diff options
Diffstat (limited to '47239-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/47239-h.htm | 10114 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/P138.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15090 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/c1head.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16733 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 0 -> 51758 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/fp.jpg | bin | 0 -> 52384 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/illuhead.jpg | bin | 0 -> 9252 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p101.jpg | bin | 0 -> 50100 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p105.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16896 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p108.jpg | bin | 0 -> 13683 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p109.jpg | bin | 0 -> 10038 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p111.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38149 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p113.jpg | bin | 0 -> 11850 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p115.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16237 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p117.jpg | bin | 0 -> 26221 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p121.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38035 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p125.jpg | bin | 0 -> 34849 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p127.jpg | bin | 0 -> 36947 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p130.jpg | bin | 0 -> 20008 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p132.jpg | bin | 0 -> 10640 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p137.jpg | bin | 0 -> 31811 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p138.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15090 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p14.jpg | bin | 0 -> 19409 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p145.jpg | bin | 0 -> 30420 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p153.jpg | bin | 0 -> 47063 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p157.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44368 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p162.jpg | bin | 0 -> 7508 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p165.jpg | bin | 0 -> 20366 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p167.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15469 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p169.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41670 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p173.jpg | bin | 0 -> 39503 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p174.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22889 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p175.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41222 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p185.jpg | bin | 0 -> 35256 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p188.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18901 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p192.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16078 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p197.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40861 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p203.jpg | bin | 0 -> 9919 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p205.jpg | bin | 0 -> 24292 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p213.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44868 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p215.jpg | bin | 0 -> 26147 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p220.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14991 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p221.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16864 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p223.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37323 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p228.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12875 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p232.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18100 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p235.jpg | bin | 0 -> 20736 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p238.jpg | bin | 0 -> 26014 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p239.jpg | bin | 0 -> 25449 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p241.jpg | bin | 0 -> 10932 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p242.jpg | bin | 0 -> 7809 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p243.jpg | bin | 0 -> 2825 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p245.jpg | bin | 0 -> 42763 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p247.jpg | bin | 0 -> 8815 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p249.jpg | bin | 0 -> 42349 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p250.jpg | bin | 0 -> 8441 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p251.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38700 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p255.jpg | bin | 0 -> 10043 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p33.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44958 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p41.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18767 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p45.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22258 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p49.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41543 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p52.jpg | bin | 0 -> 19326 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p53.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16906 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p6.jpg | bin | 0 -> 25087 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p60.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18983 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p63.jpg | bin | 0 -> 18030 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p64.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22011 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p70.jpg | bin | 0 -> 20421 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p71.jpg | bin | 0 -> 16137 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p72.jpg | bin | 0 -> 14245 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p74.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12383 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p76.jpg | bin | 0 -> 13535 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p77.jpg | bin | 0 -> 22254 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p80.jpg | bin | 0 -> 15698 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p81.jpg | bin | 0 -> 37642 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p85.jpg | bin | 0 -> 32599 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p9.jpg | bin | 0 -> 34309 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p93.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12153 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p94.jpg | bin | 0 -> 5621 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p98.jpg | bin | 0 -> 11411 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/p99.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12717 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 47239-h/images/tp.jpg | bin | 0 -> 9879 bytes |
82 files changed, 10114 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/47239-h/47239-h.htm b/47239-h/47239-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5146f30 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/47239-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,10114 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Great North Road: York to Edinburgh, by Charles G. Harper</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Great North Road: York to Edinburgh, by +Charles G. Harper, Illustrated by Charles G. Harper + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Great North Road: York to Edinburgh + The Old Mail Road to Scotland + + +Author: Charles G. Harper + + + +Release Date: October 30, 2014 [eBook #47239] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT NORTH ROAD: YORK TO +EDINBURGH*** +</pre> +<p>This eBook was transcribed by Les Bowler.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/cover.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Book cover" +title= +"Book cover" + src="images/cover.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fp.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “Highflyer,” 1812" +title= +"The “Highflyer,” 1812" + src="images/fp.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1><i>The</i><br /> +GREAT NORTH ROAD</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">The Old Mail Road to Scotland</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>By</i> CHARLES G. HARPER</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">YORK TO EDINBURGH</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>With</i> 77 <i>Illustrations by +the Author</i>, <i>and from</i><br /> +<i>old-time Prints and Pictures</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tp.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old-time Coachman" +title= +"Old-time Coachman" + src="images/tp.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center">London:<br /> +CECIL PALMER<br /> +<span class="smcap">Oakley House</span>, <span +class="smcap">Bloomsbury Street</span>, W.C. <span +class="GutSmall">1</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. ii</span><i>First Published in</i> 1901.<br /> +<i>Second and Revised Edition</i>—1922.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed in Great Britain by C. +<span class="smcap">Tinling</span> & Co., <span +class="smcap">Ltd</span>.,<br /> +53, Victoria Street, Liverpool.<br /> +Also at London and Prescot.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2><a name="pageiii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. iii</span>THE +GREAT NORTH ROAD<br /> +YORK TO EDINBURGH</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>London (General Post Office) to—</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">MILES</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">196¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Clifton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">198¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rawcliff</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">200¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Skelton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">201¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Shipton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">202¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tollerton Lanes</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">206½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Easingwold</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">210¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>White House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">211¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Thormanby</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">214¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Birdforth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">215</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bagby Common (“Griffin” Inn)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">217½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Mile House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">218½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Thirsk</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">220½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>South Kilvington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">222</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Thornton-le-Street</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">223½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Thornton-le-Moor</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">224¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Northallerton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">229¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lovesome Hill</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">229¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Little Smeaton (cross River Wiske)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">231¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Great Smeaton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">232¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>High Entercommon</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">233¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dalton-on-Tees</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">236¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Croft (cross River Tees)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">237¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Oxneyfield Bridge (cross River Skerne)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">238</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Darlington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">241¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Harrogate</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">243½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageiv"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +iv</span>Coatham Mandeville</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">245¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Aycliffe</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">246¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Traveller’s Rest</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">248</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Woodham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">249¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rushyford Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">250½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ferryhill</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">253</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Low Butcher Race and Croxdale</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">255</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sunderland Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">255¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Browney Bridge (cross River Wear)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">256</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Durham (cross River Browney)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">260</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Durham Moor (Framwellgate)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">261</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Plawsworth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">263½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Chester-le-Street</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">266</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Birtley</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">269</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gateshead Fell</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">271</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gateshead (cross River Tyne)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">273½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Newcastle-on-Tyne</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">274½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gosforth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">277</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Seaton Burn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">280¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Stannington Bridge (cross River Blyth)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">284</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Stannington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">284½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Clifton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">286½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Morpeth (cross River Wansbeck)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">289¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Warrener’s House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">291¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Priest’s Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">293¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>West Thirston (cross River Coquet)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">299¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Felton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">299¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Newton-on-the Moor</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">302½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Alnwick (cross River Aln)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">308½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Heiferlaw Bank</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">310</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>North Charlton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">314¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Warenford</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">318¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Belford</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">323</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Detchant Cottages</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">325¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Fenwick</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">328</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>Haggerston</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">331</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tweedmouth (cross River Tweed)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">337½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Berwick-on-Tweed</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">338</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lamberton Toll</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">341</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">(<span +class="smcap">Enter Scotland</span>)</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Greystonelees</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">343½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Flemington Inn and Burnmouth (cross River Eye)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">344</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ayton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">346</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Houndwood</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">351¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Grant’s House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">354½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cockburnspath</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">358</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dunglass Dene</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">359¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Broxburn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">363½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dunbar</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">365</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Belhaven</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">365¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Beltonford</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">367½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Phantassie</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">370</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>East Linton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">370½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Haddington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">376</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gladsmuir</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">379¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Macmerry</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">381½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tranent</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">383¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Musselburgh (cross North Esk River)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">387¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Joppa</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">389¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Portobello</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">390</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Jock’s Lodge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">391½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Edinburgh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">393</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><i>Via</i> <span +class="smcap">Ferrybridge, Wetherby, and +Boroughbridge</span>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Doncaster (cross River Don)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">162¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York Bar</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">164</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Red House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">167¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pagevi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vi</span>Robin Hood’s Well</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">169¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Went Bridge (cross River Went)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">172¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Darrington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">174½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ferrybridge (cross River Aire)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">177½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Brotherton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">178½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Fairburn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">180</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Micklefield</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">184</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Aberford</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">186½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bramham Moor</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">186½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bramham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">190¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Wetherby (cross River Wharfe)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">194¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Kirk Deighton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">195¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Walshford Bridge (cross River Nidd)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">197¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Allerton Park</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">200¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Nineveh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">202½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ornham’s Hall</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">204¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Boroughbridge (cross River Ure)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">206¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Kirkby Hill</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">207¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dishforth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">210½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Asenby</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">212¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Topcliffe (cross River Swale)</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">212¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sand Hutton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">217</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Newsham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">219</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>South Otterington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">220¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>North Otterington</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">222¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Northallerton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">225¼</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Edinburgh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">389</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. vii</span>LIST +OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/illuhead.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decorative heading" +title= +"Decorative heading" + src="images/illuhead.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Highflyer,” 1812</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">Frontispiece</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Old York: The Shambles</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page6">6</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Walls of York</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image9">9</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York Castle: Clifford’s Tower</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York Minster, from the Foss</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>All Saints’ Pavement</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Jonathan Martin, Incendiary</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image45">45</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York Minster on Fire</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image49">49</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bootham Bar</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page52">52</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Skelton Church</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Spotted Dog,” Thornton-le-Street</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page60">60</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>York Bar</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Robin Hood’s Well</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page64">64</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Battlefield of Towton and surrounding country</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Saxton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Towton Dale</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page72">72</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lead Chapel</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page74">74</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ruined Mill overlooking Aberford</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page76">76</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +viii</span>Barwick-in-Elmete</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page77">77</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Moor End</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Nineveh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Edinburgh Express, 1837</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Croft Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sockburn Falchion</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Locomotion”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Experiment”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page99">99</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“I say, fellow, give my buggy a charge of coke, your +charcoal is too d—d dear”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image101">101</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Iron Road to the North</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page105">105</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Traveller’s Rest</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rushyford Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page109">109</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Ferryhill: The Abandoned Road-Works</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Merrington Church</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Road, Rail, and River: Sunderland Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Entrance to Durham</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image117">117</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Durham Cathedral, from Prebend’s Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image121">121</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Sanctuary Knocker</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image125">125</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Durham Cathedral and Castle from below Framwellgate +Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image127">127</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Framwellgate Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page130">130</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Penshaw Monument</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page132">132</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Coal Country</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image137">137</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Wayside Halt</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Travellers arriving at an Inn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page145">145</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Modern Newcastle: from Gateshead</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Old Newcastle: showing the Town Bridge, now demolished</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image157">157</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Drunkard’s Cloak”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page162">162</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Puffing Billy”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image165">165</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ix</span>The +Gates of Blagdon Park</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Morpeth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image169">169</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Market-place, Morpeth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Felton Bridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page174">174</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Alnwick</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image175">175</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Alnwick Castle</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image185">185</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Malcolm’s Cross</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page188">188</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bambrough Castle</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page192">192</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Scottish Border: Berwick Town and Bridge from +Tweedmouth</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image197">197</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lamberton Toll</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page203">203</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Off to the Border</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image205">205</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cockburnspath Tower</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image213">213</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Tolbooth, Dunbar</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page215">215</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Bothwell Castle</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page220">220</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Haddington Abbey, from Nungate</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page221">221</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Edinburgh, from Tranent</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image223">223</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Musselburgh</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Calton Hill</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page232">232</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “White Horse” Inn</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page235">235</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Squalor and Picturesqueness”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page238">238</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Canongate</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Old Inscription, Lady Stair’s House</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page241">241</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Heave Awa” Sign</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page242">242</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Tirle-pin</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page243">243</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Greyfriars</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Wooden Horse</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page247">247</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Stately Princes Street</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image249">249</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Edinburgh, New Town, 1847, from Mons Meg Battery</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="imageref"><a +href="#image251">251</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Skyline of the Old Town</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page255">255</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/c1head.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Chapter Heading: The Great North Road" +title= +"Chapter Heading: The Great North Road" + src="images/c1head.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>I</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> last we are safely arrived at +York, perhaps no cause for comment in these days, but a +circumstance which “once upon a time” might almost +have warranted a special service of prayer and praise in the +Minster. One comes to York as the capital of a country, +rather than of a county, for it is a city that seems in more than +one sense Metropolitan. Indeed, you cannot travel close +upon two hundred miles, even in England and in these days of +swift communication, without feeling the need of some dominating +city, to act partly as a seat of civil and ecclesiastical +government, and partly as a distributing centre; and if something +of this need is even yet apparent, how much more keenly it must +have been felt in those “good old days” which were +really so bad! A half-way house, so to speak, between those +other capitals of London and Edinburgh, York had all the +appearance of a capital in days of old, and has lost but little +of it, in these, <a name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +2</span>even though in point of wealth and population it lags +behind those rich and dirty neighbours, Leeds and Bradford. +For one thing, it has a history to which they cannot lay claim, +and keeps a firm hold upon titles and dignities conferred ages +ago. We may ransack the pages of historians in vain in +attempting to find the beginnings of York. Before history +began it existed, and just because it seems a shocking thing to +the well-ordered historical mind that the first founding of a +city should go back beyond history or tradition, Geoffrey of +Monmouth and other equally unveracious chroniclers have +obligingly given precise—and quite +untrustworthy—accounts of how it arose, at the bidding of +kings who never had an existence outside their fertile +brains.</p> +<p>When the Romans came, under Agricola, in <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 70, York was here. We do not +know by what name the Brigantes, the warlike tribe who inhabited +the northern districts of Britain, called it, but they possessed +forts at this strategic point, the confluence of the rivers Ouse +and Foss, where York still stands, and evidently had the military +virtues fully developed, because it has seemed good to all who +have come after them, from the Romans and the Normans to +ourselves, to build and retain castles on the same sites. +The Brigantes were a great people, despite the fact that they had +no literature, no science, and no clothes with which to cover +their nakedness, and were they in existence now, might be useful +in teaching our War Office and commanding officers something of +strategy and fortification. They have left memorials of +their existence in the names of many places beginning with +“Brig,” and they are the sponsors of all the brigands +that ever existed, for their name was a Brito-Welsh word meaning +“hill-men” or “highlanders,” and, as in +the old days, to be a highlander was to be a thief and +cut-throat, the chain of derivative facts that connects them with +the bandits of two thousand years is complete.</p> +<p><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>A hundred +and twenty years or so after the Romans had captured the +Brigantes’ settlement here, we find York suddenly emerging, +a fully-fledged Roman city, from the prehistoric void, under the +name of Eboracum. This was in the time of the Emperor +Septimus Severus, who died in <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> +211 in this <i>Altera Roma</i>, the principal city of Roman +Britain. For this much is certain, that, as Winchester was, +and London is, the capital of England, so was York at one time +the chief city of the Roman colony, the foremost place of arms, +of rule, and of residence; and so it remained until Honorius, the +hard-pressed, freed Britain from its allegiance in <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 410 and withdrew the +legionaries. Two hundred years is a considerable length of +time, even in the history of a nation, and much happened in +Eboracum in that while. Another Roman emperor died here, in +the person of Constantius Chlorus, and his son, Constantine the +Great, whom some will have it was even born here, succeeded +him. Both warred with the Pictish tribes from the North; +that inhospitable North which swallowed up whole detachments; the +North which Hadrian had conquered over two hundred years before, +and now was exhausting the energies of the conquerors. +Empire is costly in lives and treasure, and the tragedy of Roman +conquest and occupation is even now made manifest in the +memorials unearthed by antiquaries, recording the deaths of many +of the Roman centurions at early ages. Natives of sunny +Italy or of the south of France, they perished in the bleak hills +and by the wintry rivers of Northumbria, much more frequently +than they did at the hands of the hostile natives, who soon +overwhelmed the magnificence of Eboracum when the garrisons +left. The civilisation that had been established here, +certainly since the time of Severus, was instantly destroyed, and +Caer Evraue, as it came to be called, became a heap of +ruins. Then came the Saxons, who remodelled the name into +Eoferwic, succeeded in turn by the Danes, from whose +“Jorvic,” pronounced <a name="page4"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 4</span>with the soft J, we obtain Yorvic, the +“Euerwic” of Domesday Book, and finally York. +But whence the original “Eboracum” derived or what it +meant is purely conjectural.</p> +<p>Christianity, fulfilling Divine promise, had brought +“not peace, but a sword” to the Romans, and the Saxon +king, Edwin of Northumbria, had not long been converted and +baptized at York, on the site of the present Minster, before he +was slain in conflict with the heathen. It was Paulinus, +first Archbishop of York, who had baptized Edwin in 625. +Sent to the North of England by Gregory the Great, as Augustine +had already been sent for the conversion of the South, it was the +Pope’s intention to establish two Archbishoprics; and +thence arose centuries of quarrelling between the Archbishops of +Canterbury and those of York as to who was supreme. York, +indeed, only claimed equal rights; but Canterbury claimed +precedence. In the Synod of 1072 the Archbishop of York was +declared subordinate to Canterbury, but half a century later, in +order to make peace, Rome adjudged them equal. Even this +did not still the strife, and Roger Pont +l’Évêque, the Archbishop of York, who was +contemporary with Becket, and aided the king in his struggle with +that prelate, was especially bitter in the attempt to assert in +all places and at all seasons this equality. He renewed the +contention with Becket’s successor, and provoked an absurd +scene at the Council of Westminster in 1176, when, arriving late +and finding the Archbishop of Canterbury present and already +seated, he sat down in his lap. The result was, that the +Council of Westminster immediately resolved itself into a faction +fight, in which my lord of York was jumped upon and kicked, for +all the world like a football umpire who has given an unpopular +decision. Even this did not settle either the Archbishop of +York or the strife, and so at last, in 1354, it was decreed that +each should be supreme in his own Province, and that the +Archbishop of Canterbury should be “Primate of All +England,” <a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>while his brother of York should bear the title of +“Primate of England”; but whenever an Archbishop of +York was consecrated he should send to the Primate of All England +a golden jewel, valued at £40, to be laid on the Shrine of +St. Thomas. “Thus,” says Fuller, in his +inimitably humorous manner, “when two children cry for the +same apple, the indulgent father divides it between them, yet so +that he gives the better part to the child which is his +darling.” Rome has long since ceased to have part or +lot in the English Church, but this solemn farce of nomenclature +is still retained.</p> +<p>In such things as these does York retain something of its old +pride of place. Even its Mayor is a Lord Mayor, which was +something to be proud of before these latter days, now Lord +Mayors are three a penny, and every bumptious modern overgrown +town is in process of obtaining one. The first Lord Mayor +of York, however, was appointed by Richard the Second, and thus +the title has an honourable antiquity.</p> +<p>In its outward aspect, York is varied. It runs the whole +gamut, from the highest antiquity to the most modern of shops and +villas; from the neatest and tidiest streets to the most +draggle-tailed and out-at-elbowed courts and alleys. From +Clifton and Knavesmire, which is a great deal more respectable +and clean than its evil-sounding name would lead the stranger to +suppose, to the Shambles, Fossgate, and Mucky Peg’s Lane +(now purged of offence as Finkle Street) is a further social than +geographical cry, and they certainly touch both extremes. +“Mucky Peg” and the knaves of the waste lands outside +the city are as historic in their way as Roman York, which lies +nine feet below the present level of the streets, and for whose +scanty relics one must visit the Museum of the Philosophical +Society in the grounds of the ruined St. Mary’s +Abbey. In those grounds also the only fragment of the Roman +walls may be seen, in the lower stage of the Multangular Tower, +once commanding the bank of the river Ouse.</p> +<p>York is perhaps of all English towns and cities the <a +name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>most difficult +place to explore. Its streets branch and wind in every +direction, without any apparent plan or purpose, and thus an +exploration of the Walls, of which the city is, with reason, +extremely proud, becomes the best means of ascertaining its +importance and the relative positions of Castle and +Minster. It is no short stroll, for, by the time the whole +circuit is made, a distance of nearly three miles has been +covered. These medieval walls form, indeed, the most +delightful promenade imaginable, being built on a grassy rampart +and provided with a paved footpath running on the inner side of +the battlements, and thus commanding panoramic views within and +without the city.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p6.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old York: The Shambles" +title= +"Old York: The Shambles" + src="images/p6.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Endeavour, by an effort of the imagination, to see the ground +outside the walls free from the suburbs that now spread far in +almost every direction, and you have the York of ancient days, +little changed; for from <a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>this point of view, looking down upon +the clustered red roofs of the city, with its gardens and +orchards, the towering bulk of the Minster, and the broad expanse +of adjoining lawns, nearly all the signs of modern life are +hidden. Something of an effort it is to imagine the great +railway station of York away, for it bulks very largely outside +the walls near the Lendal Bridge; but the mediæval gates of +the city help the illusion, and hint at the importance of the +place in those times. Micklegate Bar, the chief of them, +still bears the heraldic shields sculptured hundreds of years +ago, when kings of England claimed also to be kings of France and +quartered the <i>semée</i> of lilies with the lions. +There are four arches now to this and three to the other bars, +instead of but the one through which both pedestrian and other +traffic went in olden times; but the side arches have been so +skilfully constructed in the mediæval style that they are +not an offence, and are often, indeed, taken on trust as old by +those unlearned in these things. Stone effigies of +men-at-arms still appear on the battlemented turrets, and take on +threatening aspects as seen against the skyline by approaching +travellers. But did they ever achieve their purpose and +succeed in deceiving an enemy into the belief that they were +really flesh and blood? If so, they must in those days have +been very credulous folk, to be imposed upon by such devices.</p> +<p>Crossing the Ouse by Lendal Bridge, where chains stretched +across the river from towers on either bank formerly completed +the circle of defences, Bootham Bar is reached, spanning the exit +from York along the Great North Road. Still a worthy +approach to, or exit from, the city, it wore a yet more imposing +appearance until towards the close of the coaching age, when its +barbican, the outworks with which every one of the York bars was +provided, was wantonly destroyed. Those who would recall +the ancient appearance of Bootham Bar and its fellows, as viewed +from without, have only to see Walmgate Bar, whose barbican still +<a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>remains, the +only one left in the march of intellect and of +“improvements.” Then it presented a forbidding +front to the North, and with the walls, which were here at their +highest and strongest, disputed the path of the Scots. The +walls have been broken down and demolished between the river and +this bar, and modern streets driven through, so that something of +the grim problem presented to a northern enemy is lost to the +modern beholder; but the view remains among the finest, and +comprises the towers of the Minster, peering in grandeur from +behind this warlike frontal. The Scots were here soon after +Bannockburn. In 1319 an army of 15,000 came down, and York +would probably have fallen had it not been for these strong +defences, the finest examples of military architecture in +England. As it was, they found York too well cared for, and +so, destroying everything outside the walls and leaving it on +their left, they endeavoured to pass south by Ferrybridge. +At Myton-upon-Swale, near Boroughbridge, they met the English, +hastily brought up by the Archbishop, and defeated them with the +utmost ease. But prudence was ever a Scottish +characteristic, and so, with much booty, they retreated into +Scotland, instead of following up their advantage.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image9" href="images/p9.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Walls of York" +title= +"The Walls of York" + src="images/p9.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The walk along the walls from Bootham Bar to Monk Bar is +glorious in spring, with the pink and white blossoms of apple, +pear, and plum-trees, for here the well-ordered gardens of the +ecclesiastical dignitaries are chiefly situated. Midway, +the wall makes a return in a south-easterly direction. Monk +Bar, whose name derives from General Monk, Duke of Albemarle, was +once known as Goodramgate, and the street in which it stands +still bears that name, supposed to be a corruption of +“Guthram,” the name of some forgotten Danish +chieftain. At some distance beyond it, the wall goes off +due east, to touch the river Foss at Layerthorpe, where that +stream and the quagmires that once bordered it afforded an +excellent defence in themselves, without any artificial +works. Thus it is that the wall ceases entirely until the +Red Tower is reached, on the <a name="page11"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 11</span>outer bank of the Foss, where it +recommences and takes a bend to the south-west. From this +point to Walmgate Bar and the Fishergate Postern it is +particularly slight, the necessary strength being provided by the +Foss itself, forming a second line of defence, with the castle +behind it. Thence we come to the broad Ouse again, now +crossed by the Skeldergate Bridge, but once protected, as at +Lendal, by chains drawn from bank to bank. On the opposite +bank, on the partly natural elevation of Baile Hill, stood a +subsidiary castle, and here the wall is carried on a very high +mound until it rejoins Micklegate Bar.</p> +<p>There are but few so-called “streets” in +York. They are mostly “gates,” a peculiarity of +description which is noticeable throughout the Midlands and the +North. And queerly named some of these “gates” +are. There is Jubbergate, whose name perpetuates the memory +of an ancient Jewish quarter established here; Stonegate, the +narrow lane leading to the Minster, along which went the stone +with which to build it; Swinegate, a neighbourhood where the +unclean beasts were kept, and many more. But most curious +of all is “Whipmawhopmagate,” a continuation of +Colliergate. This oddly named place is rarely brought to +the notice of the stranger, because it has but two houses; but, +despite its whimsical name, it has a real, and indeed a very old, +existence. Connected with its name is the institution of +“Whip Dog Day,” a celebration once honoured on every +St. Luke’s Day, October 18, by the thrashing of all the +dogs met with in the city. According to the legend still +current, it seems that in mediæval times, while the priest +was celebrating the sacrament at the neighbouring church of St. +Crux, he dropped the consecrated pax, which was swallowed by a +stray dog who had found his way into the building. For this +crime the animal was sentenced to be severely whipped, and an +annual day was set apart for the indiscriminate thrashing of his +fellows. A more likely derivation of the name of +Whipmawhopmagate is from the spot having been the <a +name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>whipping-place of religious penitents, or of merely +secular misdemeanants.</p> +<h2>II</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> grim blackened walls of York +Castle confront the traveller who approaches the city by +Fishergate, and lend a gloomy air to the entrance; the more +gloomy because those heavy piles of sooty masonry nowadays +encircle a prison for malefactors, rather than forming the +defences of a garrison, and keep our social enemies within, +instead of a more chivalric foe without. For over two +hundred years York Castle has been an assize court and a gaol, +and the military element no longer lends it pure romance. +Romance of the sordid kind it has, this beetle-browed place of +vain regrets and expiated crimes, of dismal cells and clanking +fetters; but if you would win back to the days of military glory +which once distinguished it, your imaginary journey will be +lengthy indeed. These battlemented walls, enclosing four +acres of ground, and with a compass of over eleven hundred yards, +were completed in 1856, and, with the prison arrangements within, +cost £200,000. If, as the poet remarks, “peace +hath her victories, no less renowned than war,” she also +needs defences, as much against the villainous centre-bit as +against the foreign foe.</p> +<p>But there is still something left of the York Castle of old, +although you must win to it past frowning portals eloquent of a +thousand crimes, great and small, guarded by prison warders and +decorated with notice-boards of Prison Regulations. +Clifford’s Tower, this ancient portion, itself goes no +farther back into history than the time of Edward the First; and +of the buildings that witnessed the appalling massacre of the +Jews, in March 1190, nothing fortunately remains. It cannot +be to the advantage of sightseers that the blood-stained stones +of that awful time should stand. History alone, without the +aid of sword or shattered wall, is more than sufficient to keep +the barbarous <a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>tale alive, of how some five hundred Jews of all ages +and sexes fled for protection to the Castle keep, and were +besieged there for days by Christians, thirsting for their +blood. Their death was sure: only the manner of it remained +uncertain. The wholesale slaughter of Jews at Lynn, +Lincoln, and Stamford rendered surrender impossible, and rather +than die slowly in the agonies of starvation they set the Castle +on fire, husbands and brothers slaying the women and children, +and then stabbing themselves. Those few who feared to die +thus opened the gates as morning dawned. “Affliction +has taught us wisdom,” they said, “and we long for +baptism and for the faith and peace of Christ”; but even as +they said it the swords and axes of ruthless assassins struck +them down. Christ was avenged, and, incidentally, many a +Christian debtor cried quits with his Jewish creditor as he +dashed out the infidel’s brains. It is not often +given to champions of causes, religious or political, to make one +blow serve both public and private ends, and those Christians +were fortunate. At the same time, sympathy with the +murdered Jews may easily be overstrained. They had but sown +the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Trading and following +the traditional Jewish occupation of usury, they had eaten like a +canker into the heart of York. They had lived in princely +style, and knew how to grind the faces of their Christian +debtors, whose lives they had made miserable, and so simply fell +victims to that revenge which has been aptly described as +“a kind of wild justice.”</p> +<p>Clifford’s Tower, standing where these scenes were +enacted, is a roofless shell, standing isolated on its mound +within the Castle walls, and obtains its name, not from its +builder, but from Francis Clifford, Earl of Cumberland, who made +a doorway in it in the time of Charles the First. It was +ruined by explosion and fire in 1684, and so remains, shattered +and overgrown with trees and grass, a picturesque object that the +eye loves to linger upon in contrast with the classic <a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>buildings +that occupy the old Castle wards, and speak of crime and its +penalties. He who would bring back the crimes and +ferocities of a hundred and fifty years or more to the +mind’s eye can have his taste gratified and the most vivid +pictures conjured up at the sight of such choice and thrilling +relics as the horn-handled knife and fork with which the bodies +of rebels captured in the ’45 were quartered; the leathern +strap that Holroyd used for the purpose of hanging his father +from the boughs of a cherry-tree; a fragment of the skull of +Eugene Aram’s victim, Daniel Clark; the curiously varied +implements used by wives and husbands who murdered their +yoke-fellows, ranging from the unwifely sledge-hammer and razor +wielded by wives, to the knives and pokers chiefly affected by +the husbands; Jonathan Martin the incendiary’s impromptu +flint and steel, and the bell rope by whose aid he escaped from +the Minster; and those prime curiosities, Dick Turpin’s +fetters. Even Turpin’s cell <a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>can be seen +by those who, after much diligent application to the Prisons +Department of the Home Office, procure the <i>entrée</i> +to the Castle; and in that “stone jug,” as the +criminals of old called their cells, the imaginative can +reconstruct their Turpin as they will. Many a better man +than he has occupied this gloomy dungeon, but scarce a worse.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p14.jpg"> +<img alt= +"York Castle: Clifford’s Tower" +title= +"York Castle: Clifford’s Tower" + src="images/p14.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>III</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">One</span> of the most notorious of the +criminals who were haled forth from this condemned hold to end +their days on Knavesmire was Richard Turpin, who was hanged on +the 17th of April, 1739. This cruel and mean ruffian, +around whose sordid career the glamour of countless legends of +varying degrees of impossibility has gathered, was the son of a +small innkeeper and farmer at the appropriately named village of +Hempstead, in Essex. The inn, called the +“Crown,” almost wholly rebuilt, however, is in +existence to this day, and his baptismal record may yet be read +in the parish register:—“1705, Sept. 21, +<i>Richardus</i>, <i>filius Johannis et Mariae +Turpin</i>.”</p> +<p>Apprenticed to a butcher in Whitechapel, he soon set up in +business for himself, obtaining his cattle by the simple and +ready expedient of stealing them. He married a girl named +Palmer, whose name he afterwards took, and after a career of +house-breaking and cattle-lifting in Essex and parts of +Middlesex, in which he figured as one of a numerous gang who +never attacked or plundered unless they were armed to the teeth +and in a great numerical superiority, found the home counties too +hot to hold him; and so, after shooting his friend, one of the +three brothers King, all highwaymen, in the affray at Whitechapel +in 1737, in which he escaped from the Bow Street officers, he +fled first into Essex and then into Lincolnshire. +Authorities disagree, both as to the particular <a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>King who was +shot, and on the question of whether Turpin shot him accidentally +in aiming at one of the officers, or with the purpose of +preventing him giving evidence disclosing his haunts. The +legends make Tom King the martyr on this occasion, and represent +him as bidding Turpin to fly; but the facts seem to point to +Matthew being the victim, and to his cursing Turpin for a coward, +as he died. It is quite certain that a Tom King, a +highwayman, suffered at Tyburn in 1755, eight years later.</p> +<p>As for Turpin, or Palmer, as he now called himself, he settled +at Welton, near Beverley, and then at Long Sutton, Lincolnshire, +as a gentleman horse-dealer. He had not long been domiciled +in those parts before the farmers and others began to lose their +stock in a most unaccountable manner. The wonder is that no +one suspected him, and that he could manage, for however short a +period, to safely sell the many horses he stole. He even +managed to mix freely in company with the yeomen of the district, +and despite his ill-favoured countenance, made himself not +unwelcome. But his brutal nature was the cause of his +undoing. Returning from a shooting excursion, he wantonly +shot one of his neighbour’s fowls, and on being +remonstrated with, threatened to serve one of his new friends the +same. He was accordingly summoned at the Beverley Petty +Sessions, when it appeared that he had no friends to find bail +for him, and that he was, in point of fact, a newcomer to the +district, whose habits, now investigated for the first time, +proved suspicious. Eventually he was charged with stealing +a black mare, blind of the near eye, off Heckington Common, and +was committed to York Castle. From his dungeon cell he +wrote a letter to his brother at Hempstead, to cook him up a +character. The letter was not prepaid, and the brother, not +recognising the handwriting, refused to pay the sixpence demanded +by the Post Office. On such trivial things do great issues +hang! The village postmaster happened to have been the +schoolmaster who had taught Turpin to write. He recognised +the <a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>handwriting and read the letter. He was a man of +public spirit, and, travelling to York, identified the prisoner +as the Richard Turpin who had long been “wanted” for +many crimes.</p> +<p>After his trial and condemnation the farmers flocked in +hundreds to see him. His last days in prison were as well +attended as a levee, and, to do him justice, his courage, +conspicuously lacking at other times, never faltered at the +last. He became one of the shows of that ancient city for a +time, but nothing daunted him. He spent his last days in +joking, drinking, and telling stories, as jovial, merry, and +frolicsome as though the shadow of the gallows was not impending +over him. He scouted the Ordinary, and suffered no twinges +of conscience, but busied himself in preparing a decent costume +for his last public appearance. Nothing would serve him but +new clothes and a smart pair of pumps to die in. On the +morning before the execution, he gave the hangman £3. 10s. +to be divided among five men who were to follow him as mourners, +and were to be furnished with black hatbands and mourning +gloves. When the time came and he went in the tumbril to be +turned off, he bowed to the ladies and flourished his cocked hat +as though he would presently see them again. He certainly, +when he had mounted the ladder, kept the people waiting for the +spectacle they had come to see, for he talked with the hangman +for over half-an-hour. But when the conversation was ended, +he threw himself off in the most resolute fashion, and had the +reward of his courage, for he died in a moment.</p> +<p>Thus died the famous Turpin, in the thirty-third year of his +age. After the execution his body lay in state for that day +and the succeeding night at the “Black Boar” inn in +Castlegate. The following morning it was buried in the +churchyard of St. George’s, by Fishergate Postern, and the +evening afterwards it was dug up again by some of the city +surgeons, for dissection. By this time the mob had +apparently agreed that this brutal horse-stealer, who according +<a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 18</span>to the +contemporary <i>London Magazine</i>, was “so mean and +stupid a wretch,” was really a very fine fellow; and they +determined that his remains should not be dishonoured. +Accordingly they rescued the body and reinterred it, in black +lime, so as to effectually balk any further attempts on the part +of the surgeons.</p> +<p>Dick Turpin, although his name bulks so largely in the +legendary story of the roads, was by no means the foremost of his +profession. He was brutal, and lacked the finer instincts +of the artist. It could never, for instance, have been in +his nature to invite the wife of a traveller he had just robbed +to dance a coranto with him on the Common, as Duval did on +Hounslow Heath when the distant clocks were sounding the hour of +midnight. With Turpin it was an oath and a blow. +Curses and violence, not courtesy, were his methods. +Therefore, it is with the less compunction that we may tear away +the romance from Richard Turpin and say that, so far from being +the hero of the Ride to York, he never rode to York at all, +except on that fatal morning when he progressed to York Castle in +chains, presently to be convicted and hanged for the unromantic +crimes of horse, sheep, and cattle stealing. He was little +better than a vulgar burglar and horse-thief. It was +Harrison Ainsworth who made Turpin a hero from such very +unpromising material, and he, in fact, invented not only the ride +to York, but Black Bess as well. According to the novelist, +Turpin started from Kilburn, and came into the Great North Road +at Highgate, with three mounted officers after him. Thence +he turned into Hornsey, and so by the Ware route, the mare +clearing the twelve feet high toll-gate on the way without an +effort. They always do that in fiction, but the animal that +could do it in fact does not exist.</p> +<p>At Tottenham (always according to the novelist, of course) the +people threw brickbats at the gallant Turpin. They +“showered thick as hail, and quite as harmlessly, around +him,” and Turpin laughed, as, <a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>indeed, he had an occasion to do, +because the Tottenham people must have been the poorest of +marksmen. And so pursuers and pursued swept through +Edmonton and Ware, and quite a number of places which are not on +our route. At Alconbury Hill he comes into view again, and +the inconceivable chase proceeds until Black Bess expires, at +sunrise, within sight of the glorious panorama of York’s +spires and towers.</p> +<p>There are very many who believe Ainsworth’s long +rigmarole, and take their ideas of that unromantic highwayman +from his novel, but the dashing, highsouled (and at times +maudlin) fellow of those pages is absolutely fictitious.</p> +<h2>IV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Ainsworth</span> constructed his +fictitious hero from a very slight basis of fact. What a +pity he did not rear his narrative on better lines, and give the +credit of the Ride to York to the man who really did it. +For it was done, and it was a longer ride by some twenty-six +miles, at least, than that recounted in the vulgar romance of +<i>Rookwood</i>. It was, in fact, a better ride, by a +better man, and at a much earlier period.</p> +<p>John Nevison was the hero of this exploit. It was on a +May morning in 1676, at the unconscionable hour of four +o’clock, that he robbed a traveller on Gad’s Hill, +near Chatham, and, fired with the ambition of establishing an +alibi, immediately set off to ride to York. Crossing the +Thames from Gravesend to Tilbury, he rode on his “blood +bay” to Chelmsford, where he baited and rested his horse +for half-an-hour. Thence on to Cambridge and through the +town without drawing rein, he went through by-lanes to Fenny +Stanton, Godmanchester, and Huntingdon, where he took another +half-hour’s rest; continuing, by unfrequented ways, until +York was reached, the same evening. Of course, he must have +had several fresh horses on the way. Stabling the horse +that had brought <a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>him into the cathedral city, he hastily removed the +travel-stains from his person, and strolled casually to the +nearest bowling-green, where the Mayor of York happened to be +playing a game with some friends. Nevison took the +opportunity of asking him the time, and received the answer that +it was just a quarter to eight. That was sufficient for his +purpose. By this question and the reply he had fixed the +recollection of himself and of the time in the Mayor’s +mind, and had his <i>alibi</i> at need. Sure enough, he +needed it a little later, when he was arrested for another +highway robbery, and the Gad’s Hill traveller happened to +be the one witness who could swear to him. Nevison called +his York witnesses, who readily enough deposed to his being there +on the evening of the day on which the traveller swore he had +been robbed by him near Chatham. This was conclusive. +No one conceived it possible for a man to have been in two places +so remote in one day, and he was acquitted. Then, when the +danger was past, his sporting instincts prevailed, and he told +the story. He became the hero of a brief hour, and Charles +the Second, who dearly loved a clever rogue, is said to have +christened him “Swift Nicks.” If we roughly +analyse this ride we shall find that Nevison’s performance +amounted to about 230 miles in fifteen hours: a rate of over +fifteen miles an hour. To have done as much was a wonderful +exploit, even though (as seems certain) he had remounts at the +houses of confederates. He probably had many such houses of +call, for he was one of a numerous band of highwaymen whose +headquarters were at Newark.</p> +<p>This escape served him for eight years longer, for it was in +1684 that his career came to a close on Knavesmire, where he was +hanged on the 4th of May.</p> +<p>There was something of the Robin Hood in Nevison’s +character, if we are to believe the almost legendary stories told +in Yorkshire of this darling of the Yorkshire peasantry. He +robbed the rich and gave to the poor, and many are the tales +still told of his generosity. <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>Such an one is the tale that tells of +his being at a village inn, when the talk turned upon the affairs +of an unfortunate farmer whose home had been sold up for +rent. Among those in the place was the bailiff, with the +proceeds of the sale on him. Nevison contrived to relieve +him of the cash, and restored it to the farmer. Perhaps he +was not so well-liked by the cattle-dealers along the Great North +Road, whom he and his gang robbed so regularly that at length +they commuted their involuntary contributions for a quarterly +allowance, which at the same time cleared the road for them and +afforded them protection against any other bands. Indeed, +Nevison, or Bracy, as his real name appears to have been, was in +this respect almost a counterpart of those old German barons on +the Rhine, who levied dues on the travellers whose business +unfortunately led them their way. The parallel goes no +greater distance, for those picturesque miscreants were anything +but the idols of the people. Nevison was sufficiently +popular to have been the hero of a rural ballad, still +occasionally heard in the neighbourhood of his haunts at +Knaresborough, Ferrybridge, York, or Newark. Here are two +verses of it; not perhaps distinguished by wealth of fancy or +resourcefulness of rhyme:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Did you ever hear tell of that hero;<br /> + Bold Nevison, that was his name?<br /> +He rode about like a bold hero,<br /> + And with that he gain’d great fame.</p> +<p>He maintained himself like a gentleman,<br /> + Besides, he was good to the poor;<br /> +He rode about like a great hero,<br /> + And he gain’d himself favour therefore.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Yorkshire will not willingly let the fame of her Nevison +die. Is not his Leap shown, and is not the inn at Sandal, +where he was last captured, still pointed out? Then there +is the tale of how he and twenty of his gang attacked fifteen +butchers who were riding to Northallerton Fair, an encounter +recounted in a pamphlet dated 1674, luridly styled <i>Bloody News +from Yorkshire</i>. Another memory is of the half <a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>dozen men who +at another time attempted to take him prisoner. He escaped +and shot one of them, also a butcher. Nevison and butchers +were evidently antipathetic. Released once on promising to +enter the army, he, like Boulter, deserted. That he could +break prison with the best he demonstrated fully at Wakefield; +but his final capture was on a trivial charge. It sufficed +to do his business, though, for the prosecution were now prepared +with the fullest evidence against him and his associates, and +their way of life. They had secured Mary Brandon, who acted +as housekeeper for the gang. According to her story, they +were John Nevison, of York; Edmund Bracy, of Nottingham; Thomas +Wilbere, of the same town; Thomas Tankard, vaguely described as +“of Lincolnshire”; and two men named Bromett and +Iverson. This last was “commonly at the +‘Talbott,’ in Newarke,” which was their +headquarters. The landlord of that inn was supposed to be +cognisant of their doings, as also the ostler, one William +Anwood, “shee haveinge often scene the said partyes give +him good summs of money, and order him to keepe their horses +close, and never to water them but in the night +time.” They kept rooms at the “Talbot” +all the year round, and in them divided their spoil, which in one +year, as the result of ten great robberies, came to over +£1,500. No other highwaymen can hold a candle to this +gang, either for their business-like habits or the success of +their operations.</p> +<h2>V</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> once dreaded mid-eighteenth +century highwayman, Thomas Boulter, junior, of Poulshot in +Wiltshire, once made acquaintance with York Castle. The +extent of his depredations was as wide as his indifference to +danger was great. A West-countryman, his most obvious +sphere of operations was the country through which the Exeter +Road passed; but being greedy and <a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>insatiable, he soon exhausted those +districts, and thought it expedient to strike out for roads where +the name of Boulter was unknown, and along which the lieges still +dared to carry their watches and their gold. He came up to +town at the beginning of 1777 from his haunts near Devizes, and, +refitting in apparel and pistols, gaily took the Great North +Road. Many adventures and much spoil fell to him in and +about Newark, Leeds, and Doncaster; but an encounter between +Sheffield and Ripon proved his undoing. He had relieved a +gentleman on horseback of purse and jewellery, and was ambling +negligently away when the traveller’s man-servant, who had +fallen some distance behind his master, came galloping up. +Thus reinforced, the plundered one chased Mr. Boulter, and, +running him to earth, haled him off to the nearest Justice, who, +quite unmoved by his story of being an unfortunate young man in +the grocery line, appropriately enough named Poore, committed him +to York Castle, where, at the March assizes, he was duly found +guilty and sentenced to be hanged within fifteen days. +Heavily ironed, escape was out of the question, and he gave +himself up for lost, until, on the morning appointed for his +execution, the news arrived that he might claim a free pardon if +he would enter his Majesty’s service as a soldier, and +reform his life. His Majesty badly wanted soldiers in <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 1777, and was not nice as to the +character of his recruits; and indeed the British army until the +close of the Peninsular War was composed of as arrant a set of +rascals as ever wore out shoe-leather. No wonder the Duke +of Wellington spoke of his army in Spain as “my +blackguards.” But they could fight.</p> +<p>This by the way. To return to Mr. Thomas Boulter, who, +full of moral resolutions and martial ardour, now joined the +first marching regiment halting at York. For four days he +toiled and strove in the barrack-yard, finding with every hour +the burdens of military life growing heavier. On the fifth +day he determined to desert, and on the sixth put that +determination into <a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>practice; for if he had waited until the morrow, when +his uniform would have been ready, escape would have been +difficult. Stealing forth at dead of night, without mishap, +he made across country to Nottingham, and so disappears +altogether from these pages. The further deeds that he did, +and the story of his end are duly chronicled in the pages of the +<i>Exeter Road</i>, to which they properly belong.</p> +<p>The authorities did well to secure their criminal prisoners +with irons, because escape seems to have otherwise been easy +enough. In 1761, for instance, there were a hundred and +twenty-one French prisoners of war confined in York Castle, and +such captives were of course not ironed. Some of them filed +through the bars of their prison and twenty escaped. Of +these, six were recaptured, but the rest were never again heard +of, which seems to be proof that the prison was scarcely worthy +of the name, and that the city of York contained traitors who +secretly conveyed the fugitives away to the coast.</p> +<p>The troubles and escapades of military captives are all in the +course of their career, and provoke interested sympathy but not +compassion, because we know full well that they would do the same +to their foes, did fortune give the opportunity. Altogether +different was the position of the unfortunate old women who, +ill-favoured or crazy, were charged on the evidence of ill-looks +or silly talk with being witches, and thrown into the noisome +cells that existed here for such. Theirs were sad cases, +for the world took witchcraft seriously and burnt or strangled +those alleged practitioners of it who had survived being +“swum” in the river close by. The humour of +that old method of trying an alleged witch was grimly +sardonic. She was simply thrown into the water, and if she +sank was innocent. If, on the other hand, she floated, that +was proof that Satan was protecting his own, and she was fished +out and barbarously put to death. Trials for witchcraft +were continued until long after the absurdity of the charges +became apparent, <a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>and judges simply treated the accusations with humorous +contempt: as when a crazy old woman who pretended to supernatural +powers was brought before Judge Powell. “Do you say +you can fly?” asked the Judge, interposing. +“Yes, I can,” said she. “So you may, if +you will then,” rejoined that dry humorist. “I +have no law against it.” The accused did not respond +to the invitation.</p> +<p>So farewell, grim Castle of York, old-time prison of such +strangely assorted captives as religious pioneers, poor debtors, +highwaymen, prisoners of war, and suspected witches; and modern +gaol whose romance is concealed beneath contemporary +common-places. Blood stains your stones, and persecution is +writ large on the page of your story. Infidel Jews, +Protestants, Catholics, and Nonconformists of every shade of +nonconformity have suffered within your walls in greater or less +degree, and even now the black flag occasionally floats +dolorously in the breeze from your roofs, in token that the +penalty for the crime of Cain has been exacted.</p> +<h2>VI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Before</span> railways came and rendered +London the chief resort of fashion, county towns, and many lesser +towns still, were social centres. Only the wealthier among +the country squires and those interested in politics to the +extent of having a seat in the House visited London; the rest +resorted to their county town, in which they had their +town-houses and social circles. Those times are to be found +reflected in the pages of Jane Austen and other early novelists, +who picture for us the snug coteries that then flourished and the +romances that ran their course within the unromantic-looking +Georgian mansions now either occupied by local professional men +or wealthy trades-folk, or else divided into tenements. It +was the era before great suburbs began to spring up around <a +name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>every +considerable town, to smother the historic in the commonplace; +the time before manufacturing industries arose to smirch the +countryside and to rot the stonework of ancient buildings with +smoke and acid-laden air; the days when life was less hurried +than now. York, two days’ journey removed from +London, had its own society and a very varied one, consisting of +such elements as the Church, the Army, and the Landed Interest, +which last must also be expressed in capital letters, because in +those days to be a Landowner was a patent of gentility. +Outside these elements, excepting the dubious ones of the Legal +and Medical professions, there was no society. Trade +rendered the keepers of second-hand clothes-shops and wealthy +manufacturers equally pariahs and put them outside the pale of +polite intercourse. Society played whist in drawing-rooms; +tradesmen played quoits, bowls, or skittles in grounds attached +to inns, or passed their evenings in convivial +bar-parlours. Yet York must have been a noted place for +conviviality, if we are to believe the old poet:—</p> +<blockquote><p>York, York for my monie,<br /> +Of all the cities that ever I see,<br /> +For merry pastime and companie,<br /> +Except the citie of London.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And for long after those lines were written they held +good. Not many other cities had York’s advantages as +a great military headquarters, as well as the head of an +ecclesiastical Province, and its position as a great coaching +centre to and from which came and went away many other coaches +besides those which fared the Great North Road was +commanding. Cross-country coach-routes radiated from the +old cathedral city in every direction; just as, in fact, the +railways do nowadays. It is no part of our business to +particularise them, but the inns they frequented demand a +notice. Some of these inns were solely devoted to posting, +which in this broad-acred county of wealthy squires was not +considered the extravagance that less fortunate folks thought +it. Chief among <a name="page27"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 27</span>these was—alas! that we must +say <i>was</i>—the “George,” which stood almost +exactly opposite the still extant “Black Swan” in +Coney Street. A flaunting pile of business premises +occupied by a firm of drapers now usurps the site of that +extremely picturesque old house which rejoiced in a +sixteenth-century frontage, heavily gabled and enriched with +quaint designs in plaster, and a yawning archway, supported on +either side by curious figures whose lower anatomy ended in +scrolls, after the manner of the Renaissance. The +“George” for many years enjoyed an unexampled +prosperity, and the adjoining houses, of early Georgian date, +with projecting colonnade, were annexed to it. When it +went, to make way for new buildings, York lost its most +picturesque inn, for the York Tavern, now Harker’s Hotel, +though solid, comfortable, and prosperous-looking, with its +cleanly stucco front, is not interesting, and the “Black +Swan” is a typical redbrick building of two hundred years +ago, square as a box, and as little decorative as it could +possibly be. As for the aristocratic Etteridge’s, +which stood in Lendal, it may be sought in vain in that largely +rebuilt quarter. Etteridge’s not only disdained the +ordinary coaching business, but also jibbed at the average +posting people—or, perhaps, to put it more correctly, even +the wealthy squires who flung away their money on posting stood +aghast at Etteridge’s prices. Therefore, in those +days, when riches and gentility went together—before the +self-made millionaires had risen, like scum, to the +top—Etteridge’s entertained the most select, who +travelled in their own “chariots,” and were horsed on +their almost royal progresses by Etteridge and his like.</p> +<p>From the purely coaching point of view, the “Black +Swan” is the most interesting of York’s +hostelries. To the York Tavern came the mails, while the +“Black Swan” did the bulk of the stage-coach +business, from the beginning of it in 1698 until the end, in +1842. It was here that the old “York in Four +Days” coaching bill of 1706 was discovered some years +ago. The house <a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>remained one of the very few +unaltered inns of coaching days, the stableyard the same as it +was a hundred years or more since, even to the weather-beaten old +painted oval sign of the “Black Swan,” removed from +the front and nailed over one of the stable-doors.</p> +<p>York still preserves memories of the old coachmen; some of +them very great in their day. Tom Holtby’s, for +instance, is a classic figure, and one that remained until long +after coaching came to an end. He died in June 1863, in his +seventy-second year, and was therefore, not greatly beyond his +prime when he drove the Edinburgh mail into York for the last +time, in 1842, on the opening of the railway. That last +drive was an occasion not to be passed without due ceremony, and +so when the mail, passing through Selby and Riccall, on its way +to the city, reached Escrick Park, it was driven through, by Lord +Wenlock’s invitation, and accompanied by him on his drag up +to the “Black Swan” and to the York Tavern. The +mail flew a black flag from its roof, and Holtby gave up the +reins to Lord Macdonald.</p> +<p>“Please to remember the coachman,” said my lord to +Holtby, in imitation of the professional’s usual +formula. “Yes,” replied Holtby, “I will, +if you’ll remember the guard.” +“Right,” said that innocent nobleman, not thinking +for the moment that coachmen and guards shared their tips; +“he shall have double what you tip me.” Holtby +accordingly handed him a £5 note, so that he reaped a +profit of £2. 10s. on the business.</p> +<p>Holtby’s career was as varied as many of the old +coachmen’s, but more prosperous. He began as a +stable-hand at the “Rose and Crown,” Easingwold, and +rose to be a postboy. Thence to the box of a cross-country +coach was an easy transition, and his combined dash and certainty +as a whip at last found him a place on the London and Edinburgh +“Highflyer,” whence he was transferred to the +mail. During these years he had saved money, and was a +comparatively rich man when coaching ended; so that although <a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>he lost some +heavy sums in ill-judged investments, still he died worth over +£3,000. “Rash Tom,” as they called him, +from his showy style of driving, was indeed something of a +“Corinthian,” and coming into contact with the high +and mighty of that era, reflected their manners and shared their +tastes. If the reflection, like that of a wavy mirror, was +not quite perfect, and erred rather in the direction of +caricature, that was a failing not found in Tom only, and was +accordingly overlooked. Moreover, Tom was useful. No +man could break in a horse like him, and nowhere was a better +tutor in the art of driving. “If,” said Old +Jerry, “Tom Holtby didn’t live on potato-skins and +worn’t such a one for lickin’ folks’ boots, +he’d be perfect.” “Old Jerry,” who +probably had some professional grudge against Holtby, referred to +potato-skins as well as to boot-licking in a figurative +way. He meant to satirise Holtby as a saving man and as an +intimate of those who at the best treated Jerry himself with +obvious condescension. Jerry himself was one of the most +famous of postboys, and remained for long years in the service of +the “Black Swan.” The burden of his old age was +the increasing meanness of the times. “Them wor +graand toimes for oos!” he would say, in his Yorkshire +lingo, talking of the early years of the nineteenth century, and +so they must have been, for that was the tail-end of the era when +all England went mad over Parliamentary elections, and when +Yorkshire, the biggest of all the counties, was the +maddest. Everybody posted, money was spent like water on +bribery and corruption, and on more reputable items of +expenditure, and postboys shared in the golden shower.</p> +<h2>VII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> most exciting of these Homeric +election contests was the fierce election for Yorkshire in +1807. At that time the huge county, larger than any other +two <a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +30</span>counties put together, returned only two representatives +to Parliament, and the City of York was the sole +voting-place. Yorkshire, roughly measuring eighty miles +from north to south, and another eighty from east to west, must +have contained ardent politicians if its out-voters appeared at +the poll in any strength. But if polling-places were to +seek and voting the occasion of a weary pilgrimage, at least the +authorities could not be accused of allowing too little time for +the exercise of that political right. The booths remained +open for fifteen days. William Wilberforce had for years +been the senior member, and had hitherto held a secure +position. On this particular occasion the contest lay +between the rival houses of Fitzwilliam and Lascelles, Whigs and +Tories respectively, intent upon capturing the junior seat. +Lord Milton, the eldest son of Earl Fitzwilliam, and the +Honourable Henry Lascelles, heir to the Earl of Harewood, were +the candidates. Lord Harewood expressed his intention of +expending, if necessary, the whole of his Barbados estates, worth +£40,000 a year, to secure his son’s return, and equal +determination was shown by the other side. With such +opponents, it was little wonder that Yorkshire was turned into a +pandemonium for over a fortnight. All kinds of vehicles, +from military wagons, family chariots, and mourning-coaches at +one extreme, to sedan-chairs and donkey-carts at the other, were +pressed into service. Invalids and even those <i>in +articulo mortis</i> were herded up to the poll.</p> +<p>“No such scene,” said a Yorkshire paper, +“had been witnessed in these islands for a hundred years as +the greatest county in them presented for fifteen days and +nights. Repose and rest have been unknown, unless +exemplified by postboys asleep in the saddle. Every day and +every night the roads leading to York have been covered by +vehicles of all kinds loaded with voters—barouches, +curricles, gigs, coaches, landaus, dog-carts, flying wagons, +mourning-coaches, and military cars with eight horses, have left +no chance for <a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>the quiet traveller to pursue his humble journey in +peace, or to find a chair at an inn to sit down upon.”</p> +<p>As a result, Wilberforce kept his place, Viscount Milton was +elected second, and Lascelles was rejected. The figures +were:—</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>Wilberforce</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">11,806</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Milton</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">11,177</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Lascelles</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10,988</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>Only some thirty-four thousand voters in the great shire!</p> +<p>It was said that Earl Fitzwilliam’s expenses were +£107,000 and his unsuccessful opponent’s +£102,000. Wilberforce, who in the fray only narrowly +kept at the head of the poll, was at little expense, a public +subscription which reached the sum of £64,455 having been +made on his behalf. A great portion of it was afterwards +returned by him. He afterwards wrote that had he not been +defrauded of promised votes, his total would have reached +20,000. “However,” said he, “it is +unspeakable cause for thankfulness to come out of the battle +ruined neither in health, character, or fortune.” It +was in this election that a voter who had plumped for Wilberforce +and had come a long distance for the purpose, boasting that he +had not spent anything on the journey, was asked how he managed +it. “Sure enow,” said he, “I cam all +d’way ahint Lord Milton’s carriage.”</p> +<p>A story is told of a bye-election impending in Yorkshire, in +which Pitt had particularly interested himself. Just upon +the eve of the polling he paid a visit to the famous Mrs. +B—, one of the Whig queens of the West Riding, and said, +banteringly, “Well, the election is all right for us. +Ten thousand guineas for the use of our side go down to Yorkshire +to-night by a sure hand.”</p> +<p>“The devil they do!” responded Mrs. B—; and +that night the bearer of the precious burden was stopped by a +highwayman on the Great North Road, <a name="page32"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 32</span>and the ten thousand guineas procured +the return of the Whig candidate. The success of that +robbery was probably owing to the “sure hand” +travelling alone. Had he gone by mail-coach, the party +funds would have been safe, if we may rely upon the <i>bona +fides</i> of the York Post Office notice, dated October 30, 1786, +which was issued for the reassurance of those intending to travel +by mail, and says: “Ladies and gentlemen may depend on +every care and attention being paid to their safety. They +will be guarded all the way by His Majesty’s servants, and +on dark nights a postillion will ride on one of the +leaders.” The notice concluded by saying that the +guard was well armed. This was no excess of caution, or +merely issued to still the nerves of timid old ladies, for at +this period we find “safety” coaches advertised, +“lined with copper, and secure against bullets”; and +recorded encounters with armed highwaymen prove that these +precautions were not unnecessary.</p> +<h2>VIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">York Minster</span>, although so huge and +imposing a pile when reached, is not glimpsed by the traveller +approaching the city from the Selby route until well within the +streets, and only when Knavesmire is passed on the Tadcaster +route are its three towers seen rising far behind the time-worn +turrets of Micklegate Bar. In bulk, it is in the very front +rank among English cathedrals, but the flatness of its site and +the narrow streets that lead to the Minster Yard render it quite +inconspicuous from any distance, except from a few selected +points and from the commanding eyrie of the City Walls, whence, +indeed, it is seen at its grandest. “Minster” +it has been named from time immemorial, but for no apparent +reason, for York’s Chapter was one of secular priests, and +as the term “minster” derives from +“monasterium,” <a name="page35"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 35</span>this is clearly a misnomer. But +as the larger churches were those in connection with monastic +rule, it must have seemed in the popular view that this gigantic +church was rightly a Minster, no matter what its government.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image33" href="images/p33.jpg"> +<img alt= +"York Minster, from the Foss" +title= +"York Minster, from the Foss" + src="images/p33.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It lies quite away from the tortuous streets by which the +traveller proceeds through York for the road to the North, and it +is only when nearly leaving the city by Bootham Bar that glimpses +of its grey bulk are seen, at the end of some narrow lane like +Stonegate or Petergate, framed in by old gabled houses that lean +upon each other in every attitude suggesting age and decay, or +seem to nod owlishly to neighbours just as decrepit across the +cobble-stoned path. These be ideal surroundings. In +the ancient shops, too, are things of rarity and price, artfully +displayed to the gaze of unwary purchasers who do not know the +secrets of the trade in antiques and curiosities, and are quite +ignorant of the fact that they pay twice or thrice the value at +such places as these for the old china, the silver, the chairs, +and bookcases of quaint design that take their fancy. Only +a narrow space prevents the stranger from butting up against the +Minster, at the end of these lanes, for here at York we find no +such wide and grassy Cathedral close as that of Winchester, or +those of Canterbury, Wells, or Peterborough. Just a paved +yard, extremely narrow along the whole south side and to the +east, with a broader paved space at the west front, and some +mingled lawns and pavements to the north, where dwell the Dean, +the prebendaries, and suchlike: these are the surroundings of the +Minster, which render it almost impossible to gain a +comprehensive view of any part save the west front.</p> +<p>The Minster—the Cathedral Church of St. Peter, to call +it by its proper title—is the fifth building on this +site. First of all in the series was the wooden chapel +erected for the baptism of Edwin, the Saxon king, in <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 627, followed by a stone church, +begun by him in 628 and completed eight years later by King +Oswald, <a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +36</span>who placed the head of Edwin, slain in battle by the +heathen at Hatfield near Doncaster, here in the chapel of St. +Gregory. Thirty-five years later this second church was +found by Wilfrid the Archbishop to be in a state of decay, and he +accordingly repaired the roofs and the walls, which he rendered +“whiter than snow by means of white lime,” as we are +told by contemporary chroniclers. In point of fact, he +whitewashed the cathedral, just as the churchwardens of a hundred +years ago used to treat our village churches, for which conduct +we have been reviling them for many years past, not knowing that +as whitewashers they could claim such distinguished +kinship. About the year 741 this second building was +destroyed by fire and was replaced by another, completed in 780, +itself burnt in 1069. The fourth was then begun by Thomas +of Bayeux, the first Norman archbishop, and completed about 1080; +to be in its turn partly demolished by Roger Pont +l’Évêque, who about 1170 rebuilt the choir on +a larger scale. Following him came Archbishop Gray, who +rebuilt the south transept in its present form between 1230 and +1241; the north transept and the central tower in its original +form being the work of John Romanus, sub-dean and treasurer from +1228 to 1256. To the son of the sub-dean, Archbishop +Romanus, fell the beginning of a new nave, which was commenced by +him in 1291, but was not completed until 1345, and is the +existing one. All these rebuildings were on a progressive +scale of size and magnificence, and so by the time they had been +completed it happened that Archbishop Roger’s Late Norman +choir, which had replaced the smaller Early Norman one by Thomas +of Bayeux, was itself regarded as too small and mean, and so was +pulled down to make room for the existing choir, completed about +1400. Thus the earliest architectural features of the +existing Minster above ground are the Early English transepts, +and nothing remains of those vanished early buildings save some +dubious Saxon masonry and Norman walling in the crypt.</p> +<p><a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 37</span>The +first impression gained of the exterior of York Minster—an +impression which becomes only slightly modified on further +acquaintance—is that of a vast, rambling, illogical mass of +overdone ornament very much out of repair and very disappointing +to the high expectations formed. Nor is the great central +tower greatly calculated to arouse enthusiasm among those who +know that of Lincoln. An immense mass, whose comparative +scale is best seen from a distance, its severity of outline +borders closely upon clumsiness, a defect which is heightened by +its obviously unfinished condition and the clearly makeshift +battlements that outrage the skyline with an effect as of an +armoured champion wearing feminine headgear. It seems clear +that the intention, either of the original architect of the +tower, in the Early English period, or of those who re-cased it, +some two hundred years later, was to carry it up another +storey. The two western towers belong to much the same +period, the years from 1433 to 1474, and have more than the usual +commonplace appearance of the Perpendicular style. They +form part of the most completely logical west front in England +and almost the least inspired, excepting always that early +Perpendicular fiasco, the west front of Winchester +Cathedral. But the redeeming feature of York’s west +front is the beautiful window which, whether regarded from +without or within, is one of the finest details of the building, +its tracery of the flowing Decorated period narrowly approaching +to the French Flamboyant style and resembling in its delicacy and +complicated parts the weblike design seen on the skeleton of a +leaf.</p> +<p>A great portion of the Minster is in the Decorated style; not, +however, conceived in the inspired vein of the west window. +The nave and chapter-house cover the period of the sixty years +during which Decorated Gothic flourished, and making the round of +the exterior we find its characteristic mouldings and traceries +repeated in a long range of seven bays, interrupted by the +beautiful compositions of north and south transepts, entirely +dissimilar from one <a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +38</span>another, but individually perfect, and the most entirely +satisfactory features of the exterior. The architects of +that period were more fully endowed with the artistic sense than +those who went before, or those who succeeded them, and their +works, and the more daring and ambitious, but something braggart, +designs of their successors, remain to prove the +contention. Eastward, beyond the transepts, extends the +long, nine-bayed choir, the view of it obscured from the north by +the protruding octagonal chapter-house, but well seen on the +south, where the soaring ambition of its designers may +advantageously be compared with the more modest but better +ordered art of the unknown architect who built the south +transept. The architects of the choir would seem to have +dared their utmost to produce the largest windows with the +smallest proportion of wall-space, and to have at the same time +been emulative of height. With these obvious ambitions, +they have succeeded to wonderment in rearing a building that is +nearly all windows, with an apparently dangerously small +proportion of walling to hold them together, but a building which +has already survived the storms of five hundred years +structurally and essentially sturdy and unimpaired. A great +engineering feat for that time, rather than a masterpiece of +artistry, as those who stand by and compare south transept and +choir, visible in one glance, can see. That the perceptions +of those who built the choir were blunted is proved by the almost +flat roof their ambition for lofty walling has +necessitated. With their side walls carried up to such a +height, abutting against the central tower, they could not obtain +the steep pitch of roof which is seen on the transepts, for a +higher pitch would have committed the architectural solecism of +cutting above the sills of the great tower windows, into the +windows themselves. Thus their lofty choir is robbed of +half its effect and looks square-shouldered and ungraceful by +comparison.</p> +<p>An odd and entirely inexplicable device is found outside the +four eastern windows of the choir clerestory, <a +name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 39</span>north and +south, in the placing of the triforium passage outside the +building, and the screening of it and the windows with a great +skeleton framework of stone. The reason of +this—whether it was a mistaken idea of decoration, or for +some structural strengthening purpose—is still to be +sought. But the east end is an equally crude and artless +piece of work, almost wholly given up to the east window; the +small flanking windows looking mean and pinched by comparison, +and the abundant decoration characterised by stupid repetition +and want of invention. Here we see the Perpendicular style +at a very low ebb, and thus it is not altogether a disadvantage +that the road is so narrow at this point that a full view of the +east end is difficult to obtain.</p> +<p>Criticism is at once disarmed on entering. One enters, +not by the great portals in the west front, but by the south +porch, the most impressive entrance, as it happens. For +this is at once the noblest and the earliest portion of the great +church, and here, in one magnificent view from south to north we +obtain one of the finest architectural vistas in England. +Majesty personified, these Early English transepts are in +themselves broad and long and lofty enough to furnish a nave for +many another cathedral. Spaciousness and nobility of +proportion are the notes of them, and even the beautiful nave, +with its aisles, light and graceful, loftier and broader than +almost any other in the land, dwindles by comparison. They +produce in the surprised traveller who first beholds them the +rare sensation of satisfaction, of expectations more than +realised, and give an uplifting of spirit as thrilling as that +caused by some inspiring passage of minstrelsy. To stand at +the crossing and gaze upwards into that vast tower which looks so +clumsy to the outward view, is to receive an impression of +beauty, of combined strength and lightness, which is not to be +acquired elsewhere, for it is the finest of lantern towers, and, +open to the vaulting of its roof, a hundred and eighty feet above +the pavement, its great windows on all sides entrap the <a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>sunbeams and +shed a diffused glory on arcade and pier. Perhaps one of +the most daring attempts at effect is that which confronts the +visitor as he enters by the south porch. Daring, not from +the constructional, but from the decorative point of view, the +five equal-sized lancet windows, the “Five Sisters” +that occupy three parts of the space in the wall of the north +transept, might so easily have been as glaring a failure as they +are a conspicuous success. Their very prominence has +doubtless given them their name, and caused the legend to be +invented of their having been the gift of five maiden +sisters. The beauty of the original Early English glass +which still remains in these lancets has a considerable share in +producing this successful effect. That the unearthly beauty +of that pale green glass is preserved to us, together with much +more in the Minster, is due to Sir Thomas Fairfax, the +Parliamentary general, himself a Yorkshireman, who kept the pious +but narrow-minded and mischievous soldiery in order, who +otherwise would have delighted in flinging prayer-books and +missals through every window in this House of God, and have +accounted it an act of religious fervour.</p> +<p>We cannot explore the Minster in greater detail, for the road +yet lies in many a league before us; nor recount how York, city +and shire, broke into rebellion when the old religion was +suppressed by Henry the Eighth, and the Minster’s +treasures, particularly the head of St. William, stolen. +The Pilgrimage of Grace was the result, in which the Yorkshire +gentlemen and others assembled, with Robert Aske at their head, +and taking as their badge the Five Wounds of Christ, prepared to +do battle for their Faith. Aske ended on a gallows from the +height of Micklegate Bar. The same troubles recurred in the +time of Elizabeth, and Yorkshire, the last resort of Roman +Catholicism, was again in arms, with the Earls of Northumberland +and Westmoreland conspiring with the Duke of Norfolk to release +the captive Queen of Scots and restore the old religion. +The movement failed, and Northumberland <a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>was executed +on the Pavement, others being put to death or deprived of their +estates. That was the last popular movement in favour of +the old faith, and although the city had been prelatical and +Royalist during the first years of Charles the First’s +reign, public opinion at last veered completely round, so that +shortly after the Parliamentary victory of Marston Moor in 1644, +and the consequent surrender of the Royalist garrison of York, +the city became as Puritan and republican as it had been the +opposite. Gifts made by Charles to the Minster were torn +down and dispersed, the very font was thrown out, and dean and +chapter were replaced by four divines elected by an +assembly. Many of the York parish churches were wrecked by +fanatics carrying out an order to destroy “superstitious +pictures and images,” and nearly all were without +incumbents. When the restoration of the monarchy and the +church was effected together in 1661, <a name="page42"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 42</span>York became “one of the most +factious and malignant towns in the kingdom,” and two years +later broke into a revolt for which twenty-one rebels were +executed. The final outburst occurred in 1688, when James +the Second was suspected of an intention to appoint the Roman +Catholic Bishop of Callipolis to the vacant see of York. +The bishop was taking part in a religious procession through the +streets when an infuriated mob set upon him and seized his +silver-gilt crozier, which was taken as a trophy to the vestry, +where it may yet be seen. The bishop fled. A few days +later James the Second ceased to reign, and with that event ended +these religious contentions.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p41.jpg"> +<img alt= +"All Saints’ Pavement" +title= +"All Saints’ Pavement" + src="images/p41.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>IX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> the stirring history of the +Minster itself was not yet completed, for the final chapter in a +long record of events was not enacted until the early years of +the nineteenth century.</p> +<p>The roads in the neighbourhood of York on February 2, 1829, +were thronged with excited crowds hurrying to the city. +Dashing through them came the fire-engines of Leeds, and others +from Escrick Park. Far ahead, a great column of smoke +hovered in the cold February sky. York Minster was on +fire.</p> +<p>It was no accident that had caused this conflagration, but the +wild imaginings of one Jonathan Martin, which had prompted him to +become the incendiary of that stately pile. A singular +character, compacted of the unlovely characteristics of Mawworm +and the demented prophet, Solomon Eagle, this was the crowning +act of a life distinguished by religious mania. Jonathan +Martin was born at Hexham in 1782, and apprenticed to a +tanner. His parents were poor, and he had only the +slightest kind of education. At the expiration of his +apprenticeship he found himself in London, and was speedily +entrapped by the press-gang and sent to serve his Majesty as an +able <a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +43</span>seaman. It seems to have been at this period that +the unbalanced state of his mind first became noticeable. +He was with the fleet at many places, and often in action, from +Copenhagen to the Nile. At times he would exhibit +cowardice, and at others either indifference to danger or actual +bravery. He would be religious, dissolute, industrious, +idle, sulky, or cheerful by turns: a pretended dreamer of dreams +and communicant with angels. “Parson Saxe,” his +shipmates named him; “but,” said one, years +afterwards, “I always thought him more rogue than +fool.”</p> +<p>Martin was paid off in 1810. He settled to work for a +farmer at Norton, near Durham, and shortly afterwards +married. He became a member of the Wesleyan Methodist body +at Norton, and began those religious exercises which he claims to +have converted him and to have emancipated him from the law, +being “justified by faith” only. How dangerous +such views of personal irresponsibility can be when held by the +weak-minded his after-career was only too plainly to show. +He immediately conceived an abhorrence of the Church of England, +as a church teaching obedience to pastors and masters, and of the +clergy for their worldliness. In this last respect, indeed, +Martin—as we think now—had no little justification, +for the Church had not then begun to arise from the almost Pagan +slough of laziness, indifference, and greed of wealth and good +living which throughout the previous century had marked the +members of the Establishment, from the country parson up to the +archbishops. When clergymen could find it in them to +perform the solemn rite of the burial service while in a state of +drunkenness; when, under Martin’s own observation at +Durham, the Prince-Bishop of that city enjoyed emoluments and +perquisites amounting to £30,000 per annum, there is little +cause for surprise that hatred and contempt of the cloth should +arise.</p> +<p>This basis of justification, acting upon a mind already +diseased, and not rendered more healthy by fasting and brooding +over the Scriptures, resulted in his attempting <a +name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>to preach +from church pulpits, in writing threatening letters to the +clergy, and eventually to a silly threat to shoot the Bishop of +Oxford when at Stockport. For this he was rightly confined +in a lunatic asylum at Gateshead. Some months later he +managed to escape, and after wandering about the country took +service with his former employer at Norton, the magistrates +consenting to his remaining at liberty. In 1822 he left for +Darlington, where he lived until 1827. His wife had died +while he was in the asylum, and in 1828, while engaged in hawking +a pamphlet biography of himself at Boston, he made the +acquaintance of a young woman of that town and married her. +By this time his religious mania had grown worse, and when, on +December 26, 1828, he and his wife journeyed to York, it would +appear that he went there with the design of burning the +Cathedral already half-formed. He haunted the building day +by day, leaving denunciatory letters from time to time. +One, discovered on the iron grille of the choir screen, exhorted +the clergy to “repent and cry For marcey for know is the +day of vangens and your Cumplet Destruction is at Hand for the +Lord will not sufer you and the Deveal and your blind Hellish +Docktren to dseve the works of His Hands no longer. . . . +Depart you Carsit blind Gides in to the Hotest plase of Hell to +be tormentid with the Deveal and all his Eanguls for Ever and +Ever.”</p> +<p>Violent language! but one may hear harangues very like it any +day within Hyde Park, by the Marble Arch. There are many +incendiaries in the making around us to-day, and as little +attention is paid to them as to Martin’s ravings.</p> +<p>Undoubtedly mad, he possessed something of the madman’s +cunning, and with the plan of firing the Cathedral fully formed, +set out with his wife for Leeds, as he gave out, on the 27th of +January. At Leeds he remained a few days, and was +remarkable for his unusually quiet and orderly behaviour. +He left on Saturday morning, ostensibly for Tadcaster, saying he +should return on the Monday; but went instead to <a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>York. +Here the madman’s cunning broke down, for he stayed at a +place where he was well known; at the lodgings, in fact, that he +had left a few days before. He prowled about the Cathedral +the whole of the next day, Sunday, and attended service there, +hiding behind a tomb in the north transept; overheard the notes +of the organ—the finest in England—thundering and +booming and rolling in echoes amid the fretted roofs. The +sound troubled the brain of the maniac. “Buzz, +buzz,” he whispered; “I’ll teach thee to stop +thy buzzing,” and hid, shivering with religious and lunatic +ecstasy, in the recess until the building was empty.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image45" href="images/p45.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Jonathan Martin, Incendiary" +title= +"Jonathan Martin, Incendiary" + src="images/p45.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The short February day closed, and left the Cathedral in +darkness; but he still waited. The ringers paid their +evening-visit to the belfry, and he watched them from his +hiding-place. He watched them go and then began his +work. The ringers had left the belfry unlocked. +Ascending to it, he cut a length of about a hundred feet off the +prayer-bell rope, and, with his sailor’s handiness, made a +rough ladder of it, by which to escape. Those were the days +before lucifer matches. He had come provided with a razor, +which he used as a steel; a flint, tinder, and a penny candle cut +in two. Climbing, then, into the choir, he made two piles +on the floor of prayer-books, curtains, hassocks, and cushions, +and taking a candle from the altar, cut it up and distributed it +between the two. Then, setting light to them, he set to +work to escape. He had taken a pair of pincers from the +shoemaker with whom he lodged, and breaking with them a window in +the north transept, he hauled his rope through, and descended +into the Minster Yard, soon after three o’clock in the +morning.</p> +<p>The fire was not discovered until four hours later. By +that time the stalls were half-consumed, and the vestry, where +the communion plate was kept, was on fire. The plate was +melted into an unrecognisable mass. By eight o’clock, +despite the exertions of many willing helpers, the organ-screen +was burnt, and the organ-pipes fell in thunder to the pavement, +to the <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>accompaniment of a furious shower of molten lead from +the roof, which was now burning. The city fire-engines, +those of the Cathedral, and others from Leeds and Escrick were +all playing upon the conflagration that day, and the 7th Dragoon +Guards and the Militia helped with a will, or kept back the vast +crowds which had poured into the city from far and near. It +was not until evening that the fire was quenched, and by that +time the roof of the choir, over 130 feet in length, had been +destroyed, and with it the stalls, the Bishop’s throne, and +all the mediæval enrichments of that part of the +building. Curiously enough, the great east window was but +little damaged. The cost of this madman’s act was put +at £100,000. A singular coincidence, greatly remarked +upon at the time, was that on the Sunday following this disaster, +one of the lessons for the day was the sixty-fourth chapter of +Isaiah, the Church’s prayer to God, of which one verse at +least was particularly applicable: “Our holy and our +beautiful house, where our fathers praised Thee, is burned with +fire; and all our pleasant things are laid waste.”</p> +<p>Martin was, in the first instance, connected with the outrage +by the evidence of the shoemaker’s pincers he had left +behind him. They were identified by his landlord. +Meanwhile, the incendiary had fled along the Great North Road; +first to Easingwold, thirteen miles away, where he drank a pint +of ale; and then tramping on to Thirsk. Thence he hurried +to Northallerton, arriving at three o’clock in the +afternoon, worn out with thirty-three miles of walking. +That night he journeyed in a coal-cart to West Auckland, and so +eventually to a friend near Hexham, in whose house he was +arrested on the 6th of February. Taken to York, he was +tried at the sessions at York Castle on March 30th. The +verdict, given on the following day, was “not guilty, on +the ground of insanity,” and he was ordered to be kept in +close custody during his Majesty’s pleasure. Martin +was shortly afterwards removed from York Castle to St. +Luke’s Hospital, <a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>London, in which he died in +1838. Two years later, the Minster was again on fire, this +time as the result of an accident, and the western tower was +burnt out.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image49" href="images/p49.jpg"> +<img alt= +"York Minster on Fire, May 20th, 1840" +title= +"York Minster on Fire, May 20th, 1840" + src="images/p49.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Insanity in some degree ran through the Martin family. +His brother John, who died in 1854, was a prominent artist, whose +unbalanced mind did not give way, but led him to paint +extraordinary pictures, chiefly of Scriptural interest and +apocalyptic horrors. He was in his day considered a genius, +and many of his terrific imaginations were engraved and must yet +be familiar: such pictures as “Belshazzar’s +Feast,” “The Eve of the Deluge,” “The +Last Man,” and “The Plains of Heaven”: pictures +well calculated to give children nightmares.</p> +<h2>X</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> must now leave York for the +North. To do so, we proceed through Bootham Bar, where the +taxis linger that ply between the city and the railway +station.</p> +<p>Let us glance back upon the picturesque sky-line of City and +Minster and read, maybe, the modern explanatory historical +inscription placed on the ancient Bar. Thus:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Entry from North through Forest of +Galtres. In old times armed men were stationed here to +watch, and to conduct travellers through the forest and protect +them against the wolves.</p> +<p>“The Royal Arms were taken down in 1650, when Cromwell +passed through, against Scotland. Heads of three rebels +exposed here, for attempting to restore Commonwealth, 1663.</p> +<p>“Erected on Roman foundation, probably early in 13th +centy.</p> +<p>“Interior rebuilt with freestone, 1719.</p> +<p>“The portcullis remains.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So, in those ancient times when the Forest of Galtres lay +immediately before you on passing out of Bootham <a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>Bar and going +North—the forest with wolves and bandits—you stepped +not into a suburb, but came directly off the threshold into the +wild.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p52.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bootham Bar" +title= +"Bootham Bar" + src="images/p52.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>To-day, outside the walls we come at once into the district of +Clifton, after Knavesmire the finest suburb of York; the wide +road lined with old mansions that almost reek of prebendal +appointments, J.P.’s, incomes of over two thousand a year, +and butlers. It is true that there are those which cannot +be included in this category, but they are here on sufferance and +as a foil to the majesty of their superiors, just as the Lunatic +Asylum a little farther down the road gives, or should give, by +contrast a finer flavour to the lives of those who have not to +live in it. There is another pleasing thing at Clifton, in +the altogether charming new building of the “White +Horse” inn, which seems to hint that they have at last +begun to recover the lost art in Yorkshire of <a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>building +houses that are not vulgar or hideous. It is full time.</p> +<p>Would you see a charming village church, a jewel in its +sort? Then, when reaching Skelton, three miles onward, +explore the bye-road at the back of the village, over whose +clustered few roofs its Early English bell-cote peeps. But +a moment, please, before we reach it. This +“bye-road” is the original highway, and the +“back” of the village street its old front. +There is a moral application somewhere in these altered +circumstances for those who have the wit, the inclination, and +the opportunity to seek it.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p53.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Skelton Church" +title= +"Skelton Church" + src="images/p53.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The improved road, a hundred years old, is carried straight +and level past the rear of the cottages, and the rugged old one +goes serpentining past the front doors, where the entrance to the +“Bay Horse” looks out across a little green to where +the church stands, the faded old Bay Horse himself wondering +where the traffic that use to pass this way has all gone +to. The signs of the “Bay Horse” and the +“Yorkshire Grey” are, by the way, astonishingly +frequent on the Great North Road.</p> +<p><a name="page54"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 54</span>But the +church. It is an unpretending building, without a tower, +and only a bell-cote rising from its broad roof; but perfect +within its limits. Early English throughout, with +delicately-cut mouldings, beautiful triple lancets at the east +end, and fine porch, the green and grey harmonies of its slate +roof and well-preserved stonework, complete a rarely satisfying +picture. A legend, still current, says it was built from +stone remaining over after the building of the south transept of +York Cathedral, in 1227. The Church in the Wood it was +then, for from the gates of York to Easingwold, a distance of +thirteen miles, stretched that great Forest of Galtres, through +which, to guide wandering travellers, as we have already seen, +the lantern-tower and burning cresset of All Saints in the +Pavement, at York, were raised aloft.</p> +<p>Red deer roamed the Forest of Galtres, and bandits not so +chivalrous as Robin Hood; so few dared to explore its recesses +unarmed and unaccompanied. But where in olden times these +romantic attendants of, or dissuading circumstances from travel +existed, we have now only occasional trees and an infinity of +flat roads, past Shipton village to Tollerton Cross Lanes and +Easingwold. This country is dulness personified. The +main road is flat and featureless, and the branch roads instinct +with a melancholy emptiness that hives in every ditch and +commonplace hedgerow. A deadly sameness, a paralysing +negation, closes the horizon of this sparsely settled district, +depopulated in that visitation of fire and sword when William the +Conqueror came, in 1069, and massacred a hundred thousand of +those who had dared to withstand him. They had surrendered +on promise of their lives and property being respected, but the +fierce Norman utterly destroyed the city of York and laid waste +the whole of the country between York and Durham. Those who +were not slain perished miserably of cold and famine. Their +pale ghosts still haunt the route of the Great North Road and +afflict it, though more than eight hundred years have flown.</p> +<p><a name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>Now +comes Easingwold; grimly bare and gritty wide street, with narrow +pavements and broad selvedges of cobbles sloping from them down +into a roadway filled, not with traffic, but with children at +noisy play. Shabby houses lining this street, houses little +better than cottages, and ugly at that; grey, hard-featured, +forbidding. Imagine half a mile of this, with a large +church on a knoll away at the northern end, and you have +Easingwold. One house is interesting. It is easily +identified, because it is the only one of any architectural +character in the place. Now a school, it was once the chief +coaching and posting establishment, under the sign of the +“Rose and Crown,” and in those times kept five post +boys, and, by consequence, twenty horses, others being kept for +the “Wellington” and “Express” coaches +which Lacy, the landlord, used to horse on the Easingwold to +Thirsk stage. The “New Inn,” although an +inferior house, was the place at which the Royal mail and the +“Highflyer” changed.</p> +<p>An old post boy of the “Rose and Crown” survived +until recent years, in the person of Tommy Hutchinson. +Originally a tailor, he early forsook the board and the needle +for the pigskin and the whip. If a tailor be the ninth part +of a man, certainly the weazened postboys (who ever saw a fat +one?) of old were themselves only fractions, so far as appearance +went; and accordingly Tommy was not badly suited. But a +power of endurance was contained within that spare frame, and he +eclipsed John Blagg of Retford’s hundred and ten +miles’ day on one occasion, riding post five times from +Easingwold to York and back, a distance of a hundred and thirty +miles. Tommy used to express an utter contempt for +“bilers on wheels,” as he called locomotives. +“Ah divvent see nowt in ’em,” he would say; +“ye can’t beat a po’shay and good +horses.” Peace be with him!</p> +<p>That rare thing on the Great North Road, a rise, leads out of +Easingwold, past unkempt cottages, to “White House +Inn,” a mile and a half distant, where the inn buildings, +now farmhouses, but still brilliantly <a name="page56"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 56</span>whitewashed, stand on either side of +the road, in a lonely spot near where the Kyle stream, like a +flowing ditch, oozes beneath Dawnay Bridge.</p> +<p>The “White House” was the scene of a murder in +1623. At that time the innkeeper was a certain Ralph +Raynard, who “kept company” with a girl in service at +Red House, Thornton Bridge. The lovers quarrelled, and in a +pique the girl married a farmer named Fletcher, of Moor House, +Raskelfe. Unhappily, she did not love the man she had +married, while she certainly did retain an affection for her old +sweetheart, and he for her. Going between Raskelfe and +Easingwold on market-days on her horse, she would often stop at +the “White House,” and chat with Ralph Raynard; the +ostler, Mark Dunn, minding the horse when she dismounted. +Raynard’s sister kept house with him at the inn, and she +saw that no good could come of these visits, but he would not +listen to her warnings, and the visits continued. It was +not long before Fletcher’s neighbours began to hint to him +something of these little flirtations of his wife with her old +lover; and one evening he caught the ostler of the “White +House” in his orchard, where he was waiting for an +opportunity to deliver a message from Raynard to her. The +man returned to the inn without having fulfilled his mission, and +smarting from a thrashing he had received at the hands of the +indignant farmer. Shortly after this, Fletcher had occasion +to go a journey. Things had not been going well with him +latterly, and his home was rendered unhappy by the evidence of +his wife’s dislike of him. Little wonder, then, that +he had dismal forebodings as he set out. Before leaving, he +wrote on a sheet of paper:—</p> +<blockquote><p>If I should be missing, or suddenly wanted be,<br +/> +Mark Ralph Raynard, Mark Dunn, and mark my wife for me,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>addressing it to his sister.</p> +<p>No sooner was he gone than Mrs. Fletcher mounted her horse and +rode to Raskelfe, where, with Raynard and Mark Dunn, a murderous +plot was contrived for <a name="page57"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 57</span>putting Fletcher out of the +way. They were waiting for him when he returned at evening, +and as he stood a moment on Dawnay Bridge, where the little river +runs beneath the highway, two of them rushed upon him and threw +him into the water. It would be difficult for a man to +drown here, but the innkeeper and the ostler leapt in after him, +and as he lay there held his head under water, while his wife +seized his feet. When the unfortunate man was quite dead +they thrust his body into a sack, and, carrying their burden with +them to the inn, buried it in the garden, Raynard sowing some +mustard-seed over the spot. This took place on the 1st of +May. On the 7th of July, Raynard went to Topcliffe Fair, +and put up at the “Angel.” Going into the +stable, he was confronted by the apparition of the unhappy +Fletcher, glowing with a strange light and predicting +retribution. He rushed out among the booths, and tried to +think he had been mistaken. Coming to a booth where they +sold small trinkets, he thought he would buy a present for his +sweetheart, and, taking up a chain of coral beads, asked the +stallkeeper how it looked on the neck. To his dismay the +apparition stood opposite, with a red chain round its neck, with +its head hanging to one side, like that of an executed criminal, +while a voice informed him that presently he and his accomplices +should be wearing hempen necklaces.</p> +<p>When night had fallen he mounted his horse and rode for +home. On the way, at a spot called the Carr, he saw +something in the road. It was a figure emerging from a sack +and shaking the water off it, like a Newfoundland dog. With +a yell of terror the haunted man dug his heels into his horse and +galloped madly away; but the figure, irradiated by a +phosphorescent glimmer and dragging an equally luminous sack +after it, was gliding in front of him all the while, at an equal +pace, and so continued until the “White House” was +reached, where it slid through the garden hedge and into the +ground where Fletcher’s body had been laid.</p> +<p>Raynard’s sister was waiting for him, with supper <a +name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 58</span>ready, and +with a dish of freshly-cut mustard. <i>She</i> did not see +the spectre sitting opposite, pointing a minatory finger at that +dreadful salad, but <i>he</i> did, and terrified, confessed to +the crime. Sisterly affection was not proof against this, +and she laid information against the three accomplices before a +neighbouring Justice of the Peace, Sir William Sheffield of +Raskelfe Park. They were committed to York Castle, tried, +and hanged on July 28, 1623. The bodies were afterwards cut +down and taken to the inn, being gibbeted near the scene of the +crime, on a spot still called Gallows Hill, where the bones of +the three malefactors were accidentally ploughed up over a +hundred and twenty years ago.</p> +<p>If its surroundings may be said to fit in with a crime, then +this seems an ideal spot for the commission of dark deeds, this +eerie place where an oozy plantation, or little wood, is placed +beside the road, its trees standing in pools or on moss-grown +tussocks; the road in either direction a solitude.</p> +<p>Raskelfe, or “Rascall,” as it is generally called, +lies away from the road. It has a church which still +possesses a wooden tower, and the local rhyme,</p> +<blockquote><p>Wooden church, wooden steeple,<br /> +Rascally church, and rascally people.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>is yet heard in the mouths of depreciatory neighbours.</p> +<h2>XI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Hambleton Hills now come in +sight, and close in the view on the right hand, at a distance of +five miles; running parallel with the road as far as +Northallerton; sullen hills, with the outlines of mountains, and +wanting only altitude to earn the appellation. The road, in +sympathy with its nearness to them, goes up and down in jerky +rises and falls, passing the outlying houses of Thormanby and the +farmsteads of Birdforth, which pretends, with its mean little +church, <a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>like a sanctified cow-shed, to be a village—and +signally fails.</p> +<p>The gates of Thirkleby Park and the “Griffin” inn, +standing where a toll-gate formerly stood on what was once Bagby +Common, bring one past a bye-road which leads to Coxwold, five +miles away, and to the Hambleton White Horse, a quite +unhistorical imitation, cut in the hillside in 1857, of its +prehistoric forerunners in Berkshire and Wilts. Coxwold is +a rarely pretty village, famous as having been the living of the +Reverend Laurence Sterne from 1760 to 1768. The house he +lived in, now divided into three cottages, is the place where +<i>Tristram Shandy</i> was finished and the <i>Sentimental +Journey</i> written. “Shandy Hall” it is +called, “shandy” being the local dialect-word for +“crazy.”</p> +<p>Thirsk lies less than three miles ahead. There have been +those who have called it “picturesque.” Let us +pity them, for those to whom Thirsk shows a picturesque side must +needs have acquaintance with only the sorriest and most +commonplace of towns. The place is, in fact, a larger +Easingwold, with the addition of a market-place like that of +Selby—after the abbey has been subtracted from it! +There are Old Thirsk and New Thirsk, the new town called into +existence by the railway, a mile to the west. The +“Three Tuns,” “Crown,” and +“Fleece” were the three coaching inns of Thirsk, and +still show their hard-featured faces to the grey, gaunt +streets. The one pretty “bit” is encountered +after having left the town behind. Passing the church, the +road is bordered by the beautiful broad sheet of water formed by +damming the Caldbeck. Looking backwards, the view is +charming, with the church-tower coming into the composition, a +glance to the left including the Hambleton Hills.</p> +<p>The hamlet of Thornton-le-Street, which derives its name from +standing on an old Roman road, is a tiny place with a small +church full of large monuments, and the remains of a huge old +posting establishment, once familiar to travellers as the +“Spotted Dog,” <a name="page60"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 60</span>standing on either side of the +road. One side appears to be empty, and the other is now +the post office. A graceful clump of poplars now shades the +sharp bend where the road descends, past the lodge-gates of the +Hall, the seat of the Earl of Cathcart. Presently the road +climbs again to the crest whence Thornton-le-Moor may be glimpsed +on the left, and thence goes, leaving the singularly named +Thornton-le-Beans on the right, in commonplace fashion to +Northallerton.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p60.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “Spotted Dog,” Thornton-le-Street" +title= +"The “Spotted Dog,” Thornton-le-Street" + src="images/p60.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>As are Easingwold and Thirsk, so is Northallerton. Let +that suffice for its aspect, and let us to something of its +story, which practically begins in 1138, at the battle of +Northallerton, dimly read of in schooldays, and still capable of +conferring an interest upon the <a name="page61"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 61</span>locality, even though the site of +that old-time struggle on Standard Hill is three miles away to +the north on Cowton Moor. The position of the townlet, +directly in the line of march of Scots descending to harry the +English, and of the English marching to punish those hairy-legged +Caledonians, led to many plunderings and burnings, and to various +scenes of retribution, enacted in the streets or along the road; +and although Northallerton must nowadays confess to a mile-long +dulness, time cannot have hung heavily with its inhabitants when +the Scots burnt their houses in 1319 and again in 1322; when the +rebel Earls of 1569 were executed near the church; when the +Scottish army held Charles the First prisoner here in 1647, or +when—last scene in its story—the Duke of Cumberland +encamped on the hillsides in 1745.</p> +<p>The name of Allerton is said to derive from the Anglo-Saxon +<i>aelr</i>, an alder tree, and many are the Allertons of sorts +in Yorkshire. Its central feature—which, however, is +not geographically central, but at the northern end of the one +long street—is the church, large and with a certain air of +nobility which befits the parish church of such a place as +Northallerton, anciently the capital of a “soke,” and +still giving a name to the “Northallertonshire” +district of Yorkshire. The old coaching inns of the town, +like those of so many other northern towns and villages on this +road, are not impressive to the Southerner, who, the further +north he progresses, is, with Dr. Johnson, still more firmly +convinced that he is leaving the finest fruits of civilisation +behind him. First now, as then, is the “Golden +Lion,” large but not lovely; the inn referred to as the +“Black Swan” by Sydney Smith when writing to Lady +Grey, advising her how to journey from London, in the passage, +“Do not set off too soon, or you will be laid up at the +‘Black Swan,’ Northallerton, or the ‘Elephant +and Castle,’ Boroughbridge; and your bill will come to a +thousand pounds, besides the waiter.” The true +sportsman who reads these lines will put up at the “Golden +Lion” to test <a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>whether or not the reverend humorist is out of date as +regards the tariff; nor will he forget to try the Northallerton +ale, to determine if Master George Meryon’s verse, written +in the days of James the Second, is still topical:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Northallerton, in Yorkshire, doth excel!<br /> +All England, nay, all Europe, for strong yell.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The “Golden Lion” was, at the close of the +coaching era, the foremost inn at Northallerton, and at its doors +the “Wellington” London and Newcastle coach changed +teams until the railway ran it off the road. The Edinburgh +mail changed at the “Black Bull,” which survives as +an inn, but only half its original size, the other half now being +a draper’s shop. The “King’s Head,” +another coaching-house, has quite retired into private life, +while the “Old Golden Lion,” not a very noted +coaching establishment, except, perhaps, for the bye-roads, +remains much the same as ever.</p> +<h2>XII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> Northallerton we reach the +junction of the alternative route, which, branching from the +Selby and York itinerary, goes over difficult, but much more +beautiful, country by way of Wetherby and Boroughbridge. +The ways diverge at the northern extremity of Doncaster, and as +both can equally claim to be an integral part of the Great North +Road, it is necessary to go back these sixty-three miles to that +town and explore the route. Beginning at a left-hand fork +by the flat meadows that border the river Don, it comes in a mile +to York Bar, a name recalling the existence of a turnpike-gate, +whose disappearance so recently as 1879 seems to bring us +strangely near old coaching days. The toll-house still +stands, and with the little inn beyond, backed and surrounded by +tall trees, forms a pleasant peep down the long <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>flat +road. “Red House,” nearly three miles onward, +is plainly indicated by its flaring red-painted walls. Now +a farmhouse, it was once a small coaching-inn principally +concerned with the traffic along the Wakefield road, which +branches off here to the left.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p63.jpg"> +<img alt= +"York Bar" +title= +"York Bar" + src="images/p63.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Passing this, we come in two miles to Robin Hood’s Well, +a group of houses by Skelbrooke Park, where at the “New +Inn” and the “Robin Hood” many coaches changed +horses daily, the passengers taking the opportunity of drinking +from Robin Hood’s Well, a spring connected with that +probably mythical outlaw, who is said to have met the Bishop of +Hereford travelling along the road at this spot, and to have not +only held him to heavy ransom, but to have compelled him to dance +an undignified jig round an oak in Skelbrooke Park, on a spot +still called (now the tree itself has disappeared) +“Bishop’s Tree Root.” Among famous <a +name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 64</span>travellers +who have sipped of the crystal spring of Robin Hood’s Well +is Evelyn, who journeyed this way in 1654. “Near +it,” he says, “is a stone chaire; and an iron ladle +to drink out of, chained to the seat.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p64.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Robin Hood’s Well" +title= +"Robin Hood’s Well" + src="images/p64.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Some fifty years later, the very ugly building that now covers +the spring was erected by Vanbrugh for the Earl of +Carlisle. It cannot be said to add much to the romantic +associations of the place, but the efforts of the wayfarers, who +in two centuries have carved every available inch of its surface +with their names, render it a curious sight.</p> +<p>Here the road begins a long climb up to the spot where five +ways meet, the broad left-hand road conducting into Leeds. +This is, or was, Barnsdale Bar, where some of the local Leeds +coaches branched from the Great North Road, the chief ones +between London and Leeds continuing along this route as far as +Peckfield Turnpike, five miles to the other side of +Ferrybridge. Barnsdale Bar is, like all the other +toll-bars, a thing of the past, but the old toll-house <a +name="page65"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 65</span>still hides +among the trees by the roadside. Beyond it the way lies +along an exposed road high up on the hill-tops; a lonely stretch +of country where it is a peculiarly ill mischance to be caught in +a storm. Thence it plunges suddenly into the deep gorge of +Went Bridge, where the little river Went goes with infantile fury +among rocks and mossy boulders along a winding course thickly +overhung with trees. The wooded sides of this narrow valley +are picturesque in the highest degree, but were probably not +highly appreciated by timid coach-passengers who, having been +driven down the precipitous road at one side at the peril of +their lives, were turned out by the guard to ease the toiling +horses by walking up the corresponding ascent at the other. +This is the prettiest spot in all “merry Barnsdale,” +and anciently one of those most affected by Robin Hood. His +very degenerate successors, the poachers and cut-throats of James +the First’s time, found it a welcome harbourage and +foregathered at the predecessor of the Old Blue Bell Inn, which +was accordingly deprived of its license for some time. The +old sign, bearing the date of 1633, when business was probably +resumed, is still kept within the house, as the rhymed +inscription on the modern one outside informs the +passer-by:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The Blae Bell on Wentbridge Hill,<br /> +The old sign is existing still<br /> +Inside the house.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>An old posting-inn, the “Bay Horse,” has long +since reverted to the condition of a private house.</p> +<p>The road rising out of Went Bridge runs between the jagged +rocks of a cutting made in the last years of the coaching age to +lighten the pull up, but still it is a formidable climb. +This is followed by a hollow where a few outlying houses of +Darrington village are seen, and then the bleak high tableland is +reached that has to be traversed before the road drops down into +the valley of the Aire at Ferrybridge, that now dull and grimy +town which bears no appearance of <a name="page66"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 66</span>having had an historic past. +Yet Ferrybridge was the scene of the skirmish that heralded the +battle of Towton, and stands in the midst of that mediæval +cockpit of England, wherein for centuries so many rival factions +contended together. Near by is Pontefract, in whose castle +Richard the Second met a mysterious death, and not far off lies +Wakefield. Towton Field itself lies along the Tadcaster +route to York. In every direction blood has been shed, for +White Rose or Red, for King or Parliament; but Ferrybridge is +anything but romantic to the eye, however greatly its +associations may appeal to the well-stored mind. +Coal-mining and quarrying industries overlie these things. +The place-name explains the situation of the townlet sufficiently +well, and refers to the first building of a bridge over the +old-time ferry by which wayfarers crossed the Aire to Brotherton, +on the opposite bank. It is quite unknown when the first +bridge was built, but one existed here in 1461, the year when +Towton fight was fought. This was succeeded by a wooden +structure, itself replaced by the present substantial stone +bridge, built at the beginning of the eighteenth century. +This was always a troublesome part of the road to keep in repair, +as we may judge from old records. A forty days’ +indulgence was granted by the Bishop of Durham early in the +fourteenth century to the faithful who would contribute to the +repair of the road between Ferrybridge and Brotherton, in these +words:—“Persuaded that the minds of the faithful are +more ready to attach themselves to pious works when they have +received the salutary encouragement of fuller indulgences, +trusting in the mercy of God Almighty and the merits and prayers +of the glorious Virgin his Mother, of St. Peter, St. Paul, and of +the most holy confessor Cuthbert, our patron, and of all saints, +we remit forty days of the penances imposed on all our +parishioners and others, sincerely contrite and confessed of +their sins, who shall help by their charitable gifts, or by their +bodily labour, in the building or in the maintenance of the +causeway <a name="page67"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +67</span>between Brotherton and Ferrybridge, where a great many +people pass by.”</p> +<p>Let us hope that the pious, thus incited to the commission of +good works, responded. It was a more serious matter, +however, in later ages, when a great many more people passed by, +and when road-surveyors, unable to dispense these ghostly +favours, repaired the roads only at the pecuniary expense of the +ratepayers. These Yorkshire streams, the Aire, the Wharfe, +and many others, descending from the high moorlands, develop an +extraordinary force in times of flood, and have often destroyed +half the communications of these districts. Such was the +havoc wrought in 1795 that many of the bridges were washed away +and great holes made in the roads. Three bridges on this +road between Doncaster and Ferrybridge disappeared. With +such perils threatened, travellers deserved to be comfortably +housed when they lay by for the night. And comfort was the +especial feature of these inns.</p> +<p>The most luxurious inn and posting-house in the north of +England was held to be the “Swan” at Ferrybridge; +“in 1737 and since the best inn upon the great northern +road,” according to Scott. However that may have +been, certainly the “Angel” at Ferry-bridge was the +largest. Both, however, have long since been given +up. The many scattered buildings of the “Angel” +have become private houses, and the “Swan,” empty for +many years past, is falling into a roofless ruin by the +riverside. Innkeeping was no mean trade in those times, +especially when allied with the proprietorship of horses and +coaches. Thus, in the flower of the coaching age, the +“Angel” was in the hands of a medical man, a certain +Dr. Alderson, the son of a local clergyman, who actually found +time to attend properly to his practice and to conduct the +business of a licensed victualler and coach-proprietor. He +thought it not derogatory to his social position to be +“mine host,” and he certainly made many friends by +his enterprise. Ferrybridge, as the branching-off <a +name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 68</span>place of yet +another Great North Road route—the Tadcaster route to +York—was a very busy coaching centre, and besides the two +inns mentioned there were the “Greyhound” and the +“Golden Lion.” The last-named was especially +the drovers’ house. Drovers were a great feature of +the road in these old days, and their flocks and herds an +unmitigated nuisance to all other travellers. Uncouth +creatures from Scotland, they footed it all the way to London +with their beasts, making their twenty miles a day; their sheep +and cattle often numerous enough to occupy a whole mile of road, +and raising dust-clouds dense enough to choke a whole +district. It was, at the pace they went, a three +weeks’ journey from the far north to London and the fat +cattle that started on the four hundred miles walk must, with +these efforts, have become the leanest of kine on arrival at +Smithfield.</p> +<p>The “Old Fox” inn, which still stands on the other +side of the river at Brotherton, was also a drovers’ place +of call. It stands at the actual fork of the roads, eleven +miles from Tadcaster, and twenty from York. The Edinburgh +mail originally ran this way, finally changing to the Selby +route, while the “Highflyer” and +“Wellington,” London and Edinburgh and London and +Newcastle, coaches kept on it until the end in 1840; but it was +chiefly crowded with the cross-country coach traffic, which was a +very heavy one.</p> +<p>The places are few and uninteresting on these twenty miles +into York; Sherburn and Tadcaster—that town of +ales—the chief of them; while the tiny godless village of +Towton, without a church, on the way, is disappointing to the +pilgrim, eager to see it for the sake of its association with the +great battle. The road skirts the eastern side of that +tragic field, after passing the hamlet of Barkston Ash.</p> +<h2><a name="page69"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +69</span>XIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> battle of Towton, March 29, +1461, was the bloodiest ever fought on English ground, the slain +on both sides in that desperate fight and in the skirmishes at +Ferrybridge and Dintingdale amounting to more than 30,000 +men. The events that had preceded it were alternately +cheering and depressing to the hopes of the Yorkists, who had +been defeated with great slaughter at Wakefield on the last day +but one of the previous December, had gained the important +victory of Mortimer’s Cross on the 2nd of February, and had +been defeated again at the second battle of St. Albans on the +17th of the same month; and although on March 4th the young Duke +of York had entered London and assumed the crown as Edward the +Fourth, the Lancastrians still held the Midlands and, lying at +York, interposed a bold front against an advance. It was a +singular position. The Lancastrians had their headquarters +at the city from which their opponents took their title, and two +kings of England, equally matched in power, animated their +respective adherents with the utmost loyalty.</p> +<p>After their victory at St. Albans the Lancastrians, exhausted, +had retired to York, the south being as dangerous to a +Lancastrian army as the north, loyal to the Red Rose, was to the +Yorkists. The Yorkists, on their part, eager to enter +London, did not pursue their rivals. Both sides required +breathing time, for events had marched too rapidly in the past +two months for the pace to be maintained. Still, the +Yorkists were in force, three weeks later, at Pontefract, and +threatening to cross the Aire at Ferrybridge, a strategic point +on their contemplated line of advance to the city of York. +It was here, early in the morning of the 28th, that the bloody +prelude to the battle opened, in a sudden Lancastrian attack on +the Yorkist outpost. Lord Fitzwalter, the Yorkist +commander, lay asleep in bed at <a name="page70"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 70</span>the time. Seizing a pole-axe at +his sudden awakening, he was slain almost instantly, but his +force, succeeding in driving the enemy across the river, took up +a position at Brotherton, the Lancastrians falling back in +disorder to Dintingdale, near Barkston Ash, where, later in the +day, the Lancastrian, Lord Clifford, was slain by an arrow.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p70.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Map of Battlefield of Towton and Surrounding Country" +title= +"Map of Battlefield of Towton and Surrounding Country" + src="images/p70.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The advance-guard of the Lancastrian army now fell back upon +the main body, which took up a well-chosen position between the +villages of Saxton and Towton, lying across a rising road which +led out of the former place, and having on its right the steeply +falling meadows leading down into the deep depression of <a +name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>Towton Dale, +where the Cock Beck still wanders in far-flung loops in the flat +lands below. On their left the ground stretched away for +some distance and then fell gently towards the flats of Church +Fenton.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p71.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Saxton" +title= +"Saxton" + src="images/p71.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>At their rear the road descended steeply again into Towton, +while Tadcaster lay three miles and York eleven miles +beyond. It was a position of great strength and one that +could only possibly be turned from the left. The fatal +defect of it lay in the chance, in the case of defeat, of the +beaten army being disorganised by a retreat down so steep a road, +leading as it did to the crossing of a stream swollen with winter +rains.</p> +<p>In visiting this spot, we must bear in mind that the broad +road from Ferrybridge to Tadcaster and York was not then in +existence. The way lay across the elevated land which, +rising from Barkston Ash towards Saxton, reaches to a +considerable height between that village and Towton. From +this commanding spot the valleys of the Wharfe and Ouse lie +plainly unfolded, <a name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +72</span>and the towers of York itself may be seen on the +skyline, on the verge of this wide expanse of meadows and +woodlands.</p> +<p>The hedgerows on the way to the battle-field are remarkable +for the profusion of briar roses that grow here in place of the +more usual blackberry brambles and thorns, and Bloody Meadow, the +spot where the thickest of the fight took place, was until quite +recently thickly overgrown with the red and white roses with +which Nature had from time immemorial planted this scene of +strife. Latterly they have all been grubbed up by farmers, +keener on the purity of their grasslands than on historic +associations.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p72.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Towton Dale" +title= +"Towton Dale" + src="images/p72.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The main body of the Yorkists, advancing to Saxton, opened the +attack on the Lancastrians early in the morning of Palm Sunday, +the 29th. The centre of the fight was in the meadow on the +left hand of the road leading towards Towton, a short distance +beyond Towton Dale quarry. The Lancastrians numbered 60,000 +men, the Yorkists 48,600. For ten hours the furious +encounter raged, “sore fought, for hope of life <a +name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 73</span>was set aside +on every part.” Six years’ warfare, from 1455, +when the first battle of St. Albans had been fought, had rendered +the enemies implacable. Almost every combatant had already +lost kinsfolk, and intense hatred caused the order on both sides +that no quarter was to be given and no prisoners taken. The +day was bitterly cold, and snowstorms swept the upland, driving +in the faces of the Lancastrians with such blinding fury that +their arrows, shot in reply to the Yorkist volleys, could not be +properly aimed, and so missed their mark. A hand-to-hand +encounter with swords and battle-axes then followed, obstinately +fought, but resulting practically in the butchery of the +Lancastrians, for nearly the half of their whole force were slain +or met their death either in Towton Dale or at the crossing of +the stream down the road past Towton Hall. The rest fled to +Tadcaster and on to York, where Henry the Sixth, the Queen, and +the young Prince of Wales were waiting the result of the +fight. They left immediately, and the victorious Duke of +York entered the ancient city.</p> +<p>Many proud nobles fell that day with the men-at-arms; among +others, Lord Dacre, fighting for the Red Rose, shot by a boy +concealed in what the country people call a +“bur-tree,” that is to say, an elder. He lies +buried in the churchyard of Saxton, on the north side of the +church, under a much-mutilated altar-tomb, whose inscription +refers to him as “verus miles”—a true +knight. Tradition yet tells of his death, in the local +rhyme:—</p> +<blockquote><p>The Lord of Dacres<br /> +Was slain in the North Acres,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>fields still known by that name. Many grave mounds +remain in Bloody Meadow, where a rude cross leans, half hidden +under a tangled hedge; and in 1848, during some excavations in +Saxton churchyard, a stratum of bones, four feet in thickness, +was exposed, the poor relics of those who fell in the great +fight. Others still are said to have been buried in the +little <a name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +74</span>chapel of Lead, a mile away, by the banks of the Cock, +whose stream ran red that day. A few stones at the back of +Towton Hall mark the place where a votive chapel was erected, +where prayers might be said for the souls of the dead, whose +numbers on both sides are said by one authority to have reached +36,776.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p74.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Lead Chapel" +title= +"Lead Chapel" + src="images/p74.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Relics have been found on the battle-field. Many years +ago a wandering antiquary found a farmer’s wife breaking +sugar with a battle-axe discovered in the river. She did +not know what it was, but he did, and secured it. It is now +at Alnwick Castle. In 1785 was found a gold ring which had +belonged to the Earl of Northumberland, who was carried mortally +wounded from the field. It weighs an ounce, and bears the +Percy Lion, with inscription, “Now ys thus.” +Another interesting and pathetic find was a spur, engraved with +“En loial amour, tout mon coer,” the relic of some +unknown knight.</p> +<h2>XIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is a wild, weird kind of country +upon which we enter, on the way from Brotherton to Aberford and +the North. Away to the left suddenly opens a wide <a +name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 75</span>valley, in an +almost sheer drop from the road, looking out upon illimitable +perspectives. Then comes Fairburn, followed by what used to +be Peckfield Turnpike, where the “Boot and Shoe” inn +stands at the fork of the roads, and where the Leeds and London +“Royal Mail,” “Rockingham,” and +“Union Post” coaches turned off. Micklefield, +two miles beyond, approached by a fine avenue of elms, is an +abject coal-mining village, and hauling-gear, smoke, and the inky +blackness of the roads emphasise the fact, even if the marshalled +coal-wagons on the railway did not give it insistence. +Coming up the craggy rise out of Micklefield and its coal, on to +Hook Moor, one of the finest stretches of the road, +<i>quâ</i> road, brings the traveller past the lodge-gates +of Parlington Park and the oddly ecclesiastical-looking +almshouses beyond, down into the stony old village of Aberford, +which lies in a depression on the Cock Beck. Beyond the +village, on journeying towards it, one sees the long straight +white road ascending the bastioned heights of windy Bramham Moor; +and the sight clinches any half-formed inclination to rest awhile +at Aberford before climbing to that airy eminence.</p> +<p>Aberford still seems to be missing its old posting and +coaching traffic, and to be awaiting the return of the days when +the Carlisle and Glasgow mail changed at the “Swan,” +a fine old inn, now much shrunken from its original state. +Stone-quarrying and the neighbouring coal-mines keep the village +from absolutely decaying; but it still lives in the past. +The picturesque old settles and yawning fireplaces of the +“Swan,” and of that oddly-named inn, the +“Arabian Horse,” eloquent of the habits of +generations ago, survive to show us what was the accommodation +those old inns provided. If more primitive, it was +heartier, and a great deal more comfortable than that of modern +hotels.</p> +<p>By the churchyard wall stands part of the old Market Cross, +discovered by the roadside and set up here in 1911; with the +“Plague Stone” in whose water-filled hollow +purchasers placed their money, so that the sellers might not risk +infection.</p> +<p><a name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>A +ruined windmill of strange design, perched on the hillside road +behind the village, is the best point whence to gain an idea of +the country in midst of which Aberford is set. It is boldly +undulating country, hiding in the folds of its hills many +old-world villages. Chief among them, two miles off the +road, is Barwick-in-Elmete—<i>i.e.</i> in the elm +country—with its prehistoric mounds and the modern +successor of an ancient maypole, set up in the village street by +the cross, presented in May 1898 by Major-General Gascoigne, of +Parlington Park.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p76.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Ruined Mill, Overlooking Aberford" +title= +"Ruined Mill, Overlooking Aberford" + src="images/p76.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The road two miles out of Aberford reaches that home of +howling winds, that most uncomfortable and undesirable place, +Bramham Moor. Here, where the Bramham Moor inn stands at +the crossing of the Leeds and York road, a considerable traffic +enlivened the way until eighty years ago. Since that time +the broad roadways in either direction have been empty, except +when the hounds meet here in the hunting season, when, for a +brief hour, old times seem come again. It was along this +cross-road that “Nimrod,” <a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>that classic coaching authority, +travelled in 1827, his eagle eye engaged in criticism of the +Yorkshire provincial coaches.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p77.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Barwick-in-Elmete" +title= +"Barwick-in-Elmete" + src="images/p77.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The rustical driver of the Leeds to York stage, happily, did +not know who his passenger was. Let us hope he never saw +the criticism of himself, his coach and horses, and everything +that was his, which appeared shortly afterwards in the +<i>Sporting Magazine</i>. Everything, says +“Nimrod,” was inferior. The man who drove (he +scorns, you see, to call him a coachman) was <a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>more like a +Welsh drover than anything else. The day was cold, but he +had neither gloves, boots, nor gaiters. However, he +conducted the coach only a ten miles’ stage, and made up +with copious libations of gin for the lack of warm +clothing. On the way he fell to bragging with his box-seat +passenger of the hair’s-breadth escapes he had experienced +when driving one of the Leeds to London opposition coaches; and +“Nimrod,” complimenting him on the skill he must have +shown on those occasions, he proceeded to give a taste of his +quality, which resulted in his getting the reins clubbed and a +narrow escape from being overturned. “Nimrod” +soon had enough of it, and at the first opportunity pretended to +be ill and went inside, as being the least dangerous place. +Arriving at Tadcaster, ten miles from York, the door was opened, +and “Please to remember the coachman” tingled in the +ears of the passengers. “What now,” asked +“Nimrod,” “are you going no +farther?” “No, sir, but ah’s goes back at +night,” was the Yorkshireman’s answer. +“Then you follow some trade here, of course?” +continued the great coaching expert. “No, sir,” +said a bystander, “<i>he has got his horses to +clean</i>.” Fancy a coachman, even if only of that +inferior kind, who could not be called anything better than +“the man who drove,”—fancy a coachman seeing to +his own horses. “Nimrod” was properly shocked +at this, and with memories of coaching nearer London, with +stables and yards full of ostlers and helpers, and the coachmen, +their drinking done, flirting with the Hebes of the bar, could +only say, with a gasp, “Oh! that’s the way your +Yorkshire coaching is done, is it?”</p> +<p>He then saw his fellow-passengers pull out sixpence each and +give it to the driver, who was not only satisfied, but +thankful. This also was a novelty. Coachmen were, in +his experience, tipped with florins and half-crowns, nor even +then did they exhibit symptoms of thankfulness, but took the coin +as of right. “What am I to do?” +“Nimrod” asked himself; “I never gave a +coachman sixpence yet, and <a name="page79"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 79</span>I shall not begin that game +to-day.” So he “chucked” him a +“bob,” which brought the fellow’s hat down to +the box of the fore-wheel in gratitude.</p> +<p>With a fresh team and another driver the journey was continued +to York. About half-way, the coach stopped at a +public-house, in the old style; the driver got down, the gin +bottle was produced, and, looking out of the window, +“Nimrod” was surprised to see the man whom he had +thought was left behind at Tadcaster. “What, are you +here?” he asked. “Why, yes,” answered the +man; “’tis market-day at York, and ah’s wants +to buy a goose or two.” “Ah,” observed +“Nimrod,” “I thought you were a little in the +huckstering line.”</p> +<h2>XV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Bramham Moor</span> leads down into +Bramham village, past the Park, where a ruined manor-house, +destroyed by fire, stands amid formal gardens and looks +tragical. The place wears the aspect of romance, and seems +an ideal home for the ideal Wicked Squire of Early Victorian +novels. Lord Bingley, who built it and laid out the grounds +in the time of Queen Anne, was not more wicked than the +generality of his contemporaries, but here are all the +“properties” with which those novelists surrounded +the cynical deceivers of innocence, who stalked in inky cloaks, +curly hats, and tasselled riding-boots through their gory +pages. Here is Lord Bingley’s Walk, an avenue of +gigantic beeches where he did not meet the trustful village +maiden, as he ought to have done, by all the rules; here also is +the obelisk at the suggestively named Blackfen, whence twelve +avenues diverge—where no tattered witch ever cursed him, so +far as can be ascertained. Lord Bingley evidently did not +live up to the possibilities of the place, or of his station, nor +did those who came after him, for no horrid legend is narrated +with bated breath in Bramham village, which lies huddled together +in the <a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>hollow below the park, the world forgetting, and by the +world forgot, ever since that leap year, 1408, when on the 29th +of February the Earl of Northumberland, rebelling against Henry +the Fourth, was defeated and slain by Sir Thomas Rokeby at the +battle of Bramham Moor.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p80.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Moor End" +title= +"Moor End" + src="images/p80.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Rising steeply out of Bramham and coming to the crest at Moor +End, where the road descends long and continuously to Wetherby +and the river Wharfe, we come to what used to be regarded as the +half-way town between London and Edinburgh. The exact spot, +where a milestone told the same tale on either face, is, in fact, +one mile north, where the “Old Fox” inn stands. +This was, of course, the most noted landmark on the long road, +and the drovers who journeyed past it never failed to look in at +the “Old Fox” and “wet their whistles,” +to celebrate the completion of half their task. At Wetherby +itself the “Angel” arrogated the title of +“half-way house,” and was the principal coaching +inn. It still stands, like its rival, the “Swan <a +name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>and +Talbot,” smaller than of yore, the larger portion of its +stables now converted into cottages. At the +“Angel” the down London and Glasgow mail dined, with +an hour to spare; the up coach hurrying through to its change at +Aberford. Wetherby was a change for the stage-coaches, +which ran the whole seventeen miles to Ferrybridge with the same +teams; a cruelly long and arduous stretch for the horses.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image81" href="images/p81.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Nineveh" +title= +"Nineveh" + src="images/p81.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>This is a hard-featured, stony town; still, as of old, chiefly +concerned with cattle-raising and cattle-dealing, and crowded on +market-days with farmers and drovers driving bargains or swearing +at the terrified efforts of beasts and sheep to find their way +into the shops and inns. Down on the southern side of the +town runs the romantic Wharfe, between rocky banks, hurrying in +swirling eddies towards its confluence with the Ouse, below +Tadcaster; and on to the north goes the road, through the main +street, on past the conspicuous spire of Kirk Deighton church, +coming in three miles to Walshford, where a bridge crosses the +rocky, tree-embowered Nidd, and that old posting-house, the +comfortable-looking “Walshford Bridge Inn,” stands +slightly back from the road, looking like a private mansion gone +diffidently into business.</p> +<p>Beyond Walshford Bridge the road turns suddenly to the left, +and, crossing the railway at lonely Allerton station, passes a +substantial red-brick farmhouse which looks as if it has seen +very different days. And indeed it has, for this was once +the “New Inn,” a changing-place for the mails. +Now on the right comes the long wall of Allerton Park, and +presently there rises ahead that strange mound known by the +equally strange name of Nineveh, a tree-crowned hill, partly +artificial, girdled with prehistoric earthworks, and honeycombed +with the graves of the forgotten tribes, to whom it was probably +at once a castle, a temple, and a cemetery. The road onward +to Boroughbridge is, indeed, carried over a Roman way, which +itself probably superseded the tracks of those vanished people, +and led to what is now the village of Aldborough near +Boroughbridge, <a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>once that great Roman city of Isurium which rivalled +York itself, and now yields inexhaustible building-stones for +modern cottages, and relics that bring the life of those ancients +in very close touch with that of our own time: oyster-shells and +oyster knives, pomatum-pots, pins, and the hundred little +articles in daily use now and fifteen hundred years ago.</p> +<p>Boroughbridge was originally the settlement founded by the +Saxons near the ruined and deserted city of Isurium. Afraid +of the bogies and evil spirits with which their dark +superstitions peopled the ruins, they dared not live there, but +built their abiding-place by the river Ure, where the +mediæval, but now modernised, village of Boroughbridge +stood, and where the bridge built by Metcalf, the blind road- and +bridge-maker, over a century ago spans the weedy stream in useful +but highly unornamental manner. The battle of +Boroughbridge, fought in 1322, is almost forgotten, and coaching +times have left their impress upon the town instead. The +two chief coaching inns, the “Crown” and the +“Greyhounds,” still face one another in the dull +street; the “Greyhounds” a mere ghost of its former +self, the “Crown” larger, but its stables, where a +hundred horses found a shelter, now echoing in their emptiness to +the occasional footfall. Oddly enough a medical +practitioner, a Dr. Hugh Stott, was landlord of the +“Crown” for more than fifty years. Probably he +and the landlord of the “Angel” at Ferrybridge were +the only two inn-keeping doctors in the kingdom. The +“Crown” was anciently the home of the Tancreds, a +county family owning property in the neighbourhood: the +“Greyhounds” obtains its curious plural from the +heraldic shield of the Mauleverers, which displays three +greyhounds, “courant.” Hotel accommodation was +greatly in request at Boroughbridge in the old days; for from +this point branched many roads. Here the Glasgow coaches +turned off, and a number of coaches for Knaresborough, Ripon, +Harrogate, and the many towns of south-west Yorkshire. The +“Edinburgh Express,” which went by way of Glasgow, +also passed <a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>through. Boroughbridge was a busy coaching town, +so that ruin, stark, staring, and complete fell upon it when +railways came.</p> +<p>The remaining nineteen miles to Northallerton scarce call for +detailed description. Kirkby Hill, a mile out of +Boroughbridge, lies to the left, its church-tower just within +sight. This is followed by the unutterably dull, lifeless, +and ugly village of Dishforth, leading to the hamlet of Asenby, +where the road descends to the picturesque crossing of the Swale +and the Cod Beck, with the village of Topcliffe crowning the +ridge on the other side: a village better looking, but as +lifeless as the others. Thence flat or gently undulating +roads conduct in twelve miles to Northallerton, past Busby Stoop +Inn, the villages of Sand Hutton, Newsham, and North and South +Otterington.</p> +<p>South Otterington lives with a black mark in the memory of +antiquaries as that benighted place where the parishioners +thought so little of their church registers some years ago that +they allowed the parish clerk to treat all the old ones, dating +from before the eighteenth century, as so much waste-paper; some +of them making an excellent bonfire to singe a goose with. +They were not singular in this respect, for churchwardens of +different places have been known to do the most extraordinary +things with these valuable documents. Thoresby, the +antiquary, writing of a particular register, remarks that +“it has not been a plaything for young pointers. It +has not occupied a bacon-cratch or a bread-and-cheese +cupboard. It has not been scribbled on, within and +without,” from which we infer that that was the common +fate, and that others had been so treated.</p> +<p>The junction of the two main routes of the Great North Road at +Northallerton takes place ignominiously outside the goods station +at a level-crossing.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page85"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 85</span> +<a href="images/p85.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Edinburgh Express, 1837. After Jason Pollard" +title= +"The Edinburgh Express, 1837. After Jason Pollard" + src="images/p85.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +87</span>XVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> alternative route now described +and Northallerton regained by it, we may resume the long journey +to Edinburgh. It is the completest kind of change from the +wild ups and downs of the Boroughbridge and Wetherby route to the +long featureless stretches that now lie before us. We will +not linger in the town, but press onward to where the battle of +the Standard, as the battle of Northallerton is often known, was +fought, on the right-hand side of the road, near the still +unenclosed fragments of Cowton Moor. It was not a great +struggle, for the Scots fled after a short resistance, and the +great numbers of their slain met their fate rather at the hands +of the peasantry, while fleeing through a hostile country, than +in combat with the English army.</p> +<p>Standing amid the heathy tussocks of Standard Hill, looking +over the Moor, the wide-spreading hill and dale of the Yorkshire +landscape fades into a blue or misty distance, and must in its +solitude look much the same as it did in those far distant +days. Nothing save the name of the hillock and that of the +farm called Scot Pits, traditionally said to have been the place +where the Scottish dead were buried, remains to tell of the +struggle. “Baggamoor,” as old chroniclers call +the battle-field, from the baggage thrown away by the Scots in +their flight, is traversed by the road, which proceeds by way of +Oak Tree and Lovesome Hills to Great Smeaton, where the mails +changed horses on the short seven miles’ stage between it +and Northallerton, or the nine miles to Darlington. The +“Blacksmith’s Arms” was in those times the +coaching inn here, but it has long since been converted into +cottages. William Tweedie, the last of a succession of +three Tweedies who kept the “Blacksmith’s Arms” +and owed their prosperity to the mails changing at their house, +was also the village postmaster. A God-fearing man and an +absent-minded, it is recorded of him that during a <a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>sermon at the +parish church he was surprised in the midst of one of his mental +absences by hearing the preacher enlarge upon the text of +“Render unto Cæsar.” “Ay,” he +said, in a loud voice, when the duty of paying the king’s +taxes and just demands was brought home to the congregation, +“that puts me in mind o’t: there’s old Granny +Metcalf’s bin owin’ the matter o’ eightpence on +a letter these two months past.”</p> +<p>Now Widow Metcalf <i>had</i> paid that eightpence. She +was in church, too. The suddenness of the unjust accusation +made her forget time and place, and she retorted with, +“William Tweedie, y’re a liar!”</p> +<p>One has a distinct suspicion that by “Lowsey Hill, a +small Village contiguous on the Left” (but a place so-named +would more properly have been “contagious”) mentioned +here by Ogilby, he must have meant what is now Lovesome Hill.</p> +<p>The old coach passengers, driving through, or changing at, +Great Smeaton must have often wondered, seeing the smallness of +the place, what size the neighbouring Little Smeaton, away off to +the left, could have been. Their inquiries on that head +were usually answered by the coachmen, who were wags of sorts, +that Little Smeaton consisted of one dog-kennel and two +hen-coops. It is a lonely road between Northallerton and +Darlington, and quips of this kind probably tasted better when +administered on the spot than they do to the armchair +traveller. Particularly lonely is High Entercommon, where a +turnpike-gate stood in the days that are done, together with an +inn, the “Golden Lion,” where a few coaches which +made a longer stage from Northallerton changed. Were it not +that William Thompson, landlord at the best period in the history +of coaching, was a highly reputable person, and had been coachman +to Sir Bellingham Graham before he set up as innkeeper, we might +point to the house and say how suitable a locality for the secret +roadside crimes of old, of which novelists delight to tell! +Roads, and travelling before railways, used to set the romancists +busily engaged in spinning the most <a name="page89"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 89</span>blood-curdling stories of villainous +innkeepers who, like Bob Acres, kept “churchyards of their +own,” and murderous trap-doors in their guest-rooms giving +upon Golgothas filled with the bones of their many victims. +If one might credit these astounding stories, the inns that were +not murder-shops were few and far between; but happily those +writers, anxious only to make your blood creep, were as a rule +only exercising their particularly gory imaginations.</p> +<p>A story of this order is that of a lady who set out in her +carriage to visit some friends in Yorkshire. She had come +to within thirty miles of her destination, when a thunderstorm +which had been threatening broke violently overhead. +Struggling against the elements, the coachman was glad to espy an +old-fashioned roadside inn presently visible ahead, and, his +mistress expressing a wish to alight and rest until the storm +should abate, he drove up to the door. It was a wild and +solitary spot (they always are in these stories, and it is +astonishing how solitary and wild they are, and how many such +places appeared to exist). The rusty sign creaked dismally +overhead, and the window-shutters flapped violently in the wind +on their broken hinges; altogether it was not an inviting +spot. But any port in a storm, and so the lady +alighted. She was shown into a large old-fashioned +apartment, and the horses and carriage were stabled until such +time as it might be possible to resume the journey. But, +instead of passing off, the storm grew momentarily worse. +Calling her servant she asked him if it were possible to continue +that night, and on his replying in the negative, reluctantly +resigned herself to staying under a strange roof. She had +her dinner in solitary state, and then found all the evening +before her, with nothing to occupy the time. She went to +the window and looked out upon the howling storm, and, tired of +that uninviting prospect, gazed listlessly about the room. +It was a large room, ill-furnished, and somewhat out of repair, +for the inn had seen its best days. Evidences of a more +prosperous time were left in the shape of <a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>some +scattered articles of furniture of a superior kind and in the +presence of a curious piece of ancient tapestry facing her on the +opposite wall, bearing a design of a life-sized Roman warrior +wielding a truncheon.</p> +<p>But one cannot spend all the evening in contemplating the old +chairs and moth-eaten tapestry of a half-furnished room, and the +storm-bound traveller soon wearied of those objects. With +nothing else to do, she took out her purse and began to count her +money and to calculate her travelling expenses. Having +counted the guineas over several times and vainly tried to make +the total balance properly with her expenditure and the amount +she had set out with, she chanced involuntarily to glance across +the room. Her gaze fell upon the stern visage of the +helmeted Roman, and to her horror the lack-lustre tapestry eyes +were now replaced by living ones, intently regarding her and her +money. Ninety-nine of every hundred women would have +screamed or fainted, or have done both; but our traveller was +evidently the hundredth. She calmly allowed her gaze to +wander absent-mindedly away to the ceiling, as if still +speculating as to the disposition of the missing odd guineas; and +then, exclaiming, “Ah! I have it,” made for the door, +to call her servant, leaving her purse, apparently disregarded, +on the table. In the passage outside she met the landlord, +who desired to know what it might be she wanted. “To +see my man, with orders for the morning,” said she. +The landlord shuffled away, and her servant presently +appeared. She told him what she had observed, and mounting +upon the furniture, he examined the tapestry, with the result +that he found the wall behind it sound enough in all places, with +the exception of the eyes. On pressing the fabric at those +points it gave way, disclosing a hole bored through the wall and +communicating with some other room. This discovery of +course aroused the worst suspicions; but the storm still raged, +it was now late, and to countermand the accommodation already +secured for the night <a name="page91"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 91</span>would be to apprise the landlord of +something having been discovered. There was nothing for it +but to stay the night. To sleep was impossible, and so the +lady, retiring to her bedroom, securely bolting the door, and +assuring herself that no secret panel or trap-door existed, sat +wakefully in a chair all night. Doubtless the servant did +the same, although the story does not condescend to details where +he is concerned. At length morning came, without anything +happening, and, equally without incident, they set out after +breakfast from this place of dread, the lady having previously +ascertained that the room on the other side of the wall behind +the tapestry was the landlord’s private apartment.</p> +<p>These adventures being afterwards recounted, it was called to +mind that an undue proportion of highway robberies had for some +time past been occurring in the immediate neighbourhood of the +inn, and a queer story was remembered of a traveller who had +stayed there overnight being robbed soon after leaving by a +highwayman, who, without any preliminary parley, desired him to +instantly take off his right boot—the boot in which, as a +matter of fact, he had stowed away his money. The +highwayman, who evidently had been informed of this secret +hiding-place, extracted the coin, and, returning the boot, went +on his way. It afterwards appeared that the traveller had +stowed his money in his boot while under the impression that he +was alone in the tapestry-room. He had reckoned without the +Centurion.</p> +<p>The inn of course fell into evil repute, and the landlord was +soon afterwards compelled to give up business. But the +provoking part of it all, from the point of view of the +historian, is that the story does not descend to topographical +particulars, and that the description of the place as being in +Yorkshire is necessarily of the vaguest, considering the vastness +of the shire.</p> +<h2><a name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +92</span>XVII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Dalton-upon-Tees</span>, three miles +onward from High and Low Entercommon, shows little to the +passer-by on the Great North Road, who, a mile beyond its +scattered cottages, looking as though they had lost themselves, +comes to Croft, to the river Tees, and to the end of +Yorkshire. It behoves one to speak respectfully of Croft +and its Spa, for its waters are as nasty as those of Harrogate, +with that flavour of rotten eggs so highly approved by the +medical profession, and only the vagaries of fashion can be held +accountable for the comparative neglect of the one and the +favouring of the other. Sulphur renders both equally +nauseous and healthful, but Croft finds few votaries compared +with its great and successful rival, and a gentle melancholy +marks the spot, where, on the Yorkshire bank, the mouldy-looking +Croft Spa Hotel fronts the road, its closed assembly rooms, where +once the merry crowds foregathered, given over to damp and +mildew.</p> +<p>Croft is in the Hurworth Hunt, and it is claimed by local folk +that the Hurworth Country was indicated by “Handley +Cross,” where Jorrocks and his cronies chased the fox and +enjoyed themselves so vigorously. The Spa Hotel was then a +place of extremely high jinks. Every night there would be a +dinner-party, with much competition as to who could drink the +most port or champagne. The test of the sturdiest fellow +was to see who could manage to place on his head a champagne or +port bottle and lie down and stand up with it still in +place. Few reputations, or bottles, survived that +ordeal.</p> +<p>But Croft is a pretty place, straggling on both the Yorkshire +and Durham banks of the Tees; with a fine old church commanding +the approach from the south. It is worth seeing, alike for +its architecture; for a huge and preposterous monument of one of +the Milbankes of Halnaby; and especially for the <a +name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +93</span>extravagantly-arrogant manorial pew of that family, +erected in the chancel, and elevated in the likeness of two +canopied thrones approached by an elaborate staircase and over a +crimson carpet. This pompous structure dates from about +1760. The thing would not be credible, did not we know to +what extent the pride and presumption of the old squirearchy +sometimes went.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p93.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Croft Bridge" +title= +"Croft Bridge" + src="images/p93.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>A sturdy old Gothic bridge here carries the road across the +stream into the ancient Palatinate of Durham. It were here +that each successive Prince-Bishop of that see was met and +presented with the falchion that slew the Sockburn Worm, one of +the three mythical monsters that are said to have infested Durham +and Northumberland. Like the Lambton Worm, and the +Laidly—that is to say, the Loathly—Worm of +Spindleston Heugh, the Sockburn terror, according to +mediæval chroniclers, was a “monstrous and poysonous +vermine or wyverne, aske or werme which overthrew and devoured +many people in fight, for y<sup>t</sup> ye sent of y<sup>e</sup> +poyson was so strong y<sup>t</sup> noe p’son might abyde +it.” The gallant knight who at some undetermined +period slew this legendary pest was Sir John Conyers, descended +from Roger de Conyers, Constable of Durham Castle in the time of +William the Conqueror. The family held the manor of <a +name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 94</span>Sockburn by +the curious tenure of presenting the newly appointed Bishop +Palatine of Durham on his first entry into his diocese with the +falchion that slew the Worm. The presentation was made on +Croft Bridge, with the words:—“My Lord Bishop, I here +present you with the falchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew +the worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent which destroyed man, +woman and child; in memory of which the king then reigning gave +him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the +first entrance of every bishop into the county the falchion +should be presented.” Taking the falchion into his +hand, the bishop immediately returned it, wishing the owner of +Sockburn health, long life, and prosperity, and the ceremony was +concluded. Sockburn, seven miles below Croft, on the Durham +shore of the Tees, is no longer owned by that old heroic family, +for the proud stock which in its time had mated with the noblest +in England decayed, and the last Conyers, Sir Thomas, died a +pauper in Chester-le-Street workhouse in 1810. The manor-house of +Sockburn has long since been swept away, and the old church is a +roofless ruin, the estate itself having long since passed to the +Blackett family, in whose possession the wondrous falchion now +remains. The bishops of Durham, no longer temporal princes, +do not now receive it, the last presentation having been made to +Bishop Van Mildert by the steward of Sir Edward Blackett in +1826.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p94.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"Sockburn Falchion" +title= +"Sockburn Falchion" + src="images/p94.jpg" /> +</a>Croft Bridge, a massive and venerable-looking stone structure +of seven arches, built in 1676, is itself the successor of a much +older building, referred to in a Royal Brief of 1531 as being +“the moste directe and sure waye and passage for the King +o’er Soveraigne <a name="page95"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 95</span>Lorde’s armie and +ordyn’ce to resort and pass over into the north p’tes +and marches of this his reaulme, for the surtie and defence of +the same againste the invasion of the Scotts and others his +enemyes, over which such armys and ordyn’ces hathe hertofor +always bene accostomyed to goo and passe.”</p> +<p>Here we are in Durham, and three miles from Darlington. +Looking backwards on crossing the bridge, the few scattered +houses of the hither shore are seen beside the way; one of them, +the “Cornet” hotel, with a weather-beaten +picture-sign of the famous pedigree bull of that name, and the +inscription, “‘Comet,’ sold in 1810 for one +thousand guineas.” The Tees goes on its rippling way +through the pointed arches of the historic bridge, with broad +shingly beaches over against the rich meadows, the road pursuing +its course to cross that rival stream, the Skerne, at Oxneyfield +Bridge, a quarter of a mile ahead. Close by, in a grass +meadow to the right of the road, are the four pools called by the +terrific name of “Hell’s Kettles,” which +testify by the sulphureous taste of their water to the quality of +Croft Spa. Of course, they have their wonderful legends; +Ogilby in 1676 noted that. “At Oxenhall,” he +says, “are three Pits call’d Hell-kettles, whereof +the vulgar tell you many fabulous stories.” They have +long been current, then; the first telling how on Christmas Day +1179 the ground rose to the height of the highest hills, +“higher than the spires and towers of the churches, and so +remained at that height from nine of the morning until +sunset. At the setting of the sun the earth fell in with so +horrid a crash that all who saw that strange mound and heard its +fall were so amazed that for very fear many died, for the earth +swallowed up that mound, and where it stood was a deep +pool.” This circumstantial story was told by an abbot +of Jervaulx, but is not sufficiently marvellous for the +peasantry, who account for the pool by a tale of supernatural +intervention. According to this precious legend, the farmer +owning the field being about to carry his hay on June 11, St. +Barnabas’ <a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>Day, it was pointed out that he had much better attend +to his religious duties than work on the anniversary of the +blessed saint, whereupon he replied:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Barnaby yea, Barnaby nay,<br /> +I’ll hae my hay, whether God will or nay:</p> +</blockquote> +<p>and, the ground opening, he and his carts and horses were +instantly swallowed up. The tale goes on to say that, given +a fine day and clear water, the impious farmer and his carts and +horses may yet be seen floating deep down in these supposedly +fathomless pools! De Foe, however, travelling this way in +1724, is properly impatient of these tales. +“’Tis evident,” says he, “they are +nothing but old coal-pits, filled with water by the river +Tees.”</p> +<h2>XVIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Darlington</span>, to which we now come, +is a very busy, very prosperous, very much rebuilt town, nursing +a sub-Metropolitan swagger of architectural pretension in its +chief streets infinitely unlike anything expected by the +untravelled in these latitudes. There is a distinctly +Holloway Road—plus Whitechapel Road—and Kennington +Lane air about Darlington which does but add to the piquancy of +those streets. Tumbledown houses of no great age and no +conceivable interest are shouldered by flaunting shops; or +rather, to speak by the card, by “stores” and +“emporia”; these alternating with glittering +public-houses and restaurants. The effect can be paralleled +only by imagining a typical general servant dressed in a skirt +and train for a Queen’s Drawing Room, with +ploughboy’s boots, a cloth jacket, and ostrich-feathered +hat to complete the costume. It is a town only now +beginning to realise that prosperity must make some outward show +of the fact, and it is accordingly going in for show in +whole-hearted fashion, and emerging from the grime in which James +the First found it in 1617. “Darneton!” <a +name="page97"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 97</span>he said when +told its name; “I think it’s Darneton th’ +Dirt.” Dirty indeed it must have been for James, +fresh from his own capital, where they flung their sewage from +the windows into the streets, to have found it remarkable. +De Foe, fifty years later, said, “Darlington, a post-town, +has nothing remarkable in it but dirt, and a high bridge over +little or no water.” An odd contemporary commentary +upon this seems to lurk in the fact that cloth was then brought +to Darlington from all parts—even from Scotland—to be +bleached!</p> +<p>More akin to those times than these are the names of the +streets, which, like those of York, are chiefly +“gates”:—High Northgate, Skinnergate, Bondgate, +Blackwellgate, and Priestgate.</p> +<p>In vain will the pilgrim seek the “Black Bear,” +the inn at Darlington to which Frank Osbaldistone, in the pages +of <i>Rob Roy</i>, came. Scott describes the wayfarers whom +the young squire met on his way from London to York and the North +as “characters of a uniform and uninteresting +description,” but they are interesting to us, belonging as +they do to a time long past. “Country parsons, +jogging homewards after a visitation; farmers, or graziers, +returning from a distant market; clerks of traders, travelling to +collect what was due to their masters in provincial towns; with +now and then an officer going down into the country upon +recruiting service.” These persons kept the tapsters +and the turnpikes busy, and at night time, when they foregathered +at the roadside inns, sandwiched their talk of cattle and the +solvency of traders with terrifying tales of robbers. +“At such tales, like children, closing their circle round +the fire when the ghost-story draws to its climax, they drew near +to each other, looked before and behind them, examined the +priming of their pistols, and vowed to stand by each other in +case of danger; an engagement which, like other offensive and +defensive alliances, sometimes glided out of remembrance when +there was an appearance of actual peril.”</p> +<p>This was about 1715. In those days, as Scott says, <a +name="page98"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +98</span>“journeys of any length being made on horseback, +and, of course, by brief stages, it was usual always to make a +halt on the Sunday in some town where the traveller might attend +divine service, and his horse have the benefit of the day of +rest. A counterpart to this decent practice, and a remnant +of old English hospitality, was, that the landlord of a principal +inn laid aside his character of publican on the seventh day and +invited the guests who chanced to be within his walls to take a +part of the family beef and pudding.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p98.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Locomotion”" +title= +"“Locomotion”" + src="images/p98.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The “Black Bear” at Darlington, as pictured by +Scott, was such a place and the landlord as typical a host, and +here Frank Osbaldistone met the first Scot he had ever seen, +“a decentish hallion—as canny a North Briton as +e’er crossed Berwick Bridge”—which was high +praise from mine host, for innkeepers loved not Scottish folk and +their thrifty ways. But, as already remarked, the +“Black Bear” at Darlington does not exist, and +coaching relics are rare in this town, whose modern prosperity +derives from railways. It is, therefore, with singular +appropriateness that Stephenson’s “Locomotion,” +the first engine for that first of railways, the Stockton and +Darlington, long <a name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +99</span>since withdrawn from service, has been mounted on a +pedestal at Darlington Station. In heathen lands this +ancestor of the modern express locomotive would be worshipped as +a fetich, and truly it is an ugly and uncanny-looking object.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p99.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“The Experiment”" +title= +"“The Experiment”" + src="images/p99.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The Stockton and Darlington Railway Act dates from 1821; the +line to be worked by “men and horses, or otherwise,” +steam not being contemplated. The construction was begun in +May, 1822, and meanwhile the Rainhill experiments had proved the +possibility of locomotive engines. The Act was therefore +amended, to authorise the use of them and to permit the +conveyance of passengers; a kind of traffic which, odd though it +may seem now, was not contemplated by the projectors, whose +original idea was a railway for the conveyance of coal. It +was on September 27th, 1825, that the line was opened, a train of +thirty-eight wagons travelling, as a contemporary newspaper +breathlessly announced, “with such velocity that in some +parts the speed was frequently twelve miles an hour.” +Curiously enough, however, the first passengers, after the +opening ceremony, were conveyed, not by steam, but by a rough +coach, like a gipsy caravan, running on the rails and drawn by a +horse. This odd contrivance was called the +“Experiment,” <a name="page100"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 100</span>and did the twelve miles in two +hours. It was followed by other vehicles, consisting of old +stage-coach bodies mounted on railway wheels, and it was not +until some months had passed that passengers were intrusted to +the locomotive. The first passenger train ran a spirited +race with the coach over the twelve miles’ course, steam +winning by a hundred and twenty yards, amid the cheers of excited +crowds. After thirty-eight years of independent existence, +the Stockton and Darlington line was, with its branches, finally +absorbed into the North-Eastern system, in 1863.</p> +<p>Darlington is thus a place entirely inimical to coaching +interests and memories. Here, on its pedestal, stands the +first of the iron monsters that killed the coaches, and the town +itself largely lives by manufacturing railway wagons and iron and +steel bridges. But coaching had had its day, and did not +die untimely. A few years longer and the great highroads, +already inconveniently crowded, must have been widened to +accommodate the increased traffic. Railways have been +beneficent in many directions, and they have enabled many +hundreds of thousands to live in the country who would otherwise +have been pent in stuffy streets. Imagination fails in the +task of endeavouring to picture what the roads would have been +like to-day if road-travel had remained the only means of +communication. Locomotion would have been immensely +restricted, of course; but the mere increase of population must +have brought huge crowds of additional passengers. Figures +are commonly said to be dry, but they can occasionally be +eloquent enough. For instance, when we compare the +population of the United Kingdom in 1837, when the Queen came to +the throne, and now, and consider the bearing of those figures on +this question, they are more than eloquent, and are even +startling. There were twenty-five and a half millions of +persons in these islands in the first year of Victoria’s +reign. There are now forty-nine millions. Over +twenty-three millions of persons most of whom would have used the +roads, added <a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>in eighty years! Of course, the opportunities for +cheap and quick travel have made frequent travellers of those who +otherwise would never or rarely have stirred from their homes; +but railways have wrought greater changes than that. What, +let us think, would have been the present-day position of the +city of London without railways? It must needs have +remained largely what it was when the “short stages” +conveyed such citizens as did not live in the city to and from +their residences in the suburbs, which then extended no further +than Highgate, Chiswick, Norwood, and Stockwell. A +stage-coach commonly held sixteen persons, twelve outside and +four in; and allowing for those who might manage to walk into the +city, how many of such coaches should we require nowadays, +supposing railways suddenly abolished, to convey the city’s +myriad day population? So many thousands that the task +would be impossible. The impossibility of it gives us at +once the measure of the railways’ might, and raises them +from the mere carriers we generally think them to the height of +all-powerful social forces whose effects may be sought in every +detail of our lives. To them the wide-spreading suburbs +directly owe their existence, equally as the deserted main roads +of yester-year owed their loneliness to the same cause; and +social scientists have it that they have performed what may at +first sight seem a miracle: that, in fact, they have increased +the population. If railways had not come to ease the +growing pressure that began to be felt upon the roads in the +early “twenties,” something else must have appeared +to do the work of speedy conveyance, and that something would +have been the Motor Car. Railway competition and the +restrictive legislation that forbade locomotive carriages on +highways served to keep motor cars under until recently; but away +back to 1787, when the first steam-carriage was made, the problem +of mechanical traction on roads was being grappled with, and many +very good steam-cars made their appearance between 1820 and +1830. The caricaturists of the period were <a +name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 104</span>kept busily +engaged making more or less pertinent fun of them; in itself a +testimony to the interest they were exciting even then. +Here is a typical skit of the period which takes a renewed +interest now that we are on the threshold of an era of horseless +traction.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image101" href="images/p101.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Fellow, Give my Buggy A Charge of Coke, Your Charcoal is +Too D—d Dear.” From an old print" +title= +"“Fellow, Give my Buggy A Charge of Coke, Your Charcoal is +Too D—d Dear.” From an old print" + src="images/p101.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Few things are more remarkable than the speed with which +railways were constructed through the length and breadth of the +country, but it was long before through communication between +London and Edinburgh was established. It was a coach-guard +on this road who, just before the last coach was run off it by +the locomotive, sadly remarked that “railways were making a +gridiron of England.” They were; but it was not until +1846 and 1848, twenty-one and twenty-three years after the +initial success of the Stockton and Darlington line, that by the +opening of the Edinburgh and Berwick Railway, and the building of +the railway bridge across the Tweed, the last links of the +railway journey between the two capitals were completed. +Even now, it requires the united efforts of three entirely +distinct and independent railway companies to convey the through +traffic of under four hundred miles between the two +capitals. The Great Northern territory ends at Shaftholme, +near Doncaster, whence the North-Eastern’s system conducts +to the Border at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the remaining fifty miles +belonging to the North British Railway.</p> +<p>De Quincey, in his rhapsody on the “English Mail +Coach,” says: “The modern modes of travelling cannot +compare with the old mail-coach system in grandeur and +power. They boast of more velocity, not, however, as a +consciousness, but as a fact of our lifeless knowledge, resting +upon alien evidence; as, for instance, because somebody says that +we have gone fifty miles in the hour, though we are far from +feeling it as a personal experience, or upon the evidence of a +result, as that actually we find ourselves in York, four hours +after leaving London. Apart from such an assertion, or such +a result, I myself am little aware of the pace. But, seated +on the old mail-coach, we needed no <a name="page105"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 105</span>evidence out of ourselves to +indicate the velocity. We heard our speed, we saw it, we +felt it as a thrilling; and this speed was not the product of +blind, insensate agencies, that had no sympathy to give, but was +incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest amongst brutes, +in his dilated nostrils, spasmodic muscles, and thunder-beating +hoofs.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p105.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Iron Road to the North" +title= +"The Iron Road to the North" + src="images/p105.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>But, in truth, railways and coaches have each their especial +variety of the romance of speed. De Quincey missed the +quickening rush and contact of the air quite as much as any other +of the sights, sounds, and sensations he speaks of when +travelling by railway; a method of progression which does not +admit of outside passengers. Nothing in its special way can +be more exhilarating than travelling by coach as an +“outside”; few things so unsatisfactory as the +position of an “inside”; and if a well-groomed coach +is a thing of beauty, there is also a beautiful majesty in a +locomotive engine that has been equally well looked after. +One of the deep-chested Great Northern expresses puffing its +irresistible way past the green eyes of the dropped <a +name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 106</span>semaphores +of some busy junction at night-time, or coming as with the rush +and certainty of Fate along the level stretches of line that +characterise the route of the iron road to the North, is a sight +calculated to rouse enthusiasm quite as much as a coach. +Nor are railways always hideous objects. It is true that in +and around the great centres of population where railway lines +converge and run in filthy tunnels and along smoke-begrimed +viaducts they sound the last note of squalor, but in the country +it is a different matter. The embankments are in spring +often covered with a myriad wild flowers; the viaducts give a +human interest to coombe and gully. Lovers of the country +can certainly point to places which, once remote and solitary, +have been populated and spoiled by the readiness of railway +access; but the locomotive has rendered more holidays possible, +and has kept the roads in a decent solitude for the +cyclist. Imagine, if you please, the Great North Road +nowadays without the railway. A hundred coaches, more or +less, raced along it in the last years of the coaching age, at +all hours of the day and night. How many would suffice for +the needs of the travelling public to-day? and what chance would +be left to the tourist, afoot or awheel?</p> +<h2>XIX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Beyond</span> its grand old church, +Darlington has nothing of great antiquity to show the stranger, +save one object of very high antiquity indeed, before whose hoary +age even Norman and Early English architecture is comparatively a +thing of yesterday. This is the Bulmer Stone, a huge +boulder of granite, brought by glacial action in some far-away +ice-age from the heights of Shap Fell in distant Westmoreland to +the spot on which it has ever since rested. Darlington has +meanwhile risen out of the void and lonely countryside; history +has passed by, from the remote times of the blue-stained Britons, +down to the present era of the <a name="page107"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 107</span>blue-habited police; and that old +stone remains beside the road to the North. Modern +pavements encircle it, and gas-lamps shame with their modernity +its inconceivable age, but not with too illuminating a ray, and +the stranger roaming Darlington after nightfall has barked his +shins against the unexpected bulk of the Bulmer Stone, just as +effectually as countless generations before him have done.</p> +<p>The long rise of Harrowgate Hill conducts out of Darlington +and leads on to Coatham Mundeville, a tiny hamlet on the crest of +a hill, with an eighteenth-century house, a row of cottages, and +an inn, making together an imposing figure against the sky-line, +although when reached they are commonplace enough. The +village of Aycliffe lies beyond, on its height, overlooking a +scene of quarrying and coal-mining; an outlook which until +Cromwell’s time was one of dense oak-woods. He it was +who caused those woods to be felled to mend the road on to Durham +and make it firm enough for his ordnance to pass. Whether +the name of Aycliffe derives (as some would have it) from +“oak hill,” or whether it was originally “High +Cliffe,” or obtains its name from some forgotten +<i>haia</i>, or enclosure on this eminence, let us leave for +others to fight over: it is an equally unprofitable and insoluble +discussion. As well might one hope to obtain a verbatim +report of one or other of the two Synods held here in 782 and +789, of which two battered Saxon crosses in the churchyard are +thought to be relics, as to determine this question.</p> +<p>For the rest, Aycliffe is quite unremarkable. Leaving +it, and coming downhill over an arched crossing over a marsh, +dignified by the name of Howden Bridge, we reach +Traveller’s Rest and its two inns, the “Bay +Horse” and “Gretna Green Wedding Inn.” An +indescribable air of romance dignifies these two solitary inns +that confront one another across the highway, and form all there +is of Traveller’s Rest. The “Wedding +Inn,” the more modern of the two, has for its sign the +picture of a marriage ceremony in that famous Border +smithy. The “Bay Horse” is the original +Traveller’s <a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>Rest. Dating back far into the old coaching and +posting times, its stables of that era still remain; but what +renders the old house particularly notable is its sign, the odd +figure of a horse within an oval, seen on its wall, with the word +“Liberty” in company with the name of +“Traveller’s Rest” and the less romantic than +commercial announcement of “Spirituous +Liquors.” Once, perhaps, painted the correct tint of +a “bay” horse, the elements have reduced it to an +unobtrusive brown that bids fair to modestly fade into the +obscurity of a neutral tint, unless the landlord presently +fulfils his intention, expressed to the present historian, of +having it repainted, to render it “more viewly”; +which appears to be the North-country phrase for making a thing +“more presentable.” To this old sign belongs +the legend of a prisoner being escorted to Durham Gaol and +escaping through the horse ridden by his mounted guard throwing +its rider near here. Hence the word +“Liberty.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p108.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Traveller’s Rest" +title= +"Traveller’s Rest" + src="images/p108.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Woodham, a mile distant down the road, bears a name recalling +the times when it was in fact a hamlet in those oak woods of +which we spoke at Aycliffe. It is now just a group of two +or three cottages and a <a name="page109"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 109</span>humble inn, the “Stag,” +in a dip of the way. Beyond it comes Rushyford Bridge, a +pretty scene, where a little tributary of the Skerne prattles +over its stony bed and disappears under the road beside that +old-time posting-house and inn, the +“Wheatsheaf.” The old house still stands and +faces down the road; but it has long since ceased to be an inn, +and, remodelled in recent taste, is now a private +residence. The old drive up to the house is now converted +into lawns and flower-beds. Groups of that graceful tree, +the black poplar, overhang the scene and shade the little hamlet +that straggles down a lane to the left hand. The old +“Wheatsheaf” has its memories. It was a +favourite resort of Lord Eldon’s. Holt, the landlord, +was a boon companion of his. The great lawyer’s +vacations were for many years spent here, and he established a +cellar of his own in the house, stocked chiefly with +“Carbonell’s Fine Old Military Blackstrap Newcastle +Port,” of which, although they were decidedly not military, +he and his host used to drink seven bottles a day between them, +valiant topers that they were. On Saturdays—we have +it on the authority of Sydney Smith—they drank eight +bottles; the extra one being to fortify themselves against the +Sunday morning’s service. Lord Eldon invariably +attended church at Rushyford, and compelled his unwilling host to +go with him. In London he rarely went, remarking when +reproached that he, <a name="page110"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 110</span>a buttress of the church, should +fail in his devotions, that he was “only an outside +buttress.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p109.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Rushyford Bridge" +title= +"Rushyford Bridge" + src="images/p109.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Lord Eldon was a mean man. It is a defect to be noticed +in many others who, like him, have acquired wealth by great +personal efforts; with him, however, it reached a height and +quality not frequently met. He was not merely +“stingy,” but mean in the American sense of the +word. Contemporary with Fox, Pitt, Sheridan, and other +valiant “four-bottle men” of a century ago, and with +an almost unlimited capacity for other persons’ port, his +brother, Lord Stowell, aptly said of him that “he would +take any <i>given</i> quantity.”</p> +<p>With these memories to beguile the way we come to Ferryhill, a +mining village crowning a ridge looking over Spennymoor and the +valley of the Wear. To Ferryhill came in 1634 three +soldiers—a captain, a lieutenant, and an ensign—from +Norwich on a tour and in search of adventure. These were +early days for tours; days, too, when adventures were not far to +seek. However, risky though their trip may have been, they +returned in safety, as may be judged from the lieutenant having +afterwards published an account of their wanderings through +twenty-six English counties. Clad in Lincoln green, like +young foresters, they sped the miles with jest and observations +on the country they passed through. Of Ferryhill they +remark that “such as know it knows it overtops and commands +a great part of the country.” On this Pisgah, then, +they unpacked their travelling plate and “borrowed a cup of +refreshing health from a sweet and most pleasant spring”; +by which it seems that there were teetotallers in those days +also. Those were the days before coal-mines and +blast-furnaces cut up the country, and before Spennymoor, away on +the left, was converted from a moorland into a township; a +sufficiently startling change.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image111" href="images/p111.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Ferryhill: The Abandoned Road-Works" +title= +"Ferryhill: The Abandoned Road-Works" + src="images/p111.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Seen from down the road looking southwards, Ferryhill forms an +impressive coronet to the long ridge of hill on which it stands; +its rough, stone-built cottages—merely commonplace to a +nearer view—taking an unwarranted importance from the <a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>bold +serrated outlines they present against the sky, and looking like +the bastioned outworks of some Giant Blunderbore’s ogreish +stronghold. The traveller from the south, passing through +Ferryhill and looking backwards from the depths of the valley +road, is cheated of a part of this romantic impression; he has +explored the arid and commonplace village and has lost all +possibility of illusion. Let us, therefore, envy the +pilgrims from the north. It is, indeed, a highly +interesting view, looking back upon Ferryhill, and one touched +with romance of both the gentle and the terrifying sort. In +the first place, to that tall embankment seen in the accompanying +drawing of the scene belongs a story. You perceive that +earthwork to be unfinished. It sets out from the cutting +seen in the distant hillside, and, crossing the road which comes +in a breakneck curve downhill, pursues a straight and level +course for the corresponding rise on the hither side, stopping, +incomplete, somewhat short of it. “An abandoned +railway,” thinks the stranger, and so it looks to be; but +it is, in fact, a derelict enterprise embarked upon at the close +of the coaching era by a local Highway Board for the purpose of +giving a flat and straight road across the valley. It +begins with a long cutting on the southern side of the hill on +which the village stands, and, going behind the back of the +houses, emerges as seen in the picture. The tolls +authorised would have made the undertaking a paying one, only +road travel ceased before the work was finished. Railways +came to put an end to the project and to inflict upon the +projectors a ruinous loss.</p> +<p>A more darkling romance, however, broods upon the scene. +Away on the western sky-line stands the conspicuous tower of +Merrington church, and near it the farmhouse where, on January +28, 1685, Andrew Mills, a servant of the Brass family, who then +farmed the adjacent land, murdered the three children in the +absence of their parents. It is a story of whose shuddering +horror nothing is lost in contemporary accounts, but we will +leave it to the imagination. <a name="page113"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 113</span>It is sufficient to say that the +assassin, a lad of eighteen years of age, seems to have been +half-witted, speaking of having been instigated to the deed by a +demon who enjoined him to “Kill—kill.” To +be more or less mad was no surety against punishment in those +times, and so Andrew Mills was found guilty and hanged. +Justice seems to have been devilish then, for he was cut down and +hanged in chains, after the fashion of the time, beside the +road. The peculiar devilry of the deed appears in the fact +that he was not quite dead, and survived in his iron cage on the +gibbet for days. His sweetheart brought him food, but he +could not eat, for every movement of his jaw caused it to be +pierced with an iron spike. So she brought milk instead, +and so sustained the wretched creature for some time. +Legends still recount how he lingered here in agony, his cries by +day and night scaring the neighbouring cottagers from their +homes, until the shrieks and groans at length ceased, and death +came to put an end to his sufferings. The site of the +gibbet was by the Thinford inn, near the head of the +embankment. The gibbet-post lasted long. Known as +“Andrew Mills’ Stob,” its wood was reputed of +marvellous efficacy for toothache, rheumatism, heartburn, and +indeed as wide a range of ailments as are <a +name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 114</span>cured by +any one of the modern quack medicines that fill the advertisement +columns of our newspapers in this enlightened age. It was a +sad day for Ferryhill and the neighbourhood when the last +splinter of Andrew Mills’ gibbet was used up, and what the +warty, scrofulous, ulcerous, and rheumaticky inhabitants did then +the imagination refuses to consider.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p113.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Merrington Church" +title= +"Merrington Church" + src="images/p113.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> surrounding districts anciently +possessed a prime horror (which has lost nothing in the +accumulated legends of centuries) in the “Brawn of +Brancepeth.” This terror of the countryside, resolved +into plain matter of fact, seems to have been a wild boar. +Boars were “brawns” in those days, and the adjacent +“Brancepeth” is just “brawn’s +path,” as Brandon is supposed to have been “brawn +den.” This, to modern ideas, not very terrible wild +animal, seems to have thoroughly alarmed half a +county:—</p> +<blockquote><p>He feared not ye loute with hys staffe,<br /> + Nor yet for ye knyghte in hys mayle,<br /> +He cared no more for ye monke with hys boke,<br /> + Than the fyendis in depe Croix Dale.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It will be seen by the last line in this verse that the author +was evidently prepared to back the devil and all his works +against anything the Church could do. But that is a +detail. The wild boar was eventually slain by Hodge of the +Ferry, who ended him by the not very heroic process of digging a +deep pit in the course of his usual path, and when the animal +fell in, cutting his head off, doubtless from a safe point of +vantage above. Divested of legendary trappings, we can +readily picture the facts: the redoubtable Hodge hiding in the +nearest and tallest tree until the wild boar came along and fell +into the hole, when the champion descended and despatched him in +safety. <a name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>The traditional scene of this exploit is half a mile to +the east of Ferryhill, at a farmstead called Cleve’s +Cross.</p> +<p>Croixdale, or, as modern times have vulgarised its name, +Croxdale, lies on our way to Durham, past the hills of High and +Low Butcher Race. Now a shabby roadside village, with a +railway station of that name on the main line of the North +Eastern Railway, this neighbourhood has also had its +romance. The road descends steeply to the river Wear, and +in the vicinity is the dark hollow which mediæval +superstition peopled with evil spirits, the “fyendis” +who, as the ballad says, cared nothing for the monk with his +book. To evict these hardy sprites a cross was erected, +hence “Croixdale”; but with what result is not +stated.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p115.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Road, Rail, and River: Sunderland Bridge" +title= +"Road, Rail, and River: Sunderland Bridge" + src="images/p115.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The cross roads here, too, have their story, for Andrew Tate, +a highwayman, convicted of murdering and robbing seven persons +near Sunderland Bridge, was hanged where they branch off, in +1602, and afterwards buried beneath the gallows. Now that +no devils or highwaymen haunt the lovely woodland borders of the +Wear at this spot, it is safe to linger by Sunderland Bridge, +just below Croxdale, where the exceedingly picturesque old stone +bridge of four arches carries the <a name="page116"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 116</span>road over the river. Perhaps +the distant railway viaduct may spoil the sylvan solitude of the +place, but, on the other hand, it may help to emphasise it. +Across that viaduct rush and roar the expresses to and from +London and the North; while the fisherman plys his contemplative +craft from the sandy beaches below the bridge. Many a +wearied coach passenger, passing this spot in the old days on +summer evenings, must have longingly drunk in the beauty of the +scene. Other passengers by coach had a terrible experience +here in 1822, when the mail was overturned on the bridge and two +passengers killed.</p> +<p>Thoresby, in his <i>Diary</i>, under date of May 1703, +describes one of his journeys with his usual inaccuracy as to the +incidence of places, and mentions Sunderland Bridge, together +with another, close by. This would be Browney Bridge, to +which we come in a quarter of a mile nearer Durham; only Thoresby +places it the other way, where, on the hillside, such a bridge +would be impossible. He mentions seeing the legend, +“Sockeld’s Leap, 1692,” inscribed on one of the +coping-stones, and tells how two horsemen, racing on this road, +jumped on the bridge together with such force that one of them, +breaking down the battlements of the bridge, fell into the stream +below, neither he nor his horse having any injury.</p> +<p>Ascending the steep rise beyond Browney Bridge, Farewell Hall +on the left is passed, the place taking its name, according to +the commonly received story, from the Earl of Derwentwater +bidding farewell to his friends here when on his way, a captured +rebel, to London and the scaffold, in 1715. Climbing one +more ridge, the first view of Durham Cathedral is gained on +coming down the corresponding descent, a long straight run into +the outskirts of the city. Durham Cathedral appears, +majestic against the sky, long before any sign of the city itself +is noted; a huge bulk dominating the scene and dwarfing the +church of St. Oswald at the foot of the hill, itself no +inconsiderable building. To the right hand rises Nine Tree +Hill, with <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>the nine trees that stand sponsors to it still weirdly +conspicuous on its crest, and down beneath it spread the grimy +and unkempt works of the Old Elvet Colliery.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image117" href="images/p117.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Entrance to Durham" +title= +"Entrance to Durham" + src="images/p117.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> traveller pursuing his +northward way comes into Durham by the back door, as it were, for +the suburb of Old Elvet through which the Great North Road +conducts to the ancient city is one of the least prepossessing of +entrances, and, besides being dirty and shabby, is endowed with a +cobble-stoned road which, as if its native unevenness were not +sufficient, may generally be found strewed with fragments of +hoop-iron, clinkers, and other puncturing substances calculated +to give tragical pauses to the exploring cyclist who essays to +follow the route whose story is set forth in these pages. +Old Elvet is in no sense a prepossessing suburb of Durham, but +its steep and stony street is a true exemplar of the city’s +other highways and byways, which are nothing if not breakneck and +badly paved, as well as being badly kept. But facing Old +Elvet’s long street is still to be found the “Three +Tuns,” where coach passengers in the closing years of that +era delighted to stay, and where, although the well-remembered +hostess of the inn has been gathered to Abraham’s bosom, +the guest on entering is still served in his bedroom with the +welcoming glass of cherry-brandy which it has for the best part +of a century been the pleasing custom of the house to +present. No other such ambrosial cup as this, rare in +itself and hallowed by old memories, greets the wayfarer along +the roads nowadays.</p> +<p>From here, or other headquarters, let us set forth to explore +the city, planted on a craggy site looking down upon the +encompassing Wear that flows deep down between rocky banks +clothed thickly with woods. To enter the city proper from +“Old Elvet,” one must <a name="page119"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 119</span>needs cross Elvet Bridge, still +narrow, although the subject of a widening by which its width was +doubled in 1805. How the earlier coaches crossed it is +therefore something of a problem.</p> +<p>It has often been claimed for Durham that it is “the +most picturesque city in England,” and if by that +contention we are to understand the site of it to be meant, the +claim must be allowed. Cities are not so many that there is +much difficulty in estimating their comparative charms; and were +it even a question of towns, few might be found to have footholds +of such beauty.</p> +<p>The Wear and that rocky bluff which it renders all but an +island, seemed to the distracted monks of Lindisfarne, worn out +with a century’s wandering over the north of England in +search of safety from the marauding heathen Danes who had laid +waste the coast and their island cathedral, an ideal spot; and so +to the harsh necessities of over nine hundred years ago we owe +both this selection of a site and the building upon it of a +cathedral which should be an outpost for the Lord in the +turbulent North and a castle for the protection of his +servants. It was in the year 995 that, after a hundred and +twenty years of constant wandering, the successors of those monks +who had fled from Lindisfarne with the body of their revered +bishop, the famous Saint Cuthbert, came here, still bearing his +hallowed remains. Their last journey had been from +Ripon. Coming near this spot, the Saint, who though by this +time dead for over three hundred years, was as masterful as he +had been in life, manifested his approval of the neighbourhood by +refusing to be carried any further. When the peripatetic +bishop and monks found that his coffin remained immovable they +fasted and prayed for three days, after which disciplinary +exercise, one of their number had a vision wherein it was +revealed to him that the Saint should be carried to Dunholme, +where he was to be received into a place of rest. So, +setting forth again, distressed in mind by not knowing where +Dunholme lay, but hoping for a <a name="page120"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 120</span>supernatural guidance, they came +presently to “a place surrounded with rocks, where there +was a river of rapid waves and fishes of various kinds mingling +with the floods. Great forests grew there, and in deep +valleys were wild animals of many sorts, and deer +innumerable.” It was when they were come to this +romantic place that they heard a milkmaid calling to her +companion, and asking where her cow was. The answer, that +“she was in Dunholme” was “an happy and +heavenly sound to the distressed monks, who thereby had +intelligence that their journey’s end was at hand, and the +Saint’s body near its resting-place.” Pressing +onward, they found the cow in Dunholme, and here, on the site of +the present Cathedral, they raised their first “little +Church of Wands and Branches.” The Cathedral and the +Castle that they and their immediate successors raised have long +since been replaced; but the great Norman piles of rugged fame +and stern battlemented and loopholed fortress crowning the same +rocky heights prove that those who kept the Church anchored here +had need to watch as well as pray, to fight secular battles as +well as wage war against the devil and all his works. It +was this double necessity that made the bishops of Durham until +our own time bishops-palatine; princes of the State as well as of +the Church, and in the old days men of the sword as well as of +the pastoral staff; and their cathedral shadows forth these +conditions of their being in no uncertain way. There is no +finer pile of Norman masonry in this country than this great +edifice, whose central tower and east end are practically the +only portions not in that style, and of these that grand and +massive tower, although of the Perpendicular period, is akin to +the earlier parts in feeling; nor is there another quite so +impressive a tower in England as this, either for itself or in +its situation, with the sole exception of “Boston +Stump,” that beacon raised against the sky for many miles +across the Lincolnshire levels.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image121" href="images/p121.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Durham Cathedral, from Prebend’s Bridge" +title= +"Durham Cathedral, from Prebend’s Bridge" + src="images/p121.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Woods and river still surround the Cathedral, as Turner shows +in his exquisite view from the Prebend’s <a +name="page123"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 123</span>Bridge, one +among many other glorious and unexpected glimpses which the +rugged nature of Durham’s site provides from all points, +but incomparably the best of all. It is here that, most +appropriately, there has been placed a decorative tablet, carved +in oak, and bearing the quotation from Sir Walter Scott, +beginning—</p> +<blockquote><p>Half House of God, half Castle; ’gainst the +Scot;</p> +</blockquote> +<p>a quotation that gains additional point from the circumstance +of the battle of Neville’s Cross having been fought against +the invading Scots, October 17th, 1346, within sight from the +Cathedral roofs. This view is one of Turner’s +infrequent topographically accurate works. Perhaps even he +felt the impossibility of improving upon the beauty of the +scene.</p> +<p>Still, annually, after evensong on May 29th, the lay clerks +and choristers of the Cathedral ascend to the roof of the great +central tower, in their cassocks and surplices, and sing +anthems. The first, Farrant’s “Lord, for Thy +tender mercies’ sake,” is a reference to the national +crime of the execution of Charles the First, and is sung facing +south. The second, “Therefore with angels and +archangels,” by V. Novello, expressing the pious sentiment +that the martyred king shall rest in Paradise, in company with +those bright beings, is sung facing east; and the third, +“Give Peace in our time, O Lord,” by W. H. Callcott, +facing north.</p> +<p>The origin of this observance was the thanksgiving for the +victory of Neville’s Cross, a famous and a complete +success, when fifteen thousand Scots were slain and David the +Second, the Scottish king and many of his nobles, captured. +It was to the special intervention of St. Cuthbert, whose sacred +banner was carried by Prior John Fossor to Maiden Bower, a spot +overlooking the battlefield, that this signal destruction of the +enemy was ascribed. The Prior prayed beside it, but his +monks are said to have offered up their petitions from the more +distant, and safer, vantage-point of the Cathedral towers. +Perhaps they had a turn of <a name="page124"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 124</span>agnosticism in their minds; but, at +any rate, they took no risks.</p> +<p>The original tower-top <i>Te Deum</i> afterwards sung on the +anniversary seems to have been discontinued at the +Reformation. The revival came after the King’s +Restoration in 1660, when the day was altered to May 29th, to +give the celebration the character of a rejoicing at the return +of Charles the Second. This revival itself fell into disuse +in the eighteenth century, being again restored in 1828, and +continued ever since.</p> +<p>The battlefield of Neville’s Cross lies to the west of +the Cathedral, so no singing takes place on the western side of +the tower. The popular, but mistaken, idea in Durham is +that this is because a choir-boy once overbalanced on that side +and fell from the tower.</p> +<p>If you would see how Castle and Cathedral are situated with +regard to the busy modern city, there is no such place as the +railway station, whence they are seen dominating the mass of +houses, among the smoke-wreaths of commerce, like the martyrs of +old steadfast amidst their burning faggots. If again, +reversing the order of precedence as seen in the view from +Prebend’s Bridge, you would have the Castle in the +forefront and the Cathedral behind, it is from the Framwellgate +Bridge, carrying the Great North Road over the Wear, that another +lovely glimpse is seen, ranging to Prebend’s Bridge +itself.</p> +<h2>XXII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> time grows short, and we have +not long to linger at Durham. Much else might be said of +the Cathedral; of Saint Cuthbert’s Shrine, and of the +vandal Wyatt, who “restored” the Cathedral in 1775, +cutting away, in the process, a depth of four inches from the +stonework of much of the exterior. The work cost +£30,000, and resulted in eleven hundred tons weight of +stone chippings being removed from the building. If that <a +name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +126</span>“restorer” had had his way, he would have +destroyed the beautiful Galilee Chapel that projects from the +west front, and forms so uniquely interesting a feature of Late +Norman work. His idea was to drive a carriage road round +this way. The work of destruction had, indeed, already been +begun when it was stopped by more reverent men.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image125" href="images/p125.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Sanctuary Knocker" +title= +"The Sanctuary Knocker" + src="images/p125.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>A curious relic still remains upon the door of the +Cathedral’s north porch, in the form of a huge knocker, +dating back to Norman times. Cast in the shape of a +grinning monster’s head, a ring hanging from its jaws, it +is the identical sanctuary knocker of Saint Cuthbert’s +Sanctuary, which was in use from the foundation of the Cathedral +until 1524. All fugitives, whatever their crimes, who +succeeded in escaping to Durham, and reaching the bounds of +“Saint Cuthbert’s Peace,” were safe from +molestation during thirty-seven days. A criminal, grasping +the ring of this knocker, could not be torn from it by his +pursuers, under pain of their being subjected to excommunication; +and lest there should be bold spirits whom even this could not +affright, there were always two monks stationed, day and night, +in a room above the porch, to watch for fugitives. When +admitted, the criminal confessed his crime, with every +circumstance attending it, his confession being taken down in +writing, in the presence of witnesses; a bell ringing in the +Galilee tower all the while, giving notice that some one had fled +to the protection of Saint Cuthbert. After these +formalities, the fugitive was clothed with a black gown, bearing +a yellow cross on the left shoulder: the badge of the Saint whose +protection he had secured. After the days of grace had +expired, and in the event of no pardon being obtained, ceremonies +were gone through before the Shrine, in which the malefactor +solemnly forswore his native land for ever. Then, +safeguarded to the coast, he was shipped out of the kingdom by +the first vessel sailing after his arrival.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image127" href="images/p127.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Durham Castle and Cathedral from below Framwellgate Bridge" +title= +"Durham Castle and Cathedral from below Framwellgate Bridge" + src="images/p127.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>There must have been many an exciting chase along the roads in +those times, and many a criminal who richly <a +name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 129</span>deserved +punishment must have escaped it by the very skin of his +teeth. Many another, no doubt, was seized and handed over +to justice, or slain, on the threshold of safety. Other +fugitives still—and here Saint Cuthbert appears in better +guise—victims of hatred and oppression, private or +political, claimed the saintly ægis, and so escaped the +vengeance of their enemies. So, looking upon the +ferociously grinning mask of the knocker, glaring with eyeless +sockets upon Palace Green, we can reconstruct the olden times +when, at his last gasp, the flying wretch seized the ring and so +came into safety. By night, the scene was more impressive +still, for there were crystals in those sockets then, and a lamp +burning behind, so that the fugitive could see his haven from +afar, and make for it.</p> +<p>To-day, Saint Cuthbert avails no man, as the county gaol and +the assize courts sufficiently prove, and Durham city is +essentially modern, from the coal-grit that powders its dirty +streets to the awfully grotesque effigy of a Marquis of +Londonderry that lends so diabolical an air to the Market-place, +where the Statute Fair is held, and where he sits, a coal-black +effigy across his coal-black horse, towering over the steam +merry-go-rounds, like Satan amid the revelries of a Walpurgis +Night. This bronze effigy is probably the most grotesque +statue in the British Isles, and loses nothing of that quality in +the noble Marquis being represented in a hussar uniform with +flying dolman over his shoulders, and a busby, many sizes too +large for him, on his head, in an attitude as though ferociously +inviting the houses on the other side of the street to +“come on.”</p> +<p>That diarising Scotswoman, Mrs. Calderwood of Coltness, +travelling south in 1756, wrote:—</p> +<p>“We dined at Durhame, and I went to see the cathedrall; +it is a prodigious bulky building. It was on Sunday betwixt +services, and in the piazzas there were several boys playing at +ball. I asked the girl that attended me, if it was the +custome for the boys to play at ball on Sunday: she said, +‘they play on other <a name="page130"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 130</span>days, as well as on +Sundays.’ She called her mother to show me the +Church; and I suppose, by my questions, the woman took me for a +heathen, as I found she did not know of any other mode of worship +but her own; so, that she might not think the Bishop’s +chair defiled by my sitting down in it, I told her I was a +Christian, though the way of worship in my country differed from +hers. In particular, she stared when I asked what the +things were that they kneeled upon, as they appeared to me to be +so many Cheshire cheeses.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p130.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Framwellgate Bridge" +title= +"Framwellgate Bridge" + src="images/p130.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>They were hassocks: articles apparently then not known to +Presbyterians.</p> +<p>And so she continued southward:—</p> +<p>“Next day, the 7th, we dined none, but baited at +different places, and betwixt Doncaster and Bautry a man rode +about in an odd way, whom we suspected for a highwayman. +Upon his coming near, John Rattray pretended to make a quarle +with the post boy, and let him know that he keept good powder and +ball to keep such folks as him in order; upon which the felow +scampered off cross the common.”</p> +<p>The Great North Road leaves Durham over <a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +131</span>Framwellgate Bridge, built by Bishop Flambard in Norman +times. Although altered and repaired in the fifteenth +century and later, it is still substantially the same +bridge. There was once a fortified gateway on it, but that +was taken down in 1760. Bridge, River, Castle, and +Cathedral here form a majestic picture.</p> +<h2>XXIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">And</span> now to take the open road +again. The chief features of the road between Durham and +Newcastle are coal-pits, dismal pit villages, and +coal-dust. Not at once, however, is the traveller +introduced to these, and the ascent out of Durham, through the +wooded banks of Dryburn, is very pretty. It is at +Framwellgate Moor, a mile and a half from the city, that the +presence of coal begins to make itself felt, in the rows of +unlovely cottages, and in the odd figures of the pitmen, who may +be seen returning from their work, with grimy faces and +characteristic miner’s dress. Adjoining this village, +and indistinguishable from it by the stranger, is the roadside +collection of cottages known as “Pity Me,” taking its +name from the hunted fox in the sign of the “Lambton +Hounds” inn.</p> +<p>Framwellgate is scarce left behind before there rises up in +the far distance, on the summit of one of the many hills to the +north-east, a hill-top temple resembling the Athenian Acropolis, +and as you go northward it is the constant companion of your +journey for some seven or eight miles. This is +“Penshaw Monument,” erected on that windy height in +1844, four years after his death, to the memory of John George +Lambton, first Earl of Durham. It cost £6,000, and +commemorates the championship of the Reform movement in its +earlier and precarious days by that statesman. Like many +another monument, impressive at a distance, a near approach to it +leads to disillusion, for its classic outlines are allied to +coarse workmanship, and its eighteen great <a +name="page132"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 132</span>columns are +hollow. Penshaw, deriving its name from Celtic words, +signifying a wooded height, still has its woodlands to justify +the name given nearly a thousand years ago.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p132.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Penshaw Monument" +title= +"Penshaw Monument" + src="images/p132.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The little town of Chester-le-Street lies three miles ahead, +past the few cottages of Plawsworth, once the site of a +turnpike-gate, and by Chester Moor and the pretty wooded hollow +of Chester Dene, where the Con Burn goes rippling through the +undergrowth to join the river Wear, and a bridge carries the +highway across the gap. Approaching Chester-le-Street, the +bright yellow sandstone mass of Lumley Castle, the ancient seat +of the Earl of Scarborough, is prominent in the valley to the +right, while beyond it rise the woods of Lambton Castle, the Earl +of Durham’s domain. The neighbourhood of +Chester-le-Street yet preserves the weird legend of the +“Lambton Worm,” and Worm Hill is still pointed out as +the home of that fabulous monster who laid the country under +contribution for the satisfying of his voracious appetite, and +was kept in good humour by being provided with the milk of nine +cows daily. Many had essayed to slay the serpent and had +fallen victims instead, until the heir of Lambton, returned from +the red fields and hair’s-breadth escapes of foreign wars, +set forth to free the countryside from the terror. But +before he started, he was warned (so the legend runs), that +unless <a name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +133</span>he vowed, being successful in his enterprise, to slay +the first living thing he met on his return, the lords of Lambton +would never, for nine generations to come, die in their +beds. He took that vow, and, armed with his trusty sword +and a suit of armour made of razor-blades, met and slew the Worm, +who coiled himself round the knight in order to crush him as he +had the others, and so was cut in pieces against the keen +edges. But the victor on returning was met by his father, +instead of by the favourite dog who had been destined for the +sacrifice. The sword dropped from his nerveless hand, and +he broke the vow. What mattered it where the future +generations died; in their beds, or, as warriors might wish, in +their boots?</p> +<p>As a matter of fact, the next nine heirs of Lambton did die +more or less violent deaths; a circumstance which is pointed to +in proof of the legend’s truth. If other proof be +wanting, one has only to visit Lambton Castle, where the +identical trough from which the Worm drank his daily allowance of +milk is still shown the curious tourist!</p> +<p>Chester-le-Street bears little in its appearance to hint at +its great age and interesting history. A very up-to-date +little town, whose prosperity derives from its position as a +marketing centre for the surrounding pitmen, it supports +excellent shops and rejoices in the possession of Co-operative +Societies, whose objects are to provide their subscribers with +whatever they want at cost price, and to starve the trader, who +trades for profit, out of existence. That shops and +societies exist side by side, and that both look prosperous, +seems remarkable, not to say miraculous. Let the +explanation of these things be left to other hands.</p> +<p>The name of Chester-le-Street doubly reveals the Roman origin +of the place from the castle on the road which existed here in +those distant times, and has easily survived the name of +Cunecaster, which the Saxons gave it. At Cunecaster the +ancient bishopric of Bernicia, forerunner of the present See of +Durham, had its cathedral for a hundred and thirteen years, <a +name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>from <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 882 to 995; having been removed from +the Farne Islands on the approach of the heathen Danes, the monks +carrying the coffin of their sainted bishop, St. Cuthbert, with +them on their wanderings. The dedication of the present +church to Saints Mary and Cuthbert is a relic of that time, but +the building itself is not older than the thirteenth +century. It preserves an ancient anchorites’ +cell.</p> +<p>The finest surviving anchorage in England is this of +Chester-le-Street. It is built against the north wall of +the tower, and is of two storeys with two rooms on each. +Two “low-side” windows communicating with the +churchyard remain, and a smaller opening into the church is close +by. Through this, food and offerings were passed to the +anchorite, together with the keys of the church treasure-chest, +left in his custody by the clergy. From this orifice the +holy hermit could obtain a view all over the building, and an odd +hagioscope or “squint,” pierced through one of the +pillars, allowed of his seeing the celebration of Mass at a +side-chapel, in addition to that at the High Altar. This +was no damp and inconvenient hermitage, for when the anchorite +was kicked out at the Reformation, and bidden go and earn an +honest living, his old home was let to three widows. +Eventually, in 1619, the curate found the place so +desirable—or, as a house-agent would say, so +“eligible”—that he took up his abode there.</p> +<p>The church also contains fourteen monumental effigies +ascribed, without much truth in the ascription, to the +Lumleys. John, Lord Lumley, collected them from ruined +abbeys and monasteries in the neighbourhood some three hundred +years ago, and called them ancestors. He was technically +right; for we all descend from Adam, but not quite so right when, +finding he could not steal a sufficient number of these +“ancestors,” he commissioned the local masons to +rough-hew him out a few more. They are here to this day, +and an ill-favoured gang they look, too.</p> +<p>The town of Chester-le-Street found little favour <a +name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 135</span>with De +Foe, who, passing through it, found the place “an old dirty +thoroughfare town.” The modern traveller cannot say +the same, but it is possible that if he happened to pass through +on Shrove Tuesday, he would describe the inhabitants as savages; +for on that day the place is given up to a game of football +played in the streets, the town taking sides, and when the ball +is not within reach, kicking one another. With a proper +respect for their shop fronts, the trades-folk all close on this +day.</p> +<p>The three miles between Chester-le-Street and Birtley afford a +wide-spreading panorama of the Durham coal-field. Pretty +country before its mineral wealth began to be developed, its +hills and dales reveal chimney-shafts and hoisting-gear in every +direction, and smoke-wreaths, blown across country by the raging +winds of the north, blacken everything. Birtley is a +typical pit village and its approaches characteristic of the coal +country. The paths are black, the hedges and trees ragged +and sooty, and tramways from the collieries cross the road +itself, unfenced, the trucks dropping coal in the highway. +One coal village is as like another as are two peas. They +are all frankly unornamental; all face the road on either side, +each cottage the exact replica of its unlovely neighbour, and the +footpaths are almost invariably unpaved. These are the +homes of the “Geordies,” as the pitmen once were +invariably called. They were rough in their ways, but very +different from the more recent sort: the trade-unionist miner: +the better educated but more discontented and unlovable +man. But “Geordie,” the old-type typical +pitman, was not a bad fellow, by any means. If any man +worked, literally, by the sweat of his brow, it was he, in his +eight hours’ shift down in the stifling tunnels of the +coal-mine. He earned a high wage and deserved a higher, for +he carried his life in his hand, and any day that witnessed his +descent half a mile or so into the black depths of the pit might +also have seen an accident which, by the fall of a roof of coal, +by fire or flood, explosion, or the unseen but <a +name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 136</span>deadly +choke-damp, should end his existence, and that of hundreds like +him.</p> +<p>The midday aspect of a coal village is singularly quiet and +empty. Scarce a man or boy is to be seen. Half of +them are at work down below, in the first day shift to which they +went at an early hour of the morning: and those of the night, who +came up when the others descended, are enjoying a well-earned +repose. A coal-miner just come to bank from his +coal-hewing, looks anything but the respectable fellow he +generally is, nowadays. With his peaked leathern cap, thick +short coat, woollen muffler, limp knickerbockers, blue worsted +stockings, heavy lace-up boots and dirty face, he looks like a +half-bleached nigger football-player. When washed, his is a +pallid countenance which the stranger, unused to the colourless +faces of those who work underground, might be excused for +thinking that of one recovering from an illness. And +washing is a serious business with “Geordie.” +Every pitman’s cottage has its tub wherein he +“cleans” himself, as he expresses it, while the +women-folk crowd the street. What the cottages lack in +accommodation they make up for in cleanliness and display. +The pitman’s wife wages an heroic and never-ending war +against dirt and grime, and both have an astonishing love of +finery and bright colours which reveals itself even down to the +door-step, coloured a brilliant red, yellow, or blue, according +to individual taste. Nowadays football claims +“Geordie’s” affections before anything +else. That rowdy game, more than any other, serves to work +off any superfluous energy, and there are stories, more or less +true, which tell of pitmen, tired of waiting for “t’ +ball,” starting “t’ gaame” by kicking one +another instead! Coursing, dog-fancying, and the breeding +of canaries are other favourite pitmen’s pastimes, and they +dearly love a garden. Where an outdoor garden is +impossible, a window garden is a favourite resource, and even the +ugliest cottages take on a certain smartness when to the yellow +doorstep are added bright green window-shutters and a window full +of scarlet <a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>geraniums. Very many pitmen are musical. We +do not in this connection refer to the inevitable American organ +whose doleful wails wring your very heart-strings as you pass the +open cottage doors on Sunday afternoons, but to the really expert +violinists often found in the pit villages.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image137" href="images/p137.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Coal Country" +title= +"The Coal Country" + src="images/p137.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">At</span> Harlowgreen Lane, where a little +wayside inn, the “Coach and Horses,” stands beside a +wooded dingle, we have the only pleasant spot before reaching +Gateshead. Prettily rural, with an old-world air which no +doubt gains an additional beauty after the ugliness of Birtley, +it looks like one of those roadside scenes pencilled so deftly by +Rowlandson, and might well have been one of the roadside +stopping-places mentioned in that book so eloquent of the Great +North Road, Smollett’s <i>Roderick Random</i>. No +other work gives us so fine a description of old road travel, +partly founded, no doubt, upon the author’s’ own <a +name="page139"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 139</span>observation +of the wayfaring life of his time. Smollett himself +travelled from Glasgow to Edinburgh and London in 1739, and in +the character of Roderick he narrates some of his own +adventures. For a good part of the way Roderick found +neither coach, cart, nor wagon on the road, and so journeyed with +a train of pack-carriers so far as Newcastle, sitting on one of +the horses’ pack-saddles. At Newcastle he met Strap, +the barber’s assistant, and they journeyed to London +together, sometimes afoot; at other times by stage-wagon, a +method of travelling which, practised by those of small means, +was a commonplace of the period at which Smollett wrote. It +was a method which had not changed in the least since the days of +James the First, and was to continue even into the first years of +the nineteenth century. Fynes Morrison, who wrote an +<i>Itinerary</i>—and an appallingly dull work it +is—in the reign of the British Solomon, talks of them as +“long covered wagons, carrying passengers from place to +place; but this kind of journeying is so tedious, by reason they +must take wagon very early and come very late to their innes, +that none but women and people of inferior condition travel in +this sort.” Hogarth pictured these lumbering +conveyances, which at their best performed fifteen miles a day, +and Rowlandson and many other artists have employed their pencils +upon them.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p138.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A Wayside Halt. After Rowlandson" +title= +"A Wayside Halt. After Rowlandson" + src="images/p138.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Smollett is an eighteenth-century robust humorist, whose works +are somewhat strong meat for our times; but he is a classic, and +his works (unlike the usual run of “classics,” which +are aptly said to be books which no one ever reads) have, each +one, enough humour to furnish half a dozen modern authors, and +are proof against age and change of taste. To the student +of bygone times and manners, <i>Roderick Random</i> affords (oh! +rare conjunction) both instruction and amusement. It is, of +course, a work of fiction, but fiction based on personal +experience, and palpitating with the life of the times in which +it was written. It thus affords a splendid view of this +great road about 1739, and of the <a name="page140"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 140</span>way in which the thrifty Scots +youths then commonly came up to town.</p> +<p>Their first night’s halt was at a hedgerow alehouse, +half a mile from the road, to which came also a pedlar. The +pedlar, for safety’s sake, screwed up the door of the +bedroom in which they all slept. “I slept very +sound,” says Roderick, “until midnight, when I was +disturbed by a violent motion of the bed, which shook under me +with a continual tremor. Alarmed at this phenomenon, I +jogged my companion, whom, to my amazement, I found drenched in +sweat, and quaking through every limb; he told me, with a low, +faltering voice, that we were undone, for there was a bloody +highwayman with loaded pistols in the next room; then, bidding me +make as little noise as possible, he directed me to a small chink +in the board partition, through which I could see a thick-set, +brawny fellow, with a fierce countenance, sitting at a table with +our young landlady, having a bottle of ale and a brace of pistols +before him.” The highwayman was cursing his luck +because a confederate, a coachman, had given intelligence of a +rich coach-load to some other plunderer, who had gone off with +£400 in cash, together with jewels and money.</p> +<p>“But did you find nothing worth taking which escaped the +other gentleman of the road?” asked the landlady.</p> +<p>“Not much,” he replied. “I gleaned a +few things, such as a pair of pops, silver-mounted (here they +are); I took them, loaded, from the charge of the captain who had +charge of the money the other fellow had taken, together with a +gold watch which he had concealed in his breeches. I +likewise found ten Portugal pieces in the shoes of a Quaker, whom +the spirit moved to revile me, with great bitterness and +devotion; but what I value myself mostly for is this here +purchase, a gold snuff-box, my girl, with a picture on the inside +of the lid, which I untied out of the tail of a pretty +lady’s smock.”</p> +<p>Here the pedlar began to snore so loudly that <a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>the +highwayman heard him through the partition. Alarmed, he +asked the landlady who was there, and when she told him, +travellers, replied, “Spies! you jade! But no matter, +I’ll send them all to hell in an instant.”</p> +<p>The landlady pacified him by saying that they were only three +poor Scotchmen; but Strap by this time was under the bed.</p> +<p>The night was one of alarms. Roderick and Strap awakened +the pedlar, who, thinking the best course was not to wait for the +doubtful chance of being alive to see the morning dawn, vanished +with his pack through the window.</p> +<p>After having paid their score in the morning, the two set out +again. They had not gone more than five miles before a man +on horseback overtook them, whom they recognised as Mr. Rifle, +the highwayman of the night before. He asked them if they +knew who he was. Strap fell on his knees in the road. +“For heaven’s sake, Mr. Rifle,” said he, +“have mercy on us, we know you very well.”</p> +<p>“Oho!” cried the thief, “you do! But +you shall never be evidence against me in this world, you +dog!” and so saying, he drew a pistol and fired at the +unfortunate shaver, who fell flat on the ground, without a +word. He then turned upon Roderick, but the sound of +horses’ hoofs was heard, and a party of travellers galloped +up, leaving the highwayman barely time to ride off. One of +them was the captain who had been robbed the day before. He +was not, as may already have been gathered, a valiant man. +He turned pale at the sight of Strap. +“Gentlemen,” said he, “here’s murder +committed; let us alight.” The others were for +pursuing the highwayman, and the captain only escaped +accompanying them by making his horse rear and snort, and +pretending the animal was frightened. Fortunately, Strap +“had received no other wound than what his fear had +inflicted”; and after having been bled at an inn half a +mile away, they were about to resume their journey, when a +shouting <a name="page142"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +142</span>crowd came down the road, with the highwayman in the +midst, riding horseback with his hands tied behind him. He +was being escorted to the nearest Justice of the Peace. +Halting a while for refreshment, they dismounted Mr. Rifle and +mounted guard, a circle of peasants armed with pitchforks round +him. When they at length reached the magistrate’s +house, they found he was away for the night, and so locked their +prisoner in a garret, from which, of course, he escaped.</p> +<p>Roderick and Strap were now free from being detained as +evidence. For two days they walked on, staying on the +second night in a public-house of a very sorry appearance in a +small village. At their entrance, the landlord, who seemed +a venerable old man, with long grey hair, rose from a table +placed by a large fire in a neat paved kitchen, and, with a +cheerful countenance, accosted them with the words: +“<i>Salvete</i>, <i>pueri</i>; +<i>ingredimini</i>.” It was astonishing to hear a +rustic landlord talking Latin, but Roderick, concealing his +amazement, replied, “<i>Dissolve frigus</i>, <i>ligna super +foco large reponens</i>.” He had no sooner pronounced +the words than the innkeeper, running towards him, shook him by +the hands, crying, “<i>Fili mi dilectissime</i>! <i>unde +venis</i>?—<i>a superis</i>, <i>ni fallor</i>.” +In short, finding them both read in the classics, he did not know +how to testify his regard sufficiently; but ordered his daughter, +a jolly, rosy-checked damsel, who was his sole domestic, to bring +a bottle of his <i>quadrimum</i>; repeating at the same time from +Horace, “<i>Deprome quadrimum Sabinâ</i>, <i>O +Thaliarche</i>, <i>merum diota</i>.” This was +excellent ale of his own brewing, of which he told them he had +always an <i>amphora</i>, four years old, for the use of himself +and friends.</p> +<p>The innkeeper proved to be a schoolmaster who was obliged, by +his income being so small, to supplement it by turning licensed +victualler. He was very inquisitive about their affairs, +and, while dinner was preparing, his talk abounded both with +Latin tags and with good advice to the inexperienced against the +deceits and wickedness of the world. They fared sumptuously +on <a name="page143"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 143</span>roast +fowl and several bottles of quadrimum, going to bed +congratulating themselves on the landlord’s +good-humour. Strap was of opinion that they would be +charged nothing for their lodging and entertainment. +“Don’t you observe,” said he, “that he +has conceived a particular affection for us; nay, even treated us +with extraordinary fare, which, to be sure, we should not of +ourselves have called for?”</p> +<p>Roderick was not so sanguine. Rising early in the +morning, and having breakfasted with their host and his daughter +on hasty-pudding and ale, they desired to know what there was to +pay.</p> +<p>“Biddy will let you know, gentlemen,” said the old +rascal of a tapster, “for I never mind these matters. +Money-matters are beneath the concern of one who lives on the +Horatian plan: <i>Crescentem sequitur cura +pecuniam</i>.”</p> +<p>Meanwhile, Biddy, having consulted a slate that hung in a +corner, gave the reckoning as eight shillings and sevenpence.</p> +<p>“Eight shillings and sevenpence!” cried Strap; +“’tis impossible! You must be mistaken, young +woman.”</p> +<p>“Reckon again, child,” said the father very +deliberately; “perhaps you have miscounted.”</p> +<p>“No, indeed, father,” replied she. “I +know my business better.”</p> +<p>Roderick demanded to know the particulars, on which the old +man got up, muttering, “Ay, ay, let us see the particulars: +that’s but reasonable”; and, taking pen, ink, and +paper, wrote:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>s.</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>d.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To bread and beer,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">6</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To a fowl and sausages,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">6</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To four bottles of quadrim,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To fire and tobacco,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">7</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To lodging,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>To breakfast,</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">8</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">7</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>As he had not the appearance of a common publican, Roderick +could not upbraid him as he deserved, simply <a +name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>remarking +that he was sure he had not learned from Horace to be an +extortioner. To which the landlord replied that his only +aim was to live <i>contentus parvo</i>, and keep off <i>importuna +pauperies</i>.</p> +<p>Strap was indignant. He swore their host should either +take one-third or go without; but Roderick, seeing the daughter +go out and return with two stout fellows, with whom to frighten +them, thought it politic to pay what was asked.</p> +<p>It was a doleful walk they had that day. In the evening +they overtook the wagon, and it is here, and in the following +scenes, that we get an excellent description of the cheap road +travel of that era.</p> +<p>Strap mounted first into the wagon, but retired, dismayed, at +a tremendous voice which issued from its depths, with the words, +“Fire and fury! there shall no passengers come +here.” These words came from Captain Weazel, one of +the most singular characters to be found in Smollett’s +pages.</p> +<p>Joey, the wagoner, was not afraid of the captain, and called +out, with a sneer: “Waunds, coptain, whay woan’t you +soofer the poor wagoneer to make a penny? Coom, coom, young +man, get oop, get oop; never moind the coptain.”</p> +<p>“Blood and thunder! where’s my sword?” +exclaimed the man of war, when the two eventually fell, rather +than climbed, into the wagon’s dark recesses, and +incidentally on to his stomach.</p> +<p>“What’s the matter, my dear?” asked a female +voice.</p> +<p>“The matter?” replied the captain; “my guts +are squeezed into a pancake by that Scotchman’s +hump.” The “hump,” by the way, was poor +Strap’s knapsack.</p> +<p>“It is our own fault,” resumed the feminine voice; +“we may thank ourselves for all the inconveniences we meet +with. I thank God I never travelled so before. I am +sure, if my lady or Sir John were to know where we are, they +would not sleep this night <a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span>for vexation. I wish to God we +had written for the chariot; I know we shall never be +forgiven.”</p> +<p>“Come, come, my dear,” replied the captain, +“it don’t signify fretting now; we shall laugh it +over as a frolic; I hope you will not suffer in your +health. I shall make my lord very merry with our adventures +in the diligence.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p145.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Travellers arriving at an Inn. After Rowlandson" +title= +"Travellers arriving at an Inn. After Rowlandson" + src="images/p145.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The unsophisticated lads were greatly impressed by this +talk. Not so the others. “Some people,” +broke in another woman’s voice, “give themselves a +great many needless airs; better folks than any here have +travelled in wagons before now. Some of us have rode in +coaches and chariots, with three footmen behind them, without +making so much fuss about it. What then! we are now all on +a footing; therefore let us be sociable and merry. What do +you say, Isaac? Is not this a good motion, you doting +rogue? Speak, old Cent. per cent.! What desperate +debt are you <a name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +146</span>thinking of? What mortgage are you +planning? Well, Isaac, positively you shall never gain my +favour till you turn over a new leaf, grow honest, and live like +a gentleman. In the meantime, give me a kiss, you old +fool.”</p> +<p>The words, accompanied by hearty smack, enlivened the person +to whom they were addressed to such a degree, that he cried, in a +transport, though with a faltering voice: “Ah, you baggage! +on my credit you are a waggish girl—he, he, +he!” This laugh introduced a fit of coughing which +almost suffocated the poor usurer—for such they afterwards +found was the profession of their fellow-traveller.</p> +<p>At their stopping-place for the night they had their first +opportunity of viewing these passengers. First came a +brisk, airy girl, about twenty years of age, with a silver-laced +hat on her head instead of a cap, a blue stuff riding-suit, +trimmed with silver, very much tarnished, and a whip in her +hand. After her came, limping, an old man, with a worsted +night-cap buttoned under his chin and a broad-brimmed hat +slouched over it, an old rusty blue cloak tied about his neck, +under which appeared a brown surtout that covered a threadbare +coat and waistcoat, and a dirty flannel jacket. His eyes +were hollow, bleared, and gummy; his face shrivelled into a +thousand wrinkles, his gums destitute of teeth, his nose sharp +and drooping, his chin peaked and prominent, so that when he +mumped or spoke they approached one another like a pair of +nut-crackers; he supported himself on an ivory-headed cane, and +his whole figure was a just emblem of winter, famine, and +avarice.</p> +<p>The captain was disclosed as a little thin creature, about the +age of forty, with a long, withered visage very much resembling +that of a baboon. He wore his own hair in a queue that +reached to his rump, and on it a hat the size and cock of Antient +Pistol’s. He was about five feet and three inches in +height, sixteen inches of which went to his face and long scraggy +neck; his thighs were about six inches in <a +name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>length; his +legs, resembling two spindles or drumsticks, two feet and a half; +and his body the remainder; so that, on the whole, he appeared +like a spider or grasshopper erect. His dress consisted of +a frock of bear-skin, the skirts about half a foot long, a hussar +waistcoat, scarlet breeches reaching half-way down his thighs, +worsted stockings rolled up almost to his groin, and shoes with +wooden heels at least two inches high; he carried a sword very +nearly as long as himself in one hand, and with the other +conducted his lady, who seemed to be a woman of his own age, +still retaining some remains of good looks, but so ridiculously +affected that any one who was not a novice in the world would +easily have perceived in her deplorable vanity the second-hand +airs of a lady’s woman.</p> +<p>This ridiculous couple were Captain and Mrs. Weazel. The +travellers all assembled in the kitchen of the inn, where, +according to the custom of the time, such impecunious wayfarers +were entertained; but the captain desired a room for himself and +his wife, so that they might sup by themselves, instead of in +that communal fashion. The innkeeper, however, did not much +relish this, but would have given way to the demand, providing +the other passengers made no objection. Unhappily for the +captain’s absurd dignity, the others <i>did</i> object; +Miss Jenny, the lady with the silver-trimmed hat, in particular, +observing that “if Captain Weazel and his lady had a mind +to sup by themselves, they might wait until the others should +have done.” At this hint the captain put on a martial +frown and looked very big, without speaking; while his +yoke-fellow, with a disdainful toss of her nose, muttered +something about “creature!” which Miss Jenny +overhearing, stepped up to her, saying, “None of your +names, good Mrs. Abigail. Creature! quotha—I’ll +assure you—no such creature as you, neither—no +quality-coupler.” Here the captain interposed, with a +“D—n me, madam, what do you mean by that?”</p> +<p>“Sir, who are you?” replied Miss Jenny; “who +made you a captain, you pitiful, trencher-scraping, <a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>pimping +curler? The army is come to a fine pass when such fellows +as you get commissions. What, I suppose you think I +don’t know you? You and your helpmate are well met: a +cast-off mistress and a bald valet-de-chambre are well yoked +together.”</p> +<p>“Blood and wounds!” cried Weazel; +“d’ye question the honour of my wife, madam? No +man in England durst say so much—I would flay him, +carbonado him! Fury and destruction! I would have his +liver for my supper!” So saying, he drew his sword +and flourished it, to the great terror of Strap; while Miss +Jenny, snapping her fingers, told him she did not value his +resentment that!</p> +<p>We will pass over the Rabelaisian adventures of the night, +which, amusing enough, are too robust for these pages; and will +proceed to the next day’s journey. Before they +started, Weazel had proved himself the arrant coward and braggart +which the reader has already perceived him to be; but, +notwithstanding this exposure, he entertained the company in the +wagon with accounts of his valour: how he had once knocked down a +soldier who had made game of him; had tweaked a drawer by the +nose who had found fault with his picking his teeth with a fork; +and had, moreover, challenged a cheesemonger who had had the +presumption to be his rival.</p> +<p>For five days they travelled in this manner. On the +sixth day, when they were about to sit down to dinner, the +innkeeper came and told them that three gentlemen, just arrived, +had ordered the meal to be sent to their apartment, although told +that it had been bespoken by the passengers in the +wagon,—to which information they had replied: “The +passengers in the wagon might be d—d; their betters must be +served before them; they supposed it would be no hardship on such +travellers to dine on bread and cheese for one day.”</p> +<p>This was a great disappointment to them all, and they laid +their heads together to remedy it, Miss Jenny observing that +Captain Weazel, being a soldier by <a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>profession, ought to protect +them. The captain adroitly excused himself by saying that +he would not, for all the world, be known to have travelled in a +wagon; swearing, at the same time, that, could he appear with +honour, they should eat his sword sooner than his +provision. On this declaration, Miss Jenny, snatching his +weapon, drew it and ran immediately into the kitchen, where she +threatened to put the cook to death if he did not immediately +send the victuals into their room. The noise she made +brought the three strangers down, one of whom no sooner perceived +her than he cried, “Ha! Jenny Ramper! what brought thee +hither?”</p> +<p>“My dear Jack Rattle,” she replied, running into +his arms, “is it you? Then Weazel may go whistle for +a dinner—I shall dine with you.”</p> +<p>They consented with joy to this proposal; and the others were +on the point of being reduced to a very uncomfortable meal, when +Joey, the wagoner, understanding the whole affair, entered the +kitchen with a pitchfork in his hand, and swore he would be the +death of any man who should pretend to seize the victuals +prepared for the wagon. On this, the three strangers drew +their swords, and, being joined by their servants, bloodshed +seemed imminent; when the landlord, interposing, offered to part +with his own dinner, for the sake of peace; which proposal was +accepted and all ended happily.</p> +<p>When the journey was resumed in the afternoon, Roderick chose +to walk some distance beside the wagoner, a merry, good-natured +fellow, who informed him that Miss Jenny was a common girl of the +town, who, falling in company with a recruiting officer who had +carried her down in the stage-coach from London to Newcastle, was +obliged to return, as her companion was now in prison for +debt. Weazel had been a valet-de-chambre to my Lord Fizzle +while he lived separate from his lady; but on their +reconciliation she insisted on Weazel’s being turned off, +as well as the woman who had lived with him: when his lordship, +<a name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>to get +rid of them both with a good grace, proposed that Weazel should +marry his mistress, when he would procure a commission in the +army for him.</p> +<p>Roderick and the wagoner both had a profound contempt for +Weazel, and resolved to put his courage to the test by alarming +the passengers with the cry of “a highwayman” as soon +as a horseman should appear. It was dusk when a man on +horseback approached them. Joey gave the alarm, and a +general consternation arose; Strap leaping out of the wagon and +hiding himself behind a hedge; the usurer exclaiming dolefully +and rustling about in the straw, as though hiding something; Mrs. +Weazel wringing her hands and crying; and the captain pretending +to snore.</p> +<p>This latter artifice did not succeed with Miss Jenny, who +shook him by the shoulder and bawled out: “’Sdeath! +captain, is this a time to snore when we are going to be +robbed? Get up, for shame, and behave like a soldier and +man of honour.”</p> +<p>Weazel pretended to be in a great passion for being disturbed, +and swore he would have his nap out if all the highwaymen in +England surrounded him. “What are you afraid +of?” continued he; at the same time trembling with such +agitation that the whole vehicle shook.</p> +<p>“Plague on your pitiful soul!” exclaimed Miss +Jenny; “you are as arrant a poltroon as was ever drummed +out of a regiment. Stop the wagon, Joey, and if I have +rhetoric enough, the thief shall not only take your purse, but +your skin also.”</p> +<p>By this time the horseman had come up with them, and proved to +be a gentleman’s servant, well known to Joey, who told him +the plot, and desired him to carry it on a little further, by +going up to the wagon and questioning those within. +Accordingly he approached, and in a terrible voice demanded, +“Who have we got here?” Isaac replied, in a +lamentable voice, “Here’s a poor, miserable sinner, +who has got a small family to maintain, and nothing in the world +but these fifteen <a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>shillings, which, if you rob me of, we must all starve +together.”</p> +<p>“Who’s that sobbing in the corner?” +continued the supposed highwayman.</p> +<p>“A poor, unfortunate woman,” answered Mrs. Weazel, +“on whom, I beg you, for Christ’s sake, to have +compassion.”</p> +<p>“Are you maid or wife?” said he.</p> +<p>“Wife, to my sorrow,” said she.</p> +<p>“Who, or what is your husband?” continued he.</p> +<p>“My husband,” continued Mrs. Weazel, “is an +officer in the army, and was left sick at the last inn where we +dined.”</p> +<p>“You must be mistaken, madam,” said he, “for +I myself saw him get into the wagon this afternoon.” +Here he laid hold of one of Weazel’s legs, and pulled him +out from under his wife’s petticoats, where he had +concealed himself. The trembling captain, detected in this +inglorious situation, rubbed his eyes, and affecting to wake out +of sleep, cried, “What’s the matter?”</p> +<p>“What’s the matter? The matter is not +much,” answered the horseman; “I only called in to +inquire after your health, and so adieu, most noble +captain.” So saying, he clapped spurs to his horse, +and was out of sight in a moment.</p> +<p>It was some time before Weazel could recollect himself; but at +length, reassuming his big look, he said, “’Sdeath! +why did he ride away before I had time to ask him how his lord +and his lady do? Don’t you remember Tom, my +dear?” addressing his wife.</p> +<p>“Yes,” replied she; “I think I do remember +something of the fellow; but you know I seldom converse with +people of his station.”</p> +<p>“Hey-day!” cried Joey; “do you know the +young man, coptain?”</p> +<p>“Know him?” cried Weazel; “many a time has +he filled a glass of Burgundy for me at my Lord Trippett’s +table.”</p> +<p>“And what may his neame be, coptain?” said +Joey.</p> +<p><a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>“His name!—his name,” replied Weazel, +“is Tom Rinser.”</p> +<p>“Wounds!” cried Joey, “a has changed his own +neame then! for I’se lay any wager he was christened John +Trotter.”</p> +<p>This raised a laugh against the captain, who seemed very much +disconcerted; when Isaac broke silence and said, “It was no +matter who or what he was, as he had not proved the robber they +suspected. They ought to bless God for their narrow +escape.”</p> +<p>“Bless God!” said Weazel, “for what? +Had he been a highwayman I should have eaten his blood and body +before he had robbed me or any one in this diligence.”</p> +<p>“Ha, ha, ha!” cried Miss Jenny; “I believe +you will eat all you kill, indeed, captain.”</p> +<p>The usurer was so well pleased at the end of this adventure +that he could not refrain from being severe, and took notice that +Captain Weazel seemed to be a good Christian, for he had armed +himself with patience and resignation, instead of carnal weapons, +and worked out his salvation with fear and trembling; whereupon, +amidst much laughter, Weazel threatened to cut the Jew’s +throat. The usurer, taking hold of this menace, +said:—“Gentlemen and ladies, I take you all to +witness, that my life is in danger from this bloody-minded +officer: have him bound over to the peace.” This +second sneer procured another laugh against the captain, who +remained crestfallen for the rest of the journey.</p> +<h2>XXV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> remaining miles to Gateshead +are made up of the shabby village of Low Fell, where the road +begins to rise, and the uninteresting way over the ridge of the +Fell itself. By the word “Fell,” North of +England people describe what Southerners call a hill. The +common land of Gateshead Fell, 675 acres, was enclosed under Acts +of Parliament, 1809, 1822.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page153"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 153</span> +<a href="images/p153.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Modern Newcastle: from Gateshead" +title= +"Modern Newcastle: from Gateshead" + src="images/p153.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page154"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 154</span>Many +were the gibbets erected in the old days on Gateshead Fell. +The last was that on which swung the body of Robert Hazlett, who +on this spot, on the evening of August 6th, 1770, robbed a young +lady, Miss Margaret Benson, who was returning to Newcastle in a +post-chaise from Durham. On the same night a post-boy was +relieved of his bags at the same place. Hazlett was hanged +at Durham, and his body gibbeted here, twenty-five feet +high. For some time afterwards, every day for an hour, an +old man was seen to kneel and pray at the foot of the +gibbet. It was the wretched man’s father! A +beacon was fixed on the Fell in the winter of 1803–4, on an +alarm of invasion; hence this height was afterwards known as +“Beacon Hill.”</p> +<p>The present-day aspect of the road does not hint at anything +so tragical, and is merely commonplace, the last touch of +vulgarity added by the trams that ply along it from +Gateshead.</p> +<p>The place-name of Gateshead seemed to John Ogilby, in his +book, <i>Britannia Depicta</i>, 1676, to require explanation, and +he proceeded to say that it was “alias Gate-Side, seated on +the Banks of the Tine, by the Saxons call’d Gates-heved, +i.e. <i>Caprae Caput</i>, or Goat’s-head, perchance from an +Inn with such a sign.”</p> +<p>But perchance not. While the Saxon name certainly was +Gatesheved, it meant “road’s head,” either in +allusion to the Roman bridge across the river being broken down +and passage being possible only by water, or else referring to +the abruptly-descending land on either side, where the road would +seem to be coming to a sudden end.</p> +<p>Gateshead is to Newcastle what Southwark is to London, and the +Tyne which runs between may be likened in the same way to the +Thames. Comparison from any other point of view is +impossible. Gateshead is nowadays a great deal worse than +it was when Doctor Johnson called it “a dirty lane leading +to Newcastle.” It may be ranked among the half-dozen +dirtiest places on earth, and the lane which the Doctor saw has +sent forth miles of streets as bad as itself, so <a +name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>that the +geographical distribution of filth and squalor has in modern +times become very wide. There are two ways of entering +Newcastle since the High Level Bridge across the Tyne has +supplemented what used to be the old Tyne Bridge, once, and until +fifty years ago, the only way of crossing the river except by +boat. When Stephenson flung his High Level Bridge across +that stream, as yellow, if not as historic, as the Tiber, he +provided a roadway for general traffic beneath the railway, and +the old bridge lost its favour, simply for the reason that to +cross it the steeply descending West Street and Bottle Lane had +to be taken and the just as steeply ascending bank of the river +on the Newcastle side to be climbed; while by the High Level a +flat road was provided. It is true that all traffic, +pedestrian and wheeled, pays a small toll for the privilege, but +it is the lesser of the two evils.</p> +<p>Let those who have no concern with old times take their +easeful way through the gloomy portals of the High Level Bridge, +eighty-five feet above high-water mark. But let us examine +the steep and smelly street, paved with vile granite setts and +strewn with refuse, which conducts to the Tyne Bridge, or the +Swing Bridge as it is nowadays, since the old structure was +removed, the channel of the river deepened, and the wonderful +swinging portion of the remodelled bridge, 281 feet in length, +and swung open or closed by hydraulic power, constructed in +1876. With that work went the last fragments of the Roman +bridge built by Hadrian (<i>Publius Aelius Hadrianus</i>) more +than a thousand years before; a bridge which, indeed, gave the +Roman camp its name of <i>Pons Ælii</i>. His bridge, +long in ruins, was replaced in 1248 by a mediæval structure +which was destroyed by a flood in 1771.</p> +<p>This way came the coaches, climbing into Newcastle up Sandhill +and the Side, whose steep and curving roadway remains to prove +how difficult were the ways of travellers as well as +transgressors in the old times. Old and new jostle +here. The Swing Bridge turns silently on its pivot to the +touch of a lever in its signal <a name="page156"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 156</span>tower, and a force our grandfathers +never knew performs the evolution; but side by side with this +miracle still stand the darkling lanes and steep waterside alleys +of Gateshead and Newcastle that were standing before science and +commerce, mother and daughter, came down upon the Tyne and +transformed it.</p> +<p>A writer in an old-time Northern magazine appears to have been +jolted into a bad humour respecting Newcastle’s precipitous +old approach:—“We have no connection whatever with +the coal-trade, and were never at Newcastle but once, passing +through it on the top of an exceedingly heavy coach, along with +about a score of other travellers. But, should we live a +thousand years, it would not be possible for us to forget that +transit. We wonder what blockhead first built Newcastle; +for before you can get into and out of it, you must descend one +hill and ascend another, about as steep as the sides of a +coal-pit. Had the coach been upset that day, instead of the +night before and the day after, there would have been no end and, +indeed, no beginning, to this magazine. We all clustered as +thickly together on the roof of the vehicle (it was a sort of +macvey, or fly) as the good people of Rome did to see Great +Pompey passing along:—but we, on the contrary, saw nothing +but a lot of gaping inhabitants, who were momentarily expecting +to see us brought low. We remarked one man fastening his +eye upon our legs that were dangling from the roof under an iron +rail, who, we are confident, was a Surgeon. However, we +kept swinging along, from side to side, as if the macvey had been +as drunk as an owl, and none of the passengers, we have reason to +believe, were killed that day—it was a maiden +circuit. But, after all, we love Newcastle, and wish its +coals may burn clear and bright till consumed in the last general +conflagration.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image157" href="images/p157.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old Newcastle: Showing the now Demolished Town Bridge" +title= +"Old Newcastle: Showing the now Demolished Town Bridge" + src="images/p157.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>High over head goes the High Level, and the smoke and rumble +of its trains mingle with the clash of Newcastle’s thousand +anvils and the reek of her million chimneys; but there still +stands against the sky-line—most fittingly seen from the +Gateshead <a name="page159"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +159</span>bank at eventide, when petty details are lost and only +broad effects remain—the coroneted steeple of St. Nicholas +and the great black form of the Norman keep, reminding the +contemplative that Monkchester was the name of the city before +the Conqueror came and built that fortress whose fame as the +“New Castle” has remained to this day to give a title +to the place, just as the “new work” at Newark has +ever since stood sponsor for that town. Again, no sooner +have you crossed the Swing Bridge and come to Quayside than other +vestiges of old Newcastle are encountered, in the remains of the +Castle wall and the steps that lead upwards to Castle Garth, +where shoemakers and cobblers of footgear of the most waterside +and unfashionable character still blink and cobble in their +half-underground dens, the descendants, probably, of those whom a +French traveller remarked here in the time of Charles the +Second. If, instead of climbing these stairs, the traveller +elects to follow the track of the coaches, he will traverse +Sandhill, which in very early days was an open space by the +river, but has for centuries past been a street. It was at +Sandgate close by, according to the ballad, that the lassie was +heard to sing the well-known refrain of “Weel may the keel +row, the boat that my love’s in,” and indeed it is a +district that breathes romance, commonplace though its modern +offices may look. Does not the Moot Hall look down upon +Sandhill? “Many a heart has broken inside those +walls,” said a passer-by, with unwonted picturesqueness, to +the present writer, gazing at that hall of justice.</p> +<p>There is a pretty flavour of romance—compact, it is +true, of the most unpromising materials, like the voluptuous +scents which modern science extracts from coal-tar—still +clinging to Sandhill. Just where a group of curious old +houses, very old, very tall, and nearly all windows, remains, the +explorer will perceive a memorial tablet let into one of the +frontages, setting forth that “From one of the windows of +this house, now marked with a blue pane of glass, Bessie Surtees +<a name="page160"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 160</span>eloped +with John Scott, afterwards Lord Chancellor Eldon, November 18th, +1772.” John Scott was twenty-one years of age at the +time, and was at home on vacation from Oxford. His father, +a successful coal-fitter, had sent him, as he had already done +his elder brother, William, afterwards Lord Stowell, to the +University. He had already gained a fellowship there, which +he forfeited on his elopement with, and marriage to, his +Bessie. She descended from her casement by the aid of a +ladder hidden by an accomplice in the shop below, and they were +over the Border and wedded by the blacksmith at Blackshields +before any one could pursue. Bessie’s relatives were +bitterly opposed to the match, and so, nearly without resources, +the pair had to resort to London and live frugally in Cursitor +Street while he studied hard at law, instead of, as originally +intended, for the Church. His first year’s earnings +scarce amounted to enough to live on. “Many a +time,” said he in after years, “have I run down from +Cursitor Street to Fleet Market, to buy sixpennyworth of sprats +for our supper.” The turning-point in his career +occurred in a case in which he insisted on a legal point against +the wishes of his clients. The case was decided against +him, but was reversed on appeal on the point he had +contested. From that time continued success awaited him, +and he eventually became Lord Chancellor. The clashing +Romeo of an earlier day became, however, a very different person +in after years. Much poring over parchments and +long-continued professional strife took all the generous +enthusiasm out of him, and by ways not the most scrupulous he +amassed one of the greatest fortunes ever scraped together by a +successful lawyer. Bessie, meanwhile, had become quite as +much of a handful as she had been an armful.</p> +<p>Romance wanes. As Conservators of the Tyne, the +Corporation of Newcastle have, for the last four centuries, +proclaimed their authority by once in every five years going in +procession on the river, in various craft. It was on these +occasions the acknowledged <a name="page161"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 161</span>custom that, on returning and +landing, the Mayor should choose the prettiest girl in the crowds +of spectators and publicly salute her with a civic kiss. In +acknowledgment of this favour his Worship presented her with a +new sovereign. But the procession of “Barge +Day,” as it was called, was discontinued after May 16th, +1901, and is not likely to be revived.</p> +<p>From Sandhill the coaches journeyed along the Side, which +remains as steep and almost as picturesque as ever, even if not +rendered additionally curious by the gigantic railway arch that +spans it and clears the roofs of its tallest houses. The +last mail-coach left Newcastle for Berwick and Edinburgh, with +the Union Jack flying at half-mast, on July 5, 1847, and those +days are so thoroughly done with that none of Newcastle’s +coaching inns are left. Indeed, the whole character of the +place has changed since little over a century and a half ago, +when John Wesley entered the opinion in his diary that it was a +“lovely place and lovely company,” and, furthermore, +said that “if he were not journeying in hope of a better +world, here he would be content to live and die.” +Coal had even then been shipped for centuries from Newcastle, but +miles of manufactories had not yet arisen upon the banks of +“coaly Tyne,” and so unprogressive was the town that +it was still, with gardens and orchards, easily comprised within +its mediæval walls; those walls which had many a time +withstood the Scots, and even when Wesley was here in 1745 were +being prepared to resist the Pretender.</p> +<p>Newcastle—difficult as it may now be to realise the +fact—was then a very small town, and was governed +accordingly. Primitive punishments as well as primitive +government survived until a hundred and fifty years ago, when +scolds still wore bridles or were ducked, and when local tipplers +yet perambulated the streets in the drunkard’s cloak, an +ingenious instrument of little ease which now reposes in the +Museum.</p> +<p>Far beyond the ancient walls now extend the streets of the +modern city; Grey Street chief among them, <a +name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 162</span>classically +gloomy and extra-classically grimed to the blackness of Erebus; a +heavy Ionic pillar at its northern end bearing aloft the statue +of Earl Grey, the Prime Minister who secured the passing of the +first Reform Bill in 1832.</p> +<p>Away from the chief business streets, many of the curious old +thoroughfares may be sought, but they are nowadays the +receptacles of inconceivable dirt, and anything but +desirable. The narrow streets called “chares” +answer to the “wynds” of Edinburgh and the +“rows” of Yarmouth. Their name has been the +subject of jokes innumerable, and misunderstandings not a few; +as, when a judge, previously unacquainted with Newcastle, holding +an assize here, heard a witness say that he saw “three men +come out of the foot of a chare,” and ordered him out of +the witness-box, thinking him insane, until the jury of Newcastle +men explained matters.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p162.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"“The Drunkard’s Cloak”" +title= +"“The Drunkard’s Cloak”" + src="images/p162.jpg" /> +</a>Despite its smoke and untidiness, the folks of this grimy +Tyneside city have a good conceit of it. To them it is +“canny Newcastle,” an epithet whose meaning differs +from the Scotch, and here means “fine,” or +“neat.” The stranger who fails to find those +qualities, who perceives instead the defects of dirt and a pall +of smoke that blackens everything to an inky hue, and accordingly +thanks Providence that his home is elsewhere, is to the +Tynesiders a Goth.</p> +<p>For Newcastle is practical. It has its great newspapers, +and has produced literary men of note; but the forging of iron +and steel, the shrinking of steel jackets upon big guns, the +making of ships and all kinds of munitions of war appeal +principally to the Novocastrian who may by chance have no +especial love of that coaling trade which is pre-eminently and <a +name="page163"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +163</span>historically his. It is therefore quite +characteristic of Newcastle folks that, in the mid-century, a +literary man, since become famous, was as a boy solemnly warned +by a townsman against such a career as he was +contemplating. “Ah’m sorry,” said he, +“to hear that ye want to go to London, and to take to this +writing in the papers. It’ll bring ye to no good, my +boy. I mind there was a very decent friend of mine, auld +Mr. Forster, the butcher in the Side. He had a laddie just +like you; and nothing would sarve him but he must go away to +London to get eddicated, as he called it; and when he had got +eddicated, he wouldn’t come back to his father’s +shop, though it was a first-class business. He would do +nothing but write, and write, and write; and at last he went back +again to London, and left his poor old father all alone; and +ah’ve never heard tell of that laddie since!”</p> +<p>Of course he had not. What rumours of literary life in +London could then have penetrated to the shores of the +“coaly Tyne.” That laddie, however, was John +Forster, the biographer of Dickens.</p> +<p>These practical men of Newcastle have achieved the most +wonderful things. The home of the Stephensons was at Wylam, +only nine miles away, and so the town can fairly claim the +inventor of railways among its natives. We need not linger +to discuss the wonders of the locomotive; they are sufficiently +evident. Newcastle men have even changed the character of +their river. There are still those who can recollect the +Tyne as a shallow stream in which the laden “keels,” +heaped up with coal, not infrequently grounded. Nowadays +the largest war-vessels are built up-stream, at Elswick, and take +their stately way to the sea with their heavy armaments, and no +mishap occurs. Clanging arsenals and factories line the +banks for many more miles than the historian, anxious for his +reputation, dare mention. The Armstrong works alone are +over a mile long, and employ some sixteen thousand hands. +Lord Armstrong himself was the inventor of hydraulic machinery; +and the Swan <a name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +164</span>incandescent electric lamp, which bears the name of its +inventor, was the work of a Newcastle man. Others of whom +England is proud were born here, notably Admiral Lord +Collingwood. To their practicality these men of Newcastle +add sentiment, for they have carefully placed tablets on the +houses where their celebrated men were born, and they have not +only erected a monument to Stephenson, but have also placed one +of his first engines—“Puffing Billy”—on a +pedestal beside the High Level Bridge, where the huge modern +expresses roar past the quaint relic, day and night, in startling +contrast. Also, they one and all have the most +astonishingly keen affection for their old parish church of St. +Nicholas, in these latter days become a cathedral.</p> +<p>If you would touch a Novocastrian on his most sensitive spot, +praise or criticise the cathedral church of St. Nicholas, and he +will plume himself or lose his temper, as the case may be. +That building, and especially its tower, with the wonderful stone +crown supported on ribbed arches and set about with its cluster +of thirteen pinnacles, is the apple of Newcastle’s +eye. It figures as a stock decorative heading in the +Newcastle papers, and does duty in a hundred other ways. +Built toward the close of the sixteenth century, that fairy-like +corona has had its escapes, as when, during the stubborn defence +in 1644, under the Royalist Sir John Marley, the Scottish +general, Alexander Leslie, Lord Leven, commanding the besieging +forces, threatened to batter it down with his cannon if the town +were not at once surrendered. To this Sir John Marley made +the very practical reply of causing all his Scottish prisoners to +be placed in the tower, and sent word to the besiegers that they +might, if they would, destroy it, but that their friends should +perish at the same time. The “Thief and Reiver” +bell, a relic of old times when the outlaws of Northumberland +were given short shrift wherever and whenever found, is still +rung before the opening of the annual fair, and recalls the old +custom of giving those <a name="page166"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 166</span>gentry immunity from arrest during +fair-time; but it would probably not be safe for any one +“wanted” by the police to rely upon this sentimental +survival.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image165" href="images/p165.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Puffing Billy”" +title= +"“Puffing Billy”" + src="images/p165.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> fully a mile and a half on +leaving Newcastle the road runs over the Town Moor, a once wild +waste of common, and even now a bleak and forbidding open space +whose horizon on every side commands the gaunt Northumbrian +hills, or is hidden with the reek of Newcastle town, or the +collieries that render the way sordid and ugly. +Newcastle’s lovely pleasance, Jesmond Dene, is hidden away +to the right from the traveller along the road, who progresses +through Bulman’s Village (now dignified with the new name +of Gosforth), Salter’s Lane, Wide Open and Seaton Burn with +sinking heart, appalled at the increasing wretchedness and +desolation brought by the coal-mining industry upon the +scene. Off to the right lies Killingworth, among the +collieries, where George Stephenson began his career in humble +fashion. His cottage stands there to this day. At the +gates of Blagdon Park, eight miles from Newcastle, where the +white bulls of the Ridleys guard the entrance in somewhat +spectral fashion, the surroundings improve. Here the +Ridleys have been seated for centuries, and from their wooded +domain watched the belching smoke of the pits they own, which +year by year and generation by generation have added to their +wealth. Lord Ridley is now the representative of these +owners of mineral wealth, and lord of Blagdon. Midway of +the long park wall that borders the road on the way to Morpeth +stand the modern lodge and gates, erected in 1887; with that +relic of old Newcastle, the Kale Cross, just within the grounds +and easily seen from the highway. The building is not so +much a cross as a market-house, and is just a classical pavilion +in the <a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>Doric style, open on all sides to the weather. It +stood, until the middle of the eighteenth century, upon the Side +at Newcastle, and marked the centre of the market then held +there. The townsfolk presented it to the Matthew White +Ridley of the period, and here in lovelier surroundings than it +knew originally, it stands, the wreathed urns and couchant lion +on its roof contrasting finely with a dense background of +foliage.</p> +<p>Beyond the park, the road crosses the Black Dene, whence +Blagdon derives its name; one of those ravines that now begin to +be a feature of the way. This expands on the right hand +into Hartford Dene, to which Newcastle picnic-parties come in +summer-time for brief respite from the smoke and clangour of +their unlovely town. Thence, through Stannington, Clifton, +and Catchburn, and to the long and tortuous descent into Morpeth, +lying secluded in the gorge of the Wansbeck.</p> +<p>Morpeth is little changed since coaching times, but the one +very noticeable alteration shows by what utter barbarians the +town was inhabited towards the close of that era. Entering +it, the turbulent Wansbeck is crossed by a stone bridge, built in +1830, to provide <a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>better accommodation for the increased traffic than the +ancient one, a few yards up stream, afforded. For some five +years longer the old building was suffered to remain, and then, +with the exception of its piers, it was demolished. No one +benefited by its destruction, it stood in no one’s way, and +its utility was such that a footbridge, a graceless thing of iron +and scantling, has been erected across those ancient piers, to +continue the access still required at this point from one bank to +the other. It was to our old friends the monks that +travellers were beholden for that ancient Gothic bridge, and +their old toll-house still remains, after having passed through a +varied career as a chapel, a school, and a fire-engine +house. Turner’s view shows the road over the bridge, +looking south; with the castle gate-house on the hill-top, a +great deal nearer than it actually is. This, the sole relic +of that old stronghold, has in later years been restored until it +looks almost as new as the would-be Gothic of the gaol, which +stands beside the modern bridge on entering the town and deludes +the more ignorant into a belief of its genuine antiquity. +At Morpeth, until the assizes were removed to Newcastle, justice +was dispensed in this sham mediæval castle, built in 1821, +and now, all too vast for present needs, used as a +police-station. The old town gaol, at the other end of the +town, facing the market-place, is much more interesting. +Built in the likeness of a church tower, curfew is still rung +from its belfry, beneath the queer little figures on the +roof. Market-day brings crowds of drovers and endless +droves of sheep and cattle to this spot, to say nothing of the +pigs, singularly plentiful in these parts. +“He’s driving his swine to Morpeth market,” is +an expression still used of a snoring man in the +neighbourhood. Always excepting market-day, Morpeth is now +a curiously quiet and dreamy town. The stress of ancient +times has left its few relics in the mouldering remains of strong +and defensible walls, and in certain proverbs and sayings +reflecting discreditably upon the Scottish people, but the +seventeenth and eighteenth centuries <a name="page171"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 171</span>are more evident in its streets than +previous eras. To those centuries belong the many old inns +with signs for the most part redolent of the coaching age: the +“Nag’s Head,” the “Grey Nag’s +Head,” the “Queen’s Head,” +“Turk’s Head,” and “Black Bull”; +this last with an odd semi-circular front and a beautiful +coach-entrance displaying some fine Adam decoration.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image169" href="images/p169.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Morpeth" +title= +"Morpeth" + src="images/p169.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>That Morpeth folk still cherish old anti-Scottish sayings is +not at all remarkable; for old manners, old sayings, and ancient +hatreds die slowly in such places as this, and moreover, the +Morpeth of old suffered terribly from Scottish raiders. +Later times saw a more peaceful irruption, when Scottish youths +came afoot down the great road in quest of fame and fortune in +the south. People looked askance upon them as Scots, while +innkeepers hated them for their poverty and their +canniness. Those licensed victuallers thought, with Dr. +Johnson, who did not greatly like them either, that “the +finest prospect for a Scotchman was the high road that led him +into England.” This bitter satire, by the way, was in +reply to a Mr. Ogilvie, who had been contending on behalf of the +“great many noble wild prospects” which Scotland +contained. Smollett, in his <i>Humphry Clinker</i>, shows +how greatly the Scots were misliked along this route about +1766. He says that, from Doncaster northwards, all the +windows of all the inns were scrawled with doggerel rhymes in +abuse of the Scottish nation. This fact was pointed out to +that fine Scottish character, Lismahago, and with it a +particularly scurrilous epigram. He read it with some +difficulty, the glass being dirty, and with the most starched +composure.</p> +<p>“Vara terse and vara poignant,” said he; +“but with the help of a wat dishclout it might be rendered +more clear and parspicuous.”</p> +<p>The country between Morpeth and Alnwick is dotted with +peel-towers and their ruins, built in the wild old times when the +ancestors of these peaceful Scots came in quest of spoil, laying +waste the Borders far and wide. One had but to turn aside +from the road at Warrener’s <a name="page172"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 172</span>House, two miles beyond Morpeth, and +thence proceed eastward for a further two, for ten castles to be +seen at once from the vantage-point of Cockle Park Tower, itself +a fine relic of a fortress belonging in the fifteenth century to +the Ogles, situated now on a farm called by the hideous name of +Blubberymires.</p> +<p>The peculiar appropriateness of Morpeth’s name, meaning +as it does “moor-path,” is fully realised when coming +up the road, up the well-named High Highlaws to where the road to +Cockle Park Tower branches off, and where an old toll-house +stands, with “Warrener’s House,” a deserted +red-brick mansion, opposite. It is quite worth while to ask +any passing countryman the name of that house, for then the +“Northumbrian burr” will be heard in all its +richness. As De Foe remarked, two hundred years ago, +Northumbrians have “a Shibboleth upon their Tongues, +namely, a difficulty in pronouncing the letter R,” and in +their mouths, consequently, the name becomes, grotesquely enough, +“Wawwener.”</p> +<p>Causey Park Bridge, over a little rivulet, a ruined windmill, +and the remains of Causey Park Tower are the next features of the +way before reaching a rise where an old road goes scaling a +hillside to the right hand, surmounted by a farm picturesquely +named “Helm-on-the-Hill.” Thence downhill on to +Bockenfield Moor, and then precipitously down again through West +Thirston and across the picturesque bridge that spans the lovely +Coquet, into Felton: villages bordering either bank of the river, +where the angler finds excellent sport, and where the rash +cyclist, regardless of the danger-boards erected for his guidance +on the hill-tops, tries involuntary conclusions with the +aforesaid bridge at the bottom. A mile onward, up the +rising road, is the park of Swarland Hall, with +“Nelson’s Monument,” a time-stained obelisk, +seen amid the trees within the park fence, and showing against +the sky-line as the traveller approaches the moorland height of +Rushy Cap. Alexander Davison, squire of Swarland Hall and +friend of the Admiral, erected it, “not to commemorate the +<a name="page174"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 174</span>public +virtue and heroic achievements of Nelson, which is the duty of +England, but to the memory of private friendship.” +Occupying so prominent a position by the roadside, it was +probably intended to edify the coach-passengers of old. So +to Newton-on-the-Moor—which might more fitly be named +Newton-on-the-Hill—with its half a dozen cottages and its +coal-pits, and thence by a featureless but not unpleasing road +into Alnwick.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image173" href="images/p173.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Market-Place, Morpeth" +title= +"The Market-Place, Morpeth" + src="images/p173.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p174.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Felton Bridge" +title= +"Felton Bridge" + src="images/p174.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It is something of a shock to the sentimental pilgrim, +northward-bound, that the entrance to historic Alnwick should be +by the gas-works, the railway station, the Farmers’ Folly +(of which more shall presently be said), and other unmistakable +and unromantic evidences of modernity that spread beyond the +ancient confines of the town to form the suburb of Bondgate +Without; but man cannot live by medievalism alone. The town +<a name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>itself +is gained at that point where the heavy blackened mass of +Bondgate itself spans the road, just beyond the elaborately +rebuilt “Old Plough,” still exhibiting, however, the +curious tablet from the old house:—</p> +<blockquote><p>That which your Father old hath purchased and +left<br /> +You to possess, do you dearly<br /> +Hold to show his worthiness. 1714.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image175" href="images/p175.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Alnwick" +title= +"Alnwick" + src="images/p175.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXVII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Alnwick</span> is a town with a great past +and a somnolent present. There are yawns at every turn, +echoes with every footfall, and grass growing unbidden in the +streets. But there are forces of elemental power at +Alnwick, little though the stranger suspects them. There +have of late years been periods of storm and stress in the +columns of the <i>Alnwick Gazette</i>, for instance, respecting +the local water-supply, which have drawn forth inappropriately +fiery letters from correspondents, together with many mixed +metaphors. How is this for impassioned +writing?—“The retributive forces of well-balanced +justice have, after a dead ebb, returned with a swelling tide, +and overtaken the arrogative policy of the +freeholders.” But this is nothing to the following +striking figure of “the arm of scandalous jobbery steeped +to the lips in perfidious dishonour;” a delightful literary +image unsurpassed in Ireland itself; or “another hydra of +expense arising phoenix-like from the ashes of +misgovernment.” Did the word “hydrant,” +we wonder, suggest this last period? Is the dulness of +Alnwick due to the decay following the corruption hinted +at? Perhaps, for, as this publicist next inquires, +“How could anything symbolical of greatness, wrapped with +ropes of sand, ever and for aye, flourish like the green +bay-tree?” Ah! how? It is a difficult question +to answer, and so we will leave the question at that.</p> +<p>Alnwick, of course, derives its name from its situation on the +romantic Aln: the “wick,” or village on that <a +name="page178"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +178</span>river. The name is kin to that of many other +“wicks,” “weeks,” and “wykes” +in England, and has its fellows in such places as High Wycombe; +Wykeham (now spelt Wickham) in Hampshire, whence came William of +Wykeham; the village of Week, near Winchester; and in the town +named simply Wick, in the north of Scotland. Alnwick in +these times is a place of a certain grim and lowering +picturesqueness. Its grey stone houses are at one with the +greyness of the Northumbrian skies, and a general air of barren +stoniness impresses the traveller as its chief feature. It +is an effect of prisons and jailers which reaches its height in +the open space that fronts the barbican of the castle. You +look, instinctively, for His Majesty’s prison regulations +on the outer walls, and, approaching the gate, expect a +warder’s figure at the wicket.</p> +<p>This is no uncongenial aspect of that old fortress. It +is rather in the Italian drawing-rooms, the picture-galleries, +and the Renaissance luxuries of the interior of the castle that +the jarring note is struck and all association with feudal times +forgotten. Many a Border moss-trooper has unwillingly +passed through this grim barbican, and so left the world for +ever; and many more of higher estate have found this old +stronghold of the Percies a place of lifelong durance, or have in +its dungeons met a secret end. For chivalry was not +inconsistent with midnight murder or treachery, and the Percies, +centred in their fortress like spiders in their webs, had all the +virtues and the vices of chivalric times. Ambitious and +powerful, they were alike a bulwark against the Scots and a +menace to successive kings of England, and none in those olden +times could have approached their castle gate with the equable +pulsation of the modern tourist. In those times, instead of +finding a broad level open space here, a deep ditch would have +been seen and a drawbridge must have been lowered before access +was possible. Then possibly the stone figures in violent +attitudes that line the battlements, and seem to be casting +missiles down upon the heads of visitors, may have been <a +name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>alarming; +to-day we only wonder if they could ever have tricked even the +most bat-eyed warrior into a belief that they were really living +men-at-arms.</p> +<p>The Percies, whose name attaches more than any other to +Alnwick, were, strictly speaking, never its owners. The +first of that name came over to England with the Conqueror in the +person of William de Percy, a younger son of the feudal lord of +the village of Percie in Normandy, which still exists to point +out to the curious tourist the spot whence this historic family +sprang. This William de Percy was nicknamed “Als +Gernons,” or “Whiskers,” whence derives the +name of Algernon, even now a favourite one with the +Smithson-Percies. “Whiskers” was present at the +battle of Hastings, and for his aid was granted manors in +Hampshire, Lincolnshire, and York, but none in +Northumberland. He died in 1086, when with the Crusaders, +near Jerusalem. The Percies never became connected in any +way with Alnwick, for the family of this William de Percy became +extinct in 1166, when Agnes, an only child of his descendant, +married Josceline de Lovaine; and it was not until 1309 that the +descendant of this Lovaine, who had assumed the Percy name, came +into wrongful possession of the vast estates. Alnwick and +sixty other baronies in Northumberland had until then been in +possession of the de Vescis, of whom Yvo de Vesci was the +original Norman owner. His descendant, William de Vesci, +who died in 1297, was the last of his line, and appears to have +been of a peculiarly trusting disposition. He put a great +(and an unfounded) faith in the honesty of churchmen, leaving all +his estates to Anthony Bek, Prince-Bishop of Durham, in trust for +an infant illegitimate son, until he should come of age. +But Bek picked a quarrel with his ward, and in 1309 sold the +lands to Henry Percy, who thus became the first Baron Percy of +Alnwick.</p> +<p>But let us not do an injustice to the Church. +Prince-Bishops were kittle cattle, an amorphous kind of +creature. Perhaps his lay half impelled Bek to this <a +name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>knavery, +and, following the Scriptural injunction not to let the right +hand know what is done by the left, his clerical moiety remained +in ignorance of the crime. Heaven be praised, there are no +longer any of these Jekyll and Hyde creatures, for the +Bishops-Palatine of Durham were abolished two generations or more +since.</p> +<p>There were, in the fulness of time, three Barons Percy of +Alnwick, and then the Barony was erected into the Earldom of +Northumberland. The axe and the sword took heavy toll of +this new line, for the Earls of Northumberland seldom died in +their beds, and father and son often followed one another in a +bloody death, until at length they became extinct with the death +of the eleventh and last Earl of Northumberland. Of these +eleven, only seven died a natural death. There were Percies +who fell in battle; others who, rightly or wrongly, met the death +of traitors; one was torn to pieces by a mob; and another was +obscurely done to death in prison. Nor did only the heads +of the family end violently; their sons and other relations led +lives as turbulent, and finished as suddenly.</p> +<p>The only child of the eleventh Earl of Northumberland was a +daughter, Elizabeth Percy. She married firstly the Earl of +Ogle; secondly, Thomas Thynne of Longleat, who was murdered in +Pall Mall in 1682 by Count Koningsmarck; and thirdly, the sixth +Duke of Somerset; thus bringing the Percy estates into the +Seymour family, and the Percy red hair as well.</p> +<p>It was of red-haired Elizabeth Percy, when Duchess of +Somerset, that Dean Swift wrote the bitter and diabolically +clever lines that are supposed to have lost him all chance of +becoming a bishop. He wrote of her as +“Carrots”:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Beware of carrots from Northumberland,<br /> +Carrots sown <i>Thynne</i> a deep root may get,<br /> +If so be they are in Sumer set;<br /> +Their <i>cunnings mark</i> thou; for I have been told<br /> +They assassin when young and poison when old.<br /> +Root out those carrots, O thou whose name<br /> +Is backwards and forwards always the same.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The one whose name was backwards and forwards alike <a +name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>was Queen +Anne, for Swift’s purpose “Anna.” It will +be noticed that Swift not very obscurely hints that Elizabeth +Percy connived at murder.</p> +<p>Her eldest son, the seventh Duke of Somerset, had, curiously +enough, only one child, a daughter. She married “the +handsomest man of his time,” Sir Hugh Smithson, in 1740, +and thus the property came into the hands of the present +holders.</p> +<p>This most fortunate, as well as most handsome, fellow was Sir +Hugh Smithson, one of a family of Yorkshire squires whose +ancestor gained a baronetcy, created 1660, for his services to +the Stuarts. Sir Hugh, horn 1714, a son of Langdale +Smithson, and grandson of another Sir Hugh, the third baronet, +had little early prospect of much position in life. He was +a younger son, and, like many another such, he went into +trade. He was an apothecary. Having succeeded as +fourth baronet to position and wealth, and with what he had made +in commerce, the “handsomest man” made this very +handsome marriage. He had the aristocratic instinct, and, +discarding his old name, took that of Percy, to which, of course, +he had no sort of right.</p> +<p>For him in 1749 was revived the old title, Earl of +Northumberland, together with that of Baron Warkworth. In +1766 he became further, Duke of Northumberland and Earl Percy, +and died 1786.</p> +<p>The name of Percy is one to conjure with. The Lovaines, +who had assumed it, made it famous in the annals of chivalry, +with a thousand deeds of derring-do in the debateable +lands. Smithson, too, is a good name. It at least +tells of descent from an honest craftsman, and Sir Hugh’s +knighted ancestor had, obviously, done nothing to be ashamed +of. Unfortunately for Sir Hugh and his successors, this +unwarranted assumption of an historic name took place so well +within the historic period that it is never likely to be +forgotten. George the Third, who also had the instinct of +aristocracy, kept the fact well in mind, and when, sorely against +his will, he was obliged <a name="page182"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 182</span>to confer the Dukedom of +Northumberland upon this ex-apothecary, consoled himself by +vowing that he should never obtain the Order of the Garter. +The duke personally solicited a blue ribbon from the king, and +observed that he was “the first Percy who has been refused +the Garter.” “You forget,” replied his +Majesty, “that you are the first Smithson who has ever +asked for it.”</p> +<p>The huge and historic stronghold of Alnwick had by this time +become ruinous, and the Smithson duke was for a while uncertain +whether to reside here or at Warkworth. Alnwick, however, +found favour with him, and he set to work to render it a place +worthy of one of his quality. To this end he wrought havoc +with the feudal antiquities of the castle, pulling down the +ancient chapel and several of the towers, filling up the moats, +plastering the walls and ceilings, enlarging arrow-slits into +great windows, and playing the very devil with the place. +The military history of the castle, as expressed in the +picturesque irregularity of successive alterations and additions +during many centuries, was swept away by his zeal for uniformity, +and the interior rooms were remodelled in the taste of that age, +to serve for a residence, to such an extent that only the outer +walls retained even the appearance of a castle. When +Pennant wrote of it in 1767, he said:—“You look in +vain for any marks of the grandeur of the feudal age; for +trophies won by a family eminent in our annals for military +prowess and deeds of chivalry; for halls hung with helms and +hauberks” (good alliteration, that! but rash for Cockney +repetition), “or with the spoils of the chase; for +extensive forests or for venerable oaks. The apartments are +large, and lately finished with a most incompatible +elegance. The gardens are equally inconsistent, trim in the +highest degree, and more adapted to a villa near London than to +the ancient seat of a great baron.” It was to this +criticism of “trimness” that Bishop Percy +objected. Discussing Pennant with Dr. Johnson, he could not +sit quietly and hear him praise a man who had spoken so <a +name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>disrespectfully of Alnwick Castle and the Duke’s +pleasure-grounds, and he eagerly opposed the Doctor, evidently +with some heat, for Johnson said, “He has done what he +intended; he has made you very angry.” To which the +Bishop replied, “He has said the garden is trim, which is +representing it like a citizen’s parterre, when the truth +is, there is a very large extent of fine turf and gravel +walks.”</p> +<p>“According to your own account, sir,” rejoined +Johnson, “Pennant is right. It is trim. Here is +grass cut close and gravel rolled smooth. Is not that +trim? The extent is nothing against that; a mile may be as +trim as a square yard.” The Bishop was +vanquished.</p> +<p>All the sham Gothic alterations made at a huge outlay by the +first Duke (with the exception of one room, which remains to show +how atrocious his style was) were swept away by Algernon, the +fourth Duke, about 1855, and at a still greater cost replaced +internally with an interminable series of salons in the Italian +style. Externally, the castle is a mediæval fortress; +internally it is an Italian palace. These works cost over +£300,000, and serve to show the measure of ducal +folly. Make a man a duke and give him an income +commensurate, and he goes mad and builds and rebuilds, burying +himself in masonry like a maggot in a cheese. But it is +good for trade; and perhaps that is why Providence allows a duke +to be created now and then.</p> +<p>This magnificence for a long time created its own Nemesis, and +the Dukes of Northumberland, in their gigantic castle, were worse +off in one respect than a clerk in London suburbs in a +six-roomed, nine-inch walled, jerry-built “villa” at +£30 a year. They could never get a hot dinner! +The kitchen is large enough, and the fireplace so huge that the +fire cannot be made up without shovelling on a ton of coals; but +the dining-room is so far away, and the communication was so bad +(involving going across courtyards open to the sky) that +everything was cold before it reached table. This has been +remedied, and my lords dukes now have <a name="page184"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 184</span>their food sent to them along rails +on trolleys—just as they feed the beasts at the Zoo.</p> +<p>The Dukes of Northumberland are well titled. They are +autocrats in that county, owning as they do 181,616 of its acres, +and drawing a rental of £161,874. Some of them have +been insufferably egotistical. The “Brislec” +Tower, built on the neighbouring height of Brislaw by the first +Duke, is evidence sufficient to prove that. It is a +monument by himself to his own doings, and invites the pilgrim, +in a long bombastical inscription, to “Look around, +behold,” and marvel at the plantations with which he caused +the bare hillsides to be covered.</p> +<p>But the most prominent memorial in Alnwick is the well-named +“Farmers’ Folly,” erected to the second Duke in +1816. Entering or leaving the town, it is a most striking +object: a pillar 85 feet in height with the Percy lion on its +summit. What did the second Duke do to deserve this? +Did he serve his country in war? Was he a statesman? +Was he benevolent to the tenants who erected it? Not at +all. Here is the story.</p> +<p>When the nineteenth century dawned we were at war with France, +and wheat and all kinds of produce were at enormously enhanced +prices. The farmers, therefore, began to do very +well. Their banking-accounts swelled, and some of them were +on the way to realise small fortunes. The Duke saw this and +sorrowed because they found it possible to do more than exist, +and accordingly he added to their rents, doubling in almost every +instance—and in many others quadrupling—them. +But when the country entered on the long peace that followed +Waterloo, and prices fell enormously, the unfortunate farmers +found it impossible to pay their way under these added +burdens. Mark the ducal generosity! As they could not +pay, he reduced the rents by twenty-five per cent.! Like a +draper at his annual sale, he effected a “great +reduction,” an “alarming sacrifice,” by taking +off a percentage of what he had already imposed. How <a +name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +186</span>noble! Then the tenants, the grateful fellows, +subscribed to build the column, which is inscribed: “To +Hugh, Duke of Northumberland, by a grateful and united +tenantry.” Having done this, they went into +bankruptcy and the workhouse, or emigrated, or just gave up their +farms because they could not carry on any longer. The money +they had subscribed did not suffice to complete this testimonial +to Duke Hugh’s benevolence, and so—a comic opera +touch—he subscribed the rest, and finished it +himself. What humorists these Smithsons are!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image185" href="images/p185.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Alnwick Castle, from the Road to Belford" +title= +"Alnwick Castle, from the Road to Belford" + src="images/p185.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXVIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> road, leaving Alnwick, plunges +down from the castle barbican to the black hollow in which the +Aln flows, overhung with interlacing and over-arching +trees. The river is crossed here by that bridge shown in +Turner’s picture, the “Lion Bridge” as it is +called, from the Percy lion, “with tail stretched out as +straight as a broom-handle,” standing on the parapet and +looking with steadfast gaze to the North. It is an addition +since Turner’s picture was painted, and an effective one, +too. Also, since that time, the trees have encroached and +enshrouded the scene most completely; so that the only +satisfactory view is that looking backwards when one has emerged +from the black dell. And a most satisfactory view it is, +with the i’s and t’s of romance dotted and crossed so +emphatically that it looks like some theatrical scene, or the +optically realised home of the wicked hero of one of +Grimm’s fairy tales. If this were not the beginning +of the twentieth century, one might well think twice before +venturing down into the inky depths of that over-shaded road; but +these are matter-of-fact times, and we know well that only the +humdrum burgesses of Alnwick, in their shops, are beyond; with, +instead of a mediæval duke in the castle, who would think +<a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 187</span>nothing +of hanging a stray wayfarer or so from his battlements, only a +very modern peer.</p> +<p>The road onwards is a weariness and an infliction to the +cyclist, for it goes on in a heavy three miles’ continuous +rise up to the summit of Heiferlaw Bank, whence there is a wide +and windy view of uncomfortable looking moorlands to the north, +with the craggy Cheviots, perhaps covered with snow, to the +north-west. As a literary lady—Mrs. +Montagu—wrote in 1789, when on a northern journey, +“These moors are not totally uninhabited, but they look +unblest.” How true!</p> +<p>The proper antidote to this is the looking back to where, deep +down in the vale of Aln, lie town and castle, perhaps lapt in +infrequent sunshine, more probably seen through rain, but, in any +case, presenting a picture of sheltered content, and seeming to +be protected from the rude buffets of the weather by the hill on +which we are progressing and by the wooded flanks of Brislaw on +the other side. “Seeming,” because those who +know Alnwick well could tell a different tale of wintry blasts +and inclement seasons that belie the hint of this hillside +prospect for three whole quarters round the calendar and a good +proportion of the fourth. In this lies a suggestion of why +the Percies were so warlike. They and their northern foes +fought to keep themselves warm! Nowadays such courses would +lead to the police-court, and so football has become a +highly-popular game in these latitudes. But the southward +glimpse of Alnwick and its surroundings from the long rise of +Heiferlaw Bank is, when sunshine prevails, of a quite +incommunicable charm. The background of hills, covered with +Duke Hugh’s woods and crowned with his tower, recalls in +its rich masses of verdure the landscapes of De Wint, and if in +the Duke’s inscription on that tower he seems to rank +himself in fellowship with the Creator, certainly, now he has +been dead and gone these hundred and twenty years, his saplings, +grown into forest trees and clothing the formerly barren +hillsides, have effected a wonderful change.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page188"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 188</span> +<a href="images/p188.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Malcolm’s Cross" +title= +"Malcolm’s Cross" + src="images/p188.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Beside the road are the few remaining stones of St. +Leonard’s Chapel, and, a short distance beyond, on the +right, in a grove of trees, Malcolm’s Cross, marking the +spot where Malcolm Caenmore, king of Scotland, was slain in +1093. It replaces a more ancient cross, and was erected by +the first Duchess of Northumberland in 1774. It was on his +seventh foray into Northumberland, besieging Alnwick Castle, that +Malcolm was killed, in an ambush carefully prepared for +him. The legend, which tells how he was treacherously slain +by a <a name="page189"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +189</span>thrust of a spear in the eye by one of the Percies, who +was pretending to deliver up the castle keys on the spear’s +point, is untrue, as of course is the popular derivation of the +family name from “pierce eye.” Moreover, the +Percies, as we have seen, did not own Alnwick until more than two +hundred years afterwards.</p> +<p>Heiferlaw, as befits so commanding a hill-top so close to the +Border, has its watch-tower, looking across the marches, whence +the outlying defenders of Alnwick, ever watchful against Scottish +raids, could give timely warning to the garrison. It stands +to-day a picturesque ruin, in cultivated fields that in those +fierce old times, when men had no leisure for peaceful arts and +industries, formed a portion of the wild moorland. +“Blawweary,” they call one of these fields, and the +title is as descriptive of this exposed situation as anything in +the whole range of nomenclature. Beyond this point the road +descends to a level stretch of country leading to North Charlton, +where a few farmsteads alone stand for a village, together with a +prominent hillock covered with trees and looking as though it +had, or ought to have, a story to it; a story which research +fails to unearth. Opposite, meadows called locally +“Comby Fields,” presumably from a series of ridges +seen in them, seem to point to some forgotten history. +Brownyside, adjoining, is an expanse of moorland, covered with +bracken, followed by Warenford, a pretty hamlet in a hollow by a +tiny stream, with Twizel Park on the left. At Belford, a +large wide-streeted village with a nowadays all too roomy +coaching inn, the “Blue Bell,” and an old cross with +gas-lamps fitted to it by some vandal or other, the road draws +near the coast; that storied Northumbrian sea-shore where +Bambrough Castle on its islanded rock, many miles of yellow +quicksands, and the Farne and Holy Islands are threaded out in +succession before the gaze. Bambrough, the apex of its +pyramidical form, just glimpsed above an intervening headland, +looks in the distance like another St. Michael’s Mount, and +Holy Island, ahead, is a miniature fellow to it. The ruined +cathedral of <a name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +190</span>Holy Island, the ancient Lindisfarne, the spot whence +the missionary Aidan from Iona began the conversion of +Northumbria in 634, and where he was succeeded by that most +famous of all northern bishops and saints, the woman-hating St. +Cuthbert, is the mother-church of the north, and became possessed +in later times of great areas of land through which the road now +passes. Buckton, Goswick, Swinhoe, Fenwick, Cheswick, were +all “possessions” of the monastery; and the old +ecclesiastical parish of Holy Island, once including all these +places on the mainland, and constituting then an outlying wedge +of Durham in the county of Northumberland, although now a thing +of the past, still goes by the local name of Islandshire. +Buckton, now a few scattered cottages by the roadside, held a +place in the old rhyme which incidentally shows that the monks of +Lindisfarne adopted that comforting doctrine:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Who lives a good life +is sure to live well.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Their farms and granges yielded them all that the appreciative +stomachs of these religious recluses could desire, save indeed +when the Scots swooped over the Tweed and took their produce +away. It is a rhyme of good living:—</p> +<blockquote><p>From Goswick we’ve geese, from Cheswick +we’ve cheese;<br /> + From Buckton we’ve venison in store;<br /> +From Swinhoe we’ve bacon, but the Scots it have taken,<br +/> + And the Prior is longing for more.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The yellow sands that occupy the levels and reach out at low +tide to Holy Island are treacherous. With the exquisite +colouring of sea and sky on a summer day blending with them, they +look at this distance like the shores of fairyland; but the grim +little churchyard of Holy Island has many memorials presenting +another picture—a picture of winter storm and shipwreck, +for which this wild coast has ever been memorable. Off +Bambrough, where the Farne Islands are scattered in the sea, the +scene is still recalled of the wreck of the <i>Forfarshire</i> +and Grace Darling’s heroism; and the <a +name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 191</span>monument of +that famous girl stands in Bambrough churchyard to render the +summer pilgrim mindful of the danger of this coast. +Dangerous not only to those on the waters, but also to travellers +who formerly took the short cut from Berwick across the sands, +instead of going by the hilly road. The way, clearly marked +in daylight by a line of poles, has often been mistaken at night; +sudden storms, arising when travellers have reached midway, have +swept them out to sea; or fogs have entangled the footsteps even +of those who knew the uncharted flats best. Whatever the +cause, to be lost here was death. The classic instance, +still narrated, is that of the postboy carrying the mails from +Edinburgh on the 20th of November, 1725. Neither he nor the +mail-bags was ever heard of again after leaving Berwick, and it +was naturally concluded that he was lost on the quicksands in a +sea-fog.</p> +<p>Away on the west of the road rise the Kyloe hills, like +ramparts, and on their tallest ridge the church tower of Kyloe, +conspicuous for long distances, and greatly appreciated by +sailors as a landmark. The village is not perhaps famous, +but certainly notable for a former vicar, who apparently aspired +to writing a personal history of his parish as well as keeping a +merely formal set of registers. Scattered through his +official records are some very curious notes, among them: +“1696. Buried, Dec. 7, Henry, the son of Henry Watson +of Fenwick, who lived to the age of 36 years, and was so great a +fool that he could never put on his own close, nor never went a +¼ mile off ye house in all this space.”</p> +<p>The road at this point was the scene of Grizel +Cochrane’s famous exploit, in 1685, when at night-fall, +disguised as a man, and mounted on horseback, she waylaid the +mail rider, and, holding a pistol to his head, robbed him of the +warrant he was carrying for the execution of her father, Sir John +Cochrane, taken in rebellion against James the Second. By +this means she obtained a fortnight’s respite, a delay +which was used by his friends to secure his pardon. <a +name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 192</span>Grizel +Cochrane has, of course, been ever since the heroine of Border +song. A clump of trees on a hillock, surrounded by a wall, +to the right of the road, long bore the name of +“Grizzy’s Clump,” but it has recently been +felled and so much of the landmark destroyed. The country +folk, possessed of the most invincible ignorance of the subject, +know the place only as “Bambrough Hill,” a title they +have given it because from the summit an excellent view of +Bambrough Castle is gained.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p192.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bambrough Castle" +title= +"Bambrough Castle" + src="images/p192.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The plantations of Haggerston Castle now begin to cover the +land sloping down toward the sea, and, after passing a deserted +building on the left, once a coaching inn, the park surrounding +the odd-looking modern castellated residence is reached. +Here, by the entrance to the house, the road goes off at an acute +angle to the left, and, continuing thus for a quarter of a mile, +turns as sharply to the right. An old manorial +pigeon-house, still with a vane bearing the initials C.L.H., +stands by the way, and bears witness to the ownership <a +name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>of the +estate in other times by the old Haggerston family. It was +to Sir Carnaby Haggerston that those initials belonged, the late +eighteenth-century squire, who destroyed the old Border tower of +Haggerston Castle, and built a new mansion in its stead, just as +so many of his contemporaries did.</p> +<p>Sir Carnaby Haggerston does not appear—apart from this +vandal act of his—to have been an especially Wicked Squire, +although his devastating name launched him upon the world +ear-marked for commission of all the crimes practised by the +libertine landowners who made so brave a show in a certain class +of literature and melodrama once popular. His name strikes +the ear even more dramatically than that of Sir Rupert +Murgatroyd, the accursed Baronet of Ruddigore in Mr. W. S. +Gilbert’s comic opera, but he never lived up to its +possibilities. The only things he seems to have had in +common with the typical squire of old seem to have been a love of +port and whist, and a passion for building houses too large for +his needs or means.</p> +<p>The Wicked Squire who unwillingly sat to the novelists who +used to write in the pages of <i>Reynolds’ Miscellany</i> +and journals of that stamp fifty years ago, as the high-born +villain of their gory romances, may be regretted, because without +him the pages of the penny novelist are become extremely tame; +but his disappearance need not be mourned for any other +reasons.</p> +<p>It is to him we owe the many supposedly +“classical” mansions that, huge and shapeless, like +so many factories, reformatories, or workhouses, affront the +green sward, the beautiful gardens, and the noble trees of many +English parks. To build vast mansions of this +“palatial” character, the squires often pulled down +middle-Tudor or Elizabethan, or even earlier manor-houses of +exquisite beauty, vying with one another in the size and +extravagance of the new buildings, whose original cost and +subsequent maintenance have during the past hundred and fifty +years kept many county families in straitened circumstances, and +do so still. There was a squire who pulled down a <a +name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>whole +series of mediæval wayside crosses in his district, and +used the materials as building-stones toward the great mansion he +was erecting for the purpose of outshining a neighbour. +Those transcendent squires, the noblemen of old, had larger +opportunities and made the worst use of them. The Duke of +Buckingham, for example, bought a property, demolished the +Elizabethan hall that stood on it, and built Stowe there in its +place; a building of vast range and classic elevation with +colonnades and porticoes, and “windows that exclude the +light and lead to nothing,” as some one has very happily +remarked. Sir Francis Dashwood, that hero of the Hell Fire +Club, pulled down West Wycombe church and built the existing +building, that looks like a Lancashire cotton-mill, and every one +built houses a great deal larger than were wanted or they could +afford; which, like the Earl of Leicester’s seat at Holkham +were so little like homes that they could neither live in their +stately apartments nor sleep in their vast bedrooms. Like +the Earl and Countess of Leicester, who were compelled for +comfort’s sake to sleep in one of the servants’ +bedrooms in the attics, they lived as settlers in corners of +their cavernous and uncomfortable palaces.</p> +<p>Pity the poor descendant of the Squires! He cannot +afford in these days to keep up his huge house; to pull it down +would in itself cost a fortune; and its very size frightens the +clients of the house-agent in whose hands he has had it for +letting, these years past. All over England this is seen, +and the old Yorkshire tale would stand true of any other county +and of many other county magnates of that time. The Marquis +of Rockingham, according to that story, built a mansion at +Wentworth big enough for the Prince of Wales; Sir Rowland Winn +built one at Nostel Priory fit for the Marquis of Rockingham; and +Mr. Wrightson of Cusworth built a house fit for Sir Rowland +Winn. No doubt the farmers carried on the tale of +extravagance down to their stratum of society, and so <i>ad +infinitum</i>.</p> +<p><a name="page195"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 195</span>But +to return to Haggerston Castle, which now belongs to the +Leylands. Conspicuous for some distance is the tower built +of recent years to at one and the same time resemble a +mediæval keep and to serve a practical purpose as a +water-tower, engine-room, and look-out. The place, however, +is remarkable for quite other things than its mock castle, for in +the beautiful park are kept in pens, or roaming about freely, +herds of foreign animals which make of it a miniature Zoological +Gardens. It is, in a sense, superior indeed to that +well-known place, for if the collections do not cover so wide a +range, the animals are in a state of nature. Emus, Indian +cattle, kangaroos, and many varieties of wild buck roam this +“paradise,” together with a thriving herd of American +bison. The bison is almost extinct, even in his native +country, but here he flourishes exceedingly and perpetuates his +kind. A bison bull is a startling object, come upon +unawares, and looks like the production of a lunatic artist +chosen to illustrate, say, the Jabberwock in <i>Alice in +Wonderland</i>. He is all out of drawing, with huge shaggy +forelegs, and head and shoulders a size too large for the rest of +his body; an eye like a live coal, tufted coat, like a worn-out +door-mat, and uncomfortable-looking horns: the kind of creature +that inhabits Nightmare Country, popularly supposed to be bred of +indigestion and lobster mayonnaise.</p> +<h2>XXIX</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Beyond</span> Haggerston, and up along the +rising road that leads for six of the seven miles to Berwick, the +journey is unexpectedly commonplace. The road has by this +time turned away from the sea, and when it has led us through an +entirely charming tunnel-like avenue of dwarf oaks, ceases to be +interesting. Always upwards, it passes collieries, the +“Cat” inn, and the hamlet of Richardson’s Stead +or Scremerston, <a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>whence, arrived at the summit of Scremerston Hill, the +way down into Tweedmouth and across the Tweed into Berwick is +clear.</p> +<p>Tweedmouth sits upon the hither shore of Tweed, clad in grime +and clinkers. Like a mudlark dabbling in the water but not +cleansing himself in it, Tweedmouth seems to acquire no +inconsiderable portion of its dirt from its foreshore. +Engineering works and coal-shoots are responsible for the +rest. Little or nothing of antiquity enlivens its mean +street that leads down to the old bridge and so across the Tweed +into Scotland. The roofs of Berwick, clustered close +together and sealing one over the other as the town ascends the +opposite shore of the river, are seen, with the spired Town Hall +dominating all at the further end of the long, narrow, +hump-backed old structure, and away to the left that fine viaduct +of the North Eastern Railway, the Royal Border Bridge. But +the finest view, and the most educational in local topography, is +that gained by exploring the southern shore of the Tweed for half +a mile in an easterly direction. An unlovely waterside +road, it is true, a maze of railway arches spanning it, and +shabby houses hiding all but the merest glimpses of Tweedmouth +church and its gilded salmon vane, referring to the +salmon-fishery of the Tweed, but leading to a point of view +whence the outlook to the north-west is really grand. +There, across the broad estuary of the Tweed, lies Berwick, +behind its quays and its enclosing defences. Across the +river, in the middle distance, goes Berwick Bridge, its massive +piers and arches looking as though carved out of the rock, rather +than built up of single stones. Beyond it, in majestic +array, go the tall arches of the Royal Border Bridge, and, in the +background, are the Scottish hills. Tweedmouth, its timber +jetty, its docks, and church spire, and its waterside lumber are +in the forefront. This, then, is the situation of Berwick, +for centuries the best-picked bone of contention between the +rival countries of England and Scotland; the Border <a +name="page198"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 198</span>cockpit, +geographically in the northern kingdom, but wrested from it by +the masterful English seven hundred and fifty years ago, and +taken and re-taken by or from stubborn Scots on a round dozen of +occasions afterwards. Sieges, assaults, stormings, +massacres under every condition of atrocity; these are the merest +commonplaces of Berwick’s story, until the mid-sixteenth +century; and the historian who would write of its more unusual +aspects must needs turn attention to the rare and short-lived +interludes of peace.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image197" href="images/p197.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Scottish Border: Berwick Town and Bridge from Tweedmouth" +title= +"The Scottish Border: Berwick Town and Bridge from Tweedmouth" + src="images/p197.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It was in 1550, during the short reign of Edward the Sixth, +that the existing fortifications enclosing the town were begun, +whose river-fronting walls are so conspicuous from +Tweedmouth. The old bridge, built by James the First, was +the first peaceful enterprise between the two kingdoms, for, +although Berwick had for over a century been recognised as a +neutral or “buffer” state, peace went armed for fear +of accidents, and easy communication across the Tweed was not +encouraged. There is food for reflection in comparison +between that bridge and the infinitely greater work of the +railway viaduct. The first, 1,164 feet in length, with only +17 feet breadth between the parapets, bridging the river with +fifteen arches, cost £17,000, and took twenty-four years to +build; the railway bridge of twenty-eight giant arches, each of +61½ feet span, and straddling the Tweed at a height of 129 +feet, was built in three years, at a cost of +£120,000. The “Royal Border Bridge,” as +it was christened at its opening by the Queen, has precisely the +appearance of a Roman aqueduct and belongs to the Stone and Brick +Age of railways. Were it to do over again, there can be no +doubt that, instead of a long array of graceful arches, half a +dozen lengths of steel lattice girders would span the tide. +It was at a huge cost that England and Scotland were thus joined +by rail; bridge and approaches swallowing up the sum of +£253,000. The first passenger train crossed over, +October 15, 1848, but the works were not finally completed until +1850. In the August of that year the <a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 199</span>Queen +formally opened it, nearly two years after it was <i>actually</i> +opened; a fine object-lesson for satirists. How we laugh at +ceremonials less absurd than this when they take place in China +and Japan.</p> +<p>Berwick town is seen, on entering its streets, to be +unexpectedly modern and matter-of-fact. The classically +steepled building that bulks commandingly in the main +thoroughfare and looks like a church is the Town Hall, and +displays the arms of Berwick prominently, the municipal +escutcheon supported on either side by a sculptured bear sitting +on his rump and surrounded by trees. It is thus that one of +the disputed derivations of Berwick’s name is alluded +to. At few towns has the origin of a place-name been so +contested as at Berwick; and, for all the pother about it, the +question is still, and must remain, unanswered. It might as +reasonably have come from <i>aberwic</i>, the mouth of a river, +as from <i>bergwic</i>, the hillside village, and much more +reasonably than from the fanciful “bar” prefix +alluding to the bareness of the country; while of course the +legend that gives the lie to that last variant, and seeks an +origin in imaginary bears populating mythical woods, is merely +infantile.</p> +<p>The church-like Town Hall, which is also a market-house and +the town gaol, does indeed perform one of the functions of a +church, for the ugly Puritan parish church of the town has no +tower, and so the steeple of the Town Hall rings for it.</p> +<p>In the broad High Street running northward from this +commanding building are all the prominent inns of the town, to +and from which the coaches came and went until the opening of the +Edinburgh and Berwick Railway in 1846. Some of the short +stages appear to have been misery-boxes, according to Dean +Ramsay, who used to tell an amusing anecdote of one of +them. On one occasion a fellow-traveller at Berwick +complained of the rivulets of rain-water falling down his neck +from the cracked roof. He drew the coachman’s +attention to it on the first opportunity, but all the answer he +got was the <a name="page200"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +200</span>matter-of-fact remark, “Ay, mony a ane has +complained o’ that hole.”</p> +<p>The mail-coaches leaving Berwick on their journey north were +allowed to take an extra—a fourth—outside +passenger. Mail-coaches running in England were, until +1834, strictly limited to four inside and three outside. Of +these last, one sat on the box, beside the coachman, while the +other two were seated immediately behind, on the fore part of the +roof, with their backs to the guard. This was a rule +originally very strictly enforced, and had its origin in the fear +that, if more were allowed, it would be an easy matter for +desperadoes to occupy the seats as passengers and to suddenly +overpower both coachman and guard. The guard in his +solitary perch at the back, with his sword-case and blunderbuss +ready to hand, could have shot or slashed at those in front, on +his observing any suspicious movement, and it is somewhat +surprising that no nervous guard ever did wound some innocent +passenger who may have turned round to ask him a question. +The concession of an extra seat on the outside of coaches +entering Scotland was granted to the mail-contractors in view of +the more widely scattered population of Scotland, and of the +comparative scarcity of chance passengers on the way.</p> +<p>But there is very great uncertainty as to the number of +passengers allowed on the mails in later years. Moses +Nobbs, one of the last of the old mail-guards, states that no +fewer than eight passengers were allowed outside at the end of +the coaching age. Doubtless this was owing both to the +complaints of the contractors that with the smaller complement +they could not make the business pay, and to the growing security +of the roads.</p> +<p>Royal proclamations used, until recent times, to specifically +mention “our town of Berwick-upon-Tweed” when +promulgating decrees, for as by treaty an independent State, +neither in England nor Scotland, laws and ordinances affecting +Great Britain and Ireland could not legally be said to have been +extended <a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>to Berwick without the especial mention of “our +town.” A state whose boundaries north and south were +Lamberton Toll and the Tweed, a distance of not more than four +miles, with a corresponding extent from east to west, it was thus +on a par with many a petty German principality. Nearly +three-quarters of the land comprised within “Berwick +Bounds” is the property of the Corporation, having been +granted by James the First when, overjoyed at his good fortune in +succeeding to the English crown and thus uniting those of the two +countries, he entered upon his heritage. Lucky +Berwick! Its freehold property brings in a revenue of +£18,000 a year, in relief of rates.</p> +<p>If the streets of Berwick are disappointing in so historic a +place, then let the pilgrim make the circuit of the town on the +ramparts. These, at least, tell of martial times, as also +do the fragmentary towers of the old castle, the few poor relics +left of that stronghold by the modern railway station overhanging +a deep cleft. Then, away in advance of the ramparts, still +thrusting its tubby, telescopic, three-storied form forward, is +the old Bell Tower, where, in this advanced post, the vigilant +garrison kept eyes upon the north, whence sudden Scottish raids +might be developed at any time.</p> +<p>Grass covers the ramparts and sprouts in tufts upon the +gun-platforms contrived in early Victorian days upon them, and +almost every variety of obsolete cannon, short of the +demi-culverins with which Drake searched the Spanish Main, go to +make up what—Heaven help them and us!—War Office +officials call batteries. Guns bristle thickly upon the +waterside batteries overlooking the harbour, but not one of them +is modern. All are muzzle-loading pieces, fit for an +artillerist’s museum, and their carriages—where they +are mounted at all—are in bewildering variety, principally, +however, of rotting wood. The most recent piece, an +Armstrong gun not less than fifty years old, lies derelict in the +long grass, and children amuse themselves by filling its +hungry-looking maw with clods. Pot-bellied like all the old +Armstrongs, <a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +202</span>it has a look as though it had grown fat and lazy with +that diet and lain down in the long grass to sleep. Perhaps +to guard its slumbers, a War Office notice beside the prostrate +gun vainly forbids trespassing!</p> +<p>Down in a ditch of the fortifications a soldier in his shirt +sleeves, his braces dangling about his legs, is tending early +peas with all the tenderness of a mother for an invalid child; +for, look you, early peas in these latitudes have a hard fight +for it; and the fight of those vegetables for existence against +the nipping blasts that sweep from off the North Sea is the only +sign of warfare the place has to show. Taken as a whole, +and looked at whichever way you will, the “defences” +of Berwick-upon-Tweed show a trustfulness in Providence and in +the astounding luck of the British Empire which argues much for +the piety or the folly of our rulers. And so, with the +varied reflections these things call forth, let us away up the +High Street, and, passing under the archway of the Scotch Gate, +spanning its northern extremity, leave Berwick on the way to +Scotland.</p> +<h2>XXX</h2> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Seeing</span> Scotland, +Madam,” said Dr. Johnson, in answer to Mrs. Thrale’s +expressed wish to visit that country, “is only seeing a +worse England. It is seeing the flower gradually fade away +to the naked stalk.” This bitter saying of the +Doctor’s comes vividly to mind when leaving Berwick on the +way to Edinburgh. Passing the outskirts of the town at a +point marked on the Ordnance map with the unexplained name of +“Conundrum,” the country grows bare and treeless on +approaching the sea, and at Lamberton Toll, three miles north, +where “Berwick Bounds” are reached and Scotland +entered, the scene is desolate in the extreme. The cottage +to the left of the road at this point, formerly the toll-house of +the turnpike-gate that stood here, is a famous place, <a +name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 203</span>rivalling +Gretna Green for the runaway matches, legalised at the gate until +1856, when changes in the law rendered a part of the +once-familiar notice in the window out-of-date. It ran, +“Ginger-beer sold here, and marriages performed on the most +reasonable terms”; an announcement which for combination of +the trivial and the tremendous it would be difficult to beat.</p> +<p>Geographically in Scotland when across the Tweed, we are not +politically in that country until past this cottage. Then +indeed we are, in many ways, in a foreign country.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p203.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Lamberton Toll" +title= +"Lamberton Toll" + src="images/p203.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Scots law is a fearful and wonderful variant from +English. Even its terminology is strange to the English +ear, which finds—hey, presto!—on passing Berwick +Bounds, a barrister changed into an “advocate,” a +solicitor converted into a “Writer to the Signet,” +and a prosecutor masquerading under the thrilling and descriptive +alias of “pursuer.” It was the laxity of Scots +law that made, not only Gretna Green, but any other place over +the Border from England, a resort of those about to marry and +impatient of constraints, legal or family, at any period between +1753 and 1856. Gretna Green and its neighbour, Springfield, +in especial, and in no small degree Lamberton Toll, were the +scenes of much hasty marrying during that space of time. +Marrying, <i>bien entendu</i>, and not giving in marriage, for <a +name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>these were +runaway matches, and those whose position it was to give, and who +withheld their consent, generally came posting up to the +toll-gate in pursuit just in time to hear the last words of the +simple but effective ritual of the toll-keeper who had witnessed +the declaration of the truants that, “This is my +wife,” and “This is my husband,” a simple form +of words which, uttered in the presence of a witness, was all +that the beneficent legal system of Scotland required as marriage +ceremony. This form completed, and for satisfaction’s +sake a rough register subscribed, the indignant parent, who +possibly had been battering on the outside of the door, was +admitted and introduced to his son-in-law.</p> +<p>It was a century of licence (not marriage licence), that +prevailed on the Border from the passing of Lord +Hardwicke’s Clandestine Marriage Act in 1753 until that of +Lord Brougham in 1856, which put a stop to this “over the +Border” marrying by rendering unions illegal on the part of +those not domiciled in Scotland, which had not been preceded by a +residence in that kingdom of not less than twenty-one days by one +or other of the contracting parties.</p> +<p>There was no special virtue in the first place across the +Border-line at any point, nor did it matter who +“officiated,” the person who “performed the +ceremony” being only a witness and in no sense a clergyman; +but it was obviously, with these legal facilities, the prime +object of runaway couples pressed for time, and with hurrying +parents and guardians after them, to seize their opportunity at +the first place, and at the hands of the first person in that +liberal minded land. Not that the Kirk looked benevolently +upon this. It fined them, for discipline’s sake, and +the happy couples cheerfully paid, for by doing so they acquired +the last touch of validity, which, on the face of it, could not +be called into dispute.</p> +<p>One of this long line of Hymen’s secular priesthood at +Lamberton Toll had, early in the nineteenth century, an unhappy +time of it, owing to an error of judgment and an ignorance of the +law scarcely credible. Joseph <a name="page207"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 207</span>Atkinson, the toll-keeper, was away +one day at Berwick when a runaway pair arrived at the gate. +His wife, or another, sent them after him, and in Berwick the +ceremony, such as it was, was performed. Now Berwick is a +county of itself, and the inhabitants boast, or used to, that +their town belongs to neither England nor Scotland. It is +hinted (by those who do not belong to Berwick) that it belongs +instead to the devil, which possibly is a reminiscence of the +townsfolk’s smuggling days, on the part of those who duly +render unto Cæsar. This by the way. Unhappily +for Mr. Joseph Atkinson, Berwick owes allegiance to English law, +as he found when his ceremony was declared null and void, and he +was duly sentenced to seven years transportation for having +contravened the Marriage Act of 1753.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image205" href="images/p205.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Off to the Border" +title= +"Off to the Border" + src="images/p205.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Halidon Hill, where the English avenged Bannockburn upon the +Scots in 1333, is on the crest of the upland to the west of +Lamberton Toll. Now the road runs upon the edge of the +black cliffs that plunge down into the North Sea, commanding bold +views of a stern and iron-bound coast. Horses, coachmen, +guards, and passengers alike quailed before the storms that swept +these exposed miles, and even the highwaymen sought other and +more sheltered spots. Macready, on tour in the north, was +snowed up here, in the severe winter of 1813–14. +Coming south through the deep and still falling snow, he +travelled in a cutting made in the drifts for miles between Ross +Inn and Berwick-on-Tweed. “We did not reach +Newcastle,” he says, “until nearly two hours after +midnight: and fortunate was it for the theatre and ourselves that +we had not delayed our journey, for the next day the mails were +stopped; nor for more than six weeks was there any conveyance by +carriage between Edinburgh and Newcastle. After some weeks, +a passage was cut through the snow for the guards to carry the +mails on horseback, but for a length of time the communications +every way were very irregular.”</p> +<p>Where the little Flemington Inn stands solitary at <a +name="page208"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 208</span>a fork of +the road, close by a tremendous gap in the cliffs, is placed +Burnmouth station, on the main line, wedged in a scanty foothold, +hundreds of feet above the sea. Day or night it is a +picturesque place, but more especially in the afterglow of +sunset, when the inky blackness of the rift in the cliffs can +still be set off against the gleam of the sea, caught in a notch +of the rocks, and when the lighted signal-lamps of the little +junction glow redly against the sky on their tall masts, like +demon eyes. A fishlike, if not an ancient, smell lingers +here, for Burnmouth station is constantly in receipt of the +catches made down below by the hardy fishers of the three hamlets +of Burnmouth, Partinghal, and Ross, queer fishing villages of +white-washed stone cottages that line the rocky shore unsuspected +by ninety-nine among every hundred travellers along the road +above. Herrings caught in the North Sea are cured here, +packed in barrels, and sent by rail to distant markets.</p> +<p>Ayton, two miles onward, away from the sea, is entered in +perplexing fashion, downhill and by a sharp turn to the right +over a bridge spanning the Eye Water, instead of continuing +straight ahead along a road that makes spacious pretence of being +the proper way. Ayton itself, beyond being a large village, +with a modern castellated residence in the Scottish baronial +style and vivid red sandstone at its entrance, is not +remarkable.</p> +<p>Leaving Ayton, the road enters a secluded valley whose +solitudes of woodland, water, and meadows are not imperilled, but +only intensified, by the railway, which goes unobtrusively within +hail of this old coaching highway. On the right rise the +gently swelling sides of a range of hills sloping upwards from +the very margin of the road and covered with woods of dwarf oak, +through whose branches the sunlight filters and lies on the ferns +below in twinkling patches of gold. Here stood the old +Houndwood Inn, and the building yet remains, converted—good +word in such a connection—into a manse for the Free Church +near by, itself a building calculated to make angels <a +name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span>weep; if +angels have appreciations in architecture. Another, and a +humbler, building carries on the licensed victualling trade, and +calls itself, prettily enough, the “Greenwood +Inn.” It is, in fact, a stretch of country that makes +for inspiration in the rustic sort. If there were a sign of +the “Robin Hood” here we should acclaim it romantic +and appropriate, even though tradition tells not of that mythical +outlaw in these marches. If not Robin, then some other +chivalric outlaw surely should have pervaded the glades of +Houndwood, open as they are, with never a fence, a hedge, or a +ditch to the road, just as though these were still the fine free +days of old, before barbed-wire fences were dreamed of, or +notices to trespassers set up, threatening vague penalties to be +enforced “with all the rigour of the law,” as the +phrase generally runs.</p> +<p>It is a valley of whose delights one must needs chatter, +although with but dim hopes of communicating much of its +charm. Through it that little stream called by the +medicinally sounding name, the Eye Water, wanders with a feminine +hesitancy and inconstancy of purpose. It flows all ways by +turns and never long in any direction, and with so many amazing +loops and doublings, that it might well defy the precision of the +Ordnance chartographers themselves. We bid farewell to this +fickle stream at Grant’s House, and scrape acquaintance +with another, the Pease Burn, flowing in another direction. +For Grant’s House stands on the watershed which orders the +going of several watercourses. It is also the summit level +of this railway route to the North. Here, quite close to +the road, is Grant’s House station, and here, bordering the +road itself, are the houses that form Grant’s House +itself. This sounds like speaking in paradox, but the place +is a village, or rather a scattered collection of pretty cottages +that have gathered around the one inn which was the home of the +original Grant. The place-name seems to hint of other and +less-travelled times, when these Borders were sparsely settled +and wayfarers few; when but one house served <a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>to take the +edge off the solitude, and that an inn kept by one Grant. +The imagination, thus uninstructed, weaves cocoons of speculation +around these premises and conceives him to have been a host of +abounding personality, thus to hand his name down to posterity, +preserved in a place-name, like a fly in amber. But all +speculations that start upon this innkeeping basis would be +incorrect, for this sponsorial Grant was the contractor who made +the road from Berwick to Edinburgh, building a cottage for +himself in this then lonely spot, which only in later years +became the Grant’s House inn.</p> +<p>More streams and woods beyond this point, and then comes the +long and toilsome rise up to Cockburnspath, past Pease Burn, +where the road takes a double S curve on the hillside, and other +tall hills, to right and left and ahead, largely covered with +firs and larches, seem to look on with a gloomy anticipation of +some one, less cautious than his fellows, breaking his +neck. Where there are no hillside woods there are grass +meadows in which, if it be June or July, the haymakers can be +seen from the road, haymaking, with attendant horses and carts, +at a perilous angle. The Pease Burn, flowing deep down in +its Dene, is spanned at a height of 127 feet, half a mile down +stream, by a four-arched bridge, built in 1786.</p> +<h2>XXXI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Set</span> in midst of these steep and +twisting roads and above these watery ravines is Cockburnspath +Tower, a ruined Border castle of rust-red stone that frowns down +upon the road on the edge of a tremendous gully. It was +never more than a peel-tower, but strongly placed and solidly +built, a fitting refuge for those who took part in the ups and +downs of Border forays. In the days when Co’path +Tower (local pronunciation) was built, every one’s house +was more or <a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>less a defensible building. “An +Englishman’s house is his castle” is a figurative +expression commonly used to prefigure the inviolate character of +the law-abiding citizen’s domicile, but it might have been +said literally of dwellers in these debateable lands. The +more property he possessed, the stronger was the Border +farmer’s tower. When the moss-troopers and +mediæval scoundrels of every description were on the +warpath, or merely out on a cattle-lifting expedition, these +embattled agriculturists shut themselves up in their safe +retreats. The lower floor, on a level with the ground, +received the live stock; the floor above, the servants; and to +the topmost story, as the safest situation, the family +retired. The gate below was of iron, for your Border reiver +was no squeamish sort, and would burn these domestic garrisons +alive without hesitation. Therefore in the most approved +type of fortress there was nothing inflammable. Sympathy, +however, would be wasted on those old-time cultivators, for they +all took a turn at armed cattle-lifting as occasion offered, and +found the readiest way of stocking their farms with every +requisite to be that of stealing what they required.</p> +<blockquote><p>For why? Because the good old rule<br /> + Sufficeth them: the simple plan<br /> +That they should take who have the power,<br /> + And they should keep who can.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Short and sudden forays were characteristic of this kind of +life. The Border cattle-lifter came and went in the +twinkling of an eye, and drove the captured flocks and herds away +with him at a rate no merely honest drover ever marshalled his +sheep and heifers to market. There must have been many +highly desirable, but inanimate and not easily portable, things +which the raiders were obliged to leave behind, as one of this +kidney regretted in casting a last glance at a hayrick he had no +means of lifting. “Had ye but four feet, ye suld no +stand lang there,” said he, as he turned to go.</p> +<p>The mouldering old tower here at Cockburnspath belonged to the +Earls of Home. Beautifully situated <a +name="page212"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 212</span>for preying +upon occasional travellers, the glen and the foaming torrent +below have no doubt received the bodies of many a one who in the +old days was rash enough to pass within sight of the old +tower. The comparatively modern bridge that takes a flying +leap across the ravine is the successor of an ancient one of +narrower span that still, covered with moss and ferns, arches +over the water, deep down in the hollow, and is popularly +supposed to be the oldest bridge in Scotland. A dense +tangle of red-berried rowan-trees, firs, and oaks overhangs the +gorge. Altogether a place that calls insistently to be +sketched and painted, but a place, from the military point of +view, to be wary of; being a position, as Cromwell in one of his +despatches says, “where one man to hinder is better than +twelve to make way.” It was at the “strait pass +at Copperspath,” as he calls it, that the great general, +writing after the battle of Dunbar, found plenty to hinder.</p> +<p>If ever general profited more by the mistakes of the enemy +than by his own tactical ability, it was Cromwell at this +juncture. The Scots under Leslie had cooped him up at +Dunbar, and, surrounded by the enemy, who occupied the heights +and closed every defile that led to a possible line of retreat, +he must, diseased and famishing as were his forces, have +capitulated, for the sea was at his back, and no help possible +from that direction. It was then that Leslie made his +disastrous move from the hills, and came down upon the English in +the levels of Broxburn, to the south of Dunbar town, where +Cromwell had his headquarters; and it was then that Cromwell, +seizing the moment when the enemy, coming down in a dense mass +upon a circumscribed space by Broxburn Glen, retrieved the +situation, and, directing a cavalry movement upon Leslie’s +forces, had the supreme relief of seeing them broken up and +stamped into the earth by the furious charge of his +horsemen. The fragments of the Scottish army, routed with a +slaughter of three thousand, and ten thousand prisoners, fled, +and Cromwell’s contemplated retreat to Berwick was no +longer a necessity. Indeed, the <a name="page214"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 214</span>whole of the Lowlands of Scotland +now lay open before him, and he entered Edinburgh with little +opposition.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image213" href="images/p213.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Cockburnspath Tower" +title= +"Cockburnspath Tower" + src="images/p213.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It is a distance of nine miles between the village of +Cockburnspath and Dunbar, the road going parallel with the sea +all the way. First it goes dizzily over the profound rift +of Dunglass Dene, spanned at a height of a hundred and +twenty-five feet above the rocky bed of a mountain stream by the +bold arch of the railway viaduct and by the road bridge +itself. It is a scene of rare beauty, and the walk by the +zigzagging path among the thickets and the trees, down to where +the sea comes pounding furiously into a little cove, a quarter of +a mile below, wholly charming. Away out to sea is the +lowering bulk of the Bass Rock, a constant companion in the view +approaching Dunbar.</p> +<p>The direct road for Edinburgh avoids Dunbar altogether, +forking to the left at Broxburn where the battlefield lay, where +the burn still flows across the road as it did on the day of +“Dunbar Drove,” as Carlyle calls that dreadful +rout. Here “the great road then as now crosses the +Burn of Brock. . . . Yes, my travelling friends, +vehiculating in gigs or otherwise over that piece of London road, +you may say to yourselves, Here, without monument, is the grave +of a valiant thing which was done under the Sun; the footprint of +a Hero, not yet quite indistinguishable, is here!”</p> +<p>Ahead, with its great red church on a hillock, still somewhat +apart of the south end of the town, is Dunbar, the first +characteristically Scottish place to which we come. It is +not possible to compete with Carlyle’s masterly +word-picture of it, which presents the place before you with so +marvellous a fidelity to its spirit and +appearance:—“The small town of Dunbar stands high and +windy, looking down over its herring-boats, over its grim old +castle, now much honeycombed, on one of those projecting +rock-promontories with which that shore of the Firth of Forth is +niched and vandyked as far as the eye can reach. A +beautiful sea; good land too, now that the plougher understands +his trade; <a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +215</span>a grim niched barrier of whinstone sheltering it from +the chafings and tumblings of the big blue German +Ocean.” There you have Dunbar.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p215.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Tolbooth, Dunbar" +title= +"The Tolbooth, Dunbar" + src="images/p215.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Let us add some few details to the master’s fine broad +handling; such as the fact that its streets are wondrously +cobble-stoned, that those whinstone rocks are red and give a +dull, blood-like coloration to the scene, and that the curious +old whitewashed Tolbooth in the High Street is the fullest +exemplar of the Scottish architectural style. Windy it is, +as Carlyle <a name="page216"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +216</span>says, and with a rawness in its air that calls forth +shivers from the Southron even in midsummer. Here the +stranger new to Scotland is apt to see for the first time the +sturdy fishwives and lasses who, still often with bare feet, go +along the streets carrying prodigiously weighty baskets of fish +on their backs, sometimes secured by a leather strap that goes +from the basket around the head and forehead!</p> +<p>One leaves Dunbar by wriggly and exiguous streets, coming +through the fisher villages of Belhaven and West Barns to where +the main avoiding route rejoins at Beltonford. The Scottish +Tyne winds through the flat meadows on the right—at such +fortunate times, that is to say, as when it does not pretend to +be an inland sea and take the meadows, the road, and the railway +for its province. The road, too, is flat, and the railway, +which hugs it closely, the same. A good road, too, and +beautiful. Midway of it, towards East Linton, are the +farmsteads and ricks of Phantassie, at which spot Rennie, the +engineer who built London Bridge, and heaven and Dr. Smiles alone +know how many harbours, was born in 1761. +“Phantassie” is a name that sorely piques one’s +curiosity, so odd is it; but the group of farm-buildings is +commonplace enough, if more than commonly substantial. No +fantasy in their design, at any rate.</p> +<p>At East Linton we cross the Tyne which, crawling through the +meadows, plunges here in cascades under the road bridge, amid +confused rocks. The railway crosses it too, close by, and +spans the road beyond; and the village huddles together at an +angle of the way. A long ascent out of it commands wide +views of agricultural Haddingtonshire, and of that surprising +mountainous hill, Traprain Law, rising out of the plain to a +height of over seven hundred feet.</p> +<p>Not merely a surprising hill, but one with an astonishing +story. It had always been thought that treasure was buried +there, among the traces of ancient buildings; and accordingly, +with the permission of Right Honourable A. J. Balfour, on whose +land the <a name="page217"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +217</span>hill is situated, excavations were begun in 1919. +It was found that the hill-top had been inhabited intermittently +over remote periods, and diggings were made into successive +strata of hearths and floorings. At first the +“finds” were of minor articles: bronze ornaments, +glass and pottery, fragments of iron, mostly of Celtic origin, +but some Roman. The great discovery was made on May 12th, +1919, when a workman, driving a pick through a floor, brought up +a silver bowl on the point of it. A deep recess was then +discovered, filled with treasure: bowls, spoons, cups, saucers, +and a miscellaneous collection of plate, mostly cut to pieces in +strips folded over and hammered down into packets of +silver. Although it was grievous to look upon that +destruction, a good many of the fragments retained their original +decoration. They appear to be partly of Romano-Christian +origin, for the sacred symbol occurs among them, and on one piece +is the inscription “Jesus Christus.” Other +pieces are almost as certainly pagan, hearing as they do figures +of Pan and Hercules. Among them were four coins: the +earliest of the Emperor Valerius, whose reign began <span +class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 364, and the latest of Honorius, who +died <span class="GutSmall">A.D.</span> 463. A metal belt +of Saxon character was among this treasure-trove.</p> +<p>It appeared, therefore, that this hoard was a relic of one of +the sea-rovers’ raids on this coast in the fifth or sixth +century, and that the spoils had in some cases come from +plundered religious houses. The raiders were perhaps +disturbed in their activities, and buried their loot in the +expectation of returning for it at some more suitable time.</p> +<p>But they never returned. What happened to them is a vain +conjecture. They may have been found here and slain by some +stronger force, and perhaps they were lost at sea. In any +case, their hoard lay here for close upon one thousand five +hundred years. What they had hoped to carry away is now an +exhibit in the Scottish National Museum at Edinburgh.</p> +<p>To the north-going cyclist the road presently makes ample +amends for the mile-long rise, for, once topping it, <a +name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>a gentle +but continuous descent of four miles leads into Haddington, down +a road that for the most part could scarce be bettered, so +excellent its surface, so straight its course, and so beautifully +sylvan its surroundings. Hailes Castle is finely seen on +the left during this descent, its ruined walls and ivy-covered +towers wrapped three parts round with the thick woodlands that +clothe the lower slopes of Traprain Law. Mary, Queen of +Scots, and her evil spirit, the sinister Bothwell, had Hailes +Castle for their bower of love, and Wishart the martyr had a cell +in it for a prison, so that its present beauty of decay lacks +nothing of historic interest.</p> +<p>Nor does the fine mansion of Amisfield, through whose +park-like lands the road now descends. Amisfield has lurid +associations. Under the name of New Mills, it was in 1687 +the scene of a dreadful parricide, and was at a later period +purchased by the infamous Colonel Francis Charteris, who might +aptly be termed (in Mr. Stead’s phrase), the Minotaur of +his day. It was he who renamed it after the home of his +family in Nithsdale. As his exploits belong chiefly to +London, we, fortunately, need not enlarge upon them here. +The parricide already referred to was the murder of his father by +Philip Standsfield. Sir James Standsfield had set up a +cloth factory here, on the banks of the Tyne, and had done +remarkably well. He had two sons, Philip and John. +The eldest had been a scapegrace ever since that day when, as a +student at St. Andrews, he had gone to a meeting-house and flung +a loaf at the preacher. It took the astonished divine on +the side of the head and aroused within him the spirit of +prophecy. Addressing the crowded chapel at large (for the +loaf had been thrown unseen from some dark corner), he saw in a +vision the death of the culprit, at whose end there would be more +present than were hearing him that day; “and the multitude +then present,” adds the chronicler, “was not +small.”</p> +<p>Philip had a short and ignominious military career on the +Continent, and returned home to prey upon his <a +name="page219"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 219</span>father; +who, for sufficient reasons, disinherited him in favour of his +younger brother. In the end, aided by some servants, he +strangled the old man and threw the body in the river. For +this he was hanged at Edinburgh, and as the hanging was not +effectual, the executioner had to finish by strangling him, in +which public opinion of that time saw the neat handiwork of +Providence.</p> +<h2>XXXII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Here</span> begins Haddington, and here +end good roads for the space of a mile; and not until the burgh +is left behind do they recommence. The traveller who might +set out in quest of bad roads and vile paving would without +difficulty discover the objects of his search at +Haddington. He might conceivably find as bad elsewhere, but +worse examples would be miraculous indeed. We have +encountered many stretches of road, thus far, of a mediæval +quality, but the long road to the North boasts, or blushes for, +nothing nearly so craggy as are the cobble-stoned thoroughfares +of this “royal burgh.” The entrance to the town +from the south resembles, in its picturesque squalor, that to one +of the decayed towns of Brittany. Unswept, tatterdemalion +as it is, it still remains a fitting subject for the +artist’s pencil, for here beside the narrow street stands +the rugged mass of Bothwell Castle, patched and clouted from time +to time, but happily as yet unrestored. Over the lintels of +old houses adjoining, still remain the pious invocations and +quaint devices originally sculptured there for the purpose of +averting the baleful glance of the Evil Eye.</p> +<p>The initial letter in the name of Haddington is a superfluity +and a misuse of the letter H, the name deriving from that of Ada, +Countess of Northumberland and ancestress of Scottish monarchs; +foundress also of a nunnery here which has long gone the way of +such mediæval things. The Tyne borders this town, and +<a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +220</span>sometimes floods it, as may be readily seen by an +inscription on the wall of a house in High Street, which tells +how the water on October 4, 1775, suddenly rose eight feet and +three quarters. A curious legend, too, still survives, +recording a flood in 1358, when a nun of the pious Ada’s +old foundation, seizing a statue of the Virgin out of its niche, +waded into the torrent and threatened to throw it in unless the +Blessed Mary instantly caused the waters to subside. That +they immediately did so appears to have been taken as evidence of +the effective moral suasion thus applied.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p220.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bothwell Castle" +title= +"Bothwell Castle" + src="images/p220.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Haddington Abbey, the successor of earlier buildings, and now +itself partly ruined, stands by the inconstant river, the nave, +now the parish church, and the choir roofless, open to the +sky. It is here within these grass-grown walls that +“Jane Welsh Carlyle, spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, +London,” lies, as the remorseful epitaph says, +“suddenly snatched away from him, and the light of his life +as if gone out.” The spot where the Abbey stands, by +the dishevelled and tumbledown quarter of Nungate, is the more +abject now in that it <a name="page221"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 221</span>still possesses old mansions that +tell of a more prosperous past. Here, on the river-bank, +neglected and forlorn like everything around, is the fine old +screen of the Bowling Green, where no one has, for a century +past, played bowls, unless indeed the wraiths of bygone Scottish +notables haunt the spot o’ nights and play ghostly games, +like the Kaatskill gnomes in <i>Rip Van Winkle</i>. It is +from the other side of the river that the Abbey is best seen, its +roofless central tower, the <i>Lucernia Laudoniae</i>, or +“Lamp of Lothian,” still showing those triple lancets +in every face which, according to the legend, obtained for it +that title. To obtain this view, the Abbey bridge is +crossed, which even now vividly illustrates on its wall the ready +way the old burgh had with malefactors. From it projects a +great hook, rusty for long want of usage, from which were hanged +the reivers, the horse-thieves, and casual evildoers, with +jurisdiction of the most summary kind. No Calcraft science +with it either, with neck broken in decent fashion, but just a +hauling up of the rope and a tying of it to some handy stanchion, +and the unhappy malefactor left to throttle by slow +degrees. No other such picturesque hanging-place as <a +name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 222</span>this, but +what is scenery to a criminal about to be hanged like a tom-cat +caught killing chickens.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p221.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Haddington Abbey, from Nungate" +title= +"Haddington Abbey, from Nungate" + src="images/p221.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The crest, arms, trade-mark or badge of Haddington is a +goat. There is no doubt about that, for Billy (or is it a +Nanny?) has his (or her) effigy on many of the old +buildings. Only by comparison and by slow degrees is it +that the stranger arrives at the conclusion that it is a goat, +for the drawing of many of these representations leaves much to +be desired. Some resemble an elephant, others a horse, +others yet what “the mind’s eye, Horatio” might +conceive a Boojum to be like; but in the open space where High +Street and Market Street join, the modern Market Cross, +surmounted by a more carefully executed carving, determines the +species.</p> +<p>This is the centre of the town and neater than its entrance +from the south. The steepled classic building close by is +not a church but the Town House, masquerading in ecclesiastical +disguise, very much as Berwick’s Town Hall does. From +this point it is only seventeen miles into Edinburgh; but in 1750 +and for long after the coach journey employed the best efforts of +the local stage during the whole day. Musselburgh, little +more than eleven miles away, was reached in time for dinner, and +only when evening was come did the lumbering vehicle lurch into +its destination in Auld Reekie, when every one went to bed, +bruised and weary with the toils of the expedition. The +road at that time must have resembled the specimen of roadway +still adorning the south entrance to Haddington.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image223" href="images/p223.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Edinburgh, from Tranent" +title= +"Edinburgh, from Tranent" + src="images/p223.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>To-day, happily, it is in good condition as far as Levenhall, +seven miles short of our journey’s end, whence it is bad +beyond the credibility of those who have not seen it. +Gladsmuir, Macmerry, and Tranent are interposed between; places +that sink their memories of the battle of Prestonpans in +iron-founding and coal-digging and suchlike, disregarding the +futilities of the Stuarts. As for Macmerry, whose name +prefigures orgies at the most of it, or sober revelry at the very +least, it is odds against your finding as depressing a place <a +name="page224"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 224</span>within a +hundred miles. If place-names were made to fit, why, then, +Macdolour might suit it to a marvel. Why? Just +because it stands at the crest of a barren knowe; an ugly row of +cottages on either side, with cinders and dust, clinkers and mud +in front of them, and some gaunt works within eyeshot. God +knows who christened the place, or if the name signified +merriment, but, if it did, either the scene has changed wholly +since then, or else he was a humorist of the sardonic sort who so +dubbed it. Tranent, too, a townlet subsisting upon +collieries: how grimly commonplace! But it at least has +this advantage, that from its elevated foothold it looks down +upon the Firth of Forth, that noble firth which Victor Hugo +blundered over so whimsically in rendering it as “<i>la +Premiére de la Quatrième</i>.” Seen +under the summer sun, how glorious that seaward view, with the +villages of Preston and Cockenzie, half hidden by their +woodlands, by the level shores. Half-way down from +Tranent’s hillside you see a fine panorama: Arthur’s +Seat in front, Calton Hill and its Nelson’s column, peering +from behind, and the distant shores of Fife, with blowing +smoke-clouds, many miles away. Between Arthur’s Seat +and the Calton, Edinburgh is hid, nine miles from this +point. Down in the levels in the mid-distance there are +hints of Musselburgh in smoke-wreaths and peeping towers; and +mayhap, while you gaze, the southward-bound train, with its white +puff of steam, is seen setting forth on its long journey +Londonwards. In these levels was fought the battle of +Prestonpans, Sunday, September 21, 1745, around that village of +Preston and those briny meads where the salt-pans used to be and +are no longer.</p> +<p>Preston—formerly Priest’s Town—got its name +at the time when it was part of the celebrated Abbey of +Newbattle. The monks of that religious house were the first +discoverers of coal in Scotland, and also, in the twelfth +century, made this district the seat of a manufacture of +salt. Prestonpans, indeed, at one time supplied the whole +of the East Coast with salt, and it <a name="page225"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 225</span>was only on the repeal of the Salt +Duty that this old town fell into decay. Women, known as +salt-wives, a class almost as picturesque as the fish-wives of +Newhaven, used to carry the salt in creels on their backs, to +sell in Edinburgh and other towns.</p> +<p>In an orchard stands what was once the ancient village cross, +erected in 1617, in place of an earlier. Well-known as the +“Chapmen’s Cross,” it was the meeting-place of +the chapmen, packmen, or pedlars of the Lothians. They +gathered early in July, transacted the business of their guild +and elected their “King” and his “Lord +Deputy” for the ensuing year. The +“ink-bottle,” cut in stone, into which they dipped +their pens, is still visible on the base of the cross. The +Bannatyne Club saved it from utter destruction, and instituted a +convivial guild, the “Society of Chapmen of the +Lothians,” visiting the cross every year, with Sir Walter +Scott as one of their members.</p> +<p>The world has vastly changed since “the +Forty-five.” It has, as a small detail, ceased to +produce its salt by evaporation of sea water; and, a larger and +more significant matter, no longer wages war for sake of +dynasties. The Highlanders who fought and gained this +fleeting victory for Prince Charlie were the last who drew the +sword for Romance and Right Divine. Prince Charlie had +moved out of his loyal Edinburgh at the approach of the English +under Sir John Cope, who, of course, in that fine foolish manner +of British officers, which will survive as long as the officers +themselves, wholly underrated his enemy. He was defeated +easily, with every circumstance of indignity, his soldiers +fleeing in abject terror before the impetuous charge of the +ferocious hairy-legged Highlanders, emerging, figures of +grotesque horror, out of the mists slowly dispersing off the +swampy fields in the laggard September sunrise.</p> +<p>The English numbered 2100 against the 1400 under Prince +Charlie; but only four minutes passed between the attack and the +flight. In that short space of time <a +name="page226"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 226</span>the field +was deserted and the clansmen, pursuing the terror-stricken +rabble which just before had been a disciplined force, slew +nearly four hundred of them. The total loss of the +Highlanders in slain was thirty, nearly the whole of them falling +in the first discharge of musketry. Almost incredible, but +well-authenticated, stories are told of the cowardice of +Cope’s regiments. Cope himself was swept away in the +wild rush, vainly endeavouring to stem it, and it was not until +they were two miles from the field, at St. Clement’s Wells, +that he could bring them to a halt. Even then, the +accidental discharge of a pistol scared them off again, and +although no one pursued, they rode off with redoubled +energy. This precipitate retreat of mounted troops over +miles of country, from an unmounted enemy who were not pursuing +them, is perhaps the most disgraceful incident in the military +history of the country.</p> +<p>The flying infantry were in far worse case. In +endeavouring to escape by climbing the park walls of Preston, +they were cut down in great numbers by the terrible broadswords +of the Highlanders. Colonel Gardiner and a brave few were +cut down defending themselves on the field of battle. One +story, of a piece with many others, relates how a Highlander, +pursuing alone a party of ten soldiers, struck down the +hindermost with his sword, and shouting, “Down with your +arms!” called upon the others to surrender. They +threw their weapons away without looking behind them, and the +Highlander, his sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, +drove them—nine of them!—prisoners into camp. +Everywhere Cope, so helter-skelter was his flight, himself +brought the first news of his defeat. He reached Coldstream +that night, and did not rest until the next day he was within the +sheltering fortifications of Berwick.</p> +<p>We will not further pursue the fortunes of the Young +Pretender, but hurry on into Levenhall.</p> +<p>Where that battle was fought, there is to-day the most +extensive cabbage-plant cultivation in Scotland. It is a +usual thing in the early part of the year for <a +name="page227"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 227</span>almost +daily special cabbage trains to be despatched to all parts of +Britain.</p> +<p>And so downhill, and then over the awful cobbles into the +accursed town of Musselburgh. “Accursed,” not +by reason of those self-same cobbles, but for the sacrilegious +doings of its magistrates who rebuilt their Tolbooth, burnt after +the battle of Pinkie, with stones from the Chapel of +Loretto. Now that chapel, which stood at the entrance to +the town, was the place of business of one of those roadside +hermits of whom we have in these pages heard so much (would that +he had a successor in these times, for then the road would +perhaps be in better condition), and the Pope, indignant at the +injury done to the wayside shrine, solemnly anathematised town +and inhabitants in sleeping or waking, eating and drinking, at +every conceivable time and every imaginable function. No +Pope since that period seems to have removed the curse, and no +one is particularly anxious that it should be removed, +Musselburgh being rather proud of it than otherwise. When +it begins to take effect will be quite time enough. There +were those who at the close of the coaching days perceived the +beginning of it, although then three hundred years overdue, but +as the town has rather increased in prosperity since that period, +the time evidently is not yet. Nor do the burghers +anticipate it, for they still repeat the brave old +rhyme:—</p> +<blockquote><p>Musselburgh was a burgh<br /> + When Edinburgh was nane;<br /> +And Musselburgh shall be a burgh<br /> + When Edinburgh is gane.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This, however, is a quibble, for Musselburgh derived its name +from the “broch,” or bed, of mussels at the mouth of +the river Esk. Looked at in this light, the statement is +true enough and the prophecy a not particularly rash one. +The sponsorial shell-fish have an honoured place in the town +arms, in which three mussels are seen in company with three +anchors: the motto “Honesty” writ large below. +This was <a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>probably adopted at some period later than the +purloining of the stones of the Loretto Chapel.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p228.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Musselburgh" +title= +"Musselburgh" + src="images/p228.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The Town Hall, with that tower whose building brought about +the curse, forms the centre of Musselburgh, a fishy, stony, +picturesque place with four bridges over the Esk, leading to the +western bank, where the fisher quarter of Fisherrow straggles +towards Joppa, two miles distant. Joppa Pans are gone now, +just as those other pans at Preston, but factories of sorts, with +clustered chimney-stacks, are still grouped about the melancholy +sea-shore, where gales set the very high-road awash on +occasion. Not vulgar, modern factories, but of a certain +age; old enough and grim enough to look like the scene of some +thrilling story that yet awaits the telling. Somewhat +thrilling is the report as to the condition of the road here in +1680, a complaint laid before the Privy Council stating that, +four miles on the London side of Edinburgh, travelling was +dangerous, and travellers to be pitied, “either by their +coaches overturning, their horses falling, their carts breaking, +their loads casting, or horses stumbling, and the poor people +with burdens on their backs sorely discouraged; moreover, +strangers do often exclaim thereat.” All this reads +with a very modern touch to <a name="page229"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 229</span>those who know the road to-day, for +it is as bad now as it could have been then, and so continues, in +different kinds of badness, through adjoining Portobello into +Edinburgh itself. Here seas of slimy mud, there precipitous +setts, here again profound holes in the macadam, or tramway rails +projecting above the road level, make these last miles +wretched. Portobello, that suburban seaside resort of +Edinburgh, fares in this respect no better than the rest of the +way, and the original road across Figgate Whins, the lonely moor +that was here before the first house of Portobello was built, +could have been no worse. That house was the creation of a +retired sailor who had been at the capture of Portobello in +Central America by Admiral Vernon in 1739. He named it +after that town, and when the present seaside resort began to +spring up, it took the title. Now it has a promenade, a +pier, hotels, and crowds of visitors in summer upon the sands, +and calls itself “the Brighton of Scotland.” +Observe that Brighton does not return the compliment, and has not +yet begun to style itself “the Portobello of +England.”</p> +<h2>XXXIII</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Leaving</span> the “Brighton of +Scotland” behind, we come to the flat lands of +Craigentinny, stretching away from the now suburban highway down +to the wind-swept and desolate seashore, where the whaups and the +sandpipers make mournful concerts in a minor key, to the +accompaniment of the noise of the sullen breakers and the +soughing of the wind amid the rustling bents. Overlooking +the road, within sight and sound of the tinkling tramcars passing +between Joppa, Portobello, and Edinburgh, is that singular +monument, “Miller’s Tomb.”</p> +<p>William Henry Miller, whose remains lie beneath this pile of +classic architecture, was an antiquary and bibliophile, and +obtained his nickname of “Measure <a +name="page230"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +230</span>Miller” from his habit of measuring the margins +of the “tall copies” of the scarce books he +bought. His beardless face and shrill voice led to the +lifelong belief that he was really a woman. The tomb is +elaborately decorated with a carved marble frieze representing +the Song of Miriam and the destruction of the Egyptians in the +Red Sea. Miller and his father were both Quakers, and the +wealth of which they were possessed derived from a prosperous +seedsman’s business in Canongate, Edinburgh. To the +father came an adventure which does not fall to many men. +He was married in 1789 for the third time, when nearly seventy +years of age, to an Englishwoman, who conveyed him against his +will in a post-chaise from Edinburgh to London.</p> +<p>Passing Craigentinny and Jock’s Lodge we are, in the +words of the old song, “Within a mile of Edinburgh +town.” The more modern and acceptable name of +Jock’s Lodge is Piershill, but it has been known by the +other for over two hundred and seventy years. Who the +original Jock was seems open to doubt, but he is supposed to have +been a beggar who built himself a hut on this then lonely road +leading to Figgate Whins. Even in 1650, when Cromwell +besieged Edinburgh, the spot had obtained its name, and is +referred to as “that place called Jockis +Lodge.” Towards the close of the eighteenth century a +Colonel Piers had a villa here, pulled down in 1793, when +barracks—known as Piershill Barracks—were built on +the site. It is a district slowly emerging from the +reproach of a disreputable past, when footpads and murderers +haunted the muddy roads, or took refuge amid the towering rocks +of Arthur’s Seat, Crow Hill, or Salisbury Craigs, or hid in +the congenial sloughs of the Hunter’s Bog. Close by +the road, at the entrance to the Queen’s Park of Holyrood, +is Muschat’s Cairn, the place where Scott makes Jeanie +Deans meet the outlaw Robertson. This heap of stones marks +the spot where Nicol Muschat of Boghall, a surgeon, a man of +infamous character, murdered his wife by cutting her throat in +1720, a crime which, with Scottish old-time mysticism, he said <a +name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 231</span>was +committed by direct personal instigation of the devil. All +the same, they hanged him for it in the Grassmarket, where +martyrs “testified” of old and the criminals of +“Auld Reekie” expiated their crimes.</p> +<p>Of course the approach to Edinburgh has, from the picturesque +standpoint, been spoiled. Ranges of grim stone houses and +sprawling suburbs now hem in the road and hide the view of +Arthur’s Seat and its neighbouring eminences; but a few +steps to the left serve to disclose them, the little loch of St. +Margaret, and the ruined walls of St. Anthony’s Chapel on +the hillside, once guarding the holy well. St. +Anthony’s Chapel, within the rule of the Abbey of Holyrood, +served another turn, for from its tower glimmered a beacon which +in the old days guided mariners safely up the Forth, a service +paid for out of the harbour dues.</p> +<p>The so-called “London” and “Regent” +Roads that now lead directly into the New Town of Edinburgh are +modern improvements upon the old approach through Canongate into +the Old Town. If steep, rugged, and winding, the old way +was at least more impressive, for it lay within sight of Holyrood +Palace and brought the wayfarer into the very heart of +Scott’s “own romantic town,” to where the +smells and the dirt, the crazy tenement-houses and the ragged +clouts hanging from dizzy tiers of windows, showed +“Scotia’s darling seat” in its most +characteristic aspects.</p> +<p>As Alexander Smith puts it, Scott discovered the city was +beautiful, sang its praises to the world, “and he has put +more coin into the pockets of its inhabitants than if he had +established a branch of manufacture of which they had the +monopoly.”</p> +<p>The distant view of Edinburgh is magnificent. The peaked +and jagged masses of Arthur’s Seat and Salisbury Craigs, +the monument-cumbered Calton Hill, the Castle Rock—all +these combine to make the traveller eager to reach so picturesque +a spot. Approaching it and seeing the smoke-cloud drifting +with the breeze away from the hollow from which Edinburgh’s +million chimneys are seen peering, one <a +name="page232"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 232</span>instantly +notes the peculiar appropriateness of the Scots endearing +epithet, “Auld Reekie.” But it was not +only—if indeed at all—an admiration of the +picturesque that made the sight of Edinburgh so welcome to +old-time travellers. It was rather the prospect of coming +to the end of their journey, and almost in sight of a comfortable +hotel, that rendered the view so welcome to those who in the last +thirty years or so of the coaching era made this trip of almost +four hundred miles; but those who had come this way at an earlier +period had no such comfortable prospect before them. +Instead of putting up at some fine hospitable inn, such as they +were used to even in the smaller English towns, they were set +down at a “stabler’s,” the premises of one +whose first business was to horse the coaches and to let +saddle-horses, and who, as in some sort of an after-thought, +lodged those who were obliged to journey about the country.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p232.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Calton Hill" +title= +"Calton Hill" + src="images/p232.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page233"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 233</span>A +traveller arriving at Edinburgh in 1774, for instance, had indeed +little comfort awaiting him. “One can scarcely form +in imagination the distress of a miserable stranger on his first +entrance into this city,” says one writing at this +period. No inn better than an alehouse, no decent or +cleanly accommodation, nor in fact anything fit for a +gentleman. “On my first arrival,” says this +traveller, “my companion and self, after the fatigue of a +long day’s journey, were landed at one of these +stable-keepers’ (for they have modesty to give themselves +no higher denomination) in a part of the town which is called the +Pleasance; and on entering the house we were conducted by a poor +girl without shoes or stockings, and with only a single +linsey-woolsey petticoat which just reached half-way to her +ankles, into a room where about twenty Scotch drovers had been +regaling themselves with whisky and potatoes. You may guess +our amazement when we were informed that this was the best inn in +the metropolis, and that we could have no beds unless we had an +inclination to sleep together, and in the same room with the +company which a stage-coach had that moment discharged. +‘Well,’ said I to my friend, ‘there is nothing +like seeing men and manners; perhaps we may be able to repose +ourselves at some coffee-house.’ Accordingly, on +inquiry, we discovered that there was a good dame by the Cross +who acted in the double capacity of pouring out coffee and +letting lodgings to strangers, as we were. She was easily +to be found out, and, with all the conciliating complaisance of a +<i>Maitresse d’Hôtel</i>, conducted us to our +destined apartments, which were indeed six stories high, but so +infernal in appearance that you would have thought yourself in +the regions of Erebus. The truth is, I will venture to say, +you will make no scruple to believe when I tell you that in the +whole we had only two windows, which looked into an alley five +feet wide, where the houses were at least ten stories high and +the alley itself was so sombre in the brightest sunshine that it +was impossible to see any object distinctly.”</p> +<p><a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span>Private lodgings, just as those described above, were +the resort of those who had neither friends nor acquaintance in +Edinburgh at that time; but travellers in Scotland were nearly +always exercising their ingenuity to come, at the end of their +day’s journey, to the house of some friend or some +friend’s friend, to whom before starting they had been +careful to obtain letters of introduction. So old and so +widespread a custom was this that, so far back as 1425, we find +an Act of James the First of Scotland actually forbidding all +travellers resorting to burgh towns to lodge with friends or +acquaintances, or in any place but the +“hostillaries,” unless indeed he was a personage of +consequence, with a great retinue, in which case he might accept +a friend’s hospitality, provided that his “horse and +meinze” were sent to the inns.</p> +<p>Of course such an Act was doomed to fall into neglect, but the +innkeepers, equally of course during a long series of years, +almost ceased to exist. A few “stablers’” +establishments became known as “inns” at about the +period of Doctor Johnson’s visit to Edinburgh. They +were chiefly situated in the Pleasance, or in that continuation +of it, St. Mary’s Wynd (now St. Mary Street). These +inns, such as they were, burst upon the by no means delighted +gaze of the wayfarer from England as he entered the historic town +of Edinburgh, and when he saw them he generally lifted up his +voice and cursed the fate that had sent him so far from home and +into so barbarous a country.</p> +<p>The Pleasance was largely in receipt of the traffic to and +from the south until the construction of the North and South +Bridges, opened in 1769 and 1788, diverted it to a higher +level. We may look in vain nowadays in the Pleasance for +the inns of that day. They are demolished and altered so +greatly as to be unrecognisable; but the “White +Horse,” which stands in a court away down Canongate, will +give us an idea of the kind of place. Situated in +“White Horse,” or Davison’s Close in Canongate, +and reached from that street by a low-browed archway, it remains +a <a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +235</span>perfect example of the Edinburgh inn of nearly three +hundred years ago. An inn no longer, but occupied in +tenements, the internal arrangements are somewhat altered, but +the time when the house extended a primitive hospitality to +travellers is not difficult to reconstruct in the +imagination. To it, at the end of their journeys, came +those wearied ones, to find accommodation of the most intimate +and domestic kind. Kitchen and dining-room were one, and it +was scarce possible for a guest to obtain a bedroom to +himself. Dirt was accepted as inevitable. In fact, +the modern “dosser” is better and more decently +housed. To the “White Horse” came +others—those about to set out upon their travels. +Booted and spurred, wills made and saddle-bags packed, they +resorted hither to hire horses for their journeys, and it is not +unlikely that the old house saw in early times many a quaking +laird, badly wanted by the <a name="page236"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 236</span>Government, slinking through the +archway from the Canongate, to secure trusty mounts for instant +flight. Scott, indeed, has made it the scene of strange +doings in his <i>Waverley</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p235.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “White Horse” Inn" +title= +"The “White Horse” Inn" + src="images/p235.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>This is the oldest house in Edinburgh ever used as an inn, but +must not be confused with that other “White Horse,” +long since demolished, made famous by Doctor Johnson.</p> +<p>It was in 1773 that Johnson reached Edinburgh. He put up +at the “White Horse” in Boyd’s Close, called, +even in those uncleanly times, “that dirty and +dismal” inn, kept by James Boyd. The great man +immediately notified his arrival to Boswell in this short +note:—</p> +<p>“<i>Saturday night</i>.—Mr. Johnson sends his +compliments to Mr. Boswell, being just arrived at +Boyd’s.”</p> +<p>When Boswell arrived, falling over himself in his eagerness, +he found the Doctor furiously angry. Doubtless he had been +conducted to his room, as was not unusually the case, by some +dirty sunburnt wench, without shoes or stockings, a fit object +for dislike; but the chief cause of his anger was the waiter, who +had sweetened his lemonade without the ceremony of using the +sugar-tongs. He threw the lemonade out of window, and +seemed inclined to throw the waiter after it.</p> +<p>“Peter Ramsay’s” was a famous inn, situated +at the foot of St. Mary’s Wynd, next the Cowgate +Port. To it came travellers along both the east and the +south roads. Ramsay advertised it in 1776 as being “a +good house for entertainment, good stables for above one hundred +horses, and sheds for about twenty carriages.” In +1790, he retired with a fortune of £10,000. But in +the best of these old Edinburgh inns the beds well merited a +description given of them as “dish-clouts stretched on +grid-irons.”</p> +<p>First among the innkeepers of this unsanctified quarter to +remove from it into the New Town was James Dun. He was a +man notable among his kind, having not only been the first to +call himself an <a name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +237</span>“innkeeper” instead of a +“stabler,” but the greatly daring person who first +used the outlandish word “Hotel” in Edinburgh. +He began “hotel”-keeping in the flats above the +haberdashery shop of John Neale, who, two years before, in 1774, +had built the first house in the New Town. Neale himself +was a pioneer of considerable nerve, for although the New Town +had been projected and building-sites laid out on what is now the +chief ornament of it, Princes Street, prospective tenants were +shy of so bleak and exposed a situation as this then was. +They preferred to live in the dirty cosiness of the old wynds and +closes, and so the New Town seemed likely to be a paper project +for years to come. At this juncture the Town Council made a +sporting offer of exemption from all local taxes for the first +who would build a house there. Neale was this pioneer, and +he built the house that still stands next the Register House, the +most easterly house in Princes Street.</p> +<p>Dun, to whom he had let the upper part, immediately displayed +a great gilded sign, “Dun’s Hotel,” whereupon +the Lord Provost, representing public feeling, wrote objecting to +the foreign word “Hotel,” saying that, whatever might +be the real character of his establishment, he might at least +avoid the scandalous indecency of publicly proclaiming it!</p> +<h2>XXXIV</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">These</span> concluding pages of a book on +the road to Edinburgh form no fitting place to attempt the +description or history of so ancient and historic a town. +Our business is to reach the northern capital, leaving the story +of Edwin’s Burgh to be told by others. Yet we cannot +leave it thus without some brief survey.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p238.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"“Squalor and Picturesqueness”" +title= +"“Squalor and Picturesqueness”" + src="images/p238.jpg" /> +</a>The modern traveller by road, coming in by the London Road, +Greenside, Leith Street, and Princes Street, comes in by the New +Town, and sees on his <a name="page238"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 238</span>left, across a deep ravine, partly +occupied by a huge railway station and partly by beautiful public +gardens, the dark mass of the Castle and the Old Town crowning +the opposite heights, grey and stern, in effective contrast with +the gay flower-beds down below, the old houses huddling together +on the scanty foothold of the ridge and rising to sheer +heights. <i>That</i> is the original historic town: +<i>this</i>, to which the modern traveller comes by road, the +new. Little more than a hundred years ago this New Town was +not thought of: its site the meadows and wastes that sloped down +to the Firth of Forth and the sea, and the site of the railway +station and the Princes Street Gardens covered with the dark +waters of the Nor’ Loch.</p> +<p>Old-time arrivals in Edinburgh, coming in by Canongate, found +themselves in midst of squalor and picturesqueness; and <a +name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 239</span>although +much of the picturesque is gone, it is still a quaint street and +the squalor survives. The poor who live here “hang +forth their banners from the outward walls,” in the shape +of their domestic washing, fluttering in the breeze from every +window, at the end of long poles, and how poor they are may be +judged from the condition of the clothes they consider worth +keeping. That sometime prison, the Canongate Tolbooth, +facing the long street, remains one of the most curious relics of +Edinburgh’s past. <a name="page240"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 240</span>Not a very ancient past, for it was +only “biggit” in 1591, but old enough to be regarded +with reverence, and quaint to admiration, with its spired tower +and tourelles, so eminently Scotch of that period when the French +influence in architecture was yet strong. You can match +those curious spires time and time again among the old +châteaux of the Loire, and in Brittany; just as in the old +Norman town of Coutances one can find the counterpart of the old +theatre in Playhouse Close, near by.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p239.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Canongate" +title= +"Canongate" + src="images/p239.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>From here, those travellers saw the Old Town ahead and, +progressing up High Street, came successively to the Tron Church, +the Market Cross, St. Giles’s Cathedral, and, before +1817—when it was pulled down—to the Old +Tolbooth. Beyond this, the Lawnmarket conducted to the +Castle, which then marked the end of the town. In this +progress the tall and crowded houses and darkening wynds and +closes stood to right and left. Later years have seen the +disappearance of many of these places, where in old times the +ferocious Scots nobles lived, poor and proud, bloodthirsty and +superstitious, but those that are left are very grim, dark, and +dirty, and the ten-and eleven-storied houses of such a height +that only by great exertions is it possible to crane the neck and +lift the eyes to the skyline, against which the belching chimneys +of the piled-up “lands” are projecting the smoke of +domestic hearths and eternally justifying the old Scots term of +endearment for Edinburgh. The nobles are gone, lang syne, +their old dens occupied now by the very poorest of +Edinburgh’s poor; but sanitary conditions, even with the +present occupants, are not so degraded as they were when the +flower of Scotland’s nobility dwelt here; when pigs and +fowls were herded in the basements, or ran unheeded in the +alleys, and wayfarers skulked under the walls at the sound of +voices above, calling “gardy-loo”—a call which +accompanied a discharge of overflowing household utensils from +inconceivable heights into the gutters below. +“Gardy-loo” was a term which, with <a +name="page241"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 241</span>this +dreadfully unclean custom, derived from France, having been +originally <i>gardez-l’eau</i>; just as the cakes sold at +Craigmillar, called “petticoat tails” were originally +<i>petits gateaux</i>.</p> +<p>Still, the Old Town is sufficiently grimy and huddled yet to +fitly illustrate the Scottish saying “The clartier +(<i>i.e.</i> the dirtier) the cosier.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p241.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old Inscription, Lady Stair’s House" +title= +"Old Inscription, Lady Stair’s House" + src="images/p241.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Nothing is more characteristic of the Old Town than the +religious texts carved upon the stone door lintels of these +ancient houses. Few are without them. To a stranger +they would seem to tell of a fervent piety, but they meant more +than that. They were always accompanied with a date and +with the initials—sometimes also the arms—of their +owners; as in the beautiful example still remaining in Lady +Stair’s Close, and represented both pride and a fearful +superstition. Superstition, because the improving texts and +pious ejaculations meant little beyond talismanic protection +against “Auld Hornie,” wizards, and warlocks, +wehr-wolves, and all those frightful inhabitants of Satan’s +invisible world in which the Scotch most fervently believed, from +king to peasant. Thus when we read over one of these old +doorways the queerly spelled</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Blissit be God in all +His giftis,</p> +</blockquote> +<p>we know that this was little less than an incantation, and +marked a lively sense of favours to come; and when our eye lights +upon the inscription next door,</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Pax intrantibus: Salus +exevntibvs,</p> +</blockquote> +<p><a name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>we +know that the good feeling thus prominently displayed would by no +means have prevented the fierce lord of the house from stabbing +his guest in a dark corner, if he had a mind to it.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p242.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"The “Heave Awa” Sign" +title= +"The “Heave Awa” Sign" + src="images/p242.jpg" /> +</a>A highly interesting book might be written on these old +sculptured stones alone. Nor are they in every instance +old. Some modern ones exist, and the entirely laudable +passion for commemoration has caused interesting tablets to be +set up, marking many of Edinburgh’s famous spots. A +curious modern piece of sculpture decorates more or less +artistically the archway leading from the High Street into +Paisley Close, supporting a tall building erected in 1862. +It represents the bust of a boy, and includes an inscribed +label. It seems that the old building standing on this site +suddenly collapsed on a Sunday morning in 1861, and buried a +number of people in the ruins, thirty-five actually dying from +their injuries. Some were fortunate enough to be screened +from the heavy masses of stone and brick by timbers which in +falling had imprisoned them. Among these was the lad whose +face is represented in the carving. The rescuers who came +with pick and shovel to dig out the survivors had succoured many, +and were turning back when they heard the muffled cry, +“Heave awa, lads, I’m no’ deid yet,” and +redoubling their efforts, extricated the author of it.</p> +<p>No relic now remains upon the door-posts of these old houses +of the curious contrivance which preceded the door-knocker, and +for the sight of a “tirle-pin” the stranger must +needs go to the museum of the Royal Scottish Society of +Antiquaries, to which the last <a name="page243"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 243</span>example was long since removed, from +an old house in the Canongate.</p> +<p> +<a href="images/p243.jpg"> +<img class='floatright' alt= +"A Tirle-Pin" +title= +"A Tirle-Pin" + src="images/p243.jpg" /> +</a>The tirle-pin had a variety of names. Sometimes it +would be called a “risp” or a “ringle,” +and there were those who knew it as a “craw”; that is +to say, a crow, from the harsh crow-like sound produced by its +use. A tirle-pin was just a rasping contrivance made of a +twisted bar of iron fixed against the door post with an iron ring +hanging loosely from it, as in the accompanying sketch. +Instead of knocking, one who desired admittance would seize the +ring and rasp it up and down the twisted iron, producing a noise +which could be distinctly heard within.</p> +<p>The origin of the tirle-pin, like that of many another +Scottish custom, was French. It originated in France in the +times of the Valois, in days when it was not etiquette to knock +at the doors of royal personages. In face of this, +courtiers were reduced to scratching with the +finger-nails—a disagreeable sensation when practised upon +wood, as any one who tries it may readily discover for +himself. Perhaps from this cause, or because the scratching +was not loud enough (or, perhaps, even because the polish began +to disappear from the royal portals) this mechanical scratcher +was invented. The fashion spread from France to Scotland in +times when the two countries were linked in close ties of +friendship. From the palace it spread down to the mansions +of the nobles and the houses of the merchants, finally coming +into general use. It was never acclimatised in England, +although another kind of scratching was, if we may believe the +satirists, who say that James the First and his Scottish +followers imported the itch.</p> +<p>However, the tirle-pin is obsolete, but it did not disappear +without leaving a trace of its existence in <a +name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>old Scots +ballads; as, for instance, that of <i>Sweet William’s +Ghaist</i>:—</p> +<blockquote><p>There cam a ghaist to Margaret’s door,<br /> + Wi’ mony a grievous groan;<br /> +And aye he tirled upon the pinne,<br /> + But answer made she nane.</p> +<p>Is that my father Philip?<br /> + Or is’t my brother John,<br /> +Or is’t my true love Willie<br /> + To Scotland now come home?</p> +</blockquote> +<h2>XXXV</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">grim</span> old town, Edinburgh, +dominated by the ancient castle from its rock, bodeful with the +story of a thousand years. Newer new towns have sprung up +around it to south and west, and hem the old fortress in with a +bordure of unhistoric suburbs, so that from the topmost +battlements you see how small the original Edinburgh is, compared +with its surroundings. Places of pilgrimage are not lacking +in the old streets. There are John Knox’s house, one +of the queerest, three-storied, and gabled, the very ideal of +rugged strength; and the Parliament Square, once St. +Giles’s churchyard, where “I K 1572,” on a +stone in the pavement, marks the site of Knox’s +grave. Passers-by walk over it, curiously fulfilling +Johnson’s aspiration, made years before the churchyard was +destroyed, by which he hoped that the dour Presbyterian was +buried on a highway. While we are on the subject of tombs, +let us mention that other place of pilgrimage, Greyfriars +churchyard, that grisly place where Robert Louis Stevenson was +accustomed in his youth to make assignations with +parlour-maids. Few places so grim as a Scottish +burial-ground, and Greyfriars is of these the grimmest. +Dishevelled backs of houses look down upon the mouldering tombs, +and kitchens and living-rooms open into the houses of the +dead. Rusty iron railings, bolts and bars, guard the +blackened and broken mausoleums and give the pilgrim the weird <a +name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 245</span>idea that +the living have taken extraordinary precautions to imprison those +who are never likely to break out. The only living things +here are the foul grass that grows within the sepulchral +enclosures, and the <a name="page246"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 246</span>demon cats of an heraldic slimness +that haunt the churchyard in incredible numbers, and stealing +victuals from the neighbouring houses, gnaw them within the +tombs. Many martyrs for religion have their resting-place +here, together with those who martyred them. Persecutors +and persecuted alike rest here now.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p245.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Greyfriars" +title= +"Greyfriars" + src="images/p245.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Sympathies will ever be divided between the Covenanters and +their oppressors. As you read how they upheld their faith +and signed their names to the Covenant in this gruesome yard of +Greyfriars, so ominously on that flat tombstone which even now +remains, you are fired with an enthusiasm for those rejecters of +a liturgy alien from their convictions, and can curse +“Claverse” with the best of those who do not forget +the heavy ways of “bonnie Dundee” with them. +But the Covenanters were as intolerant with those when they came +to rule. The men of both sides were men of blood. The +strain of intolerance remains, and the tomb of that other +persecutor of the Covenanters, Sir George Mackenzie, has always +been, and still is, with the people “bloody +Mackenzie’s.”</p> +<p>Old Edinburgh life centred at the Market Cross, happily +restored in 1885 by Mr. Gladstone. The Cross has had a +troubled history. Reconstructed from a much older one in +1617, it remained here until 1756, when the +“improving” fanatics of that time swept the historic +structure away, without a thought of the associations belonging +to it. They were associations of every kind. Kings +had been proclaimed at it by heralds with fanfare of trumpet; +patriots and traitors with equal contumely had been done to death +beside it; and the continual round of punishments which gave the +common hangman a busy time were inflicted here. In fact, +were a rogue to be pilloried or a king’s birthday to be +kept with becoming ceremony, the Cross was the place. Let +us see what those punishments were like, from one example +illustrative of the general run of them. Here is what they +did in 1655 to “Mr. Patrik Maxwell, ane arrant +decevar.” They brought him here “quhair a +pillorie was erectit, gairdit and convoyed <a +name="page247"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 247</span>with a +company of sodgeris; and their, eftir ane full houris standing on +that pillorie, with his heid and handis lyand out and hoilis +cuttit out for that end, his rycht lug was cuttit of; and +thaireftir careyit over to the town of St. Johnnestoun, quhair +ane uther pillorie wes erectit, on the quhilk the uther left lug +wes cuttit af him. The caus heirof wes this; that he haid +gevin out fals calumneis and leyis aganes Collonell Daniell, +governour of Peirth. Bot the treuth is, he was ane +notorious decevar and ane intelligencer, sumtyme for the +Englesches, uther tymes for the Scottis, and decevand both of +thame: besyde mony prankis quhilk wer tedious to +writt.” Quite so; but if all deceivers had their ears +cut off, how few would retain them! A ferocious folk, those +old Scots, and petty delinquents supped sorrow at their hands +with a big spoon. Sorry the lot of scandal-mongers and the +like, seated on a wooden horse with hands and legs tied, and +permission freely accorded to all for the throwing of +missiles. Ferocity, however, should go hand in hand with +courage—a quality apparently not possessed by the citizens +of Edinburgh when Prince Charlie and his Highlanders came, in +1745. Incredulous of the wild clansmen ever daring to +attack the town, they laughed at the very idea; but when they +heard of his small force having eluded the force of Johnny Cope, +sent to intercept them, and advancing in earnest, things took a +very different colour. Those who were loyal to the House of +Hanover were quaking in their shoes, and the Jacobites +rejoicing. The city armed, even to the <a +name="page248"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 248</span>clergymen, +who, on the Sunday before the surrender, preached in the churches +with swords and daggers buckled on under their gowns. Bands +of volunteers were raised, and on the report that the Pretender +was near, were marched outside the walls to dispute his entry, +despite their murmurs that they had volunteered to defend the +city from the inside, and were not prepared to go out to be cut +to pieces with the invaders’ claymores. Captain +ex-Provost Drummond marched with his company down the West Bow +towards the West Port. Looking round when he had reached +it, he to his astonishment found himself alone. The +volunteers had vanished down the back lanes or closes! But +the dragoons were as bad. Coming near the enemy at +Corstorphine, two miles out, they bolted without firing a shot, +and so back into Edinburgh and through it and out at the other +end. It was the ferocious appearance of the Highlanders +that caused this terror. They were comparatively few; +ill-armed, ragged, and ill-fed. But their strange dress, +their wild looks, shaggy locks, and generally outlandish +appearance, frightened the good Lowlanders, who knew almost as +little of these Gaelic tribes as Londoners themselves. The +old-time warfare of the Japanese and the Chinese, with their +hideous masks; the dismal tom-toming of the African savage; the +war-paint of the Red Indian, are justified of their existence, +for the strange and hideous in warfare is very effective in +striking a paralysing terror into an enemy. Accordingly, +the tartans, the naked legs and arms, and the uncombed locks of +the lairds’ uncivilised levies captured Edinburgh for +Prince Charlie, who, a few days later, September 17, caused his +father, the Old Pretender, to be proclaimed king, by the title of +James the Third, at the Cross.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p247.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Wooden Horse" +title= +"The Wooden Horse" + src="images/p247.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p> +<a href="images/p250.jpg"> +<img class='floatleft' alt= +"The Last of the Town Guard" +title= +"The Last of the Town Guard" + src="images/p250.jpg" /> +</a>With the suppression of “the Forty-five,” the +stirring warlike story of Edinburgh came to an end; but not until +1807, when the Edinburgh police came into existence, was the +semi-military Town Guard, raised in 1682, abolished. The +Town Guard and the townspeople <a name="page250"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 250</span>were always at odds, and hated one +another cordially. Recruited from the army, and armed with +the formidable weapons called “Jeddart axes,” it was +originally a fine body, designed rather to keep the town in order +than to protect it, and its members never lost sight of that +fact. In its last years, however, the Town Guard declined +in importance and in numbers, and, coming to be regarded as a +refuge for old pensioners who could scarcely manage to crawl +about, became an object of derision. Then the sins of their +forerunners were visited upon the heads of those unhappy old men, +and it became a common sight to see them baited by mischievous +small boys. The last of the Town Guard tottered about +Parliament Square in his queer uniform and three-cornered hat, +hardly able to shoulder his axe, and regarded by the inhabitants +as one of their most genuine antiquities, until he too followed +his comrades to the tomb.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image249" href="images/p249.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Stately Princes Street" +title= +"Stately Princes Street" + src="images/p249.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>XXXVI</h2> +<p><span class="smcap">One</span> must needs admire +Edinburgh. You may have seen the noblest cities of the +world; have stood upon the Acropolis at Athens, on the Heights of +Abraham at Quebec; have viewed Rome and her seven hills, or +Constantinople from the Golden Horn; but Edinburgh still retains +her pride of place, even in the eyes of the much travelled. +You need not be Scottish to feel the charm of her, and can +readily understand why she means so much to the Scot; but your +gorge rises at the immemorial dirt of the Old Town, +simultaneously <a name="page253"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +253</span>with your admiration of its wondrous picturesqueness, +and stately Princes Street seems to you a revelation of +magnificence even while the bulk of the New Town appears grey, +formal, and forbidding. The great gulf fixed between Old +Town and New, that ravine in which the railway burrows, and on +whose banks the Princes Street Gardens run, renders that +thoroughfare, with its one side of grass and trees and the other +of fine shops and towering houses, reminiscent to the Londoner of +Piccadilly. But Piccadilly has not a towering Castle on one +side of it, nor a Calton Hill at the end; nor, on the other hand, +does Piccadilly know such easterly blasts as those that sweep +down the long length of Princes Street and freeze the very marrow +of the Southerner.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a name="image251" href="images/p251.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Edinburgh, New Town, 1817, from Mons Meg Battery" +title= +"Edinburgh, New Town, 1817, from Mons Meg Battery" + src="images/p251.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“The same isothermal line,” wrote Robert Chambers, +“passes through Edinburgh and London.” +“Still,” James Payn used to say, “I never knew +of a four-wheeled cab being blown over by an east wind in London, +as has just happened in Edinburgh,” and R.L.S. tells us +frankly that his native city has “the vilest climate under +heaven.”</p> +<p>Princes Street is perhaps even more like the Brighton Front in +its well-dressed crowds and fine shops. With the sea in +place of the Gardens and the Castle, the resemblance would be +singularly close.</p> +<p>As for Calton Hill, that neo-classic eminence gives form and +substance to Edinburgh’s claim to be the “Modern +Athens.” Learning had not been unknown in the Old +Town, where Hume and Boswell wrote; but, given air and +elbow-room, it expanded vastly when the New Town was planned, and +with the dawn of the nineteenth century, literature flourished +exceedingly. This seems to have inspired the idea of +emulating the capital of Greece, to the eye as well as to the +mind. Accordingly a copy of the Parthenon was begun on the +crest of Calton Hill, as a monument to the Scots soldiers who +fell in the campaigns against Napoleon. It cost a huge sum +and has never been completed, and so it has familiarly been +called <a name="page254"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +254</span>“Scotland’s Folly” and +“Scotland’s Shame”; but doubtless looks a great +deal more impressive in its unfinished state, in the semblance of +a ruin, than it would were it ever finished. A variety of +other freak buildings keep it company: the Nelson Monument, +memorials to Burns, to Dugald Stewart, and to Professor Playfair, +together with what the many “guides,” who by some +phenomenal instinct scent the stranger from afar, call an +“obsairvatory.”</p> +<p>Coaching days at Edinburgh ceased in 1846, when that sole +surviving relic of the coaches between London and the +North—the Edinburgh and Berwick coach—was +discontinued on the opening of the Edinburgh and Berwick Company, +completing the series of lines that connect the two +capitals. It is true that passengers could not yet travel +through without changing, for the great bridges that cross the +Tyne at Newcastle and the Tweed at Berwick were not opened until +four years later; but it was possible, with these exceptions, to +journey the whole distance by train. The opening of the +railway meant as great a change for Edinburgh as did the +beginning of the New Town seventy years before. Just what +it was like then we may judge from the drawing made from the +Castle by David Roberts in 1847. The point of view he has +chosen is that from the Mons Meg Battery, and the direction of +his glance, omitting the Old Town on the right, is to the +northeast. Changes in detail have come about since then, +but, as a whole, it is the Edinburgh we all know: the Calton +Hill, with its cluster of weird monuments, prominent; the New +Town, stretching away vaguely to the water-side; while in the +distance, on the right, is seen the shore curving to Portobello; +the twin masses of the Bass Rock and North Berwick Law on the +horizon. Down in the New Town itself the changes are +evident. Where the toy train with its old-fashioned +locomotive is crawling out of the tunnel under the Mound, and +where the old Waverley Station is seen, alterations have been +plenty. The old North Bridge pictured here has given place +to a new, spanning the <a name="page255"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 255</span>ravine in three spans of +steel. Beyond it are still seen the smoked-grimed modern +Gothic battlements of the Calton Gaol, but the huge new hotel of +the North British Railway has replaced the buildings that rose on +that side of the old bridge, while the towering offices of the +<i>Scotsman</i> occupy the other, all in that florid French +Renaissance that is the keynote of modern Edinburgh’s +architectural style. The Scott Monument stands where it +did, not, as David Roberts’s drawing shows us, among +grounds but little cared for, but amid gay parterres and velvet +lawns. The Bank of Scotland has been rebuilt and all the +vacant sites long built upon; evidences these of half a +century’s progress, the direct outcome of those railways +that two generations ago wrote “Finis” to the last +chapter in the romantic story of the Great North Road.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p255.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Skyline of the Old Town" +title= +"Skyline of the Old Town" + src="images/p255.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2>INDEX.</h2> +<p>Aberford <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page74">74</a></span>–76, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Alnwick <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page174">174</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page186">186</a></span></p> +<p>“Andrew Mills’ Stob” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +<p>Asenby <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Aycliffe <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p>Ayton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Bagby Common <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Bambrough Castle <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page190">190</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page192">192</a></span></p> +<p>Barkston Ash <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +<p>Barwick-in-Elmete <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page76">76</a></span></p> +<p>Belford <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +<p>Belhaven <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>Beltonford <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>Berwick-upon-Tweed <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page196">196</a></span>–202</p> +<p>Birdforth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span></p> +<p>Birtley <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page135">135</a></span></p> +<p>Blagdon <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +<p>Boroughbridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Bramham <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +<p>Bramham Moor <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page76">76</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +<p>Brotherton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span>–68, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page74">74</a></span></p> +<p>Browney Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p>Brownyside <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +<p>Broxburn <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page212">212</a></span></p> +<p>Burnmouth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Causey Park Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p>Chester-le-Street <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span>–135</p> +<p>Clifton, Yorks <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page52">52</a></span></p> +<p>Clifton, Northumberland <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +<p>Coaches—</p> +<p> Edinburgh Mails <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p> Edinburgh Express <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page55">55</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +<p> Glasgow and Carlisle Mail <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p> “High-flyer,” London, York and +Edinburgh <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p> Leeds Mail <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p> Leeds and York Stage Coach <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page77">77</a></span></p> +<p> “Rockingham,” Leeds <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p> “Union,” Leeds <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p> “Wellington,” London and +Newcastle <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p>Coaching Accident <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p>Coaching Notabilities:—</p> +<p> Alderson, Dr. <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +<p> Holtby, Tom <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +<p> “Nimrod” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page76">76</a></span>–79</p> +<p>Coatham Mundeville <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p>Cockburnspath <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page210">210</a></span>–212</p> +<p>“Conundrum” <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page202">202</a></span></p> +<p>Coxwold <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Craigentinny <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span></p> +<p>Croft <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page92">92</a></span>–95</p> +<p>Cromwell, Oliver <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page212">212</a></span></p> +<p>Croxdale <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +<p>Cunecaster <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span></p> +<p>Cuthbert, Saint <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page126">126</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page190">190</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Dalton-upon-Tees <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page92">92</a></span></p> +<p>Darling, Grace <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page190">190</a></span></p> +<p>Darlington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span>–107</p> +<p>Darrington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +<p>De Quincey, Thomas <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +<p>Dintingdale <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span></p> +<p>Dishforth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Doncaster <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span></p> +<p>Dunbar <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page212">212</a></span>–216</p> +<p>Dunglass Dene <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page214">214</a></span></p> +<p>Durham <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page118">118</a></span>–131</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Easingwold <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span>–56</p> +<p>East Linton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>Edinburgh <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page231">231</a></span>–255</p> +<p>Elections <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span>–32</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Fairborn <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p>“Farmers’ Folly,” The, Alnwick, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page174">174</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page184">184</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page186">186</a></span></p> +<p>Felton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p>Ferrybridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span>–67</p> +<p>Ferryhill <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span>–112</p> +<p>Fisherrow <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> +<p>Flemington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +<p>Framwellgate, Durham <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page130">130</a></span></p> +<p>Framwellgate Moor <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page131">131</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Galtres, Forest of <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +<p>Gateshead <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page152">152</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span>–156</p> +<p>Gladsmuir <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +<p>Gosforth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +<p>Grant’s House <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page209">209</a></span></p> +<p>Great Smeaton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +<p>Grizzy’s Clump <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Haddington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page219">219</a></span>–222</p> +<p>Haggerston Castle <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page192">192</a></span>–195</p> +<p>Halidon Hill <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +<p>Hambleton Hills <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Harlowgreen Lane <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span></p> +<p>Heiferlaw Bank <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span></p> +<p>Hell’s Kettles <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +<p>High Butcher Race <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +<p>High Entercommon <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +<p>Highwaymen:—</p> +<p> Boulter, Thomas <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page22">22</a></span>–24</p> +<p> Hazlett, Robert <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span></p> +<p> King, Tom <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +<p> Nevison, John <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>–22</p> +<p> Tate, Andrew <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +<p> Turpin, Dick <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>–19</p> +<p>Holy Island <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span>–191</p> +<p>Hook Moor <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p>Houndwood <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Inns (mentioned at length):—</p> +<p> “Angel,” Ferrybridge <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +<p> “Angel,” Wetherby <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +<p> “Arabian House,” Aberford <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p> “Bay Horse,” Skelton <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +<p> “Bay Horse,” Traveller’s +Rest <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> +<p> “Black Swan,” York <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page27">27</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +<p> “Blue Bell,” Went Bridge <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +<p> “Comet,” Croft <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +<p> “Crown,” Boroughbridge <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +<p> “Etteridge’s,” York <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +<p> “George,” York <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +<p> “Golden Lion,” Ferrybridge <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p> “Golden Lion,” Northallerton +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page61">61</a></span></p> +<p> “Grant’s House” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page210">210</a></span></p> +<p> “Gretna Green Wedding,” +“Traveller’s Rest” <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p> “Greyhounds,” Boroughbridge +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +<p> “New Inn,” Allerton <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p> “New Inn,” Easingwold <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page55">55</a></span></p> +<p> “Old Fox,” Brotherton <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p> “Old Fox,” Wetherby <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +<p> “Plough,” Alnwick <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page177">177</a></span></p> +<p> “Red House,” near Doncaster +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +<p> “Rose and Crown,” Easingwold +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page55">55</a></span></p> +<p> “Spa Hotel,” Croft <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page92">92</a></span></p> +<p> “Spotted Dog,” +Thornton-le-Street <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p> “Swan,” Aberford <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p> “Swan,” Ferrybridge <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page67">67</a></span></p> +<p> “Walshford Bridge Inn” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p> “Wheatsheaf,” Rushyford Bridge +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page109">109</a></span></p> +<p> “White Horse,” Edinburgh <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page234">234</a></span>–236</p> +<p> “White House,” nr. Easingwold +<span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span>–58</p> +<p> “York Tavern,” York <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page27">27</a></span></p> +<p>Jock’s Lodge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span></p> +<p>Joppa <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Kirk Deighton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Knavesmire, York <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page32">32</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page52">52</a></span></p> +<p>Kyloe <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Lamberton Toll <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page202">202</a></span>–207</p> +<p>“Lambton Worm,” The <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page132">132</a></span></p> +<p>Levenhall <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +<p>Little Smeaton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page89">89</a></span></p> +<p>Lovesome Hill <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +<p>Low Butcher Race <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Macmerry <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +<p>Malcolm’s Cross <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page188">188</a></span></p> +<p>Martin, Jonathan <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page42">42</a></span>–51</p> +<p>Merrington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page112">112</a></span>–114</p> +<p>Metcalf, John <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +<p>Micklefield <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page75">75</a></span></p> +<p>Morpeth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span>–173</p> +<p>Musselburgh <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page227">227</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Neville’s Cross, Battle of <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span></p> +<p>Newcastle-upon-Tyne <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span>–166</p> +<p>Newsham <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Newton-on-the-Moor <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page174">174</a></span></p> +<p>“Nineveh,” or Claro Hill <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Northallerton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span>–62, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>North Charlton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +<p>North Otterington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Old-Time Travellers:—</p> +<p> Calderwood of Coltness, Mrs. <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page129">129</a></span></p> +<p> Defoe, Daniel <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p> Derwentwater, Earl of <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p> Eldon, Earl of <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page109">109</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page160">160</a></span></p> +<p> Evelyn, John <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +<p> James the First <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span></p> +<p> Jeanie Deans <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span></p> +<p> Johnson, Dr. <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page61">61</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page202">202</a></span></p> +<p> Macready, W. J. <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page207">207</a></span></p> +<p> Montagu, Mrs. <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span></p> +<p> Sterne, Rev. Laurence <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p> Thoresby, Ralph <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p>Old-Time Travelling <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page77">77</a></span>–79, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page88">88</a></span>–91, +<span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span>–103, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page155">155</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page199">199</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page232">232</a></span>–237</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Partinghal <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> +<p>Penshaw Monument <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page131">131</a></span></p> +<p>Percys, the Dukes of Northumberland, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page178">178</a></span>–186, +<span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span>–152</p> +<p>Phantassie <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>Piershill <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span></p> +<p>“Pity Me” <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page132">132</a></span></p> +<p>Plawsworth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page132">132</a></span></p> +<p>Portobello <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page229">229</a></span></p> +<p>Prestonpans, Battle of <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page224">224</a></span>–226</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Railways:—</p> +<p> Edinburgh and Berwick <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page104">104</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page199">199</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page254">254</a></span></p> +<p> Great Northern <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +<p> North British <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page255">255</a></span></p> +<p> North-Eastern <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page196">196</a></span></p> +<p> Stockton and Darlington <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page98">98</a></span>–100</p> +<p>Rashelfe <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span></p> +<p>Richardson’s Stead <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page195">195</a></span></p> +<p>Robin Hood’s Well <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span></p> +<p><i>Rob Roy</i> <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span></p> +<p><i>Roderick Random</i> <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span>–152</p> +<p>Ross <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page208">208</a></span></p> +<p>Runaway Marriages <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page203">203</a></span>–207</p> +<p>Rushy Cap <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p>Rushyford Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page109">109</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Sand Hutton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Saxton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page72">72</a></span></p> +<p>Scott, Sir Walter <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page97">97</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span></p> +<p>Scremerston <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page195">195</a></span></p> +<p>Seaton Burn <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +<p>Shaftholme Junction <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +<p>Shipton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +<p>Skelton <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span></p> +<p>“Sockburn Worm,” The <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page93">93</a></span></p> +<p>“Sockeld’s Leap” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p>South Otterington <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Sunderland Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +<p>Standard, Battle of the <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Tadcaster <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page68">68</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page71">71</a></span></p> +<p>Thirkleby Park <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Thirsk <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Thormanby <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Thornton-le-Street <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page59">59</a></span></p> +<p>Tollerton Cross-Lanes <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +<p>Topcliffe <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Towton, Battle of <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page69">69</a></span>–74</p> +<p>Tranent <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +<p>Traprain Law <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>“Traveller’s Rest” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p>Turpin, Dick <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>–19</p> +<p>Tweedmouth <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page196">196</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Walshford Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Warenford <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +<p>Warrener’s House <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p>Went Bridge <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +<p>West Barns <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page216">216</a></span></p> +<p>West Thirston <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span></p> +<p>Wetherby <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page80">80</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +<p>Wide Open <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page166">166</a></span></p> +<p>Woodham <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page108">108</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>York <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span>–52</p> +<p>York Bar <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span></p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT NORTH ROAD: YORK TO +EDINBURGH***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 47239-h.htm or 47239-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/7/2/3/47239 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part +of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, +and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive +specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this +eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook +for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, +performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given +away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks +not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the +trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. + +START: FULL LICENSE + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full +Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at +www.gutenberg.org/license. + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or +destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your +possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a +Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound +by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the +person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph +1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this +agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the +Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection +of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual +works in the collection are in the public domain in the United +States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the +United States and you are located in the United States, we do not +claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, +displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as +all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope +that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting +free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm +works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the +Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily +comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the +same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when +you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are +in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, +check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this +agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, +distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any +other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no +representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any +country outside the United States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other +immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear +prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work +on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, +performed, viewed, copied or distributed: + + This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and + most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no + restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it + under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this + eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the + United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you + are located before using this ebook. + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is +derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not +contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the +copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in +the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are +redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply +either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or +obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any +additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms +will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works +posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the +beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including +any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access +to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format +other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official +version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site +(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense +to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means +of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain +Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the +full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +provided that + +* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed + to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has + agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid + within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are + legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty + payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project + Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in + Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg + Literary Archive Foundation." + +* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all + copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue + all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm + works. + +* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of + any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of + receipt of the work. + +* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than +are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing +from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The +Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm +trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project +Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may +contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate +or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or +other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or +cannot be read by your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium +with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you +with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in +lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person +or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second +opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If +the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing +without further opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO +OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of +damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement +violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the +agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or +limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or +unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the +remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in +accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the +production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, +including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of +the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this +or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or +additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any +Defect you cause. + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of +computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It +exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations +from people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future +generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see +Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at +www.gutenberg.org + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by +U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the +mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its +volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous +locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt +Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to +date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and +official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND +DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular +state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To +donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project +Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be +freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and +distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of +volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in +the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not +necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper +edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search +facility: www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/47239-h/images/P138.jpg b/47239-h/images/P138.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a36601 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/P138.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/c1head.jpg b/47239-h/images/c1head.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8dbfc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/c1head.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/cover.jpg b/47239-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..03f0a36 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/fp.jpg b/47239-h/images/fp.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2d292f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/fp.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/illuhead.jpg b/47239-h/images/illuhead.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c983f14 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/illuhead.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p101.jpg b/47239-h/images/p101.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..906cbe9 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p101.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p105.jpg b/47239-h/images/p105.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a488568 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p105.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p108.jpg b/47239-h/images/p108.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f086aed --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p108.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p109.jpg b/47239-h/images/p109.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..453fa6b --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p109.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p111.jpg b/47239-h/images/p111.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6007fff --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p111.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p113.jpg b/47239-h/images/p113.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2052cb --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p113.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p115.jpg b/47239-h/images/p115.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d914449 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p115.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p117.jpg b/47239-h/images/p117.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..5162136 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p117.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p121.jpg b/47239-h/images/p121.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6e393c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p121.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p125.jpg b/47239-h/images/p125.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c27926c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p125.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p127.jpg b/47239-h/images/p127.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3d22141 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p127.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p130.jpg b/47239-h/images/p130.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..47941fe --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p130.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p132.jpg b/47239-h/images/p132.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b14bb6f --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p132.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p137.jpg b/47239-h/images/p137.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..035213b --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p137.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p138.jpg b/47239-h/images/p138.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a36601 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p138.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p14.jpg b/47239-h/images/p14.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fda4c6e --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p14.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p145.jpg b/47239-h/images/p145.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b59f42f --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p145.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p153.jpg b/47239-h/images/p153.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..17432b9 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p153.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p157.jpg b/47239-h/images/p157.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bb63b20 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p157.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p162.jpg b/47239-h/images/p162.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8132474 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p162.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p165.jpg b/47239-h/images/p165.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6242b64 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p165.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p167.jpg b/47239-h/images/p167.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..efc234a --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p167.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p169.jpg b/47239-h/images/p169.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..263219c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p169.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p173.jpg b/47239-h/images/p173.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..07f7a94 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p173.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p174.jpg b/47239-h/images/p174.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d34d74 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p174.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p175.jpg b/47239-h/images/p175.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6e75722 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p175.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p185.jpg b/47239-h/images/p185.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..02178bb --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p185.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p188.jpg b/47239-h/images/p188.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e01319 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p188.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p192.jpg b/47239-h/images/p192.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7de9707 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p192.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p197.jpg b/47239-h/images/p197.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5a8e52 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p197.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p203.jpg b/47239-h/images/p203.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..775e1fc --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p203.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p205.jpg b/47239-h/images/p205.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd6bb03 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p205.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p213.jpg b/47239-h/images/p213.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6723f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p213.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p215.jpg b/47239-h/images/p215.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ae22498 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p215.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p220.jpg b/47239-h/images/p220.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8f7a275 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p220.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p221.jpg b/47239-h/images/p221.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe45b91 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p221.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p223.jpg b/47239-h/images/p223.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7495d4d --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p223.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p228.jpg b/47239-h/images/p228.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2a693a9 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p228.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p232.jpg b/47239-h/images/p232.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dad7953 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p232.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p235.jpg b/47239-h/images/p235.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7afa2c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p235.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p238.jpg b/47239-h/images/p238.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..05f8ca1 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p238.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p239.jpg b/47239-h/images/p239.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d93eb89 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p239.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p241.jpg b/47239-h/images/p241.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9dd23c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p241.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p242.jpg b/47239-h/images/p242.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8434dd3 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p242.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p243.jpg b/47239-h/images/p243.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1a8452f --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p243.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p245.jpg b/47239-h/images/p245.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5cc7f2 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p245.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p247.jpg b/47239-h/images/p247.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd60856 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p247.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p249.jpg b/47239-h/images/p249.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1290d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p249.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p250.jpg b/47239-h/images/p250.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba1b718 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p250.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p251.jpg b/47239-h/images/p251.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7c2889c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p251.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p255.jpg b/47239-h/images/p255.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c77f63e --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p255.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p33.jpg b/47239-h/images/p33.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6a3499b --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p33.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p41.jpg b/47239-h/images/p41.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fdd4ae --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p41.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p45.jpg b/47239-h/images/p45.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..64c43dd --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p45.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p49.jpg b/47239-h/images/p49.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d14400 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p49.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p52.jpg b/47239-h/images/p52.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4bc78f --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p52.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p53.jpg b/47239-h/images/p53.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..adc0f2e --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p53.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p6.jpg b/47239-h/images/p6.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..38861da --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p6.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p60.jpg b/47239-h/images/p60.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..39e814c --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p60.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p63.jpg b/47239-h/images/p63.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..451033a --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p63.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p64.jpg b/47239-h/images/p64.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dcc259e --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p64.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p70.jpg b/47239-h/images/p70.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbc88b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p70.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p71.jpg b/47239-h/images/p71.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0af9508 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p71.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p72.jpg b/47239-h/images/p72.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1f7c4e6 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p72.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p74.jpg b/47239-h/images/p74.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..adb5a37 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p74.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p76.jpg b/47239-h/images/p76.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1118fc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p76.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p77.jpg b/47239-h/images/p77.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..324de5d --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p77.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p80.jpg b/47239-h/images/p80.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e990da5 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p80.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p81.jpg b/47239-h/images/p81.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..53d3acf --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p81.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p85.jpg b/47239-h/images/p85.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..406d3d1 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p85.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p9.jpg b/47239-h/images/p9.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ee7d42 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p9.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p93.jpg b/47239-h/images/p93.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e35732 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p93.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p94.jpg b/47239-h/images/p94.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..899ebb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p94.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p98.jpg b/47239-h/images/p98.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9db3190 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p98.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/p99.jpg b/47239-h/images/p99.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b1415b8 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/p99.jpg diff --git a/47239-h/images/tp.jpg b/47239-h/images/tp.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e6d6921 --- /dev/null +++ b/47239-h/images/tp.jpg |
