From John O'Groats to Land's End Or, 1372 miles on foot; A book of days and chronicle of adventures by two pedestrians on tour (part 3 of 6)

From John O'Groats to Land's End Or, 1372 miles on foot; A book of days and chronicle of adventures by two pedestrians on tour (part 3 of 6)

The vales and hills whose beauty hither drew The poet's steps, and fixed him here, on you His eyes have closed! And ye, lov'd books, no more Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore, To works that ne'er shall forfeit their renown. Adding immortal labours of his own-- Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal For the State's guidance, and the Church's weal Or fancy, disciplined by studious art, Inform'd his pen, or wisdom of the heart. Or judgements sanctioned in the Patriot's mind By reverence for the rights of all mankind. Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast Could private feelings meet for holier rest. His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud From Skiddaw's top; but he to heaven was vowed. Through his industrious life, and Christian faith Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.

We attended the same church in the afternoon, and both the sermons were preached by the curate, his texts being Deut. vi. 5 in the morning and Hebrews iv. 3 in the afternoon. We were surprised to see such large congregations on a wet day, but concluded that the people were so accustomed to rain in that part of the country that they looked upon it as a matter of course. The people of Keswick evidently had other views as regards church-going than is expressed in the following lines by an author whose name we do not remember:

No pelting rain can make us stay When we have tickets for the play; But let one drop the side-walk smirch. And it's too wet to go to church.

At the morning service we sat in a pew in the rear of the church, and at one point in the service when it was usual in that part of the country for the congregation to sit down, one gentleman only remained standing. We could scarcely believe our own eyes when we recognised in this solitary figure the commanding form of Colonel Greenall of the Warrington Volunteers, a gentleman whom we know full well, for his brother was the rector of Grappenhall, our native village, where the Colonel himself formerly resided.

He was a great stickler for a due recognition of that pleasing but old-fashioned custom now fallen out of use, of the boys giving the rector, the squire, or any other prominent member of their families a respectful recognition when meeting them in the village or on their walks abroad. On one occasion the boys had forgotten their usual obeisance when meeting some relatives of the Colonel. He was highly indignant at this sin of omission, and took the earliest opportunity to bring the matter forcibly before his Sunday-school class, of which my brother was a member. The Colonel spoke long and feelingly to the boys on the subject of ordering themselves lowly and reverently before all their "betters," including governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters, and to all those who were put in authority over them, and wound up his peroration with these words, which my brother never forgot, "And now, boys, whenever you meet ME, or any of MY FAMILY, mind you always touch your HATS!"

We did not stop to speak to the Colonel, as he was at the other end of the church and passed out through another door, but we were recognised by one of his men, who told us the Colonel had only just removed to that neighbourhood. He had liked his summer's experiences there, but did not know how he would go on in the winter. The Colonel and his man were the only persons we saw on the whole of our journey that we knew.

To return to our boyish experiences and to the Colonel, the subject of his Sunday-school lesson was taken from the Summary of the Ten Commandments in the Church of England Prayer Book, where they were divided into two parts, the first four relating to our duty to God, and the remaining six to our duty towards our neighbour. It was surprising how these questions and answers learned in the days of our youth dwelt in our memories, and being Sunday, we each wrote them down from memory with the same result, and we again record them for the benefit of any of our friends who wish to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

"Question.--What is thy duty towards God?

"Answer.--My duty towards God, is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put my whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His Word, and to serve Him truly all the days of my life.

"Question.--What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?

"Answer.--My duty towards my Neighbour, is to love him as myself, and to do unto all men, as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour, and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the Queen, and all that are put in authority under her: To submit myself to all my governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt no body by word nor deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call me."

The word "duty" in the last paragraph of the explanation of one's duty to one's neighbour must have been in the thoughts of both Nelson and his men at the Battle of Trafalgar when he signalled, "England expects that every man this day will do his duty." Although objections may be raised to clauses in the summary, we always thought that our country could be none the worse, but all the better, if every one learned and tried to act up to the principles contained in these summaries of the Ten Commandments.

In the evening we attended St. John's Church, where the Vicar officiated and preached from Isaiah lxvii. 7 to a large congregation, and after the service we returned to our hotel.

Keswick was a great resort of tourists and holiday people, and we were not without company at the hotel, from whom we obtained plenty of advice concerning our route on the morrow. We were strongly recommended to see the Druidical Circle and to climb Skiddaw, whose summit was over 3,000 feet above sea-level, from which we should have a view scarcely surpassed in the whole of Europe, and a scene that would baffle the attempts of ordinary men to describe, having taxed even the powers of Southey and Wordsworth. These recommendations and others were all qualified with the words "if fine." But, oh that little word "if"--so small that we scarcely notice it, yet how much does it portend! At any rate we could not arrive at a satisfactory decision that night, owing to the unfavourable state of the weather.

FIFTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

A WEEK IN THE RAIN

Monday, October 16th.

The morning was showery, but we were obliged to continue our walk, so we left Keswick with the intention of visiting the Falls of Lodore, the large Bowder Stone, and the Yew Trees in Borrowdale, and afterwards crossing over the fells to visit the graves of the poets at Grasmere. We had been recommended to ascend the Castle Rigg, quite near the town, in order to see the fine views from there, which included Bassenthwaite Lake and Derwent Water. The poet Gray, who died in 1771, was so much impressed by the retrospect, and with what he had seen from the top where once the castle stood, that he declared he had "a good mind to go back again." Unfortunately we had to forgo even that ascent, as the rain descended in almost torrential showers. So we journeyed on in the rain alongside the pretty lake of Derwent Water, which is about three miles long and about a mile and a half broad, the water being so clear, we were informed, that a small stone could be seen even if five or six yards below the surface. It was certainly a lovely lake, and, with its nicely wooded islands dotting its surface, recalled memories of Loch Lomond. The first of these islands, about six acres in extent, was named the Vicar's or Derwent Island, on which a family mansion had been erected. On Lord's Island, which was quite near the side, were the ruins of an old summer-house built by the Ratcliffe family with the stones from their ruined castle on Castlerigg. The third island, which was in the centre of the lake, also had a summer-house that had been built there by the late Sir Wilfrid Lawson, composed of unhewn stone and covered with moss to make it look ancient. This was known as St. Herbert's Island, after a holy hermit who lived there in the sixth century, the ruins of whose hermitage could still be traced. It was said that so great and perfect was the love of this saintly hermit for his friend St. Cuthbert of Holy Island, whose shrine was ultimately settled at Durham, that he used to pray that he might expire the moment the breath of life quitted the body of his friend, so that their souls might wing their flight to heaven in company.

Although not so large as Lake Windermere, Derwent Water was considered the most beautiful of the lakes because of these lovely islands on its surface and the grand hills that encircled it. This lake of unsurpassed beauty was associated both in name and reality with the unfortunate Earl of Derwentwater, who suffered death for the part he took in the Jacobite rising in 1715, and to whom Lord's Island belonged. He was virtually compelled by his countess to join the rising, for when she saw his reluctance to do so, she angrily threw her fan at his feet, and commanded him take that and hand her his sword. The Earl gravely picked it up, returned it to her, and, drawing his sword, cried, "God save King James!" The Jacobites were supporters of James II, who was supplanted by William III, Prince of Orange, in 1689, James then retreating to Ireland, where he was defeated at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The rising in which the Earl of Derwentwater took part in the year 1715 was in support of the son of James II, James Edward, whose adherents were defeated at Preston in November of the same year, the unfortunate Earl, with many others, being taken prisoner. The son of this James Edward was the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" so beloved of the Scots, who landed to claim the English Crown in 1745, and was defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, where the Jacobite movement found its grave. Much sympathy was felt at the time for the young Earl of Derwentwater, and there was a tradition in the family that in times of great peril a supernatural figure appeared to warn them of approaching fate. It is said that when his lordship was wandering over the hills, a figure approached clothed in the robe and hood of grey which the supernatural figure always wore, gave him a crucifix, which was to render him proof against bullet and sword, and then immediately disappeared. The Earl joined the insurgents, who were defeated by the Royal troops at Preston, and he, with other leaders, was taken to London, placed in the Tower, and condemned to death for treason. His wife, taking the family jewels with her, implored King George I, on her knees, for mercy; and Sir Robert Walpole declared in the House of Commons that he had been offered £60,000 if he would obtain Lord Derwentwater's pardon; but all efforts were in vain, for he died by the axe on Tower Hill, February 24th, 1716, and his estates were forfeited to the Government.

We enjoyed our walk along Derwentwater in spite of the weather, but as we approached Lodore, and heard the noise of the waters, we realised that we had scored one great advantage from the continued rain, for we could not have seen the falls to better advantage, as they fully carried out the description of Southey, written when he was Poet Laureate of England, in the following jingling rhyme:

"How does the water come down at Lodore?" My little boy asked me thus, once on a time, Moreover, he task'd me to tell him in rhyme; Anon at the word there first came one daughter. And then came another to second and third The request of their brother, and hear how the water Comes down at Lodore, with its rush and its roar, As many a time they had seen it before. So I told them in rhyme, for of rhymes I had store. And 'twas my vocation that thus I should sing. Because I was laureate to them and the king.

Visitors to the Lake District, who might chance to find fine weather there, would be disappointed if they expected the falls to be equal to the poet's description, since heavy rains are essential to produce all the results described in his poem. But seen as we saw them, a torrential flood of water rushing and roaring, the different streams of which they were composed dashing into each other over the perpendicular cliffs on every side, they presented a sight of grandeur and magnificence never to be forgotten, while the trees around and above seemed to look on the turmoil beneath them as if powerless, except to lend enchantment to the impressive scene.

And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing-- And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions for ever are blending. All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar-- And this way the water comes down at Lodore!

The water rolled in great volumes down the crags, the spray rising in clouds, and no doubt we saw the falls at their best despite the absence of the sun. Near Lodore, and about 150 yards from the shore of Derwentwater, was a floating island which at regular intervals of a few years rises from the bottom exposing sometimes nearly an acre in extent, and at others only a few perches. This island was composed of a mass of decayed weeds and earthy matter, nearly six feet in thickness, covered with vegetation, and full of air bubbles, which, it was supposed, penetrated the whole mass and caused it to rise to the surface.

By this time we had become quite accustomed to being out in the rain and getting wet to the skin, but the temperature was gradually falling, and we had to be more careful lest we should catch cold. It was very provoking that we had to pass through the Lake District without seeing it, but from the occasional glimpses we got between the showers we certainly thought we were passing through the prettiest country in all our travels. In Scotland the mountains were higher and the lakes, or lochs, much larger, but the profiles of the hills here, at least of those we saw, were prettier. About two miles from the Falls of Lodore we arrived at the famous Bowder Stone. We had passed many crags and through bewitching scenery, but we were absolutely astonished at the size of this great stone, which Wordsworth has described as being like a stranded ship:

Upon a semicirque of turf-clad ground, A mass of rock, resembling, as it lay Right at the foot of that moist precipice, A stranded ship with keel upturned, that rests Careless of winds and waves.

The most modest estimate of the weight of the Bowder Stone was 1,771 tons, and we measured it as being 21 yards long and 12 yards high. This immense mass of rock had evidently fallen from the hills above. We climbed up the great stone by means of a ladder or flight of wooden steps erected against it to enable visitors to reach the top. But the strangest thing about it was the narrow base on which the stone rested, consisting merely of a few narrow ledges of rock. We were told that fifty horses could shelter under it, and that we could shake hands with each other under the bottom of the stone, and although we could not test the accuracy of the statement with regard to the number of horses it could shelter, we certainly shook hands underneath it. To do this we had to lie down, and it was not without a feeling of danger that we did so, with so many hundreds of tons of rock above our heads, and the thought that if the rock had given way a few inches we should have been reduced to a mangled mass of blood and bones. Our friendly greeting was not of long duration, and we were pleased when the ceremony was over. There is a legend that in ancient times the natives of Borrowdale endeavoured to wall in the cuckoo so that they might have perpetual spring, but the story relates that in this they were not entirely successful, for the cuckoo just managed to get over the wall. We now continued our journey to find the famous Yew Trees of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth describes in one of his pastorates as "those fraternal four of Borrowdale":

But worthier still of note Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane; a pillared shade, From whose grassless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially--beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked With unrejoicing berries--ghostly shapes May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton, And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, United worship; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

It was a lonely place where the four yew trees stood, though not far from the old black lead works which at one time produced the finest plumbago for lead pencils in the world. As the rain was falling heavily, we lit a fire under the largest of the four trees, which measured about twenty-one feet in circumference at four feet from the ground, and sheltered under its venerable shade for about an hour, watching a much-swollen streamlet as it rolled down the side of a mountain.

Near the yew trees there was a stream which we had to cross, as our next stage was over the fells to Grasmere; but when we came to its swollen waters, which we supposed came from "Glaramara's inmost Caves," they were not "murmuring" as Wordsworth described them, but coming with a rush and a roar, and to our dismay we found the bridge broken down and portions of it lying in the bed of the torrent. We thought of a stanza in a long-forgotten ballad:

London Bridge is broken down! Derry derry down, derry derry down!

Luckily we found a footbridge lower down the stream. It was now necessary to inquire our way at one of the isolated farms in the neighbourhood of Borrowdale, where the people knew very little of what was going on in the world outside their own immediate environs. We heard a story relating to the middle of the eighteenth century, when in the absence of roads goods had to be carried on horseback. A rustic, who had been sent for a bag of lime, the properties of which were unknown in remote places, placed the bag on the back of his horse, and while he was returning up the hills the rain came on, soaking the bag so that the lime began to swell and smoke. The youth thought that it was on fire, so, jumping off his horse, he filled his hat with water from the stream and threw it on the bag. This only made matters worse, for the lime began smoking more than ever; so he lifted it from the horse's back and placed it in the water at the edge of the stream, where, in addition to smoking, it began to boil and to make a hissing sound, which so frightened the young man that he rode home in terror, feeling sure that it was the Devil who had sneaked inside the bag!

We made our way to a farmhouse which we could see in the distance, but the farmer advised us not to attempt to cross the fells, as it was misty and not likely to clear up that day. So we turned back, and in about two miles met a countryman, who told us we could get to Grasmere over what he called the "Green Nip," a mountain whose base he pointed out to us. We returned towards the hills, but we had anything but an easy walk, for we could find no proper road, and walked on for hours in a "go as you please" manner. Our whereabouts we did not know, since we could only see a few yards before us. We walked a long way up hill, and finally landed in some very boggy places, and when the shades of evening began to come on we became a little alarmed, and decided to follow the running water, as we had done on a very much worse occasion in the north of Scotland. Presently we heard the rippling of a small stream, which we followed, though with some difficulty, as it sometimes disappeared into the rocks, until just at nightfall we came to a gate at the foot of the fells, and through the open door of a cottage beheld the blaze of a tire burning brightly inside. We climbed over the gate, and saw standing in the garden a man who stared so hard at us, and with such a look of astonishment, that we could not have helped speaking to him in any case, even had he not been the first human being we had seen for many hours. When we told him where we had come from, he said we might think ourselves lucky in coming safely over the bogs on such a misty day, and told us a story of a gentleman from Bradford who had sunk so deeply in one of the bogs that only with the greatest difficulty had he been rescued.

He told us it was his custom each evening to come out of his cottage for a short time before retiring to rest, and that about a month before our visit he had been out one night as usual after his neighbours had gone to bed, and, standing at his cottage door, he thought he heard a faint cry. He listened again: yes, he could distinctly hear a cry for help. He woke up his neighbours, and they and his son, going in the direction from which the cries came, found a gentleman fast in the rocks. He had been on a visit to Grasmere, and had gone out for an afternoon's walk on the fells, when the mist came on and he lost his way. As night fell he tried to get between some rocks, when he slipped into a crevice and jammed himself fast between them--fortunately for himself as it afterwards proved, for when the rescuing party arrived, they found him in such a dangerous position that, if he had succeeded in getting through the rocks the way he intended, he would inevitably have fallen down the precipice and been killed.

After hearing these stories, we felt very thankful we were safely off the fells. Without knowing it, we had passed the scene of the Battle of Dunmail Raise, where Dunmail, the last King of Cumbria, an old British kingdom, was said to have been killed in 945 fighting against Edmund, King of England.

The place we had stumbled upon after reaching the foot of the fells was Wythburn, at the head of Thirlmere Lake, quite near Amboth Hall, with its strange legends and associations. The mansion was said to be haunted by supernatural visitors, midnight illuminations, and a nocturnal marriage with a murdered bride. The most remarkable feature of the story, however, was that of the two skulls from Calgarth Hall, near Windermere, which came and joined in these orgies at Amboth Hall. These skulls formerly occupied a niche in Calgarth Hall, from which it was found impossible to dislodge them. They were said to have been buried, burned, ground to powder, dispersed by the wind, sunk in a well, and thrown into the lake, but all to no purpose, for they invariably appeared again in their favourite niche until some one thought of walling them up, which proved effectual, and there they still remain.

The rain had now ceased, and the moon, only three days old, was already visible and helped to light us on our four-mile walk to Grasmere. On our way we overtook a gentleman visitor, to whom we related our adventure, and who kindly offered us a drink from his flask. We did not drink anything stronger than tea or coffee, so we could not accept the whisky, but we were glad to accept his guidance to the best inn at Grasmere, where we soon relieved the cravings of our pedestrian appetites, which, as might be imagined, had grown strongly upon us.

(Distance walked twenty-two miles.)

Tuesday, October 17th.

GRASMERE. Our first duty in the morning was to call at the post office for our letters from home, and then to fortify ourselves with a good breakfast; our next was to see the graves of the poets in the picturesque and quiet churchyard. We expected to find some massive monuments, but found only plain stone flags marking their quiet resting-places, particularly that of Wordsworth, which was inscribed:

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1850 MARY WORDSWORTH 1859.

The grave of Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, who was buried in 1849, was also there. There are few who do not know his wonderful poem, "The Ancient Mariner," said to have been based on an old manuscript story of a sailor preserved in the Bristol Library. Strange to say, not far from his grave was that of Sir John Richardson, a physician and arctic explorer, who brought home the relics of Sir John Franklin's ill-fated and final voyage to the Arctic regions to discover the North-West Passage. This brought to our minds all the details of that sorrowful story which had been repeatedly told to us in our early childhood, and was, to our youthful minds, quite as weird as that of "The Ancient Mariner."

Sir John Franklin was born in 1786. Intended by his parents for the Church, but bent on going to sea, he joined the Royal Navy when he was fourteen years of age, and served as a midshipman on the Bellerophon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, afterwards taking part in Captain Flinders' voyage of discovery along the coast of Australia. His first voyage to the Arctic Regions was in 1818, and after a long and eventful career he was created Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837, whither criminals convicted of grave offences involving transportation for life were sent from England, where he did much for the improvement and well-being of the colony.

On May 19th, 1845, he left England with the two ships Erebus and Terror, having on board 28 officers and 111 men--in all 134 souls--on a voyage to the Arctic Regions in the hope of discovering the North-West Passage. They reached Stromness, in the Orkneys, on July 1st, and were afterwards seen and spoken to in the North Sea by the whaler Prince of Wales, belonging to Hull. After that all was blank.

Lady Franklin did not expect to receive any early news from her husband, but when two years passed away without her hearing from him, she became anxious, and offered a large reward for any tidings of him. In 1848 old explorers went out to search for him, but without result. Still believing he was alive, she sent out other expeditions, and one was even dispatched from America. All England was roused, and the sympathy of the entire nation was extended to Lady Franklin.

Nine long years passed away, but still no news, until intelligence arrived that an Eskimo had been found wearing on his head a gold cap-band which he said he had picked up where "the dead white men were." Lady Franklin then made a final effort, and on July 1st, 1857, Captain McClintock sailed from England in the Fox. In course of time the matter was cleared up. It was proved that the whole of the expedition had perished, Sir John Franklin having died on June 11th, 1847. Many relics were found and brought back to England.

Lady Franklin, who died in 1875, was still alive at the time we passed through Grasmere. One of her last acts was to erect a marble monument to Sir John Franklin in Westminster Abbey, and it was her great wish to write the epitaph herself, but as she died before this was accomplished, it was written by Alfred Tennyson, a nephew of Sir John by marriage, and read as follows:

Not here! the white North hath thy bones, and thou Heroic Sailor Soul! Art passing on thy happier voyage now Towards no earthly pole.

Dean Stanley added a note to the effect that the monument was "Erected by his widow, who, after long waiting and sending many in search of him, herself departed to seek and to find him in the realms of light, 18th July, 1875, aged eighty-three years."

But to return to Grasmere. Wordsworth lived there from 1803 to 1809 at the Dove Cottage, of which, in the first canto of "The Waggoner," he wrote:

For at the bottom of the brow Where once the "Dove and Olive-Bough" Offered a greeting of good ale To all who entered Grasmere Vale; And called on him who must depart To leave it with a jovial heart; There, where the "Dove and Olive-Bough" Once hung, a poet harbours now, A simple water-drinking Bard.

When Wordsworth moved to Rydal Mount, this cottage, which had formerly been a public-house, was taken by that master of English prose, Thomas de Quincey, author of the Confessions of an English Opium Eater.

Wordsworth had the habit of reciting his poetry aloud as he went along the road, and on that account the inhabitants thought he was not quite sane. When Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, asked an old man who was breaking stones on the road if he had any news, he answered, "Why, nowte varry partic'lar; only awd Wordsworth's brokken lowse ageean!" (had another fit of madness). On another occasion, a lady visitor asked a woman in the village whether Wordsworth made himself agreeable among them. "Well," she said, "he sometimes goes booin' his pottery about t'rooads an' t'fields an' tak's na nooatish o' neabody, but at udder times he'll say 'Good morning, Dolly,' as sensible as owder you or me."

The annual sports held at Grasmere were of more than local interest, and the Rush-bearing was still kept up, but not quite in the manner prevalent in earlier centuries. When heating apparatus was unknown in churches, the rushes were gathered, loaded in a cart, and taken to the church, where they were placed on the floor and in the pews to keep the feet of the worshippers warm while they were in the church, being removed and replenished each year when the rush-bearing festival came round again. One of our earliest recollections was sitting amongst the rushes on the floor of a pew in the ancient country church at Lymm in Cheshire.

An item in the Church Book at Grasmere, dating from the seventeenth century, recorded the cost of "Ye ale bestowed on ye Rush Bearers," while in 1830 gingerbread appeared to have been substituted or added as a luxury to "ye ale."

We passed alongside the pretty lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water amid beautiful scenery. Mrs. Hemans, in her sonnet, "A remembrance of Grasmere," wrote:

O vale and lake, within your mountain urn, Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep! Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return. Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep. Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float On golden clouds from spirit-lands, remote Isles of the blest:--and in our memory keep Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene Most loved by Evening and her dewy star! Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar The perfect music of the charm serene: Still, still unchanged, may one sweet region wear Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer!

On our way to Ambleside we passed Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's residence until his death in 1850 in the eightieth year of his age. Mrs. Hemans has described it as "a lovely cottage-like building, almost hidden by a profusion of roses and ivy." Ambleside was a great centre for tourists and others, being situated at the head of the fine Lake of Windermere, to which its admirers were ambitious enough to apply Sir Walter Scott's lines on Loch Katrine:

In all her length far winding lay With promontory, creek, and bay, And islands that impurpled bright Floated amid the livelier light. And mountains that like Giants stand To sentinel enchanted land.

There was a Roman camp which we proposed visiting, and possibly Helvellyn, but we were compelled for a time to seek refuge in one of the hotels from the rain. There we met a gentleman, a resident in the locality, who was what we might describe as a religious enthusiast, for he had a very exalted opinion of the Vicar of Ambleside, whom he described as a "Christian man"--a term obviously making distinctions among vicars with which we heartily agreed. There must have been an atmosphere of poetry in the Lake District affecting both visitors and natives, for in a small valley, half a mile from a lonely chapel, stood the only inn, bearing the strange sign of "The Mortal Man" on which some native poet, but not Wordsworth, had written:

O Mortal Man, who liv'st on bread, What is't that makes thy nose so red?-- Thou silly ass, that looks so pale. It is with drinking Burkett's ale.

Immediately behind Ambleside there was a fearfully steep road leading up to the head of Kirkstone Pass, where at an altitude of quite 1,400 feet stood the "Travellers' Rest Inn." In our time walking was the only means of crossing the pass, but now visitors are conveyed up this hill in coaches, but as the gradient is so steep in some parts, they are invariably asked to walk, so as to relieve the horses a little, a fact which found expression in the Visitors' Book at the "Travellers' Rest" in the following lines:

He surely is an arrant ass Who pays to ride up Kirkstone Pass, For he will find, in spite of talking, He'll have to walk and pay for walking.

Three parts of Windermere is in Lancashire, and it is the largest and perhaps the deepest water in the Lake District, being ten and a half miles long by water, and thirteen miles by road along its shores; the water is at no point more than two miles broad. It is said to maintain the same level at the upper end whether it rains or not, and is so clear that in some places the fish can plainly be seen swimming far beneath its surface. The islands are clustered together at its narrowest part, by far the largest being Belle Isle, a finely wooded island with a mansion in the centre, and a noted stronghold of the Royalists during the Civil War, at which time it was in the possession of the ancient Westmorland family of Phillipson. We did not walk alongside Windermere, but passed by the head of the lake to the old-world village of Hawkshead, and called at the quaint old-fashioned inn known by the familiar sign of the "Red Lion." While tea was being prepared we surveyed the village, and on a stone in the churchyard we found the following epitaph:

This stone can boast as good a wife As ever lived a married life, And from her marriage to her grave She was never known to mis-behave. The tongue which others seldom guide, Was never heard to blame or chide; From every folly always free She was what others ought to be.

We had a long talk with the mistress of the inn, who told us that Wordsworth was educated at the Grammar School in the village, and we were surprised to hear from her that the Rev. Richard Greenall, whom we had often heard officiate when he was curate of our native village of Grappenhall, was now the vicar of Hawkshead. We had quite as exalted an opinion of him as the gentleman we met at Ambleside had of his vicar. He was a clergyman who not only read the prayers, but prayed them at the same time:

I often say my prayers, But do I ever pray?

and it was a pleasure to listen to the modulations of his voice as he recited the Lord's Prayer, and especially when repeating that fine supplication to the Almighty, beginning with the words "Almighty and most merciful Father." At that time it was not the custom to recite, read, or sing the prayers in one continual whine on one note (say G sharp) when offering up supplications to the Almighty--a note which if adopted by a boy at school would have ensured for him a severe caning, or by a beggar at your door a hasty and forcible departure. Nor were the Lessons read in a monotone, which destroys all sense of their full meaning being imparted to the listeners--but this was in the "good old times"!

We had to listen to another version of the story of the two Calgarth skulls, from which it appeared that the Phillipsons wanted a piece of land that belonged to Dorothy, the wife of Kraster Cook, who refused to sell it, although asked repeatedly to do so. Myles Phillipson swore he would have that land "be they alive or dead." After a quiet interval he invited Kraster and his wife Dorothy to a feast, and afterwards accused them of stealing a silver cup. This they strongly denied, but the cup was found in their house, where it had been purposely hidden by the squire's orders. Stealing was at that time a capital offence, and as Phillipson was the magistrate he sentenced them both to death. In the court-room Dorothy arose, and, glaring at the magistrate, said loudly, "Guard thyself, Myles Phillipson. Thou thinkest thou hast managed grandly; but that tiny lump of land is the dearest a Phillipson has ever bought or stolen; for you will never prosper, neither your breed: whatever scheme you undertake will wither in your hand; the side you take will always lose; the time shall come when no Phillipson will own one inch of land; and while Calgarth walls shall stand, we'll haunt it night and day--never will ye be rid of us." They were both executed and their property appropriated, but ever afterwards the Phillipsons had two skulls for their guests. They were found at Christmas at the head of a stairway; they were buried in a distant region, but they turned up in the old house again; they were brazed to dust and cast to the wind; they were several years sunk in the lake; but the Phillipsons never could get rid of them. Meanwhile old Dorothy's prophecy came true, and the family of Phillipson came to poverty and eventually disappeared.

We left Hawkshead by a road leading to Ulverston, for we had decided to visit Furness Abbey. Had the weather been fine and clear, we should have had some splendid views, since we had Windermere on one side and Coniston Water on the other; but the showers continued, and we could not even see the "Coniston Old Man," although he raised his head to the height of 2,577 feet above sea-level. We were, in fact, passing through the district of Seathwaite, where the rainfall is very much heavier than in any other district in England. We consoled ourselves, however, with the thought that we could not expect to see fine lakes in a land where there was no rainfall, and after walking a considerable distance in the darkness, two weary and rain-soddened pedestrians took refuge for the remainder of the night in the well-appointed Temperance Hotel at Ulverston.

(Distance walked twenty-four and a half miles.)

Wednesday, October 18th.

Ulverston has been described as the "Key to the Lake District," and Swartmoor, which adjoined the town, took its name from a German--Colonel Martin Swart---to whom the Duchess of Burgundy in 1486 gave the command of about 2,000 Flemish troops sent to support the pretended title of Lambert Simnel to the Crown of England. He landed in Ireland, where a great number of the Irish joined him, and then, crossing over to England, landed in Furness and marshalled his troops on the moor which still bears his name, and where he was joined by many other conspirators. They encountered the forces of King Henry VII near Newark-on-Trent in June 1487, and after a stubborn fight were defeated, 4,000 men, with all their commanders, being killed.

Ulverston is also associated with George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends. He was born in 1624, at Drayton-on-the-Clay, in Leicestershire, and in 1650 was imprisoned at Derby for speaking "publickly" in a church after Divine Service, and bidding the congregation to "tremble at the Word of God." This expression was turned into one of ridicule, and caused the Society of Friends all over the kingdom to be known as "Quakers." Fox preached throughout the country, and even visited America. When he came to Ulverston, he preached at Swartmoor Hall, where he converted Judge Fell and his wife, after which meetings at the Hall were held regularly. The judge died in 1658, and in 1669, eleven years after her husband's death, Mrs. Fell, who suffered much on account of her religion, married George Fox, who in 1688 built the Meeting-house at Ulverston. He died two years afterwards, aged sixty-seven years, at White Hart Court, London, and was buried in Banhill Fields.

Leaving our bags at the hotel, we walked to Furness Abbey, which, according to an old record, was founded by King Stephen in 1127 in the "Vale of the Deadly Nightshade." It was one of the first to surrender to King Henry VIII at the dissolution of the monasteries, and the Deed of Surrender, dated April 9th, 1537, was still in existence, by which the abbey and all its belongings were assigned to the King by the Abbot, Roger Pile, who in exchange for his high position agreed to accept the living of Dalton, one of his own benefices, valued at that time at £40 per year. The Common Seal of the abbey was attached to the document, and represented the Virgin Mary standing in the centre of the circle with the Infant in her left arm and a globe in her right hand. She stood between two shields of arms, which were suspended by bundles of nightshade, and on each of which were represented the three Lions of England, each shield being supported from the bottom by a monk in his full dress and cowl. In the foreground in front of each monk was a plant of the deadly nightshade, and over his head a sprig of the same, while in the lower part was the figure of a wivern--i.e. a viper or dragon with a serpent-like tail--this being the device of Thomas Plantagenet, the second Earl of Lancaster, who was highly esteemed by the monks. We did not notice any nightshade plant either in or near the ruins of the abbey, but it was referred to in Stell's description of Becan-Gill as follows:

Hæc vallis unuit olim sibi nomen ab herba Bekan, qua virtuit dulcis nune, tune sed acerbe; unde Domus nomen Bekangs-Gille claruit.

Although my brother could repeat the first two rules in the Latin Grammar with their examples, one of which he said meant "The way to good manners is never too late," he would not attempt the English translation of these Latin words.

We were the only visitors then at the abbey, no doubt owing to the bad state of the weather, and we were surprised at the extent and magnificence of the ruins and the ponderous walls and archways, with their fine ornamentations, impressive reminders of their past greatness. In order to get a better view we mounted the adjoining hill, from which we could see a portion of the rising town of Barrow-in-Furness. We returned by the footpath alongside the railway, and entered into conversation with a man who was standing on the line. He informed us that he was the ganger, or foreman, over the plate-layers on the railway, and that at one time he had lived in Manchester. He also said he had joined the Good Templars, who were making headway in Barrow-in-Furness, where he now resided.

Just before reaching the main road we were somewhat startled to see a railway train quite near the abbey ruins, and the thought of home, sweet home, accentuated by the rainy weather, came so strongly upon us that we asked ourselves the question, "Shall we give in and go home!" We were only the length of one county away, and about to make a long detour to avoid going near, yet here was the train waiting that would convey us thither. What a temptation! But for the circumstance that we had left our bags at Ulverston our story might have ended here.

Some of the streams over which we passed on our way were quite red in colour, and the puddles on the muddy roads were just like dark red paint, indicating the presence of iron ore. We saw several miners, who told us that they got the ore (known as haematite, or iron oxide) at a depth of from 90 to 100 yards, working by candle-light, and that they received about 2s. 6d. per ton as the product of their labour. The ore, it seemed, filled up large cavities in the mountain limestone. It was about one o'clock by the time we reached Ulverston again, and we were quite ready for the good lunch which had been prepared for us.

Leaving Ulverston, we passed the old parish church and entered a picturesque footpath quite appropriately named the Lover's Walk and covered with fine trees, through which we had glimpses of Morecambe Bay; but the lovers had been either driven away by the rain or we were too early in the day for them to take their walks abroad. We mounted the Hoad Hill to inspect a lofty monument which had been erected on the top in the year 1850, in memory of Sir John Barrow. Sir John, the founder of the great works at Barrow-in-Furness (afterwards Vickers, Sons & Maxim), the noise of which we had heard in the distance, was a native of the district, having been born in a small cottage near Ulverston in 1764. He travelled in China and South Africa, and in 1804 became Secretary to the Admiralty, a position he held for forty years, during which he took part in fitting out Lord Nelson's fleet for the Battle of Trafalgar. He also assisted in promoting the expedition to the Arctic Regions which was commanded by Sir John Franklin. We were informed that his favourite saying was: "A man's riches consist not so much in his possessions as in the fewness of his wants"--a saying we were glad to adopt for ourselves.

We passed through the entrance to the monument, but could see no one about. On a desk in the entrance-room lay a Visitors' Book, in which we wrote our names, and then ascended to the top of the monument by a rather dangerous staircase of over a hundred steps. As the well of the tower was open from top to bottom the ascent and descent were very risky for nervous people, and we felt thankful when we reached the foot of the staircase safely, though disappointed because the weather had prevented our enjoying the splendid view from the top that we had anticipated. As we were leaving the monument we met an old man who had charge of it, carrying some large mushrooms, which he told us he had seen from the top of the monument, and very fine ones they were too.

But we are forgetting to mention that we had passed through Dalton--formerly the capital of Furness--where George Romney, the celebrated painter, was born in 1734. West, the inventor of the key bugle, the forerunner of the modern cornet, was also a native of Dalton-in-Furness. As the days were rapidly becoming shorter and the gloomy weather made them appear shorter still, it was growing quite dark when we called for tea at a village inn, the sign on which informed us that it was "Clarke's Arms," and where we were very quickly served in the parlour. During our tea a tall, haggard-looking man, whose hands were trembling and whose eyes were bloodshot, entered the room, and asked us to have a glass each with him at his expense, saying, "I'm drunken Jim Topping as 'as had aw that heap o' money left him." He pressed us very hard again and again to have the drink, but we showed him the tea we were drinking, and we felt relieved when the landlord came in and persuaded him to go into the other room, where we soon heard an uproarious company helping "Jim" to spend his "heap o' money" and to hasten him into eternity. The landlord afterwards informed us that "Drunken Jim" was a stonemason by trade, and that a relation of his had just died, leaving him £80,000, as well as some property.

It was dark when we left the inn, and about a mile farther, on the Kendal road, we saw, apparently crossing the road, a large number of glowworms, which, owing to the darkness of the night, showed to the best advantage. So numerous were they that we had great difficulty in getting over them, for we did not wish to crush any under our feet. We had never seen more than two or three together before, so it was quite a novel sight for us to find so many in one place. Presently we arrived at the entrance to a small village, where our attention was arrested by a great noise in a building a little distance from the road. The sound of juvenile voices predominated, and as my brother was a great lover of children, and especially of girls, as illustrated by a remark he was partial to--"Girls and flowers are the nicest things that heaven sends us"--we must needs stop and see what was going on. Climbing up some steps and passing under some trees, we found, as we had surmised, the village school. After looking through the windows we entered the schoolroom, whereupon the noise immediately ceased. We ascertained that it was the village choir awaiting the arrival of the schoolmistress to teach them the hymns to be sung in the church on the following Sunday. My brother insisted that he had come to teach the choir that night, and went at once to the harmonium, which was unfortunately locked. He said he would no doubt be able to go on without it, and, having arranged the choir in order, was just about to commence operations when who should come in but the schoolmistress herself, causing us to beat a rather hasty retreat. We groped our way under the trees again and down the steps, and were quite surprised when suddenly we found ourselves close to a comfortable inn where we could be accommodated for the night. After supper we retired to rest, wondering whether we were to pass the night in Lancashire or Westmorland, for we had no idea where we were, and, strange to say, we forgot to ask the name of the place when we left in the morning.

(Distance walked nineteen miles.)

Thursday, October 19th.

We left the inn at eight o'clock in the morning, but the weather still continued very rainy, and we had often to seek shelter on our way owing to the heavy showers. Presently we came to a huge heap of charcoal, and were about to shelter near it when we were told that it was part of the gunpowder works in the rear, so we hurried away as fast as we could walk, for we did not relish the possibility of being blown into millions of atoms. When we reached what we thought was a fairly safe distance, we took refuge in an outbuilding belonging to a small establishment for smelting iron, and here we were joined by another wayfarer, sheltering like ourselves from the rain, which was coming down in torrents. He told us about the stonemason who had recently had the fortune left to him, but he said the amount mentioned in the newspaper was £40,000 and not £80,000, as we had been informed. He wished the money had been left to him, as he thought he could have put it to better use, for he had been an abstainer from intoxicating drinks for twelve years, whereas the man with the fortune, who at the moment was drinking in a beerhouse close by, had no appetite for eating and would soon drink himself to death. What the fate of poor "Jim Topping" was we never knew, but we could not help feeling sorry for him, as he seemed to us one of those good-natured fellows who are nobody's enemy but their own. The man told us that Jim was a heavy drinker before he had the fortune left him. He surmised that the place we had stopped at last night was Haverthwaite in Lancashire. We saw a book of poems written in the Cumberland dialect, and copied the first and last verses of one that was about a Robin Redbreast:

REED ROBIN

Come into mey cabin, reed Robin! Threyce welcome, blithe warbler, to me! Noo Siddaw hes thrown a wheyte cap on, Agean I'll gie shelter to thee! Come, freely hop into mey pantry; Partake o' mey puir holsome fare; Tho' seldom I bwoast of a dainty. Yet meyne, man or burd sal aye share.

* * * * *

O whoar is thy sweetheart, reed Robin? Gae bring her frae hoosetop or tree: I'll bid her be true to sweet Robin, For fause was a fav'rite to me. You'll share iv'ry crumb i' mey cabin, We'll sing the weyld winter away-- I winna deceive ye, puir burdies! Let mortals use me as they may.

On leaving our shelter, we passed a large mill, apparently deserted, and soon afterwards reached Newby Bridge, where we crossed the River Leven, which was rapidly conveying the surplus water from Windermere towards the sea. Near this was a large hotel, built to accommodate stage-coach traffic, but rendered unnecessary since the railway had been cut, and consequently now untenanted. We had already crossed the bridge at the head of Lake Windermere, and now had reached the bridge at the other end. An old book, published in 1821, gave us the following interesting information about the lake:

It was at one time thought to be unfathomable, but on the third and fourth of June, 1772, when the water was six feet below its greatest known height, and three feet above the lowest ebb, a trial was made to ascertain by soundings the depth and form of the lake. Its greatest depth was found to be near Ecclesrigg Crag--201 feet. The bottom of the lake in the middle stream is a smooth rock; in many places the sides are perpendicular, and in some places they continue so for a mile without interruption. It abounds with fish, and the Rivers Brathay and Rothay feed the lake at the upper end, and in the breeding-season the trout ascend the Rothay, and the char the Brathay only; but in the winter, when these fish are in season, they come into the shallows, where they are fished for in the night, at which time they are the more easily driven into the nets.

We now turned along an old coach road which crossed the hills over Cartmel Fell to Kendal, and appeared to be very little used. Our road climbed steadily for about two miles, when suddenly there came a bright interval between the showers, and we had a magnificent view of a portion of Lake Windermere, with a steamboat leaving the landing-stage near Newby Bridge. We stood, as it were, riveted to the spot; but another shower coming on, the view vanished like a dream, though it lasted sufficiently long to bring us encouragement and to cheer us upon our wet and lonely way. The showers seemed as full of water as ever they could hold, and sheltering-places were by no means plentiful. Sometimes sheltering behind trees and sometimes in farm buildings, we proceeded but slowly, and about eight miles from Kendal we halted for lunch at a small inn, where we found cover for so long a time that, after walking about three miles from that town, we called at another inn for tea. It was astonishing how well we were received and provided for at these small inns in the country. Every attention was given to us, a fire lighted to dry our coats, and the best food the place could provide was brought on to the table. We were shown into the parlour, and the best cups and saucers were brought out from the corner cupboards.

The temperance movement appeared to be permeating the most unlikely places, and we were astonished to find the crockery here painted with temperance signs and mottoes, including a temperance star, and the words "Be them faithful unto death." This seemed all the more remarkable when we saw that the sign on the inn was the "Punch Bowl." The rain had apparently been gradually clearing off, while we were at tea, but it came on again soon after we left the comfortable shelter of the inn, so we again took refuge--this time in the house of a tollgate, where we had a long talk with the keeper. He pointed out a road quite near us which had been made so that vehicles could get past the toll-bar on their way to and from Kendal without going through the gates and paying toll. This had been constructed by a landowner for the use of himself and his tenants. As a retort the toll people had erected a stump at each side of the entrance, apparently with the object of placing a chain across the road, and had also erected a wooden hut to shelter a special toll-keeper who only attended on Kendal market days. Some mischievous persons, however, had overturned the hut, and we did not envy the man who on a day like this had to attend here to collect tolls without any shelter to protect him from the elements. Tollgates and turnpikes were ancient institutions on the British roads, and in many places were in the hands of Turnpike Trusts, who often rented the tolls to outsiders and applied the rent chiefly to the repair of the roads. A fixed charge was made on cattle and vehicles passing through the gates, and the vehicles were charged according to the number of animals and wheels attached to them, a painted table of tolls being affixed to the tollhouse. The gates were kept closed, and were only opened when vehicles and cattle arrived, and after payment of the charges. There was no charge made to pedestrians, for whom a small gate or turnstile was provided at the side nearest the tollhouse. The contractors who rented the tolls had to depend for their profit or loss upon the total amount of the tolls collected minus the amount of rent paid and toll-keepers' wages. Towards the close of the Trusts the railways had made such inroads upon the traffic passing by road that it was estimated that the cost of collection of tolls amounted to 50 per cent. of the total sum collected.

The tollgate-keeper informed us that Dick Turpin, the highwayman, never paid any tolls, for no collector dare ask him for payment, and if the gate was closed, "Black Bess," his favourite mare, jumped over it.

He had a lot to tell us about Furness Abbey. He knew that it had been built by King Stephen, and he said that not far from it there was a park called Oxen Park, where the king kept his oxen, and that he had also a Stirk Park.

He asked us if we had seen the small and very old church of Cartmel Fell, and when we told him we had not, he said that travellers who did not know its whereabouts often missed seeing it, for, although not far from the road, it was hidden from view by a bank or small mound, and there was a legend that some traveller, saint, or hermit who slept on the bank dreamed that he must build a church between two rivers running in opposite directions. He travelled all the world over, but could not find any place where the rivers ran in opposite directions, so he came back disappointed, only to find the rivers were quite near the place he started from. The church was of remote antiquity, and was dedicated to St. Anthony, the patron saint of wild boars and of wild beasts generally; but who built the church, and where the rivers were to be found, did not transpire.

We had carried our mackintoshes all the way from John o' Groat's, and they had done us good service; but the time had now arrived when they had become comparatively useless, so, after thanking the keeper of the tollhouse for allowing us to shelter there, we left them with him as relics of the past. The great objection to these waterproofs was that though they prevented the moisture coming inwards, they also prevented it going outwards, and the heat and perspiration generated by the exertion of walking soon caused us to be as wet as if we had worn no protection at all. Of course we always avoided standing in a cold wind or sitting in a cold room, and latterly we had preferred getting wet through to wearing them.

We arrived in Kendal in good time, and stayed at the temperance hotel. In the town we purchased two strong but rather rustic-looking umbrellas, without tassels or gold or silver handles--for umbrellas in the rainy region of the "North Countrie" were wanted for use and not for ornament. We found them quite an agreeable change from the overalls. Of course we held them up skilfully, and as we thought almost scientifically, when walking in the rain, and it was astonishing how well they protected us when holding them towards the same side and angle as the falling rain. Many people we met were holding them straight up, and looking quite happy, reminding us of the ostrich when hunted and hard pressed, hiding its head in the sand and imagining that its body was covered also! The draper who sold us the umbrellas told us that Professor Kirk, whom we had heard in Edinburgh, was to deliver an address in the evening on the Good Templar Movement, so we decided to attend. The Professor, a good speaker, informed us that there were between five and six hundred members of the Order in Kendal. Mr. Edward Dawson of Lancaster also addressed the meeting, and told us there were about three hundred members in Lancaster, while the Professor estimated the number in Scotland at between fifty and sixty thousand. It was quite a new movement, which had its origin apparently in America, and was becoming the prevailing subject of conversation in the country we travelled through.

Kendal was an ancient place, having been made a market town by licence from Richard Coeur de Lion. Philippa, the Queen of Edward III, wisely invited some Flemings to settle there and establish the manufacture of woollen cloth, which they did. Robin Hood and his "merrie men" were said to have been clothed in Kendal Green, a kind of leafy green which made the wearers of it scarcely distinguishable from the foliage and vegetation of the forests which in Robin Hood's time covered the greater part of the country. Lincoln Green was an older cloth of pure English manufacture.

Robin Hood was the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon, and Shakespeare makes Falstaff say--

All the woods Are full of outlaws that in Kendal Green Followed the outlawed Earl of Huntingdon.

Catherine Parr was born at Kendal, and an old writer, noting that she was the last Queen of Henry VIII, added, "a lady who had the good fortune to descend to the grave with her head on, in all probability merely by outliving her tyrant." This beautiful and highly accomplished woman had already been married twice, and after the King's death took a fourth husband. She narrowly escaped being burnt, for the King had already signed her death-warrant and delivered it to the Lord Chancellor, who dropped it by accident, and the person who found it carried it to the Queen herself. She was actually in conversation with the King when the Lord Chancellor came to take her to the Tower, for which the King called him a knave and a fool, bidding him "Avaunt from my presence." The Queen interceded for the Chancellor; but the King said, "Ah, poor soul, thou little knowest what he came about; of my word, sweetheart, he has been to thee a very knave."

Kendal possessed a fine old church, in one of the aisles of which was suspended a helmet said to have belonged to Major Phillipson, whose family was haunted by the two skulls, and who was nicknamed by Cromwell's men "Robert the Devil" because of his reckless and daring deeds. The Phillipsons were great Royalists, and Colonel Briggs of Kendal, who was an active commander in the Parliamentary Army, hearing that the major was on a visit to his brother, whose castle was on the Belle Isle in Lake Windermere, resolved to besiege him there; but although the siege continued for eight months, it proved ineffectual. When the war was over, Major Phillipson resolved to be avenged, and he and some of his men rode over to Kendal one Sunday morning expecting to find Colonel Briggs in the church, and either to kill him or take him prisoner there. Major Phillipson rode into the church on horseback, but the colonel was not there. The congregation, much surprised and annoyed at this intrusion, surrounded the major, and, cutting the girths, unhorsed him. On seeing this, the major's party made a furious attack on the assailants, and the major killed with his own hand the man who had seized him, and, placing the ungirthed saddle on his horse, vaulted into it and rode through the streets of Kendal calling upon his men to follow him, which they did, and the whole party escaped to their safe resort in the Lake of Windermere.

This incident furnished Sir Walter Scott with materials for a similar adventure in "Rokeby," canto vi.:

All eyes upon the gateway hung. When through the Gothic arch there sprung A horseman arm'd, at headlong speed-- Sable his cloak, his plume, his steed. Fire from the flinty floor was spurn'd. The vaults unwonted clang return'd!-- One instant's glance around he threw, From saddle-bow his pistol drew. Grimly determined was his look! His charger with the spurs he strook-- All scatter'd backward as he came, For all knew Bertram Risingham! Three bounds that noble courser gave; The first has reach'd the central nave, The second clear'd the chancel wide. The third--he was at Wycliffe's side.

* * * * *

While yet the smoke the deed conceals, Bertram his ready charger wheels; But flounder'd on the pavement-floor The steed, and down the rider bore, And, bursting in the headlong sway. The faithless saddle-girths gave way. 'Twas while he toil'd him to be freed. And with the rein to raise the steed. That from amazement's iron trance All Wycliffe's soldiers waked at once.

(Distance walked fifteen miles.)

Friday, October 20th.

We left Kendal before breakfast, as we were becoming anxious about maintaining our average of twenty-five miles per day, for we had only walked nineteen miles on Wednesday and fifteen miles yesterday, and we had written to our friends some days before saying that we hoped to reach York Minster in time for the services there on Sunday.

In the meantime we had decided to visit Fountains Abbey, so, crossing the River Kent, we walked nine miles along a hilly road over the fells, which were about 800 feet above sea-level. We stopped at a place called Old Town for breakfast, for which our walk through the sharp clear air on the fells had given us an amazing appetite. We then walked quickly down the remaining three miles to Kirkby Lonsdale, passing on our way the beautiful grounds and residence of the Earl of Bective. At the entrance to the town we came to the school, and as the master happened to be standing at the door, we took the opportunity of asking him some particulars about Kirkby Lonsdale and our farther way to Fountains Abbey. He was a native of Scotland, and gave us some useful and reliable information, being greatly interested in the object of our journey. We found Kirkby Lonsdale to be quite a nice old-fashioned town with a church dedicated to St. Mary--a sign, we thought, of its antiquity; the interior had been recently restored by the Earl of Bective at a cost of about £11,000. An old board hanging up in the church related to one of the porches, on which was painted a crest and shield with the date 1668, and the following words in old English letters:

This porch by y' Banes first builded was, (Of Heighholme Hall they weare,) And after sould to Christopher Wood By William Banes thereof last heyre. And is repayred as you do see And sett in order good By the true owner nowe thereof The foresaid Christopher Wood.

There was also painted in the belfry a rhyming list of the "ringers' orders":

If to ring ye do come here, You must ring well with hand and ear; Keep stroke and time and go not out, Or else you'll forfeit without doubt. He that a bell doth overthrow Must pay a groat before he go; He that rings with his hat on, Must pay his groat and so begone.

He that rings with spur on heel, The same penalty he must feel. If an oath you chance to hear, You forfeit each two quarts of beer. These lines are old, they are not new. Therefore the ringers must have their due.

N.B.--Any ringer entering a peal of six pays his shilling.

The first two lines greatly interested my brother, whose quick ear could distinguish defects when they occurred in the ringing of church bells, and he often remarked that no ringer should be appointed unless he had a good ear for music.

There were one or two old-fashioned inns in the town, which looked very quaint, and Kirkby Old Hall did duty for one of them, being referred to by the rhymester "Honest" or "Drunken Barnaby" in his Latin Itinerary of his "Travels in the North":

I came to Lonsdale, where I staid At Hall, into a tavern made. Neat gates, white walls--nought was sparing, Pots brimful--no thought of caring; They eat, drink, laugh; are still mirth-making, Nought they see that's worth care-taking.

The men of the North were always warlike, and when in the year 1688, in the time of James II, a rumour was circulated that a large French Army had landed on the coast of Yorkshire, a great number of men assembled on the outskirts of the town and were waiting there ready for the call to arms, when news came that it was a false alarm. Of course this event had to be recorded by the local poet, who wrote:

In eighty-eight, was Kirby feight. When nivver a man was slain; They ate the'r mey't, an' drank the'r drink, An' sae com' merrily heame again.

We were sorry we could not stay longer in the neighbourhood of Kirkby Lonsdale, as the scenery in both directions along the valley of the River Lune was very beautiful. As we crossed the bridge over it we noticed an old stone inscribed:

Fear God Honer the King 1633,

and some other words which we could not decipher. The bridge was rather narrow, and at some unknown period had replaced a ford, which was at all times difficult to cross, and often dangerous, and at flood-times quite impassable, as the river here ran between rocks and across great boulders; it was, however, the only ready access to the country beyond for people living in Kirkby Lonsdale. One morning the inhabitants awoke to find a bridge had been built across this dangerous ford during the night, and since no one knew who had built it, its erection was attributed to his Satanic Majesty, and it was ever afterwards known as the Devil's Bridge.

The bridge was very narrow, and, although consisting of three arches, one wide and the others narrow, and being 180 feet long, it was less than twelve feet wide, and had been likened to Burns' Auld Brig o' Ayr,

With your poor narrow footpath of a street. Where twa wheelbarrows tremble when they meet.

The country people had a tradition that it was built in windy weather by the Devil, who, having only one apron full of stones, and the breaking of one of his apron-strings causing him to lose some of them as he flew over Casterton Fell, he had only enough left to build a narrow bridge.

Another legend states that "Once upon a time there lived a queer old woman whose cow and pony pastured across the river and had to cross it on their way to and from home. The old woman was known as a great cheat. One dark and wet night she heard her cow bellow, and knew that she was safely across the ford; but as the pony only whined, she thought that he was being carried away by the flood. She began to cry, when suddenly the Devil appeared, and agreed to put up a bridge that night on conditions named in the legend:

"To raise a bridge I will agree. That in the morning you shall see. But mine for aye the first must be That passes over. So by these means you'll soon be able To bring the pony to his stable. The cow her clover."

In vain were sighs and wailings vented, As she at last appeared contented. It was a bargain--she consented-- For she was Yorkshire. Now home she goes in mighty glee. Old Satan, too, well pleased he Went to his work, sir.

He worked hard all night, and early in the morning the bridge was made, as the old woman knew by the terrible noise. He called to the old woman to come over, but she brought her little mangy dog, and, taking a bun out of her pocket, threw it over the bridge. The dog ran over after it.

"Now--crafty sir, the bargain was That you should have what first did pass Across the bridge--so now--alas! The dog's your right." The cheater--cheated--struck with shame. Squinted and grinned: then, in a flame He vanished quite.

On reflection we came to the conclusion that whenever and however it was built, the bridge was of a type not uncommon in Cheshire, and often called Roman bridges, but erected in all probability in mediæval times, when only width enough was required for the passing of one horse--in other words, when most roads were nothing but bridlepaths. We were glad of the assistance afforded by the bridge for the rushing waters of the River Lune were swollen by the heavy rains, and our progress in that direction would have been sadly delayed had we arrived there in the time of the ancient ford. We now passed the boundaries of Lancashire and Westmorland and entered the county of York, the largest in England. A large sale of cattle was taking place that day at a farm near the bridge, and for some miles we met buyers on their way to the sale, each of whom gave us the friendly greeting customary in the hilly districts of that hospitable county. Seven miles from Kirkby Lonsdale we stopped at Ingleton for some dinner, and just looked inside the church to see the fine old Norman font standing on small pillars and finely sculptured with scenes relating chiefly to the childhood of our Saviour. Joseph with his carpenter's tools and the Virgin Mary seated with the infant Saviour on her knees, the Eastern Magi bringing their offerings, Herod giving orders for the destruction of the young children, Rachel weeping, and others--all damaged in the course of centuries, though still giving one an idea of the great beauty of the font when originally placed in position. We heard about the many waterfalls to be seen--perhaps as many as could be visited in the course of a whole week; but we had seen--and suffered--so much water and so many waterfalls, that for the time being they formed no attraction. Still we resolved to see more of this interesting neighbourhood on a future occasion.

Passing through Clapham, said to be one of the finest villages in England, and where there was a cave supposed to run about half a mile underground, we came to some fine limestone cliffs to the left of our road, which were nearly white as we approached nearer to the town of Settle, situated at the foot of Giggleswick Scar, alongside which our road passed. We visited the Ebbing and Flowing Well, where the much-worn stones around it proclaimed the fact that for many ages pilgrims had visited its shrine; but how "Nevison's Nick," a famous highwayman, could have ridden his horse up the face of the rock leading up to it--even with the aid of his magic bridle--was more than we could understand. Another legend stated that a nymph pursued by a satyr was so afraid that he would overtake her that she prayed to the gods to change her into a spring. Her prayer was granted, and the ebbs and flows in the water were supposed to represent the panting of the nymph in her flight.

We turned aside to visit Giggleswick village, with its old cross, which seemed to be nearly complete, and we found the old church very interesting. It contained some ancient monuments, one of which represented Sir Richard Temple, born 1425, knighted at the Battle of Wakefield, 1460, attainted for treason 1461, pardoned by King Edward IV, and died 1488, the head of his charger being buried with him. There was also the tomb of Samuel Watson, the "old Quaker," who interrupted the service in the church in 1659, when the people "brok his head upon ye seates." Then there was the famous Grammar School, a very old foundation dating back to early in the sixteenth century. We were delighted with our visit to Giggleswick, and, crossing the old bridge over the River Ribble, here but a small stream, we entered the town of Settle and called for tea at Thistlethwaite's Tea and Coffee Rooms. There were several small factories in the neighbourhood. We noticed that a concert had recently been held in the town in aid of a fund for presenting a lifeboat to the National Society, one having already been given by this town for use on the stormy coasts of the Island of Anglesey.

Leaving Settle by the Skipton road, we had gone about a mile when we met two men who informed us we were going a long way round either for Ripon or York. They said an ancient road crossed the hills towards York, and that after we had climbed the hill at the back of the town we should see the road running straight for fourteen miles. This sounded all right, and as the new moon was now shining brightly, for it was striking six o'clock as we left the town, we did not fear being lost amongst the hills, although they rose to a considerable height. Changing our course, we climbed up a very steep road and crossed the moors, passing a small waterfall; but whether we were on or off the ancient road we had no means of ascertaining, for we neither saw nor met any one on the way, nor did we see any house until we reached the ancient-looking village of Kirby Malham. Here we got such very voluminous directions as to the way to Malham that neither of us could remember them beyond the first turn, but we reached that village at about ten o'clock. We asked the solitary inhabitant who had not retired to rest where we could find lodgings for the night. He pointed out a house at the end of the "brig" with the word "Temperance" on it in large characters, which we could see easily as the moon had not yet disappeared, and told us it belonged to the village smith, who accommodated visitors. All was in darkness inside the house, but we knocked at the door with our heavy sticks, and this soon brought the smith to one of the upper windows. In reply to our question, "Can we get a bed for the night?" he replied in the Yorkshire dialect, "Our folks are all in bed, but I'll see what they say." Then he closed the window, and all was quiet except the water, which was running fast under the "brig," and which we found afterwards was the River Aire, as yet only a small stream. We waited and waited for what seemed to us a very long time, and were just beginning to think the smith had fallen asleep again, when we heard the door being unbolted, and a young man appeared with a light in his hand, bidding us "Come in," which we were mighty glad to do, and to find ourselves installed in a small but very comfortable room. "You will want some supper," he said; and we assured him it was quite true, for we had not had anything to eat or drink since we left Settle, and, moreover, we had walked thirty-five miles that day, through fairly hilly country. In a short time he reappeared with a quart of milk and an enormous apple pie, which we soon put out of sight; but was milk ever so sweet or apple pie ever so good! Forty-five years have passed away since then, but the memory still remains; and the sweet sleep that followed--the rest of the weary--what of that?

(Distance walked thirty-five miles.)

Saturday, October 21st.

One great advantage of staying the night in the country was that we were sure of getting an early breakfast, for the inns had often farms attached to them, and the proprietors and their servants were up early to attend to their cattle. This custom of early rising also affected the business of the blacksmiths, for the farmers' horses requiring attention to their shoes were always sent down early to the village smithy in order that they could be attended to in time to turn out to their work on the roads or in the fields at their usual hour. Accordingly we were roused from our sound slumber quite early in the morning, and were glad to take advantage of this to walk as far as possible in daylight, for the autumn was fast coming to a close. Sometimes we started on our walk before breakfast, when we had a reasonable prospect of obtaining it within the compass of a two-hours' journey, but Malham was a secluded village, with no main road passing through it, and it was surrounded by moors on every side.

There were several objects of interest in Malham which we were told were well worth seeing: Malham Cove, Janet's Foss or Gennetth's Cave, and Gordale Scar. The first of these we resolved to see before breakfast. We therefore walked along a path which practically followed the course of the stream that passed under the brig, and after a fine walk of about three-quarters of a mile through the grass patches, occasionally relieved by bushes and trees, we reached the famous cove. Here our farther way was barred by an amphitheatre of precipitous limestone rocks of a light grey colour, rising perpendicularly to the height of about 200 feet, which formed the cove itself. From the base of these rocks, along a horizontal bedding plane and at one particular spot, issued the stream along which we had walked, forming the source of the River Aire, which flows through Skipton and on to Leeds, the curious feature about it being that there was no visible aperture in the rocks, neither arch nor hole, from which it could come. The water appeared to gain volume from the loose stones under our feet, and as we had not seen a sight like this in all our travels, we were much surprised to find it forming itself immediately into a fair-sized brook. We gazed upwards to the top of the rocks, which were apparently unprotected, and wondered what the fate would be of the lost traveller who unconsciously walked over them, as there seemed nothing except a few small bushes, in one place only, to break his fall. We heard afterwards of a sorrowful accident that had happened there. It related to a young boy who one day, taking his little brother with him for company, went to look for birds' nests. On reaching the cove they rambled to the top of the cliff, where the elder boy saw a bird's nest, to which he went while his little brother waited for him at a distance, watching him taking the eggs. All at once he saw him stoop down to gather some flowers to bring to him, and then disappear. He waited some time expecting his brother to return, but as he did not come back the little fellow decided to go home. On the way he gathered some flowers, which he gleefully showed to his father, who asked him where he had got them, and where his brother was. The child said he had gone to sleep, and he had tried to waken him but couldn't; and when he told the full story, the father became greatly alarmed, and, taking his child with him, went to the foot of the cliffs, where he found his son lying dead where he had fallen, with the flowers still clasped in his hand!

We were afterwards told that above the cliff and a few miles up a valley a great stream could be seen disappearing quietly down into the rock. It was this stream presumably which lost itself in a subterranean channel, to reappear at the foot of Malham Cove.

After breakfast we again resumed our journey, and went to inspect Janet's Cave or Foss--for our host told us that it was no use coming to see a pretty place like Malham without viewing all the sights we could while we were there. We walked up a lovely little glen, where it was said a fairy once resided, and which if it had been placed elsewhere would certainly have been described as the Fairy Glen; but whether or not Janet was the name of the fairy we did not ascertain. In it we came to a pretty little waterfall dropping down from one step to another, the stream running from it being as clear as crystal. The rocks were lined with mosses, which had become as fleecy-looking as wool, as they were almost petrified by the continual dropping of the spray from the lime-impregnated water that fell down the rocks. There were quite a variety of mosses and ferns, but the chief of the climbing plants was what Dickens described "as the rare old plant, the ivy green," which not only clung to the rocks, but had overshadowed them by climbing up the trees above. To see the small dark cave it was necessary to cross the stream in front of the waterfall, and here stepping-stones had been provided for that purpose, but, owing to the unusual depth of water, these were covered rather deeply, with the result that all the available spaces in our boots were filled with water. This was, of course, nothing unusual to us, as we had become quite accustomed to wet feet, and we now looked upon it as an ordinary incident of travel. The cave was said to have been the resort of goblins, and when we wondered where they were now, my brother mildly suggested that we might have seen them if we had possessed a mirror. We had seen a list of the names of the different mosses to be found in the Malham district, but, as these were all in Latin, instead of committing them to memory, we contented ourselves with counting the names of over forty different varieties besides hepaties, lichens, ferns, and many flowers:

Hie away, hie away, Over bank and over brae, Where the copsewood is the greenest, Where the fountains glisten sheenest. Where the lady-fern grows strongest, Where the morning dew lies longest, Where the blackcock sweetest sips it. Where the fairy latest trips it;

Hie to haunts right seldom seen, Lovely, lonesome, cool and green; Over bank and over brae Hie away, hie away!

So we now "hied away" to find Gordale Scar, calling at a farmhouse to inquire the way, for we knew we must cross some land belonging to the farm before we could reach the Scar. We explained to the farmer the object of our journey and that we wished afterwards to cross the moors. After directing us how to reach the Scar, he said there was no necessity for us to return to Malham if we could climb up the side of the waterfall at the Scar, since we should find the road leading from Malham a short distance from the top. He wished us good luck on our journey, and, following his instructions, we soon reached Gordale Scar. It was interesting to note the difference in the names applied to the same objects of nature in the different parts of the country we passed through, and here we found a scar meant a rock, a beck a brook, and a tarn, from a Celtic word meaning a tear, a small lake. Gordale Scar was a much more formidable place than we had expected to find, as the rocks were about five yards higher than those at Malham Cove, and it is almost as difficult to describe them as to climb to the top!

Gordale Beck has its rise near Malham Tarn, about 1,500 feet above sea-level; and, after running across the moor for about three miles, gathering strength in its progress, it reaches the top of this cliff, and, passing over it, has formed in the course of ages quite a considerable passage, widening as it approaches the valley below, where it emerges through a chasm between two rocks which rise to a great height. It was from this point we had to begin our climb, and few people could pass underneath these overhanging rocks without a sense of danger. The track at this end had evidently been well patronised by visitors, but the last of these had departed with the month of September, and as it was now late in October we had the Scar all to ourselves. It was, therefore, a lonely climb, and a very difficult one as we approached the top, for the volume of water was necessarily much greater after the heavy autumnal rainfall than when the visitors were there in the summer; and as we had to pass quite near the falls, the wind blew the spray in some places over our path. It seemed very strange to see white foaming water high above our heads. There was some vegetation in places; here and there a small yew tree, which reminded us of churchyards and the dark plumes on funeral coaches; but there were also many varieties of ferns in the fissures in the rocks. When we neared the top, encumbered as we were with umbrellas, walking-sticks, and bags, we had to assist each other from one elevation to another, one climbing up first and the other handing the luggage to him, and we were very pleased when we emerged on the moors above.

Here we found the beck running deeply and swiftly along a channel which appeared to have been hewn out expressly for it, but on closer inspection we found it quite a natural formation. We have been told since by an unsentimental geologist that the structure is not difficult to understand. As in the case of the Malham Cove stream, this one passed into the rock and gradually ate out a hollow, while ultimately escaping from the cliff as in the cove; but the roof of the cave collapsed, forming the great chasm and revealing the stream as it leaped down from one level to another. Looking about us on the top we saw lonely moors without a house or a tree in sight, and walked across them until we came to a very rough road--possibly the track which we expected to find leading from Malham. Malham Tarn was not in sight, but we had learned that the water was about a mile in length and the only things to be seen there were two kinds of fish--perch and trout---which often quarrelled and decimated each other. The weather was dull, and we had encountered several showers on our way, passing between the Parson's Pulpit to the left, rising quite 1,700 feet, and the Druid's Altar to our right; but we afterwards learned that it was a poor specimen, and that there were much finer ones in existence, while the Parson's Pulpit was described as "a place for the gods, where a man, with a knowledge of nature and a lover of the same, might find it vantage ground to speak or lecture on the wonders of God and nature."

We were pleased to get off the moors before further showers came on, and before we reached Kilnsey, where this portion of the moors terminated abruptly in the Kilnsey Crags, we passed by a curious place called Dowker Bottom Cave, where some antiquarian discoveries had been made about fifteen years before our visit, excavations several feet below the lime-charged floor of the cave having revealed the fact that it had been used by cave-dwellers both before and after the time of the Romans: there were also distinct traces of ancient burials.

The monks of Furness Abbey formerly owned about 6,000 acres of land in this neighbourhood, and a small vale here still bore the name of Fountains Dell; but the Scotch raiders often came down and robbed the monks of their fat sheep and cattle. The valley now named Littondale was formerly known as Amerdale, and was immortalised as such by Wordsworth in his "White Doe of Rylstone":

Unwooed, yet unforbidden. The White Doe followed up the vale, Up to another cottage, hidden In the deep fork of Amerdale.

The road passes almost under Kilnsey Crag, but though it seemed so near, some visitors who were throwing stones at it did not succeed in hitting it. We were a little more successful ourselves, but failed to hit the face of the rock itself, reminding us of our efforts to dislodge rooks near their nests on the tops of tall trees: they simply watched the stones rising upwards, knowing that their force would be spent before either reaching their nests or themselves. On arriving at Kilnsey, we called at the inn for refreshments, and were told that the ancient building we saw was Kilnsey Old Hall, where, if we had come earlier in the year, before the hay was put in the building, we could have seen some beautiful fresco-work over the inside of the barn doors!

After lunch we had a very nice walk alongside the River Wharfe to a rather pretty place named Grassington, where an ancient market had been held since 1282, but was now discontinued. We should have been pleased to stay a while here had time permitted, but we were anxious to reach Pateley Bridge, where we intended making our stay for the week-end. We now journeyed along a hilly road with moors on each side of us as far as Greenhow Hill mines, worked by the Romans, and there our road reached its highest elevation at 1,320 feet above sea-level--the village church as regarded situation claiming to be the highest in Yorkshire. We had heard of a wonderful cave that we should find quite near our road, and we were on the look-out for the entrance, which we expected would be a black arch somewhere at the side of the road, but were surprised to find it was only a hole in the surface of a field. On inquiry we heard the cave was kept locked up, and that we must apply for admission to the landlord of the inn some distance farther along the road. We found the landlord busy, as it was Saturday afternoon; but when we told him we were walking from John o' Groat's to Land's End and wanted to see all the sights we could on our way, he consented at once to go with us and conduct us through the cave. We had to take off our coats, and were provided with white jackets, or slops, and a lighted candle each. We followed our guide down some steps that had been made, into what were to us unknown regions.

We went along narrow passages and through large rooms for about two hundred yards, part of the distance being under the road we had just walked over. We had never been in a cave like this before. The stalactites which hung from the roof of the cavern, and which at first we thought were long icicles, were formed by the rain-water as it slowly filtered through the limestone rock above, all that could not be retained by the stalactite dropping from the end of it to the floor beneath. Here it gradually formed small pyramids, or stalagmites, which slowly rose to meet their counterparts, the stalactites, above, so that one descended while the other ascended. How long a period elapsed before these strange things were formed our guide could not tell us, but it must have been very considerable, for the drops came down so slowly. It was this slow dropping that made it necessary for us to wear the white jackets, and now and then a drop fell upon our headgear and on the "slops." Still we felt sure it would have taken hundreds of years before we should have been transformed into either stalactites or stalagmites. In some of the places we saw they had long since met each other, and in the course of ages had formed themselves into all kinds of queer shapes. In one room, which our guide told us was the "church," we saw the "organ" and the "gallery," and in another the likeness of a "bishop," and in another place we saw an almost exact representation of the four fingers of a man's hand suspended from the roof of the cave. Some of the subterranean passages were so low that we could scarcely creep through them, and we wondered what would become of us if the roof had given way before we could return. Many other images were pointed out to us, and we imagined we saw fantastic and other ghostly shapes for ourselves.

We were careful to keep our candles alight as we followed our guide on the return journey, and kept as close together as we could. It was nearly dark when we reached the entrance of the cavern again, and our impression was that we had been in another world. Farther south we explored another and a larger cave, but the vandals had been there and broken off many of the "'tites," which here were quite perfect. We had not felt hungry while we were in the cave, but these well-known pangs came on us in force immediately we reached the open air, and we were glad to accept the landlord's offer to provide for our inward requirements, and followed him home to the inn for tea. The landlord had told the company at the inn about our long walk, and as walking was more in vogue in those days than at later periods, we became objects of interest at once, and all were anxious to form our acquaintance.

We learned that what we had noted as the Greenhow Cave was known by the less euphonius name of the "Stump Cross Cavern." It appeared that in ancient times a number of crosses were erected to mark the limits of the great Forest of Knaresborough, a royal forest as far back as the twelfth century, strictly preserved for the benefit of the reigning monarch. It abounded with deer, wild boars, and other beasts of the chase, and was so densely wooded that the Knaresborough people were ordered to clear a passage through it for the wool-carriers from Newcastle to Leeds. Now we could scarcely see a tree for miles, yet as recently as the year 1775 the forest covered 100,000 acres and embraced twenty-four townships. Before the Reformation, the boundary cross on the Greenhow side was known as the Craven Cross, for Craven was one of the ancient counties merged in what is called the West Riding. The Reformers objected to crosses, and knocked it off its pedestal, so that only the stump remained. Thus it gradually became known as the Stump Cross, and from its proximity the cavern when discovered was christened the Stump Cross Cavern. We were informed that the lead mines at Greenhow were the oldest in England, and perhaps in the world, and it was locally supposed that the lead used in the building of Solomon's Temple was brought from here. Two bars of lead that had been made in the time of the Romans had been found on the moors, and one of these was now to be seen at Ripley Castle in Yorkshire, while the other was in the British Museum.

Eugene Aram, whose story we heard for the first time in the inn, was born at a village a few miles from Greenhow. The weather had been showery during the afternoon, but we had missed one of the showers, which came on while we were in the cavern. It was now fine, and the moon shone brightly as we descended the steep hill leading to Pateley Bridge. We had crossed the River Dibb after leaving Grassington, and now, before crossing the River Nidd at Pateley Bridge, we stayed at the "George Inn," an old hostelry dating from the year 1664.

(Distance walked twenty-one and a half miles.)

Sunday, October 22nd.

We spent a fairly quiet day at Pateley Bridge, where there was not a great deal to see. What there was we must have seen, as we made good use of the intervals between the three religious services we attended in exploring the town and its immediate neighbourhood. We had evidently not taken refuge in one of the inns described by Daniel Defoe, for we were some little distance from the parish church, which stood on a rather steep hill on the opposite bank of the river. Near the church were the ruins of an older edifice, an ancient description running, "The old Chappel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Pateley Brigg in Nidderdale." We climbed the hill, and on our way came to an old well on which was inscribed the following translation by Dryden from the Latin of Ovid [43 B.C.-A.D. 18]:

Ill Habits gather by unseen degrees, As Brooks run rivers--Rivers run to Seas.

and then followed the words:

The way to church.

We did not go there "by unseen degrees," but still we hoped our good habits might gather in like proportion. We went to the parish church both morning and evening, and explored the graveyards, but though gravestones were numerous enough we did not find any epitaph worthy of record--though one of the stones recorded the death in July 1755 of the four sons of Robert and Margaret Fryer, who were born at one birth and died aged one week.

In the afternoon we went to the Congregational Chapel, and afterwards were shown through a very old Wesleyan Chapel, built in 1776, and still containing the old seats, with the ancient pulpit from which John Wesley had preached on several occasions.

It was curious to observe how anxious the compilers of the histories of the various places at which we stayed were to find a remote beginning, and how apologetic they were that they could not start even earlier. Those of Pateley Bridge were no exception to the rule. The Roman Occupation might perhaps have been considered a reasonable foundation, but they were careful to record that the Brigantes were supposed to have overrun this district long before the Romans, since several stone implements had been found in the neighbourhood. One of the Roman pigs of lead found hereabouts, impressed with the name of the Emperor "Domitian," bore also the word "Brig," which was supposed to be a contraction of Brigantes. A number of Roman coins had also been discovered, but none of them of a later date than the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 139, the oldest being one of Nero, A.D. 54-68.

Previous to the fourteenth century the River Nidd was crossed by means of a paved ford, and this might originally have been paved by the Romans, who probably had a ford across the river where Pateley Bridge now stands for the safe conveyance of the bars of lead from the Greenhow mines, to which the town owed its importance, down to the beginning of the nineteenth century. But though it could boast a Saturday market dating from the time of Edward II, it was now considered a quiet and somewhat sleepy town.

The valley along which the River Nidd runs from its source in the moors, about ten miles away, was known as Nidderdale. In the church book at Middlesmoor, about six miles distant, were two entries connected with two hamlets on the banks of the Nidd near Pateley Bridge which fix the dates of the christening and marriage of that clever murderer, Eugene Aram. We place them on record here:

RAMSGILL.--Eugenious Aram, son of Peter Aram, bap. ye 2nd of October, 1704. LOFTUS.--Eugenius Aram and Anna Spence, married May 4th, after banns thrice pub. 1731.

We retired to rest early. Our last week's walk was below the average, and we hoped by a good beginning to make up the mileage during the coming week, a hope not to be fulfilled, as after events proved.

SIXTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

A WEEK OF AGONY

Monday, October 23rd.

We left Pateley Bridge at seven o'clock in the morning, and after walking about two miles on the Ripley Road, turned off to the left along a by-lane to find the wonderful Brimham rocks, of which we had been told. We heard thrashing going on at a farm, which set us wondering whether we were on the same road along which Chantrey the famous sculptor walked when visiting these same rocks. His visit probably would not have been known had not the friend who accompanied him kept a diary in which he recorded the following incident.

They were walking towards the rocks when they, like ourselves, heard the sound of thrashing in a barn, which started an argument between them on their relative abilities in the handling of the flail. As they could not settle the matter by words, they resolved to do so by blows; so they made their way to the farm and requested the farmer to allow them to try their hand at thrashing corn, and to judge which of them shaped the better. The farmer readily consented, and accompanied them to the barn, where, stopping the two men who were at work, he placed Chantrey and his friend in their proper places. They stripped for the fight, each taking a flail, while the farmer and his men watched the duel with smiling faces. It soon became evident that Chantrey was the better of the two. The unequal contest was stopped, much to the chagrin of the keeper of the diary, by the judge giving his verdict in favour of the great sculptor. This happened about seventy years before our visit, but even now the old-fashioned method of thrashing corn had not yet been ousted by steam machinery, and the sound of the flails as they were swung down upon the barn floors was still one of the commonest and noisiest that, during the late autumn and winter months, met our ears in country villages.

When the time came for the corn to be thrashed, the sheaves were placed on the barn floor with their heads all in the same direction, the binders which held them together loosened, and the corn spread out. Two men were generally employed in this occupation, one standing opposite the other, and the corn was separated from the straw and chaff by knocking the heads with sticks. These sticks, or flails, were divided into two parts, the longer of which was about the size of a broom-handle, but made of a much stronger kind of wood, while the other, which was about half its length, was fastened to the top by a hinge made of strong leather, so that the flail was formed into the shape of a whip, except that the lash would not bend, and was as thick as the handle. The staff was held with both hands, one to guide and the other to strike, and as the thrashers were both practically aiming at the same place, it was necessary, in order to prevent their flails colliding, that one lash should be up in the air at the same moment that the other was down on the floor, so that it required some practice in order to become a proficient thrasher. The flails descended on the barn floors with the regularity of the ticking of a clock, or the rhythmic and measured footsteps of a man walking in a pair of clogs at a quickstep speed over the hard surface of a cobbled road. We knew that this mediæval method of thrashing corn would be doomed in the future, and that the old-fashioned flail would become a thing of the past, only to be found in some museum as a relic of antiquity, so we recorded this description of Chantrey's contest with the happy memories of the days when we ourselves went a-thrashing corn a long time ago!

What Chantrey thought of those marvellous rocks at Brimham was not recorded, but, as they covered quite fifty acres of land, his friend, like ourselves, would find it impossible to give any lengthy description of them, and might, like the auctioneers, dismiss them with the well-known phrase, "too numerous to mention."

To our great advantage we were the only visitors at the rocks, and for that reason enjoyed the uninterrupted services of the official guide, an elderly man whose heart was in his work, and a born poet withal.

The first thing we had to do was to purchase his book of poems, which, as a matter of course, was full of poetical descriptions of the wonderful rocks he had to show us--and thoroughly and conscientiously he did his duty. As we came to each rock, whether we had to stand below or above it, he poured out his poetry with a rapidity that quite bewildered and astonished us. He could not, of course, tell us whether the rocks had been worn into their strange forms by the action of the sea washing against them at some remote period, or whether they had been shaped in the course of ages by the action of the wind and rain; but we have appealed to our geological friend, who states, in that emphatic way which scientific people adopt, that these irregular crags are made of millstone grit, and that the fantastic shapes are due to long exposure to weather and the unequal hardness of the rock. Our guide accompanied us first to the top of a great rock, which he called Mount Pisgah, from which we could see on one side a wilderness of bare moors and mountains, and on the other a fertile valley, interspersed with towns and villages as far as the eye could reach. Here the guide told my brother that he could imagine himself to be like Moses of old, who from Pisgah's lofty height viewed the Promised Land of Canaan on one side, and the wilderness on the other! But we were more interested in the astonishing number of rocks around us than in the distant view, and when our guide described them as the "finest freak of nature of the rock kind in England," we thoroughly endorsed his remarks. We had left our luggage at the caretaker's house, which had been built near the centre of this great mass of stones in the year 1792, by Lord Grantley, to whom the property belonged, from the front door of which, we were told, could be seen, on a clear day, York Minster, a distance of twenty-eight miles as the crow flies. As may be imagined, it was no small task for the guide to take us over fifty acres of ground and to recite verses about every object of interest he showed us, some of them from his book and some from memory. But as we were without our burdens we could follow him quickly, while he was able to take us at once to the exact position where the different shapes could be seen to the best advantage. How long it would have taken that gentleman we met near Loch Lomond in Scotland who tried to show us "the cobbler and his wife," on the top of Ben Arthur, from a point from which it could not be seen, we could not guess, but it was astonishing how soon we got through the work, and were again on our way to find "fresh fields and pastures new."

We saw the "Bulls of Nineveh," the "Tortoise," the "Gorilla," and the "Druids' Temple"--also the "Druids' Reading-desk," the "Druids' Oven," and the "Druid's Head." Then there was the "Idol," where a great stone, said to weigh over two hundred tons, was firmly balanced on a base measuring only two feet by ten inches. There was the usual Lovers' Leap, and quite a number of rocking stones, some of which, although they were many tons in weight, could easily be rocked with one hand. The largest stone of all was estimated to weigh over one hundred tons, though it was only discovered to be movable in the year 1786. The "Cannon Rock" was thirty feet long, and, as it was perforated with holes, was supposed to have been used as an oracle by the Ancients, a question asked down a hole at one end being answered by the gods through the priest or priestess hidden from view at the other. The different recesses, our guide informed us, were used as lovers' seats and wishing stones. The "Frog and the Porpoise," the "Oyster Rock," the "Porpoise's Head," the "Sphinx," the "Elephant and Yoke of Oxen," and the "Hippopotamus's Head" were all clearly defined. The "Dancing Bear" was a splendidly shaped specimen, and then there was a "Boat Rock," with bow and stern complete. But on the "Mount Delectable," as our guide called it, there was a very romantic courting and kissing chair, which, although there was only room for one person to sit in it at a time, he assured us was, in summer time, the best patronised seat in the lot.

We remunerated him handsomely, for he had worked hard and, as "England expects," he had done his duty. He directed us to go along a by-lane through Sawley or Sawley Moor, as being the nearest way to reach Fountains Abbey: but of course we lost our way as usual. The Brimham Rocks were about 1,000 feet above sea-level, and from them we could see Harrogate, which was, even then, a fashionable and rising inland watering-place. Our guide, when he showed us its position in the distance, did not venture to make any poetry about it, so we quote a verse written by another poet about the visitors who went there:

Some go for the sake of the waters-- Well, they are the old-fashioned elves-- And some to dispose of their daughters, And some to dispose of themselves.

But there must be many visitors who go there to search in its bracing air for the health they have lost during many years of toil and anxiety, and to whom the words of an unknown poet would more aptly apply:

We squander Health in search of Wealth, We scheme, and toil, and save; Then squander Wealth in search of Health, And only find a Grave. We live! and boast of what we own! We die! and only get a STONE!

Fortunately we happened to meet with a gentleman who was going part of the way towards Fountains Abbey, and him we accompanied for some distance. He told us that the abbey was the most perfect ruin in England, and when we parted he gave us clear instructions about the way to reach it. We were walking on, keeping a sharp look out for the abbey through the openings in the trees that partially covered our way, when suddenly we became conscious of looking at a picture without realising what it was, for our thoughts and attention had been fixed upon the horizon on the opposite hill, where for some undefined reason we expected the abbey to appear. Lo and behold, there was the abbey in the valley below, which we might have seen sooner had we been looking down instead of up. The effect of the view coming so suddenly was quite electrical, and after our first exclamation of surprise we stood there silently gazing upon the beautiful scene before us; and how grand the fine old ruin appeared calmly reposing in the beautiful valley below! It was impossible to forget the picture! Why we had expected to find the abbey in the position of a city set upon a hill which could not be hid we could not imagine, for we knew that the abbeys in the olden times had to be hidden from view as far as possible as one means of protecting them from warlike marauders who had no sympathy either with the learned monks or their wonderful books. Further they required a stream of water near them for fish and other purposes, and a kaleyard or level patch of ground for the growth of vegetables, as well as a forest--using the word in the Roman sense, to mean stretches of woodland divided by open spaces--to supply them with logs and with deer for venison, for there was no doubt that, as time went on, the monks, to use a modern phrase, "did themselves well." All these conditions existed near the magnificent position on which the great abbey had been built. The river which ran alongside was named the Skell, a name probably derived from the Norse word Keld, signifying a spring or fountain, and hence the name Fountains, for the place was noted for its springs and wells, as--

From the streams and springs which Nature here contrives, The name of Fountains this sweet place derives.

The history of the abbey stated that it was founded by thirteen monks who, wishing to lead a holier and a stricter life than then prevailed in that monastery, seceded from the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary's at York. With the Archbishop's sanction they retired to this desolate spot to imitate the sanctity and discipline of the Cistercians in the Abbey of Rieval. They had no house to shelter them, but in the depth of the valley there grew a great elm tree, amongst the branches of which they twisted straw, thus forming a roof beneath which they might dwell. When the winter came on, they left the shelter of the elm and came under that of seven yew-trees of extraordinary size. With the waters of the River Skell they quenched their thirst, the Archbishop occasionally sent them bread, and when spring came they built a wooden chapel. Others joined them, but their accession increased their privations, and they often had no food except leaves of trees and wild herbs. Even now these herbs and wild flowers of the monks grew here and there amongst the old ruins. Rosemary, lavender, hyssop, rue, silver and bronze lichens, pale rosy feather pink, a rare flower, yellow mullein, bee and fly orchis, and even the deadly nightshade, which was once so common at Furness Abbey. One day their provisions consisted of only two and a half loaves of bread, and a stranger passing by asked for a morsel. "Give him a loaf," said the Abbot; "the Lord will provide,"--and so they did. Marvellous to relate, says the chronicle, immediately afterwards a cart appeared bringing a present of food from Sir Eustace Fitz-John, the lord of the neighbouring castle of Knaresborough, until then an unfriendly personage to the monks.

Before long the monks prospered: Hugh, the Dean of York, left them his fortune, and in 1203 they began to build the abbey. Other helpers came forward, and in course of time Fountains became one of the richest monasteries in Yorkshire. The seven yew trees were long remembered as the "Seven Sisters," but only one of them now remains. Many great warriors were buried beneath the peaceful shade of Fountains Abbey, and many members of the Percy family, including Lord Henry de Percy, who, after deeds of daring and valour on many a hard-fought field as he followed the banner of King Edward I all through the wilds of Scotland, prayed that his body might find a resting-place within the walls of Fountains Abbey. Lands were given to the abbey, until there were 60,000 acres attached to it and enclosed in a ring fence. One of the monks from Fountains went to live as a hermit in a secluded spot adjoining the River Nidd, a short distance from Knaresborough, where he became known as St. Robert the Hermit. He lived in a cave hewn out of the rock on one side of the river, where the banks were precipitous and covered with trees. One day the lord of the forest was hunting, and saw smoke rising above the trees. On making inquiries, he was told it came from the cave of St. Robert. His lordship was angry, and, as he did not know who the hermit was, ordered him to be sent away and his dwelling destroyed. These orders were in process of being carried out, and the front part of the cave, which was only a small one, had in fact been broken down, when his lordship heard what a good man St. Robert the Hermit was. He ordered him to be reinstated, and his cave reformed, and he gave him some land. When the saint died, the monks of Fountains Abbey--anxious, like most of their order, to possess the remains of any saint likely to be popular among the religious-minded--came for his body, so that they might bury it in their own monastery, and would have taken it away had not a number of armed men arrived from Knaresborough Castle. So St. Robert was buried in the church at Knaresborough.

St. Robert the Hermit was born in 1160, and died in 1218, so that he lived and died in the days of the Crusades to the Holy Land. Although his name was still kept in remembrance, his Cave and Chapel had long been deserted and overgrown with bushes and weeds, while the overhanging trees hid it completely from view. But after a lapse of hundreds of years St. Robert's Cave was destined to come into greater prominence than ever, because of the sensational discovery of the remains of the victim of Eugene Aram, which was accidentally brought to light after long years, when the crime had been almost forgotten and the murderer had vanished from the scene of his awful deed.

The tragedy enacted in St. Robert's Cave has been immortalised in poetry and in story: by Lord Lytton in his story of "Eugene Aram" and by Tom Hood in "The Dream of Eugene Aram." Aram was a man of considerable attainments, for he knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages, and was also a good mathematician as well as an antiquarian. He settled in Knaresborough in the year 1734, and among his acquaintances were one Daniel Clark and another, John Houseman, and these three were often together until suddenly Daniel Clark disappeared. No one knew what had become of him, and no intelligence could be obtained from his two companions. Aram shortly afterwards left the town, and it was noticed that Houseman never left his home after dark, so they were suspected of being connected in some way with the disappearance of Clark. It afterwards transpired that Aram had induced Clark to give a great supper, and to invite all the principal people in the town, borrowing all the silver vessels he could from them, on the pretence that he was short. The plot was to pretend that robbers had got in the house and stolen the silver. Clark fell in with this plot, and gave the supper, borrowing all the silver he could. After all was over, they were to meet at Clark's house, put the silver in a sack, and proceed to St. Robert's Cave, which at that time was in ruins, where the treasure was to be hidden until matters had quieted down, after which they would sell it and divide the money; Clark was to take a spade and a pick, while the other two carried the bag in turns. Clark began to dig the trench within the secluded and bush-covered cave which proved to be his own grave, and when he had nearly finished the trench, Aram came behind and with one of the tools gave him a tremendous blow on the head which killed him instantly, and the two men buried him there.

Clark's disappearance caused a great sensation, every one thinking he had run away with the borrowed silver. Years passed away, and the matter was considered as a thing of the past and forgotten, until it was again brought to recollection by some workmen, who had been digging on the opposite side of the river to St. Robert's Cave, finding a skeleton of some person buried there. As the intelligence was spread about Knaresborough, the people at once came to the conclusion that the skeleton was that of Daniel Clark, who had disappeared fourteen years before. Although Aram had left the neighbourhood soon after Clark disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone, Houseman was still in the town, and when the news of the finding of the skeleton reached him, he was drinking in one of the public-houses, and, being partly drunk, his only remark was, "It's no more Dan Clark's skeleton than it's mine." Immediately he was accused of being concerned in the disappearance of Clark, and ultimately confessed that Aram had killed Clark, and that together they had buried his dead body in St. Robert's Cave. Search was made there, and Clark's bones were found. One day a traveller came to the town who said he had seen Aram at Lynn in Norfolk, where he had a school. Officers were at once sent there to apprehend Aram, and the same night--

Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn, Through the cold and heavy mist; And Eugene Aram walked between With gyves upon his wrist.

Aram was brought up for trial, and made a fine speech in defending himself; but it was of no avail, for Houseman turned "King's Evidence" against him, telling all he knew on condition that he himself was pardoned. The verdict was "Guilty," and Aram was hanged at York in the year 1759.

Fountains Abbey in its prime must have been one of the noblest and stateliest sanctuaries in the kingdom. The great tower was 167 feet high, and the nave about 400 feet long, while the cloisters--still almost complete, for we walked under their superb arches several times from one end to the other--were marvellous to see. One of the wells at Fountains Abbey was named Robin Hood's Well, for in the time of that famous outlaw the approach to the Abbey was defended by a very powerful and brave monk who kept quite a number of dogs, on which account he was named the Cur-tail Friar. Robin Hood and Little John were trying their skill and strength in archery on the deer in the forest when, in the words of the old ballad:

Little John killed a Hart of Greece Five hundred feet him fro,

and Robin was so proud of his friend that he said he would ride a hundred miles to find such another, a remark--

That caused Will Shadlocke to laugh. He laughed full heartily; There lives a curtail fryer in Fountains Abbey Will beate bothe him and thee.

The curtell fryer, in Fountains Abbey, Well can a strong bow draw; He will beate you and your yeomen. Set them all in a row.

So Robin, taking up his weapons and putting on his armour, went to seek the friar, and found him near the River Skell which skirted the abbey. Robin arranged with the friar that as a trial of strength they should carry each other across the river. After this had been accomplished successfully Robin asked to be carried over a second time. But the friar only carried him part way and then threw him into the deepest part of the river, or, in the words of the ballad:

And coming to the middle streame There he threw Robin in; "And chuse thee, chuse thee, fine fellow, Whether thou wilt sink or swim."

Robin evidently did not care to sink, so he swam to a willow bush and, gaining dry land, took one of his best arrows and shot at the friar. The arrow glanced off the monk's steel armour, and he invited Robin to shoot on, which he did, but with no greater success. Then they took their swords and "fought with might and maine":

From ten o' th' clock that very day Till four i' th' afternoon. Then Robin came to his knee Of the fryer to beg a boone.

"A boone, a boone, thou curtail fryer, I beg it on my knee; Give me leave to set my horn to my mouth And to blow blastes three."

The friar consented contemptuously, for he had got the better of the fight; so Robin blew his "blastes three," and presently fifty of his yeomen made their appearance. It was now the friar's turn to ask a favour.

"A boone, a boone," said the curtail fryer, "The like I gave to thee: Give me leave to set my fist to my mouth And to whute whues three."

and as Robin readily agreed to this, he sounded his "whues three," and immediately--

Halfe a hundred good band-dogs Came running o'er the lee.

"Here's for every man a dog And I myself for thee." "Nay, by my faith," said Robin Hood, "Fryer, that may not be."

Two dogs at once to Robin Hood did goe. The one behinde, the other before; Robin Hood's mantle of Lincoln greene Offe from his backe they tore.

And whether his men shot east or west. Or they shot north or south, The curtail dogs, so taught they were, They kept the arrows in their mouth.

"Take up the dogs," said Little John; "Fryer, at my bidding be." "Whose man art thou," said the curtail fryer, "Come here to prate to me!"

"I'm Little John, Robin Hood's man. Fryer, I will not lie. If thou tak'st not up thy dogs, I'll take them up for thee."

Little John had a bowe in his hands. He shot with mighte and maine; Soon half a score of the fryer's dogs Lay dead upon the plaine.

"Hold thy hand, good fellow," said the curtail fryer. "Thy master and I will agree, And we will have new order ta'en With all the haste may be."

Then Robin Hood said to the friar:

"If thou wilt forsake fair Fountains Dale And Fountains Abbey free, Every Sunday throughout the yeare A noble shall be thy fee.

"And every holiday throughout the yeare Changed shall thy garment be If thou wilt go to fair Nottinghame And there remaine with me."

This curtail fryer had kept Fountains Dale Seven long years and more; There was neither knight, lord or earle Could make him yield before.

According to tradition, the friar accepted Robin's offer and became the famous Friar Tuck of the outlaw's company of Merrie Men whom in Ivanhoe Scott describes as exchanging blows in a trial of strength with Richard Coeur de Lion. It was said that when Robin Hood died, his bow and arrows were hung up in Fountains Abbey, where they remained for centuries.

We procured some refreshments near the abbey, and then walked on to Ripon, through the fine park and grounds of Studley Royal, belonging to the Marquis of Ripon, and we esteemed it a great privilege to be allowed to do so. The fine trees and gardens and the beautiful waters, with some lovely swans floating on them, their white plumage lit up with the rays of the sun, which that day shone out in all its glory, formed such a contrast to the dull and deserted moors, that we thought the people of Ripon, like ourselves, ought to be thankful that they were allowed to have access to these beautiful grounds.

The town of Ripon, like many others in the north of England, had suffered much in the time of the wars, and had had an eventful history, for after being burnt by the Danes it was restored by Alfred the Great in the year 860, only to be destroyed once more by William the Conqueror in his ruthless march through the northern counties. A survival of Alfred's wise government still existed in the "Wake-man," whose duty it was to blow a horn at nine o'clock each night as a warning against thieves. If a robbery occurred during the night, the inhabitants were taxed with the amount stolen. A horn was still blown, three blasts being given at nine o'clock at the Market Cross and three immediately afterwards at the Mayor's door by the official horn-blower, during which performances the seventh bell in the cathedral was tolled. The ancient motto of the town was:

EXCEPT Ye LORD KEEP Ye CITTIE Ye WAKEMAN WAKETH IN VAIN.

In 1680 the silver badges that adorned the horn were stolen by thieves, but they had long since been replaced, and the horn was now quite a grand affair, the gold chain purchased for it in 1859 costing £250.

The town was again burnt by Robert Bruce in 1319, when the north of England was being devastated after the disastrous Battle of Bannockburn; but it soon revived in importance, and in 1405 Henry IV and his court retired thither to escape the plague which at that time was raging in London.

In the time of the Civil War Charles I was brought to Ripon by his captors, and lodged for two nights in a house where he was sumptuously entertained, and was so well pleased with the way he had been treated that his ghost was said to have visited the house after his death. The good old lady who lived there in those troubled times was the very essence of loyalty and was a great admirer of the murdered monarch. In spite of Cromwell she kept a well-furnished wine-cellar, where bottles were continually being found emptied of their contents and turned upside down. But when she examined her servants about this strange phenomenon, she was always told that whenever the ghost of King Charles appeared, the rats twisted their tails round the corks of the bottles and extracted them as cleverly as the lady's experienced butler could have done himself, and that they presented their generous contents in brimming goblets to the parched lips of His Majesty, who had been so cruelly murdered. This reply was always considered satisfactory and no further investigation was made! "Let me suffer loss," said the old lady, "rather than be thought a rebel and add to the calamities of a murdered king! King Charles is quite welcome!"

Eugene Aram, we were informed, spent some years of his life in Ripon at a house in Bond-Gate.

St. Wilfrid was the patron saint of Ripon, where he was born. Legend states that at his birth a strange supernatural light shone over the house, and when he died, those who were in the death chamber claimed that they could hear the rustling of the angels' wings who had come to bear his spirit away. As we saw some figures relating to him in the cathedral we presumed that he must have been its patron saint. We found afterwards it was dedicated to St. Peter and St. Wilfrid. St. Wilfrid was an enthusiast in support of the Church control of Rome. One sympathises with the poor king, who had to decide between the claims of Rome and the Celtic Church, whether priests should have their hair cut this way or that, and if the date of Easter should be decided by the moon or by some other way. He seems to have been a simple-minded fellow, and his decision was very practical. "I am told that Christ gave Peter the keys of heaven to keep, and none can get in without his permission. Is that so?" to which Wilfrid quickly answered "Yes." "Has your saint any power like that?" he asked Oswin, who could but say "No." "Then," said the king, "I vote for the side with the greater power," and decided in favour of Wilfrid. Like other cathedrals, Ripon had suffered much in the wars, but there were many ancient things still to be seen there. Near the font was a tomb covered with a slab of grey marble, on which were carved the figures of a man and a huge lion, both standing amongst some small trees. It was supposed to have covered the body of an Irish prince who died at Ripon on his way home from the Holy War, in Palestine, and who brought back with him a lion that followed him about just like a dog. In the cathedral yard there was an epitaph to a fisherman:

Here lies poor but honest Bryan Tunstall. He was a most expert angler until Death, envious of his merit, threw out his line, and landed him here 21st day of April, 1790.

We left Ripon by the Boroughbridge road, and when about a mile from the town we met one of the dignitaries of the cathedral, who from his dress might have been anything from an archdeacon upwards. We asked him if he could tell us of any objects of interest on our farther way. He told us of Aldborough, with its Roman remains and the Devil's Arrows, of which we had never heard before; and he questioned us about our long tramp, the idea of which quite delighted him. We told him that we had thrown our mackintoshes away, and why we had done so, and had bought umbrellas instead; and he said, "You are now standing before a man who would give fifty pounds if he had never worn a mackintosh, for they have given me the rheumatism!"

The church at Kirkby Hill had just been restored. We saw an epitaph in the churchyard similar to one which we found in a graveyard later on, farther south:

Whence I came it matters not. To whom related or by whom begot; A heap of dust is all that remains of me, 'Tis all I am, and all the proud shall be.

We soon reached the famous Boroughbridge, one of the most historical places in all England, the borough meaning Aldborough, the ISUER of the Brigantes and the ISURIUM of the Romans. Here we crossed the bridge spanning the Yorkshire River Ouse, which almost adjoined Aldborough, and were directed for lodgings to the house of a widowed lady quite near the church. It was nearly dark then, the moon, though almost at the full that night, not having yet risen. We decided to wait until after a substantial meal before visiting the Devil's Arrows a short distance away. There were only three of them left--two in a field on one side of the road, and one in a field opposite. The stones were standing upright, and were, owing to their immense size, easily found. We had inspected the two, and were just jumping over the gate to cross the narrow lane to see the other in the next field, when we startled a man who was returning, not quite sober, from the fair at Boroughbridge. As we had our sticks in our hands, he evidently thought we were robbers and meant mischief, for he begged us not to molest him, saying he had only threepence in his pocket, to which we were welcome. We were highly amused, and the man was very pleased when he found he could keep the coppers, "to pay," as he said, "for another pint." The stones, weighing about 36 tons each, were 20 to 30 feet high, and as no one knew who placed them there, their origin was ascribed to the Devil; hence their name, "the Devil's Arrows." Possibly, as supposed in other similar cases, he had shot them out of his bow from some great hill far away, and they had stuck in the earth here. There was fairly authentic evidence that twelve was the original number, and the bulk of opinion favoured an origin concerned with the worship of the sun, one of the earliest forms known. Others, however, ascribe them to the Romans, who erected boundary stones, of which several are known, on the hills farther south. We returned to our lodgings, but not to sleep, for our sleeping apartment was within a few feet of the church clock, on the side of a very low steeple. As we were obliged to keep our window open for fresh air, we could hear every vibration of the pendulum, and the sound of the ponderous bell kept us awake until after it struck the hour of twelve. Then, worn out with fatigue, we heard nothing more until we awoke early in the morning.

(Distance walked twenty miles.)

Tuesday, October 24th.

The history of Aldborough, the old burh or fortified Saxon settlement, in spite of its Saxon name, could clearly be traced back to the time of the Brigantes, the ancient Britons, who inhabited the territory between the Tweed and the Humber. A Celtic city existed there long before Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome, and it was at this city of ISUER, between the small River Tut and its larger neighbour the Yore, that their queen resided. Her name, in Gaelic, was Cathair-ys-maen-ddu ("Queen of stones black"), rather a long name even for a queen, and meaning in English the Queen of the City of the Black Stones, the remaining three, out of the original twelve, being those, now known as the Devil's Arrows, which we had seen the preceding night.

The Romans, however, when they invaded Britain, called her Cartismunda, her city ISURIUM, and the Brigantes' country they named Brigantia. But as the Brigantes made a determined resistance, their invasion of this part of England, begun in A.D. 47, was not completed until A.D. 70.

Queen Cartismunda was related to the King of Siluria, which then embraced the counties of Hereford and Monmouth, besides part of South Wales. He was one of the greatest of the British chieftains, named Caradoc by the Britons and Caractacus by the Romans. He fought for the independence of Britain, and held the armies of the most famous Roman generals at bay for a period of about nine years. But eventually, in A.D. 50, he was defeated by the Roman general Ostorius Scapula, in the hilly region near Church Stretton, in Shropshire, not far from a hill still known as Caer Caradoc, his wife and daughters being taken prisoners in the cave known as Caradoc's Cave. He himself escaped to the Isle of Mona, afterwards named Anglesey, with the object of rallying the British tribes there.

It so happened that some connection existed between Queen Cartismunda and the Romans who had defeated Caradoc, and after that event Ostorius Scapula turned his army towards the north, where he soon reached the border of Brigantia.

As soon as the queen, of whose morals even the Britons held no high opinion, heard of his arrival, she and her daughters hastened to meet the conqueror to make terms. If beauty had any influence in the settlement, she seems to have had everything in her favour, as, if we are to believe the description of one of the Romans, who began his letter with the words "Brigantes faemina dulce," the Brigantes ladies must have been very sweet and beautiful.

A most objectional part of the bargain was that Caractacus should be delivered up to the Roman general. So the queen sent some relatives to Mona to invite him to come and see her at Isuer, and, dreaming nothing of treachery, he came; but as soon as he crossed the border into the queen's country he was seized, bound and handed over to Ostorius, who sent him to Rome, together with his already captured wife and daughters.

On arrival at Rome Caractacus was imprisoned with some of his countrymen and in course of time brought before the Emperor Claudius. The brave and fearless speech he made before the Emperor on that occasion is one of the most famous recorded in history, and has been immortalised both in prose and poetry.

"Now I have spoken, do thy will; Be life or death my lot. Since Britain's throne no more I fill, To me it matters not. My fame is clear; but on my fate Thy glory or thy shame must wait."

He ceased: from all around upsprung A murmur of applause; For well had truth and freedom's tongue Maintained their holy cause. The conqueror was the captive then-- He bade the slave be free again.

Tradition states that one of his companions in the prison in Rome was St. Paul, who converted him to the Christian faith, with two of his fellow-countrymen, Linus and Claudia, who are mentioned in St. Paul's second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21).

Descendants of Caradoc are still to be traced in England in the family of Craddock, whose shield to this day is emblazoned with the words: "Betrayed! Not conquered."

We awoke quite early in the morning--a fact which we attributed to the church clock, although we could not remember hearing it strike. My brother started the theory that we might have been wakened by some supernatural being coming through the open window, from the greensward beneath, where "lay the bones of the dead." Aldborough church was dedicated to St. Andrew, and the register dated from the year 1538--practically from the time when registers came into being. It contained a curious record of a little girl, a veritable "Nobody's child," who, as a foundling, was brought to the church and baptized in 1573 as "Elizabeth Nobody, of Nobody."

Oliver Cromwell, about whom we were to hear so much in our further travels, was here described in the church book as "an impious Arch-Rebel," but this we afterwards found was open to doubt. He fought one of his great battles quite near Aldborough, and afterwards besieged Knaresborough Castle, about eight miles away. He lodged at an old-fashioned house in that town. In those days fireplaces in bedrooms were not very common, and even where they existed were seldom used, as the beds were warmed with flat-bottomed circular pans of copper or brass, called "warming-pans," in which were placed red-hot cinders of peat, wood, or coal. A long, round wooden handle, like a broomstick, was attached to the pan, by means of which it was passed repeatedly up and down the bed, under the bedclothes, until they became quite warm, both above and below. As this service was performed just before the people retired to rest, they found a warm bed waiting for them instead of a cold one. But of course this was in the "good old times." Afterwards, when people became more civilised (!), they got into bed between linen sheets that were icy cold, and after warming them with the heat of their bodies, if they chanced to move an inch or two during the night they were either awakened, or dreamed about icebergs or of being lost in the snow!

The young daughter of the house where Oliver Cromwell lodged at Knaresborough had the task of warming Oliver's bed for him, and in after years when she had grown up she wrote a letter in which she said: "When Cromwell came to lodge at our house I was then but a young girl, and having heard so much talk about the man, I looked at him with wonder. Being ordered to take a pan of coals and 'aire' his bed, I could not forbear peeping over my shoulders to see this extraordinary man, who was seated at the far side of the room untying his garters. Having aired the bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When returning I found him still at prayer---and this was his custom every night as long as he stayed at our house--I concluded he must be a good man, and this opinion I always maintained, though I heard him blamed and exceedingly abused."

Aldborough was walled round in the time of the Romans, and portions of the walls were still to be seen. So many Roman relics had been found here that Aldborough had earned the title of the Yorkshire Pompeii. So interested were we in its antiquities that we felt very thankful to the clerical dignitary at Ripon for having advised us to be sure to visit this ancient borough.

We now wended our way to one of the village inns, where we had been told to ask permission from the landlord to see the Roman tessellated pavement in his back garden. We were conducted to a building, which had been roofed over to cover it. Our attendant unlocked the door, and after the sawdust which covered the floor had been carefully brushed aside, there was revealed to our gaze a beautifully executed floor, in which the colours of the small tiles were as bright as if they had been recently put there. We could scarcely realise that the work we were looking at was well-nigh two thousand years old: it looked more like the work of yesterday. It had been accidentally discovered by a man who was digging in the garden, at about two feet below the surface of the soil; it was supposed to have formed the floor of a dwelling belonging to some highly placed Roman officer. We were speculating about the depth of soil and the difference in levels between the Roman Period and the present, but we found afterwards that the preservation of this beautiful work, and of others, was due not to any natural accumulations during the intervening centuries, but to the fact that the devastating Danes had burnt the town of Aldborough, along with many others, in the year 870, and the increased depth of the soil was due to the decomposition of the burnt ruins and debris. When we noted any event or object dating from 1771, we described it as "one hundred years before our visit," but here we had an event to record that had happened one thousand years before. Neither the attendant nor the landlord would accept any remuneration for their services, and to our cordial thanks replied, "You are quite welcome." We now went to see the cottage museum, which was well filled with Roman relics of all kinds, arranged in such fashion as would have done credit to a very much larger collection. The Roman remains stored here were described as "one of the most comprehensive collections of Roman relics in England," and included ornaments and articles in glass, iron, and bronze. There was also much pottery and tiles; also coins, images, and all kinds of useful and ornamental articles of the time of the Roman Occupation in Britain. Besides self-coloured tiles, there were some that were ornamented, one representing the "Capitoli Wolf," a strange-looking, long-legged animal, with its face inclined towards the spectator, while between its fore and hind legs could be seen in the distance the figures of Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of Rome, who, tradition states, were suckled in their infancy by a wolf.

But my brother reminded me that none of these things were fit to eat, and that our breakfast would now be ready, so away we sped to our lodgings to get our breakfast and to pay our bill, and bid good-bye to our landlady, who was a worthy, willing old soul. Just across the river, about a mile away, was the site of the "White Battle," fought on October 12th, 1319--one of the strangest and most unequal battles ever fought. It occurred after the English had been defeated at Bannockburn, and when the Scots were devastating the North of England. The Scots had burnt and plundered Boroughbridge in 1318 under Sir James Douglas, commonly known, on account perhaps of his cruelty, as the "Black Douglas." Even the children were afraid when his name was mentioned, for when they were naughty they were frightened with the threat that if they were not good the Black Douglas would be coming; even the very small children were familiar with his name, for a nursery song or lullaby of that period was--

Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye, Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye, The Black Douglas shall not get ye.

Just before the "White Battle" the English Queen Isabel, wife of Edward II, had taken up her abode with a small retinue in the country near York, when an effort was made by the Scots to capture her; they nearly succeeded, for she only just managed to get inside the walls of York when the Scots appeared and demanded admittance. This was refused by the aged Archbishop Melton, who had the bulwarks manned and the fortifications repaired and defended. The Scots were enraged, as York was strongly fortified, and they shouted all manner of epithets to the people behind the walls; one of them actually rode up to the Micklegate Bar and accused the queen of all manner of immoralities, challenging any man to come forth and clear her fame. The Archbishop in a stirring appeal called upon every man and youth to attack the invaders. His eloquence was irresistible, and although there were not more than fifty trained soldiers in the city, they attacked the Scots, who retreated. The Archbishop's army was utterly unskilled in the arts of war, and carried all kinds of weapons, many of them obsolete. The Bishop of Ely, Lord High Chancellor of England, rode alongside the Archbishop, and behind them rode the Lord Mayor, followed by a multitude of clergy in white surplices, with monks, canons, friars, and other ecclesiastics, all fully dressed in the uniform of their offices. But only one result was possible, for they were opposed to 16,000 of Robert Bruce's best-trained soldiers. Meantime the Scots did not know the character of the foe before whom they were retreating, but, crossing the River Swale near the point where it meets the Yore, they set fire to a number of haystacks, with the result that the smoke blew into the faces of the Archbishop and his followers, as the wind was blowing in their direction. They, however, pressed bravely forward, but the Scots attacked them both in front and rear, and in less than an hour four thousand men and youths, their white robes stained with blood, were lying dead on the field of battle, while many were drowned in the river. The sight of so many surpliced clergy struck terror into the heart of the Earl of Murray and his men, who, instead of pursuing farther the retreating army, amongst whom were the aged Archbishop and his prelates--the Lord Mayor had been killed--retired northwards.

Through the long hours of that night women, children, and sweethearts gazed anxiously from the walls of York, watching and waiting for those who would never return, and for many a long year seats were vacant in the sacred buildings of York. Thus ended the "Battle of the White," so named from the great number of surpliced clergy who took part therein. The old Archbishop escaped death, and one of the aged monks wrote that--

The triumphal standard of the Archbishop also was saved by the cross-bearer, who, mounted on a swift horse, plunged across the river, and leaving his horse, hid the standard in a dense thicket, and escaped in the twilight. The pike was of silver, and on the top was fixed the gilded image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Near where it was hidden a poor man was also hiding, and he twisted some bands of hay round it, and kept it in his cottage, and then returned it to the Bishop.

About this time England was like a house divided against itself, for the barons had revolted against King Edward II. A battle was again fought at Boroughbridge on June 22nd, 1322, between the rebel army led by the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, and the King's forces who were pursuing them. They were obliged to retreat over the bridge, which at that time was built of wood; but when they reached it, they found another part of the King's army of whose presence they were unaware, so they had to fight for the possession of the bridge. During the fight a Welshman, armed with a long spear, and who was hidden somewhere beneath the bridge, contrived to thrust his spear through an opening in the timbers right into the bowels of Humphrey de Bohun, the Earl of Hereford, who fell forward mortally wounded. Thus died one of the most renowned warriors in England. The Earl of Lancaster made a final effort to cross the bridge, but his troops gave way and fled, the Earl taking refuge in the old chapel of Boroughbridge, from which he was dragged, stripped of his armour, and taken to York. Thence he was conveyed to his own castle at Pontefract, and lowered into a deep dungeon, into which, we were told, when we visited that castle later, he had himself lowered others, and soon afterwards he was condemned to death by the revengeful Edward, who had not forgotten the Earl's share in the death of his favourite, Piers Gaveston. Mounted on a miserable-looking horse, amidst the gibes and insults of the populace, he was led to the block, and thus died another of England's famous warriors.

Needless to relate, we had decided to visit York Minster as our next great object of interest after Fountains Abbey, and by accident rather than design we had in our journey to and from York to pass over two battle-fields of first importance as decisive factors in the history of England--viz., Marston Moor and Towton Field. Marston Moor lay along our direct road from Aldborough to York, a distance of about sixteen miles. Here the first decisive battle was fought between the forces of King Charles I and those of the Parliament. His victory at Marston Moor gave Cromwell great prestige and his party an improved status in all future operations in the Civil War. Nearly all the other battles whose sites we had visited had been fought for reasons such as the crushing of a rebellion of ambitious and discontented nobles, or perhaps to repel a provoked invasion, and often for a mere change of rulers. Men had fought and shed their blood for persons from whom they could receive no benefit, and for objects in which they had no interest, and the country had been convulsed and torn to pieces for the gratification of the privileged few. But in the Battle of Marston Moor a great principle was involved which depended en the issue. It was here that King and People contended--the one for unlimited and absolute power, and the other for justice and liberty. The iron grasp and liberty-crushing rule of the Tudors was succeeded by the disgraceful and degrading reign of the Stuarts. The Divine Right of Kings was preached everywhere, while in Charles I's corrupt and servile Court the worst crimes on earth were practised. Charles had inherited from his father his presumptuous notions of prerogative and Divine Right, and was bent upon being an absolute and uncontrolled sovereign. He had married Henrietta, the daughter of the King of France, who, though possessed of great wit and beauty, was of a haughty spirit, and influenced Charles to favour the Roman Catholic Church as against the Puritans, then very numerous in Britain, who "through the Bishop's courts were fined, whipt, pilloried, and imprisoned, so that death was almost better than life."

A crisis had to come, and either one man must yield or a whole nation must submit to slavery. The tax named "Ship Money," originally levied in the eleventh century to provide ships for the Navy, was reintroduced by Charles in 1634 in a very burdensome form, and the crisis came which resulted in the Civil War, when Hampden, who resided in the neighbourhood of the Chiltern Hills, one of the five members of Parliament impeached by Charles, refused to pay the tax on the ground that it was illegal, not having been sanctioned by Parliament. He lost his case, but the nation was aroused and determined to vindicate its power. Hampden was killed in a small preliminary engagement in the early stages of the war. The King was supported by the bulk of the nobility, proud of their ancient lineage and equipments of martial pomp, and by their tenants and friends; while the strength of the Parliamentary Army lay in the town population and the middle classes and independent yeomanry: prerogative and despotic power on the one hand, and liberty and privilege on the other. The Royal Standard was raised at Nottingham and the din of arms rang through the kingdom. The fortress of Hull had been twice besieged and bravely defended, and the drawn Battle of Edgehill had been fought. In the early part of 1644 both parties began the war in earnest. A Scottish army had been raised, but its advance had been hindered by the Marquis of Newcastle, the King's commander in the north. In order to direct the attention of Newcastle elsewhere, Lord Fernando Fairfax and Sir Thomas his son, who had been commissioned by Parliament to raise forces, attacked Bellasis, the King's Yorkshire Commander, and Governor of York, who was at Selby with 2,000 men, and defeated them with great loss, capturing Bellasis himself, many of his men, and all his ordnance. Newcastle, dismayed by the news, hastened to York and entered the city, leaving the Scots free to join Fairfax at Netherby, their united forces numbering 16,000 foot and 4,000 horse. These partially blockaded York, but Newcastle had a strong force and was an experienced commander, and with a bridge across the River Ouse, and a strong body of horse, he could operate on both sides of the stream; so Crawford, Lindsey, and Fairfax sent messengers to the Earl of Manchester, who was in Lincolnshire, inviting him to join them. He brought with him 6,000 foot and 3,000 horse, of the last of which Oliver Cromwell was lieutenant-general. Even then they could not invest the city completely; but Newcastle was beginning to lose men and horses, and a scarcity of provisions prevailed, so he wrote to the King that he must surrender unless the city could be relieved. Charles then wrote to Prince Rupert, and said that to lose York would be equivalent to losing his crown, and ordered him to go to the relief of York forthwith.

Rupert, the son of Frederick V, Elector of Bavaria, and a nephew of Charles I, was one of the most dashing cavalry officers in Europe. He lost no time in carrying out his commission, and in a few days Newcastle received a letter saying that he was stabling his horses that same night at Knaresborough, and that he would be at York the following day, Rupert's own horse being stabled that same night in the church at Boroughbridge. The news was received with great rejoicings by the besieged garrison and the people in York, but spread dismay amongst the besiegers, who thought York was about to capitulate. To stay in their present position was to court disaster, so they raised the siege and encamped on Hessey Moor, about six miles away, in a position which commanded the road along which Rupert was expected to travel. But by exercise of great military skill he crossed the river at an unexpected point and entered York on the opposite side. The Prince, as may be imagined, was received with great rejoicings; bells were rung, bonfires lighted, and guns fired, and the citizens went wild with triumphant excitement. Difficulties arose, however, between Newcastle, who was a thoughtful and experienced commander, and Rupert, who, having relieved the city, wanted to fight the enemy at once. As he scornfully refused advice, Newcastle retired, and went with the army as a volunteer only, Meantime there were dissensions among the Parliamentary generals, who were divided in their opinions--the English wishing to fight, and the Scots wishing to retreat. They were all on their way to Tadcaster, in search of a stronger position, when suddenly the vanguard of Rupert reached the rearguard of the other army at the village of Long Marston. This division of the retreating army included their best soldiers, and was commanded by Leslie and two other brave men, Sir Thomas Fairfax and Oliver Cromwell. Their rearguard halted, and, seeing the plain covered with pursuers, they sent word to the generals who had gone on in front, asking them to return and take possession of the dry land of the Moor, which was higher than that occupied by the Royalist army. Oliver Cromwell had already risen in the opinion of the army by his conduct in Lincolnshire, and he was dreaded by the Royalists, for he had already shown his ability to command. Stalwart and clumsy in frame, he had an iron constitution, and was a bold and good rider and a perfect master of the broadsword then in use. He had also a deep knowledge of human nature, and selected his troopers almost entirely from the sons of respectable farmers and yeomen, filled with physical daring and religious convictions, while his own religious enthusiasm, and his superiority in all military virtues, gave him unbounded power as a leader:

What heroes from the woodland sprung When through the fresh awakened land The thrilling cry of freedom rung. And to the work of warfare strung The Yeoman's iron hand.

The generals who had gone on in front now returned with their men to the assistance of their rearguard, and the whole army was brought into position on the high ground in the middle of the day, July 2nd, 1644. The position was a good one, sloping down gradually towards the enemy. The Royalist army numbered about 23,500 men, and that of the Parliament slightly more. It must have been a wonderful sight to see these 50,000 of the best and bravest men the kingdom could produce, ready to wound and kill each other. The war-cry of the Royalists was "God and the King," and that of the others was "God with us"--both sides believing they were fighting for the cause of religion. There were curses on one side and prayers on the other, each captain of the Parliament prayed at the head of his company and each soldier carried a Bible bearing the title "The Souldier's Pocket Bible, issued for use in the Commonwealth Army in 1643." It only consisted of fifteen pages of special passages that referred particularly to the soldier's life and temptations. Cromwell stood on the highest point of the field--the exact position, locally know as "Cromwell's Gap," was pointed out to us--but at the time of the great battle it was covered with a clump of trees, of which now only a few remained. The battle, once begun, raged with the greatest fury; but Cromwell and his "Ironsides" (a name given to them because of their iron resolution) were irresistible, and swept through the enemy like an avalanche; nothing could withstand them--and the weight of their onset bore down all before it. Their spirit could not be subdued or wearied, for verily they believed they were fighting the battles of the Lord, and that death was only a passport to a crown of glory. Newcastle's "White Coats," a regiment of thoroughly trained soldiers from the borders of Cheshire and Wales, who would not retreat, were almost annihilated, and Prince Rupert himself only escaped through the superior speed of his horse, and retired into Lancashire with the remains of his army, while Newcastle and about eighty others fled to Scarborough, and sailed to Antwerp, leaving Sir Thomas Glemham, the Governor of York, to defend that city. But as most of his artillery had been lost at Marston Moor, and the victors continued the siege, he was soon obliged to surrender. He made a very favourable agreement with the generals of the Parliamentarian forces, by the terms of which, consisting of thirteen clauses, they undertook to protect the property and persons of all in the city, not plunder or deface any churches or other buildings, and to give a safe conduct to officers and men--who were to march out with what were practically the honours of war--as far as Skipton.

The agreement having been signed by both parties on July 16th, 1644, Sir Thomas Glemham, with his officers and men, marched out of the city of York with their arms, and "with drums beating, colours flying, match lighted, bullet in mouth, bag and baggage," made for Skipton, where they arrived safely. The Battle of Marston Moor was a shock to the Royalist cause from which it never recovered.

From Marston Moor we continued along the valley of the River Ouse until we arrived at the city of York, which Cromwell entered a fortnight after the battle; but we did not meet with any resistance as we passed through one of its ancient gateways, or "bars." We were very much impressed with the immense size and grandeur of the great Minster, with its three towers rising over two hundred feet in height. We were too late to see the whole of the interior of this splendid old building, but gazed with a feeling of wonder and awe on one of the largest stained-glass windows in the world, about seventy feet high, and probably also the oldest, as it dated back about five hundred years. The different scenes depicted in the beautiful colours of the ancient glass panels represented every important Biblical event from the Creation downwards. We were surprised to find the window so perfect, as the stained-glass windows we had seen elsewhere had been badly damaged. But the verger explained that when the Minster was surrendered to the army of the Commonwealth in the Civil War, it was on condition that the interior should not be damaged nor any of the stained glass broken. We could not explore the city further that afternoon, as the weather again became very bad, so we retreated to our inn, and as our sorely-tried shoes required soling and heeling, we arranged with the "boots" of the inn to induce a shoemaker friend of his in the city to work at them during the night and return them thoroughly repaired to the hotel by six o'clock the following morning. During the interval we wrote our letters and read some history, but our room was soon invaded by customers of the inn, who were brought in one by one to see the strange characters who had walked all the way from John o' Groat's and were on their way to the Land's End, so much so that we began to wonder if it would end in our being exhibited in some show in the ancient market-place, which we had already seen and greatly admired, approached as it was then by so many narrow streets and avenues lined with overhanging houses of great antiquity. We were, however, very pleased with the interest shown both in ourselves and the object of our walk, and one elderly gentleman seemed inclined to claim some sort of relationship with us, on the strength of his having a daughter who was a schoolmistress at Rainford village, in Lancashire. He was quite a jovial old man, and typical of "a real old English gentleman, one of the olden time." He told us he was a Wesleyan local preacher, but had developed a weakness for "a pipe of tobacco and a good glass of ale." He said that when Dick Turpin rode from London to York, his famous horse, "Black Bess," fell down dead when within sight of the towers of the Minster, but the exact spot he had not been able to ascertain, as the towers could be seen from so long a distance. York, he said, was an older city than London, the See of York being even older than that of Canterbury, and a Lord Mayor existed at York long before there was one in London. He described the grand old Minster as one of the "Wonders of the World." He was very intelligent, and we enjoyed his company immensely.

York was the "Caer Ebranc" of the Brigantes, where Septimus Severus, the Roman Emperor, died in A.D. 211, and another Emperor, Constantius, in 306. The latter's son, who was born at York, was there proclaimed Emperor on the death of his father, to become better known afterwards as Constantine the Great. In A.D. 521 King Arthur was said to have spent Christmas at York in company with his courtiers and the famous Knights of the Round Table; but Geoffrey of Monmouth, who recorded this, was said to have a lively imagination in the way of dates and perhaps of persons as well. It is, however, certain that William the Conqueror built a castle there in 1068, and Robert de Clifford a large tower.

(Distance walked sixteen miles.)

Wednesday, October 25th.

The boots awoke us early in the morning, only to say that he had sent a messenger unsuccessfully into the town for our shoes; all the consolation he got was that as soon as they were finished, his friend the shoemaker would send them down to the hotel. It was quite an hour after the time specified when they arrived, but still early enough to admit of our walking before breakfast round the city walls, which we found did not encircle the town as completely as those of our county town of Chester. Where practicable we explored them, and saw many ancient buildings, including Clifford's Tower and the beautiful ruins of St. Mary's Abbey. We also paid a second visit to the ancient market-place, with its quaint and picturesque surroundings, before returning to our inn, where we did ample justice to the good breakfast awaiting our arrival.

We left the City of York by the same arched gateway through which we had entered on the previous day, and, after walking for about a mile on the Roman road leading to Tadcaster, the CALCARIA of the Romans and our next stage, we arrived at the racecourse, which now appeared on our left. Here we entered into conversation with one of the officials, who happened to be standing there, and he pointed out the place where in former years culprits were hanged. From what he told us we gathered that the people of York had a quick and simple way of disposing of their criminals, for when a man was sentenced to be hanged, he was taken to the prison, and after a short interval was placed in a cart, to which a horse was attached, and taken straightway to the gallows. Here a rope was suspended, with a noose, or running knot, at the end, which was placed round the culprit's neck, and after other preliminaries the hangman saw to it that the man's hands were securely handcuffed and the noose carefully adjusted. At a given signal from him the cart was drawn from under the man's feet, leaving him swinging and struggling for breath in the air, where he remained till life was extinct. The judge when passing the death-sentence always forewarned the prisoner what would happen to him, and that he would be taken from there to the prison, and thence to the place of execution, "where you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead." Why he repeated the last word over and over again we could not explain. It was spoken very solemnly, and after the first time he used it there was a pause, and after the second, a longer pause, and then came the third in an almost sepulchral tone of voice, while a death-like silence pervaded the court, each word sounding like an echo of the one before it: dead!--dead!!--dead!!! Perhaps, like the Trinity, it gave a sense of completion.

The executions in those days were public, and many people attended them as they would a fair or the races; and when held outside the towns, as at York, a riotous mob had it in its power either to lynch or rescue the prisoner. But hangings were afterwards arranged to take place on a scaffold outside the prison wall, to which the prisoner could walk from the inside of the prison. The only one we ever went to see was outside the county gaol, but the character of the crowd of sightseers convinced us we were in the wrong company, and we went away without seeing the culprit hanged! There must have been a great crowd of people on the York racecourse when Eugene Aram was hanged, for the groans and yells of execration filled his ears from the time he left the prison until he reached the gallows and the cart was drawn from under him, adding to the agony of the moment and the remorse he had felt ever since the foul crime for which he suffered. As we stood there we thought what an awful thing it must be to be hanged on the gallows.[Footnote: In later years we were quite horrified to receive a letter from a gentleman in Yorkshire who lived in the neighbouring of Knaresborough in which he wrote: "I always feel convinced in my own mind that Eugene Aram was innocent. Note these beautiful lines he wrote the night before his execution:

"Come, pleasing rest! eternal slumber fall, Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all; Calm and composed, my soul her journey takes, No guilt that troubles, and no heart that aches! Adieu, thou sun! all bright like her arise; Adieu, fair friends! and all that's good and wise.

"I could give you," he added, "the most recent thoughts and opinions about the tragedy, and they prove beyond doubt his innocence!"]

But, like other dismal thoughts, we got rid of it as soon as possible by thinking how thankful we should be that, instead of being hanged, we were walking through the level country towards Tadcaster, a Roman station in the time of Agricola.

From some cause or other we were not in our usual good spirits that day, which we accounted for by the depression arising from the dull autumnal weather and the awful histories of the wars he had been reading the previous night. But we afterwards attributed it to a presentiment of evil, for we were very unfortunate during the remainder of the week. Perhaps it is as well so; the human race would suffer much in anticipation, did not the Almighty hide futurity from His creatures.

Just before reaching Tadcaster we crossed the River Wharfe, which we had seen higher up the country, much nearer its source. Here we turned to the left to visit Pontefract, for the sole reason, for aught we knew, that we had heard that liquorice was manufactured there, an article that we had often swallowed in our early youth, without concerning ourselves where or how that mysterious product was made. It was quite a change to find ourselves walking through a level country and on a level road, and presently we crossed the River Cock, a small tributary of the Wharfe, close by the finely wooded park of Grimstone, where Grim the Viking, or Sea Pirate, settled in distant ages, and gave his name to the place; he was also known as "the man with the helmet." We then came to the small hamlet of Towton, where on the lonely heath was fought the Battle of Towton Field, one of the most bloody battles recorded in English history. This great and decisive battle was fought in the Wars of the Roses, between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster, for the possession of the English Crown--a rivalry which began in the reign of Henry VI and terminated with the death of Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. It has been computed that during the thirty years these wars lasted, 100,000 of the gentry and common people, 200 nobles, and 12 princes of the Royal Blood were killed, all this carnage taking place under the emblems of love and purity, for the emblem or badge of the House of Lancaster was the red rose, and that of York the white. The rivalry between the two Houses only came to an end when Henry VII, the Lancastrian, married the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV, the Yorkist. The Battle of Towton, like many others both before and since, was fought on a Sunday, which happened to be Palm Sunday in the year 1461, and the historian relates that on that day the "heavens were overcast, and a strong March wind brought with it a blinding snowstorm, right against the faces of the Lancastrians as they advanced to meet the Yorkists, who quickly took advantage of the storm to send many furious showers of arrows from their strong bows right into the faces of the Lancastrians, causing fearful havoc amongst them at the very outset of the battle. These arrows came as it were from an unknown foe, and when the Lancastrians shot their arrows away, they could not see that they were falling short of the enemy, who kept advancing and retreating, and who actually shot at the Lancastrians with their own arrows, which had fallen harmlessly on the ground in front of the Yorkists. When the Lancastrians had nearly emptied their quivers, their leaders hurried their men forward to fight the enemy, and, discarding their bows, they continued the battle with sword, pike, battle-axe, and bill. Thus for nearly the whole of that Sabbath day the battle raged, the huge struggling mass of humanity fighting like demons, and many times during that fatal day did the fortune of war waver in the balance: sometimes the White Rose trembling and then the Red, while men fought each other as if they were contending for the Gate of Paradise! For ten hours, with uncertain result, the conflict raged, which Shakespeare compared to "the tide of a mighty sea contending with a strong opposing wind," but the arrival of 5,000 fresh men on the side of the Yorkists turned the scale against the Lancastrians, who began to retreat, slowly at first, but afterwards in a disorderly flight. The Lancastrians had never anticipated a retreat, and had not provided for it, for they felt as sure of victory as the great Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, who, when he was asked by a military expert what provision he had made for retreat in the event of losing the battle, simply answered, "None!" The Lancastrians were obliged to cross the small River Cock in their retreat, and it seemed almost impossible to us that a small stream like that could have been the cause of the loss of thousands upon thousands of the finest and bravest soldiers in England. But so it happened. There was only one small bridge over the stream, which was swollen and ran swiftly in flood. This bridge was soon broken down with the rush of men and horses trying to cross it, and although an active man to-day could easily jump over the stream, it was a death-trap for men weighted with heavy armour and wearied with exertion, the land for a considerable distance on each side the river being very boggy. As those in front sank in the bog, those from behind walked over them, and as row after row disappeared, their bodies formed the road for others to walk over. The carnage was terrible, for King Edward had ordered that no quarter must be given and no prisoners taken. It was estimated that 28,000 of the Lancastrians were slaughtered in this battle and in the pursuit which followed, and that 37,776 men in all were killed on that dreadful day.

In some parts of Yorkshire the wild roses were very beautiful, ranging in colour from pure white to the deepest red, almost every shade being represented; the variation in colour was attributed to the difference in the soil or strata in which they grew. But over this battle-field and the enormous pits in which the dead were buried there grew after the battle a dwarf variety of wild rose which it was said would not grow elsewhere, and which the country people thought emblematical of the warriors who had fallen there, as the white petals were slightly tinged with red, while the older leaves of the bushes were of a dull bloody hue; but pilgrims carried many of the plants away before our time, and the cultivation of the heath had destroyed most of the remainder. In the great Battle of Towton Field many noblemen had perished, but they appeared to have been buried with the rank and file in the big pits dug out for the burial of the dead, as only a very few could be traced in the local churchyards. The Earl of Westmorland, however, had been buried in Saxton church and Lord Dacres in Saxton churchyard, where his remains rested under a great stone slab, 7 feet long, 4-1/2 feet wide, and 7 inches thick, the Latin inscription on which, in old English characters, was rapidly fading away:

HIC JACET RANULPHUS D.S. DE DAKREET--MILES ET OCCISUS ERAT IN BELLO PRINCIPE HENRICO VIe ANNO DOM 1461.--29 DIE MARTII VIDELICET DOMICA DIE PALMARUM--CUJUS ANIME PROPITIETUR DEUS.--AMEN.

The local poet, in giving an account of the battle, has written:--

The Lord Dacres Was slain at Nor acres,

for his lordship had been killed in a field known as the North Acres. He had removed his gorget, a piece of armour which protected the throat, for the purpose, it was supposed, of getting a drink to quench his thirst, when he was struck in the throat by a bolt, or headless arrow, shot from a cross-bow by a boy who was hiding in a bur-tree or elder bush. The boy-archer must have been a good shot to hit a warrior clothed from head to foot in armour in the only vulnerable point exposed, but in those days boys were trained to shoot with bows and arrows from the early age of six years, their weapons, being increased in size and strength as they grew older; their education was not considered complete until they could use that terrible weapon known as the English long-bow, and hit the smallest object with their arrows. Lord Dacres was buried in an upright position, and his horse was buried with him; for many years the horse's jaw-bone and teeth were preserved at the vicarage, One of his lordship's ancestors, who died fighting on Flodden Field, had been buried in a fine tomb in Lanercrost Abbey.

Lord Clifford was another brave but cruel warrior who was killed in a similar way. He had removed his helmet from some unexplained cause--possibly to relieve the pressure on his head--when a random arrow pierced his throat; but his death was to many a cause of rejoicing, for owing to his cruel deeds at the Battle of Wakenfield, he had earned the sobriquet of "the Butcher." While that battle was raging, the Duke of York's son, the Earl of Rutland, a youth only seventeen years of age, described as "a fair gentleman and maiden-like person," was brought by his tutor, a priest, from the battle-field to shelter in the town. Here he was perceived by Clifford, who asked who he was. The boy, too much afraid to speak, fell on his knees imploring for mercy, "both by holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone from fear." "Save him," said the tutor, "for he is a prince's son and, peradventure, might do you good hereafter." With that word Clifford marked him, and said, "By God's blood thy father slew mine, and so will I thee, and all thy kin," and, saying this, he struck the Earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade the tutor bear word to his mother and brothers what he had said and done. Not content with this, when he came to the body of the Duke, the child's father, he caused the head to be cut off and a paper crown to be placed on it; then, fixing it on a pole, he presented it to the Queen, saying, "Madame, your war is done--here is your King's ransom." The head was placed over the gates of York by the side of that of the Earl of Salisbury, whom Queen Margaret had ordered to be beheaded.

For some little time we had been walking through what was known as the "Kingdom of Elmet," but whether this was associated with the helmet of Grim we were unable to ascertain, though we shrewdly suspected it was an old Celtic word. We arrived at the village of Sherburn-in-Elmet, an important place in ancient times, where once stood the palace of Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, the first ruler of all England, who was crowned King of England in the year 925. In celebration of his great victory over the combined army of the Danes and Scots at Brunnanburgh, King Athelstan presented his palace here, along with other portions of the Kingdom of Elmet, to the See of York, and it remained the Archbishop of York's Palace for over three hundred years. But when the See of York was removed to Cawick, a more convenient centre, the Sherburn Palace was pulled down, and at the time of our visit only the site and a portion of the moat remained. We were much interested in the church, as the historian related that "within the walls now existing the voices of the last Saxon archbishop and the first Norman archbishop have sounded, and in the old church of Sherburn has been witnessed the consummation of the highest ambition of chivalric enterprise, and all the pomp attending the great victory of Athelstan at Brunnanburgh."

Here in the time of Edward II, in 1321, "a secret conclave was held, attended by the Archbishop, the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle, and Abbots from far and near, the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, and many Barons, Baronets, and Knights. To this assembly Sir John de Bek, a belted Knight, read out the Articles which Lancaster and his adherents intended to insist upon." But what interested us most in the church was the "Janus Cross" The Romans dedicated the month of January to Janus, who was always pictured with two faces, as January could look back to the past year and forwards towards the present. The Janus Cross here had a curious history; it had been found in the ruins of an ancient chapel in the churchyard dedicated to the "Honour of St. Mary and the Holy Angels." One of the two churchwardens thought it would do to adorn the walls of his residence, but another parishioner thought it would do to adorn his own, and the dispute was settled by some local Solomon, who suggested that they should cut it in two and each take one half. So it was sawn vertically in two parts, one half being awarded to each. In course of time the parts were again united and restored to the church.

Arriving at Ferry Bridge, we crossed the River Aire, which we had seen at its source, but which here claimed to have become one of the most useful rivers in Yorkshire, for its waters were valuable for navigation and for the manufacturing towns near which they passed.

My foot, which had pained me ever since leaving York, so that I had been limping for some time, now became so painful that I could scarcely walk at all. Still, we were obliged to reach Pontefract in order to procure lodgings for the night, so my brother relieved me of all my luggage excepting the stick, in order that I might hobble along to that town. It was with great difficulty that I climbed up the hill to the inn, which was in the upper part of the town, and there I was painfully relieved by the removal of my boot, and found that my ankle was seriously swollen and inflamed. It might, of course, have arisen through over-exertion, but we came to the conclusion that it was caused through the repair of my boots at York. Before arriving there the heels were badly worn down at one side, and as I had been practically walking on the sides of my feet, the sudden reversion to the flat or natural position had brought on the disaster that very nearly prevented us from continuing our walk. We applied all the remedies that both our hostess and ourselves could think of, but our slumbers that night were much disturbed, and not nearly so continuous as usual.

(Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles.)

Thursday, October 26th.

The great object of interest at Pontefract was the castle, the ruins of which were very extensive. Standing on the only hill we encountered in our walk of the previous day, it was formerly one of the largest and strongest castles in England, and had been associated with many stirring historical events. It was here that King Richard II was murdered in the year 1399, and the remains of the dismal chamber where this tragedy took place still existed. During the Wars of the Roses, when in 1461 Queen Margaret appeared in the north of Yorkshire with an army of 60,000 men, the newly appointed King, Edward IV, sent the first portion of his army to meet her in charge of his most influential supporter, the Earl of Warwick, the "King Maker." The King followed him to Pontefract with the remainder of his army, and the old castle must have witnessed a wonderful sight when that army, to the number of 40,660 men, was marshalled in the plains below.

But it was in the Civil War that this castle attained its greatest recorded notoriety, for it was besieged three times by the forces of the Parliament. Sir Thomas Fairfax was in charge of the first siege, and took possession of the town in 1644, driving the garrison into the castle. He had a narrow escape from death on that occasion, as a cannon-ball passed between him and Colonel Forbes so close that the wind caused by its passage knocked both of them down to the ground, Forbes losing the sight of one of his eyes. The castle was strongly defended, but just as one of the towers collapsed, a shot from the castle struck a match, and the spark, falling into Fairfax's powder stores, caused a tremendous explosion which killed twenty-seven of his men. In January 1645 Forbes sent a drum to the castle to beat a parley, but the Governor, Colonel Lowther, and his brave garrison said they would go on with the defence to the last extremity. The besiegers then began to lay mines, but these were met by counter-mines driven by the garrison, who now began to suffer from want of food. At this critical moment a Royalist force of 2,000 horse arrived under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who had made a forced march from Oxford to relieve the garrison. He drove off the besiegers, first to Ferry Bridge, and afterwards to Sherburn and Tadcaster, inflicting severe loss, and so the garrison was revictualled. The Parliamentary forces, however, soon made their appearance again, and on March 21st, 1645, the second siege began. They again took possession of the town, and after four months of incessant cannonading the garrison capitulated and the castle was garrisoned by the other side.

The war continued in other parts of the country, and towards the end of it a conspiracy was formed by the Royalists to recover possession of the castle, which through the treachery of a Colonel Maurice was successful. Many of the garrison at that time lived outside the walls of the castle, and Maurice persuaded the Governor, Cotterel, to order them to move their homes inside, to which he assented, issuing an order in the country for beds to be provided on a certain day. Taking advantage of this, Maurice and another conspirator dressed themselves as country gentlemen, with swords by their sides, and with nine others, disguised as constables, made their appearance at the castle entrance early in the morning, so as to appear like a convoy guarding the safe passage of the goods. The Governor, who kept the keys, was still in bed, and the soldier on guard at the inside of the gates, who was in league with Maurice, went to inform him the beds had arrived. He handed over the keys, and, not suspecting treachery, remained in bed with his sword at his side as usual. The remainder of the conspirators then drew their swords, and the garrison, on condition that their lives should be spared, surrendered, and were put into one of the prison dungeons. The conspirators then went to the room of the Governor, who, hearing a noise, jumped out of bed and defended himself, but was soon wounded, disarmed, and placed in the dungeon along with the rest, while the Royalists took possession of the castle. This happened in June 1648.

The dungeons in the castle, which were still to be seen, were of the most awful description, for, sunk deep down into the solid rock, it was scarcely necessary to write over them--

Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here.

There was one dungeon under the Round Tower, which was reached by passing down some winding steps, into which no ray of light ever entered, as dark and dismal a place as could be imagined. Here Earl Rivers and his fellow peers were incarcerated, praying for their execution to end their misery. There was also a cellar for the storage of food and drink, sunk some forty or fifty feet in the solid rock, and capable of holding two or three hundred men, and this too was used as a dungeon by the Royalists. Here the prisoners taken by the Royalist army were confined, and many of their names appeared cut in the walls of solid rock. The history of these places, if it could be written, would form a chapter of horrors of the most dreadful character, as in olden times prisoners were often forgotten by their captors, and left in the dungeons to perish.

It was not without a tinge of satisfaction that we heard that the Earl of Lancaster, to whom the castle belonged, was himself placed in one of these dungeons after the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, and after being imprisoned there a short time, where he had so often imprisoned others, was led out to execution.

The third siege of Pontefract Castle happened in the autumn of 1648, for after the Parliamentarians had gained the upper hand, the castles that still held out against them were besieged and taken, but the turn of Pontefract Castle came last of all. Oliver Cromwell himself undertook to superintend the operations, and General Lambert, one of the ablest of Cromwell's generals, born at Kirkby Malham, a Yorkshire village through which we had passed some days before, was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the forces. He arrived before the castle on December 4th, 1648, but such was the strength of the position that though he had a large number of soldiers and a great service of artillery, it was not until March 25th, 1649, when scarcely one hundred men were left to defend the walls, that the garrison capitulated. Meantime the tremendous effect of the artillery brought to bear against them had shattered the walls, and finally Parliament ordered the castle to be dismantled. With the surrender of this castle the Civil War came to an end, but not before King Charles I had been beheaded.

Last year, before we began our walk from London to Lancashire, we visited Whitehall and saw the window in the Banqueting-hall through which, on January 30th, 1649, about two months before Pontefract Castle surrendered, he passed on his way to the scaffold outside.

In its prime Pontefract Castle was an immense and magnificent fortification, and from its ruins we had a fine view on all sides of the country it had dominated for about six hundred years.

We were now journeying towards the more populous parts of the country, and the greater the mileage of our walk, the greater became the interest taken both in us and our adventures. Several persons interviewed us in our hotel at Pontefract, and much sympathy was extended towards myself, as my foot was still very painful in spite of the remedies which had been applied to it; but we decided not to give in, my brother kindly consenting to carry all the luggage, for we were very anxious not to jeopardise our twenty-five miles' daily average beyond recovery. My boot was eased and thoroughly oiled; if liquorice could have done it any good, we could have applied it in addition to the other remedies, as we had bought some both for our own use and for our friends to eat when we reached home. All we had learned about it was that it was made from the root of a plant containing a sweet juice, and that the Greek name of it was glykyr-rhiza, from glykys, sweet, and rhiza, root. After making a note of this formidable word, I did not expect my brother to eat any more liquorice; but his special aversion was not Greek, but Latin, as he said both his mind and body had been associated with that language through the medium of the cane of his schoolmaster, who believed in the famous couplet:

'Tis Education forms the common mind. And with the cane we drive it in behind!

He was always suspicious of the Latin words attached to plants, and especially when quoted by gardeners, which I attributed to jealousy of their superior knowledge of that language; but it appeared that it was founded on incidents that occurred many years ago.

He was acquainted with two young gardeners who were learning their business by working under the head gardener at a hall in Cheshire, the owner of which was proud of his greenhouses and hothouses as well as of the grounds outside. As a matter of course everything appeared up to date, and his establishment became one of the show-places in the neighbourhood. The gardener, an elderly man, was quite a character. He was an Irishman and an Orangeman as well, and had naturally what was known in those parts as "the gift of the gab." The squire's wife was also proud of her plants, and amongst the visitors to the gardens were many ladies, who often asked the gardener the name of a plant that was strange to them. As no doubt he considered it infra dig. to say he did not know, and being an Irishman, he was never at a loss when asked, "What do you call this plant?" he would reply, "Oh, that, mum, is the Hibertia Canadensus, mum!" and a further inquiry would be answered in a similar manner--"That, mum, is the Catanansus Rulia, mum!" and again the lady would thank him and walk on apparently quite pleased and happy, probably forgetting the name of the plant before she had gone through the gardens. The young men were often at work in the houses while the visitors were going through, and of course they were too deeply engaged in their work either to see the visitors or to hear all the conversation that was going on, but they told my brother that they could always tell when the gardener did not know the real name of a plant by his invariably using these two names on such occasions, regardless of the family or species of the plant in question.

Pomfret was the local abbreviation of Pontefract, the name of the town, and "Pomfret Liquorice" claimed not only to be a sweetmeat, but a throat remedy as well, and was considered beneficial to the consumer. The sample we purchased was the only sweet we had on our journey, for in those days men and women did not eat sweets so much as in later times, they being considered the special delicacies of the children. The sight of a man or woman eating a sweet would have caused roars of ridicule. Nor were there any shops devoted solely to the sale of sweets in the country; they were sold by grocers to the children, though in nothing like the variety and quantity that appeared in later years. The most common sweet in those days was known as "treacle toffy," which was sold in long sticks wrapped from end to end in white paper, to protect the children's fingers when eating it, in spite of which it was no unusual sight to see both hands and faces covered with treacle marks, and thus arose the name of "treacle chops," as applied to boys whose cheeks were smeared with treacle. There was also toffy that was sold by weight, of which Everton toffee was the chief favourite. My brother could remember a little visitor, a cousin of ours, who could not speak very plainly, and who always called a cup a "tup," being sent to the village shop for a pound of coffee, and his delight when he returned laden with a pound of toffy, which was of course well-nigh devoured before the mistake was found out!

By this day we were ready for anything except walking as we crawled out of the town to find our way to Doncaster, and our speed, as might be imagined, was not excessive; for, including stoppages, which were necessarily numerous, we only averaged one mile per hour! There was a great bazaar being held in Pontefract that day, to be opened by Lord Houghton, and we met several carriages on their way to it. After we had walked some distance, we were told--for we stopped to talk to nearly every one we met--that we were now passing through Barnsdale Forest. We could not see many trees, even though this was formerly the abode of Robin Hood and Little John, as well as Will Scarlett.

It was in this forest that Robin, hearing of the approach of the Bishop of Hereford, ordered his men to kill a good fat deer, and to make a repast of it by the side of the highway on which the Bishop was travelling. Robin dressed himself and six of his men in the garb of shepherds, and they took their stand by the fire at which the venison was being roasted. When the Bishop came up, with his retinue, he asked the men why they had killed the King's deer, and said he should let the King know about it, and would take them with him to see the King.

"Oh pardon, oh pardon," said bold Robin Hood, "Oh pardon, I thee pray. For it becomes not your Lordship's coat To take so many lives away."

"No pardon, no pardon," said the Bishop, "No pardon I thee owe; Therefore make haste and come along with me, For before the King ye shall go."

Then Robin pulled his bugle horn from beneath his coat and blew a long blast, and threescore and ten of his followers quickly appeared--

All making obeysance to Robin Hood, 'Twas a comely sight to see; "What is the matter, master?" said Little John, "That you blow so heartily?"

Robin replied that the Bishop of Hereford refused all pardon for slaying the deer, and had said they must at once accompany him to the King. Little John then suggested that they should cut off the Bishop's head and throw him in a grave; but the Bishop craved pardon of the outlaw for his interference, and declared that had he known who was on the road, "he would have gone some other way."

"No pardon, no pardon," said bold Robin Hood, "No pardon I thee owe; Therefore make haste and come along with me, For to merry Barnsdale you shall go."

So thither they led the Bishop, and made him sup with them right merrily and royally.

"Call in a reckoning," said the Bishop, "For methinks it grows wondrous high;" "Lend me your purse, master," said Little John, "And I'll tell you by and bye!"

Little John took the Bishop's cloak And spread it upon the ground. And out of the Bishop's portmanteau He told three hundred pound.

"Here's money enough, master," said Little John, "And a comely sight to see; It makes me in charity with the Bishop, Though he heartily loveth not me."

Robin took the Bishop by the hand, And he caused the music to play; And he made the Bishop to dance in his boots. And glad he could get away!

We heard all sorts of stories from the roadmen, some of which might not be true; but in any case about seven miles from Doncaster we reached Robin Hood's Well, at the side of the road. It was quite a substantial structure, built of soft limestone, and arched over, with a seat inside--on which doubtless many a weary wayfarer had rested before us. The interior was nearly covered with inscriptions, one dated 1720 and some farther back than that. We had a drink of water from the well, but afterwards, when sitting on the seat, saw at the bottom of the well a great black toad, which we had not noticed when drinking the water. The sight of it gave us a slight attack of the horrors, for we had a particular dread of toads. We saw at the side of the road a large house which was formerly an inn rejoicing in the sign of "Robin Hood and Little John," one of the oldest inns between York and London. We called at a cottage for tea, and here we heard for the first time of the Yorkshireman's coat-of-arms, which the lady of the house told us every Yorkshireman was entitled to place on his carriage free of tax! It consisted of a flea, and a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie, which we thought was a curious combination. The meaning, however, was forthcoming, and we give the following interpretation as given to us:

A flea will bite! and so will a Yorkshireman; A fly will drink out of anybody's cup! and so will a Yorkshireman; A magpie will chatter! and so will a Yorkshireman: And a flitch of bacon looks best when it's hung! and so does a Yorkshireman.

We fancied a Lancashire man must have written that ditty.

The moon was shining brightly as we left the cottage, and a man we met, when he saw me limping so badly, stopped us to inquire what was the matter. He was returning from Doncaster, and cheered us up by pointing to the moon, saying we should have the "parish lantern" to light us on our way. This appeared to remind him of his parish church, where a harvest thanksgiving had just been held, with a collection on behalf of the hospital and infirmary. He and seven of his fellow servants had given a shilling each, but, although there were "a lot of gentry" at the service, the total amount of the collection was only one pound odd. The minister had told them he could scarcely for shame carry it in, as it was miserably small for an opulent parish like that!

We arrived at Doncaster at 8.30 p.m., and stayed at the temperance hotel in West Laith Street. The landlord seemed rather reluctant about letting us in, but he told us afterwards he thought we were "racing characters," which greatly amused us since we had never attended a race-meeting in our lives!

(Distance walked fourteen miles.)

Friday, October 27th.

Our host at Doncaster took a great interest in us, and, in spite of my sprained ankle, we had a good laugh at breakfast-time at his mistaking us for "racing characters." My brother related to him his experiences on the only two occasions he ever rode on the back of a horse unassisted. The first of these was when, as quite a young boy, he went to visit his uncle who resided near Preston in Lancashire, and who thought it a favourable opportunity to teach him to ride. He was therefore placed on the back of a quiet horse, a groom riding behind him on another horse, with orders not to go beyond a walking pace; but when they came near the barracks, and were riding on the grass at the side of the road, a detachment of soldiers came marching out through the entrance, headed by their military band, which struck up a quickstep just before meeting the horses. My brother's horse suddenly reared up on its hind legs, and threw him off its back on to the grass below, or, as he explained it, while the horse reared up he reared down! He was more frightened than hurt, but the groom could not persuade him to ride on the horse's back any farther, so he had to lead the horses home again, a distance of two miles, while my brother walked on the footpath.

It was years before he attempted to ride on horseback again, but this time he was mounted upon an old horse white with age, and very quiet, which preferred walking to running; this second attempt also ended disastrously. It was a very hot day, and he had ridden some miles into the country when he came to a large pit, on the opposite side of the road to a farmhouse, when, without any warning, and almost before my brother realised what was happening, the horse walked straight into this pit, and, in bending its head to drink at the water, snatched the bridle out of his hands. He had narrowly escaped drowning on several occasions, and was terrified at the thought of falling into the water, so, clutching hold of the horse's mane with both hands, he yelled out with all his might for help--which only served to make the horse move into a deeper part of the pit, as if to have a bathe as well as a drink. His cries attracted the attention of some Irish labourers who were at work in a field, and they ran to his assistance. One of them plunged into the water, which reached half way up his body, and, taking hold of my brother, carried him to the road and then returned for the horse. He was rewarded handsomely for his services, for my brother verily believed he had saved him from being drowned. He was much more afraid of the water than of the horse, which was, perhaps, the reason why he had never learned to swim, but he never attempted to ride on horseback again. On the wall in front of the farmhouse an old-fashioned sundial was extended, on the face of which were the words:

Time that is past will never return,

and on the opposite corner were the Latin words Tempus fugit (Time flies). My brother seemed to have been greatly impressed by these proverbs, and thought of them as he led the white horse on his three-mile walk towards home; they seemed engraven upon his memory, for he often quoted them on our journey.

My ankle seemed to be a shade easier, and, after the usual remedies had again been applied, we started on another miserable walk, or limp, for we only walked twelve miles in twelve hours, following the advice of our host to take it easy, and give the ankle time to recover. We rested many times on the road, stopped to talk to many people, got to know all about the country we were passing through, read papers and books, called for refreshments oftener than we needed them, wrote letters to our friends, and made copious entries in our diaries---in fact did everything except walk. The country was very populous, and we attracted almost universal sympathy: myself for my misfortune, and my brother for having to carry all the luggage.

Doncaster takes its name from the River Don, on which it is situated, and it was the only town in England, after London and York, that possessed a "Mansion House." We had walked for five days over the broad acres of Yorkshire and had seen many fine horses, for horse-breeding, we found, was a leading feature in that big county, and horses a frequent subject of conversation. Doncaster was no exception to the rule, as the Doncaster Races were famous all over England, and perhaps in other countries beyond the seas. We were too late in the year for the great St. Leger race, which was held in the month of September, and was always patronised by Royalty. On that occasion almost every mansion in the county was filled with visitors "invited down" for the races, and there was no doubt that agricultural Yorkshire owed much of its prosperity to the breeding of its fine horses. The racecourse was situated on a moor a little way out of the town, the property of the Corporation, and it was said that the profit made by the races was so great that the Doncaster people paid no rates. This might of course be an exaggeration, but there could be no doubt that the profit made by the Corporation out of the moor on which the races were held would largely reduce the rates of the town.

Doncaster races owed their origin to a famous Arab horse named Rasel-Fedawi (or the "Headstrong"), which was purchased from the Anazeh tribe of Arabs by a Mr. Darley, an Englishman who at that time resided at Aleppo, a Turkish trading centre in Northern Syria. This gentleman sent the horse to his brother at Aldby Park in Yorkshire, and what are now known as "thoroughbreds" have descended from him. His immediate descendants have been credited with some wonderful performances, and the "Flying Childers," a chestnut horse with a white nose and four white legs, bred from a mare born in 1715, named "Betty Leedes," and owned by Leonard Childers of Doncaster, was never beaten. All sorts of tales were told of his wonderful performances: he was said to have covered 25 feet at each bound, and to have run the round course at Newmarket, 3 miles 6 furlongs, in six minutes and forty seconds. After him came another famous horse named "Eclipse" which could, it was said, run a mile a minute. When he died in 1789 his heart was found to weigh 14 pounds, which accounted for his wonderful speed and courage. Admiral Rous records that in the year 1700 the English racehorse was fifteen hands high, but after the Darley Arabian, the average height rose to over sixteen hands. It was said that there were races at Doncaster in the seventeenth century, but the great St. Leger was founded by General St. Leger in 1778, and the grand stand was built in the following year. The Yorkshire gentlemen and farmers were naturally all sportsmen, and were credited with keeping "both good stables and good tables." The invitation to "have a bite and a sup" was proverbial, especially in the wold or moorland districts, where hospitality was said to be unbounded.

A learned man wrote on one occasion that "an honest walk is better than a skilled physician. It stimulates heart, brain, and muscles alike, sweeping cobwebs from the mind and heaviness from the heart." But this was probably not intended to apply to a man with a sore foot, and it was difficult to understand why the ankle failure had come so suddenly. We could only attribute it to some defect in the mending of the boot at York, but then came the mystery why the other ankle had not been similarly affected. The day was beautifully fine, but the surroundings became more smoky as we were passing through a mining and manufacturing district, and it was very provoking that we could not walk through it quickly. However, we had to make the best of it, imagining we were treading where the saints had trod, or at any rate the Romans, for this was one of their roads to the city of York upon which their legions must have marched; but while we crossed the rivers over bridges, the Romans crossed them by paved fords laid in the bed of the streams, traces of which were still to be seen.

We made a long stay at Comsborough, and saw the scanty remains of the castle, to which Oliver Cromwell had paid special attention, as, in the words of the historian, "he blew the top off," which had never been replaced. And yet it had a very long history, for at the beginning of the fourth century it was the Burgh of Conan, Earl of Kent, who with Maximian made an expedition to Armorica (now Brittany), where he was eventually made king, which caused him to forsake his old Burgh in England. Maximian was a nephew of King Coel, or Cole, the hero of the nursery rhyme, of which there are many versions:

Old King Cole was a jolly old soul, And a jolly old soul was he; He called for his ale, and he called for his beer, And he called for his fiddle-diddle-dee.

But he seemed to have been a jolly old sinner as well, for he formed the brilliant idea of supplying his soldiers with British wives, and arranged with his father-in-law, the Duke of Cornwall, to send him several shiploads from the "old country," for British women were famous for their beauty. His request was complied with, but a great storm came on, and some of the ships foundered, while others were blown out of their course, as far as Germany, where the women landed amongst savages, and many of them committed suicide rather than pass into slavery. Who has not heard of St. Ursula and her thousand British virgins, whose bones were said to be enshrined at Cologne Cathedral, until a prying medico reported that many of them were only dogs' bones--for which heresy he was expelled the city as a dangerous malignant.

Troublesome times afterwards arose in England, and on the Yorkshire side, Briton and Saxon, and Pict and Scot, were mixed up in endless fights and struggles for existence. It was about this period that Vortigern, the British King, invited Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon Princes, to lend their assistance against the Picts and the Scots, which they did for a time; and when Hengist asked for a residence in his country, the King gave him Conan's Burgh, which was then vacant. Conan was never again seen in England, but in 489 his great-grandson Aurelius Ambrosius became King of the Britons. In the meantime the Saxons had so increased in numbers that they determined to fight for the possession of the country, and, headed by Hengist, who had turned traitor, fought a great battle, in the course of which Eldol, Duke of Gloucester, encountered Hengist in single combat, and, seizing him by the helmet, dragged him into the British ranks shouting that God had given his side the victory. The Saxons were dismayed, and fled in all directions, and Hengist was imprisoned in his own fortress of Conisborough, where a council of war was held to decide what should be his fate. Some were against his being executed, but Eldol's brother Eldad, Bishop of Gloucester, "a man of great wisdom and piety," compared him to King Agag, whom the prophet "hewed to pieces," and so Hengist was led through the postern gate of the castle to a neighbouring hill, and beheaded. Here Aurelius commanded him to be buried and a heap of earth to be raised over him, because "he was so good a knight." A lady generally appeared in these old histories as the cause of the mischief, and it was said that one reason why King Vortigern was so friendly with Hengist was that Hengist had a very pretty daughter named Rowena, whom the King greatly admired: a road in Conisborough still bears her name.

Aurelius then went to Wales, but found that Vortigern had shut himself up in a castle into which Aurelius was unable to force an entrance, so he burnt the castle and the King together; and in a wild place on the rocky coast of Carnarvonshire, Vortigern's Valley can still be seen. Sir Walter Scott, who was an adept in selecting old ruins for the materials of his novels, has immortalised Conisborough in his novel of Ivanhoe as the residence, about the year 1198, of the noble Athelstane or Athelstone, who frightened his servants out of their wits by demanding his supper when he was supposed to be dead.

Yorkshire feasts were famous, and corresponded to the "wakes" in Lancashire and Cheshire. There was a record of a feast at Conisborough on the "Morrow of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross," September 15th, 1320, in the "14th year of King Edward, son of King Edward," which was carried out by Sir Ralph de Beeston, one of our Cheshire knights, and Sir Simon de Baldiston (Stewards of the Earl of Lancaster), to which the following verse applied:

They ate as though for many a day They had not ate before. And eke as though they all should fear That they should eat no more. And when the decks were fairly cleared And not a remnant nigh, They drank as if their mighty thirst Would drain the ocean dry.

A curious old legend was attached to the town well in Wellgate, which formerly supplied most of the inhabitants of Conisborough with water; for once upon a time, when the town was suffering from a great drought, and the people feared a water famine, they consulted an old man known by the name of St. Francis, who was very wise and very holy. He told the people to follow him singing psalms and hymns to the Willow Vale, on the Low Road. There he cut a wand from a willow tree, and stuck it into the ground, and forthwith a copious supply of water appeared which had flowed steadily ever since. The wand had been so firmly and deeply stuck into the ground by St. Francis that it took root and grew into a large tree.

In 1863 there was a great flood in Sheffield, which did a lot of damage, and amongst the debris that floated down the river was noticed a cradle containing a little baby. It was rescued with some difficulty, and was still alive when we passed through the town, being then eight years old.

After leaving Conisborough we lost sight of the River Don, which runs through Mexborough; but we came in touch with it again where it was joined by the River Rother, at Rotherham. Here we crossed over it by the bridge, in the centre of which stood the decayed Chapel of our Lady. On our way we had passed to our right Sprotborough, where in 664 King Wulfhere when out hunting came to a cave at the side of the river where a hermit named St. Ceadde or St. Chad dwelt, the country at that time being "among sheep and distant mountains which looked more like lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts than dwellings of men." There were many objects of interest on each side of our road, including, a few miles to the left, Roche Abbey, the seat of the Earl of Scarborough, and to the right Wentworth House, one of the largest private houses in England, and the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, the owner of the far-famed Wharncliffe Crags, which are skirted by the waters of the River Don.

It was in Wharncliffe Forest that Friar Tuck, the jolly chaplain of Robin Hood, had his abode; and below the crags, in the bed of the River Don, there was a rock that appeared to be worn by the friction of some cylindrical body coiled about it. This was supposed to be the famous Dragon of Wantley, an old name for Wharncliffe. It was here that the monster was attacked and slain by Guy, the famous Earl of Warwick. Near the top of the crag, which was formerly a hunting-seat, stood a lodge where an inscription on a stone in the floor of the back kitchen stated that "Geoffrey de Wortley, Knight of the body to the Kings Richard III, Henry VII, and Henry VIII, built this Lodge for his pleasure, so that he might hear the red deer bray." In the lodge too was a most ponderous boot said to have been worn by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Marston Moor. We stayed at Rotherham for the night.

(Distance walked twelve miles.)

Saturday, October 28th.

The inn where we stayed the night had not been very satisfactory, as, although the cooking was good, the upper apartments were below the average. We took to the road again as early as possible, especially as a decided improvement showed itself in the condition of my swollen foot, and we were able to make a little better progress. For some days we had been walking through a comparatively level country, but from the appearance of the hills to our right as well as before us, we anticipated a stiff climb. It was not until we approached Sheffield that the tug of war began, and, strange to say, I found it easier to walk uphill than on a level surface. Meantime we continued through a level and busy country, and were in no danger of losing our way, for there were many people to inquire of in case of necessity. At one time it had been a wild and lonely place, known as Attercliffe Common, and we were told that Dick Turpin had been gibbeted there. We had often heard of Turpin, and knew that he was hanged, but did not remember where, so we were anxious to see the exact spot where that famous "knight of the road" ended his existence. We made inquiries from quite a number of people, but could get no satisfactory information, until we met with an elderly gentleman, who informed us that it was not Dick Turpin who was gibbeted there, but a "gentleman" in the same profession, whose name was Spence Broughton, the only trace of him now being a lane that bore his name. As far as he knew, Dick Turpin had never been nearer Sheffield than Maltby, a village five miles away, and that was on his ride from London to York. He was hanged at Tyburn.

The hills we could see were those of the Pennine range, with which we must have formed acquaintance unconsciously when farther north, as although the high hills in the Lake District, through which we had passed, were not included in the range, some of the others must have been, since the Pennines were bounded on one side by Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, and on the other by Northumberland, Durham, and Yorkshire, attaining an elevation of 3,000 feet in the north and 2,000 feet in the south. The Pennines here were described to us as the "backbone of England," for they were looked upon as being in the centre, equidistant from the east and west coasts, and hereabouts thirty miles in breadth. The district verging upon Sheffield was well known to the Romans as producing the best iron in the world, the ore or iron-stones being obtained in their time by digging up the earth, which was left in great heaps after the iron-stones had been thrown out; many of these excavations were still to be seen. In manufacturing the iron they took advantage of the great forests around them to provide the fuel for smelting the ore, for it was a great convenience to have the two elements so near at hand, as it saved carriage from one to the other. Forests still existed thereabouts in the time of Robin Hood, and were well known to him and his band of "merrie men," while his jovial chaplain, Friar Tuck, had his hermitage amongst their deep recesses. Many woods round Sheffield still remained in the time of Mary Queen of Scots, who passed some portion of her imprisonment at the old Manor House, which was then a castellated mansion. Visitors were now conducted up a narrow flight of stairs to a flat roof covered with lead, from which that unfortunate Queen had looked out over the hills and forests, and breathed the pure air as it passed over them. But now all appeared to be fire and smoke, and the great works which belched them forth seemed a strange and marvellous sight to us after walking so long through such lonely districts.

Sheffield has a world-wide reputation for its cutlery and for its other productions in brass, iron, and steel, for the manufacture of which pure water of a particular variety was essential. The town was well provided in that respect, for no less than five rivers flowed towards Sheffield from the Pennine range above. From the finest steel all sorts of things were made, ranging from the smallest needle or steel pen up to the largest-sized gun or armour-plate. It would no doubt have interested us greatly to look through one of the works, but such as we passed were labelled "No admittance except on business," which we interpreted to mean that no strangers were allowed to enter, lest they might carry away with them the secrets of the business, so we walked slowly onward in the hope of reaching, before nightfall, our next great object of interest, "The Great Cavern and Castle of Peveril of the Peak." Passing along the Ecclesall Road, we saw, in nicely wooded enclosures, many of the houses of manufacturers and merchants, who, like ourselves in after life, left their men to sleep in the smoke while they themselves went to breathe the purer air above, for Ecclesall was at a fair elevation above the town. But one gentleman whom we saw assured us that, in spite of the heavy clouds of smoke we had seen, the town was very healthy, and there was more sunshine at Sheffield than in any other town in England.

Shortly afterwards we came to a finger-post where a road turned off towards Norton and Beauchief Abbey. Norton was the village where the sculptor Chantrey, of whom, and his works, we had heard so much, was born, and the monument to his memory in the old church there was an attraction to visitors. Chantrey was a man of whom it might safely be said "his works do follow," for my brother, who always explored the wild corners of the country when he had the opportunity, was once travelling in Wales, and told a gentleman he met that he intended to stay the night at the inn at the Devil's Bridge. This was not the Devil's Bridge we had crossed so recently at Kirkby Lonsdale, but a much more picturesque one, which to visit at that time involved a walk of about thirteen miles in the mountainous region behind Aberystwyth.

"Have you ever seen that fine monument by Chantrey there?" asked the gentleman.

"No," said my brother in astonishment, knowing the wild nature of the country thereabouts.

"Well," he said, "mind you go and see it! Here is my card, and when you have seen it, write me whether you have seen a finer monument in all your life."

My brother found the monument in a small church about three miles from the hotel in the hills above. He was very much astonished and deeply impressed by the sculpture, acknowledging in his promised letter that it was by far the finest he had seen. The origin of it was as follows:

The owner of the estate had an only child, a daughter, lovely, clever, and accomplished, but slightly deformed in her back. When she was twenty-one years old she was taken by her parents to London to have her back straightened, but never recovered from the operation. The statuary represented the daughter lying on a couch, her father standing at the head looking down into the eyes of his dying daughter, while her mother is kneeling at the foot in an attitude of prayer. The daughter's instruments of music and painting, with her books, appear under the couch, while every small detail, from the embroidery on the couch to the creases in the pillow, are beautifully sculptured.

This great work of art cost £6,000, and was exhibited in London for some time before it was placed in the small church of Hafod. It was said to have made Chantrey's fortune.

Beauchief Abbey, we were informed, was built by the murderers of Thomas a Becket in expiation of their sin, but only a few fragments of the buildings now remained. We halted for rest and refreshments at the "Fox House Inn," which stood at a junction of roads and was formerly the hunting-box of the Duke of Rutland.

We had by this time left the county of York and penetrated about four miles into Derbyshire, a county we may safely describe as being peculiar to itself, for limestone abounded in the greater part of its area. Even the roads were made with it, and the glare of their white surfaces under a brilliant sun, together with the accumulation of a white dust which rose with the wind, or the dangerous slippery mud which formed on them after rain or snow or frost, were all alike disagreeable to wayfarers. But in later times, if the worthy writer who ventured into that county on one occasion, had placed his fashionable length on the limy road when in a more favourable condition than that of wet limy mud, he might have written Derbyshire up instead of writing it down, and describing it as the county beginning with a "Big D."

The colour of the green fields which lined the roads contrasted finely in the distance with the white surface of the roads, both fields and roads alike were neatly fenced in with stone walls. We wondered many times where all these stones could have come from, and at the immense amount of labour involved in getting them there and placing them in position. Their purpose in breaking the force of the wind was clear, for the greater part of the county consisted of moors, some portions of which were being cultivated, and although they were almost entirely devoid of trees, there were plenty of trees to be seen in the valleys, the Dales of Derbyshire being noted for their beauty. The River Derwent ran along the valley opposite the inn, and on the other side was the village of Eyam, which became famous in the time of the Great Plague of London in 1665. It seemed almost impossible that a remote village like that could be affected by a plague in London, but it so happened that a parcel arrived by coach from London addressed to a tailor in Eyam, who opened it with the result that he contracted the disease and died; in the same month five others died also, making a total of six for September, which was followed by 23 deaths in October, 7 in November, and 9 in December. Then came a hard frost, and it was thought that the germs would all be killed, but it broke out again in the following June with 19 deaths, July 56, August 77, September 24, and October 14, and then the plague died out--possibly because there were very few people left. During all this time Eyam had been isolated from the rest of the world, for if a villager tried to get away he was at once driven back, and for any one to go there was almost certain death. The Earl of Devonshire, who nobly remained at Chatsworth all the time, sent provisions periodically to a certain point where no one was allowed to pass either inwards or outwards. At this time even the coins of the realm were considered to be infectious, and large stones hollowed out like basins, which probably contained some disinfectant, were placed between Eyam and the villages which traded with them. Meantime the rector of Eyam, whose name was Mompesson, stood his ground like a true hero, ministering to his parishioners; and, although his wife contracted the disease and died, and though he referred to himself as "a dying man," yet was he mercifully preserved; so too was the Rev. Thomas Stanley, who had been ejected from the rectory after eighteen years' service because he would not subscribe to the Corporation Act of 1661. He stood by Mompesson and did his duty quite as nobly; and some years afterwards, when some small-minded people appealed to the Duke of Devonshire as Lord Lieutenant of the county to have Stanley removed, he indignantly refused and rebuked the petitioners very strongly.

William and Mary Howitt wrote a long poem entitled "The Desolation of Hyam," and described the village as--

Among the verdant mountains of the Peak There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope Of pleasant uplands wards the north winds bleak: Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope: Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope Of forest trees: flower, foliage and clear rill Wave from the cliffs, or down ravines elope: It seems a place charmed from the power of ill By sainted words of old:--so lovely, lone and still.

William Wood wrote the Plague Chronicle, and on his gravestone was inscribed:

Men like visions are; Time all doth claim; He lives who dies and leaves A lasting name.

We had often read the wonderful epitaphs on the tombs of the nobility, but we had been warned that in former times these were often written by professional men who were well paid for their services, and the greater the number of heavenly virtues attributed to the deceased, the greater of course the fee; but those written by the poetical curate of Eyam were beyond suspicion if we may judge from the couplet he wrote to be placed on the gravestone of a parishioner:

Since life is short and death is always nigh, On many years to come do not rely.

We were now passing through Little John's country, and we heard more about him in this neighbourhood than of his master, Robin Hood, for Little John's Well was not far away, and Hathersage, our next stage, was where he was buried. We were very much interested in Robin Hood and Little John, as my name was Robert, and my brother's name was John. He always said that Little John was his greatest ancestor, for in the old story-books his name appeared as John Nailer. But whether we could claim much credit or no from the relationship was doubtful, as the stanza in the old ballad ran:

Robin Hood did little good And Little John did less.

In later times the name had been altered to Naylor, in order, we supposed, to hide its humble though honourable origin; for there was no doubt that it was a Nailer who fastened the boards on Noah's Ark, and legend stated that when he came to nail the door on, he nailed it from the inside!

The stanza, he explained, might have been written by the Bishop of Hereford or one of Robin Hood's other clients, whom he and Little John had relieved of his belongings; but the name Naylor was a common one in South Yorkshire, and, although our branch of the family were natives of South Lancashire, their characteristics showed they were of the same stock, since, like Little John, they were credited with having good appetites and with being able to eat and retain any kind of food and in almost any quantity. On one occasion we happened to meet with a gentleman named Taylor, and, after remarking there was only one letter different between his name and ours, my brother said, "But we are much the older family," and then named the Noah's Ark incident; when the gentleman quietly remarked, "I can beat you." "Surely not," said my brother. "Yes, I can," replied Mr. Taylor, "for my ancestor made the tails for Adam's coat! He was a Tailer." My brother collapsed!

But the greatest blow he received in that direction was when he found a much more modern story of "Robin Hood and Little John," which gave Little John's real name as John Little, saying that his name was changed to Little John because he was such a big man. My brother was greatly annoyed at this until he discovered that this version was a comparatively modern innovation, dating from the time of Sir Walter Scott's Talisman, published in 1825, and inserted there because the proper name would not have suited Sir Walter's rhyme:

"This infant was called 'John Little,' quoth he; "Which name shall be changed anon. The words we'll transpose, so wherever he goes His name shall be called Little John."

On our way from the "Fox House Inn" to Hathersage we passed some strange-looking rocks which were said to resemble the mouth of a huge toad; but as we had not studied the anatomy of that strange creature, and had no desire to do so, a casual glance as we walked along a down gradient into Hathersage was sufficient. As we entered the village we saw a party of men descending a road on our right, from whom we inquired the way to Little John's grave, which they told us they had just been to visit themselves. They directed us to go up the road that they had just come down, and one of them advised us to call at the small inn which we should find at the top of the hill, while another man shouted after us, "Aye! and ther's a mon theere 'ats getten 'is gun!" We found the inn, but did not ask to see the gun, being more interested at the time in bows and arrows, so we called at the inn and ordered tea. It was only a cottage inn, but the back of it served as a portion of the churchyard wall, and the mistress told us that when Little John lay on his deathbed in the room above our heads, he asked for his bow and arrow, and, shooting through the window which we would see from the churchyard at the back of the inn, desired his men to bury him on the spot where they found his arrow.

We went to see the grave while our tea was being prepared, and found it only a few yards from the inn, so presumably Little John was very weak when he shot the arrow. The grave stood between two yew trees, with a stone at the head and another at the foot, the distance between them being ten feet.

The church was a very old one, dating from the early part of the fourteenth century. It was said that a search for Little John's skeleton had been made in 1784, when only a thigh-bone had been found; but as this measured twenty-nine and a half inches, a very big man must have been buried there.

On our right across the moor rose sharply what seemed to be a high, continuous cliff, which we were told was the "edge" of one of the thick, hard beds of millstone grit, and as we proceeded the edge seemed to be gradually closing in upon us.

After tea we walked slowly on to Castleton, where we selected a clean and respectable-looking private house to stay and rest over the week-end, until Monday morning.

(Distance walked twenty-two miles.)

Sunday, October 29th.

We were very comfortable in our apartments at Castleton, our host and hostess and their worthy son paying us every possible attention. They were members of the Wesleyan Church, and we arranged with the young man that if he would go with us to the Parish Church in the morning, we would go to the Wesleyan Chapel in the evening with him. So in the morning we all went to church, where we had a good old-fashioned service, and saw a monument to the memory of a former vicar, a Mr. Bagshawe, who was Vicar of Castleton from 1723 to 1769; the epitaph on it described him as--

A man whose chief delight was in the service of his Master--a sound scholar--a tender and affectionate husband--a kind and indulgent parent--and a lover of peace and quietness, who is gone to that place where he now enjoys the due reward of his labours.

This Vicar had kept a diary, or journal, from which it appeared that he began life in a good position, but lost his money in the "South Sea Bubble," an idea floated in the year 1710 as a financial speculation to clear off the National Debt, the Company contracting to redeem the whole debt in twenty-six years on condition that they were granted a monopoly of the South Sea Trade. This sounded all right, and a rush was made for the shares, which soon ran up in value from £100 to £1,000, fabulous profits being made. Sir Robert Walpole, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and afterwards Prime Minister for the long period of twenty-two years, was strongly opposed to the South Sea Scheme, and when, ten years later, he exposed it, the bubble burst and the whole thing collapsed, thousands of people, including the worthy Vicar of Castleton, being ruined.

It also appeared from the diary that, like the vicar Goldsmith describes, he was "passing rich on forty pounds a year," for he never received more than £40 per year for his services. The prices he paid for goods for himself and his household in the year 1748 formed very interesting reading, as it enabled us to compare the past with the present.

Bohea Tea was 8s. per pound; chickens, threepence each; tobacco, one penny per ounce; a shoulder of mutton cost him fifteen-pence, while the forequarter of a lamb was eighteen-pence, which was also the price of a "Cod's Head from Sheffield."

He also recorded matters concerning his family. He had a son named Harry whom he apprenticed to a tradesman in Leeds. On one occasion it appeared that the Vicar's wife made up a parcel "of four tongues and four pots of potted beef" as a present for Hal's master. One of the most pleasing entries in the diary was that which showed that Harry had not forgotten his mother, for one day a parcel arrived at the Vicarage from Leeds which was found to contain "a blue China cotton gown," a present from Hal to his mother.

Who fed me from her gentle breast. And hush'd me in her arms to rest, And on my cheeks sweet kisses prest? My Mother.

Who sat and watched my infant head When sleeping on my cradle bed. And tears of sweet affection shed? My Mother.

Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well? My Mother.

Who taught my infant lips to pray. And love God's holy Book and day. And walk in Wisdom's pleasant way? My Mother.

And can I ever cease to be Affectionate and kind to thee, Who wast so very kind to me? My Mother.

Ah! no, the thought I cannot bear, And if God please my life to spare, I hope I shall reward thy care. My Mother.

When thou art feeble, old, and grey. My healthy arm shall be thy stay, And I will soothe thy pains away, My Mother.

After dinner we decided to visit the Castle of Peveril of the Peak, and as the afternoon was very fine we were able to do so, under the guidance of our friend. We were obliged to proceed slowly owing to my partially disabled foot, and it took us a long time to reach the castle, the road being very narrow and steep towards the top--in fact, it was so difficult of approach that a handful of men could have defeated hundreds of the enemy. We managed to reach the ruins, and there we reposed on the grass to view the wild scenery around us and the curious split in the limestone rocks through which led the path known as the "Winnats," a shortened form of Wind Gates, owing to the force of the wind at this spot. The castle was not a large one, and there were higher elevations quite near; but deep chasms intervened, and somewhere beneath us was the largest cave in England. While we were resting our friend related the history of the castle, which had been built by William Peverell in 1068, and rebuilt by Henry II in 1176-7 after he had received here the submission of Malcolm, King of Scotland. Peverell was a natural son of William the Conqueror, who had distinguished himself at the Battle of Hastings, for which William had bestowed upon him many manors in Derbyshire. What was known as the Peak of Derbyshire we found was not one single rock, as we supposed, but a huge tableland with rising heights here and there. Our friend, whose name was William, told us a legend connected with the Peverell family. Pain Peverell, the Lord of Whittington, in Shropshire, had two daughters, the elder of whom was very beautiful, and had so many admirers that she could not decide which of them to accept. So she consulted her father on the matter, who advised her to accept only the "Bravest of the Brave," or the one who could prove himself to excel all others in martial skill. Her father therefore proclaimed a tournament, which was to take place, in the words of an ancient writer, at "Peverell's Place in the Peke," inviting all young men of noble birth to compete for the hand of the beautiful "Mellet," whose dowry was to be Whittington Castle. The contest, as might be supposed, was a severe one, and was won by a knight bearing a maiden shield of silver with a peacock for his crest, who vanquished, amongst others, a Knight of Burgundy and a Prince of Scotland. He proved to be Fitzwarren, and the Castle of Whittington passed to him together with his young bride.

Our friend was surprised when we told him we knew that castle and the neighbourhood very well, and also a cottage there where Dick Whittington was born, who afterwards became Sir Richard de Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. We again discussed the question of the desirability of returning home, as we were now much nearer than when at Furness Abbey, where we had nearly succumbed to home-sickness before; but my brother said he should continue the journey alone if I gave in, and as he kindly consented again to carry all the luggage, I agreed to complete the journey with him.

I walked down the hill supported by my brother on one side and our friend on the other, and returned to the latter's home for tea, after which our host showed us some remarkable spar stones--dog-tooth spar we were told was their name--found in the lead mines, whose white crystals glistened in the light, and I could see by the covetous look in my brother's eyes that he was thinking of the rockeries at home. His look was also seen by our worthy host, for he subsequently presented him with the stones, which my brother afterwards declared were given to him as a punishment for coveting his neighbour's goods. It was now time to fulfil our engagement to accompany our friend to the Wesleyan Chapel and to go through what proved one of the most extraordinary services we ever attended. Our host and hostess went with us, but they sat in a pew, while we three sat on a form. We remained for the "Prayer Meeting," which the minister announced would be held after the usual service. We had read that the "Amens" of the early Christians could be heard at long distances, but we never attended a meeting where the ejaculations were so loud and fervent as they were here. Each man seemed to vie with his neighbour as to which could shout the louder, and every one appeared to be in great earnest. The exclamations were not always "Amens," for we heard one man shout "Aye!" at exactly the same moment as another man shouted "Now!" and if the Leader had not been possessed of a stentorian voice he would not at times have been able to make himself heard. The primitive custom of conducting prayer meetings was evidently kept up at Castleton, as might perhaps have been expected in a place which before the appearance of the railway was so remote and inaccessible, but it was difficult to realise that "yes" and "no," or "aye" and "now," could have the same meaning when ejaculated at the same moment. Still, it might have been so in this case. Who knows!

In travelling through the country we had noticed that in the neighbourhood of great mountains the religious element was more pronounced than elsewhere, and the people's voices seemed stronger. At the close of this second service, for which nearly the whole of the congregation stayed, the conductor gave out one of Isaac Watts's well-known hymns, and the congregation sang it with heart and voice that almost made the rafters in the roof of the chapel vibrate as if even they were joining in the praises of the Lord! These were the first two verses:

Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Doth his successive journeys run; His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

People and realms of every tongue Dwell on His love with sweetest song, And infant voices shall proclaim Their early blessing on His Name.

We must say we joined as heartily as any of the others, for it was sung to one of the good old Methodist tunes common to all the Churches in the days of Wesley. As we walked back through the village we felt all the better for having attended the full service, and later, when we watched the nearly full moon rise in the clear night air above the hills, our thoughts turned instinctively towards the Great Almighty, the Father and Maker and Giver of All!

SEVENTH WEEK'S JOURNEY

Monday, October 30th.

The Scots as a nation are proverbial for their travelling propensities; they are to be found not only in every part of the British Isles, but in almost every known and unknown part of the wide world. It was a jocular saying then in vogue that if ever the North Pole were discovered, a Scotsman would be found there sitting on the top! Sir Walter Scott was by no means behind his fellow countrymen in his love of travel, and like his famous Moss-troopers, whose raids carried them far beyond the Borders, even into foreign countries, he had not confined himself "to his own--his Native Land." We were not surprised, therefore, wrhen we heard of him in the lonely neighbourhood of the Peak of Derbyshire, or that, although he had never been known to have visited the castle or its immediate surroundings, he had written a novel entitled Peveril of the Peak. This fact was looked upon as a good joke by his personal friends, who gave him the title of the book as a nickname, and Sir Walter, when writing to some of his most intimate friends, had been known to subscribe himself in humorous vein as "Peveril of the Peak."

There were several objects of interest well worth seeing at Castleton besides the great cavern; there was the famous Blue John Mine, that took its name from the peculiar blue stone found therein, a kind of fibrous fluor-spar usually blue to purple, though with occasional black and yellow veins, of which ornaments were made and sold to visitors, and from which the large blue stone was obtained that formed the magnificent vase in Chatsworth House, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire, and in other noble mansions which possess examples of the craft. In the mine there were two caverns, one of them 100 feet and the other 150 feet high, "which glittered with sparkling stalactites." Then there was the Speedwell Mine, one of the curiosities of the Peak, discovered by miners searching for ore, which they failed to find, although they laboured for years at an enormous cost. In boring through the rock, however, they came to a large natural cavern, now reached by descending about a hundred steps to a canal below, on which was a boat for conveying passengers to the other end of the canal, with only a small light or torch at the bow to relieve the stygian darkness. Visitors were landed on a platform to listen to a tremendous sound of rushing water being precipitated somewhere in the fearful and impenetrable darkness, whose obscurity and overpowering gloom could almost be felt. On the slope of the Eldon Hill there was also a fearful chasm called the Eldon Hole, where a falling stone was never heard to strike the bottom. This had been visited in the time of Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester, who caused an unfortunate native to be lowered into it to the full length of a long rope; when the poor fellow was drawn up again he was "stark mad," and died eight days afterwards.

We had to leave all these attractions to a later visit, since we had come to Castleton to see the largest cavern of all, locally named the "Devil's Hole," but by polite visitors the "Peak Cavern." The approach to the cavern was very imposing and impressive, perpendicular rocks rising on both sides to a great height, while Peveril Castle stood on the top of the precipice before us like a sentinel guarding entrance to the cavern, which was in the form of an immense Gothic arch 120 feet high, 42 feet wide, and said to be large enough to contain the Parish Church and all its belongings. This entrance, however, was being used as a rope-walk, where, early as it was, the workers were already making hempen ropes alongside the stream which flowed from the cavern, and the strong smell of hemp which prevailed as we stood for a few minutes watching the rope-makers was not at all unpleasant.

If it had been the entrance to Hades, to which it had been likened by a learned visitor, we might have been confronted by Cerberus instead of our guide, whom our friends had warned overnight that his attendance would be required early this morning by distinguished visitors, who would expect the cave to be lit up with coloured lights in honour of their visit. The guide as he handed a light to each of us explained apologetically that his stock of red lights had been exhausted during the season, but he had brought a sufficient number of blue lights to suit the occasion. We followed him into the largest division of the cavern, which was 270 feet long and 150 feet high, the total length being about half a mile. It contained many other rooms or caves, into which he conducted us, the first being known as the Bell House, and here the path we had been following suddenly came to an end at an arch about five yards wide, where there was a stream called the River Styx, over which he ferried us in a boat, landing us in a cave called the Hall of Pluto, the Being who ruled over the Greek Hades, or Home of Departed Spirits, guarded by a savage three-headed dog named Cerberus. The only way of reaching the "Home," our guide told us, was by means of the ferry on the River Styx, of which Charon had charge, and to ensure the spirit having a safe passage to the Elysian Fields it was necessary that his toll should be paid with a coin placed beforehand in the mouth or hand of the departed. We did not, however, take the hint about the payment of the toll until after our return journey, when we found ourselves again at the mouth of the Great Cavern, a privilege perhaps not extended to Pluto's ghostly visitors, nor did we see any of those mysterious or mythological beings; perhaps the nearest approach to them was the figure of our guide himself, as he held aloft the blue torch he had in his hand when in the Hall of Pluto, for he presented the appearance of a man afflicted with delirium tremens or one of those "blue devils" often seen by victims of that dreadful disease. We also saw Roger Rain's House, where it always rained, summer and winter, all the year round, and the Robbers' Cave, with its five natural arches. But the strangest cave we visited was that called the "Devil's Wine Cellar," an awful abyss where the water rushed down a great hole and there disappeared. Her Most Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, visited the cavern in 1832, and one of the caves was named Victoria in memory of that event; we had the honour of standing on the exact spot where she stood on that occasion.

Our visit to the cavern was quite a success, enhanced as it was by the blue lights, so, having paid the guide for his services, we returned to our lodgings to "pack up" preparatory to resuming our walk. The white stones so kindly presented to my brother--of which he was very proud, for they certainly were very fine specimens--seemed likely to prove a white elephant to him. The difficulty now was how to carry them in addition to all the other luggage. Hurrying into the town, he returned in a few minutes with an enormous and strongly made red handkerchief like those worn by the miners, and in this he tied the stones, which were quite heavy and a burden in themselves. With these and all the other luggage as well he presented a very strange appearance as he toiled up the steep track through Cave Dale leading from the rear of the town to the moors above. It was no small feat of endurance and strength, for he carried his burdens until we arrived at Tamworth railway station in Staffordshire, to which our next box of clothes had been ordered, a distance of sixty-eight and a half miles by the way we walked. It was with a feeling of real thankfulness for not having been killed with kindness in the bestowal of these gifts that he deposited the stones in that box. When they reached home they were looked upon as too valuable to be placed on the rockeries and retained the sole possession of a mantelshelf for many years. My ankle was still very weak, and it was as much as I could do to carry the solitary walking-stick to assist me forwards; but we were obliged to move on, as we were now quite fifty miles behind our projected routine, and we knew there was some hard work before us. When we reached the moors, which were about a thousand feet above sea-level, the going was comparatively easy on the soft rich grass which makes the cow's milk so rich, and we had some good views of the hills. That named Mam Tor was one of the "Seven wonders of the Peak," and its neighbour, known as the Shivering Mountain, was quite a curiosity, as the shale, of which it was composed, was constantly breaking away and sliding down the mountain slope with a sound like that of falling water. Bagshawe Cavern was near at hand, but we did not visit it. It was so named because it had been found on land belonging to Sir William Bagshawe, whose lady christened its chambers and grottos with some very queer names. Across the moors we could see the town of Tideswell, our next objective, standing like an oasis in the desert, for there were no trees on the moors. We had planned that after leaving there we would continue our way across the moors to Newhaven, and then walk through Dove Dale to Ashbourne in the reverse direction to that taken the year before on our walk from London to Lancashire. Before reaching Tideswell we came to a point known as Lane Head, where six lane-ends met, and which we supposed must have been an important meeting-place when the moors, which surrounded it for miles, formed a portion of the ancient Peak Forest. We passed other objects of interest, including some ancient remains of lead mining in the form of curious long tunnels like sewers on the ground level which radiated to a point where on the furnaces heaps of timber were piled up and the lead ore was smelted by the heat which was intensified by these draught-producing tunnels.

When Peak Forest was in its primeval glory, and the Kings of England with their lords, earls, and nobles came to hunt there, many of the leading families had dwellings in the forest, and we passed a relic of these, a curious old mansion called Hazelbadge Hall, the ancient home of the Vernons, who still claim by right as Forester to name the coroner for West Derbyshire when the position falls vacant.

Tideswell was supposed to have taken its name from an ebbing and flowing well whose water rose and fell like the tides in the sea, but which had been choked up towards the end of the eighteenth century, and reopened in the grounds of a mansion, so that the cup-shaped hollow could be seen filling and emptying.

A market had existed at Tideswell since the year 1250, and one was being held as we entered the town, and the "George Inn," where we called for refreshments, was fairly well filled with visitors of one kind or another.

We left our luggage to the care of the ostler, and went to visit the fine old church adjacent, where many ancient families lie buried; the principal object of interest was the magnificent chancel, which has been described as "one Gallery of Light and Beauty," the whole structure being known as the Cathedral of the Peak. There was a fine monumental brass, with features engraved on it which throw light on the Church ritual of the day, to the memory of Bishop Pursglove, who was a native of Tideswell and founder of the local Grammar School, who surrendered his Priory of Gisburn to Henry VIII in 1540, but refused, in 1559, to take the Oath of Supremacy. Sampson Meverill, Knight Constable of England, also lies buried in the chancel, and by his epitaph on a marble tomb, brought curiously enough from Sussex, he asks the reader "devoutly of your charity" to say "a Pater Noster with an Ave for all Xtian soules, and especially for the soule of him whose bones resten under this stone." Meverill, with John Montagu, Earl of Shrewsbury, fought as "a Captain of diverse worshipful places in France," serving under John, Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton, the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go down to the sea in ships." When he had finished, the Precentor rose immediately and said to the other candidates, "Gentlemen, I now leave it to you whether any one will sing after what you have just heard!" No one rose, and so Slack gained the position.

Soon afterwards Georgiana, Duchess of Sutherland, interested herself in him, and had him placed under Spofforth, the chief singing master of the day, under whose tuition he greatly improved, taking London by storm. He was for many years the principal bass at all the great musical festivals. So powerful was his voice, it is said, that on one occasion when he was pursued by a bull he uttered a bellow which so terrified the animal that it ran away, so young ladies who were afraid of these animals always felt safe when accompanied by Mr. Slack. When singing before King George III at Windsor Castle, he was told that His Majesty had been pleased with his singing. Slack remarked in his Derbyshire dialect, which he always remembered, "Oh, he was pleased, were he? I thow't I could do't." Slack it was said made no effort to improve himself either in speech or in manners, and therefore it was thought that he preferred low society.

When he retired and returned to his native village he was delighted to join the local "Catch and Glee Club," of which he soon became the ruling spirit. It held its meetings at the "George Inn" where we had called for refreshments, and we were shown an old print of the club representing six singers in Hogarthian attitudes with glasses, jugs, and pipes, with Slack and his friend Chadwick of Hayfield apparently singing heartily from the same book Slack's favourite song, "Life's a Bumper fill'd by Fate." Tideswell had always been a musical town; as far back as the year 1826 there was a "Tideswell Music Band," which consisted of six clarionets, two flutes, three bassoons, one serpent, two trumpets, two trombones, two French horns, one bugle, and one double drum--twenty performers in all.

They had three practices weekly, and there were the usual fines for those who came late, or missed a practice, for inattention to the leader, or for a dirty instrument, the heaviest fine of all being for intoxication. But long after this there was a Tideswell Brass Band which became famous throughout the country, for the leader not only wrote the score copies for his own band, but lithographed and sold them to other bands all over the country.

We were particularly interested in all this, for my brother had for the past eight years indulged in the luxury of a brass band himself. The band consisted of about twenty members when in full strength, and as instruments were dear in those days it was a most expensive luxury, and what it had cost him in instruments, music, and uniforms no one ever knew. He had often purchased "scores" from Metcalf, the leader of the Tideswell Band, a fact that was rather a source of anxiety to me, as I knew if he called to see Metcalf our expedition for that day would be at an end, as they might have conversed with each other for hours. I could not prevent him from relating at the "George" one of his early reminiscences, which fairly "brought down the house," as there were some musicians in the company.

His band had been formed in 1863, and consisted of about a dozen performers. Christmas time was coming on, when the bandsmen resolved to show off a little and at the same time collect some money from their friends to spend in the New Year. They therefore decided that the band should go out "busking" each evening during Christmas week. They had only learned to play five tunes--two of them belonging to well-known hymns, a third "God Save the Queen," while the remaining two were quicksteps, one of which was not quite perfectly learned.

They were well received in the village, and almost every house had been visited with the exception of the Hall, which was some distance away, and had been left till the last probably owing to the fact that the squire was not particularly noted for his liberality. If, however, he had been at home that week, and had any sense of music, he would have learned all their tunes off by heart, as the band must have been heard clearly enough when playing at the farms surrounding the mansion.

To avoid a possibility of giving offence, however, it was decided to pay him a visit; so the band assembled one evening in front of the mansion, and the conductor led off with a Psalm tune, during which the Hall door was opened by a servant. At this unexpected compliment expectations rose high amongst the members of the band, and a second Psalm tune was played, the full number of verses in the hymn being repeated. Then followed a pause to give the squire a chance of distinguishing himself, but as he failed to rise to the occasion it was decided to play a quickstep. This was followed by a rather awkward pause, as there were some high notes in the remaining quickstep which the soprano player said he was sure he could not reach as he was getting "ramp'd" already. At this moment, however, the situation was relieved by the appearance of a female servant at the door.

The member of the band who had been deputed to collect all donations at once went to the door, and all eyes were turned upon him when he came back towards the lawn, every member on tip-toe of expectation. But he had only returned to say that the squire's lady wished the band to play a polka. This spread consternation throughout the band, and one of the younger members went to the conductor saying, "A polka! A polka! I say, Jim, what's that?" "Oh," replied the conductor, "number three played quick!" Now number three was a quickstep named after Havelock the famous English General in India, so "Havelock's March played quick" had to do duty for a polka; but the only man who could play it quickly was the conductor himself, who after the words, "Ready, chaps!" and the usual signal "One-two-three," dashed off at an unusual speed, the performers following as rapidly as they could, the Bombardon and the Double B, the biggest instruments, finishing last with a most awful groan, after which the conductor, who couldn't stop laughing when once he started, was found rolling on the lawn in a kind of convulsion. It took them some time to recover their equilibrium, during which the Hall door remained open, and a portion of the band had already begun to move away in despair, when they were called back by the old butler appearing at the Hall door with a silver tray in his hand. The collector's services were again requisitioned, and he returned with the magnificent sum of one shilling! As most of the farmers had given five shillings and the remainder half a crown, the squire's reputation for generosity had been fully maintained. One verse of "God save the Queen," instead of the usual three, was played by the way of acknowledgment, and so ended the band's busking season in the year 1863.

We quite enjoyed our visit to Tideswell, and were rather loath to leave the friendly company at the "George Inn," who were greatly interested in our walk, several musical members watching our departure as the ostler loaded my brother with the luggage.

Tideswell possessed a poet named Beebe Eyre, who in 1854 was awarded £50 out of the Queen's Royal Bounty, which probably inspired him to write:

Tideswell! thou art my natal spot, And hence I love thee well; May prosperous days now be the lot Of all that in thee dwell!

The sentiments expressed by the poet coincided with our own. As we departed from the town we observed a curiosity in the shape of a very old and extremely dilapidated building, which we were informed could neither be repaired, pulled down, nor sold because it belonged to some charity.

On the moors outside the town there were some more curious remains of the Romans and others skilled in mining, which we thought would greatly interest antiquarians, as they displayed more methods of mining than at other places we had visited. A stream had evidently disappointed them by filtering through its bed of limestone, but this they had prevented by forming a course of pebbles and cement, which ran right through Tideswell, and served the double purpose of a water supply and a sewer.

We crossed the old "Rakes," or lines, where the Romans simply dug out the ore and threw up the rubbish, which still remained in long lines. Clever though they were, they only knew lead when it occurred in the form known as galena, which looked like lead itself, and so they threw out a more valuable ore, cerusite, or lead carbonate, and the heaps of this valuable material were mined over a second time in comparatively recent times. The miner of the Middle Ages made many soughs to drain away the water from the mines, and we saw more of the tunnels that had been made to draw air to the furnaces when wood was used for smelting the lead.

The forest, like many others, had disappeared, and Anna Seward had exactly described the country we were passing through when she wrote:

The long lone tracks of Tideswell's native moor, Stretched on vast hills that far and near prevail. Bleak, stony, bare, monotonous, and pale.

The poet Newton had provided the town with a water supply by having pipes laid at his own expense from the Well Head at the source of the stream which flowed out of an old lead-mine. Lead in drinking-water has an evil name for causing poisoning, but the Tideswell folk flourish on it, since no one seems to think of dying before seventy, and a goodly number live to over ninety.

They have some small industries, cotton manufacture having spread from Lancashire into these remote districts. It is an old-fashioned place, with houses mostly stuccoed with broken crystals and limestone from the "Rakes" and containing curiously carved cupboard doors and posts torn from churches ornamented in Jacobean style by the sacrilegious Cromwellians, many of them having been erected just after the Great Rebellion.

We now journeyed along the mountain track until it descended sharply into Miller's Dale; but before reaching this place we were interested in the village of Formhill, where Brindley, the famous canal engineer, was born in 1716. Brindley was employed by the great Duke of Bridgewater, the pioneer of canal-making in England, to construct a canal from his collieries at Worsley, in Lancashire, to Manchester, in order to cheapen the cost of coal at that important manufacturing centre. It was an extraordinary achievement, considering that Brindley was quite uneducated and knew no mathematics, and up to the last remained illiterate. Most of his problems were solved without writings or drawings, and when anything difficult had to be considered, he would go to bed and think it out there. At the Worsley end it involved tunnelling to the seams of coal where the colliers were at work so that they could load the coal directly into the boats. He constructed from ten to thirteen miles of underground canals on two different levels, with an ingeniously constructed connection between the two. After this he made the great Bridgewater Canal, forty miles in length, from Manchester to Runcorn, which obtained a fall of one foot per mile by following a circuitous route without a lock or a tunnel in the whole of its course until it reached its terminus at the River Mersey. In places where a brook or a small valley had to be crossed the canal was carried on artificially raised banks, and to provide against a burst in any of these, which would have caused the water to run out of the canal, it was narrowed at each end of the embankment so that only one boat could pass through at a time, this narrow passage being known as a "stop place." At the entrance to this a door was so placed at the bottom of the canal that if any undue current should appear, such as would occur if the embankment gave way, one end of it would rise into a socket prepared for it in the stop-place, and so prevent any water leaving the canal except that in the broken section, a remedy simple but ingenious. On arriving at Runcorn the boats were lowered by a series of locks into the River Mersey, a double service of locks being provided so that boats could pass up and down at the same time and so avoid delay.

When the water was first turned into the canal, Brindley mysteriously disappeared, and was nowhere to be found; but as the canal when full did not burst its embankments, as he had feared, he soon reappeared and was afterwards employed to construct even more difficult canals. He died in 1772, and was buried in Harriseahead Churchyard on the Cheshire border of Staffordshire. It is computed that he engineered as many miles of canals as there are days in the year.

It must have been a regular custom for the parsons in Derbyshire to keep diaries in the eighteenth century, for the Vicar of Wormhill kept one, like the Vicar of Castleton, both chancing to be members of the Bagshawe family, a common name in that neighbourhood. He was a hard-working and conscientious man, and made the following entry in it on February 3rd, 1798

Sunday.--Preached at Wormhill on the vanity of human pursuits and human pleasures, to a polite audience, an affecting sermon. Rode in the evening to Castleton, where I read three discourses by Secker. In the forest I was sorry to observe a party of boys playing at Football. I spoke to them but was laughed at, and on my departure one of the boys gave the football a wonderful kick--a proof this of the degeneracy of human nature!

On reaching Miller's Dale, a romantic deep hollow in the limestone, at the bottom of which winds the fast-flowing Wye, my brother declared that he felt more at home, as it happened to be the only place he had seen since leaving John o' Groat's that he had previously visited, and it reminded him of a rather amusing incident.

Our uncle, a civil engineer in London, had been over on a visit, and was wearing a white top-hat, then becoming fashionable, and as my brother thought that a similar hat would just suit the dark blue velveteen coat he wore on Sundays, he soon appeared in the prevailing fashion. He was walking from Ambergate to Buxton, and had reached Miller's Dale about noon, just as the millers were leaving the flour mills for dinner. One would have thought that the sight of a white hat would have delighted the millers, but as these hats were rather dear, and beyond the financial reach of the man in the street, they had become an object of derision to those who could not afford to wear them, the music-hall answer to the question "Who stole the donkey?" being at that time "The man with the white hat!"

He had met one group of the millers coming up the hill and another lot was following, when a man in the first group suddenly turned round and shouted to a man in the second group, "I say, Jack, who stole the donkey?" But Jack had not yet passed my brother, and, as he had still to face him, he dared not give the customary answer, so, instead of replying "The man with the white hat," he called out in the Derbyshire dialect, with a broad grin on his face, "Th' feyther." A roar of laughter both behind and in front, in which my brother heartily joined, followed this repartee.

Probably some of the opprobrium attached to the white hat was because of its having been an emblem of the Radicals. We had seen that worn by Sir Walter Scott in his declining days, but we could not think of including him in that extreme political party, though its origin dated back to the time when he was still alive. Probably the emblem was only local, for it originated at Preston in Lancashire, a place we knew well, commonly called Proud Preston, no doubt by reason of its connection with the noble family of Stanley, who had a mansion in the town. Preston was often represented in Parliament by a Stanley, and was looked upon as a Pocket Borough. In the turbulent times preceding the Abolition of the Corn Laws a powerful opponent, in the person of Mr. Henry Hunt, a demagogue politician, who had suffered imprisonment for advocating Chartism, appeared at the Preston election of 1830 to oppose the Honourable E.G. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby. He always appeared wearing a white hat, and was an eloquent speaker, and for these reasons earned the sobriquet of "Orator" Hunt and "Man with the White Hat." The election contest was one of the most exciting events that ever occurred in Preston, and as usual the children took their share in the proceedings, those on Mr. Stanley's side parading the streets singing in a popular air:

Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever! Stanley for Ever! Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever Ho! Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Ho! Stanley is my honey Ho! When he weds he will be rich, He will have a coach and six.

Then followed the chorus to the accompaniment of drums and triangles:

Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever, Ho!

In spite of this, however, and similar ditties, "Orator Hunt," by a total vote of 3,730, became M.P. for Preston, and it was said that it was through this incident that the Radicals adopted the White Hat as their emblem.

Lord Derby was so annoyed at the result of the election that he closed his house, which stood across the end of a quiet street, and placed a line of posts across it, between which strong chains were hung, and on which my brother could remember swinging when a boy.

One of our uncles was known as the "Preston Poet" at that time, and he wrote a poem entitled "The Poor, God Bless 'Em!" the first verse reading:

Let sycophants bend their base knees in the court And servilely cringe round the gate, And barter their honour to earn the support Of the wealthy, the titled, the great; Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em; I love not to pamper oppression, but mourn For the poor, the robb'd poor--God bless 'em!

A striking contrast to the volubility of Mr. Hunt was Mr. Samuel Horrocks, also M.P. for Preston, whose connection with the "Big Factory" in Preston probably gained him the seat. He was said to have been the "quiet Member," never known to make a speech in the House of Commons, unless it was to ask some official to close a window. The main thoroughfare in Preston was Fishergate, a wide street, where on one Saturday night two men appeared walking up the middle of the street, carrying large papers suspended over their arms and shouting at the top of their voices.

"The Speech of Samuel Horrocks, Esquire, M.P., in the British House of Commons! one penny," which they continued to repeat.

"Eh! owd Sammy's bin makkin' a speech," and a rush was made for the papers. The streets were poorly lighted in those days, and the men did a roaring business in the dark. One man, however, was so anxious to read the speech that he could not wait until he got home, but went to a shop window, where there was a light, but the paper was blank. Thinking they had given him the wrong paper, he ran after the men and shouted, pointing to the paper, "Hey, there's nowt on it." "Well," growled one of the men, "he said nowt."

We now climbed up the opposite side of the dale, and continued on the moorland road for a few miles, calling at the "Flagg Moor Inn" for tea. By the time we had finished it was quite dark, and the landlady of the inn did her best to persuade us to stay there for the night, telling us that the road from there to Ashbourne was so lonely that it was possible on a dark night to walk the whole distance of fourteen miles without seeing a single person, and as it had been the Great Fair at Newhaven that day, there might be some dangerous characters on the roads. When she saw we were determined to proceed farther, she warned us that the road did not pass through any village, and that there was only a solitary house here and there, some of them being a little way from the road. The road was quite straight, and had a stone wall on each side all the way, so all we had got to do was to keep straight on, and to mind we did not turn to the right or the left along any of the by-roads lest we should get lost on the moors. It was not without some feeling of regret that we bade the landlady "Good night" and started out from the comfortable inn on a pitch-dark night. Fortunately the road was dry, and, as there were no trees, the limestone of which it was composed showed a white track easily discernible in the inky darkness which surrounded it. As we got farther on our way we could see right in front a great illumination in the mist or clouds above marking the glare from the country fair at Newhaven, which was only four miles from the inn we had just left. We met quite a number of people returning from the fair, both on foot and in vehicles, and as they all appeared to be in good spirits we received a friendly greeting from all who spoke to us. Presently arriving at Newhaven itself, which consisted solely of one large inn, we found the surrounding open space packed with a noisy and jovial crowd of people, the number of whom absolutely astonished us, as the country around appeared so desolate, and we wondered where they all could have come from. Newhaven, which had been a very important place in the coaching-days, was a big three-storeyed house with twenty-five bedrooms and stabling for a hundred horses. It stood at a junction of roads about 1,100 feet above sea-level in a most lonely place, and in the zenith of its popularity there was seldom a bedroom empty, the house being quite as gay as if it had been in London itself. It had been specially built for the coach traffic by the then Duke of Devonshire, whose mansion, Chatsworth House, was only a few miles distant. King George IV stayed at Newhaven on one occasion, and was so pleased with his entertainment that he granted to the inn a free and perpetual licence of his own sovereign pleasure, so that no application for renewal of licence at Brewster Sessions was ever afterwards required; a fact which accounted in some measure for the noisy company congregated therein, in defiance of the superintendent of police, who, with five or six of his officers, was standing in front of the fair. Booths had been erected by other publicans, but the police had ordered these to be removed earlier in the day to prevent further disturbances.

We noticed they had quite a number of persons in custody, and when I saw a policeman looking very critically at the miscellaneous assortment of luggage my brother was carrying, I thought he was about to be added to the number; but he was soon satisfied as to the honesty of his intentions. The "New Haven" must have meant a new haven for passengers, horses, and coaches when the old haven had been removed, as the word seemed only to apply to the hotel, which, as it was ten miles both from Buxton and Ashbourne, and also on the Roman road known as Via Gellia, must have been built exactly to accommodate the ten-mile run of the coaches either way. It quite enlivened us to see the old-fashioned shows, the shooting-boxes, the exhibitions of monstrosities, with stalls displaying all sorts of nuts, sweets, gingerbreads, and all the paraphernalia that in those days comprised a country fair, and we should have liked to stay at the inn and visit some of the shows which were ranged in front of it and along the green patches of grass which lined the Ashbourne road; but in the first place the inn was not available, and in the second our twenty-five-mile average daily walk was too much in arrears to admit of any further delay.

All the shows and stalls were doing a roaring trade, and the naphtha lamps with which they were lighted flared weirdly into the inky darkness above. Had we been so minded, we might have turned aside and found quarters at an inn bearing the odd sign of "The Silent Woman" (a woman with her head cut off and tucked under her arm, similar to one nearer home called the "Headless Woman"--in the latter case, however, the tall figure of the woman was shown standing upright, without any visible support, while her head was calmly resting on the ground--the idea seeming to be that a woman could not be silent so long as her head was on her body), but we felt that Ashbourne must be reached that night, which now seemed blacker than ever after leaving the glaring lights in the Fair. Nor did we feel inclined to turn along any by-road on a dark night like that, seeing that we had been partly lost on our way from London the previous year, nearly at the same place, and on quite as dark a night. On that memorable occasion we had entered Dovedale near Thorpe, and visited the Lovers' Leap, Reynard's Cave, Tissington Spires, and Dove Holes, but darkness came on, compelling us to leave the dale to resume our walk the following morning. Eventually we saw a light in the distance, where we found a cottage, the inmates of which kindly conducted us with a lantern across a lonely place to the village of Parwich, which in the Derbyshire dialect they pronounced "Porritch," reminding us of our supper.

It was nearly closing-time when we were ushered into the taproom of the village inn among some strange companions, and when the hour of closing arrived we saw the head of the village policeman appear at the shutter through which outside customers were served with beer. The landlord asked him, "Will you have a pint?" Looking significantly at ourselves, he replied, "No, thank you," but we noticed the "pint" was placed in the aperture, and soon afterwards disappeared!

At Newhaven we ascertained that we were now quite near Hartington and Dovedale. Hartington was a famous resort of fishermen and well known to Isaak Walton, the "Father of Fishermen," and author of that famous book The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation, so full of such cheerful piety and contentment, such sweet freshness and simplicity, as to give the book a perennial charm. He was a great friend of Charles Cotton of Beresford Hall, who built a fine fishing-house near the famous Pike Pool on the River Dove, over the arched doorway of which he placed a cipher stone formed with the combined initials of Walton and himself, and inscribed with the words "Piscatoribus Sacrum." It was said that when they came to fish in the fish pool early in the morning, Cotton smoked tobacco for his breakfast!

What spot more honoured than this beautiful place? Twice honoured truly. Here Charles Cotton sang, Hilarious, his whole-hearted songs, that rang With a true note, through town and country ways, While the Dove trout--in chorus--splashed their praise. Here Walton sate with Cotton in the shade And watched him dubb his flies, and doubtless made The time seem short, with gossip of old days. Their cyphers are enlaced above the door, And in each angler's heart, firm-set and sure.

While rivers run, shall those two names endure, Walton and Cotton linked for evermore--- And Piscatoribus Sacrum where more fit A motto for their wisdom worth and wit?

Say, where shall the toiler find rest from his labours, And seek sweet repose from the overstrung will? Away from the worry and jar of his neighbours Where moor-tinted streamlets flow down from the hill.

Then hurrah! jolly anglers, for burn and for river. The songs of the birds and the lowing of kine: The voice of the river shall soothe us for ever, Then here's to the toast, boys--"The rod and the line!"

We walked in the darkness for about six miles thinking all the time of Dovedale, which we knew was running parallel with our road at about two miles' distance. When we reached Tissington, about three miles from Ashbourne, the night had become lighter, and there ought to have been a considerable section of the moon visible if the sky had been clear. Here we came to quite a considerable number of trees, but the village must have been somewhere in the rear of them. Well-dressing was a custom common in Derbyshire, and also on a much smaller scale in some of the neighbouring counties; but this village of Tissington was specially noted in this respect, for it contained five wells, all of which had to be dressed. As the dressers of the different wells vied with each other which should have the best show, the children and young people had a busy time in collecting the flowers, plants, buds, and ferns necessary to form the display. The festival was held on Holy Thursday, and was preceded with a service in the church followed by one at each of the wells, and if the weather was fine, hundreds of visitors assembled to criticise the work at the different wells. The origin of well-dressing is unknown, but it is certainly of remote antiquity, probably dating back to pagan times. That at Tissington was supposed to have developed at the time of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century, when, although it decimated many villages in the neighbourhood, it missed Tissington altogether--because, it was supposed, of the purity of the waters. But the origin of well-dressing must have been of much greater antiquity: the custom no doubt had its beginnings as an expression of praise to God from whom all blessings flow. The old proverb, "We never know the value of water till the well runs dry," is singularly appropriate in the hilly districts of Derbyshire, where not only the wells, but the rivers also have been known to dry up, and when the spring comes and brings the flowers, what could be more natural than to thank the Almighty who sends the rain and the water, without which they could not grow.

We were sorry to have missed our walk down Dove Dale, but it was all for the best, as we should again have been caught in the dark there, and perhaps I should have injured my foot again, as the path along the Dale was difficult to negotiate even in the daylight. In any case we were pleased when we reached Ashbourne, where we had no difficulty in finding our hotel, for the signboard of the "Green Man" reached over our heads from one side of the main street to the other.

(Distance walked twenty-six and a half miles.)

Tuesday, October 31st.

The inn we stayed at was a famous one in the days of the stagecoaches, and bore the double name "The Green Man and the Black's Head Royal Hotel" on a sign which was probably unique, for it reached across the full width of the street. A former landlord having bought another coaching-house in the town known as the "Black's Head," transferred the business to the "Green Man," when he incorporated the two signs. We were now on the verge of Dr. Johnson's country, the learned compiler of the great dictionary, who visited the "Green Man" in company with his companion, James Boswell, whose Life of Dr. Johnson is said to be the finest biography ever written in the English language. They had a friend at Ashbourne, a Dr. Taylor, whom they often visited, and on one occasion when they were all sitting in his garden their conversation turned on the subject of the future state of man. Johnson gave expression to his views in the following words, "Sir, I do not imagine that all things will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of Providence will be explained to us very gradually."

Boswell stayed at the "Green Man" just before journeying with Dr. Johnson to Scotland, and was greatly pleased by the manners of the landlady, for he described her as a "mighty civil gentlewoman" who curtseyed very low as she gave him an engraving of the sign of the house, under which she had written a polite note asking for a recommendation of the inn to his "extensive acquaintance, and her most grateful thanks for his patronage and her sincerest prayers for his happiness in time and in blessed eternity." The present landlady of the hotel appeared to be a worthy successor to the lady who presided there in the time of Boswell, for we found her equally civil and obliging, and, needless to say, we did justice to a very good breakfast served up in her best style.

The Old Hall of Ashbourne, situated at the higher end of the town, was a fine old mansion, with a long history, dating from the Cockayne family, who were in possession of lands here as early as the year 1372, and who were followed by the Boothby family.

The young Pretender, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," who had many friends in England, stayed a night at the Hall in 1745, and the oak door of the room in which he slept was still preserved. He and his Highlanders never got farther than Derby, when he had to beat a hurried retreat, pursued by the Duke of Cumberland. Prince Charlie, to avoid the opposing army at Stafford and Lichfield, turned aside along the Churnet valley, through Leek, and so to Ashbourne. At Derby he called a Council of War, and learned how the Royal forces were closing in upon him, so that reluctantly a retreat was ordered. Then began a period of plundering and rapine. The Highlanders spread over the country, but on their return never crossed into Staffordshire, for, as the story goes, the old women of the Woodlands of Needwood Forest undertook to find how things were going, and crept down to the bridges of Sudbury and Scropton. As it began to rain, they used their red flannel petticoats as cloaks, which the Highlanders, spying, took to be the red uniforms of soldiers, and a panic seized them--so much so, that some who had seized some pig-puddings and were fastening them hot on a pole, according to a local ditty, ran out through a back door, and, jumping from a heap of manure, fell up to the neck in a cesspool. The pillage near Ashbourne was very great, but they could not stay, for the Duke was already at Uttoxoter with a small force.

George Canning, the great orator who was born in 1770 and died when he was Prime Minister of England in 1827, often visited Ashbourne Old Hall. In his time the town of Ashbourne was a flourishing one; it was said to be the only town in England that benefited by the French prisoners of war, as there were 200 officers, including three generals, quartered there in 1804, and it was estimated that they spent nearly £30,000 in Ashbourne. An omnibus was then running between Ashbourne and Derby, which out of courtesy to the French was named a "diligence," the French equivalent for stage-coach; but the Derby diligence was soon abbreviated to the Derby "Dilly." The roads at that time were very rough, macadamised surfaces being unknown, and a very steep hill leading into the Ashbourne and Derby Road was called bête noire by the French, about which Canning, who was an occasional passenger, wrote the following lines:

So down the hill, romantic Ashbourne, glides The Derby Dilly, carrying three insides; One in each corner sits and lolls at ease, With folded arms, propt back and outstretched knees; While the pressed bodkin, pinched and squeezed to death, Sweats in the midmost place and scolds and pants for breath.

We were now at the end of the last spur of the Pennine Range of hills and in the last town in Derbyshire. As if to own allegiance to its own county, the spire of the parish church, which was 212 feet high, claimed to be the "Pride of the Peak." In the thirteenth-century church beneath it, dedicated to St. Oswald, there were many fine tombs of the former owners of the Old Hall at Ashbourne, those belonging to the Cockayne family being splendid examples of the sculptor's art. We noted that one member of the family was killed at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1404, while another had been knighted by King Henry VII at the siege of Tournay. The finest object in the church was the marble figure of a little child as she appeared--

Before Decay's effacing fingers Have swept the lines where beauty lingers,

which for simplicity, elegance, and childlike innocence of face was said to be the most interesting and pathetic monument in England. It is reputed to be the masterpiece of the English sculptor Thomas Banks, whose work was almost entirely executed abroad, where he was better known than in England. The inscriptions on it were in four different languages, English, Italian, French, and Latin, that in English being:

I was not in safety, neither had I rest, and the trouble came.

The dedication was inscribed:

TO PENELOPE

ONLY CHILD OF SIR BROOKE BOOTHBY AND DAME SUSANNAH BOOTHBY.

Born April 11th 1785, died March 13th 1791. She was in form and intellect most exquisite The unfortunate parents ventured their all in this Frail bark, And the wreck was Total.

The melancholy reference to their having ventured their all bore upon the separation between the father and mother, which immediately followed the child's death.

The description of the monument reads as follows:

The figure of the child reclines on a pillowed mattress, her hands resting one upon the other near her head. She is simply attired in a frock, below which her naked feet are carelessly placed one over the other, the whole position suggesting that in the restlessness of pain she had just turned to find a cooler and easier place of rest.

Her portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, her name appearing in his "Book of Sitters" in July 1788, when she was just over three years of age, and is one of the most famous child-pictures by that great master. The picture shows Little Penelope in a white dress and a dark belt, sitting on a stone sill, with trees in the background. Her mittened hands are folded in her lap, and her eyes are demurely cast down. She is wearing a high mob-cap, said to have belonged to Sir Joshua's grandmother.

This picture was sold in 1859 to the Earl of Dudley for 1,100 guineas, and afterwards exhibited at Burlington House, when it was bought by Mr. David Thwaites for £20,060.

The model for the famous picture "Cherry Ripe," painted by Sir John Everett-Millais, was Miss Talmage, who had appeared as Little Penelope at a fancy-dress ball, and it was said in later years that if there had been no Penelope Boothby by Sir Joshua Reynolds, there would have been no "Cherry Ripe" by Sir John Everett-Millais.

Sir Francis Chantrey, the great sculptor, also visited Ashbourne Church. His patron, Mrs. Robinson, when she gave him the order to execute that exquisite work, the Sleeping Children, in Lichfield Cathedral, expressly stipulated that he must see the figure of Penelope Boothby in Ashbourne Church before he began her work. Accordingly Chantrey came down to the church and completed his sketch afterwards at the "Green Man Inn," working at it until one o'clock the next morning, when he departed by the London coach.

Ashbourne is one of the few places which kept up the football match on Shrove Tuesday, a relic probably of the past, when the ball was a creature or a human being, and life or death the object of the game. But now the game was to play a stuffed case or the biggest part of it up and down the stream, the Ecclesbourne, until the mill at either limit of the town was reached.

The River Dove, of which it has been written the "Dove's flood is worth a king's good," formed the boundary between Derbyshire and Staffordshire, which we crossed by a bridge about two miles after leaving Ashbourne. This bridge, we were told, was known as the Hanging Bridge, because at one time people were hanged on the tree which stood on the border between the two counties, and we might have fared badly if our journey had been made in the good old times, when "tramps" were severely treated. Across the river lay the village of Mayneld, where the landlord of the inn was killed in a quarrel with Prince Charlie's men in their retreat from Derby for resisting their demands, and higher up the country a farmer had been killed because he declined to give up his horse. They were not nearly so orderly as they retreated towards the north, for they cleared both provisions and valuables from the country on both sides of the roads. A cottage at Mayneld was pointed out to us as having once upon a time been inhabited by Thomas, or Tom Moore, Ireland's great poet, whose popularity was as great in England as in his native country, and who died in 1852 at the age of seventy-three years. The cottage was at that time surrounded by woods and fields, and no doubt the sound of Ashbourne Church bells, as it floated in the air, suggested to him one of his sweetest and saddest songs:

Those evening bells! those evening bells, How many a tale their music tells Of youth and home and that sweet time When last I heard their soothing chime.

Those joyous hours are passed away, And many a heart that then was gay Within the tomb now darkly dwells, And hears no more those evening bells.

And so 'twill be when I am gone: The tuneful peal will still ring on: While other bards shall walk these dells And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.

We passed Calwick Abbey, once a religious house, but centuries ago converted into a private mansion, which in the time of Handel (1685-1759) was inhabited by the Granville family. Handel, although a German, spent most of his time in England, and was often the guest of the nobility. It was said that it was at Calwick Abbey that his greatest oratorios were conceived, and that the organ on which he played was still preserved. We ourselves had seen an organ in an Old Hall in Cheshire on which he had played when a visitor there, and where was also shown a score copy in his own handwriting. All that was mortal of Handel was buried in Westminster Abbey, but his magnificent oratorios will endure to the end of time.

On arrival at Ellastone we left our luggage at the substantially built inn there while we went to visit Norbury Church, which was well worth seeing, and as my foot had now greatly improved we were able to get over the ground rather more quickly. Norbury was granted to the Fitzherberts in 1125, and, strange as it may appear, the original deed was still in the possession of that ancient family, whose chief residence was now at Swynnerton at the opposite side of Staffordshire, where they succeeded the Swynnerton family as owners of the estate. The black image of that grim crusader Swynnerton of Swynnerton still remained in the old chapel there, and as usual in ancient times, where the churches were built of sandstone, they sharpened their arrows on the walls or porches of the church, the holes made in sharpening them being plainly visible. Church restorations have caused these holes to be filled with cement in many places, like the bullet holes of the more recent period of the Civil War, but holes in the exact shape of arrow heads were still to be seen in the walls at Swynnerton, the different heights showing some of the archers to have been very tall men. In spite of severe persecution at the time of the Reformation this branch of the family of the Fitzherberts adhered to the Roman Catholic Faith, Sir Thomas Fitzherbert being one of the most prominent victims of the Elizabethan persecutions, having passed no less than thirty years of his life in various prisons in England.

Norbury church was not a large one, but the chancel was nearly as large as the nave. It dated back to the middle of the fourteenth century, when Henry of Kniveton was rector, who made the church famous by placing a number of fine stained-glass windows in the chancel. The glass in these windows was very chaste and beautiful, owing to the finely tinted soft browns and greens, now probably mellowed by age, and said to rank amongst the finest of their kind in England. The grand monuments to the Fitzherberts were magnificently fine examples of the art and clothing of the past ages, the two most gorgeous tombs being those of the tenth and eleventh lords, in all the grandeur of plate armour, collars, decorations, spurs, and swords; one had an angel and the other a monk to hold his foot as he crossed into the unknown. The figures of their families as sculptured below them were also very fine. Considering that one of the lords had seventeen children and the other fifteen it was scarcely to be wondered at that descendants of the great family still existed.

Sir Nicholas, who died in 1473, occupied the first tomb, his son the second, and his children were represented dressed in the different costumes of their chosen professions, the first being in armour with a cross, and the next as a lawyer with a scroll, while another was represented as a monk with a book, but as the next had his head knocked off it was impossible to decipher him; others seemed to have gone into businesses of one kind or another.

The oldest monument in the church was a stone cross-legged effigy of a warrior in armour, dating from about the year 1300; while the plainest was the image of a female corpse in a shroud, on a gravestone, who was named ... Elysebeth ...

The which decessed the yeare that is goone, A thousand four hundred neynty and oone.

The church was dedicated to St. Barloke, probably one of the ancient British Divines.

On returning to Ellastone we learned that the inn was associated with "George Eliot," whose works we had heard of but had not read. We were under the impression that the author was a man, and were therefore surprised to find that "George Eliot" was only the nom de plume of a lady whose name was Marian Evans. Her grandfather was the village wheelwright and blacksmith at Ellastone, and the prototype of "Adam Bede" in her famous novel of that name.

It has been said that no one has ever drawn a landscape more graphically than Marian Evans, and the names of places are so thinly veiled that if we had read the book we could easily have traced the country covered by "Adam Bede." Thus Staffordshire is described as Loamshire, Derbyshire as Stoneyshire, and the Mountains of the Peak as the barren hills, while Oakbourne stands for Ashbourne, Norbourne for Norbury, and Hayslope, described so clearly in the second chapter of Adam Bede, is Ellastone, the "Donnithorpe Arms" being the "Bromley Arms Hotel," where we stayed for refreshments. It was there that a traveller is described in the novel as riding up to the hotel, and the landlord telling him that there was to be a "Methodis' Preaching" that evening on the village green, and the traveller stayed to listen to the address of "Dinah Morris," who was Elizabeth Evans, the mother of the authoress.

Wootton Hall, which stands immediately behind the village of Ellastone, was at one time inhabited by Jean Jacques Rousseau, the great French writer, who, when he was expelled from France, took the Hall for twelve months in 1776, beginning to write there his Confessions, as well as his Letters on Botany, at a spot known as the "Twenty oaks." It was very bad weather for a part of the time, and snowed incessantly, with a bitterly cold wind, but he wrote, "In spite of all, I would rather live in the hole of one of the rabbits of this warren, than in the finest rooms in London."

We now hurried across the country, along old country lanes and over fields, to visit Alton Towers; but, as it was unfortunately closed on that day, it was only by trespassing that we were able to see a part of the grounds. We could see the fine conservatories, with their richly gilded domes, and some portion of the ground and gardens, which were in a deep dell. These were begun by Richard, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the year 1814, who, after years of labour, and at enormous expense, converted them from a wilderness into one of the most extraordinary gardens in Europe, almost baffling description. There was a monument either to himself or the gardener, on which were the words:

He made the desert smile.

From the Uttoxeter Road we could see a Gothic bridge, with an embankment leading up to it, and a huge imitation of Stonehenge, in which we were much interested, that being one of the great objects of interest we intended visiting when we reached Salisbury Plain. We were able to obtain a small guide-book, but it only gave us the information that the gardens consisted of a "labyrinth of terraces, walls, trellis-work, arbours, vases, stairs, pavements, temples, pagodas, gates, parterres, gravel and grass walks, ornamental buildings, bridges, porticos, seats, caves, flower-baskets, waterfalls, rocks, cottages, trees, shrubs and beds of flowers, ivied walls, moss houses, rock, shell, and root work, old trunks of trees, etc., etc.," so, as it would occupy half a day to see the gardens thoroughly, we decided to come again on some future occasion. A Gothic temple stood on the summit of a natural rock, and among other curiosities were a corkscrew fountain of very peculiar character, and vases and statues almost without end.

We now followed the main road to the Staffordshire town of Uttoxeter, passing the ruins of Croxden Abbey in the distance, where the heart of King John had been buried, and where plenty of traces of the extreme skill in agriculture possessed by the monks can be seen. One side of the chapel still served as a cowshed, but perhaps the most interesting features were the stone coffins in the orchard as originally placed, with openings so small, that a boy of ten can hardly lie in one.

But we missed a sight which as good churchmen we were afterwards told we ought to have remembered. October 31st was All-Hallows Eve, "when ghosts do walk," and here we were in a place they revelled in--so much so that they gave their name to it, Duninius' Dale. Here the curious sights known as "Will-o'-the-Wisp" could be seen magnificently by those who would venture a midnight visit. But we had forgotten the day.

We stopped for tea at Uttoxeter, and formed the opinion that it was a clean but rather sleepy town. There was little to be seen in the church, as it was used in the seventeenth century as a prison for Scottish troops, "who did great damage." It must, however, have been a very healthy town, if we might judge from the longevity of the notables who were born there: Sir Thomas Degge, judge of Western Wales and a famous antiquary, was born here in 1612, and died aged ninety-two; Thomas Allen, a distinguished mathematician and philosopher, the founder of the college at Dulwich and the local Grammar School as well, born 1542, died aged ninety; Samuel Bentley, poet, born 1720, died aged eighty-three; Admiral Alan Gardner, born at the Manor House in 1742, and who, for distinguished services against the French, was raised to the Irish Peerage as Baron Gardner of Uttoxeter, and was M.P. for Plymouth, died aged sixty-seven; Mary Howitt, the well-known authoress, born 1799, also lived to the age of eighty-nine. A fair record for a small country town! John Wesley preached in the marketplace, in the centre of which was a fountain erected to the memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the distinguished lexicographer. His father, whose home was at Lichfield, was a bookseller and had a bookstall in Uttoxeter Market, which he attended on market days. The story is told that on one occasion, not feeling very well, he asked his son, Samuel, to take his place, who from motives of pride flatly refused to do so. From this illness the old man never recovered, and many years afterwards, on the anniversary of that sorrowful day, Dr. Samuel Johnson, then in the height of his fame, came to the very spot in the market-place where this unpleasant incident occurred and did penance, standing bareheaded for a full hour in a pitiless storm of wind and rain, much to the surprise of the people who saw him.

We now bade good-bye to the River Dove, leaving it to carry its share of the Pennine Range waters to the Trent, and walked up the hill leading out of the town towards Abbots Bromley. We soon reached a lonely and densely wooded country with Bagot's Wood to the left, containing trees of enormous age and size, remnants of the original forest of Needwood, while to the right was Chartley Park, embracing about a thousand acres of land enclosed from the same forest by the Earl of Derby, about the year 1248. In this park was still to be seen the famous herd of wild cattle, whose ancestors were known to have been driven into the park when it was enclosed. These animals resisted being handled by men, and arranged themselves in a semi-circle on the approach of an intruder. The cattle were perfectly white, excepting their extremities, their ears, muzzles, and hoofs being black, and their long spreading horns were also tipped with black. Chartley was granted by William Rufus to Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester, whose descendant, Ranulph, a Crusader, on his return from the Holy War, built Beeston Castle in Cheshire, with protecting walls and towers, after the model of those at Constantinople. He also built the Castle at Chartley about the same period, A.D. 1220, remarkable as having been the last place of imprisonment for the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, as she was taken from there in 1586 to be executed at Fotheringhay.

We were interested in these stories of Chartley Castle, for in our own county cattle with almost the same characteristics were preserved in the Parks of Lyme and Somerford, and probably possessed a similar history. That Ranulph was well known can be assumed from the fact that Langland in his Piers Plowman in the fourteenth century says:

I cannot perfitly my paternoster as the Priest it singeth. But I can rhymes of Robin Hood and Randall Erie of Chester.

Queer company, and yet it was an old story that Robin did find an asylum at Chartley Castle.

We overtook an elderly man on the road returning home from his day's toil on the Bagot estate, and he told us of an old oak tree of tremendous size called the "Beggar's Oak"; but it was now too dark for us to see it. The steward of the estate had marked it, together with others, to be felled and sold; but though his lordship was very poor, he would not have the big oak cut down. He said that both Dick Turpin and Robin Hood had haunted these woods, and when he was a lad a good many horses were stolen and hidden in lonely places amongst the thick bushes to be sold afterwards in other parts of the country.

The "Beggar's Oak" was mentioned in the History of Staffordshire in 1830, when its branches were measured by Dr. Darwen as spreading 48 feet in every direction. There was also a larger oak mentioned with a trunk 21 feet 4-1/2 inches in circumference, but in a decayed condition. This was named the Swilcar Lawn Oak, and stood on the Crown lands at Marchington Woodlands, and in Bagot's wood were also the Squitch, King, and Lord Bagot's Walking stick, all fine trees. There were also two famous oaks at Mavesyn Ridware called "Gog and Magog," but only their huge decayed trunks remained. Abbots Bromley had some curious privileges, and some of the great games were kept up. Thus the heads of the horses and reindeers for the "hobby horse" games were to be seen at the church.

The owner of this region, Lord Bagot, could trace his ancestry back to before the Conquest, for the Normans found one Bagod in possession. In course of time, when the estate had become comparatively poor, we heard that the noble owner had married the daughter of Mr. Bass, the rich brewer of Burton, the first of the Peerage marriages with the families of the new but rich.

We passed the Butter Cross and the old inn, reminiscent of stage-coach days, as the church bell was tolling, probably the curfew, and long after darkness had set in, for we were trying to reach Lichfield, we came to the village of Handsacre, where at the "Crown Inn" we stayed the night.

(Distance walked twenty-five miles.)

Wednesday, November 1st.

Although the "Crown" at Handsacre was only a small inn, we were very comfortable, and the company assembled on the premises the previous evening took a great interest in our travels. We had no difficulty in getting an early breakfast, and a good one too, before leaving the inn this morning, but we found we had missed seeing one or two interesting places which we passed the previous night in the dark, and we had also crossed the River Trent as it flowed towards the great brewery town of Burton, only a few miles distant.

Daylight found us at the foot of the famous Cannock Chase. The Chase covered about 30,000 acres of land, which had been purposely kept out of cultivation in olden times in order to form a happy hunting-ground for the Mercian Kings, who for 300 years ruled over that part of the country. The best known of these kings was Offa, who in the year 757 had either made or repaired the dyke that separated England from Wales, beginning at Chepstow in Monmouthshire, and continuing across the country into Flintshire. It was not a dyke filled with water, as for the most part it passed over a very hilly country where water was not available, but a deep trench sunk on the Welsh side, the soil being thrown up on the English side, forming a bank about four yards high, of which considerable portions were still visible, and known as "Offa's Dyke." Cannock Chase, which covered the elevations to our right, was still an ideal hunting-country, as its surface was hilly and diversified, and a combination of moorland and forest, while the mansions of the noblemen who patronised the "Hunt" surrounded it on all sides, that named "Beau-Desert," the hall or hunting-box of the Marquis of Anglesey, being quite near to our road.

We soon arrived at Lichfield, and on entering the town the three lofty and ornamental spires of the cathedral, which from their smart appearance were known as "The Three Ladies," immediately attracted our attention. But for these, travellers entering Lichfield by this road might easily have passed the cathedral without noticing it, as it stands on low and rather swampy ground, where its fine proportions do not show to advantage.

The Close of the cathedral, which partially surrounded it, was heavily fortified in the time of the Civil War, causing the cathedral to be very badly damaged, for it suffered no less than three different sieges by the armies of the Parliament.

The cathedral was dedicated to St. Chad, but whether he was the same St. Chad whose cave was in the rocky bank of the River Don, and about whom we had heard farther north, or not, we could not ascertain. He must have been a water-loving saint, as a well in the town formed by a spring of pure water was known as St. Chad's Well, in which the saint stood naked while he prayed, upon a stone which had been preserved by building it into the wall of the well. There was also in the cathedral at one time the "Chapel of St. Chad's Head," but this had been almost destroyed during the first siege of 1643. The ancient writings of the patron saint in the early Welsh language had fortunately been preserved. Written on parchment and ornamented with rude drawings of the Apostles and others, they were known as St. Chad's Gospels, forming one of the most treasured relics belonging to the cathedral, but, sad to relate, had been removed by stealth, it was said, from the Cathedral of Llandaff.

The first siege began on March 2nd, 1643, which happened to be St. Chad's Day, and it was recorded that during that siege "Lord Brooke who was standing in the street was killed, being shot through the eye by Dumb Dyott from the cathedral steeple." The cathedral was afterwards used by Cromwell's men as a stable, and every ornament inside and outside that they could reach was greatly damaged; but they appeared to have tried to finish the cathedral off altogether, when in 1651 they stripped the lead from the roof and then set the woodwork on fire. It was afterwards repaired and rebuilt, but nearly all the ornaments on the west front, which had been profusely decorated with the figures of martyrs, apostles, priests, and kings, had been damaged or destroyed. At the Restoration an effort was made to replace these in cement, but this proved a failure, and the only perfect figure that remained then on the west front was a rather clumsy one of Charles II, who had given a hundred timber trees out of Needwood Forest to repair the buildings. Many of the damaged figures were taken down in 1744, and some others were removed later by the Dean, who was afraid they might fall on his head as he went in and out of the cathedral.

In those days chimney sweepers employed a boy to climb up the inside of the chimneys and sweep the parts that could not be reached with their brush from below, the method of screwing one stale to the end of another and reaching the top in that way being then unknown. These boys were often cruelly treated, and had even been known to be suffocated in the chimney. The nature of their occupation rendered them very daring, and for this reason the Dean employed one of them to remove the rest of the damaged figures, a service which he satisfactorily performed at no small risk both to himself and others.

There is a very fine view in the interior of the cathedral looking from west to east, which extends to a distance of 370 feet, and of which Sir Gilbert Scott, the great ecclesiastical architect, who was born in 1811, has written, "I always hold this work to be almost absolute perfection in design and detail"; another great authority said that when he saw it his impressions were like those described by John Milton in his "Il Penseroso":

Let my due feet never fail To walk the studious cloisters pale, And love the high embossed roof, With antique pillars massy proof, And storied windows richly dight, Casting a dim, religious light: There let the pealing organ blow, To the full-voiced quire below. In service high, and anthems clear, As may with sweetness, through mine ear, Dissolve me into ecstacies. And bring all heaven before mine eyes.

We had not much time to explore the interior, but were obliged to visit the white marble effigy by the famous Chantrey of the "Sleeping Children" of Prebendary Robinson. It was beautifully executed, but for some reason we preferred that of little Penelope we had seen the day before, possibly because these children appeared so much older and more like young ladies compared with Penelope, who was really a child. Another monument by Chantrey which impressed us more strongly than that of the children was that of Bishop Ryder in a kneeling posture, which we thought a very fine production. There was also a slab to the memory of Admiral Parker, the last survivor of Nelson's captains, and some fine stained-glass windows of the sixteenth century formerly belonging to the Abbey of Herckrode, near Liège, which Sir Brooke Boothby, the father of little Penelope, had bought in Belgium in 1803 and presented to the cathedral.

The present bishop, Bishop Selwyn, seemed to be very much loved, as everybody had a good word for him. One gentleman told us he was the first bishop to reside at the palace, all former bishops having resided at Eccleshall, a town twenty-six miles away. Before coming to Lichfield he had been twenty-two years in New Zealand, being the first bishop of that colony. He died seven years after our visit, and had a great funeral, at which Mr. W.E. Gladstone, who described Selwyn as "a noble man," was one of the pall-bearers. The poet Browning's words were often applied to Bishop Selwyn:

We that have loved him so, followed and honour'd him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Caught his clear accents, learnt his great language, Made him our pattern to live and to die.

There were several old houses in Lichfield of more than local interest, one of which, called the Priest's House, was the birthplace in 1617 of Elias Ashmole, Windsor Herald to King Charles II, and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. When we got into the town, or city, we found that, although St. Chad was the patron saint of the cathedral, there was also a patron saint of Lichfield itself, for it was Johnson here, Johnson there, and Johnson everywhere, so we must needs go and see the house where the great Doctor was born in 1709. We found it adjoining the market-place, and in front of a monument on which were depicted three scenes connected with his childhood: the first showing him mounted on his father's back listening to Dr. Sacheverell, who was shown in the act of preaching; the second showed him being carried to school between the shoulders of two boys, another boy following closely behind, as if to catch him in the event of a fall; while the third panel represents him standing in the market-place at Uttoxeter, doing penance to propitiate Heaven for the act of disobedience to his father that had happened fifty years ago. When very young he was afflicted with scrofula, or king's evil; so his mother took him in 1712, when he was only two and a half years old, to London, where he was touched by Queen Anne, being the last person so touched in England. The belief had prevailed from the time of Edward the Confessor that scrofula could be cured by the royal touch, and although the office remained in our Prayer Book till 1719, the Jacobites considered that the power did not descend to King William and Queen Anne because "Divine" hereditary right was not fully possessed by them; which doubtless would be taken to account for the fact that Johnson was not healed, for he was troubled with the disease as long as he lived. When he was three years old he was carried by his father to the cathedral to hear Dr. Sacheverell preach. This gentleman, who was a Church of England minister and a great political preacher, was born in 1672. He was so extremely bitter against the dissenters and their Whig supporters that he was impeached before the House of Lords, and suspended for three years, while his sermon on "Perils of False Brethren," which had had an enormous sale, was burnt by the common hangman! It was said that young Johnson's conduct while listening to the doctor's preaching on that occasion was quite exemplary.

Johnson was educated at the Lichfield Grammar School under Dr. Hunter, who was a very severe schoolmaster, and must have been one of those who "drove it in behind," for Johnson afterwards wrote: "My Master whipt me very well. Without that I should have done nothing." Dr. Hunter boasted that he never taught a boy anything; he whipped and they learned. It was said, too, that when he flogged them he always said: "Boys, I do this to save you from the gallows!" Johnson went to Oxford, and afterwards, in 1736, opened a school near Lichfield, advertising in the Gentleman's Magazine for young gentleman "to be boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages, by Samuel Johnson." He only got eight pupils, amongst whom was David Garrick, who afterwards became the leading tragic actor of his time. Johnson had for some time been at work on a tragedy called The Tragedy of Irene, though whether this decided Garrick to become a tragedy actor is not known; the play, however, did not succeed with the play-going public in London, and had to be withdrawn. Neither did the school succeed, and it had to be given up, Johnson, accompanied by David Garrick, setting off to London, where it was said that he lived in a garret on fourpence-halfpenny per day. Many years afterwards, when Johnson was dining with a fashionable company, a remark was made referring to an incident that occurred in a certain year, and Johnson exclaimed: "That was the year when I came to London with twopence-halfpenny in my pocket."

Garrick overheard the remark, and exclaimed: "Eh, what do you say? with twopence-halfpenny in your pocket?"

"Why, yes; when I came with twopence-halfpenny in my pocket, and thou, Davy, with three-halfpence in thine."

Poverty haunted Johnson all through life until 1762, when he was granted a pension of £300 a year by King George III, on the recommendation of Lord Bute, the Prime Minister, who, in making the offer, said: "It is not given you for anything you are to do, but for what you have done." In the meantime Johnson had brought out his great Dictionary, at which he had worked for years in extreme poverty, and in the progress of which he had asked Lord Chesterfield to become his patron, in the hope that he would render him some financial assistance. When he went to see him, however, he was kept waiting for over an hour, while his lordship amused himself by conversing with some second-rate mortal named "Colley Cibber," and when this man came out, and Johnson saw who it was for whom he had been kept waiting, he hurriedly and indignantly took his departure. When his Dictionary was nearly ready for publication and likely to become a great success, his lordship wrote to Johnson offering to become his patron; but it was now too late, and Johnson's reply was characteristic of the man, as the following passages from his letter show:

Seven years, my Lord, have now passed since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on with my work through Difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one-smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had a Patron before. The notice you have been pleased to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it. I hope it is no cynical asperity not to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for myself!

Johnson's name is often associated with London taverns, but it would be wrong to assume on that account that he had bibulous tendencies, for although he described Boswell, who wrote his splendid biography, as a "clubable" man, and the tavern chair as the throne of human felicity, it should be remembered that there were no gentlemen's clubs in London in those days, hence groups of famous men met at the taverns. Johnson had quite a host of friends, including Garrick, Burke, Goldsmith, Savage (whose biography he wrote), Sheridan, and Sir Joshua Reynolds. When Sir Joshua Reynolds and Johnson were dining at Mrs. Garrick's house in London they were regaled with Uttoxeter ale, which had a "peculiar appropriate value," but Johnson's beverage at the London taverns was lemonade, or the juice of oranges, or tea, and it was his boast that "with tea he amused the evenings, with tea solaced the midnight hour, and with tea welcomed the morning." He was credited with drinking enormous quantities of that beverage, the highest number of cups recorded being twenty-five at one time, but the size of the cups were very much smaller in those days.

Johnson, who died in 1784 at the age of seventy-five, was buried in Westminster Abbey, and, mainly through the exertions of his friend Sir Joshua Reynolds, a statue of him was erected in St. Paul's Cathedral.

Other eminent men besides Dr. Johnson received their education at Lichfield Grammar School: Elias Ashmole, founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, Joseph Addison the great essayist, whose father was Dean of Lichfield, and David Garrick the actor, were all educated at the Grammar School. There were five boys who had at one period attended the school who afterwards became judges of the High Court: Lord Chief Justice Willes, Lord Chief Justice Wilmot, Lord Chief Baron Parker, Mr. Justice Noel, and Sir Richard Lloyd, Baron of the Exchequer.

Leaving Lichfield, we passed along the racecourse and walked as quickly as we could to Tamworth, where at the railway station we found our box awaiting us with a fresh change of clothing. In a few minutes we were comfortably rigged out for our farther journey; the box, in which my brother packed up the stones, was then reconsigned to our home address. I was now strong enough to carry my own luggage, which seemed to fit very awkwardly in its former position, but I soon got over that. There was at Tamworth a fine old church dedicated to St. Editha which we did not visit. We saw the bronze statue erected in 1852 to the memory of the great Sir Robert Peel, Bart., who represented Tamworth in Parliament, and was twice Prime Minister, and who brought in the famous Bill for the Abolition of the Corn Laws. These Laws had been in operation from the year 1436. But times had changed: the population had rapidly grown with the development of industries, so that being limited to home production, corn reached such a high price that people came to see that the laws pressed hardly upon the poorer classes, hence they were ultimately abolished altogether. The Bill was passed in 1846, Cobden, Bright, and Villiers leading the agitation against them, and after the Corn Laws were abolished a period of great prosperity prevailed in England.

Sir Robert Peel died from the effect of an accident sustained when riding on horseback in Hyde Park, on June 25th, 1850; he fell from his horse, dying three days afterwards, and was buried in his mausoleum, in the Parish Church of Drayton Bassett, a village about two miles from Tamworth.

It was the day of the Municipal Elections as we passed through Tamworth, but, as only one ward was being contested, there was an almost total absence o f the excitement usual on such occasions.

Tamworth Castle contains some walls that were built by the Saxons in a herringbone pattern. There was a palace on the site of the castle in the time of Ofta, which was the chief residence of the Kings of Mercia; but William the Conqueror gave the castle and town of Tamworth and the Manor of Scrivelsby in Lincolnshire to his dispensor, or royal steward, Robert of Fontenaye-le-Marmion in Normandy, whose family were the hereditary champions of the Dukes of Normandy:

These Lincoln lands the Conqueror gave, That England's glove they might convey To Knight renowned amongst the brave-- The Baron bold of Fontenaye.

Robert Marmion, therefore, was the first "King's Champion of England," an honour which remained in his family until the death of the eighth Lord, Philip Marmion, in 1291. This man was one of the leading nobles at the Court of Henry III, and the stubborn defender of Kenilworth Castle, acting as King's Champion at the Coronation of Edward I on August 19th, 1274. The duty of the King's Champion on the day of Coronation was to ride completely armed on a barbed horse into Westminster Hall, and there to challenge to combat any who should gainsay the king's title. On the death of Philip de Marmion the Castle of Tamworth passed by marriage to the Trevilles, Sir Alexander Treville, as owner of the castle, officiating; as Royal Champion at the Coronation of Edward III in 1327; but at the Coronation of Richard II, in 1377, the right of the Treville family to act as champion was disputed by Sir John Dymoke, to whom the Manor of Scrivelsby had descended by marriage from another relative of Phillip Marmion. It was decided that the office went with the Manor of Scrivelsby, and the Dymokes had acted as King's Champion ever since, their coat of arms bearing in Latin the motto, "I fight for the king."

As we passed over what is known as the Lady Bridge spanning the River Tame, just where it joins the River Anker at the foot of the castle, we saw a stone built in the bridge called the Marmion Stone, and remembered Sir Walter Scott's "Tale of Flodden Field" and his famous lines:

"Charge, Chester, charge! On, Stanley, on!" Were the last words of Marmion.

But we found other references in Sir Walter's "Marmion":

Two pursuivants, whom tabards deck, With silver scutcheon round their neck And there, with herald pomp and state, They hail'd Lord Marmion: They hail'd him Lord of Fontenaye, Of Lutterward, and Scrivelsbaye, Of Tamworth tower and town.

and in the Fifth Canto in "Marmion," King James of Scotland is made to say:

"Southward I march by break of day; And if within Tantallon strong. The good Lord Marmion tarries long, Perchance our meeting next may fall At Tamworth, in his castle-hall."-- The haughty Marmion felt the taunt, And answer'd, grave, the royal vaunt: "Much honour'd were my humble home, If in its halls King James should come.

* * * * *

And many a banner will be torn, And many a knight to earth be borne, And many a sheaf of arrows spent. Ere Scotland's King shall cross the Trent."

Sir Walter described Marmion as having been killed in the battle together with one of his peasants, and that as both bodies had been stripped and were covered with wounds, they could not distinguish one from the other, with the result that the peasant was brought and buried at Lichfield instead of his lord.

Short is my tale:--Fitz-Eustace' care A pierced and mangled body bare To moated Lichfield's lofty pile; And there, beneath the southern aisle, A tomb, with Gothic sculpture fair, Did long Lord Marmion's image bear, (Now vainly for its sight you look; 'Twas levell'd when fanatic Brook The fair cathedral storm'd and took; But, thanks to Heaven, and good Saint Chad, A guerdon meet the spoiler had!) There erst was martial Marmion found, His feet upon a couchant hound, His hands to heaven upraised: And all around, on scutcheon rich, And tablet carved, and fretted niche, His arms and feats were blazed. And yet, though all was carved so fair, And priest for Marmion breathed the prayer, The last Lord Marmion lay not there.

The Marmion stone on the bridge has five unequal sides, and at one time formed the base for a figure of the Virgin and the Child, which stood on the bridge. The ancient family of Basset of Drayton, a village close by, were in some way connected with this stone, for on one side appeared the arms of the family, on another the monogram M.R. surmounted by a crown, and on the two others the letters I.H.C. About two miles farther on we entered the village of Fazeley, purposely to see a house where a relative of ours had once resided, being curious to know what kind of a place it was. Here we were only a short distance away from Drayton Manor, at one time the residence of the great Sir Robert Peel. Having gratified our curiosity, we recrossed the River Tame, passing along the great Watling Street, the Roman Road which King Alfred used as a boundary in dividing England with the Danes, towards Atherstone in search of "fields and pastures new," and in a few miles reached the grounds of Merevale Abbey, now in ruins, where Robert, Earl Ferrers, was buried, long before coffins were used for burial purposes, in "a good ox hide." Here we reached the town of Atherstone, where the staple industry was the manufacture of hats, the Atherstone Company of Hat-makers being incorporated by charters from James I and Charles II. Many of the chiefs on the West Coast of Africa have been decorated with gorgeous hats that have been made at Atherstone. When the Romans were making their famous street and reached the spot where Atherstone now stands, they came, according to local tradition, to a large stone that was in their way, and in moving it they disturbed a nest of adders, which flew at them. The stone was named Adders' Stone, which gradually became corrupted to Athers' Stone, and hence the name of the town. The Corporation of the Governors embodied this incident in their coat of arms and on the Grammar School, which was endowed in 1573: a stone showed the adders as springing upwards, and displaying the words, "Adderstonien Sigil Scholæ." We called at the "Old Red Lion Inn," and, going to explore the town while our refreshments were being prepared, found our way to a church, once part of a monastery, where the old fourteenth-century bell was still tolled. It was in the chancel of this church that Henry, Earl of Richmond, partook of Holy Communion on the eve of his great victory over Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field, by which he became King Henry VII. He had also spent a night at the "Three Tuns Inn" preparing his plans for the fight, which occurred two days later, August 22nd, 1485. There was on the site of the battle a well named "King Dick's Well," which was covered with masonry in the form of a pyramid, with an entrance on one of its four sides, and which covered the spring where Richard, weary of fighting, had a refreshing drink before the final charge that ended in his death. He, however, lost the battle, and Henry of Richmond, who won it, was crowned King of England at Stoke Golding Church, which was practically on the battlefield, and is one of the finest specimens of decorated architecture in England. But what an anxious and weary time these kings must have had! not only they, but all others. When we considered how many of them had been overthrown, assassinated, taken prisoners in war, executed, slain in battle, forced to abdicate, tortured to death, committed suicide, and gone mad, we came to the conclusion that Shakespeare was right when he wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." In his King Richard II he makes the King say:

"And nothing can we call our own but death, And that small model of the barren earth Which serves as paste and cover to our bones. For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground And tell sad stories of the death of Kings: How some have been deposed, some slain in war, Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed, Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd; All murder'd."

One good result of the Battle of Bosworth Field was that it ended the "Wars of the Roses," which had been a curse to England for thirty years.

Bull-baiting was one of the favourite sports of our forefathers, the bull being usually fastened to an iron ring in the centre of a piece of ground, while dogs were urged on to attack it, many of them being killed in the fight. This space of land was known as the Bull-ring, a name often found in the centre of large towns at the present day. We knew a village in Shropshire where the original ring was still to be seen embedded in the cobbled pavement between the church and the village inn. But at Atherstone the bull had been fastened to a large stone, still to be seen, but away from the road, which had now been diverted from its original track.

The ancient whipping-post, along with the stocks, which had accommodation for three persons, had found their last resting-place inside the old market-hall. They must have been almost constantly occupied and used in the good old times, as Atherstone was not only on the great Watling Street, but it had a unique position on the other roads of the country, as an old milestone near our hotel, where we found our refreshments waiting our arrival, informed us that we were a hundred miles from London, a hundred miles from Liverpool, and a hundred miles from Lincoln, so that Atherstone could fairly claim to be one of the central towns in England, though the distance to Lincoln had been overstated.

We continued walking along the Watling Street for a short distance, until we reached the end of the town, and then we forked on to the right towards Nuncaton; but in a very short distance we came to the village of Mancetter, where there was a fine old church, apparently the Parish Church of Atherstone. When the Romans were here they protected their "Street" by means of forts, and one in a small chain of these was at Mancetter, the Manduesdum of the Romans, their camp appearing in the form of a square mound, with the "Street" passing through the centre. Inside the church were quite a number of very old books, in one of which we were shown a wood-cut representing the burning of Robert Glover and Cornelius Bongley at Coventry in 1555. Glover was a gentleman who lived at the Manor House here, and was one of the Mancetter Martyrs, the other being Mrs. Lewis, a tenant of his who lived at the Manor House Farm. She was burnt in 1557, two years later. A large tablet was placed in the church to their memories, both of them having suffered for their adherence to the Protestant Faith. The east-end window was a curiosity, for it contained a large quantity of thirteenth-century stained glass which had been brought here from Merevale Abbey. It was probably damaged both there and in transit, as it seemed to have a somewhat rough appearance; the verger informed us, when pointing out several defects in the figures, that a local glazier had been employed to erect it who did not understand such work, and though he had no doubt done his best, he had made some awkward mistakes. Why David's sword appeared behind his back the verger could not explain, so my brother suggested that either the head or the body had been turned the wrong way about.

There were five bells in the church tower, the largest of which was, of course, the tenor bell, weighing thirty-three hundredweight, and the words that had been cast on it set us a-thinking:

My soaring sound does warning give That a man on earth not only lives.

There were usually some strange records in these country churchyards, and we generally found them in the older portions of the burial-grounds; but we had very little time to look for them as the night was coming on, so we secured the services of the verger, who pointed out in the new part of the churchyard a stone recording the history of Charles Richard Potter in the following words:

Born--May 11, 1788. Married--May 11, 1812. Died--May 11, 1858.

So the eleventh day of May was a lucky or an unlucky day for Mr. Potter--probably both; but one strange feature which we only thought of afterwards was that he had lived exactly the allotted span of three score years and ten. In the old part of the yard were the following epitaphs:

The Earth's a City Full of crooked streets Death is ye market-place Where all must meet If life was merchandise That man could buy The rich would always live Ye poor must die.

In bygone times it was no unusual thing to find dead bodies on the road, or oftener a short distance from it, where the owners had laid themselves down to die; we ourselves remembered, in a lonely place, only a field's breadth from the coach road to London, a pit at the side of which years ago the corpse of a soldier had been found in the bushes. Here, apparently, there had been a similar case, with the exception that the man had been found by the side of the Watling Street instead of the fields adjoining. No one in the district knew who the stranger was, but as sufficient money had been found on him to pay the cost of the burial, his corpse was placed in Mancetter Churchyard, and as his name was unknown, some mysterious initials, of which no one now living knew the meaning, appeared on the headstone.

Here lieth interr'd the Body of I.

H. I. M.

What Ere we was or am it matters not to whom related, or by whom begot, We was, but am not. Ask no more of me 'Tis all we are And all that you must be.

We now hurried on, but as every finger-post had been painted white to receive the new letters, the old words beneath the paint were quite illegible, and, the road being lonely, of course we got lost, so, instead of arriving at Nuneaton, we found ourselves again at the Watling Street, at a higher point than that where we had left it when leaving Atherstone. Nearly opposite the lane end from which we now emerged there was a public-house, set back from the road, where a sign, suspended from a pole, swung alongside the Watling Street to attract the attention of travellers to the inn, and here we called to inquire our way to Nuneaton. The name of the house was the "Royal Red Gate Inn," the pole we had seen on the Watling Street holding a wooden gate painted red. We asked why the red gate was a royal one, and the landlady said it was because Queen Adelaide once called there, but who Queen Adelaide was, and when she called there, she did not know. When asked what she called for, she replied, "I don't know, unless it was for a drink!" As we did not know who Queen Adelaide was ourselves, we had to wait until we reached Nuneaton, where we were informed that she was the wife of William IV, and that in her retirement she lived at Sudbury Hall in Derbyshire, so this would be on her coach road to and from London. The lane at one end of the Red Gate went to Fenney Drayton, where George Fox the Quaker was born, about whom we had heard farther north; but we had to push on, and finally did reach Nuneaton for the night.

(Distance walked twenty-seven miles.)

Thursday, November 2nd.

In our early days we used to be told there was only one man in Manchester, which fact was true if we looked at the name; in the same way we were told there was but one nun in Nuneaton, but the ruins of the nunnery suggested that there must have been quite a number there in the past ages. We had seen many monasteries in our travels, but only one nunnery, and that was at York; so convent life did not seem to have been very popular in the North country, the chorus of a young lady's song of the period perhaps furnishing the reason why:

Then I won't be a Nun, And I shan't be a Nun; I'm so fond of pleasure That I cannot be a Nun.

The nuns had of course disappeared and long since been forgotten, but other women had risen to take their places in the minds and memories of the people of Nuneaton, foremost amongst whom was Mary Ann Evans, who was born about the year 1820 at the South Farm, Arbury, whither her father, belonging to the Newdegate family, had removed from Derbyshire to take charge of some property in Warwickshire. "George Eliot" has been described as "the greatest woman writer in English literature," and as many of her novels related mainly to persons and places between Nuneaton and Coventry, that district had been named by the Nuneaton people "The Country of George Eliot." Scenes of Clerical Life was published in 1858, and The Mill on the Floss in 1860, and although the characters and places are more difficult to locate than those in Adam Bede, the "Bull Hotel" at Nuneaton has been identified as the "Red Lion" in her novel, where Mr. Dempster, over his third glass of brandy and water, would overwhelm a disputant who had beaten him in argument, with some such tirade as: "I don't care a straw, sir, either for you or your encyclopædia; a farrago of false information picked up in a cargo of waste paper. Will you tell me, sir, that I don't know the origin of Presbyterianism? I, sir, a man known through the county; while you, sir, are ignored by the very fleas that infest the miserable alley in which you were bred!"

We left the "Newdegate Arms" at Nuneaton early in the morning, on our way to Lutterworth, our next object of interest, and passed by the village of Hartshill, where Michael Drayton was born in 1563. He was a lyric poet of considerable fame and a friend of Shakespeare. His greatest work, Polyolbion, a poetic description of different parts of England, was published in 1613. He became Poet Laureate, and at his death, in 1631, was buried in Westminster Abbey.

We again went astray owing to the finger-posts being without names, but at length reached the Watling Street at cross-roads, where there was a very old public-house called "The Three Pots," and here we turned to the right along the Street. The road was very lonely, for there were very few houses on the Street itself, the villages being a mile or two away on either side, but we had not gone very far before we met a Church of England clergyman, who told us he had just returned from India, and that he would much have liked to form one of our company in the journey we were taking. He was sorry he had not met us lower down the road so that he could have detained us a short time to listen to some of our tales of adventures, and he would have given us a glass of beer and some bread and cheese; which he altered to milk and eggs when we told him we did not drink beer. We explained to him that we should never be able to complete our journey if we joined the company of the beer-drinkers at the many taverns we passed, and lingered at, on our way. Our experience was that we were expected to tell tales, and the farther we travelled the more we should have had to tell. He quite saw the force of our argument, and then he said: "I presume you are not married," and when we told him we were not, he said, "I thought not, as you would never have been allowed to engage in so long a journey," and added, "I am just about to be married myself." We told him we were sorry he was about to lose his liberty, and, wishing him much happiness, and again thanking him for his proffered hospitality, we resumed our march.

In passing through country villages we often met the local clergyman or doctor, of whom we invariably inquired concerning any objects of interest to be seen. It was marvellous how many of them expressed a wish to imitate our example. This, however, was only on fine days, for we seldom met those gentlemen when the weather was bad, and we wondered whether, if we had, they would still have expressed a wish to form one of our company! Fine weather prevailed that day, and we soon arrived at the High Cross which marked the Roman centre of England. It was at this point that their most celebrated roads, the Fosse Way and the Watling Street, crossed each other, running, we supposed, from north-east to south-west and from north-west to south-east, to the extreme ends of the kingdom in each direction. The Cross in the time of the Romans was made of wood, being replaced or renewed in successive generations, until in the middle of the seventeenth century it was utilised as a finger-post, consisting of a long pole with four arms, to direct the way from "London to West Chester," and from "York to Bristol." In 1712 an ornamental stone cross was erected on the same spot by a number of gentlemen headed by Basil, the fourth Earl of Denbigh, who had large estates in that neighbourhood. The tableland on which it stood was 440 feet above the sea-level, rivers running from it in every direction, and such was the extent of the country visible from the Cross that with the aid of a telescope fifty-six churches could be seen. This elevated position might account for the Cross being struck by lightning in 1791 and partially destroyed, but the inscriptions on the base, which had been left standing, were still visible, although partially obscured by the numerous names and initials of vandals, who have succeeded in closing many interesting places to more civilised and sensible people. We could perhaps go further and describe them as fools, for what will it matter to posterity what their initials or names are; they only rouse the ire of those who follow them and a feeling of disappointment that they had not caught the offenders in their act of wanton mischief and been able to administer some corporal punishment or other.

Years ago the benevolent owner of a fine estate situated near a town decided to open his beautiful grounds to his poorer neighbours, but before doing so he erected at the entrance gate two large wooden tablets resembling the two tablets of the Ten Commandments formerly fixed in churches but now rapidly disappearing, and on these he caused his conditions and desires to be painted in poetry, four verses on each tablet. They represent what most landowners desire but few obtain:

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