Uncle was there when I returned to the front. He knew the country well, for in his vocation as a butcher he travelled it every week, and enabled me to decide between Kettlewell and Pateley Bridge for my coming route. And more, he said he would like to walk a mile or two with me; he would put on his coat, and soon overtake me. I walked slowly on, and was out of sight of the house, when he came running after me, and cried, “Hey! come back. A cup o’ tea ’ll do neither of us any harm, so come back and have a cup afore we start.”
I went back, for such hospitality as that was not to be slighted; and while we sipped he talked about the pretty scenery, about the rooms which he had to let, and the lodgers he had entertained. Sometimes there came a young couple full of poetry and sentiment, too much so, indeed, to be merry; sometimes a student, who liked to prowl about the ruin, explore all its secrets, and wander out to where
“High on a point of rugged ground,
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell,
Above the loftiest ridge or mound
Where foresters or shepherds dwell,
An edifice of warlike frame
Stands single—Norton tower its name—
It fronts all quarters, and looks round
O’er path and road, and plain and dell,
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream,
Upon a prospect without bound.”
And he talked, too, about the trout in the river, and the anglers who came to catch them. But the fishing is not unrestricted; leave must be obtained, and a fee paid. Anyone in search of trout or the picturesque, who can content himself with rustic quarters, would find in Mr. Williamson, of Barden Tower, a willing adviser.
Presently we took the road, which, with the river on the right, runs along the hill-side, sheltered by woods, high above the stream. A few minutes brought us to a gate, where we got over, and went a little way down the slope to look at Gale beck, a pretty cascade tumbling into a little dell, delightfully cool, and green with trees, ferns, and mosses. My companion showed that he used his eyes while driving about in his cart, and picked out the choice bits of the scenery; and these he now pointed out to me with all the pride of one who had a personal interest in their reputation. Ere long we emerged from the trees, and could overlook the pleasing features of the dale; fields and meadows on each side of the stream, bounded by steep hills, and crags peeping out from the great dark slopes of firs. The rocky summit of Symon Seat appeared above a brow on the left bank, coming more and more into view as we advanced, till the great hill itself was unveiled. From those rocks, on a clear day, you can see Rosebury Topping, and the towers of York and Ripon.
For four miles did my entertainer accompany me, which, considering the fierce heat of the evening, I could only regard as an honest manifestation of friendliness—to me very gratifying. We parted in sight of Burnsall, a village situate on the fork of the river, where the Littondale branch joins that of Wharfedale proper.
A man who sat reading at his door near the farther end of the village looked up as I passed, and asked, “Will ye have a drink o’ porter?” Hot weather justified acceptance; he invited me to sit while he went to the barrel, and when he came forth with the foaming jug, he, too, must have a talk. But his talk was not what I expected—the simple words of a simple-minded rustic; he craved to know something, and more than was good, concerning a certain class of publications sold in Holywell-street; things long ago condemned by the moral law, and now very properly brought under the lash of the legal law by Lord Campbell. Having no mission to be a scavenger, I advised him not to meddle with pitch; but he already knew too much, and he mentioned things which help to explain the great demand for the immoral books out of the metropolis. One was, that in a small northern, innocent-looking country town, Adam and Eve balls regularly take place, open to all comers who can pay for admission.
From Burnsall onwards we have again the grass country, the landscape loses the softened character of that in our rear; we follow a bad cross-road for some miles, passing wide apart a solitary farm or cottage, and come into a high-road a little to the right of Threshfield. Here and there a group of labourers are lounging on a grassy bank, smoking, talking quietly, and enjoying the sunset coolness; and I had more than one invitation to tarry and take a friendly pipe.
Louder sounds the noise of the river as the evening lengthens; the dark patches of firs on the hill-sides grow darker; the rocks and cliffs look strange and uncertain; the road approaches a foaming rapid, where another strid makes the water roar impatiently; and so I completed the ten miles from Harden Tower, and came in deep twilight to the
Anglers’ Inn
at Kilnsey as the good folk were preparing for bed.
As its name denotes, the house is frequented by anglers, who, after paying a fee of half-a-crown a day, find exercise for their skill in the rippling shallows and silent pools of the river which flows past not many yards from the road. I am told that the sport is but indifferent.
A short distance beyond the inn there rises sheer from the road a grand limestone cliff, before which you will be tempted to pause. A low grassy slope, bordered by a narrow brook, forms a natural plinth; small trees and ivy grow from the fissures high overhead, and large trees and bush on the ledges; the colony of swallows that inhabit the holes flit swiftly about the crest, and what with the contrast of verdure and rock, and the magnitude of the cliff, your eye is alike impressed and gratified. By taking a little trouble you may get to the top, and while looking on the scene beneath, let your thoughts run back to the time when Wharfedale was a loch, such as Loch Long or Loch Fyne, into which the tides of the sea flowed twice a day, beating against the base of the Kilnsey Crag, where now sheep graze, and men pass to and fro on business or pleasure.
To take my start the next morning from so lofty a headland: to feel new life thrill through every limb from the early sun; to drink of the spring which the cliff overshadows where it gushes forth among mossy stones at the root of an ash; to inhale the glorious breeze that tempered the heat, was a delightful beginning of a day’s walk. Soon we cross to the left bank of Wharfe, and follow the road between the river and a cliffy range of rocks to Kettlewell, enjoying pleasing views all the way. And the village itself seems a picture of an earlier age—a street of little stone cottages, backed by gardens and orchards; here and there a queer little shop; the shoemaker sitting with doors and windows open looking out on his flowers every time he lifts his eyes; the smith, who has opened all his shutters to admit the breeze, hammering leisurely, as if half inclined for a holiday with such a wealth of sunshine pouring down; and
Nancy Hardaker, Grocer and Draper
, and dealer in everything besides, busying herself behind her little panes with little preparations for customers. It is a simple picture: one that makes you believe the honest outward aspect is only the expression of honesty within.
For one who had time to explore the neighbourhood, Kettlewell would be good head-quarters. It has two inns, and a shabby tenement inscribed
Temperance Hotel
. Hence you may penetrate to the wild fells at the head of the dale; or climb to the top of Great Whernside; or ramble over the shoulder of the great mountain into Coverdale, discovering many a rocky nook, and many a little cascade and flashing rill. Great Whernside, 2263 feet high, commands views into many dales, and affords you a glimpse of far-off hills which we have already climbed. The Great one has a brother named Little Whernside, because he is not so high by nearly three hundred feet. The “limestone pass” between Great Whernside and Buckden Pike is described as a grand bit of mountain scenery.
From Kettlewell the road still ascends the dale, in sight of the river which now narrows to the dimensions of a brook. Crags and cliffs still break out of the hill-slopes, and more than any other that we have visited, you see that Wharfedale is characterized by scars and cliffs. The changing aspect of the scenery is manifest; the grass is less luxuriant than lower down, and but few of the fields are mown. Starbottom, a little place of rude stone houses, with porches that resemble an outer stair, reminds us once more of a mountain village; but it has trim flower-gardens, and fruit-trees, and a fringe of sycamores.
I came to Buckden, the next village, just in time to dine with the haymakers. Right good fare was provided—roast mutton, salad, and rice pudding. Who would not be a hay-maker! Beyond the village the road turns away from the river, and mounts a steep hill, where, from the top of the bend, we get our last look down Wharfedale, upwards along Langstrothdale, and across the elevated moorlands which enclose Penyghent. Everywhere the gray masses of stone encroach on the waving grass. Still the road mounts, and steeply; on the left, in a field, are a few small enclosures, all standing, which, perhaps, represent the British dwellings at the foot of Addleborough. Still up, through the hamlet of Cray, with rills, rocks, and waterfalls on the right and left, and then the crown of the pass, and a wide ridgy hollow, flanked by cliffs, the outliers of Buckden Pike, which rears itself aloft on the right. Then two or three miles of this breezy expanse, between Stake Fell on one side and Wasset Fell on the other, and we come to the top of Kidstone bank, and suddenly Bishopdale opens before us, a lovely sylvan landscape melting away into Wensleydale. It will tempt you to lie down for half an hour on the soft turf and enjoy the prospect at leisure.
The descent is alike rough and steep, bringing you rapidly down to the first farm. A cliff on the right gradually merges into the rounded swell of a green hill; we come to a plantation where, in the open places by the beck, grow wild strawberries; then to trees on one side—ash, holly, beech, and larch, the stems embraced by ivy, and thorns and wild roses between; then trees on both sides, and the narrow track is beautiful as a Berkshire lane—and that is saying a great deal—and the brook which accompanies it makes a cheerful sound as if gladdened by the quivering sunbeams that fall upon it. Everywhere the haymakers are at work, and with merry hearts, for the wind blows lustily and makes the whole dale vocal.
By-and-by the lane sends off branches, all alike pretty, one of which brings us down into the lowest meadows, and on the descent we get glimpses of Bolton Castle, and on the right appears Penhill, shouldering forward like a great promontory. A relic of antiquity may yet be seen on its slopes—obscure remains of a Preceptory of the Knights Templars. The watcher on Penhill was one of those who helped to spread the alarm of invasion in the days of Napoleon the Great, for he mistook a fire on the eastern hills for the beacon on Rosebury Topping, and so set his own a-blaze. We come to Thoralby, a village of comfortable signs within, and pleasant prospects without; and now Wensleydale opens, and another half-hour brings us to Aysgarth, a large village four miles below Bainbridge.
A tall maypole stands on the green, the only one I remember to have seen in Yorkshire. It is a memorial of the sports and pastimes for which Wensleydale was famous. The annual feasts and fairs would attract visitors from twenty miles around. Here, at Aysgarth, not the least popular part of the amusements were the races, run by men stark naked, as people not more than forty years old can well remember. But times are changed; and throughout the dale drunkenness and revelry are giving way to teetotalism, lectures, tea-gatherings, and other moral recreations. And the change is noticeable in another particular: the Quakers, who were once numerous in the dale, have disappeared too.
Some two or three years ago a notion prevailed in a certain quarter that the time was ripe for making proselytes, and establishing a meeting once more at Aysgarth. The old meeting-house, the school-room, and dwelling-house, remained; why should they not be restored to their original uses? Was it not “about Wensleydale” that George Fox saw “a great people in white raiment by a river-side?” Did he not, while on his journey up the dale, go into the “steeple-house” and “largely and freely declare the word of life, and have not much persecution,” and afterwards was locked into a parlour as “a young man that was mad, and had run away from his relations?” From certain indications it seemed that a successful effort might be made; an earnest and active member of the society volunteered to remove with his family from London into Yorkshire to carry out the experiment; and soon the buildings were repaired, the garden was cultivated anew, the doors of the meeting-house were opened; the apostle went about and talked to the people, and gave away tracts freely. The people listened to him, and read his tracts, and were well content to have him among them; but the experiment failed—not one became a Quaker.
At the beginning of the present year (1858) an essay was advertised for, on the causes of the decline of Quakerism, simultaneously with a great increase in the population at large. It appears to me that the causes are not far to seek. One of them I have already mentioned: others consist in what Friends call a “guarded education,” which seeks rather to ignore vice than to implant abhorrence of it; in training children by a false standard: “Do this; don’t do that;” not because it is right or wrong, but because such is or is not the practice of Friends, so that when the children grow old enough to see what a very foolish Mrs. Grundy they have had set before them as a model, they naturally suspect imposition, become restive, and kick over the traces. Moreover, to set up fidgetty crotchets as principles of truth, whereby the sense of the ludicrous is excited in others, and not reverence, is not the way to increase and multiply. Many Quakers now living will remember the earnest controversy that once stirred them as to whether it might be proper to use umbrellas, and to wear hats with a binding round the edge of the brim; and the anxious breeches question, of which a ministress said in her sermon, that it was “matter of concern to see so many of the young men running down into longs, yet the Lord be thanked, there was a precious remnant left in shorts.” And again, silent worship tends to diminish numbers, as also the exceeding weakness—with rare exceptions—of the words that occasionally break the silence; and the absence of an external motive to fix the attention encourages roving thoughts. Hence Darlington railway-shares, and the shop-shelves, and plans for arbours and garden-plots, employ the minds of many who might have other thoughts did they hear—“Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
There is my essay. It is a short one, freely given; for I must confess to a certain liking for the Quakers, after all. Their charities are noble and generous; their views on many points eminently liberal and enlightened; and though themselves enslaved to crotchets, they have shown bravely and practically that they abhor slavery; and their recent mission to Finland demonstrates the bounty and tenderness with which they seek to mitigate the evils of war. There is in Oxfordshire a little Quaker burial-ground, on the brow of a hill looking far away into the west country, where I have asked leave to have my grave dug, when the time comes: that is, if the sedate folk will admit among them even a dead Philistine.
I saw the Quaker above-mentioned standing at his door: we were total strangers to each other, but my Bainbridge friend had told him there was a chance of my visiting Aysgarth, and he held out his hand. Soon tea was made ready, and after that he called his son, and led me across the hill-slopes to get the best views, and by short cuts down to Aysgarth Force, a mile below the village, where the Ure rushes down three great breaks or steps in the limestone which stretch all across the river. The water is shallow, and falling as a white curtain over the front of each step, shoots swiftly over the broad level to the next plunge, and the next, producing, even in dry weather, a very pleasing effect. But during a flood the steps disappear, and the whole channel is filled by one great rapid, almost terrific in its vehemence. The stony margin of the stream is fretted and worn into many curious forms, and for a mile or more above and below the bed is stone—nothing but stone—while on each side the steep banks are patched and clothed with trees and bush. The broken ground above the Force, interspersed with bush, is a favourite resort of picnic parties, and had been thronged a few days before by a multitude of festive teetotallers.
The bridge which crosses the river between the Force and the village, with its arch of seventy-one feet span springing from two natural piers of limestone, is a remarkably fine object when viewed from below. Above, the river flows noisily from ledge to ledge down a winding gorge.
Drunken Barnaby, who, by the way, was a Yorkshireman, named Richard Braithwaite, came to Wensleydale in one of his itineraries. “Thence,” says the merry fellow—
“Thence to Wenchly, valley-seated,
For antiquity repeated;
Sheep and sheep-herd, as one brother,
Kindly drink to one another;
Till pot-hardy, light as feather,
Sheep and sheep-herd sleep together.
“Thence to Ayscarthe from a mountaine,
Fruitfull valleys, pleasant fountaine,
Woolly flocks, cliffs steep and snewy,
Fields, fens, sedgy rushes, saw I;
Which high mount is called the Temple,
For all prospects an example.”
The church stands in a commanding position, whence there is a good prospect down the dale. Besides the landscape, there are times when the daring innovations made by fashion on the old habits may be observed. Wait in the churchyard on Sunday when service ends, and you will see many a gay skirt, hung with flounces and outspread by crinoline, come flaunting forth from the church. And in this remote village, Miss Metcalfe and Miss Thistlethwaite must do the bidding of coquettish Parisian milliners, even as their sisters do in May Fair.
CHAPTER XXIII
A Walk—Carperby—Despotic Hay-time—Bolton Castle—The Village—Queen Mary’s Prison—Redmire—Scarthe Nick—Pleasing Landscape—Halfpenny House—Hart-Leap Well—View into Swaledale—Richmond—The Castle—Historic Names—The Keep—St. Martin’s Cell—Easby Abbey—Beautiful Ruins—King Arthur and Sleeping Warriors—Ripon—View from the Minster Tower—Archbishop Wilfrid—The Crypt—The Nightly Horn—To Studley—Surprising Trick—Robin Hood’s Well—Fountains Abbey—Pop goes the Weasel—The Ruins—Robin Hood and the Curtall Friar—To Thirsk—The Ancient Elm—Epitaphs.
My friend had for some time wished to look into Swaledale; he therefore accompanied me the next morning, as far as the route served, through the village of Carperby, where dwells a Quaker who has the best grazing farm in the North Riding. We passed without calling, for he must be a philosopher indeed, here in the dales, who can endure interruptions in hay-time, when all who can work are busy in the fields. Ask no man to lend you a horse or labourer in hay-time. Servants give themselves leave in hay-time, and go toiling in the sunshine till all the crop is led, earning as much out of doors in three or four weeks as in six months in-doors. What is it to them that the mistress has to buckle-to, and be her own servant for a while, and see to the washing, and make the bread? as I saw in my friend’s house, knowing that in case of failure the nearest place where a joint of meat or a loaf of bread can be got is at Hawes, eight miles distant. What is it to them? the hay must be made, whether or not.
A few light showers fell, refreshing the thirsty soil, and making the trees and hedgerows rejoice in a livelier green. It was as if Summer were overjoyed:
“Even when she weeps, as oft she will, though surely not for grief,
Her tears are turned to diamond drops on every shining leaf.”
so our walk of four miles to Bolton Castle was the more agreeable. The old square building, with its four square towers rising above a mass of wood, looks well as you approach from the road; and when you come upon the eminence on which it stands, and see the little village of Bolton, little thatched cottages bordering the green, as old in appearance as the castle, it is as if you looked on a scene from the feudal ages—the rude dwellings of the serfs pitched for safety beneath the walls, as in the days of Richard Lord Scrope, who built the castle four hundred years ago. A considerable portion of the edifice is still habitable; some of the rooms look really comfortable; others are let as workshops to a tinker and glazier, and down in the vaults you see the apparatus for casting sheet-lead. We saw the room in which the hapless Mary was confined, and the window by which, as is said, she tried, but failed, to escape. We went to the top, and looked over into the inner court; and got a bird’s-eye view of the village and of Bolton Park and Hall, amid the wooded landscape; and then to the bottom, down damp stone stairs, to what seemed the lowest vault, where, however, there was a lower depth—the dungeon—into which we descended by a ladder. What a dismal abode! of gloom too dense for one feeble candle to enliven. The man who showed the way said there was a well in one corner; but I saw nothing except that that spot looked blacker than the rest. To think that such a prison should have been built in the “good old times!”
On leaving the village, an old woman gave me a touch of the broadest dialect I had yet heard: “Eh! is ye boun into Swawldawl?” she exclaimed, in reply to my inquiry. We were going into Swaledale, and, taking a byeway above the village of Redmire, soon came to a road leading up the dale to Reeth, into which my friend turned, while I went on to the northern slope of Wensleydale. You ascend by a steep, winding road to Scarthe Nick, the pass on the summit, and there you have a glorious prospect—many a league of hill and hollow, of moor and meadow. From Bolton Castle and its little dependency, which lie well under the eye, you can look down the dale and catch sight of the ruined towers of Middleham; Aysgarth Force reveals itself by a momentary quivering flash; and scattered around, seven churches and eight villages, more or less environed by woods, complete the landscape. The scene, with its wealth of quiet beauty, is one suggestive of peace and well-being, dear to the Englishman’s heart. To one coming suddenly upon it from the dreary moorlands which lie between Wensleydale and Richmond, there would be something of enchantment in the far-spreading view.
I turned my back on it at last, and followed the road across the moors, where the memory of what you have just left becomes fairer by contrast. The route is solitary, and apparently but little frequented, for in ten miles I met only a man and a boy; and the monotony is only relieved after a while by a falling away of the brown slopes on the right, opening a view of the Hambleton Hills. There is one public-house on the way, the
Halfpenny House
, down in a hollow, by no means an agreeable resting-place, especially for a hungry man with a liking for cleanliness. Not far from it is Hart-Leap Well, sung by Wordsworth:
“There’s neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep,
Will wet his lips within that cup of stone;
And oftentimes when all are fast asleep,
This water doth send forth a dolorous groan.”
By-and-by, perhaps, ere you have done thinking of the poem, you come to the brow of a long declivity, the end of the moors, and are rewarded by a view which rivals that seen from Scarthe Nick. Swaledale opens before you, overspread with waving fields of grain, with numerous farmsteads scattered up and down, with a long range of cliff breaking the opposite slope, and, about four miles distant, Richmond on its lofty seat, crowned by the square castle-keep, tall and massive. I saw it lit by the afternoon sun, and needed no better invitation for a half-hour’s halt on the heathery bank.
You descend to the wheat-fields, and see no more of the town until close upon it. Swale, as you will notice while crossing the bridge, still shows the characteristics of a mountain stream, though broader and deeper than at Thwaite, where we last parted company with it. Very steep is the grass-grown street leading from the river up to the main part of the town, where, having found a comfortable public-house, I went at once to the castle. It occupies the summit of a bluff, which, rising bold and high from the Swale, commands a noble prospect over what Whitaker calls “the Piedmont of Richmondshire.” On the side towards the river, the walls are all broken and ruinous, with here and there a loophole or window opening, through which you may look abroad on the landscape, and ponder on the changes which have befallen since Alan the Red built a fortress here on the lands given to him in reward for prowess by the Conqueror. It was in 1071 that he began to fortify, and portions of his masonry yet remain, fringed with ivy and tufts of grass, and here and there the bugloss growing from the crevices. Perhaps while you saunter to and fro in the castle-garth the keeper will appear and tell you—though not without leave—his story of the ruins. If it will add to your pleasure, he will show you the spot where George IV. sat when Prince of Wales, and declared the prospect to be the finest he had ever beheld. You will be told which is Robin Hood’s Tower, which the Gold Tower—so called because of a tradition that treasure was once discovered therein—and which is Scolland’s Hall, where knights, and nobles, and high-born dames held their banquets. And here you will be reminded of Fitzhughs and Marmions, Randolph de Glanville, and William the Lion, of Nevilles and Scropes, and of the Lennox—a natural son of Charles II.—to whom the dukedom of Richmond was given by the merry monarch, and to whose descendants it still belongs.
One side of the garth is enclosed by a new building to be used as barracks or a military depôt, and near this, at the angle towards the town, rises the keep. What a mighty tower it is! ninety-nine feet high, the walls eleven feet thick, strengthened on all sides by straight buttresses, an impressive memorial of the Normans. It was built by Earl Conan, seventy-five years after Red Alan’s bastions. The lowest chamber is dark and vaulted, with the rings still remaining to which the lamps were hung, and a floor of natural rock pierced by the old well. The chief entrance is now on the first floor, to which you mount by an outer stair, and the first things you see on entering are the arms and accoutrements of the Yorkshire militia, all carefully arranged. The view from the top delights your eye by its variety and extent—a great sweep of green hills and woods, the winding dale, and beyond, the brown heights that stretch away to the mountains. You