the pot-holes that have given their name to this thrilling way through
+    the mountain ridge dividing the Swale from the Ure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 that
+    darkness came on when I was at the highest portion of the pass. It was
+    late in September, and it was the day of the feast at Hawes, which had
+    drawn 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 way
+    slowly up the long ascent from Muker, stumbling frequently on the loose
+    stones and in the water-worn runnels that were scarcely visible in the
+    dim twilight. The huge, bare shoulders of the fells began to close in
+    more and more as I climbed. Towards the west lay Great Shunnor Fell,
+    its vast brown-green mass being sharply defined against the clear
+    evening sky; while further away to the north-west there were blue
+    mountains going to sleep in the soft mistiness of the distance. Then
+    the road made a sudden zig-zag, but went on climbing more steeply than
+    ever, until at last I found that the stony track had brought me to the
+    verge of a precipice. There was not sufficient light to see what
+    dangers lay beneath me, but I could hear the angry sound of a beck
+    falling upon quantities of bare rocks. If one does not keep to the
+    road, there is on the other side the still greater menace of the
+    Buttertubs, the dangers of which are too well known to require any
+    emphasis of mine. Those pot-holes which have been explored with much
+    labour, and the use of winches and tackle and a great deal of stout
+    rope, have revealed in their cavernous depths the bones of sheep that
+    disappeared from flocks which have long since become mutton. This road
+    is surely one that would have afforded wonderful illustrations to the
+    'Pilgrim's Progress,' for the track is steep and narrow and painfully
+    rough; dangers lie on either side, and safety can only be found by
+    keeping in the middle of the road.
+</p>
+<p>
+    What must have been the thoughts, I wonder, of the dalesmen who on
+    different occasions had to go over the pass at night in those still
+    recent times when wraithes and hobs were terrible realities? In the
+    parts of Yorkshire where any records of the apparitions that used to
+    enliven the dark nights have been kept, I find that these awesome
+    creatures were to be found on every moor, and perhaps some day in my
+    reading I shall discover an account of those that haunted this pass.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although there are probably few who care for rough moorland roads at
+    night, the Buttertubs Pass in daylight is still a memorable place. The
+    pot-holes can then be safely approached, and one can peer into the
+    blackness below until the eyes become adapted to the gloom. Then one
+    sees the wet walls of limestone and the curiously-formed isolated
+    pieces of rock that almost suggest columnar basalt. In crevices far
+    down delicate ferns are growing in the darkness. They shiver as the
+    cool water drips upon them from above, and the drops they throw off
+    fall down lower still into a stream of underground water that has its
+    beginnings no man knows where. On a hot day it is cooling simply to
+    gaze into the Buttertubs, and the sound of the falling waters down in
+    these shadowy places is pleasant after gazing on the dry fell-sides.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Just beyond the head of the pass, where the descent to Hawes begins,
+    the shoulders of Great Shunnor Fell drop down, so that not only
+    straight ahead, but also westwards, one can see a splendid mountain
+    view. Ingleborough's flat top is conspicuous in the south, and in every
+    direction there are indications of the geology of the fells. The hard
+    stratum of millstone grit that rests upon the limestone gives many of
+    the summits of the hills their level character, and forms the
+    sharply-defined scars that encircle them. The sudden and violent
+    changes of weather that take place among these watersheds would almost
+    seem to be cause enough to explain the wearing down of the angularities
+    of the heights. Even while we stand on the bridge at Hawes we can see
+    three or four ragged cloud edges letting down on as many places
+    torrential rains, while in between there are intervals of blazing
+    sunshine, under which the green fells turn bright yellow and orange in
+    powerful contrast to the indigo shadows on every side. Such rapid
+    changes from complete saturation to sudden heat are trying to the
+    hardest rocks, and at Hardraw, close at hand, there is a still more
+    palpable process of denudation in active operation.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Such a morning as this is quite ideal for seeing the remarkable
+    waterfall known as Hardraw Scar or Force. The footpath that leads up
+    the 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 pass
+    through. Being September, and an uncertain day for weather, we have the
+    whole glen to ourselves, until behind some rocks we discover a solitary
+    angler. There is nothing but the roughest of tracks to follow, for the
+    carefully-made pathway that used to go right up to the fall was swept
+    away half a dozen years ago, when the stream in a fierce mood cleared
+    its course of any traces of artificiality. We are deeply grateful, and
+    make our among the big rocks and across the slippery surfaces of shale,
+    with the roar of the waters becoming more and more insistent. The sun
+    has turned into the ravine a great searchlight that has lit up the rock
+    walls and strewn the wet grass beneath with sparkling jewels. On the
+    opposite side there is a dense blue shadow over everything except the
+    foliage on the brow of the cliffs, where the strong autumn colours leap
+    into a flaming glory that transforms the ravine into an astonishing
+    splendour. A little more careful scrambling by the side of the stream,
+    and we see a white band of water falling from the overhanging limestone
+    into the pool about ninety feet below. Off the surface of the water
+    drifts a mist of spray, in which a soft patch of rainbow hovers until
+    the sun withdraws itself for a time and leaves a sudden gloom in the
+    horseshoe of overhanging cliffs. The place is, perhaps, more in
+    sympathy with a cloudy sky, but, under sunshine or cloud, the spout of
+    water is a memorable sight, and its imposing height places Hardraw
+    among the small group of England's finest waterfalls. The mass of shale
+    that lies beneath this stratum is soft enough to be worked away by the
+    water until the limestone overhangs the pool to the extent of ten or
+    twelve 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 walk
+    on a rather moist and slippery path that is constantly being sprayed
+    from the surface of the pool.
+</p>
+<p>
+    John Leland wrote, nearly four hundred years ago, '<i>Uredale</i> veri
+    litle Corne except Bygg or Otes, but plentiful of Gresse in Communes,'
+    and although this dale is so much more genial in aspect, and so much
+    wider than the valley of the Swale, yet crops are under the same
+    disabilities. Leaving Gayle behind, we climb up a steep and stony road
+    above the beck until we are soon above the level of green pasturage.
+    The stone walls still cover the hillsides with a net of very large
+    mesh, but the sheep find more bent than grass, and the ground is often
+    exceedingly steep. Higher still climbs this venturesome road, until all
+    around us is a vast tumble of gaunt brown fells, divided by ravines
+    whose sides are scarred with runnels of water, which have exposed the
+    rocks and left miniature screes down below. At a height of nearly 1,600
+    feet there is a gate, where we will turn away from the road that goes
+    on past Dodd Fell into Langstrothdale, and instead climb a smooth grass
+    track sprinkled with half-buried rocks until we have reached the summit
+    of Wether Fell, 400 feet higher. There is a scanty growth of ling upon
+    the top of this height, but the hills that lie about on every side are
+    browny-green or of an ochre colour, and there is little of the purple
+    one sees in the Cleveland Hills.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The cultivated level of Wensleydale is quite hidden from view, so that
+    we look over a vast panorama of mountains extending in the west as far
+    as the blue fells of Lakeland. I have painted the westward view from
+    this very summit, so that any written description is hardly needed; but
+    behind us, as we face the scene illustrated here, there is a wonderful
+    expanse that includes the heights of Addlebrough, Stake Fell, and
+    Penhill Beacon, which stand out boldly on the southern side of
+    Wensleydale. I have seen these hills lightly covered with snow, but
+    that can give scarcely the smallest suggestion of the scene that was
+    witnessed after the remarkable snowstorm of January, 1895, which
+    blocked the roads between Wensleydale and Swaledale until nearly the
+    middle of March. Roads were dug out, with walls of snow on either side
+    from 10 to 15 feet in height, but the wind and fresh falls almost
+    obliterated the passages soon after they had been cut. In
+    Landstrothdale Mr. Speight tells of the extraordinary difficulties of
+    the dalesfolk in the farms and cottages, who were faced with starvation
+    owing to the difficulty of getting in provisions. They cut ways through
+    the drifts as high as themselves in the direction of the likeliest
+    places to obtain food, while in Swaledale they built sledges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have left the highest part of Wether Fell, we find the track
+    taking a perfectly straight line between stone walls. The straightness
+    is so unusual that there can be little doubt that it is a survival of
+    one of the Roman ways connecting their station on Brough Hill, just
+    above the village of Bainbridge, with some place to the south-west. The
+    track goes right over Cam Fell, and is known as the Old Cam Road, but I
+    cannot recommend it for any but pedestrians. When we have descended
+    only a short distance, there is a sudden view of Semmerwater, the only
+    piece of water in Yorkshire that really deserves to be called a lake.
+    It is a pleasant surprise to discover this placid patch of blue lying
+    among the hills, and partially hidden by a fellside in such a way that
+    its area might be far greater than 105 acres.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Those who know Turner's painting of this lake would be disappointed, no
+    doubt, if they saw it first from this height. The picture was made at
+    the edge of the water with the Carlow Stone in the foreground, and over
+    the mountains on the southern shore appears a sky that would make the
+    dullest potato-field thrilling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A short distance lower down, by straying a little from the road, we get
+    a really imposing view of Bardale, into which the ground falls suddenly
+    from our very feet. Sheep scamper nimbly down their convenient little
+    tracks, but there are places where water that overflows from the pools
+    among the bent and ling has made blue-grey seams and wrinkles in the
+    steep places that give no foothold even to the toughest sheep.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We lose sight of Semmerwater behind the ridge that forms one side of
+    the branch dale in which it lies, but in exchange we get beautiful
+    views of the sweeping contours of Wensleydale. High upon the further
+    side of the valley Askrigg's gray roofs and pretty church stand out
+    against a steep fellside; further down we can see Nappa Hall,
+    surrounded by trees, just above the winding river, and Bainbridge lies
+    close at hand. We soon come to the broad and cheerful green, surrounded
+    by a picturesque scattering of old but well preserved cottages; for
+    Bainbridge has sufficient charms to make it a pleasant inland resort
+    for holiday times that is quite ideal for those who are content to
+    abandon the sea. The overflow from Semmerwater, which is called the
+    Bam, fills the village with its music as it falls over ledges or rock
+    in many cascades along one side of the green.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a steep bridge, which is conveniently placed for watching the
+    waterfalls; there are white geese always drilling on the grass, and
+    there are still to be seen the upright stones of the stocks. The pretty
+    inn called the 'Rose and Crown,' overlooking a corner of the green
+    states upon a board that it was established in 1445.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A horn-blowing custom has been preserved at Bainbridge. It takes place
+    at ten o'clock every night between Holy Rood (September 27) and
+    Shrovetide, but somehow the reason for the observance has been
+    forgotten. The medieval regulations as to the carrying of horns by
+    foresters and those who passed through forests would undoubtedly
+    associate the custom with early times, and this happy old village
+    certainly gains our respect for having preserved anything from such a
+    remote period. When we reach Bolton Castle we shall find in the museum
+    there an old horn from Bainbridge.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides having the length and breadth of Wensleydale to explore with or
+    without the assistance of the railway, Bainbridge has as its particular
+    possession the valley containing Semmerwater, with the three romantic
+    dales at its head. Counterside, a hamlet perched a little above the
+    lake, has an old hall, where George Fox stayed in 1677 as a guest of
+    Richard Robinson. The inn bears the date 1667 and the initials
+    'B.H.J.,' which may be those of one of the Jacksons, who were Quakers
+    at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the other side of the river, and scarcely more than a mile from
+    Bainbridge, is the little town of Askrigg, which supplies its neighbour
+    with a church and a railway-station. There is a charm in its breezy
+    situation that is ever present, for even when we are in the narrow
+    little street that curves steeply up the hill there are quite
+    exhilarating peeps of the dale. We can see Wether Fell, with the road
+    we traversed yesterday plainly marked on the slopes, and down below,
+    where the Ure takes its way through bright pastures, there is a mist of
+    smoke ascending from Hawes. Blocking up the head of the dale are the
+    spurs of Dodd and Widdale Fells, while beyond them appears the blue
+    summit of Bow Fell. We find it hard to keep our eyes away from the
+    distant mountains, which fascinate one by appearing to have an
+    importance that is perhaps diminished when they are close at hand.
+</p>
+<a name="image-16"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="16.jpg" height="795" width="571"
+alt="A Jacobean House at Askrigg 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    We find ourselves halting on a patch of grass by the restored
+    market-cross to look more closely at a fine old house overlooking the
+    three-sided space. There is no doubt as to the date of the building,
+    for a plain inscription begins 'Gulielmus Thornton posuit hanc domum
+    MDCLXXVIII.' The bay windows have heavy mullions and there is a dignity
+    about the house which must have been still more apparent when the
+    surrounding houses were lower than at present. The wooden gallery that
+    is constructed between the bays was, it is said, built as a convenient
+    place for watching the bull-fights that took place just below. In the
+    grass there can still be seen the stone to which the bull-ring was
+    secured. The churchyard runs along the west side of the little
+    market-place, so that there is an open view on that side, made
+    interesting by the Perpendicular church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The simple square tower and the unbroken roof-lines are battlemented,
+    like so many of the churches of the dales; inside we find Norman
+    pillars that are quite in strange company, if it is true that they were
+    brought from the site of Fors Abbey, a little to the west of the town.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wensleydale generally used to be famed for its hand-knitting, but I
+    think Askrigg must have turned out more work than any place in the
+    valley, for the men as well as the womenfolk were equally skilled in
+    this employment, and Mr. Whaley says they did their work in the open
+    air 'while gossiping with their neighbours.' This statement is,
+    nevertheless, exceeded by what appears in a volume entitled 'The
+    Costume of Yorkshire.' In that work of 1814, which contains a number of
+    George Walker's quaint drawings, reproduced by lithography, we find a
+    picture having a strong suggestion of Askrigg in which there is a group
+    of old and young of both sexes seated on the steps of the market-
+    cross, all knitting, and a little way off a shepherd is seen driving
+    some sheep through a gate, and he also is knitting.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From Askrigg there is a road that climbs up from the end of the little
+    street at a gradient that looks like 1 in 4, but it is really less
+    formidable. Considering its steepness the surface is quite good, but
+    that is due to the industry of a certain road-mender with whom I once
+    had the privilege to talk when, hot and breathless, I paused to enjoy
+    the great expanse that lay to the south. He was a fine Saxon type, with
+    a sunburnt face and equally brown arms. Road-making had been his ideal
+    when he was a mere boy, and since he had obtained his desire he told me
+    that he couldn't be happier if he were the King of England. The
+    picturesque road where we leave him, breaking every large stone he can
+    find, goes on across a belt of brown moor, and then drops down between
+    gaunt scars that only just leave space for the winding track to pass
+    through. It afterwards descends rapidly by the side of a gill, and thus
+    enters Swaledale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is a beautiful walk from Askrigg to Mill Gill Force. The distance
+    is scarcely more than half a mile across sloping pastures and through
+    the curious stiles that appear in the stone walls. So dense is the
+    growth of trees in the little ravine that one hears the sound of the
+    waters close at hand without seeing anything but the profusion of
+    foliage overhanging and growing among the rocks. After climbing down
+    among the moist ferns and moss-grown stones, the gushing cascades
+    appear suddenly set in a frame of such lavish beauty that they hold a
+    high place among their rivals in the dale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Keeping to the north side of the river, we come to Nappa Hall at a
+    distance of a little over a mile to the east of Askrigg. It is now a
+    farmhouse, but its two battlemented towers proclaim its former
+    importance as the chief seat of the family of Metcalfe. The date of the
+    house is about 1459, and the walls of the western tower are 4 feet in
+    thickness. The Nappa lands came to James Metcalfe from Sir Richard
+    Scrope of Bolton Castle shortly after his return to England from the
+    field of Agincourt, and it was probably this James Metcalfe who built
+    the existing house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road down the dale passes Woodhall Park, and then, after going down
+    close to the Ure, it bears away again to the little village of
+    Carperby. It has a triangular green surrounded by white posts. At the
+    east end stands an old cross, dated 1674, and the ends of the arms are
+    ornamented with grotesque carved heads. The cottages have a neat and
+    pleasant appearance, and there is much less austerity about the place
+    than one sees higher up the dale. A branch road leads down to Aysgarth
+    Station, and just where the lane takes a sharp bend to the right a
+    footpath goes across a smooth meadow to the banks of the Ure. The
+    rainfall of the last few days, which showed itself at Mill Gill Force,
+    at Hardraw Scar, and a dozen other falls, has been sufficient to swell
+    the main stream at Wensleydale into a considerable flood, and behind
+    the bushes that grow thickly along the riverside we can hear the steady
+    roar of the cascades of Aysgarth. The waters have worn down the rocky
+    bottom to such an extent that in order to stand in full view of the
+    splendid fall we must make for a gap in the foliage, and scramble down
+    some natural steps in the wall of rock forming low cliffs along each
+    side of the flood. The water comes over three terraces of solid stone,
+    and then sweeps across wide ledges in a tempestuous sea of waves and
+    froth, until there come other descents which alter the course of parts
+    of the stream, so that as we look across the riotous flood we can see
+    the waters flowing in many opposite directions. Lines of cream-coloured
+    foam spread out into chains of bubbles which join together, and then,
+    becoming detached, again float across the smooth portions of each low
+    terrace.
+</p>
+<a name="image-17"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="17.jpg" height="571" width="807"
+alt="Aysgarth Force 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Some footpaths bring us to Aysgarth village, which seems altogether to
+    disregard the church, for it is separated from it by a distance of
+    nearly half a mile. There is one pleasant little street of old stone
+    houses irregularly disposed, many of them being quite picturesque, with
+    mossy roofs and ancient chimneys. This village, like Askrigg and
+    Bainbridge, is ideally situated as a centre for exploring a very
+    considerable 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 is
+    beautifully situated under a steep hillside. It has a green overlooked
+    by little grey cottages, and lower down there is a tall mill with
+    curious windows built upon Bishop Dale Beck. Close to this mill there
+    nestles a long, low house of that dignified type to be seen frequently
+    in the North Riding, as well as in the villages of Westmorland. The
+    huge chimney, occupying a large proportion of one gable-end, is
+    suggestive of much cosiness within, and its many shoulders, by which it
+    tapers towards the top, make it an interesting feature of the house.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The dale narrows up at its highest point, but the road is enclosed
+    between grey walls the whole of the way over the head of the valley. A
+    wide view of Langstrothdale and upper Wharfedale is visible when the
+    road begins to drop downwards, and to the east Buckden Pike towers up
+    to his imposing height of 2,302 feet. We shall see him again when we
+    make our way through Wharfedale but we could go back to Wensleydale by
+    a mountain-path that climbs up the side of Cam Gill Beck from
+    Starbottom, and then, crossing the ridge between Buckden Pike and Tor
+    Mere Top, it goes down into the wild recesses of Waldendale. So remote
+    is this valley that wild animals, long extinct in other parts of the
+    dales, survived there until almost recent times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have crossed the Ure again, and taken a last look at the Upper
+    Fall from Aysgarth Bridge, we betake ourselves by a footpath to the
+    main highway through Wensleydale, turning aside before reaching Redmire
+    in order to see the great castle of the Scropes at Bolton. It is a vast
+    quadrangular mass, with each side nearly as gaunt and as lofty as the
+    others. At each corner rises a great square tower, pierced, with a few
+    exceptions, by the smallest of windows. Only the base of the tower at
+    the north-east corner remains to-day, the upper part having fallen one
+    stormy night in November, 1761, possibly having been weakened during
+    the siege of the castle in the Civil War. We go into the court-yard
+    through a vaulted archway on the eastern side. Many of the rooms on the
+    side facing us are in good preservation, and an apartment in the
+    south-west tower, which has a fireplace, is pointed out as having been
+    used by Mary Queen of Scots when she was imprisoned here after the
+    Battle of Langside in 1568. It was the ninth Lord Scrope who had the
+    custody of the Queen, and he was assisted by Sir Francis Knollys. Mary,
+    no doubt, found the time of her imprisonment irksome enough, despite
+    the magnificent views over the dale which her windows appear to have
+    commanded; but the monotony was relieved to some extent by the lessons
+    in English which she received from Sir Francis, whom she describes as
+    her 'good schoolmaster.' While still a prisoner, Mary addressed to him
+    her first English letter, which begins: 'Master Knollys, I heve sum neus
+    from Scotland'; and half-way through she begs that he will excuse her
+    writing, seeing that she had 'neuur vsed it afor,' and was 'hestet.'
+    The letter concludes with 'thus, affter my commendations, I prey God
+    heuu you in his kipin. Your assured gud frind, MARIE R.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the steep-sided dale Penhill stands out
+    prominently, with its flat summit reflecting just enough of the setting
+    sun to recall a momentous occasion when from that commanding spot a
+    real beacon-fire sent up a great mass of flame and sparks. It was
+    during the time of Napoleon's threatened invasion of England, and the
+    lighting of this beacon was to be the signal to the volunteers of
+    Wensleydale to muster and march to their rendezvous. The watchman on
+    Penhill, as he sat by the piled-up brushwood, wondering, no doubt, what
+    would 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 took
+    to be the beacon upon Roseberry Topping. A moment later tongues of
+    flame and smoke were pouring from his own hilltop, and the news spread
+    up the dale like wildfire. The volunteers armed themselves rapidly, and
+    with drums beating they marched away, with only such delay as was
+    caused by the hurried leave-takings with wives and mothers, and all the
+    rest who crowded round. The contingent took the road to Thirsk, and on
+    the way were joined by the Mashamshire men. Whether it was with relief
+    or disappointment I do not know; but when the volunteers reached Thirsk
+    they heard that they had been called out by a false alarm, for the
+    light seen in the direction of Roseberry Topping had been caused by
+    accident, and the beacon on that height had not been lit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wensley stands just at the point where the dale, to which it has given
+    its name, becomes so wide that it begins to lose its distinctive
+    character. The village is most picturesque and secluded, and it is
+    small enough to cause some wonder as to its distinction in naming the
+    valley. It is suggested that the name is derived from <i>Wodenslag</i>,
+    and that in the time of the Northmen's occupation of these parts the
+    place named after their chief god would be the most important.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the little church standing on the south side of the green there is
+    so much to interest us that we are almost unable to decide what to
+    examine first, until, realizing that we are brought face to face with a
+    beautiful relic of Easby Abbey, we turn our attention to the parclose
+    screen. It surrounds the family pew of Bolton Hall, and on three sides
+    we see the Perpendicular woodwork fitted into the east end of the north
+    aisle. The side that fronts the nave has an entirely different
+    appearance, being painted and of a classic order, very lacking in any
+    ecclesiastical flavour, an impression not lost on those who, with every
+    excuse, called it 'the opera box.' In the panels of the early part of
+    the screen are carved inscriptions and arms of the Scropes covering a
+    long period, and, though many words and letters are missing, it is
+    possible to make them more complete with the help of the record made by
+    the heralds in 1665.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A charming lane, overhung by big trees, runs above the river-banks for
+    nearly two miles of the way to Middleham; then it joins the road from
+    Leyburn, and crosses the Ure by a suspension bridge, defended by two
+    very formidable though modern archways. Climbing up past the church, we
+    enter the cobbled market-place, which wears a rather decayed appearance
+    in sympathy with the departed magnificence of the great castle of the
+    Nevilles. It commands a vast view of Wensleydale from the southern
+    side, in much the same manner as Bolton does from the north; but the
+    castle buildings are entirely different, for Middleham consists of a
+    square Norman keep, very massive and lofty, surrounded at a short
+    distance by a strong wall and other buildings, also of considerable
+    height, built in the Decorated period, when the Nevilles were in
+    possession of the stronghold. The Norman keep dates from the year 1190,
+    when Robert Fitz Randolph, grandson of Ribald, a brother of the Earl of
+    Richmond, began to build the Castle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was, however, in later times, when Middleham had come to the
+    Nevilles by marriage, that really notable events took place in this
+    fortress. 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 with
+    Anne Neville.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have already seen Leyburn Shawl from near Wensley, but its charm can
+    only be appreciated by seeing the view up the dale from its
+    larch-crowned termination. Perhaps if we had seen nothing of
+    Wensleydale, and the wonderful views it offers, we should be more
+    inclined to regard this somewhat popular spot with greater veneration;
+    but after having explored both sides of the dale, and seen many views
+    of a very similar character, we cannot help thinking that the vista is
+    somewhat overrated. Leyburn itself is a cheerful little town, with a
+    modern church and a very wide main street which forms a most extensive
+    market-place. There is a bull-ring still visible in the great open
+    space, but beyond this and the view from the Shawl Leyburn has few
+    attractions, except its position as a centre or a starting-place from
+    which to explore the romantic neighbourhood.
+</p>
+<a name="image-18"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="18.jpg" height="791" width="596"
+alt="View up Wensleydale from Leyburn Shawl 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    As we leave Leyburn we get a most beautiful view up Coverdale, with the
+    two Whernsides standing out most conspicuously at the head of the
+    valley, and it is this last view of Coverdale, and the great valley
+    from which it branches, that remains in the mind as one of the finest
+    pictures of this most remarkable portion of Yorkshire.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH15"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    RIPON AND FOUNTAINS ABBEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    We have come out of Wensleydale past the ruins of the great Cistercian
+    abbey of Jervaulx, which Conan, Earl of Richmond, moved from Askrigg to
+    a kindlier climate, and we have passed through the quiet little town of
+    Masham, famous for its fair in September, when sometimes as many as
+    70,000 sheep, including great numbers of the fine Wensleydale breed,
+    are sold, and now we are at Ripon. It is the largest town we have seen
+    since 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 of
+    the dale country, and miss the fells that lie a little to the west. The
+    evening has settled down to steady rain, and the market-place is
+    running with water that reflects the lights in the shop-windows and
+    the dark outline of the obelisk in the centre. This erection is
+    suspiciously called 'the Cross,' and it made its appearance nearly
+    seventy 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 it
+    supplanted, but if it were anything half as fine as the one at
+    Richmond, I should merely be moved to say harsh things of John
+    Aislabie, who was Mayor in 1702, when the obelisk was erected, and
+    therefore I will leave the matter to others. It is, perhaps, an
+    un-Christian occupation to go about the country quarrelling with the
+    deeds of recent generations, though I am always grateful for any traces
+    of the centuries that have gone which have been allowed to survive.
+    With this thought still before me, I am startled by a long-drawn-out
+    blast on a horn, and, looking out of my window, which commands the
+    whole of the market-place, I can see beneath the light of a lamp an
+    old-fashioned figure wearing a three-cornered hat. When the last
+    quavering note has come from the great circular horn, the man walks
+    slowly across the wet cobble-stones to the obelisk, where I watch him
+    wind another blast just like the first, and then another, and then a
+    third, immediately after which he walks briskly away and disappears
+    down a turning. In the light of morning I discover that the horn was
+    blown in front of the Town Hall, whose stucco front bears the
+    inscription: 'Except ye Lord keep ye cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in
+    vain.' The antique spelling is, of course, unable to give a wrong
+    impression as to the age of the building, for it shows its period so
+    plainly 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 houses
+    to be seen in Ripon, and there clings to the streets a certain flavour
+    of 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 is
+    the work of Archbishop Walter Gray, and is a most beautiful example of
+    the pure Early English style. Inside there is a good deal of
+    transitional Norman work to be seen. The central tower was built in
+    this period, but now presents a most remarkable appearance, owing to
+    its partial reconstruction in Perpendicular times, the arch that faces
+    the nave having the southern pier higher than the Norman one, and in
+    the later style, so that the arch is lop-sided. As a building in which
+    to study the growth of English Gothic architecture, I can scarcely
+    think it possible to find anything better, all the periods being very
+    clearly represented. The choir has much sumptuous carved woodwork, and
+    the misereres are full of quaint detail. In the library there is a
+    collection of very early printed books and other relics of the minster
+    that add very greatly to the interest of the place.
+</p>
+<a name="image-19"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="19.jpg" height="568" width="822"
+alt="Ripon Minster from the South 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The monument to Hugh Ripley, who was the last Wakeman of Ripon and
+    first Mayor in 1604, is on the north side of the nave facing the
+    entrance to the crypt, popularly called 'St. Wilfrid's Needle.' A
+    rather difficult flight of steps goes down to a narrow passage leading
+    into a cylindrically vaulted cell with niches in the walls. At the
+    north-east corner is the curious slit or 'Needle' that has been thought
+    to have been used for purposes of trial by ordeal, the innocent person
+    being able to squeeze through the narrow opening.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In reality it is probably nothing more than an arrangement for lighting
+    two cells with one lamp. The crypt is of such a plainly Roman type, and
+    is so similar to the one at Hexham, that it is generally accepted as
+    dating from the early days of Christianity in Yorkshire, and there can
+    be little doubt that it is a relic of Wilfrid's church in those early
+    times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At a very convenient distance from Ripon, and approached by a pleasant
+    lane, are the lovely glades of Studley Royal, the noble park containing
+    the ruins of Fountains Abbey. Below the well-kept pathway runs the
+    Skell, but so transformed from its early character that you would
+    imagine the pathways wind round the densely-wooded slopes, and give a
+    dozen different views of each mass of trees, each temple, and each bend
+    of the river. At last, from a considerable height, you have the lovely
+    view of the abbey ruins illustrated here. At every season its charm is
+    unmistakable, and even if no stately tower and no roofless arches
+    filled the centre of the prospect, the scene would be almost as
+    memorable. It is only one of the many pictures in the park that a
+    retentive memory will hold as some of the most remarkable in England.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Among the ruins the turf is kept in perfect order, and it is pleasant
+    merely to look upon the contrast of the green carpet that is so evenly
+    laid between the dark stonework. The late-Norman nave, with its solemn
+    double line of round columns, the extremely graceful arches of the
+    Chapel of the Nine Altars, and the magnificent vaulted perspective of
+    the dark cellarium of the lay-brothers, are perhaps the most
+    fascinating portions of the buildings. I might be well compared with
+    the last abbot but one, William Thirsk, who resigned his post,
+    forseeing the coming Dissolution, and was therefore called 'a varra
+    fole and a misereble ideote,' if I attempted in the short space
+    available to give any detailed account of the abbey or its wonderful
+    past. I have perhaps said enough to insist on its charms, and I know
+    that all who endorse my statements will, after seeing Fountains, read
+    with delight the books that are devoted to its story.
+</p>
+<a name="image-20"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="20.jpg" height="842" width="549"
+alt="Fountains Abbey 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<a name="2HCH16"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    KNARESBOROUGH AND HARROGATE
+</center>
+<p>
+    It is sometimes said that Knaresborough is an overrated town from the
+    point of view of its attractiveness to visitors, but this depends very
+    much upon what we hope to find there. If we expect to find lasting
+    pleasure in contemplating the Dropping Well, or the pathetic little
+    exhibition of petrified objects in the Mother Shipton Inn, we may be
+    prepared for disappointment. It seems strange that the real and lasting
+    charms of the town should be overshadowed by such popular and
+    much-advertised 'sights.' The first view of the town from the 'high'
+    bridge is so full of romance that if there were nothing else to
+    interest us in the place we would scarcely be disappointed. The Nidd,
+    flowing smoothly at the foot of the precipitous heights upon which the
+    church and the old roofs appear, is spanned by a great stone viaduct.
+    This might have been so great a blot upon the scene that Knaresborough
+    would have lost half its charm. Strangely enough, we find just the
+    reverse is the case, for this railway bridge, with its battlemented
+    parapets and massive piers, is now so weathered that it has melted into
+    its surroundings as though it had come into existence as long ago as
+    the oldest building visible. The old Knaresborough kept well to the
+    heights adjoining the castle, and even to-day there are only a handful
+    of later buildings down by the river margin.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have crossed the bridge, and have passed along a narrow roadway
+    perched well above the river, we come to one of the many interesting
+    houses that help to keep alive the old-world flavour of the town. Only
+    a few years ago the old manor-house had a most picturesque and rather
+    remarkable exterior, for its plaster walls were covered with a large
+    black and white chequer-work and its overhanging eaves and tailing
+    creepers gave it a charm that has since then been quite lost. The
+    restoration which recently took place has entirely altered the
+    character of the exterior, but inside everything has been preserved
+    with just the care that should have been expended outside as well.
+    There are oak-wainscoted parlours, oak dressers, and richly-carved
+    fireplaces in the low-ceiled rooms, each one containing furniture of
+    the period of the house. Upstairs there is a beautiful old bedroom
+    lined with oak, like those on the floor below, and its interest is
+    greatly enhanced by the story of Oliver Cromwell's residence in the
+    house, for he is believed to have used this particular bedroom.
+</p>
+<a name="image-21"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="21.jpg" height="583" width="846"
+alt="Knaresborough 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Higher up the hill stands the church with a square central tower
+    surmounted by a small spike. It still bears the marks of the fire made
+    by the Scots during their disastrous descent upon Yorkshire after
+    Edward II.'s defeat at Bannockburn. The chapel north of the chancel
+    contains interesting monuments of the old Yorkshire family of Slingsby.
+    The altar-tomb in the centre bears the recumbent effigies of Francis
+    Slingsby, who died in 1600, and Mary his wife. Another monument shows
+    Sir William Slingsby, who accidentally discovered the first spring at
+    Harrogate. The Slingsbys, who were cavaliers, produced a martyr in the
+    cause of Charles I. This was the distinguished Sir Henry, who, in 1658,
+    'being beheaded by order of the tyrant Cromwell, ... was translated to
+    a better place.' So says the inscription on a large slab of black
+    marble in the floor of the chapel. The last of the male line of the
+    family was Sir Charles Slingsby, who was most unfortunately drowned by
+    the upsetting of a ferry-boat in the Ure in February, 1869.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we have progressed beyond the market-place, we come out upon an
+    elevated grassy space upon the top of a great mass of rock whose
+    perpendicular sides drop down to a bend of the Nidd. Around us are
+    scattered the ruins of Knaresborough Castle&mdash;poor and of small account
+    if we compare them with Richmond, although the site is very similar;
+    where before the siege in 1644 there must have been a most imposing
+    mass of towers and curtain walls. Of the great keep, only the lowest
+    story is at all complete, for above the first-floor there are only two
+    sides to the tower, and these are battered and dishevelled. The walls
+    enclosed about the same area as Richmond, but they are now so greatly
+    destroyed that it is not easy to gain a clear idea of their position.
+    There were no less than eleven towers, of which there now remain
+    fragments of six, part of a gateway, and behind the old courthouse
+    there are evidences of a secret cell. An underground sally-port opening
+    into the moat, which was a dry one, is reached by steps leading from
+    the castle yard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The keep is in the Decorated style, and appears to have been built in
+    the reign of Edward II. Below the ground is a vaulted dungeon, dark and
+    horrible in its hopeless strength, which is only emphasized by the tiny
+    air-hole that lets in scarcely a glimmering of light, but reveals a
+    thickness of 15 feet of masonry that must have made a prisoner's heart
+    sick. It is generally understood that Bolingbroke spared Richard II.
+    such confinement as this, and that when he was a prisoner in the keep
+    he occupied the large room on the floor above the kitchen. It is now a
+    mere platform, with the walls running up on two sides only. The kitchen
+    (sometimes called the guard-room) has a perfectly preserved roof of
+    heavy groining, supported by two pillars, and it contains a collection
+    of interesting objects, rather difficult to see, owing to the poor
+    light that the windows allow. There is a great deal to interest us
+    among the wind-swept ruins and the views into the wooded depths of the
+    Nidd, and we would rather stay here and trace back the history of the
+    castle and town to the days of that Norman Serlo de Burgh, who is the
+    first mentioned in its annals, than go down to the tripper-worn
+    Dropping Well and the Mother Shipton Inn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The distance between Knaresborough and Harrogate is short, and after
+    passing Starbeck we come to an extensive common known as the Stray. We
+    follow the grassy space, when it takes a sharp turn to the north, and
+    are soon in the centre of the great watering-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is one spot in Harrogate that has a suggestion of the early days
+    of the town. It is down in the corner where the valley gardens almost
+    join the extremity of the Stray. There we find the Royal Pump Room that
+    made its appearance in early Victorian times, and its circular counter
+    is still crowded every morning by a throng of water-drinkers. We wander
+    through the hilly streets and gaze at the pretentious hotels, the
+    baths, the huge Kursaal, the hydropathic establishments, the smart
+    shops, and the many churches, and then, having seen enough of the
+    buildings, we find a seat supported by green serpents, from which to
+    watch the passers-by. A white-haired and withered man, having the stamp
+    of a military life in his still erect bearing, paces slowly by; then
+    come two elaborately dressed men of perhaps twenty-five. They wear
+    brown suits and patent boots, and their bowler hats are pressed down on
+    the backs of their heads. Then nursemaids with perambulators pass,
+    followed by a lady in expensive garments, who talks volubly to her two
+    pretty daughters. When we have tired of the pavements and the people,
+    we bid farewell to them without much regret, being in a mood for
+    simplicity and solitude, and go away towards Wharfedale with the
+    pleasant tune that a band was playing still to remind us for a time of
+    the scenes we have left behind.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH17"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    WHARFEDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    Otley is the first place we come to in the long and beautiful valley of
+    the Wharfe. It is a busy little town where printing machinery is
+    manufactured and worsted mills appear to thrive. Immediately to the
+    south rises the steep ridge known as the Chevin. It answers the same
+    purpose as Leyburn Shawl in giving a great view over the dale; the
+    elevation of over 900 feet, being much greater than the Shawl, of
+    course commands a far more extensive panorama, and thus, in clear
+    weather, York Minster appears on the eastern horizon and the Ingleton
+    Fells on the west.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Farnley Hall, on the north side of the Wharfe, is an Elizabethan house
+    dating from 1581, and it is still further of interest on account of
+    Turner's frequent visits, covering a great number of years, and for the
+    very fine collection of his paintings preserved there. The
+    oak-panelling and coeval furniture are particularly good, and among the
+    historical relics there is a remarkable memento of Marston Moor in the
+    sword that Cromwell carried during the battle.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Ilkley has contrived to keep an old well-house, where the water's
+    purity is its chief attraction. The church contains a thirteenth-
+    century effigy of Sir Andrew de Middleton, and also three
+    pre-Norman crosses without arms. On the heights to the south of Ilkley
+    is Rumbles Moor, and from the Cow and Calf rocks there is a very fine
+    view.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About six miles still further up Wharfedale, Bolton Abbey stands by a
+    bend of the beautiful river. The ruins are most picturesquely placed on
+    ground slightly raised above the banks of the Wharfe. Of the domestic
+    buildings practically nothing remains, while the choir of the church,
+    the central tower, and north transepts are roofless and extremely
+    beautiful ruins. The nave is roofed in, and is used as a church at the
+    present time, and it is probable that services have been held in the
+    building practically without any interruption for 700 years. Hiding the
+    Early English west end is the lower half of a fine Perpendicular tower,
+    commenced by Richard Moone, the last Prior.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great east window of the choir has lost its tracery, and the
+    Decorated windows at the sides are in the same vacant state, with the
+    exception of one. It is blocked up to half its height, like those on
+    the north side, but the flamboyant tracery of the head is perfect and
+    very graceful. Lower down there is some late-Norman interlaced arcading
+    resting on carved corbels.
+</p>
+<a name="image-22"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="22.jpg" height="815" width="568"
+alt="Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    From the abbey we can take our way by various beautiful paths to the
+    exceedingly rich scenery of Bolton woods. Some of the reaches of the
+    Wharfe through this deep and heavily-timbered part of its course are
+    really enchanting, and not even the knowledge that excursion parties
+    frequently traverse the paths can rob the views of their charm. It is
+    always possible, by taking a little trouble, to choose occasions for
+    seeing these beautiful but very popular places when they are unspoiled
+    by the sights and sounds of holiday-makers, and in the autumn, when the
+    woods have an almost undreamed-of brilliance, the walks and drives are
+    generally 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 spots
+    that accumulate stories and legends of the individuals who have lost
+    their lives, or saved them, by endeavouring to leap the narrow channel.
+    That several people have been drowned here is painfully true, for the
+    temptation to try the seemingly easy but very risky jump is more than
+    many can resist.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Higher up, the river is crossed by the three arches of Barden Bridge, a
+    fine old structure bearing the inscription: 'This bridge was repayred
+    at the charge of the whole West R ... 1676.' To the south of the bridge
+    stands the picturesque Tudor house called Barden Tower, which was at
+    one time a keeper's lodge in the manorial forest of Wharfedale. It was
+    enlarged by the tenth Lord Clifford&mdash;the 'Shepherd Lord' whose strange
+    life-story is mentioned in the next chapter in connection with
+    Skipton&mdash;but having become ruinous, it was repaired in 1658 by that
+    indefatigable restorer of the family castles, the Lady Anne Clifford.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At this point there is a road across the moors to Pateley Bridge, in
+    Nidderdale, and if we wish to explore that valley, which is now
+    partially filled with a lake formed by the damming of the Nidd for
+    Bradford's water-supply, we must leave the Wharfe at Barden. If we keep
+    to the more beautiful dale we go on through the pretty village of
+    Burnsall to Grassington, where a branch railway has recently made its
+    appearance from Skipton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The dale from this point appears more and more wild, and the fells
+    become gaunt and bare, with scars often fringing the heights on either
+    side. We keep to the east side of the river, and soon after having a
+    good view up Littondale, a beautiful branch valley, we come to
+    Kettlewell. This tidy and cheerful village stands at the foot of Great
+    Whernside, one of the twin fells that we saw overlooking the head of
+    Coverdale when we were at Middleham. Its comfortable little inns make
+    Kettlewell a very fine centre for rambles in the wild dales that run up
+    towards the head of Wharfedale.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Buckden is a small village situated at the junction of the road from
+    Aysgarth, and it has the beautiful scenery of Langstrothdale Chase
+    stretching away to the west. About a mile higher up the dale we come to
+    the curious old church of Hubberholme standing close to the river, and
+    forming a most attractive picture in conjunction with the bridge and
+    the 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 down
+    to Hawes. The track goes across Horse Head Moor, and it is so very
+    slightly marked on the bent that we only follow it with difficulty. It
+    is steep in places, for in a short distance it climbs up to nearly
+    2,000 feet. The tawny hollows in the fell-sides, and the utter wildness
+    spread all around, are more impressive when we are right away from
+    anything that can even be called a path.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we reach the highest point before the rapid descent into
+    Littondale we have another great view, with Pen-y-ghent close at hand
+    and Fountains Fell more to the south.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH18"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SKIPTON, MALHAM AND GORDALE
+</center>
+<p>
+    When I think of Skipton I am never quite sure whether to look upon it
+    as a manufacturing centre or as one of the picturesque market towns of
+    the dale country. If you arrive by train, you come out of the station
+    upon such vast cotton-mills, and such a strong flavour of the bustling
+    activity of the southern parts of Yorkshire, that you might easily
+    imagine that the capital of Craven has no part in any holiday-making
+    portion of the county. But if you come by road from Bolton Abbey, you
+    enter the place at a considerable height, and, passing round the margin
+    of the wooded Haw Beck, you have a fine view of the castle, as well as
+    the church and the broad and not unpleasing market-place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The fine gateway of the castle is flanked by two squat towers. They are
+    circular and battlemented, and between them upon a parapet, which is
+    higher than the towers themselves, appears the motto of the Cliffords,
+    'Desormais' (hereafter), in open stone letters. Beyond the gateway
+    stands a great mass of buildings with two large round towers just in
+    front; to the right, across a sloping lawn, appears the more modern and
+    inhabited portion of the castle. The squat round towers gain all our
+    attention, but as we pass through the doorways into the courtyard
+    beyond, we are scarcely prepared for the astonishingly beautiful
+    quadrangle that awaits us. It is small, and the centre is occupied by a
+    great yew-tree, whose tall, purply-red trunk goes up to the level of
+    the roofs without any branches or even twigs, but at that height it
+    spreads out freely into a feathery canopy of dark green, covering
+    almost the whole of the square of sky visible from the courtyard. The
+    base of the trunk is surrounded by a massive stone seat, with plain
+    shields on each side. The aspect of the courtyard suggests more that of
+    a manor-house than a castle, the windows and doorways being purely
+    Tudor. The circular towers and other portions of the walls belong to
+    the time of Edward II., and there is also a round-headed door that
+    cannot be later than the time of Robert de Romillé, one of the
+    Conqueror's followers. The rooms that overlook the shady quadrangle are
+    very much decayed and entirely unoccupied. They include an old
+    dining-hall of much picturesqueness, kitchens, pantries, and butteries,
+    some of them only lighted by very narrow windows. The destruction
+    caused during the siege which took place during the Civil War might
+    have brought Skipton Castle to much the same condition as Knaresborough
+    but for the wealth and energy of that remarkable woman Lady Anne
+    Clifford, who was born here in 1589. She was the only surviving child
+    of George, the third Earl of Cumberland, and grew up under the care of
+    her mother, Margaret, Countess of Cumberland, of whom Lady Anne used to
+    speak as 'my blessed mother.' After her first marriage with Richard
+    Sackville, 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. With
+    immense enthusiasm, she undertook the work of repairing the castles
+    that belonged to her family, Brougham, Appleby, Barden Tower, and
+    Pendragon being restored as well as Skipton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Besides attending to the decayed castles, the Countess repaired no less
+    than seven churches, and to her we owe the careful restoration of the
+    parish church of Skipton. She began the repairs to the sacred building
+    even before she turned her attention to the wants of the castle. In her
+    private memorials we read how, 'In the summer of 1665 ... at her own
+    charge, 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 it
+    over, and then repaired some part of the Church and new glaz'd the
+    Windows, in ever of which Window she put quaries, stained with a yellow
+    colour, these two letters&mdash;viz., A. P., and under them the year
+    1655... Besides, she raised up a noble Tomb of Black Marble in memory
+    of her Warlike Father.' This magnificent altar-tomb still stands within
+    the Communion rails on the south side of the chancel. It is adorned
+    with seventeen shields, and Whitaker doubted 'whether so great an
+    assemblage of noble bearings can be found on the tomb of any other
+    Englishman.' This third Earl was a notable figure in the reign of
+    Elizabeth, 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 a
+    skilful and daring sailor, helping to defeat the Spanish Armada, and
+    building at his own expense one of the greatest fighting ships of his
+    time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The memorials of Lady Anne give a description of her appearance in the
+    manner of that time: "The colour of her eyes was black like her
+    Father's," we are told, "with a peak of hair on her forehead, and a
+    dimple in her chin, like her father. The hair of her head was brown and
+    very thick, and so long that it reached to the calf of her legs when
+    she stood upright."
+</p>
+<p>
+    We cannot leave these old towers of Skipton Castle without going back
+    to the days of John, the ninth Lord Clifford, that "Bloody Clifford"
+    who was one of the leaders of the Lancastrians at Wakefield, where his
+    merciless slaughter earned him the title of "the Butcher." He died by a
+    chance arrow the night before the Battle of Towton, so fatal to the
+    cause of Lancaster, and Lady Clifford and the children took refuge in
+    her father's castle at Brough. For greater safety Henry, the heir, was
+    placed under the care of a shepherd whose wife had nursed the boy's
+    mother when a child. In this way the future baron grew up as an
+    entirely uneducated shepherd lad, spending his days on the fells in the
+    primitive fashion of the peasants of the fifteenth century. When he was
+    about twelve years old Lady Clifford, hearing rumours that the
+    whereabouts of her children had become known, sent the shepherd and his
+    wife with the boy into an extremely inaccessible part of Cumberland. He
+    remained there until his thirty-second year, when the Battle of
+    Bosworth placed Henry VII on the throne. Then the shepherd lord was
+    brought to Londesborough, and when the family estates had been
+    restored, he went back to Skipton Castle. The strangeness of his new
+    life being irksome to him, Lord Clifford spent most of his time in
+    Barden Forest at one of the keeper's lodges, which he adapted for his
+    own use. There he hunted and studied astronomy and astrology with the
+    canons of Bolton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Flodden Field he led the men-at-arms from Craven, and showed that by
+    his life of extreme simplicity he had in no way diminished the
+    traditional valour of the Cliffords. When he died they buried him at
+    Bolton Abbey, where many of his ancestors lay, and as his successor
+    died after the dissolution of the monasteries, the "Shepherd Lord" was
+    the last to be buried in that secluded spot by the Wharfe.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Skipton has always been a central spot for the exploration of this
+    southern portion of the dales. To the north is Kirby Malham, a pretty
+    little village with green limestone hills rising on all sides; a
+    rushing beck coming off Kirby Fell takes its way past the church, and
+    there is an old vicarage as well as some picturesque cottages.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We find our way to a decayed lych-gate, whose stones are very black and
+    moss-grown, and then get a close view of the Perpendicular church. The
+    interior is full of interest, not only on account of the Norman font
+    and the canopied niches in the pillars of the nave, but also for the
+    old pews. The Malham people seemingly found great delight in recording
+    their names on the woodwork of the pews, for carefully carved initials
+    and dates appear very frequently. All the pews have been cut down to
+    the accepted height of the present day with the exception of some on
+    the north side which were occupied by the more important families, and
+    these still retain their squareness and the high balustrades above the
+    panelled lower portions.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Just under the moorland heights surrounding Malham Tarn is the other
+    village of Malham. It is a charming spot, even in the gloom of a wintry
+    afternoon. 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 by
+    a rough stone footbridge, and, making our way past a farm, find
+    ourselves in a few minutes at Gordale Bridge. Here we abandon the
+    switchback lane, and, climbing a wall, begin to make our way along the
+    side of the beck. The fells drop down fairly sharply on each side, and
+    in the failing light there seems no object in following the stream any
+    further, when quite suddenly the green slope on the right stands out
+    from a scarred wall of rock beyond, and when we are abreast of the
+    opening we find ourselves before a vast fissure that leads right into
+    the heart of the fell. The great split is S-shaped in plan, so that
+    when we advance into its yawning mouth we are surrounded by limestone
+    cliffs more than 300 feet high. If one visits Gordale Scar for the
+    first time alone on a gloomy evening, as I have done, I can promise the
+    most thrilling sensations to those who have yet to see this astonishing
+    sight. It almost appeared to me as though I were dreaming, and that I
+    was Aladdin approaching the magician's palace. I had read some of the
+    eighteenth-century writer's descriptions of the place, and imagined
+    that their vivid accounts of the terror inspired by the overhanging
+    rocks were mere exaggerations, but now I sympathize with every word.
+    The scars overhang so much on the east side that there is not much
+    space 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, and
+    among them I noticed some that could not have been there long; this
+    made me keep close under the cliff in justifiable fear of another fall.
+    I stared with apprehension at one rock that would not only kill, but
+    completely bury, anyone upon whom it fell, and I thought those old
+    writers had underrated the horrors of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wordsworth writes of
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  "Gordale chasm, terrific as the lair Where the young lions couch,"
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    and he also describes it as one of the grandest objects in nature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A further result of the Craven fault that produced Gordale Scar can be
+    seen at Malham Cove, about a mile away. There the cliff forms a curved
+    front 285 feet high, facing the open meadows down below. The limestone
+    is formed in layers of great thickness, dividing the face of the cliff
+    into three fairly equal sections, the ledges formed at the commencement
+    of each stratum allowing of the growth of bushes and small trees. A
+    hard-pressed fox is said to have taken refuge on one of these
+    precarious ledges, and finding his way stopped in front, he tried to
+    turn, and in doing so fell and was killed.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the base of the perpendicular face of the cliff the Aire flows from
+    a very slightly arched recess in the rock. It is a really remarkable
+    stream in making its debut without the slightest fuss, for it is large
+    enough at its very birth to be called a small river. Its modesty is a
+    great loss to Yorkshire, for if, instead of gathering strength in the
+    hidden places in the limestone fells, it were to keep to more rational
+    methods, it would flow to the edge of the Cover, and there precipitate
+    itself in majestic fashion into a great pool below.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH19"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XVIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    SETTLE AND THE INGLETON FELLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    The track across the moor from Malham Cove to Settle cannot be
+    recommended to anyone at night, owing to the extreme difficulty of
+    keeping to the path without a very great familiarity with every yard of
+    the way, so that when I merely suggested taking that route one wintry
+    night the villagers protested vigorously. I therefore took the road
+    that goes up from Kirby Malham, having borrowed a large hurricane lamp
+    from the "Buck" Inn at Malham. Long before I reached the open moor I
+    was enveloped in a mist that would have made the track quite invisible
+    even where it was most plainly marked, and I blessed the good folk at
+    Malham who had advised me to take the road rather than run the risks of
+    the pot-holes that are a feature of the limestone fells. The little
+    town of Settle has a most distinctive feature in the possession of
+    Castleberg, a steep limestone hill, densely wooded except at the very
+    top, that rises sharply just behind the market-place. Before the trees
+    were planted there seems to have been a sundial on the side of the
+    hill, the precipitous scar on the top forming the gnomon. No one
+    remembers this curious feature, although a print showing the numbers
+    fixed upon the slope was published in 1778. The market-place has lost
+    its curious old tolbooth, and in its place stands a town hall of good
+    Tudor design. Departed also is much of the charm of the old Shambles
+    that occupy a central position in the square. The lower story, with big
+    arches forming a sort of piazza in front of the butcher's and other
+    shops, still remains in its old state, but the upper portion has been
+    restored in the fullest sense of that comprehensive term.
+</p>
+<a name="image-23"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="23.jpg" height="564" width="879"
+alt="Settle 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    In the steep street that we came down on entering the town there may
+    still be seen a curious old tower, which seems to have forgotten its
+    original purpose. Some of the houses have carved stone lintels to their
+    doorways and seventeenth-century dates, while the stone figure on 'The
+    Naked Man' Inn, although bearing the date 1663, must be very much
+    older, the year of rebuilding being probably indicated rather than the
+    date of the figure.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Ribble divides Settle from its former parish church at Giggleswick,
+    and until 1838 the townsfolk had to go over the bridge and along a short
+    lane to the village which held its church. Settle having been formed
+    into a separate parish, the parish clerk of the ancient village no
+    longer has the fees for funerals and marriages. Although able to share
+    the church, the two places had stocks of their own for a great many
+    years. At Settle they have been taken from the market square and placed
+    in the court-house, and at Giggleswick one of the first things we see on
+    entering the village is one of the stone posts of the stocks standing by
+    the steps of the market cross. This cross has a very well preserved
+    head, and it makes the foreground of a very pretty picture as we look at
+    the battlemented tower of the church through the stone-roofed lichgate
+    grown over with ivy. The history of this fine old church, dedicated,
+    like that of Middleham, to St Alkelda, has been written by Mr. Thomas
+    Brayshaw, who knows every detail of the old building from the chalice
+    inscribed "THE. COMMVNION. CVPP. BELONGINGE. TO. THE. PARISHE. OF.
+    IYGGELSWICKE. MADE. IN. ANO. 1585." to the inverted Norman capitals now
+    forming the bases of the pillars. The tower and the arcades date from
+    about 1400, and the rest of the structure is about 100 years older.
+</p>
+<p>
+    "The Black Horse" Inn has still two niches for small figures of saints,
+    that proclaim its ecclesiastical connections in early times. It is said
+    that in the days when it was one of the duties of the churchwardens to
+    see that no one was drinking there during the hours of service the
+    inspection used to last up to the end of the sermon, and that when the
+    custom was abolished the church officials regretted it exceedingly.
+    Giggleswick is also the proud possessor of a school founded in 1512. It
+    has grown from a very small beginning to a considerable establishment,
+    and it possesses one of the most remarkable school chapels that can be
+    seen anywhere in the country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The greater part of this district of Yorkshire is composed of
+    limestone, forming bare hillsides honeycombed with underground waters
+    and pot-holes, which often lead down into the most astonishing caverns.
+    In Ingleborough itself there is Gaping Gill Hole, a vast fissure nearly
+    350 feet deep. It was only partially explored by M. Martel in 1895.
+    Ingleborough Cave penetrates into the mountain to a distance of nearly
+    1,000 yards, and is one of the best of these limestone caverns for its
+    stalactite formations. Guides take visitors from the village of Clapham
+    to the inmost recesses and chambers that branch out of the small
+    portion discovered in 1837.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In almost every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain
+    walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is
+    comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from
+    most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views
+    across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the
+    bare rocky scars.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH20"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XIX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    CONCERNING THE WOLDS
+</center>
+<p>
+    On wide uplands of chalk the air has a raciness, the sunlight a purity
+    and 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 any
+    parks; ruined abbeys and even castles may be conspicuously absent, and
+    yet the landscapes have a power of attracting and fascinating. This is
+    exactly the case with the Wolds of Yorkshire, and their characteristics
+    are not unlike the chalk hills of Sussex, or those great expanses of
+    windswept downs, where the weathered monoliths of Stonehenge have
+    resisted sun and storm for ages.
+</p>
+<a name="image-24"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="24.jpg" height="573" width="803"
+alt="Wolds 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    When we endeavour to analyse the power of attraction exerted by the
+    Wolds, we find it to exist in the sweeping outlines of the land with
+    scarcely a house to be seen for many miles, in the purity of the air
+    owing to the absence of smoke, in the brilliance of the sunlight due to
+    the whiteness of the roads and fields, and in the wonderful breezes
+    that for ever blow across pasture, stubble, and roots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Above the eastern side of the valley, where the Derwent takes its deep
+    and sinuous course towards the alluvial lands, the chalk first makes
+    its appearance in the neighbourhood of Acklam, and farther north at
+    Wharram-le-Street, where picturesque hollows with precipitous sides
+    break up the edge of the cretaceous deposits. Eastwards the high
+    country, scarred here and there with gleaming chalk-pits, and netted
+    with roads of almost equal whiteness, continues to the great headland
+    of Flamborough, where the sea frets and fumes all the summer, and
+    lacerates the cliffs during the stormy months. The masses of flinty
+    chalk have shown themselves so capable of resisting the erosion of the
+    sea that the seaward termination of the Wolds has for many centuries
+    been becoming more and more a pronounced feature of the east coast of
+    England, and if the present rate of encroachment along the low shores
+    of Holderness is continued, this accentuation will become still more
+    conspicuous.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The open roads of the Wolds, bordered by bright green grass and hedges
+    that lean away from the direction of the prevailing wind, give wide
+    views to bare horizons, or glimpses beyond vast stretches of waving
+    corn, of distant country, blue and indistinct, and so different in
+    character from the immediate surroundings as to suggest the ocean.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Flamborough the white cliffs, topped with the clay deposit of the
+    glacial ages, approach a height of 200 feet; but although the thickness
+    of the chalk is estimated to be from I,000 to I,500 feet, the greatest
+    height above sea-level is near Wilton Beacon, where the hills rise
+    sharply from the Vale of York to 808 feet, and the beacon itself is 23
+    feet lower. On this western side of the plateau the views are extremely
+    good, extending for miles across the flat green vale, where the Derwent
+    and the Ouse, having lost much of the light-heartedness and gaiety
+    characterizing their youth in the dales, take their wandering and
+    converging courses towards the Humber. In the distance you can
+    distinguish a group of towers, a stately blue-grey outline cutting into
+    the soft horizon. It is York Minster. To the north-west lie the
+    beautifully wooded hills that rise above the Derwent, and hold in their
+    embrace Castle Howard, Newburgh Priory, and many a stately park.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Towards the north the descents are equally sudden, and the panorama of
+    the Vale of Pickering, extending from the hills behind Scarborough to
+    Helmsley far away in the west, is most remarkable. Down below lies the
+    circumscribed plain, dead-level except for one or two isolated
+    hillocks. The soil is dark and rich, and there is a marshy appearance
+    everywhere, showing plainly the water-logged condition of the land even
+    at the present day.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is scarcely a district in England to compare with the Yorkshire
+    Wolds for its remarkable richness in the remains of Early Man. As long
+    ago as the middle of last century, when archaeology was more of a
+    pastime than a science, this corner of the country had become famous
+    for the rich discoveries in tumuli made by a few local enthusiasts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It has been suggested that the flint-bearing character of the Wolds
+    made this part of Yorkshire a district for the manufacture of
+    implements and weapons for the inhabitants of a much larger area, and
+    no doubt the possession of this ample supply of offensive material
+    would give the tribe in possession a power, wealth, and permanence
+    sufficient to account for the wonderful evidences of a great and
+    continuous population. In these districts it is only necessary to go
+    slowly over a ploughed field after a period of heavy rain to be fairly
+    certain to pick up a flint knife, a beautifully chipped arrow-head, or
+    an implement of less obvious purpose.
+</p>
+<p>
+    To those who have never taken any interest in the traces of Early Man
+    in this country, this may appear a musty subject, but to me it is quite
+    the reverse. The long lines of entrenchments, the round tumuli, and the
+    prehistoric sites generally&mdash;omitting lake dwellings&mdash;are most
+    invariably to be found upon high and windswept tablelands, wild or only
+    recently cultivated places, where the echoes have scarcely been
+    disturbed since the long-forgotten ages, when a primitive tribe mourned
+    the loss of a chieftain, or yelled defiance at their enemies from their
+    double or triple lines of defence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In journeying in any direction through the Wolds it is impossible to
+    forget the existence of Early Man, for on the sky-line just above the
+    road will appear a row of two or three rounded projections from the
+    regular line of turf or stubble. They are burial-mounds that the plough
+    has never levelled&mdash;heaps of earth that have resisted the
+    disintegrating action of weather and man for thousands of years. If
+    such relics of the primitive inhabitants of this island fail to stir
+    the imagination, then the mustiness must exist in the unresponsive mind
+    rather than in the subject under discussion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In making an exploration of the Wolds a good starting-place is the
+    old-fashioned town of Malton, whence railways radiate in five
+    directions, including the line to Great Driffield, which takes
+    advantage of the valley leading up to Wharram Percy, and there tunnels
+    its way through the high ground.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 too
+    hot, nor the wind too cold, nor the sky too grey, we make our start
+    towards the hills. We go on wheels&mdash;it is unimportant how many, or to
+    what they are attached&mdash;in order that the long stretches of white road
+    may not become tedious. The stone bridge over the Derwent is crossed,
+    and, glancing back, we see the piled-up red roofs crowded along the
+    steep ground above the further bank, with the church raising its spire
+    high above its newly-restored nave. Then the wide street of Norton,
+    which is scarcely to be distinguished from Malton, being separated from
+    it only by the river, shuts in the view with its houses of whity-red
+    brick, until their place is taken by hedgerows. To the left stretches
+    the Vale of Pickering, still a little hazy with the remnants of the
+    night's mist. Straight ahead and to the right the ground rises up,
+    showing a wall chequered with cornfields and root-crops, with long
+    lines of plantations appearing like dark green caterpillars crawling
+    along the horizon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The first village encountered is Rillington, with a church whose stone
+    spire and the tower it rests upon have the appearance of being copied
+    from Pickering. Inside there is an Early English font, and one of the
+    arcades of the nave belongs to the same period.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning southwards a mile or two further on, we pass through the pretty
+    village of Wintringham, and, when the cottages are passed, find the
+    church standing among trees where the road bends, its tower and spire
+    looking much like the one just left behind. The interior is
+    interesting. The pews are all of old panelled oak, unstained, and with
+    acorn knobs at the ends; the floor is entirely covered with glazed red
+    tiles. The late Norman chancel, the plain circular font of the same
+    period, and the massive altar-slab in the chapel, enclosed by wooden
+    screens on the north side, are the most notable features. Going to the
+    east we reach Helperthorpe, one of the Wold villages adorned with a new
+    church in the Decorated style. The village gained this ornament through
+    the generosity of the present Sir Tatton Sykes, of Sledmere, whose
+    enthusiasm for church building is not confined to one place. In his
+    own park at Sledmere four miles to the south, at West Lutton, East
+    Heslerton, and Wansford you may see other examples of modern church
+    building, in which the architect has not been hampered by having to
+    produce a certain accommodation at a minimum cost. And thus in these
+    villages the fact of possessing a modern church does not detract from
+    their charm; instead of doing so, the pilgrim in search of
+    ecclesiastical interest finds much to draw him to them.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As a contrast to Helperthorpe, the adjoining hamlet of Weaverthorpe has
+    a church of very early Norman or possibly Saxon date, and an inscribed
+    Saxon stone a century earlier than the one at Kirkdale, near Kirby
+    Moorside. The inscription is on a sundial over the south porch in both
+    churches; but while that of Kirkdale is quite complete and perfect,
+    this one has words missing at the beginning and end. Haigh suggests
+    that the half-destroyed words should read: "LIT OSCETVLI
+    ARCHIEPISCOPI." Then, without any doubt comes: "[ILLUSTRATION] IN:
+</p>
+<center>
+    HONORE: SCE: ANDREAE APOSTOLI: HEREBERTUS WINTONIE: HOC MONASTERIVM
+</center>
+<p>
+    FECIT: I IN TEMPORE REGN." Here the inscription suddenly stops and
+    leaves us in ignorance as to in whose time the monastery was built.
+    There seems little doubt at all that Father Haigh's suggested
+    completion of the sentence is correct, making it read: "IN TEMPORE
+    REGN[ALDI REGIS SECUNDI]," which would have just filled a complete
+    line.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The coins of Regnald II. of Northumbria bear Christian devices, and it
+    is known that he was confirmed in 942, while his predecessor of that
+    name appears to have been a pagan. If the restoration of the first
+    words of the inscription are correct, the stone cannot be placed
+    earlier than the year 952 (Dr. Stubbs says 958), when Oscetul succeeded
+    Wulstan to the See of York. However, even in a neighbourhood so replete
+    with antiquities this is sufficiently far back in the age of the
+    Vikings to be of thrilling interest, for you must travel far to find
+    another village church with an inscription carved nearly a thousand
+    years ago, at a time when the English nation was still receiving its
+    infusion of Scandinavian strength.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The arch of the tower and the door below the sundial have the
+    narrowness and rudeness suggesting the pre-Norman age, but more than
+    this it is unwise to say.
+</p>
+<p>
+    And so we go on through the wide sunny valley, watching the shadows
+    sweep across the fields, where often the soil is so thin that the
+    ground is more white than brown, scanning the horizon for tumuli, and
+    taking note of the different characteristics of each village. Not long
+    ago the houses, even in the small towns, were thatched, and even now
+    there are hamlets still cosy and picturesque under their mouse-coloured
+    roofs; but in most instances you see a transition state of tiles
+    gradually ousting the inflammable but beautiful thatch. The tiles all
+    through the Wolds are of the curved pattern, and though cheerful in the
+    brilliance of their colour, and unspeakably preferable to thin blue
+    slates, they do not seem to weather or gather moss and rich colouring
+    in the same manner as the usual flat tile of the southern counties.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We turn aside to look at the rudely carved Norman tympanum over the
+    church door at Wold Newton, and then go up to Thwing, on the rising
+    ground to the south, where we may see what Mr. Joseph Morris claims to
+    be the only other Norman tympanum in the East Riding. A cottage is
+    pointed out as the birthplace of Archbishop Lamplugh, who held the See
+    of York from 1688 to 1691. He was of humble parentage and it is said
+    that he would often pause in conversation to slap his legs and say,
+    "Just fancy me being Archbishop of York!" The name of the village is
+    derived from the Norse word <i>Thing</i>, meaning an assembly.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Keeping on towards the sea, we climb up out of the valley, and passing
+    Argam Dike and Grindale, come out upon a vast gently undulating plateau
+    with scarcely a tree to be seen in any direction. A few farms are
+    dotted here and there over the landscape, and towards Filey we can see
+    a windmill; but beyond these it seems as though the fierce winds that
+    assail the promontory of Flamborough had blown away everything that was
+    raised more than a few feet above the furrows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The village of Bempton has, however, contrived to maintain itself in
+    its bleak situation, although it is less than two miles from the huge
+    perpendicular cliffs where the Wolds drop into the sea. The cottages
+    have a snug and eminently cheerful look, with their much-weathered
+    tiles and white and ochre coloured walls. From their midst rises the
+    low square tower of the church, and if it ever had a spire or pinnacles
+    in the past, it has none now; for either the north-easterly gales blew
+    them into the sea long ago, or else the people were wise enough never
+    to put such obstructions in the way of the winter blasts.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Turning southwards, we get a great view over the low shore of
+    Holderness, curving away into the haze hanging over the ocean, with
+    Bridlington down below, raising to the sky the pair of towers at the
+    west end of its priory&mdash;one short and plain, and the other tall and
+    richly ornamented with pinnacles. Going through the streets of sober
+    red houses of the old town, we come at length into a shallow green
+    valley, where the curious Gypsy Race flows intermittently along the
+    fertile bottom. The afternoon sunshine floods the pleasant landscape
+    with a genial glow, and throws long blue shadows under the trees of the
+    park surrounding Boynton Hall, the seat of the Stricklands. The family
+    has been connected with the village for several centuries, and some of
+    their richly-painted and gilded monuments can be seen in the church.
+    One of these is to Sir William Strickland, Bart., and another to Lady
+    Strickland, his wife, who was a sister of Sir Hugh Cholmley, the
+    gallant but unfortunate defender of Scarborough Castle during the Civil
+    War. In his memoirs Sir Hugh often refers to visits paid him by "my
+    sister Strickland."
+</p>
+<p>
+    After passing Thorpe Hall the road goes up to the breezy spot,
+    commanding wide views, where the little church of Rudstone stands
+    conspicuously by the side of an enormous monolith. Although the church
+    tower is Norman, it would appear to be a recent arrival on the scene in
+    comparison with the stone. Antiquaries are in fairly general agreement
+    that huge standing stones of this type belong to some very remote
+    period, and also that they are "associated with sepulchral purposes";
+    and the fact that they are usually found in churchyards would suggest
+    that they were regarded with a traditional veneration.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The road past the church drops steeply down into the pretty village,
+    and, turning northwards, takes us to the bend of the valley, where
+    North Burton lies, which we passed earlier in the day; so we go to the
+    left, and find ourselves at Kilham, a fair-sized village on the edge of
+    the chalk hills. Like Rudstone and a dozen places in its neighbourhood,
+    Kilham is situated in a district of extraordinary interest to the
+    archaeologist, the prehistoric discoveries being exceedingly numerous.
+    Chariot burials of the Early Iron Age have been discovered here, as
+    well as large numbers of Neolithic implements. There is a beautiful
+    Norman doorway in the nave of the church, ornamented with chevron
+    mouldings in a lavish fashion. Far more interesting than this, however,
+    are the fonts in the two villages of Cottam and Cowlam, lying close
+    together, although separated by a thinly-wooded hollow, about five
+    miles to the west. Cottam Church and the farm adjoining it are all that
+    now exists of what must once have been an extensive village. In the
+    church is a Norman font of cylindrical form, covered with the
+    wonderfully crude carvings of that period. There are six subjects, the
+    most remarkable being the huge dragon with a long curly tail in the act
+    of swallowing St. Margaret, whose skirts and feet are shown inside the
+    capacious jaws, while the head is beginning to appear somewhere behind
+    the dragon's neck. To the right is shown a gruesome representation of
+    the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, and then follow Adam and Eve by the Tree
+    of Life (a twisted piece of foliage), the martyrdom of St. Andrew, and
+    what seems to be another dragon.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On each side of the bridle-road by the church you can trace without the
+    least 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 no
+    explanation for the wiping out of this village. Possibly its extinction
+    was due to the Black Death in 1349.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It is about four miles by road to Cowlam, although the two churches are
+    only about a mile and a half apart; and when Cowlam is reached there is
+    not much more in the way of a village than at Cottam. The only way to
+    the church from the road is through an enormous stackyard, speaking
+    eloquently of the large crops produced on the farm. As in the other
+    instance, a search has to be made for the key, entailing much
+    perambulation of the farm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At length the door is opened, and the splendid font at once arrests the
+    eye. More noticeable than anything else in the series of carvings are
+    the figures of two men wrestling, similar to those on the font from the
+    village of Hutton Cranswick, now preserved in York Museum. The two
+    figures are shown bending forwards, each with his hands clasped round
+    the waist of the other, and each with a foot thrown forward to trip the
+    other, after the manner of the Westmorland wrestlers to be seen at the
+    Grasmere sports. It seems to me scarcely possible to doubt that the
+    subject represented is Jacob wrestling with the <i>man</i> at Penuel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Sledmere, the adjoining village, everything has a well-cared-for and
+    reposeful aspect. Its position in a shallow depression has made it
+    possible for trees to grow, so that we find the road overhung by a
+    green canopy in remarkable contrast to the usual bleakness of the
+    Wolds. The park surrounding Sir Tatton Sykes' house is well wooded,
+    owing to much planting on what were bare slopes not very many years
+    ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 memory
+    of his father, Sir Christopher Sykes; the inscription telling how much
+    the Wolds were transformed through his energy 'in building, planting,
+    and enclosing,' from a bleak and barren track of country into what is
+    now considered one of the most productive and best-cultivated districts
+    of Yorkshire. The late Sir Tatton Sykes was the sort of man that
+    Yorkshire folk come near to worshipping. He was of that hearty, genial,
+    conservative type that filled the hearts of the farmers with pride. On
+    market days all over the Riding one of the always fresh subjects of
+    conversation was how Sir Tatton was looking. A great pillar put up to
+    his memory by the road leading to Garton can be seen over half
+    Holderness. So great was the conservatism of this remarkable squire
+    that years after the advent of railways he continued to make his
+    journey to Epsom, for the Derby, on horseback.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A stone's-throw from the house stands the church, rebuilt, with the
+    exception of the tower, in 1898 by Sir Tatton. There is no wall
+    surrounding the churchyard, neither is there ditch, nor bank, nor the
+    slightest alteration in the smooth turf.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church, designed by Mr. Temple Moore, is carried out in the style
+    of the Decorated period in a stone that is neither red nor pink, but
+    something in between the two colours. The exterior is not remarkable,
+    but the beauty of the internal ornament is most striking. Everywhere
+    you look, whether at the detail of carved wood or stone, the
+    workmanship is perfect, and without a trace of that crudity to be found
+    in the carvings of so many modern churches. The clustered columns, the
+    timber roof, and the tracery of the windows are all dignified, in spite
+    of the richness of form they display. Only in the upper portion of the
+    screen does the ornament seem a trifle worried and out of keeping with
+    the rest of the work.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sledmere also boasts a tall and very beautiful 'Eleanor' cross, erected
+    about ten years ago, and a memorial to those who fell in the European
+    war.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we continue towards the setting sun, the deeply-indented edges of
+    the Wolds begin to appear, and the roads generally make great plunges
+    into the valley of the Derwent. The weather, which has been fine all
+    day, changes at sunset, and great indigo clouds, lined with gold, pile
+    themselves up fantastically in front of the setting sun. Lashing rain,
+    driven by the wind with sudden fury, pours down upon the hamlet lying
+    just below, but leaves Wharram-le-Street without a drop of moisture.
+    The widespread views all over the Howardian Hills and the sombre valley
+    of the Derwent become impressive, and an awesomeness of Turneresque
+    gloom, relieved by sudden floods of misty gold, gives the landscape an
+    element of unreality.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Against this background the outline of the church of Wharram-le-Street
+    stands out in its rude simplicity. On the western side of the tower,
+    where the light falls upon it, we can see the extremely early masonry
+    that suggests pre-Norman times. It cannot be definitely called a Saxon
+    church, but although 'long and short work' does not appear, there is
+    every reason to associate this lonely little building with the middle
+    of the eleventh century. There are mason marks consisting of crosses
+    and barbed lines on the south wall of the nave. The opening between the
+    tower and the nave is an almost unique feature, having a
+    Moorish-looking arch of horseshoe shape resting on plain and clumsy
+    capitals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name Wharram-le-Street reminds us forcibly of the existence in
+    remote times of some great way over this tableland. Unfortunately,
+    there is very little sure ground to go upon, despite the additional
+    fact of there being another place, Thorpe-le-Street, some miles to the
+    south.
+</p>
+<p>
+    With the light fast failing we go down steeply into the hollow where
+    North Grimston nestles, and, crossing the streams which flow over the
+    road, come to the pretty old church. The tower is heavily mantled with
+    ivy, and has a statue of a Bishop on its west face. A Norman chancel
+    arch with zigzag moulding shows in the dim interior, and there is just
+    enough light to see the splendid font, of similar age and shape to
+    those at Cowlam and Cottam. A large proportion of the surface is taken
+    up with a wonderful 'Last Supper,' and on the remaining space the
+    carvings show the 'Descent from the Cross,' and a figure, possibly
+    representing St. Nicholas, the patron saint of the church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the lights of Malton glimmer in the valley this day of exploration
+    is at an end, and much of the Wold country has been seen.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH21"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XX
+</h2>
+<center>
+    FROM FILEY TO SPURN HEAD
+</center>
+<p>
+    'As the shore winds itself back from hence,' says Camden, after
+    describing Flamborough Head, 'a thin slip of land (like a small tongue
+    thrust out) shoots into the sea.' This is the long natural breakwater
+    known as Filey Brig, the distinctive feature of a pleasant
+    watering-place. In its wide, open, and gently curving bay, Filey is
+    singularly lucky; for it avoids the monotony of a featureless shore,
+    and yet is not sufficiently embraced between headlands to lose the
+    broad horizon and sense of airiness and space so essential for a
+    healthy seaside haunt.
+</p>
+<a name="image-25"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="25.jpg" height="546" width="822"
+alt="Filey Brig 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The Brig has plainly been formed by the erosion of Carr Naze, the
+    headland of dark, reddish-brown boulder clay, leaving its hard bed of
+    sandstone (of the Middle Calcareous Grit formation) exposed to the
+    particular and ceaseless attention of the waves. It is one of the joys
+    of Filey to go along the northward curve of the bay at low tide, and
+    then walk along the uneven tabular masses of rock with hungry waves
+    heaving and foaming within a few yards on either hand. No wonder that
+    there has been sufficient sense among those who spend their lives in
+    promoting schemes for ugly piers and senseless promenades, to realize
+    that Nature has supplied Filey with a more permanent and infinitely
+    more attractive pier than their fatuous ingenuity could produce. There
+    is a spice of danger associated with the Brig, adding much to its
+    interest; for no one should venture along the spit of rocks unless the
+    tide is in a proper state to allow him a safe return. A melancholy
+    warning of the dangers of the Brig is fixed to the rocky wall of the
+    headland, describing how an unfortunate visitor was swept into the sea
+    by the sudden arrival of an abnormally large wave, but this need not
+    frighten away from the fascinating ridge of rock those who use ordinary
+    care in watching the sea. At high tide the waves come over the seaweedy
+    rocks at the foot of the headland, making it necessary to climb to the
+    grassy top in order to get back to Filey.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The real fascination of the Brig comes when it can only be viewed from
+    the top of the Naze above, when a gale is blowing from the north or
+    north-east, and driving enormous waves upon the line of projecting
+    rocks. You watch far out until the dark green line of a higher wave
+    than any of the others that are creating a continuous thunder down
+    below 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 the
+    onrush of the towering wall of water; but its power is swallowed up and
+    dissipated in the general advance, and with only a smooth hollow of
+    creamy-white water in front, the giant raises itself to its fullest
+    height, its thin crest being at once caught by the wind, and blown off
+    in long white beards.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The moment has come; the mass of water feels the resistance of the
+    rocks, and, curling over into a long green cylinder, brings its head
+    down with terrific force on the immovable side of the Brig. Columns of
+    water shoot up perpendicularly into the air as though a dozen 12-inch
+    shells had exploded in the water simultaneously. With a roar the
+    imprisoned air escapes, and for a moment the whole Brig is invisible in
+    a vast cloud of spray; then dark ledges of rock can be seen running
+    with creamy water, and the scene of the impact is a cauldron of
+    seething foam, backed by a smooth surface of pale green marble, veined
+    with white. Then the waters gather themselves together again, and the
+    pounding of lesser waves keeps up a thrilling spectacle until the
+    moment for another great <i>coup</i> arrives.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Years ago Filey obtained a reputation for being 'quiet,' and the sense
+    conveyed by those who disliked the place was that of dullness and
+    primness. This fortunate chance has protected the little town from the
+    vulgarizing influences of the unlettered hordes let loose upon the
+    coast in summer-time, and we find a sea-front without the flimsy
+    meretricious buildings of the popular resorts. Instead of imitating
+    Blackpool and Margate, this sensible place has retained a quiet and
+    semi-rural front to the sea, and, as already stated, has not marred its
+    appearance with a jetty.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From the smooth sweep of golden sand rises a steep slope grown over
+    with trees and bushes which shade the paths in many places. Without
+    claiming any architectural charm, the town is small and quietly
+    unobtrusive, and has not the untidy, half-built character of so many
+    watering-places.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Above a steep and narrow hollow, running straight down to the sea, and
+    densely wooded on both sides, stands the church. It has a very sturdy
+    tower rising from its centre, and, with its simple battlemented outline
+    and slit windows, has a semi-fortified appearance. The high
+    pitched-roofs of Early English times have been flattened without
+    cutting away the projecting drip-stones on the tower, which remain a
+    conspicuous feature. The interior is quite impressive. Round columns
+    alternated with octagonal ones support pointed arches, and a clerestory
+    above pierced with roundheaded slits, indicating very decisively that
+    the nave was built in the Transitional Norman period. It appears that a
+    western tower was projected, but never carried out, and an unusual
+    feature is the descent by two steps into the chancel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A beautiful view from the churchyard includes the whole sweep of the
+    bay, cut off sharply by the Brig on the left hand, and ending about
+    eight miles away in the lofty range of white cliffs extending from
+    Speeton to Flamborough Head.
+</p>
+<a name="image-26"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="26.jpg" height="802" width="589"
+alt="The Outermost Point of Flamborough Head 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The headland itself is lower by more than a 100 feet than the cliffs in
+    the neighbourhood of Bempton and Speeton, which for a distance of over
+    two miles exceed 300 feet. A road from Bempton village stops short a
+    few fields from the margin of the cliffs, and a path keeps close to the
+    precipitous wall of gleaming white chalk.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We come over the dry, sweet-smelling grass to the cliff edge on a fresh
+    morning, with a deep blue sky overhead and a sea below of ultramarine
+    broken up with an infinitude of surfaces reflecting scraps of the
+    cliffs and the few white clouds. Falling on our knees, we look straight
+    downwards into a cove full of blue shade; but so bright is the
+    surrounding light that every detail is microscopically clear. The
+    crumpling and distortion of the successive layers of chalk can be seen
+    with such ease that we might be looking at a geological textbook. On
+    the ledges, too, can be seen rows of little whitebreasted puffins;
+    razor-bills are perched here and there, as well as countless
+    guillemots. The ringed or bridled guillemot also breeds on the cliffs,
+    and a number of other types of northern sea-birds are periodically
+    noticed along these inaccessible Bempton Cliffs. The guillemot makes no
+    nest, merely laying a single egg on a ledge. If it is taken away by
+    those who plunder the cliffs at the risk of their lives, the bird lays
+    another egg, and if that disappears, perhaps even a third.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Coming to Flamborough Head along the road from the station, the first
+    noticeable feature is at the point where the road makes a sharp turn
+    into a deep wooded hollow. It is here that we cross the line of the
+    remarkable entrenchment known as the Danes' Dyke. At this point it
+    appears to follow the bed of a stream, but northwards, right across the
+    promontory&mdash;that is, for two-thirds of its length&mdash;the huge trench is
+    purely artificial. No doubt the <i>vallum</i> on the seaward side has
+    been worn down very considerably, and the <i>fosse</i> would have been
+    deeper, making in its youth, a barrier which must have given the
+    dwellers on the headland a very complete security.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Like most popular names, the association of the Danes with the digging
+    of this enormous trench has been proved to be inaccurate, and it would
+    have been less misleading and far more popular if the work had been
+    attributed to the devil. In the autumn of 1879 General Pitt Rivers dug
+    several trenches in the rampart just north of the point where the road
+    from Bempton passes through the Dyke. The position was chosen in order
+    that the excavations might be close to the small stream which runs
+    inside the Dyke at this point, the likelihood of utensils or weapons
+    being dropped close to the water-supply of the defenders being
+    considered important. The results of the excavations proved
+    conclusively that the people who dug the ditch and threw up the rampart
+    were users of flint. The most remarkable discovery was that the ground
+    on the inner slope of the rampart, at a short distance below the
+    surface, contained innumerable artificial flint flakes, all lying in a
+    horizontal position, but none were found on the outer slope. From this
+    fact General Pitt Rivers concluded that within the stockade running
+    along the top of the <i>vallum</i> the defenders were in the habit of
+    chipping their weapons, the flakes falling on the inside. The great
+    entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using
+    people, and 'is not later than the Bronze Period.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of
+    its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for
+    strangers having kept the fisherfolk of the peninsula aloof from
+    outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long,
+    that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have
+    been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks,
+    for an exceptionally long period. On taking minute particulars of
+    ninety Flamborough men and women, General Pitt Rivers discovered that
+    they were above the average stature of the neighbourhood, and were,
+    with only one or two exceptions, dark-haired. They showed little or no
+    trace of the fair-haired element usually found in the people of this
+    part of Yorkshire. It is also stated that almost within living memory,
+    when the headland was still further isolated by a belt of uncultivated
+    wolds, the village could not be approached by a stranger without some
+    danger.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the
+    village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking,
+    unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for
+    the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of
+    what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the
+    attractiveness of the place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for
+    their livelihood; and in spite of the summer visitors, there is a total
+    indifference to their incursions in the way of catering for their
+    entertainment, the aim of the trippers being the lighthouse and the
+    cliffs nearly two miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Formerly, the church had only a belfry of timber, the existing stone
+    tower being only ten years old. Under the Norman chancel arch there is
+    a delicately-carved Perpendicular screen, having thirteen canopied
+    niches richly carved above and below, and still showing in places the
+    red, blue, and gold of its old paint-work. Another screen south of the
+    chancel is patched and roughly finished. The altar-tomb of Sir
+    Marmaduke Constable, of Flamborough, on the north side of the chancel,
+    is remarkable for its long inscription, detailing the chief events in
+    the life of this great man, who was considered one of the most eminent
+    and potent persons in the county in the reign of Henry VIII. The
+    greatness of the man is borne out first in a recital of his doughty
+    deeds: of his passing over to France 'with Kyng Edwarde the fourith,
+    y[t] noble knyght.'
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'And also with noble king Herre, the sevinth of that name
+  He was also at Barwick at the winnyng of the same <a href="#note-1482"><small>1482</small></a>
+  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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The inscription goes on in this way to tell how he fought at Flodden
+    Field when he was seventy, 'nothyng hedyng his age.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Sir Marmaduke's daughter Catherine was married to Sir Roger Cholmley,
+    called 'the Great Black Knight of the North,' who was the first of his
+    family to settle in Yorkshire, and also fought at Flodden, receiving
+    his knighthood after that signal victory over the Scots.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Yorkshire being a county in which superstitions are uncommonly
+    long-lived it is not surprising to find that a fisherman will turn back
+    from going to his boat, if he happen on his way to meet a parson, a
+    woman, or a hare, as any one of these brings bad luck. It is also
+    extremely unwise to mention to a man who is baiting lines a hare, a
+    rabbit, a fox, a pig, or an egg. This sounds foolish, but a fisherman
+    will abandon his work till the next day if these animals are mentioned
+    in his presence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    On the north and south sides of the headland there are precarious
+    beaches for the fisherman to bring in their boats. They have no
+    protection at all from the weather, no attempt at forming even such
+    miniature harbours as may be seen on the Berwickshire coast having been
+    made. When the wind blows hard from the north, the landing on that side
+    is useless, and the boats, having no shelter, are hauled up the steep
+    slope with the help of a steam windlass. Under these circumstances the
+    South Landing is used. It is similar in most respects to the northern
+    one, but, owing to the cliffs being lower, the cove is less
+    picturesque. At low tide a beach of very rough shingle is exposed
+    between the ragged chalk cliffs, curiously eaten away by the sea.
+    Seaweed paints much of the shore and the base of the cliffs a blackish
+    green, and above the perpendicular whiteness the ruddy brown clay
+    slopes back to the grass above.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the boats have just come in and added their gaudy vermilions,
+    blues, and emerald greens to the picture, the North Landing is worth
+    seeing. The men in their blue jerseys and sea-boots coming almost to
+    their hips, land their hauls of silvery cod and load the baskets
+    pannier-wise on the backs of sturdy donkeys, whose work is to trudge up
+    the steep slope to the road, nearly 200 feet above the boats, where
+    carts take the fish to the station four miles away.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In following the margin of the cliffs to the outermost point of the
+    peninsula, we get a series of splendid stretches of cliff scenery. The
+    chalk is deeply indented in many places, and is honey-combed with
+    caves. Great white pillars and stacks of chalk stand in picturesque
+    groups in some of the small bays, and everywhere there is the interest
+    of watching the heaving water far below, with white gulls floating
+    unconcernedly on the surface, or flapping their great stretch of wing
+    as they circle just above the waves.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Near the modern lighthouse stands a tall, hexagonal tower, built of
+    chalk in four stories, with a string course between each. The signs of
+    age it bears and the remarkable obscurity surrounding its origin and
+    purpose would suggest great antiquity, and yet there seems little doubt
+    that the tower is at the very earliest Elizabethan. The chalk, being
+    extremely soft, has weathered away to such an extent that the harder
+    stone of the windows and doors now projects several inches.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In a record dated June 21, 1588, the month before the Spanish Armada
+    was sighted in the English Channel, a list is given of the beacons in
+    the East Riding, and instructions as to when they should be lighted,
+    and what action should be taken when the warning was seen. It says
+    briefly:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Flambrough, three beacons uppon the sea cost,
+  takinge lighte from Bridlington,
+  and geving lighte to Rudstone.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    There is no reference to any tower, and the beacons everywhere seem
+    merely to have been bonfires ready for lighting, watched every day by
+    two, and every night by three 'honest householders ... above the age of
+    thirty years.' The old tower would appear, therefore, to have been put
+    up as a lighthouse. If this is a correct supposition, however, the
+    dangers of the headland to shipping must have been recognized as
+    exceedingly great several centuries ago. A light could not have failed
+    to have been a boon to mariners, and its maintenance would have been a
+    matter of importance to all who owned ships; and yet, if this old tower
+    ever held a lantern, the hiatus between the last night when it glowed
+    on the headland, and the erection of the present lighthouse is so great
+    that no one seems to be able to state definitely for what purpose the
+    early structure came into existence.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Year after year when night fell the cliffs were shrouded in blackness,
+    with the direful result that between 1770 and 1806 one hundred and
+    seventy-four ships were wrecked or lost on or near the promontory. It
+    remained for a benevolent-minded customs officer of Bridlington&mdash;a Mr.
+    Milne&mdash;to suggest the building of a lighthouse to the Elder Brethren of
+    Trinity House, with the result that since December 6, 1806, a powerful
+    light has every night flashed on Flamborough Head. The immediate result
+    was that in the first seven years of its beneficent work no vessel was
+    'lost on that station when the lights could be seen.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The derivation of the name Flamborough has been conclusively shown to
+    have nothing at all to do with the English word 'flame,' being possibly
+    a corruption of <i>Fleinn</i>, a Norse surname, and <i>borg</i> or
+    <i>burgh</i>, meaning a castle. In Domesday it is spelt 'Flaneburg,'
+    and <i>flane</i> is the Norse for an arrow or sword.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At the point where the chalk cliffs disappear and the low coast of
+    Holderness begins, we come to the exceedingly popular watering-place of
+    Bridlington. At one time the town was quite separate from the quay, and
+    even now there are two towns&mdash;the solemn and serious, almost Quakerish,
+    place inland, and the eminently pleasure-loving and frivolous holiday
+    resort on the sea; but they are now joined up by modern houses and the
+    railway-station, and in time they will be as united as the 'Three
+    Towns' of Plymouth. Along the sea-front are spread out by the wide
+    parades, all those 'attractions' which exercise their potential
+    energies on certain types of mankind as each summer comes round. There
+    are seats, concert-rooms, hotels, lodging-houses, bands, kiosks,
+    refreshment-bars, boats, bathing-machines, a switchback-railway, and
+    even a spa, by which means the migratory folk are housed, fed, amused,
+    and given every excuse for loitering within a few yards of the long
+    curving line of waves that advances and retreats over the much-trodden
+    sand.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The two stone piers enclosing the harbour make an interesting feature
+    in the centre of the sea-front, where the few houses of old Bridlington
+    Quay that have survived, are not entirely unpicturesque.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1642 Queen Henrietta Maria landed on whatever quay then existed. She
+    had just returned from Holland with ships laden with arms and
+    ammunition for the Royalist army. Adverse winds had brought the Dutch
+    ships to Bridlington instead of Newcastle, where the Queen had intended
+    to land, and a delay was caused while messengers were sent to the Earl
+    of Newcastle in order that her landing might be effected in proper
+    security. News of the Dutch ships lying off Bridlington was, however,
+    conveyed to four Parliamentary vessels stationed by the bar at
+    Tynemouth, and no time was lost in sailing southwards. What happened is
+    told in a letter published in the same year, and dated February 25,
+    1642. It describes how, after two days' riding at anchor, the cavalry
+    arrived, upon which the Queen disembarked, and the next morning the
+    rest of the loyal army came to wait on her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'God that was carefull to preserve Her by Sea, did likewise continue
+    his favour to Her on the Land: For that night foure of the Parliament
+    Ships arrived at Burlington, without being perceived by us; and at
+    foure a clocke in the morning gave us an Alarme, which caused us to
+    send speedily to the Port to secure our Boats of Ammunition, which were
+    but newly landed. But about an houre after the foure Ships began to ply
+    us so fast with their Ordinance, that it made us all to rise out of our
+    beds with diligence, and leave the Village, at least the women; for the
+    Souldiers staid very resolutely to defend the Ammunition, in case their
+    forces should land. One of the Ships did Her the favour to flanck upon
+    the house where the Queene lay, which was just before the Peere; and
+    before She was out of Her bed, the Cannon bullets whistled so loud
+    about her, (which Musicke you may easily believe was not very pleasing
+    to Her) that all the company pressed Her earnestly to goe out of the
+    house, their Cannon having totally beaten downe all the neighbouring
+    houses, and two Cannon bullets falling from the top to the bottome of
+    the house where She was; so that (clothed as She could) She went on
+    foot some little distance out of the Towne, under the shelter of a
+    Ditch (like that of Newmarket;) whither before She could get, the
+    Cannon bullets fell thicke about us, and a Sergeant was killed within
+    twenty paces of Her.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    In old Bridlington there stands the fine church of the Augustinian
+    Priory we have already seen from a distance, and an ancient structure
+    known as the Bayle Gate, a remnant of the defences of the monastery.
+    They stand at no great distance apart, but do not arrange themselves to
+    form a picture, which is unfortunate, and so also is the lack of any
+    real charm in the domestic architecture of the adjoining streets. The
+    Bayle Gate has a large pointed arch and a postern, and the date of its
+    erection appears to be the end of the fourteenth century, when
+    permission was given to the prior to fortify the monastery. Unhappily
+    for Bridlington, an order to destroy the buildings was given soon after
+    the Dissolution, and the nave of the church seems to have been spared
+    only because it was used as the parish church. Quite probably, too, the
+    gatehouse was saved from destruction on account of the room it contains
+    having been utilized for holding courts. The upper portions of the
+    church towers are modern restorations, and their different heights and
+    styles give the building a remarkable, but not a beautiful outline. At
+    the west end, between the towers is a large Perpendicular window,
+    occupying the whole width of the nave, and on the north side the
+    vaulted porch is a very beautiful feature.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The interior reveals an inspiring perspective of clustered columns
+    built in the Early English Period with a fine Decorated triforium on
+    the north side. Both transepts and the chancel appear to have been
+    destroyed with the conventual buildings, and the present chancel is
+    merely a portion of the nave separated with screens.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Southwards in one huge curve of nearly forty miles stretches the low
+    coast of Holderness, seemingly continued into infinitude. There is
+    nothing comparable to it on the coasts of the British Isles for its
+    featureless monotony and for the unbroken front it presents to the sea.
+    The low brown cliffs of hard clay seem to have no more resisting power
+    to the capacious appetite of the waves than if they were of
+    gingerbread. The progress of the sea has been continued for centuries,
+    and stories of lost villages and of overwhelmed churches are met with
+    all the way to Spurn Head. Four or five miles south of Bridlington we
+    come to a point on the shore where, looking out among the lines of
+    breaking waves, we are including the sides of the two demolished
+    villages of Auburn and Hartburn.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From a casual glance at Skipsea no one would attribute any importance
+    to it in the past. It was, nevertheless, the chief place in the
+    lordship of Holderness in Norman times, and from that we may also infer
+    that it was the most well-defended stronghold. On a level plain having
+    practically no defensible sites, great earthworks would be necessary,
+    and these we find at Skipsea Brough. There is a high mound surrounded
+    by a ditch, and a segment of the great outer circle of defences exists
+    on the south-west side. No masonry of any description can be seen on
+    the grass-covered embankment, but on the artificial hillock, once
+    crowned, it is surmised, by a Norman keep, there is one small piece
+    of stonework. These earthworks have been considered Saxon, but later
+    opinion labels them post-Conquest. In the time of the Domesday
+    Survey the Seigniory of Holderness was held by Drogo de Bevere, a
+    Flemish adventurer who joined in the Norman invasion of England and
+    received his extensive fief from the Conqueror. He also was given the
+    King's niece in marriage as a mark of special favour; but having for
+    some 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 Holderness
+    was forfeited, but Drogo was never captured.
+</p>
+
+<p>[A worked flint was found in the moat not long ago by Dr.
+    J. L. Kirk, of Pickering.]
+</p>
+<p>
+    Poulson, the historian of Holderness, states that Henry III. gave
+    orders for the destruction of Skipsea Castle about 1220, the Earl of
+    Albemarle, its owner at that time, having been in rebellion. When
+    Edward II. ascended the throne, he recalled his profligate companion
+    Piers Gaveston, and besides creating him Baron of Wallingford and Earl
+    of Cornwall, he presented this ill-chosen favourite with the great
+    Seigniory of Holderness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going southwards from Skipsea, we pass through Atwick, with a cross on
+    a large base in the centre of the village, and two miles further on
+    come to Hornsea, an old-fashioned little town standing between the sea
+    and the Mere. This beautiful sheet of fresh water comes as a surprise
+    to the stranger, for no one but a geologist expects to discover a lake
+    in a perfectly level country where only tidal creeks are usually to be
+    found. Hornsea Mere may eventually be reached by the sea, and yet that
+    day is likely to be put further off year by year on account of the
+    growth of a new town on the shore.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The scenery of the Mere is quietly beautiful. Where the road to
+    Beverley skirts its margin there are glimpses of the shimmering surface
+    seen through gaps in the trees that grow almost in the water, many of
+    them having lost their balance and subsided into the lake, being
+    supported in a horizontal position by their branches. The islands and
+    the swampy margins form secure breeding-places for the countless
+    water-fowl, and the lake abounds with pike, perch, eel, and roach.
+</p>
+<a name="image-27"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="27.jpg" height="569" width="819"
+alt="Hornsea Mere 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    It was the excellent supply of fish yielded by Hornsea Mere that led to
+    a hot discussion between the neighbouring Abbey of Meaux and St.
+    Mary's Abbey at York. In the year 1260 William, eleventh Abbot of
+    Meaux, 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 over
+    the <i>impasse</i> and relations became so strained that the only
+    method of determining the issue was by each side agreeing to submit to
+    the result of a judicial combat between champions selected by the two
+    monasteries. Where the fight took place I do not know, and the number
+    of champions is not mentioned in the record. It is stated that a horse
+    was first swum across the lake, and stakes fixed to mark the limits of
+    the claim. On the day appointed the combatants chosen by each abbot
+    appeared properly accoutred, and they fought from morning until
+    evening, when, at last, the men representing Meaux were beaten to the
+    ground, and the York abbot retained the whole fishing rights of the
+    Mere.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Hornsea has a pretty church with a picturesque tower built in between
+    the western ends of the aisles. An eighteenth-century parish clerk
+    utilized the crypt for storing smuggled goods, and was busily at work
+    there on a stormy night in 1732, when a terrific blast of wind tore the
+    roof off the church. The shock, we are told, brought on a paralytic
+    seizure of which he died.
+</p>
+<p>
+    By the churchyard gate stands the old market-cross, recently set up in
+    this new position and supplied with a modern head.
+</p>
+<p>
+    As we go towards Spurn Head we are more and more impressed with the
+    desolate character of the shore. The tide may be out, and only puny
+    waves tumbling on the wet sand, and yet it is impossible to refrain
+    from feeling that the very peacefulness of the scene is sinister, and
+    the waters are merely digesting their last meal of boulder-clay before
+    satisfying a fresh appetite.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The busy town of Hornsea Beck, the port of Hornsea, with its harbour
+    and pier, its houses, and all pertaining to it, has entirely
+    disappeared since the time of James I., and so also has the place
+    called Hornsea Burton, where in 1334 Meaux Abbey held twenty-seven
+    acres of arable land. At the end of that century not one of those acres
+    remained. The fate of Owthorne, a village once existing not far from
+    Withernsea, is pathetic. The churchyard was steadily destroyed, until
+    1816, when in a great storm the waves undermined the foundations of the
+    eastern end of the church, so that the walls collapsed with a roar and
+    a cloud of dust.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Twenty-two years later there was scarcely a fragment of even the
+    churchyard left, and in 1844, the Vicarage and the remaining houses
+    were absorbed, and Owthorne was wiped off the map.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The peninsula formed by the Humber is becoming more and more
+    attenuated, and the pretty village of Easington is being brought nearer
+    to the sea, winter by winter. Close to the church, Easington has been
+    fortunate in preserving its fourteenth-century tithe-barn covered with
+    a thatched roof. The interior has that wonderfully imposing effect
+    given by huge posts and beams suggesting a wooden cathedral.
+</p>
+<p>
+    At Kilnsea the weak bank of earth forming the only resistance to the
+    waves has been repeatedly swept away and hundreds of acres flooded with
+    salt water, and where there are any cliffs at all, they are often not
+    more than fifteen feet high.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH22"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXI
+</h2>
+<center>
+    BEVERLEY
+</center>
+<p>
+    When the great bell in the southern tower of the Minster booms forth
+    its deep and solemn notes over the city of Beverley, you experience an
+    uplifting of the mind&mdash;a sense of exaltation greater, perhaps, than
+    even that produced by an organ's vibrating notes in the high vaulted
+    spaces of a cathedral.
+</p>
+<a name="image-28"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="28.jpg" height="570" width="810"
+alt="The Market-place, Beverley 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Beverley has no natural features to give it any attractiveness, for it
+    stands on the borders of the level plain of Holderness, and towards the
+    Wolds there is only a very gentle rise. It depends, therefore, solely
+    upon its architecture. The first view of the city from the west as we
+    come over the broad grassy common of Westwood is delightful. We are
+    just sufficiently elevated to see the opalescent form of the Minster,
+    with its graceful towers rising above the more distant roofs, and close
+    at hand the pinnacled tower of St. Mary's showing behind a mass of dark
+    trees. The entry to the city from this direction is in every way
+    prepossessing, for the sunny common is succeeded by a broad, tree
+    lined road, with old-fashioned houses standing sedately behind the
+    foliage, and the end of the avenue is closed by the North Bar&mdash;the last
+    of Beverley's gates. It dates from 1410, and is built of very dark red
+    brick, with one arch only, the footways being taken through the modern
+    houses, shouldering it on each side. Leland's account and the town
+    records long before his day tell us that there were three gates, but
+    nothing remains of 'Keldgate barr' and the 'barr de Newbygyng.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    We go through the archway and find ourselves in a wide street with the
+    beautiful west end of St. Mary's Church on the left, quaint Georgian
+    houses, and a dignified hotel of the same period on the opposite side,
+    while straight ahead is the broad Saturday Market with its very
+    picturesque 'cross.' The cross was put up in 1714 by Sir Charles
+    Hotham, Bart., and Sir Michael Warton, Members of Parliament for the
+    Corporation at that time.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Without the towers the exterior of the Minster gives me little
+    pleasure, for the Early English chancel and greater and lesser
+    transepts, although imposing and massive, are lacking in proper
+    proportion, and in that deficiency suffer a loss of dignity. The
+    eulogies so many architects and writers have poured out upon the Early
+    English work of this great church, and the strangely adverse comments
+    the same critics have levelled at the Perpendicular additions, do not
+    blind me to what I regard as a most strange misconception on the part
+    of these people. The homogeneity of the central and eastern portions of
+    the Minster is undeniable, but because what appears to be the design of
+    one master-builder of the thirteenth century was apparently carried out
+    in the short period of twenty years, I do not feel obliged to consider
+    the result beautiful.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Perpendicular work of the western towers everything is in
+    graceful proportion, and nothing from the ground to the top of the
+    turrets, jars with the wonderful dignity of their perfect lines.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A few years before the Norman Conquest a central tower and a presbytery
+    were added to the existing building by Archbishop Cynesige. The
+    'Frenchman's' influence was probably sufficiently felt at that time to
+    give this work the stamp of Norman ideas, and would have shown a marked
+    advance on the Romanesque style of the Saxon age, in which the other
+    portions of the buildings were put up. After that time we are in the
+    dark as to what happened until the year 1188, when a disaster took
+    place of which there is a record:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'In the year from the incarnation of Our Lord 1188, this church was
+    burnt, 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 of
+    March, there was an inquisition made for the relics of the blessed John
+    in this place, and these bones were found in the east part of his
+    sepulchre, and reposited; and dust mixed with mortar was found
+    likewise, and re-interred.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    This is a translation of the Latin inscription on a leaden plate
+    discovered in 1664, when a square stone vault in the church was opened
+    and found to be the grave of the canonized John of Beverley. The
+    picture history gives us of this remarkable man, although to a great
+    extent hazy with superstitious legend, yet shows him to have been one
+    of the greatest and noblest of the ecclesiastics who controlled the
+    Early Church in England. He founded the monastery at Beverley about the
+    year 700, on what appears to have been an isolated spot surrounded by
+    forest and swamp, and after holding the See of York for some twelve
+    years, 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 intercession
+    were constantly invoked. The splended shrine provided for his relics in
+    1037 was encrusted with jewels and shone with the precious metals
+    employed. Like the tomb of William the Conqueror at Caen, it
+    disappeared long ago. After the collapse of the central tower to its very
+    foundations came the vast Early English reconstruction of everything
+    except the nave, which was possibly of pre-Conquest date, and survived
+    until the present Decorated successor took its place. Much discussion
+    has centred round certain semicircular arches at the back of the
+    triforium, whose ornament is unmistakably Norman, suggesting that the
+    early nave was merely remodelled in the later period. The last great
+    addition to the structure was the beautiful Perpendicular north porch
+    and the west end&mdash;the glory of Beverley. The interior of the transepts
+    and chancel is extremely interesting, but entirely lacking in that
+    perfection of form characterizing York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    A magnificent range of stalls crowned with elaborate tabernacle work of
+    the sixteenth century adorns the choir, and under each of the
+    sixty-eight seats are carved misereres, making a larger collection than
+    any other in the country. The subjects range from a horrible
+    representation of the devil with a second face in the middle of his
+    body to humorous pictures of a cat playing a fiddle, and a scold on her
+    way to the ducking-stool in a wheel-barrow, gripping with one hand the
+    ear of the man who is wheeling her.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the north-east corner of the choir, built across the opening to the
+    lesser 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 is
+    composed of sumptuously carved stone, and while it is literally
+    encrusted with ornament, it is designed in such a masterly fashion that
+    the general effect, whether seen at a distance or close at hand, is
+    always magnificent. The broad lines of the canopy consist of a steep
+    gable with an ogee arch within, cusped so as to form a base at its apex
+    for an elaborate piece of statuary. This is repeated on both sides of
+    the monument. On the side towards the altar, the large bearded figure
+    represents the Deity, with angels standing on each side of the throne,
+    holding across His knees a sheet. From this rises a small undraped
+    figure representing Lady Eleanor, whose uplifted hands are held in one
+    of those of her Maker, who is shown in the act of benediction with two
+    fingers on her head.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the north aisle of the chancel there is a very unusual double
+    staircase. It is recessed in the wall, and the arcading that runs along
+    the aisle beneath the windows is inclined upwards and down again at a
+    slight angle, similar to the rise of the steps which are behind the
+    marble columns. This was the old way to the chapter-house, destroyed at
+    the Dissolution, and is an extremely fine example of an Early English
+    stairway. Near the Percy chapel stands the ancient stone chair of
+    sanctuary, or frith-stool. It has been broken and repaired with iron
+    clamps, and the inscription upon it, recorded by Spelman, has gone. The
+    privileges of sanctuary were limited by Henry VIII, and abolished in
+    the reign of James I; but before the Dissolution malefactors of all
+    sorts and conditions, from esquires and gentlewomen down to chapmen and
+    minstrels, frequently came in undignified haste to claim the security
+    of St. John of Beverley. Here is a case quoted from the register by Mr.
+    Charles Hiatt in his admirable account of the Minster:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'John Spret, Gentilman, memorandum that John Spret, of Barton upon
+    Umber, in the counte of Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the first
+    day of October the vii yer of the reen of Keing Herry vii and asked the
+    lybertes of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton,
+    husbondman, of the same town, and knawleg [acknowledge] hymselff to be
+    at the kyllyng of the saym John with a dagarth, the xv day of August.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicular
+    church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
+    Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
+    flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
+    run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
+    portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
+    and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
+    crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
+    the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
+    Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
+    is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
+    carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
+    painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
+    seen 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 times
+    there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
+    fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
+    monumental work on Beverley. The minstrels played at aldermen's feasts,
+    at weddings, on market-days, and on all occasions when there was excuse
+    for music.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH23"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    ALONG THE HUMBER
+</center>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  'Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh;
+  But if you faint, as fearing to do so,
+  Stay and be secret, and myself will go.'
+       <i>Richard II</i>, Act II, Scene 1.
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The atrophied corner of Yorkshire that embraces the lowest reaches of
+    the Humber is terminated by a mere raised causeway leading to the wider
+    patch of ground dominated by Spurn Head lighthouse. This long ridge of
+    sand and shingle is all that remains of a very considerable and
+    populous area possessing towns and villages as recently as the middle
+    of the fourteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Far back in the Middle Ages the Humber was a busy waterway for
+    shipping, 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 soon
+    demonstrated the need of some light on the point of land where the
+    estuary joined the sea, and in 1428 Henry VI granted a toll on all
+    vessels entering the Humber in aid of the first lighthouse put up about
+    that time by a benevolent hermit.
+</p>
+<p>
+    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 by
+    Justinian Angell, a London merchant, who received a patent from Charles
+    II to 'continue, renew, and maintain' two lights at Spurn Point.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In 1766 the famous John Smeaton was called upon to put up two
+    lighthouses, one 90 feet and the other 50 feet high. There was no hurry
+    in completing the work, for the foundations of the high light were not
+    completed until six years later. The sea repeatedly destroyed the low
+    light, owing to the waves reaching it at high tide. Poulson mentions
+    the loss of three structures between 1776 and 1816. The fourth was
+    taken down after a brief life of fourteen years, the sea having laid
+    the foundations bare. As late as the beginning of last century the
+    illumination was produced by 'a naked coal fire, unprotected from the
+    wind,' and its power was consequently most uncertain.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Smeaton's high tower is now only represented by its foundations and the
+    circular wall surrounding them, which acts as a convenient shelter from
+    wind and sand for the low houses of the men who are stationed there for
+    the lifeboat and other purposes.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The present lighthouse is 30 feet higher than Smeaton's, and is fitted
+    with the modern system of dioptric refractors, giving a light of
+    519,000 candle-power, which is greater than any other on the east coast
+    of England. The need for a second structure has been obviated by
+    placing the low lights half-way down the existing tower. Every twenty
+    seconds the upper light flashes for one and a half seconds, being seen
+    in clear weather at a distance of seventeen nautical miles.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the Middle Ages great fortunes were made on the shores on the
+    Humber. Sir William de la Pole was a merchant of remarkable enterprise,
+    and the most notable of those who traded at Ravenserodd. It was
+    probably owing to his great wealth that his son was made a
+    knight-banneret, and his grandson became Earl of Suffolk. Another of
+    the De la Poles was the first Mayor of Hull, and seems to have been no
+    less opulent than his brother, who lent large sums of money to Edward
+    III, and was in consequence appointed Chief Baron of the Exchequer and
+    also presented with the Lordship of Holderness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of Ravenser, and the later town of Ravenserodd, is told in a
+    number of early records, and from them we can see clearly what happened
+    in this corner of Yorkshire. Owing to a natural confusion from the many
+    different spellings of the two places, the fate of the prosperous port
+    of Ravenserodd has been lost in a haze of misconception. And this might
+    have continued if Mr. J. R. Boyle had not gone exhaustively into the
+    matter, bringing together all the references to the Ravensers which
+    have been discovered.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There seems little doubt that the first place called Ravenser was a
+    Danish settlement just within the Spurn Point, the name being a
+    compound of the raven of the Danish standard, and eyr or ore, meaning a
+    narrow strip of land between two waters. In an early Icelandic saga the
+    sailing of the defeated remnant of Harold Hardrada's army from
+    Ravenser, after the defeat of the Norwegians at Stamford Bridge, is
+    mentioned in the lines:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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).'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    From this event of 1066 Ravenser must have remained a hamlet of small
+    consequence, for it is not heard of again for nearly two centuries, and
+    then only in connexion with the new Ravenser which had grown on a spit
+    of land gradually thrown up by the tide within the spoon-shaped ridge
+    of Spurn Head. On this new ground a vessel was wrecked some time in the
+    early part of the thirteenth century, and a certain man&mdash;the earliest
+    recorded Peggotty&mdash;converted it into a house, and even made it a
+    tavern, where he sold food and drink to mariners. Then three or four
+    houses were built near the adapted hull, and following this a small
+    port was created, its development being fostered by William de
+    Fortibus, Earl of Albemarl, the lord of the manor, with such success
+    that, by the year 1274, the place had grown to be of some importance,
+    and a serious trade rival to Grimsby on the Lincolnshire coast. To
+    distinguish the two Ravensers the new place, which was almost on an
+    island, being only connected with the mainland by a bank composed of
+    large yellow boulders and sand, was called Ravenser Odd, and in the
+    Chronicles of Meaux Abbey and other records the name is generally
+    written Ravenserodd. The original place was about a mile away, and no
+    longer on the shore, and it is distinguished from the prosperous port
+    as Ald Ravenser. Owing, however, to its insignificance in comparison to
+    Ravenserodd, the busy port, it is often merely referred to as Ravenser,
+    spelt with many variations.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The extraordinarily rapid rise of Ravenserodd seems to have been due to
+    a 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 out
+    to incoming vessels bound for Grimsby, and induce them to sell their
+    cargoes in Ravenserodd by all sorts of specious arguments, misquoting
+    the prices paid in the rival town. If their arguments failed, they
+    would 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 an
+    action brought by the town of Grimsby against Ravenserodd. Although the
+    plaintiffs seem to have made a very good case, the decision of the
+    Court was given in favour of the defendants, as it had not been shown
+    that any of their proceedings had broken the King's peace.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The story of the disaster, which appears to have happened between 1340
+    and 1350, is told by the monkish compiler of the Chronicles of Meaux.
+    Translated from the original Latin the account is headed:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'Concerning the consumption of the town of Ravensere Odd and concerning
+    the effort towards the diminution of the tax of the church of Esyngton.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'But in those days, the whole town of Ravensere Odd.. was totally
+    annihilated by the floods of the Humber and the inundations of the
+    great sea ... and when that town of Ravensere Odd, in which we had half
+    an acre of land built upon, and also the chapel of that town,
+    pertaining to the said church of Esyngton, were exposed to demolition
+    during the few preceding years, those floods and inundations of the
+    sea, within a year before the destruction of that town, increasing in
+    their accustomed way without limit fifteen fold, announcing the
+    swallowing up of the said town, and sometimes exceeding beyond measure
+    the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,
+    threatened the final destruction of that town. And so, with this
+    terrible vision of waters seen on every side, the enclosed persons,
+    with the reliques, crosses, and other ecclesiastical ornaments, which
+    remained secretly in their possession and accompanied by the viaticum
+    of 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 left
+    that town totally without defence, to be shortly swallowed up, which,
+    with a short intervening period of time by those merciless tempestuous
+    floods, was irreparably destroyed.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The traders and inhabitants generally moved to Kingston-upon-Hull and
+    other towns, as the sea forced them to seek safer quarters.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Henry of Lancaster landed with his retinue in 1399 within Spurn
+    Head, the whole scene was one of complete desolation, and the only
+    incident recorded is his meeting with a hermit named Matthew Danthorp,
+    who was at the time building a chapel.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The very beautiful spire of Patrington church guides us easily along a
+    winding lane from Easington until the whole building shows over the
+    meadows.
+</p>
+<a name="image-29"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="29.jpg" height="806" width="558"
+alt="Patrington Church 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    We seem to have stumbled upon a cathedral standing all alone in this
+    diminishing land, scarcely more than two miles from the Humber and less
+    than four from the sea. No one quarrels with the title 'The Queen of
+    Holderness,' nor with the far greater claim that Patrington is the most
+    beautiful village church in England. With the exception of the east
+    window, which is Perpendicular, nearly the whole structure was built in
+    the Decorated period; and in its perfect proportion, its wealth of
+    detail and marvellous dignity, it is a joy to the eye within and
+    without. The plan is cruciform, and there are aisles to the transepts
+    as well as the nave, giving a wealth of pillars to the interior. Above
+    the 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 being
+    represented by crocketed pinnacles&mdash;the terminals of the supporting
+    pillars. The interior is seen at its loveliest on those afternoons when
+    that rich yellow light Mr. W. Dean Howells so aptly compares with the
+    colour of the daffodil is flooding the nave and aisles, and glowing on
+    the clustered columns.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the eastern aisles of each arm of the transept there were three
+    chantry chapels, whose piscinae remain. The central chapel in the south
+    transept is a most interesting and beautiful object, having a recess
+    for the altar, with three richly ornamented niches above. In the
+    groined roof above, the central boss is formed into a hollow pendant of
+    considerable interest. On the three sides are carvings representing the
+    Annunciation, St. Catherine of Alexandria, and St. John the Baptist,
+    and on the under side is a Tudor rose. Sir Henry Dryden, in the
+    <i>Archaeological Journal</i>, states that this pendant was used for a
+    lamp to light the altar below, but he points out, at the same time,
+    that the sacrist would have required a ladder to reach it. An
+    alternative suggestion made by others is that this niche contained a
+    relic where it would have been safe even if visible.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Patrington village is of fair size, with a wide street; and although
+    lacking any individual houses calling for comment, it is a pleasant
+    place, with the prevailing warm reds of roofs and walls to be found in
+    all the Holderness towns.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On our way to Hedon, where the 'King of Holderness' awaits us, we pass
+    Winestead Church, where Andrew Marvell was baptized in 1621, and where
+    we may see the memorials of a fine old family&mdash;the Hildyards of
+    Winestead, who came there in the reign of Henry VI.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The stately tower of Hedon's church is conspicuous from far away; and
+    when we reach the village we are much impressed by its solemn beauty,
+    and by the atmosphere of vanished greatness clinging to the place that
+    was decayed even in Leland's days, when Henry VIII, still reigned. No
+    doubt the silting up of the harbour and creeks brought down Hedon from
+    her high place, so that the retreat of the sea in this place was
+    scarcely less disastrous to the town's prosperity than its advance had
+    been at Ravenserodd; and possibly the waters of the Humber, glutted
+    with their rapacity close to Spurn Head, deposited much of the
+    disintegrated town in the waterway of the other.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The nave of the church is Decorated, and has beautiful windows of that
+    period. The transept is Early English, and so also is the chancel, with
+    a fine Perpendicular east window filled with glass of the same subtle
+    colours we saw at Patrington.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In approaching nearer to Hull, we soon find ourselves in the outer zone
+    of its penumbra of smoke, with fields on each side of the road waiting
+    for works and tall shafts, which will spread the unpleasant gloom of
+    the city still further into the smiling country. The sun becomes
+    copper-coloured, and the pure, transparent light natural to Holderness
+    loses its vigour. Tall and slender chimneys emitting lazy coils of
+    blackness stand in pairs or in groups, with others beyond, indistinct
+    behind a veil of steam and smoke, and at their feet grovels a confusion
+    of buildings sending forth jets and mushrooms of steam at a thousand
+    points. Hemmed in by this industrial belt and compact masses of
+    cellular brickwork, where labour skilled and unskilled sleeps and rears
+    its offspring, is the nucleus of the Royal borough of Kingston-upon-Hull,
+    founded by Edward I at the close of the thirteenth century.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It would scarcely have been possible that any survivals of the
+    Edwardian port could have been retained in the astonishing commercial
+    development the city has witnessed, particularly in the last century;
+    and Hull has only one old street which can lay claim to even the
+    smallest suggestion of picturesqueness. The renaissance of English
+    architecture is beginning to make itself felt in the chief streets,
+    where some good buildings are taking the places of ugly fronts; and
+    there are one or two more ambitious schemes of improvement bringing
+    dignity into the city; but that, with the exception of two churches, is
+    practically all.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When we see the old prints of the city surrounded by its wall defended
+    with towers, and realize the numbers of curious buildings that filled
+    the winding streets&mdash;the windmills, the churches and monasteries&mdash;we
+    understand that the old Hull has gone almost as completely as
+    Ravenserodd. It was in Hull that Michael, a son of Sir William de la
+    Pole of Ravenserodd, its first Mayor, founded a monastery for thirteen
+    Carthusian monks, and also built himself, in 1379, a stately house in
+    Lowgate opposite St. Mary's Church. Nothing remains of this great brick
+    mansion, which was described as a palace, and lodged Henry VIII during
+    his visit in 1540. Even St. Mary's Church has been so largely rebuilt
+    and restored that its interest is much diminished.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The great Perpendicular Church of Holy Trinity in the market-place is,
+    therefore, the one real link between the modern city and the little
+    town founded in the thirteenth century. It is a cruciform building and
+    has a fine central tower, and is remarkable in having transepts and
+    chancel built externally of brick as long ago as the Decorated Period.
+    The De la Pole mansion, of similar date, was also constructed with
+    brick&mdash;no doubt from the brickyard outside the North Gate owned by the
+    founder of the family fortunes. The pillars and capitals of the arcades
+    of both the nave and chancel are thin and unsatisfying to the eye, and
+    the interior as a whole, although spacious, does not convey any
+    pleasing sensations. The slenderness of the columns was necessary, it
+    appears, owing to the soft and insecure ground, which necessitated a
+    pile foundation and as light a weight above as could be devised.
+</p>
+<p>
+    William Wilberforce, the liberator of slaves, was born in 1759 in a
+    large house still standing in High Street, and a tall Doric column
+    surmounted by a statue perpetuates his memory, in the busiest corner of
+    the city. The old red-brick Grammar School bears the date 1583, and is
+    a pleasant relief from the dun-coloured monotony of the greater part of
+    the city.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In going westward we come, at the village of North Cave, to the
+    southern horn of the crescent of the Wolds. All the way to Howden they
+    show as a level-topped ridge to the north, and the lofty tower of the
+    church stands out boldly for many miles before we reach the town. The
+    cobbled streets at the east end of the church possess a few antique
+    houses coloured with warm ochre, and it is over and between these that
+    we have the first close view of the ruined chancel. The east window has
+    lost 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 better
+    described as early Perpendicular. It is octagonal in plan, and has in
+    each side a window with an ogee arch above. The stones employed are
+    remarkably large. The richly moulded arcading inside, consisting of
+    ogee arches, has been exposed to the weather for so long, owing to the
+    loss of the vaulting above, that the lovely detail is fast
+    disappearing.
+</p>
+<p>
+    About four miles from Howden, near the banks of the Derwent, stand the
+    ruins of Wressle Castle. In every direction the country is spread out
+    green and flat, and, except for the towers and spires of the churches,
+    it is practically featureless. To the north the horizon is brought
+    closer by the rounded outlines of the wolds; everywhere else you seem
+    to be looking into infinity, as in the Fen Country.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle that stands in the midst of this belt of level country is
+    the only one in the East Riding, and although now a mere fragment of
+    the former building, it still retains a melancholy dignity. Since a
+    fire in 1796 the place has been left an empty shell, the two great
+    towers and the walls that join them being left without floors or roofs.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Wressle was one of the two castles in Yorkshire belonging to the
+    Percys, and at the time of the Civil War still retained its feudal
+    grandeur unimpaired. Its strength was, however, considered by the
+    Parliament to be a danger to the peace, despite the fact that the Earl
+    of Northumberland, its owner, was not on the Royalist side, and an
+    order was issued in 1648 commanding that it should be destroyed.
+    Pontefract Castle had been suddenly seized for the King in June during
+    that year, and had held out so persistently that any fortified
+    building, even if owned by a supporter, was looked upon as a possible
+    source of danger to the Parliamentary Government. An order was
+    therefore sent to Lord Northumberland's officers at Wressle commanding
+    them to pull down all but the south side of the castle. That this was
+    done with great thoroughness, despite the most strenuous efforts made
+    by the Earl to save his ancient seat, may be seen to-day in the fact
+    that, of the four sides of the square, three have totally disappeared,
+    except for slight indications in the uneven grass.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The saddest part of the story concerns the portion of the buildings
+    spared by the Cromwellians. This, we are told, remained until a century
+    ago nearly in the same state as in the year 1512, when Henry Percy, the
+    fifth Earl, commenced the compilation of his wonderful Household Book.
+    The Great Chamber, or Dining Room, the Drawing Chamber, the Chapel, and
+    other apartments, still retained their richly-carved ceilings, and the
+    sides of the rooms were ornamented with a 'great profusion of ancient
+    sculpture, 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.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    There was a moat on three sides, a square tower at each corner, and a
+    fifth containing the gateway presumably on the eastward face. In one
+    of the corner towers was the buttery, pantry, 'pastery,' larder, and
+    kitchen; in the south-easterly one was the chapel; and in the
+    two-storied building and the other tower of the south side were the
+    chief apartments, where my lord Percy dined, entertained, and ordered
+    his great household with a vast care and minuteness of detail. We would
+    probably have never known how elaborate were the arrangements for the
+    conduct and duties of every one, from my lord's eldest son down to his
+    lowest servant, had not the Household Book of the fifth Earl of
+    Northumberland been, by great good fortune, preserved intact. By
+    reading this extraordinary compilation it is possible to build up a
+    complete picture of the daily life at Wressle Castle in the year 1512
+    and later.
+</p>
+<p>
+    From this account we know that the bare stone walls of the apartments
+    were hung with tapestries, and that these, together with the beds and
+    bedding, all the kitchen pots and pans, cloths, and odds and ends, the
+    altar hangings, surplices, and apparatus of the chapel&mdash;in fact, every
+    one's bed, tools, and clothing&mdash;were removed in seventeen carts each
+    time my lord went from one of his castles to another. The following is
+    one of the items, the spelling being typical of the whole book:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'ITEM.&mdash;Yt is Ordynyd at every Remevall that the Deyn Subdean
+    Prestes Gentilmen and Children of my Lordes Chapell with the Yoman and
+    Grome of the Vestry shall have apontid theime ii Cariadges at every
+    Remevall Viz. One for ther Beddes Viz. For vi Prests iii beddes after
+    ii to a Bedde For x Gentillmen of the Chapell v Beddes after ii to a
+    Bedde And for vi Children ii Beddes after iii to a Bedde And a Bedde
+    for the Yoman and Grom o' th Vestry In al xi Beddes for the furst
+    Cariage. And the ii'de Cariage for ther Aparells and all outher ther
+    Stuff and to have no mo Cariage allowed them but onely the said ii
+    Cariages allowid theime.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    We have seen the astonishingly tall spire of Hemingbrough Church from
+    the battlements of Wressle Castle, and when we have given a last look
+    at the grey walls and the windows, filled with their enormously heavy
+    tracery, we betake ourselves along a pleasant lane that brings us at
+    length to the river. The soaring spire is 120 feet in height, or twice
+    that of the tower, and this hugeness is perhaps out of proportion with
+    the rest of the building; yet I do not think for a moment that this
+    great spire could have been different without robbing the church of its
+    striking and pleasing individuality. There are Transitional Norman
+    arches at the east end of the nave, but most of the work is Decorated
+    or Perpendicular. The windows of the latter period in the south
+    transept are singularly happy in the wonderful amount of light they
+    allow to flood through their pale yellow glass. The oak bench-ends in
+    the nave, which are carved with many devices, and the carefully
+    repaired stalls in the choir, are Perpendicular, and no doubt belong to
+    the period when the church was a collegiate foundation of Durham.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH24"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXIII
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE DERWENT AND THE HOWARDIAN HILLS
+</center>
+<p>
+    Malton is the only town on the Derwent, and it is made up of three
+    separate places&mdash;Old Malton, a picturesque village; New Malton, a
+    pleasant and oldfashioned town; and Norton, a curiously extensive
+    suburb. The last has a Norman font in its modern church, and there its
+    attractions begin and end. New Malton has a fortunate position on a
+    slope well above the lush grass by the river, and in this way arranges
+    the backs of its houses with unconscious charm. The two churches,
+    although both containing Norman pillars and arches, have been so
+    extensively rebuilt that their antiquarian interest is slight.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On account of its undoubted signs of Roman occupation in the form of
+    two rectangular camps, and its situation at the meeting-place of some
+    three or four Roman roads, New Malton has been with great probability
+    identified with the <i>Delgovitia</i> of the Antonine Itinerary.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Old Malton is a cheerful and well-kept village, with antique cottages
+    here and there, roofed with mossy thatch. It makes a pretty picture as
+    you come along the level road from Pickering, with a group of trees on
+    the left and the tower of the Priory Church appearing sedately above
+    the humble roofs. A Gilbertine monastery was founded here about the
+    middle of the twelfth century, during the lifetime of St. Gilbert of
+    Sempringham in Lincolnshire, who during the last year of his long life
+    sent a letter to the Canons of Malton, addressing them as 'My dear
+    sons.' Little remains of Malton Priory with the exception of the
+    church, built at the very beginning of the Early English period. Of the
+    two western towers, the southern one only survives, and both aisles,
+    two bays of the nave, and everything else to the east has gone. The
+    abbreviated nave now serves as a parish church.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Between Malton and the Vale of York there lies that stretch of hilly
+    country we saw from the edge of the Wolds, for some time past known as
+    the Howardian Hills, from Castle Howard which stands in their midst.
+    The many interests that this singularly remote neighbourhood contains
+    can be realized by making such a peregrination as we made through the
+    Wolds.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There is no need to avoid the main road south of Malton. It has a
+    park-like appearance, with its large trees and well-kept grass on each
+    side, and the glimpses of the wooded valley of the Derwent on the left
+    are most beautiful. On the right we look across the nearer grasslands
+    into the great park of Castle Howard, and catch glimpses between the
+    distant masses of trees of Lord Carlisle's stately home. The old castle
+    of the Howards having been burnt down, Vanbrugh, the greatest architect
+    of early Georgian times, designed the enormous building now standing.
+    In 1772 Horace Walpole compressed the glories of the place into a few
+    sentences. '... I can say with exact truth,' he writes to George
+    Selwyn,' that I never was so agreeably astonished in my days as with
+    the first vision of the whole place. I had heard of Vanburgh, and how
+    Sir Thomas Robinson and he stood spitting and swearing at one another;
+    nay, I had heard of glorious woods, and Lord Strafford alone had told me
+    that 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, a
+    fortified city; temples on high places, woods worthy of being each
+    metropolis of the Druids, vales connected to hills by other woods, the
+    noblest lawn in the world fenced by half the horizon, and a mausoleum
+    that would tempt one to be buried alive; in short, I have seen gigantic
+    places before, but never a sublime one.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The style is that of the Corinthian renaissance, and Walpole's
+    description applies as much to-day as when he wrote. The pictures
+    include some of the masterpieces of Reynolds, Lely, Vandyck, Rubens,
+    Tintoretto, Canaletto, Giovanni Bellini Domenichino and Annibale
+    Caracci.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Two or three miles to the south, the road finds itself close to the
+    deep valley of the Derwent. A short turning embowered with tall trees
+    whose 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 a
+    stone bridge, and come to the Priory gateway. It is a stately ruin
+    partially mantled with ivy, and it preserves in a most remarkable
+    fashion the detail of its outward face.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The mossy steps of the cross just outside the gateway are, according to
+    a tradition in one of the Cottonian manuscripts, associated with the
+    event which led to the founding of the Abbey by Walter Espec, lord of
+    Helmsley. He had, we are told, an only son, also named Walter, who was
+    fond of riding with exceeding swiftness.
+</p>
+<p>
+    One day when galloping at a great pace his horse stumbled near a small
+    stone, and young Espec was brought violently to the ground, breaking
+    his neck and leaving his father childless. The grief-stricken parent is
+    said to have found consolation in the founding of three abbeys, one of
+    them being at Kirkham, where the fatal accident took place.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the church and conventual buildings only a few fragments remain to
+    tell us that this secluded spot by the Derwent must have possessed one
+    of the most stately monasteries in Yorkshire. One tall lancet is all
+    that has been left of the church; and of the other buildings a few
+    walls, a beautiful Decorated lavatory, and a Norman doorway alone
+    survive.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Stamford Bridge, which is reached by no direct road from Kirkham Abbey,
+    is so historically fascinating that we must leave the hills for a time
+    to see the site of that momentous battle between Harold, the English
+    King, and the Norwegian army, under Harold Hardrada and Harold's
+    brother Tostig. The English host made their sudden attack from the
+    right bank of the river, and the Northmen on that side, being partially
+    armed, were driven back across a narrow wooden bridge. One Northman, it
+    appears, played the part of Horatius in keeping the English at bay for
+    a time. When he fell, the Norwegians had formed up their shield-wall on
+    the left bank of the river, no doubt on the rising ground just above
+    the village. That the final and decisive phase of the battle took place
+    there Freeman has no doubt.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Stamford Bridge being, as already mentioned, the most probable site of
+    the Roman <i>Derventio</i>, it was natural that some village should
+    have grown up at such an important crossing of the river.
+</p>
+<p>
+    An unfrequented road through a belt of picturesque woodland goes from
+    Stamford Bridge past Sand Hutton to the highway from York to Malton. If
+    we take the branch-road to Flaxton, we soon see, over the distant
+    trees, the lofty towers of Sheriff Hutton Castle, and before long reach
+    a silent village standing near the imposing ruin. The great rectangular
+    space, enclosed by huge corner-towers and half-destroyed curtain walls,
+    is now utilized as the stackyard of a farm, and the effect as we
+    approach by a footpath is most remarkable. It seems scarcely possible
+    that this is the castle Leland described with so much enthusiasm. 'I
+    saw no House in the North so like a Princely Logginges,' he says, and
+    also describes 'the stately Staire up to the Haul' as being very
+    magnificent.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We come to the north-west tower, and look beyond its ragged outline to
+    the distant country lying to the west, grass and arable land with trees
+    appearing to grow so closely together at a short distance, that we have
+    no difficulty in realizing that this was the ancient Forest of Galtres,
+    which reached from Sheriff Hutton and Easingwold to the very gates of
+    York.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the complete loneliness of the ruins, with the silence only
+    intensified by the sounds of fluttering wings in the tops of the
+    towers, we in imagination sweep away the haystacks and reinstate the
+    former grandeur of the fortress in the days of Ralph Neville, first
+    Earl of Westmorland. It was he who rebuilt the Norman castle of Bertram
+    de Bulmer, Sheriff of Yorkshire, on a grander scale. Upon the death of
+    Warwick, the Kingmaker, in 1471, Edward IV gave the castle and manor of
+    Sheriff Hutton to his brother Richard, afterwards Richard III, and it
+    was he who kept Edward IV's eldest child Elizabeth a prisoner within
+    these massive walls. The unfortunate Edward, Earl of Warwick, the
+    eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, when only eight years old, was
+    also incarcerated here for about three years. Richard III, the usurper,
+    when he lost his only son, had thought of making this boy his heir, but
+    the unfortunate child was passed over in favour of John de la Pole,
+    Earl of Lincoln, and remained in close confinement at Sheriff Hutton
+    until August, 1485, when the Battle of Bosworth placed Henry VII on the
+    throne. Sir Robert Willoughby soon afterwards arrived at the castle,
+    and took the little Earl to London. Princess Elizabeth was also sent
+    for at the same time, but whether both the Royal prisoners travelled
+    together does not appear to be recorded. The terrible pathos of this
+    simultaneous removal from the castle lay in the fact that Edward was to
+    play the part of Pharaoh's chief baker, and Elizabeth that of the chief
+    butler; for, after fourteen years in the Tower of London, the Earl of
+    Warwick was beheaded, while the King, after five months, raised up
+    Elizabeth to be his Queen. Even in those callous times the fate of the
+    Prince was considered cruel, for it was pointed out after his
+    execution, that, as he had been kept in imprisonment since he was eight
+    years old, and had no knowledge or experience of the world, he could
+    hardly have been accused of any malicious purpose. So cut off from all
+    the common sights of everyday life was the miserable boy that it was
+    said 'that he could not discern a goose from a capon.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Portions of the Augustinian Priory are built into the house called
+    Newburgh Priory, and these include the walls of the kitchen and some
+    curious carvings showing on the exterior. William of Newburgh, the
+    historian, whose writings end abruptly in 1198&mdash;probably the year of
+    his death&mdash;was a canon of the Priory, and spent practically his whole
+    life there. In his preface he denounced the inaccuracies and fictions
+    of the writings of Geoffrey of Monmouth. At the Dissolution Newburgh
+    was given by Henry VIII to Anthony Belasyse, the punning motto of whose
+    family was <i>Bonne et belle assez</i>. One of his descendants was
+    created Lord Fauconberg by Charles I, and the peerage became extinct in
+    1815, on the death of the seventh to bear the title. The last
+    owner&mdash;Sir George Wombwell, Bart.&mdash;inherited the property from his
+    grandmother, who was a daughter of the last Lord Fauconberg. Sir George
+    was one of the three surviving officers who took part in the charge of
+    the Light Brigade at Balaclava on October 25, 1854.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The late Duke of Cambridge paid several visits to Newburgh, occupying
+    what is generally called 'the Duke's Room.' Rear-Admiral Lord Adolphus
+    Fitz-Clarence, whose father was George IV, died in 1856 in the bed
+    still kept in this room. In a glass case, at the end of a long gallery
+    crowded with interest, are kept the uniform and accoutrements Sir
+    George wore at Balaclava.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The second Lord Fauconberg, who was raised from Viscount to the rank of
+    Earl in 1689, was warmly attached to the Parliamentary side in the
+    Civil War, and took as his second wife Cromwell's third daughter, Mary.
+    This close connexion with the Protector explains the inscription upon a
+    vault immediately over one of the entrances to the Priory. On a small
+    metal plate is written:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'In this vault are Cromwell's bones, brought here, it is believed,
+    by his daughter Mary, Countess of Fauconberg, at the Restoration, when
+    his remains were disinterred from Westminster Abbey.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The letters 'R.I.P.' below are only just visible, an attempt having
+    been made to erase them. No one seems to have succeeded in finally
+    clearing up the mystery of the last resting-place of Cromwell's
+    remains. The body was exhumed from its tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel at
+    Westminster, and hung on the gallows at Tyburn on January 30, 1661&mdash;the
+    twelfth anniversary of the execution of Charles I&mdash;and the head was
+    placed upon a pole raised above St. Stephen's Hall, and had a separate
+    history, which is known. Lord Fauconberg is said to have become a
+    Royalist at the Restoration, and if this were true, he would perhaps
+    have 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 often
+    been stated that a sword, bridle, and other articles belonging to
+    Cromwell are preserved at Newburgh Priory, but this has been
+    conclusively shown to be a mistake, the objects having been traced to
+    one of the Belasyses.
+</p>
+<a name="image-30"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="30.jpg" height="530" width="805"
+alt="Coxwold Village 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Coxwold has that air of neatness and well-preserved antiquity which is
+    so often to be found in England where the ancient owners of the land
+    still spend a large proportion of their time in the great house of the
+    village. There is a very wide street, with picturesque old houses on
+    each side, which rises gently towards the church. A great tree with
+    twisted branches&mdash;whether oak or elm, I cannot remember&mdash;stands at the
+    top of the street opposite the churchyard, and adds much charm to the
+    village. The inn has recently lost its thatch, but is still a quaint
+    little house with the typical Yorkshire gable, finished with a stone
+    ball. On the great sign fixed to the wall are the arms and motto of the
+    Fauconbergs, and the interior is full of old-fashioned comfort and
+    cleanliness. Nearly opposite stand the almshouses, dated 1662.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The church is chiefly Perpendicular, with a rather unusual octagonal
+    tower. In the eighteenth century the chancel was rebuilt, but the
+    Fauconberg monuments in it were replaced. Sir William Belasyse, who
+    received the Newburgh property from his uncle, the first owner, died in
+    1603, and his fine Jacobean tomb, painted in red, black and gold, shows
+    him with a beard and ruff. His portrait hangs in one of the
+    drawing-rooms of the Priory. The later monuments, adorned with great
+    carved figures, are all interesting. They encroach so much on the space
+    in the narrow chancel that a most curious method for lengthening the
+    communion-rail has been resorted to&mdash;that of bringing forward from the
+    centre a long narrow space enclosed with the rails. From the pulpit
+    Laurence Sterne preached when he was incumbent here for the last eight
+    years of his life. He came to Coxwold in 1760, and took up his abode in
+    the charming old house he quaintly called 'Shandy Hall.' It is on the
+    opposite side of the road to the church, and has a stone roof and one
+    of those enormous chimneys so often to be found in the older farmsteads
+    of the north of England. Sterne's study was the very small room on the
+    right-hand side of the entrance doorway; it now contains nothing
+    associated with him, and there is more pleasure in viewing the outside
+    of the house than is gained by obtaining permission to enter.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During his last year at Coxwold, when his rollicking, boisterous
+    spirits 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 he
+    drove out in his chaise, drawn by two long-tailed horses, until one day
+    his postilion met with an accident from one his master's pistols, which
+    went off in his hand. 'He instantly fell on his knees,' wrote Sterne,
+    'and said "Our Father, which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name"&mdash;at
+    which, like a good Christian, he stopped, not remembering any more of
+    it.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The beautiful Hambleton Hills begin to rise up steeply about two miles
+    north 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 turret
+    pointing a finger to the heavens, and the lower portion of a huge
+    circular window, without any sign of tracery. This fine example of
+    Early English work is illustrated here. The whole building appears to
+    be the original structure built soon after 1177, for it shows
+    everywhere the transition from Norman to Early English which was taking
+    place at the close of the twelfth century. The founders were twelve
+    monks and an abbot, named Gerald, who left Furness Abbey in 1134, and
+    after some vicissitudes came to the notice of Gundred, the mother of
+    Roger de Mowbray, either by recommendation or by accident. One account
+    pictures the holy men on their way to Archbishop Thurstan at York, with
+    all their belongings in one wagon drawn by eight oxen, and describes
+    how they chanced to meet Gundreda's steward as they journeyed near
+    Thirsk. Through Gundreda the monks went to Hode, and after four years
+    received land at Old Byland, where they wished to build an abbey. This
+    position was found to be too close to Rievaulx, whose bells could be
+    too plainly heard, so that five years later the restless community
+    obtained a fresh grant of land from De Mowbray, at a place called
+    Stocking, where they remained until they came to Byland.
+</p>
+<a name="image-31"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="31.jpg" height="808" width="577"
+alt="The West Front of the Church Of Byland Abbey 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Recent excavation and preservation operations carried out by H.M.
+    Office of Works have added many lost features to the ruins including
+    the exposure of the whole of the floor level of the church hitherto
+    buried under grassy mounds. Almost any of the roads to the east go
+    through surprisingly attractive scenery. There are heathery commons,
+    roads embowered with great spreading trees, or running along open
+    hill-sides, and frequently lovely views of the Hambletons and more
+    distant moors in the north.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In scenery of this character stands Gilling Castle, the seat of the
+    Fairfaxes for some three centuries. It possesses one of the most
+    beautiful Elizabethan dining-rooms to be found in this country. The
+    walls are panelled to a considerable height, the remaining space being
+    filled with paintings of decorative trees, one for each wapentake of
+    Yorkshire. Each tree is covered with the coats of arms of the great
+    families of that time in the wapentake. The brilliant colours against
+    the dark green of the trees form a most suitable relief to the uniform
+    brown of the panelling. In addition to the charm of the room itself,
+    the view from the windows into a deep hollow clothed with dense
+    foliage, with a distant glimpse of country beyond, is unlike anything I
+    have seen elsewhere.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH25"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXIV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF YORK
+</center>
+<p>
+    Thoroughly to master the story of the city of York is to know
+    practically the whole of English history. Its importance from the
+    earliest times has made York the centre of all the chief events that
+    have take place in the North of England; and right up to the time of
+    the 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 has
+    contrived to retain a medieval character in many ways unequalled by any
+    town in the kingdom. This is due, in a large measure, to the fortunate
+    fact that York is well outside the area of coal and iron, and has never
+    become a manufacturing centre, the few factories it now possesses being
+    unable to rob the city of its romance and charm.
+</p>
+<p>
+    There could scarcely be a better approach to such a city than that
+    furnished by the railway-station. Immediately outside the building, we
+    are confronted with a sloping grassy bank, crowned with a battlemented
+    wall, and we discover that only through its bars and posterns can we
+    enter the city, and feast our eyes on the relics of the Middle Ages
+    within. It is no dummy wall put up to please visitors, for right down
+    to the siege of 1644, when the Parliamentary army battered Walmgate Bar
+    with their artillery, it has withstood many assaults and investments.
+    Repairs and restorations have been carried out at various times during
+    the last century, and additional arches have been inserted by the bars
+    and where openings have been made necessary, luckily without robbing
+    the walls of their picturesqueness or interest. The bright, creamy
+    colour of the stonework is a pleasant reminder of the purity of York's
+    atmosphere, for should the smoke of the city ever increase to the
+    extent of even the smaller manufacturing towns, the beauty and glamour
+    of every view would gradually disappear.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Of the Roman legionary base called Eboracum there still remain parts of
+    the wall and the lower portion of a thirteen-sided angle bastion while
+    embedded in the medieval earthen ramparts there is a great deal of
+    Roman walling.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The four chief gateways and the one or two posterns and towers have
+    each a particular fascination, and when we begin to taste the joys of
+    York, we cannot decide whether the Minster, the gateways, the narrow
+    streets full of overhanging houses, or the churches, all of which we
+    know from prints and pictures, call us most. In our uncertainty we
+    reach a wide arch across the roadway, and on the inner side find a
+    flight 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. The
+    battlemented stone parapet of the wall stops at a tower standing on the
+    bank of the river, and on the further side rises another, while above
+    the old houses, closely packed together beyond Lendal Bridge, appear
+    the stately towers of the Minster.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the plan of keeping the best wine until the last, we turn our backs
+    to the Minster and go along the wall, trying to imagine the scene when
+    open country came right up to encircling fortifications, and within
+    were to be found only the picturesque houses of the fourteenth and
+    fifteenth centuries, many of them new in those days, and yet so
+    admirably designed as to be beautiful without the additional charm of
+    age. Then, suddenly, we find no need to imagine any longer, having
+    reached the splendid twelfth-century structure of Micklegate Bar. Its
+    bold turrets are pierced with arrow-slits, and above the battlements
+    are three stone figures. The archway is a survival of the Norman city.
+    In gazing at this imposing gateway, which confronted all who approached
+    York from the south, we seem to hear the clanking sound of the
+    portcullis as it is raised and lowered to allow the entry of some
+    Plantagenet sovereign and his armed retinue, and, remembering that
+    above this gate were fixed the dripping heads of Richard, Duke of York,
+    after his defeat at Wakefield; the Earl of Devon, after Towton, and a
+    long list of others of noble birth, we realize that in those times of
+    pageantry, when the most perfect artistry appeared in costume, in
+    architecture, and in ornament of every description, there was a
+    blood-thirstiness that makes us shiver.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The wall stops short at Skeldergate Bridge, where we cross the river
+    and come to the castle. There is a frowning gateway that boasts no
+    antiquity, and the courtyard within is surrounded by the
+    eighteenth-century assize courts, a military prison, and the governor's
+    house. Hemmed in by these buildings and a massive wall is the
+    artificial mound surmounted by the tottering castle keep. It is called
+    Clifford's Tower because Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, restored
+    the ruined wall in 1642. The Royal Arms and those of the Cliffords can
+    still be seen above the doorway, but the structure as a whole dates
+    from the twelfth century, and in 1190 was the scene of a horrible
+    tragedy, when the people of York determined to massacre the Jews. Those
+    merchants who escaped from their houses with their families and were
+    not killed in the streets fled to the castle, but finding that they
+    were unable to defend the place, they burnt the buildings and destroyed
+    themselves. A few exceptions consented to become Christians, but were
+    afterwards killed by the infuriated townspeople.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the opposite side of the Foss, a stream that joins the Ouse just
+    outside the city, the walls recommence at the Fishergate Postern, a
+    picturesque tower with a tiled roof. After this the line of
+    fortifications turns to the north, and Walmgate Bar shows its
+    battlemented turrets and its barbican, the only one which has survived.
+    The gateway itself, on the outside, is very similar in design to
+    Micklegate and Monk Bars, and was built in the thirteenth century;
+    inside, however, the stonework is hidden behind a quaint Elizabethan
+    timber front supported on two pillars. This gate, as already mentioned,
+    was much battered during the siege of 1644, which lasted six weeks. It
+    was soon after the Royalists' defeat at Marston Moor that York
+    capitulated, and fortunately Sir Thomas Fairfax gave the city excellent
+    terms, and saved it from being plundered. Through him, too, the Minster
+    suffered very little damage from the Parliamentary artillery, and the
+    only disaster of the siege was the spoiling of the Marygate Tower, near
+    St. Mary's Abbey, many of the records it contained being destroyed.
+    Numbers were saved through the rewards Fairfax offered to any soldier
+    who rescued a document from the rubbish, and as the transcribing of all
+    the records had just been completed by one Dodsworth, to whom Fairfax
+    had paid a salary for some years, the loss was reduced to a minimum.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Walmgate leads straight to the bridge over the Foss, and just beyond we
+    come to fine old Merchants' Hall, established in 1373 by John de
+    Rowcliffe. The panelled rooms and the chapel, built early in the
+    fifteenth century, and many interesting details, are beautiful
+    survivals of the days when the trade guilds of the city flourished. On
+    the left, a few yards further on, at the corner of the Pavement, is the
+    interesting little church of All Saints, whose octagonal lantern was
+    illuminated at night as a guiding light to travellers on their way to
+    York. The north door has a sanctuary knocker.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The narrowest and most antique of the old streets of York are close to
+    All Saints' Church, and the first we enter is the Shambles, where
+    butchers' shops with slaughter-houses behind still line both sides of
+    the way. On the left, as we go towards the Minster, one of the shops
+    has a depressed ogee arch of oak, and great curved brackets across the
+    passage leading to the back. All the houses are timber-framed, and
+    either plastered and coloured with warm ochre wash, or have the spaces
+    between the oak filled with dark red brick. In the Little Shambles,
+    too, there are many curious details in the high gables, pargeting and
+    oriel windows. Petergate is a charming old street, though not quite so
+    rich in antique houses as Stonegate, illustrated here. A large number
+    of shops in Stonegate sell 'antiques,' and, as the pleasure of buying
+    an old pair of silver candlesticks is greatly enhanced by the knowledge
+    that the purchase will be associated with the old-world streets of
+    York, there is every reason for believing that these quaint houses are
+    in no danger. In walking through these streets we are very little
+    disturbed by traffic, and the atmosphere of centuries long dead seems
+    to surround us. We constantly get peeps of the great central tower of
+    the Minster or the Early English south transept, and there are so many
+    charming glimpses down passages and along narrow streets that it is
+    hard to realize that we are not in some town in Normandy such as
+    Lisieux or Falaise, and yet those towns have no walls, and Falaise, has
+    only one gateway, and Lisieux none. It is surely justifiable to ask, in
+    Kingsley's words, 'Why go gallivanting with the nations round' until
+    you 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 its
+    two towers built in late Perpendicular times, which are not so
+    beautiful as those at Beverley, we come to what is in many ways the
+    most romantic of all the medieval survivals of York. There is an open
+    space faced by Bootham Bar, the chief gateway towards the north; behind
+    are the weathered red roofs of many antique houses, and beyond them
+    rises the stately mass of the Minster. The barbican was removed in
+    1831, and the interior has been much restored, without, however,
+    destroying its fascination. We can still see the portcullis and look
+    out of the narrow windows through which the watchmen have gazed in
+    early times at approaching travellers. It was at this gateway that
+    armed guides could be obtained to protect those who were journeying
+    northwards through the Forest of Galtres, where wolves were to be
+    feared in the Middle Ages.
+</p>
+<a name="image-32"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="32.jpg" height="639" width="800"
+alt="Bootham Bar, York 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    Facing Bootham Bar is a modern public building judiciously screened by
+    trees, and adjoining it to the south stands the beautiful old house
+    where, before the Dissolution, the abbots of St. Mary's Abbey lived in
+    stately fashion.
+</p>
+<p>
+    When Henry VIII paid his one visit to York it was after the Pilgrimage
+    of Grace led by Robert Aske, who was hanged on one of the gates. The
+    citizens who had welcomed the rebels pleaded pardon, which was granted
+    three years afterwards; but Henry appointed a council, with the Duke of
+    Norfolk as its president, which was held in the Abbots' house, and
+    resulted in the Mayor and Corporation losing most of their powers. The
+    beautiful fragments of St. Mary's Abbey are close to the river, and the
+    site is now included in the museum grounds. In the museum building
+    itself there is a wonderfully fine collection of Roman coffins, dug up
+    when the new railway-station was being built. One inscription is
+    particularly interesting in showing that the Romans set up altars in
+    their palaces, thus explaining the reason for the Jews refusing to
+    enter the praetorium at Jerusalem when Christ was made prisoner,
+    because it was the Feast of the Passover.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We can see the restored front of the Guildhall overlooking the river
+    from Lendal Bridge, which adjoins the gates of the Abbey grounds, but
+    to reach the entrance we must go along the street called Lendal and
+    turn into a narrow passage. The hall was put up in 1446, and is
+    therefore in the Perpendicular style. A row of tall oak pillars on each
+    side support the roof and form two aisles. The windows are filled with
+    excellent modern stained glass representing several incidents in the
+    history of the city, from the election of Constantine to be Roman
+    Emperor, which took place at York in A.D. 306, down to the great dinner
+    to the Prince Consort, held in the hall in 1850.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The Church of St. Michael Spurriergate, built at the same period as the
+    Guildhall, is curiously similar in its interior, having only a nave and
+    aisles. The stone pillars are so slight that they are scarcely of much
+    greater diameter than the wooden ones in the civic structure, and some
+    of them are perilously out of plumb. There is much old glass in the
+    windows.
+</p>
+<p>
+    St. Margaret's Church has a splendid Norman doorway carved with the
+    signs of the zodiac; St. Mary's Castlegate is an Early English or
+    Transitional building transformed and patched in Perpendicular times;
+    St. Mary's Bishophill Junior has a most interesting tower, containing
+    Roman materials, and the list could be prolonged for many pages if
+    there were space.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We finally come back to the Minster, and entering by the south transept
+    door, realize at once in the dim immensity of the interior that we have
+    reached the crowning splendour of York. The great organ is filling the
+    lofty spaces with solemn music, carrying the mind far beyond petty
+    things.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Edwin's wooden chapel, put up in 627 for his baptism into the Christian
+    Church nearly thirteen centuries ago, and almost immediately replaced
+    by a stone structure, has gone, except for some possible fragments in
+    the crypt. Vanished, too, is the building that was standing when, in
+    1069, the Danes sacked and plundered York, leaving the Minster and city
+    in ruins, so that the great church as we see it belongs almost entirely
+    to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the towers being still
+    later.
+</p>
+<a name="2HCH26"><!-- H2 anchor --></a>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h2>
+    CHAPTER XXV
+</h2>
+<center>
+    THE MANUFACTURING DISTRICT
+</center>
+<p>
+    It is not easy to understand how a massive structure such as that of
+    Selby Abbey can catch fire and become a burnt-out shell, and yet this
+    actually happened not many years ago.
+</p>
+<p>
+    It was before midnight on October 19, 1906, that the flames were first
+    seen bursting from the Latham Chapel, where the organ was placed. The
+    Selby fire brigade with their small engine were confronted with a task
+    entirely beyond their powers, and though the men worked heroically,
+    they were quite unable to prevent the fire from spreading to the roofs
+    of the chancel and nave, and consuming all that was inflammable within
+    the tower. By about three in the morning fire-engines from Leeds and
+    York had arrived, and with a copious supply of water from the river, it
+    was hoped that the double roof of the nave might have been saved, but
+    the fire had obtained too fierce a hold, and by 4.30 a correspondent
+    telegraphed:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'The flames are through the west-end roof. The whole building will
+    now be destroyed from end to end. The flames are pouring out of
+    the roof, and the lead of the roof is running down in molten
+    streams. The scene is magnificent but pathetic, and the whole
+    of the noble building is now doomed. The whole of the inside is a
+    fiery furnace. The seating is in flames, and the firemen are in
+    considerable danger if they stay any longer, as the false roof is now
+    burned through.
+</p>
+<p>
+    'The false roof is falling in, and the flames are ascending 30 feet
+    above the building. Dense clouds of smoke are pouring out.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    When the fire was vanquished, it had practically completed its work of
+    destruction. Besides reducing to charred logs and ashes all the timber
+    in the great building, the heat had been so intense that glass windows
+    had been destroyed, tracery demolished, carved finials and capitals
+    reduced to powder, and even the massive piers by the north transept,
+    where the furnace of flame reached its maximum intensity, became so
+    calcined and cracked that they were left in a highly dangerous
+    condition.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Fortunately the splendid Norman nave was not badly damaged, and after a
+    new 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 south
+    side the massive circular column is covered with a plain grooved
+    diaper-work, almost exactly the same as may be seen at Durham
+    Cathedral. All the rest of the nave is Transitional Norman except the
+    Early English clerestory, and is a wonderful study in the progress from
+    early Norman to Early English.
+</p>
+<p>
+    On the floor on the south side of the nave by one of the piers is a
+    slab to the memory of a maker of gravestones, worded in this quaint
+    fashion:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    A stone on the floor of the retro-choir to John Johnson, master and
+    mariner, dated 1737, is crowded with nautical metaphor.
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    The great Perpendicular east window was considered by Pugin to be one
+    of the most beautiful of its type in England, and the risk it ran of
+    being entirely destroyed during the fire was very great. The design of
+    the glass illustrates the ancestry of Christ from Jesse, and a
+    considerable portion of it is original.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although Selby Abbey suffered severely in the conflagration, yet its
+    greatest association with history, the Norman nave, is still intact. At
+    the eastern end of the nave we can still look upon the ponderous arches
+    of the Benedictine Abbey Church, founded by William the Conqueror in
+    1069 as a mark of his gratitude for the success of his arms in the
+    north of England, even as Battle Abbey was founded in the south.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Going to the west as far as Pontefract, we come to the actual borders
+    of the coal-mine and factory-bestrewn country. Although the history of
+    Pontefract is so detailed and so rich, it has long ago been robbed of
+    nearly every building associated with the great events of its past, and
+    its present appearance is intensely disappointing. The town stands on a
+    hill, and has a wide and cheerful market-place possessing an
+    eighteenth-century 'cross' on big open arches. It is a plain, classic
+    structure, 'erected by Mrs. Elisabeth Dupier Relict of Solomon Dupier,
+    Gent, in a cheerful and generous Compliance with his benevolent
+    Intention Anno Dom' 1734.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    The castle stood at the northern end of the town on a rocky eminence
+    just suited for the purposes of an early fortress, but of the stately
+    towers and curtain walls which have successively been reared above the
+    scarps, practically nothing besides foundations remains. The base of
+    the great round tower, prominent in all the prints of the castle in the
+    time of its greatest glory, fragments of the lower parts of other towers
+    and some dungeons or magazines are practically the only features of the
+    historic site that the imagination finds to feed upon. A long flight of
+    steps leads into the underground chambers, on whose walls are carved
+    the names of various prisoners taken during the siege of 1648. Below
+    the castle, on the east side, is the old church of All Saints with its
+    ruined nave, eloquent of the destruction wrought by the Parliamentary
+    cannon in the successive sieges, and to the north stands New Hall, the
+    stately Tudor mansion of Lord George Talbot, now reduced to the
+    melancholy wreck depicted in these pages. The girdle of fortifications
+    constructed by the besiegers round the castle included New Hall, in
+    case it might have been reached by a sally of the Royalists, whose
+    cannon-balls, we know, carried as far, from the discovery of one
+    embedded in the masonry. Coats of arms of the Talbots can still be seen
+    on 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 the
+    style of Henry VIII's reign.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Although we can describe in a very few words the historic survivals of
+    Pontefract, to deal even cursorily with the story of the vanished
+    castle and modernized town is a great undertaking, so numerous are the
+    great personages and famous events of English history connected with
+    its owners, its prisoners, and its sieges.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The name Pontefract has suggested such an obvious derivation that, from
+    the early topographers up to the present time, efforts have been made
+    to discover the broken bridge giving rise to the new name, which
+    replaced the Saxon Kyrkebi. No one has yet succeeded in this quest, and
+    the absence of any river at Pontefract makes the search peculiarly
+    hopeless. At Castleford, a few miles north-west of Pontefract, where
+    the Roman Ermine Street crossed the confluence of the Aire and the
+    Calder, it is definitely known that there was only a ford. The present
+    name does not make any appearance until several years after the Norman
+    Conquest, though Ilbert de Lacy received the great fief, afterwards to
+    become the Honour of Pontefract, in 1067, the year after the Battle of
+    Hastings. Ilbert built the first stone castle on the rock, and either
+    to him or his immediate successors may be attributed the Norman walls
+    and chapel, whose foundations still exist on the north and east sides
+    of the castle yard.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The De Lacys held Pontefract until 1193, when Robert died without
+    issue, the castle and lands passing by marriage to Richard
+    Fitz-Eustace; and the male line again became extinct in 1310, when
+    Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, married Alice, the heiress of Henry de Lacy.
+    Henry's great-grandfather was the Roger de Lacy, Justiciar and
+    Constable of Chester, who is famous for his heroic defence of Chateau
+    Gaillard, in Normandy, for nearly a year, when John weakly allowed
+    Philip Augustus to continue the siege, making only one feeble attempt
+    at 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 his
+    determination to rid the Court of the royal favourites, and it was with
+    Lancaster's full consent that Piers Gaveston was beheaded at Blacklow
+    Hill, near Warwick, in 1312. For this Edward never forgave his cousin,
+    and when, during the fighting which followed the recall of the
+    Despensers, Lancaster was obliged to surrender after the Battle of
+    Boroughbridge, Edward had his revenge. The Earl was brought to his own
+    castle at Pontefract, where the King lay, and there accused of
+    rebellion, of coming to the Parliaments with armed men, and of being in
+    league with the Scots. Without even being allowed a hearing he was
+    condemned 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 outside
+    the town, and executed with his face towards Scotland.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the last year of the same century Richard II died in imprisonment in
+    the castle, not long after the Parliament had decided that the deposed
+    King should be permanently immured in an out-of-the-way place.
+    Hardyng's Chronicle records the journeying from one castle to another
+    in the lines:
+</p>
+<center>
+<table summary="">
+<tr><td>
+<pre>
+  '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.'
+</pre>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</center>
+<p>
+    Archbishop Scrope affirmed that Richard died of starvation, while
+    Shakespeare makes Sir Piers of Exton his murderer.
+</p>
+<p>
+    During the Pilgrimage of Grace the castle was besieged, and given up to
+    the rebels by Lord Darcy and the Archbishop of York. In the following
+    century came the three sieges of the Civil War. The first two followed
+    after the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, and Fairfax joined the
+    Parliamentary forces on Christmas Day of that year, remaining through
+    most of January. On March 1 Sir Marmaduke Langdale relieved the
+    Royalist garrison, and Colonel Lambert fell back, fighting stubbornly
+    and losing some 300 men. The garrison then had an interval of just
+    three weeks to reprovision the castle, then the second siege began, and
+    lasted until July 19, when the courageous defenders surrendered, the
+    besieging force having lost 469 men killed to 99 of those within the
+    castle. Of these two sieges, often looked upon as one, there exists a
+    unique diary kept by Nathan Drake, a 'gentleman volunteer' of the
+    garrison, and from its wonderfully graphic details it is possible to
+    realize the condition of the defence, their sufferings, their hopes,
+    and their losses, almost more completely than of any other siege before
+    recent times.
+</p>
+<p>
+    In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned
+    the 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. The
+    dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a
+    matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but
+    seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which
+    for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals.
+</p>
+<p>
+    Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has
+    languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces
+    those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size
+    of a shilling, known as 'Pontefract cakes.'
+</p>
+<a name="image-33"><!--IMG--></a>
+<center>
+<img src="33.jpg" height="579" width="817"
+alt="Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds 
+">
+</center>
+<!--IMAGE END-->
+<p>
+    The ruins of the great Cistercian Abbey of Kirkstall, founded in the
+    twelfth century by Henry de Lacy, still stand in a remarkable state of
+    completeness, about three miles from Leeds. With the exception of
+    Fountains, the remains are more perfect than any in Yorkshire. Nearly
+    the whole of the church is Transitional Norman, and the roofless nave
+    is in a wonderfully fine state of preservation. The chapter-house and
+    refectory, as well as smaller rooms, are fairly complete, and the
+    situation by the Aire on a sunny day is still attractive; yet owing to
+    the smoke-laden atmosphere, and the inevitable indications of the
+    countless visitors from the city, the ruins have lost much of their
+    interest, unless viewed solely from a detached architectural
+    standpoint. We do not feel much inclination to linger in this
+    neighbourhood, and continue our way westwards towards the great rounded
+    hills, where, not far from Keighley, we come to the grey village of
+    Haworth.
+</p>
+<p>
+    More than half a century has gone since Charlotte Brontė passed away in
+    that melancholy house, the 'parsonage' of the village. In that period
+    the church she knew has been rebuilt, with the exception of the tower,
+    her home has been enlarged, a branch line from Keighley has given
+    Haworth a railway-station, and factories have multiplied in the valley,
+    destroying its charm. These changes sound far greater than they really
+    are, for in many ways Haworth and its surroundings are just what they
+    were in the days when the members of that ill-fated household were
+    still united under the grey roof of the 'parsonage,' as it is
+    invariably called by Mrs. Gaskell.
+</p>
+<p>
+    We climb up the steep road from the station at the bottom of the deep
+    valley, and come to the foot of the village street, which, even though
+    it turns sharply to the north in order to make as gradual an ascent as
+    possible, is astonishingly steep. At the top stands an inn, the 'Black
+    Bull,' where the downward path of the unhappy Branwell Brontė began,
+    owing to the frequent occasions when 'Patrick,' as he was familiarly
+    called, was sent for by the landlord to talk to his more important
+    patrons.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The churchyard is, to a large extent, closely paved with tombstones
+    dating back to the seventeenth century, laid flat, and on to this
+    dismal piece of ground the chief windows of the Brontės' house looked,
+    as they continue to do to-day. It is exceedingly strange that such an
+    unfortunate arrangement of the buildings on this breezy hill-top should
+    have given a gloomy outlook to the parsonage. If the house had only
+    been placed a little higher up the hill, and been built to face the
+    south, it is conceivable that the Brontės would have enjoyed better
+    health and a less melancholy and tragic outlook on life. An account of
+    a visit to Haworth Parsonage by a neighbour, when Charlotte and her
+    father were the only survivors of the family, gives a clear impression
+    of how the house appeared to those who lived brighter lives:
+</p>
+<p>
+    'Miss Brontė put me so in mind of her own "Jane Eyre." She looked smaller
+    than ever, and moved about so quietly and noiselessly, just like a
+    little bird, as Rochester called her, barring that all birds are
+    joyous, and that joy can never have entered that house since it was
+    first built, and yet, perhaps, when that old man married, and took home
+    his bride, and children's voices and feet were heard about the house,
+    even that desolate crowded graveyard and biting blast could not quench
+    cheerfulness and hope.'
+</p>
+<p>
+    Very soon after the family came to Haworth Mrs. Brontė died, when the
+    eldest girl, Maria, was only six years old; and far from there having
+    been any childish laughter about the house, we are told that the
+    children were unusually solemn from their infancy. In their earliest
+    walks, the five little girls with their one brother&mdash;all of them under
+    seven years&mdash;directed their steps towards the wild moors above their
+    home rather than into the village. Over a century has passed, and
+    practically no change has come to the moorland side of the house, so
+    that we can imagine the precocious toddling children going hand-in-hand
+    over the grass-lands towards the moors beyond, as though we had
+    travelled back over the intervening years.
+</p>
+<p>
+    The purple moors so beloved by the Brontės stretch away to the Calder
+    Valley, and beyond that depression in great sweeping outlines to the
+    Peak of Derbyshire, where they exceed 2,000 feet in height. Within easy
+    reach of this grand country is Sheffield, perhaps the blackest and
+    ugliest city in England. At night, however, the great iron and steel
+    works become wildly fantastic. The tops of the many chimneys emit
+    crimson flames, and glowing shafts of light with a nucleus of dazzling
+    brilliance show between the inky forms of buildings. Ceaseless activity
+    reigns in these industrial infernos, with three shifts of men working
+    during each twenty-four hours; and from the innumerable works come
+    every form of manufactured steel and iron goods, from a pair of
+    scissors or a plated teaspoon to steel rails and armour plate.
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Yorkshire, by Gordon Home
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