The Project Gutenberg EBook of From John O'Groats to Land's End
by Robert Naylor and John Naylor
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Title: From John O'Groats to Land's End
Author: Robert Naylor and John Naylor
Release Date: December 22, 2004 [EBook #14415]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM JOHN O'GROATS TO LAND'S END ***
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[Transcribers note: Authors 'R.N and J.N.' are Robert Naylor and John Naylor.]
[Illustration: Mr. Robert Naylor FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN DURING HIS
CANDIDATURE FOR THE REPRESENTATION OF THE CARNAVON BOROUGHS 1906]
FROM JOHN O' GROAT'S TO LAND'S END
OR 1372 MILES ON FOOT
A BOOK OF DAYS AND CHRONICLE OF ADVENTURES BY TWO PEDESTRIANS ON TOUR
LONDON
CAXTON PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED
CLUN HOUSE, SURREY STREET, W.C.
1916
FOREWORD
When Time, who steals our hours away.
Shall steal our pleasures too;
The memory of the past shall stay
And half our joys renew.
As I grow older my thoughts often revert to the past, and like the old
Persian poet, Khosros, when he walked by the churchyard and thought how
many of his friends were numbered with the dead, I am often tempted to
exclaim: "The friends of my youth! where are they?" but there is only
the mocking echo to answer, as if from a far-distant land, "Where are
they?"
"One generation passeth away; and another generation cometh," and
enormous changes have taken place in this country during the past
seventy years, which one can only realise by looking back and comparing
the past with the present.
The railways then were gradually replacing the stage-coaches, of which
the people then living had many stories to tell, and the roads which
formerly had mostly been paved with cobble or other stones were being
macadamised; the brooks which ran across the surface of the roads were
being covered with bridges; toll-gates still barred the highways, and
stories of highway robbers were still largely in circulation, those
about Dick Turpin, whose wonderful mare "Black Bess" could jump over the
turnpike gates, being the most prominent, while Robin Hood and Little
John still retained a place in the minds of the people as former heroes
of the roads and forests.
Primitive methods were still being employed in agriculture. Crops were
cut with scythe and sickle, while old scythe-blades fastened at one end
of a wooden bench did duty to cut turnips in slices to feed the cattle,
and farm work generally was largely done by hand.
At harvest time the farmers depended on the services of large numbers of
men who came over from Ireland by boat, landing at Liverpool, whence
they walked across the country in gangs of twenty or more, their first
stage being Warrington, where they stayed a night at Friar's Green, at
that time the Irish quarter of the town. Some of them walked as far as
Lincolnshire, a great corn-growing county, many of them preferring to
walk bare-footed, with their shoes slung across their shoulders. Good
and steady walkers they were too, with a military step and a
four-mile-per-hour record.
The village churches were mostly of the same form in structure and
service as at the conclusion of the Civil War. The old oak pews were
still in use, as were the galleries and the old "three-decker" pulpits,
with sounding-boards overhead. The parish clerk occupied the lower deck
and gave out the hymns therefrom, as well as other notices of a
character not now announced in church. The minister read the lessons and
prayers, in a white surplice, from the second deck, and then, while a
hymn was being sung, he retired to the vestry, from which he again
emerged, attired in a black gown, to preach the sermon from the upper
deck.
The church choir was composed of both sexes, but not surpliced, and, if
there was no organ, bassoons, violins, and other instruments of music
supported the singers.
The churches generally were well filled with worshippers, for it was
within a measurable distance from the time when all parishioners were
compelled to attend church. The names of the farms or owners appeared on
the pew doors, while inferior seats, called free seats, were reserved
for the poor. Pews could be bought and sold, and often changed hands;
but the squire had a large pew railed on from the rest, and raised a
little higher than the others, which enabled him to see if all his
tenants were in their appointed places.
The village inns were generally under the shadow of the church steeple,
and, like the churches, were well attended, reminding one of Daniel
Defoe, the clever author of that wonderful book _Robinson Crusoe_, for
he wrote:
Wherever God erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found upon examination,
The Devil has the largest congregation.
The church services were held morning and afternoon, evening service
being then almost unknown in country places; and between the services
the churchwardens and other officials of the church often adjourned to
the inn to hear the news and to smoke tobacco in long clay pipes named
after them "churchwarden pipes"; many of the company who came from long
distances remained eating and drinking until the time came for afternoon
service, generally held at three o'clock.
The landlords of the inns were men of light and leading, and were
specially selected by the magistrates for the difficult and responsible
positions they had to fill; and as many of them had acted as stewards
or butlers--at the great houses of the neighbourhood, and perhaps had
married the cook or the housekeeper, and as each inn was required by law
to provide at least one spare bedroom, travellers could rely upon being
comfortably housed and well victualled, for each landlord brewed his own
beer and tried to vie with his rival as to which should brew the best.
Education was becoming more appreciated by the poorer people, although
few of them could even write their own names; but when their children
could do so, they thought them wonderfully clever, and educated
sufficiently to carry them through life. Many of them were taken away
from school and sent to work when only ten or eleven years of age!
Books were both scarce and dear, the family Bible being, of course, the
principal one. Scarcely a home throughout the land but possessed one of
these family heirlooms, on whose fly-leaf were recorded the births and
deaths of the family sometimes for several successive generations, as it
was no uncommon occurrence for occupiers of houses to be the descendants
of people of the same name who had lived in them for hundreds of years,
and that fact accounted for traditions being handed down from one
generation to another.
Where there was a village library, the books were chiefly of a religious
character; but books of travel and adventure, both by land and sea, were
also much in evidence, and _Robinson Crusoe, Captain Cook's Three
Voyages round the World_, and the _Adventures of Mungo Park in Africa_
were often read by young people. The story of Dick Whittington was
another ideal, and one could well understand the village boys who lived
near the great road routes, when they saw the well-appointed coaches
passing on their way up to London, being filled with a desire to see
that great city, whose streets the immortal Dick had pictured to himself
as being paved with gold, and to wish to emulate his wanderings, and
especially when there was a possibility of becoming the lord mayor.
The bulk of the travelling in the country was done on foot or horseback,
as the light-wheeled vehicles so common in later times had not yet come
into vogue. The roads were still far from safe, and many tragedies were
enacted in lonely places, and in cases of murder the culprit, when
caught, was often hanged or gibbeted near the spot where the crime was
committed, and many gallows trees were still to be seen on the sides of
the highways on which murderers had met with their well-deserved fate.
No smart service of police existed; the parish constables were often
farmers or men engaged in other occupations, and as telegraphy was
practically unknown, the offenders often escaped.
The Duke of Wellington and many of his heroes were still living, and
the tales of fathers and grandfathers were chiefly of a warlike nature;
many of them related to the Peninsula War and Waterloo, as well as
Trafalgar, and boys were thus inspired with a warlike and adventurous
spirit and a desire to see the wonders beyond the seas.
It was in conditions such as these that the writer first lived and moved
and had his being, and his early aspirations were to walk to London, and
to go to sea; but it was many years before his boyish aspirations were
realised. They came at length, however, but not exactly in the form he
had anticipated, for in 1862 he sailed from Liverpool to London, and in
1870 he took the opportunity of walking back from London to Lancashire
in company with his brother. We walked by a circuitous route, commencing
in an easterly direction, and after being on the road for a fortnight,
or twelve walking days, as we did not walk on Sundays, we covered the
distance of 306 miles at an average of twenty-five miles per day.
We had many adventures, pleasant and otherwise, on that journey, but on
the whole we were so delighted with our walk that, when, in the
following year, the question arose. "Where shall we walk this year?" we
unanimously decided to walk from John o' Groat's to Land's End, or, as
my brother described it, "from the top of the map to the bottom."
It was a big undertaking, especially as we had resolved not to journey
by the shortest route, but to walk from one great object of interest to
another, and to see and learn as much as possible of the country we
passed through on our way. We were to walk the whole of the distance
between the north-eastern extremity of Scotland and the south-western
extremity of England, and not to cross a ferry or accept or take a ride
in any kind of conveyance whatever. We were also to abstain from all
intoxicating drink, not to smoke cigars or tobacco, and to walk so that
at the end of the journey we should have maintained an average of
twenty-five miles per day, except Sunday, on which day we were to attend
two religious services, as followers of and believers in Sir Matthew
Hale's Golden Maxim:
A Sabbath well spent brings a week of content
And Health for the toils of to-morrow;
But a Sabbath profaned, WHATE'ER MAY BE GAINED.
Is a certain forerunner of Sorrow.
With the experience gained in our walk the previous year, we decided to
reduce our equipment to the lowest possible limit, as every ounce had to
be carried personally, and it became a question not of how much luggage
we should take, but of how little; even maps were voted off as
encumbrances, and in place of these we resolved to rely upon our own
judgment, and the result of local inquiries, as we travelled from one
great object of interest to another, but as these were often widely
apart, as might bime rambling along the beach, and, as pleasure seekers
generally do, passed the day comfortably, looking at anything and
everything that came in our way. By no means sea-faring men, having
mainly been accustomed to village life, we had some misgivings when we
boarded the s.s. _St. Magnus_ at eight o'clock in the evening, and our
sensations during the night were such as are common to what the sailors
call "land-lubbers." We were fortunate, however, in forming the
acquaintance of a lively young Scot, who was also bound for Wick, and
who cheered us during the night by giving us copious selections from
Scotland's favourite bard, of whom he was greatly enamoured. We heard
more of "Rabbie Burns" that night than we had ever heard before, for our
friend seemed able to recite his poetry by the yard and to sing some of
it also, and he kept us awake by occasionally asking us to join in the
choruses. Some of the sentiments of Burns expressed ideals that seem a
long time in being realised, and one of his favourite quotations,
repeated several times by our friend, dwells in our memory after many
years:
For a' that an' a' that
It's coming, yet, for a' that,
That man to man the war-ld o'er
Shall brithers be for a' that.
During the night, as the _St. Magnus_ ploughed her way through the
foaming billows, we noticed long, shining streaks on the surface of the
water, varying in colour from a fiery red to a silvery white, the effect
of which, was quite beautiful. Our friend informed us these were caused
by the stampede of the shoals of herrings through which we were then
passing.
The herring fishery season was now on, and, though we could not
distinguish either the fishermen or their boats when we passed near one
of their fishing-grounds, we could see the lights they carried dotted
all over the sea, and we were apprehensive lest we should collide with
some of them, but the course of the _St. Magnus_ had evidently been
known and provided for by the fishermen.
We had a long talk with our friend about our journey north, and, as he
knew the country well, he was able to give us some useful information
and advice. He told us that if we left the boat at Wick and walked to
John o' Groat's from there, we should have to walk the same way back, as
there was only the one road, and if we wished to avoid going over the
same ground twice, he would advise us to remain on the _St. Magnus_
until she reached her destination, Lerwick, in the Shetland Islands, and
the cost by the boat would be very little more than to Wick. She would
only stay a short time at Lerwick, and then we could return in her to
Kirkwall, in the Orkney Islands. From that place we could walk across
the Mainland to Stromness, where we should find a small steamboat which
conveyed mails and passengers across the Pentland Firth to Thurso in the
north of Scotland, from which point John o' Groat's could easily be
reached, and, besides, we might never again have such a favourable
opportunity of seeing the fine rock scenery of those northern islands.
[Illustration: WICK HARBOUR. From a photograph taken in 1867.]
We were delighted with his suggestion, and wrote a hurried letter home
advising our people there of this addition to our journey, and our
friend volunteered to post the letter for us at Wick. It was about six
o'clock in the morning when we neared that important fishery town and
anchored in the harbour, where we had to stay an hour or two to load and
unload cargo. Our friend the Scot had to leave us here, but we could not
allow him to depart without some kind of ceremony or other, and as the
small boat came in sight that was to carry him ashore, we decided to
sing a verse or two of "Auld Lang Syne" from his favourite poet Burns;
but my brother could not understand some of the words in one of the
verses, so he altered and anglicised them slightly:
An' here's a haund, my trusty friend,
An' gie's a haund o' thine;
We'll tak' a cup o' kindness yet,
For the sake o' auld lang syne.
Some of the other passengers joined in the singing, but we never
realised the full force of this verse until we heard it sung in its
original form by a party of Scots, who, when they came to this
particular verse, suited the action to the word by suddenly taking hold
of each other's hands, thereby forming a cross, and meanwhile beating
time to the music. Whether the cross so formed had any religious
significance or not, we did not know.
Our friend was a finely built and intelligent young man, and it was with
feelings of great regret that we bade him farewell and watched his
departure over the great waves, with the rather mournful presentiment
that we were being parted from him for ever!
_Saturday, September 9th._
There were signs of a change in the weather as we left Wick, and the
_St. Magnus_ rolled considerably; but occasionally we had a good view of
the precipitous rocks that lined the coast, many of them having been
christened by the sailors after the objects they represented, as seen
from the sea. The most prominent of these was a double-headed peak in
Caithness, which formed a remarkably perfect resemblance to the breasts
of a female giant with nipples complete, and this they had named the
"Maiden's Paps." Then there was the "Old Man of Hoy," and other rocks
that stood near the entrance to that terrible torrent of the sea, the
Pentland Firth; but, owing to the rolling of our ship, we were not in a
fit state either of mind or body to take much interest in them, and we
were very glad when we reached the shelter of the Orkney Islands and
entered the fine harbour of Kirkwall. Here we had to stay for a short
time, so we went ashore and obtained a substantial lunch at the
Temperance Hotel near the old cathedral, wrote a few letters, and at 3
p.m. rejoined the _St. Magnus_.
The sea had been quite rough enough previously, but it soon became
evident that it had been smooth compared with what followed, and during
the coming night we wished many times that our feet were once more on
_terra firma_. The rain descended, the wind increased in violence, and
the waves rolled high and broke over the ship, and we were no longer
allowed to occupy our favourite position on the upper deck, but had to
descend a stage lower. We were saturated with water from head to foot in
spite of our overalls, and we were also very sick, and, to add to our
misery, we could hear, above the noise of the wind and waves, the
fearful groaning of some poor woman who, a sailor told us, had been
suddenly taken ill, and it was doubtful if she could recover. He carried
a fish in his hand which he had caught as it was washed on deck, and he
invited us to come and see the place where he had to sleep. A dismal
place it was too, flooded with water, and not a dry thing for him to put
on. We could not help feeling sorry that these sailors had such
hardships to undergo; but he seemed to take it as a matter of course,
and appeared to be more interested in the fish he carried than in the
storm that was then raging. We were obliged to keep on the move to
prevent our taking cold, and we realised that we were in a dark,
dismal, and dangerous position, and thought of the words of a
well-known song and how appropriate they were to that occasion:
"O Pilot! 'tis a fearful night,
There's danger on the deep;
I'll come and pace the deck with thee,
I do not dare to sleep."
"Go down!" the Pilot cried, "go down!
This is no place for thee;
Fear not! but trust in Providence,
Wherever thou may'st be."
The storm continued for hours, and, as it gradually abated, our feelings
became calmer, our fears subsided, and we again ventured on the upper
deck. The night had been very dark hitherto, but we could now see the
occasional glimmering of a light a long distance ahead, which proved to
be that of a lighthouse, and presently we could distinguish the bold
outlines of the Shetland Islands.
As we entered Bressay Sound, however, a beautiful transformation scene
suddenly appeared, for the clouds vanished as if by magic, and the last
quarter of the moon, surrounded by a host of stars, shone out
brilliantly in the clear sky. It was a glorious sight, for we had never
seen these heavenly bodies in such a clear atmosphere before, and it was
hard to realise that they were so far away from us. We could appreciate
the feelings of a little boy of our acquaintance, who, when carried
outside the house one fine night by his father to see the moon,
exclaimed in an ecstasy of delight: "Oh, reach it, daddy!--reach it!"
and it certainly looked as if we could have reached it then, so very
near did it appear to us.
It was two o'clock on Sunday morning, September 10th, when we reached
Lerwick, the most northerly town in Her Majesty's British Dominions, and
we appealed to a respectable-looking passenger who was being rowed
ashore with us in the boat as to where we could obtain good lodgings. He
kindly volunteered to accompany us to a house at which he had himself
stayed before taking up his permanent residence as a tradesman in the
town and which he could thoroughly recommend. Lerwick seemed a
weird-looking place in the moonlight, and we turned many corners on our
way to our lodgings, and were beginning to wonder how we should find our
way out again, when our companion stopped suddenly before a private
boarding-house, the door of which was at once opened by the mistress. We
thanked the gentleman for his kind introduction, and as we entered the
house the lady explained that it was her custom to wait up for the
arrival of the _St. Magnus_. We found the fire burning and the kettle
boiling, and the cup that cheers was soon on the table with the usual
accompaniments, which were quickly disposed of. We were then ushered to
our apartments--a bedroom and sitting or dining-room combined, clean
and comfortable, but everything seemed to be moving like the ship we had
just left. Once in bed, however, we were soon claimed by the God of
Slumber, sleep, and dreams--our old friend Morpheus.
_Sunday, September 10th._
In the morning we attended the English Episcopalian Church, and, after
service, which was rather of a high church character, we walked into the
country until we came in sight of the rough square tower of Scalloway
Castle, and on our return we inspected the ruins of a Pictish castle,
the first of the kind we had seen, although we were destined to see many
others in the course of our journey.
[Illustration: LERWICK. Commercial Street as it was in 1871.]
The Picts, we were informed, were a race of people who settled in the
north of Scotland in pre-Roman times, and who constructed their
dwellings either of earth or stone, but always in a circular form. This
old castle was built of stone, and the walls were five or six yards
thick; inside these walls rooms had been made for the protection of the
owners, while the circular, open space enclosed by the walls had
probably been for the safe housing of their cattle. An additional
protection had also been formed by the water with which the castle was
surrounded, and which gave it the appearance of a small island in the
middle of a lake. It was connected with the land by means of a narrow
road, across which we walked. The castle did not strike us as having
been a very desirable place of residence; the ruins had such a very
dismal and deserted appearance that we did not stay there long, but
returned to our lodgings for lunch. After this we rested awhile, and
then joined the townspeople, who were patrolling every available space
outside. The great majority of these were women, healthy and
good-looking, and mostly dressed in black, as were also those we
afterwards saw in the Orkneys and the extreme north of Scotland, and we
thought that some of our disconsolate bachelor friends might have been
able to find very desirable partners for life in these northern
dominions of Her Majesty the Queen.
The houses in Lerwick had been built in all sorts of positions without
any attempt at uniformity, and the rough, flagged passage which did duty
for the main street was, to our mind, the greatest curiosity of all, and
almost worth going all the way to Shetland to see. It was curved and
angled in such an abrupt and zigzag manner that it gave us the
impression that the houses had been built first, and the street, where
practicable, filled in afterwards. A gentleman from London was loud in
his praise of this wonderful street; he said he felt so much safer there
than in "beastly London," as he could stand for hours in that street
before the shop windows without being run over by any cab, cart, or
omnibus, and without feeling a solitary hand exploring his coat pockets.
This was quite true, as we did not see any vehicles in Lerwick, nor
could they have passed each other through the crooked streets had they
been there, and thieves would have been equally difficult to find.
Formerly, however, Lerwick had an evil reputation in that respect, as it
was noted for being the abode of sheep-stealers and pirates, so much so,
that, about the year 1700, it had become such a disreputable place that
an earnest appeal was made to the "Higher Authorities" to have the place
burnt, and for ever made desolate, on account of its great wickedness.
Since that time, however, the softening influences of the Christian
religion had permeated the hearts of the people, and, at the time of our
visit, the town was well supplied with places of worship, and it would
have been difficult to have found any thieves there then. We attended
evening service in the Wesleyan Chapel, where we found a good
congregation, a well-conducted service, and an acceptable preacher, and
we reflected that Mr. Wesley himself would have rejoiced to know that
even in such a remote place as Lerwick his principles were being
promulgated.
_Monday, September 11th._
We rose early with the object of seeing all we could in the short time
at our disposal, which was limited to the space of a single day, or
until the _St. Magnus_ was due out in the evening on her return journey.
We were anxious to see a large cavern known as the Orkneyman's Cave, but
as it could only be reached from the sea, we should have had to engage a
boat to take us there. We were told the cave was about fifty feet square
at the entrance, but immediately beyond it increased to double the size;
it was possible indeed to sail into it with a boat and to lose sight of
daylight altogether.
The story goes that many years ago an Orkneyman was pursued by a
press-gang, but escaped being captured by sailing into the cave with his
boat. He took refuge on one of the rocky ledges inside, but in his haste
he forgot to secure his boat, and the ground swell of the sea washed it
out of the cave. To make matters worse, a storm came on, and there he
remained a prisoner in the cave for two days; but as soon as the storm
abated he plunged into the water, swam to a small rock outside, and
thence climbed to the top of the cliff and so escaped. Since that event
it had been known as the Orkneyman's Cave.
We went to the boat at the appointed time, but unfortunately the wind
was too strong for us to get round to the cave, so we were disappointed.
The boatman suggested as the next best thing that we should go to see
the Island of Noss. He accordingly took us across the bay, which was
about a mile wide, and landed us on the Island of Bressay. Here it was
necessary for us to get a permit to enable us to proceed farther, so,
securing his boat, the boatman accompanied us to the factor's house,
where he procured a pass, authorising us to land on the Island of Noss,
of which the following is a facsimile:
_Allow Mr. Nailer and friends
to land on Noss.
To Walter. A.M. Walker_.
Here he left us, as we had to walk across the Island of Bressay, and,
after a tramp of two or three miles, during which we did not see a
single human being, we came to another water where there was a boat.
Here we found Walter, and, after we had exhibited our pass, he rowed us
across the narrow arm of the sea and landed us on the Island of Noss. He
gave us careful instructions how to proceed so that we could see the
Holm of Noss, and warned us against approaching too near the edge of the
precipice which we should find there. After a walk of about a mile, all
up hill, we came to the precipitous cliffs which formed the opposite
boundary of the island, and from a promontory there we had a magnificent
view of the rocks, with the waves of the sea dashing against them,
hundreds of feet below. A small portion of the island was here separated
from the remainder by a narrow abyss about fifty feet wide, down which
it was terrible to look, and this separated portion was known as the
Holm of Noss. It rose precipitously on all sides from the sea, and its
level surface on the top formed a favourite nesting-place for myriads of
wild birds of different varieties, which not only covered the top of the
Holm, but also the narrow ledges along its jagged sides. Previous to the
seventeenth century, this was one of the places where the foot of man
had never trod, and a prize of a cow was offered to any man who would
climb the face of the cliff and establish a connection with the mainland
by means of a rope, as it was thought that the Holm would provide
pasturage for about twenty sheep. A daring fowler, from Foula Island,
successfully performed the feat, and ropes were firmly secured to the
rocks on each side, and along two parallel ropes a box or basket was
fixed, capable of holding a man and a sheep. This apparatus was named
the Cradle of Noss, and was so arranged that an Islander with or without
a sheep placed in the cradle could drag himself across the chasm in
either direction. Instead, however, of returning by the rope or cradle,
on which he would have been comparatively safe, the hardy fowler decided
to go back by the same way he had come, and, missing his foothold,
fell on the rocks in the sea below and was dashed to pieces, so that
the prize was never claimed by him.
[Illustration: THE HOLM OF NOSS. "It made us shudder ... as we peered
down on the abysmal depths below."]
We felt almost spellbound as we approached this awful chasm, and as if
we were being impelled by some invisible force towards the edge of the
precipice. It fairly made us shudder as on hands and knees we peered
down on the abysmal depths below. It was a horrible sensation, and one
that sometimes haunted us in our dreams for years afterwards, and we
felt greatly relieved when we found that we could safely crawl away and
regain an upright posture. We could see thousands upon thousands of wild
birds, amongst which the ordinary sea-gull was largely represented; but
there were many other varieties of different colours, and the
combination of their varied cries, mingled with the bleating of the
sheep, the whistling of the wind, the roaring of the waves as they
dashed against the rocks below, or entered the caverns with a sound like
distant thunder, tended to make us feel quite bewildered. We retired to
the highest elevation we could find, and there, 600 miles from home, and
perhaps as many feet above sea-level, was solitude in earnest. We were
the only human beings on the island, and the enchanting effect of the
wild scenery, the vast expanse of sea, the distant moaning of the
waters, the great rocks worn by the wind and the waves into all kinds of
fantastic shapes and caverns, the blue sky above with the glorious sun
shining upon us, all proclaimed to our minds the omnipotence of the
great Creator of the Universe, the Almighty Maker and Giver of all.
We lingered as long as we could in these lonely and romantic solitudes,
and, as we sped down the hill towards the boat, we suddenly became
conscious that we had not thought either of what we should eat or what
we should drink since we had breakfasted early in the morning, and we
were very hungry. Walter was waiting for us on our side of the water, as
he had been watching for our return, and had seen us coming when we were
nearly a mile away. There was no vegetation to obstruct the view, for,
as he said, we might walk fifty miles in Shetland without meeting with a
bush or tree. We had an agreeable surprise when we reached the other
side of the water in finding some light refreshments awaiting our
arrival which he had thoughtfully provided in the event of their being
required, and for which we were profoundly thankful. The cradle of Noss
had disappeared some time before our visit, but, if it had been there,
we should have been too terrified to make use of it. It had become
dangerous, and as the pasturage of sheep on the Holm had proved a
failure, the birds had again become masters of the situation, while the
cradle had fallen to decay. Walter gave us an awful description of the
danger of the fowler's occupation, especially in the Foula Island, where
the rocks rose towering a thousand feet above the sea. The top of the
cliffs there often projected over their base, so that the fowler had to
be suspended on a rope fastened to the top of the cliff, swinging
himself backwards and forwards like a pendulum until he could reach the
ledge of rock where the birds laid their eggs. Immediately he landed on
it, he had to secure his rope, and then gather the eggs in a hoop net,
and put them in his wallet, and then swing off again, perhaps hundreds
of feet above the sea, to find another similar ledge, so that his
business was practically carried on in the air. On one of these
occasions a fowler had just reached a landing-place on the precipice,
when his rope slipped out of his hand, and swung away from the cliff
into the empty air. If he had hesitated one moment, he would have been
lost for ever, as in all probability he would either have been starved
to death on the ledge of rock on which he was or fallen exhausted into
the sea below. The first returning swing of the rope might bring him a
chance of grasping it, but the second would be too far away. The rope
came back, the desperate man measured the distance with his eye, sprang
forward in the air, grasped the rope, and was saved.
Sometimes the rope became frayed or cut by fouling some sharp edge of
rock above, and, if it broke, the fowler was landed in eternity.
Occasionally two or three men were suspended on the same rope at the
same time. Walter told us of a father and two sons who were on the rope
in this way, the father being the lowest and his two sons being above
him, when the son who was uppermost saw that the rope was being frayed
above him, and was about to break. He called to his brother who was just
below that the rope would no longer hold them all, and asked him to cut
it off below him and let their father go. This he indignantly refused to
do, whereupon his brother, without a moment's hesitation, cut the rope
below himself, and both his father and brother perished.
It was terrible to hear such awful stories, as our nerves were unstrung
already, so we asked our friend Walter not to pile on the agony further,
and, after rewarding him for his services, we hurried over the remaining
space of land and sea that separated us from our comfortable quarters at
Lerwick, where a substantial tea was awaiting our arrival.
We were often asked what we thought of Shetland and its inhabitants.
Shetland was fine in its mountain and coast scenery, but it was wanting
in good roads and forests, and it seemed strange that no effort had been
made to plant some trees, as forests had formerly existed there, and, as
a gentleman told us, there seemed no peculiarity in either the soil or
climate to warrant an opinion unfavourable to the country's
arboricultural capacity. Indeed, such was the dearth of trees and
bushes, that a lady, who had explored the country thoroughly, declared
that the tallest and grandest tree she saw during her visit to the
Islands was a stalk of rhubarb which had run to seed and was waving its
head majestically in a garden below the old fort of Lerwick!
Agriculture seemed also to be much neglected, but possibly the fishing
industry was more profitable. The cottages also were very small and of
primitive construction, many of them would have been condemned as being
unfit for human habitation if they had existed elsewhere, and yet, in
spite of this apparent drawback, these hardy islanders enjoyed the best
of health and brought up large families of very healthy-looking
children. Shetland will always have a pleasant place in our memories,
and, as regards the people who live there, to speak the truth we
scarcely ever met with folks we liked better. We received the greatest
kindness and hospitality, and met with far greater courtesy and civility
than in the more outwardly polished and professedly cultivated parts of
the countries further south, especially when making inquiries from
people to whom we had not been "introduced"! The Shetlanders spoke good
English, and seemed a highly intelligent race of people. Many of the
men went to the whale and other fisheries in the northern seas, and
"Greenland's icy mountains" were well known to them.
On the island there were many wives and mothers who mourned the loss of
husbands and sons who had perished in that dangerous occupation, and
these remarks also applied to the Orkney Islands, to which we were
returning, and might also account for so many of these women being
dressed in black. Every one told us we were visiting the islands too
late in the year, and that we ought to have made our appearance at an
earlier period, when the sun never sets, and when we should have been
able to read at midnight without the aid of an artificial light.
Shetland was evidently in the range of the "Land of the Midnight Sun,"
but whether we should have been able to keep awake in order to read at
midnight was rather doubtful, as we were usually very sleepy. At one
time of the year, however, the sun did not shine at all, and the
Islanders had to rely upon the Aurora Borealis, or the Northern Lights,
which then made their appearance and shone out brilliantly, spreading a
beautifully soft light over the islands. We wondered if it were this or
the light of the midnight sun that inspired the poet to write:
Night walked in beauty o'er the peaceful sea.
Whose gentle waters spoke tranquillity,
or if it had been borrowed from some more peaceful clime, as we had not
yet seen the "peaceful sea" amongst these northern islands. We had now
once more to venture on its troubled waters, and we made our appearance
at the harbour at the appointed time for the departure of the _St.
Magnus_. We were, however, informed that the weather was too misty for
our boat to leave, so we returned to our lodgings, ordered a fire, and
were just making ourselves comfortable and secretly hoping our departure
might be delayed until morning, when Mrs. Sinclair, our landlady, came
to tell us that the bell, which was the signal for the _St. Magnus_ to
leave, had just rung. We hurried to the quay, only to find that the boat
which conveyed passengers and mails to our ship had disappeared. We were
in a state of consternation, but a group of sailors, who were standing
by, advised us to hire a special boat, and one was brought up
immediately, by which, after a lot of shouting and whistling--for we
could scarcely see anything in the fog--we were safely landed on the
steamboat. We had only just got beyond the harbour, however, when the
fog became so dense that we suddenly came to a standstill, and had to
remain in the bay for a considerable time. When at last we moved slowly
outwards, the hoarse whistle of the _St. Magnus_ was sounded at short
intervals, to avoid collision with any other craft. It had a strangely
mournful sound, suggestive of a funeral or some great calamity, and we
should almost have preferred being in a storm, when we could have seen
the danger, rather than creeping along in the fog and darkness, with a
constant dread of colliding with some other boat or with one of the
dangerous rocks which we knew were in the vicinity. Sleep was out of the
question until later, when the fog began to clear a little, and, in the
meantime, we found ourselves in the company of a group of young men who
told us they were going to Aberdeen.
One of them related a rather sorrowful story. He and his mates had come
from one of the Shetland Islands from which the inhabitants were being
expelled by the factor, so that he could convert the whole of the island
into a sheep farm for his own personal advantage. Their ancestors had
lived there from time immemorial, but their parents had all received
notice to leave, and other islands were being depopulated in the same
way. The young men were going to Aberdeen to try to find ships on which
they could work their passage to some distant part of the world; they
did not know or care where, but he said the time would come when this
country would want soldiers and sailors, and would not be able to find
them after the men had been driven abroad. He also told us about what he
called the "Truck System," which was a great curse in their islands, as
"merchants" encouraged young people to get deeply in their debt, so that
when they grew up they could keep them in their clutches and subject
them to a state of semi-slavery, as with increasing families and low
wages it was then impossible to get out of debt. We were very sorry to
see these fine young men leaving the country, and when we thought of the
wild and almost deserted islands we had just visited, it seemed a pity
they could not have been employed there. We had a longer and much
smoother passage than on our outward voyage, and the fog had given place
to a fine, clear atmosphere as we once more entered the fine harbour of
Kirkwall, and we had a good view of the town, which some enthusiastic
passenger described as the "Metropolis of the Orcadean Archipelago."
_Tuesday, September 12th._
We narrowly escaped a bad accident as we were leaving the _St. Magnus_.
She carried a large number of sheep and Shetland ponies on deck, and our
way off the ship was along a rather narrow passage formed by the cattle
on one side and a pile of merchandise on the other. The passengers were
walking in single file, my brother immediately in front of myself, when
one of the ponies suddenly struck out viciously with its hind legs just
as we were passing. If we had received the full force of the kick, we
should have been incapacitated from walking; but fortunately its
strength was exhausted when it reached us, and it only just grazed our
legs. The passengers behind thought at first we were seriously injured,
and one of them rushed forward and held the animal's head to prevent
further mischief; but the only damage done was to our overalls, on which
the marks of the pony's hoofs remained as a record of the event. On
reaching the landing-place the passengers all came forward to
congratulate us on our lucky escape, and until they separated we were
the heroes of the hour, and rather enjoyed the brief notoriety.
There was an old-world appearance about Kirkwall reminiscent of the time
When Norse and Danish galleys plied
Their oars within the Firth of Clyde,
When floated Haco's banner trim
Above Norwegian warriors grim,
Savage of heart and huge of limb.
for it was at the palace there that Haco, King of Norway, died in 1263.
There was only one considerable street in the town, and this was winding
and narrow and paved with flags in the centre, something like that in
Lerwick, but the houses were much more foreign in appearance, and many
of them had dates on their gables, some of them as far back as the
beginning of the fifteenth century. We went to the same hotel as on our
outward journey, and ordered a regular good "set out" to be ready by the
time we had explored the ancient cathedral, which, like our ship, was
dedicated to _St. Magnus_. We were directed to call at a cottage for the
key, which was handed to us by the solitary occupant, and we had to find
our way as best we could. After entering the ancient building, we took
the precaution of locking the door behind us. The interior looked dark
and dismal after the glorious sunshine we had left outside, and was
suggestive more of a dungeon than a place of worship, and of the dark
deeds done in the days of the past. The historian relates that St.
Magnus met his death at the hands of his cousin Haco while in the church
of Eigleshay. He had retired there with a presentiment of some evil
about to happen him, and "while engaged in devotional exercises,
prepared and resigned for whatever might occur, he was slain by one
stroke of a hatchet. Being considered eminently pious, he was looked
upon as a saint, and his nephew Ronald built the cathedral in accordance
with a vow made before leaving Norway to lay claim to the Earldom of
Orkney." The cathedral was considered to be the best-preserved relic of
antiquity in Scotland, and we were much impressed by the dim religious
light which pervaded the interior, and quite bewildered amongst the dark
passages inside the walls. We had been recommended to ascend the
cathedral tower for the sake of the fine view which was to be obtained
from the top, but had some difficulty in finding the way to the steps.
Once we landed at the top of the tower we considered ourselves well
repaid for our exertions, as the view over land and sea was very
beautiful. Immediately below were the remains of the bishop's and earl's
palaces, relics of bygone ages, now gradually crumbling to decay, while
in the distance we could see the greater portion of the sixty-seven
islands which formed the Orkney Group. Only about one-half of these were
inhabited, the remaining and smaller islands being known as holms, or
pasturages for sheep, which, seen in the distance, resembled green
specks in the great blue sea, which everywhere surrounded them.
[Illustration: ST. MAGNUS CATHEDRAL KIRKWALL]
[Illustration: STROMNESS]
I should have liked to stay a little longer surveying this fairy-like
scene, but my brother declared he could smell our breakfast, which by
this time must have been waiting for us below. Our exit was a little
delayed, as we took a wrong turn in the rather bewildering labyrinth of
arches and passages in the cathedral walls, and it was not without a
feeling of relief that we reached the door we had so carefully locked
behind us. We returned the key to the caretaker, and then went to our
hotel, where we loaded ourselves with a prodigious breakfast, and
afterwards proceeded to walk across the Mainland of the Orkneys, an
estimated distance of fifteen miles.
On our rather lonely way to Stromness we noticed that agriculture was
more advanced than in the Shetland Islands, and that the cattle were
somewhat larger, but we must say that we had been charmed with the
appearance of the little Shetland ponies, excepting perhaps the one that
had done its best to give us a farewell kick when we were leaving the
_St. Magnus_. Oats and barley were the crops chiefly grown, for we did
not see any wheat, and the farmers, with their wives and children, were
all busy harvesting their crops of oats, but there was still room for
extension and improvement, as we passed over miles of uncultivated
moorland later. On our inquiring what objects of interest were to be
seen on our way, our curiosity was raised to its highest pitch when we
were told we should come to an underground house and to a large number
of standing stones a few miles farther on. We fully expected to descend
under the surface of the ground, and to find some cave or cavern below;
but when we got to the place, we found the house practically above
ground, with a small mountain raised above it. It was covered with
grass, and had only been discovered in 1861, about ten years before our
visit. Some boys were playing on the mountain, when one of them found a
small hole which he thought was a rabbit hole, but, pushing his arm down
it, he could feel no bottom. He tried again with a small stick, but with
the same result. The boys then went to a farm and brought a longer
stick, but again failed to reach the bottom of the hole, so they resumed
their play, and when they reached home they told their parents of their
adventure, and the result was that this ancient house was discovered and
an entrance to it found from the level of the land below.
[Illustration: SHETLAND PONIES.]
We went in search of the caretaker, and found him busy with the harvest
in a field some distance away, but he returned with us to the mound. He
opened a small door, and we crept behind him along a low, narrow, and
dark passage for a distance of about seventeen yards, when we entered a
chamber about the size of an ordinary cottage dwelling, but of a
vault-like appearance. It was quite dark, but our guide proceeded to
light a number of small candles, placed in rustic candlesticks, at
intervals, round this strange apartment. We could then see some small
cells in the wall, which might once have been used as burial places for
the dead, and on the walls themselves were hundreds of figures or
letters cut in the rock, in very thin lines, as if engraved with a
needle. We could not decipher any of them, as they appeared more like
Egyptian hieroglyphics than letters of our alphabet, and the only figure
we could distinguish was one which had the appearance of a winged
dragon.
The history of the place was unknown, but we were afterwards told that
it was looked upon as one of the most important antiquarian discoveries
ever made in Britain. The name of the place was Maeshowe. The mound was
about one hundred yards in circumference, and it was supposed that the
house, or tumulus, was first cut out of the rock and the earth thrown
over it afterwards from the large trench by which it was surrounded.
[Illustration: "STANDING STONES OF STENNESS."]
Our guide then directed us to the "Standing Stones of Stenness," which
were some distance away; but he could not spare time to go with us, so
we had to travel alone to one of the wildest and most desolate places
imaginable, strongly suggestive of ghosts and the spirits of the
departed. We crossed the Bridge of Brogar, or Bruargardr, and then
walked along a narrow strip of land dividing two lochs, both of which at
this point presented a very lonely and dismal appearance. Although they
were so near together, Loch Harry contained fresh water only and Loch
Stenness salt water, as it had a small tidal inlet from the sea passing
under Waith Bridge, which we crossed later. There were two groups of the
standing stones, one to the north and the other to the south, and each
consisted of a double circle of considerable extent. The stones
presented a strange appearance, as while many stood upright, some were
leaning; others had fallen, and some had disappeared altogether. The
storms of many centuries had swept over them, and "they stood like
relics of the past, with lichens waving from their worn surfaces like
grizzly beards, or when in flower mantling them with brilliant orange
hues," while the areas enclosed by them were covered with mosses, the
beautiful stag-head variety being the most prominent. One of the poets
has described them:
The heavy rocks of giant size
That o'er the land in circles rise.
Of which tradition may not tell,
Fit circles for the Wizard spell;
Seen far amidst the scowling storm
Seem each a tall and phantom form,
As hurrying vapours o'er them flee
Frowning in grim security,
While like a dread voice from the past
Around them moans the autumnal blast!
These lichened "Standing Stones of Stenness," with the famous Stone of
Odin about 150 yards to the north, are second only to Stonehenge, one
measuring 18 feet in length, 5 feet 4 inches in breadth, and 18 inches
in thickness. The Stone of Odin had a hole in it to which it was
supposed that sacrificial victims were fastened in ancient times, but in
later times lovers met and joined hands through the hole in the stone,
and the pledge of love then given was almost as sacred as a marriage
vow. An antiquarian description of this reads as follows: "When the
parties agreed to marry, they repaired to the Temple of the Moon, where
the woman in the presence of the man fell down on her knees and prayed
to the God Wot point of
the cliffs opposite some dangerous rocks called the Black Craigs, about
which a sorrowful story was told. It happened on Wednesday, March 5th,
1834, during a terrific storm, when the _Star of Dundee_, a schooner of
about eighty tons, was seen to be drifting helplessly towards these
rocks. The natives knew there was no chance of escape for the boat, and
ran with ropes to the top of the precipice near the rocks in the hope of
being of some assistance; but such was the fury of the waves that the
boat was broken into pieces before their eyes, and they were utterly
helpless to save even one of their shipwrecked fellow-creatures. The
storm continued for some time, and during the remainder of the week
nothing of any consequence was found, nor was any of the crew heard of
again, either dead or alive, till on the Sunday morning a man was
suddenly observed on the top of the precipice waving his hands, and the
people who saw him first were so astonished that they thought it was a
spectre. It was afterwards discovered that it was one of the crew of the
ill-fated ship who had been miraculously saved. He had been washed into
a cave from a large piece of the wreck, which had partially blocked its
entrance and so checked the violence of the waves inside, and there were
also washed in from the ship some red herrings, a tin can which had been
used for oil, and two pillows. The herrings served him for food and the
tin can to collect drops of fresh water as they trickled down the rocks
from above, while one of the pillows served for his bed and he used the
other for warmth by pulling out the feathers and placing them into his
boots. Occasionally when the waves filled the mouth of the cave he was
afraid of being suffocated. Luckily for him at last the storm subsided
sufficiently to admit of his swimming out of the cave; how he managed to
scale the cliffs seemed little short of a miracle. He was kindly treated
by the Islanders, and when he recovered they fitted him out with
clothing so that he could join another ship. By what we may call the
irony of fate he was again shipwrecked some years afterwards. This time
the fates were less kind, for he was drowned!
[Illustration: THE WRECK.]
We had a splendid view of the mountains and sea, and stayed as usual on
the cliffs until the pangs of hunger compelled us to return to
Stromness, where we knew that a good tea was waiting for us. At one
point on our way back the Heads of Hoy strangely resembled the profile
of the great Sir Walter Scott, and this he would no doubt have seen when
collecting materials for _The Pirate_.
We had heard both in Shetland and Orkney that when we reached John o'
Groat's we should find an enormous number of shells on the beach, and as
we had some extensive rockeries at home already adorned with thousands
of oyster shells, in fact so many as to cause our home to be nicknamed
"Oyster Shell Hall," we decided to gather some of the shells when we got
to John o'Groat's and send them home to our friends. The question of
packages, however, seemed to be rather a serious one, as we were assured
over and over again we should find no packages when we reached that
out-of-the-way corner of Scotland, and that in the whole of the Orkney
Islands there were not sufficient willows grown to make a single basket,
skip, or hamper. So after tea we decided to explore the town in search
of a suitable hamper, and we had some amusing experiences, as the people
did not know what a hamper was. At length we succeeded in finding one
rather ancient and capacious basket, but without a cover, whose
appearance suggested that it had been washed ashore from some ship that
had been wrecked many years ago, and, having purchased it at about three
times its value, we carried it in triumph to our lodgings, to the
intense amusement of our landlady and the excited curiosity of the
Stromnessians.
We spent the remainder of the evening in looking through Mrs. Spence's
small library of books, but failed to find anything very consoling to
us, as they related chiefly to storms and shipwrecks, and the dangerous
nature of the Pentland Firth, whose turbulent waters we had to cross on
the morrow.
The Pentland Firth lies between the north of Scotland and the Orkney
Islands, varies from five and a half to eight miles in breadth, and is
by repute the most dangerous passage in the British Isles. We were told
in one of the books that if we wanted to witness a regular "passage of
arms" between two mighty seas, the Atlantic at Dunnet Head on the west,
and the North Sea at Duncansbay Head on the east, we must cross Pentland
Firth and be tossed upon its tides before we should be able to imagine
what might be termed their ferocity. "The rush of two mighty oceans,
struggling to sweep this world of waters through a narrow sound, and
dashing their waves in bootless fury against the rocky barriers which
headland and islet present; the endless contest of conflicting tides
hurried forward and repelled, meeting, and mingling--their troubled
surface boiling and spouting--and, even in a summer calm, in an eternal
state of agitation"; and then fancy the calm changing to a storm: "the
wind at west; the whole volume of the Atlantic rolling its wild mass of
waters on, in one sweeping flood, to dash and burst upon the black and
riven promontory of the Dunnet Head, until the mountain wave, shattered
into spray, flies over the summit of a precipice, 400 feet above the
base it broke upon." But this was precisely what we did not want to see,
so we turned to the famous _Statistical Account_, which also described
the difficulty of navigating the Firth for sailing vessels. This
informed us that "the current in the Pentland Firth is exceedingly
strong during the spring tides, so that no vessel can stem it. The
flood-tide runs from west to east at the rate of ten miles an hour, with
new and full moon. It is then high water at Scarfskerry (about three
miles away from Dunnet Head) at nine o'clock. Immediately, as the water
begins to fall on the shore, the current turns to the west; but the
strength of the flood is so great in the middle of the Firth that it
continues to run east till about twelve. With a gentle breeze of
westerly wind, about eight o'clock in the morning the whole Firth, from
Dunnet Head to Hoy Head in Orkney, seems as smooth as a sheet of glass.
About nine the sea begins to rage for about one hundred yards off the
Head, while all without continues smooth as before. This appearance
gradually advances towards the Firth, and along the shore to the east,
though the effects are not much felt along the shore till it reaches
Scarfskerry Head, as the land between these points forms a considerable
bay. By two o'clock the whole of the Firth seems to rage. About three in
the afternoon it is low water on the shore, when all the former
phenomena are reversed, the smooth water beginning to appear next the
land and advancing gradually till it reaches the middle of the Firth. To
strangers the navigation is very dangerous, especially if they approach
near to land. But the natives along the coast are so well acquainted
with the direction of the tides, that they can take advantage of every
one of these currents to carry them safe from one harbour to another.
Hence very few accidents happen, except from want of skill or knowledge
of the tides."
[Illustration: A NORTH SEA ROLLER.]
There were some rather amusing stories about the detention of ships in
the Firth. A Newcastle shipowner had despatched two ships from that port
by the same tide, one to Bombay by the open sea, and the other, via the
Pentland Firth, to Liverpool, and the Bombay vessel arrived at her
destination first. Many vessels trying to force a passage through the
Firth have been known to drift idly about hither and thither for months
before they could get out again, and some ships that once entered
Stromness Bay on New Year's Day were found there, resting from their
labours on the fifteenth day of April following, "after wandering about
like the _Flying Dutchman_." Sir Walter Scott said this was formerly a
ship laden with precious metals, but a horrible murder was committed on
board. A plague broke out amongst the crew, and no port would allow the
vessel to enter for fear of contagion, and so she still wanders about
the sea with her phantom crew, never to rest, but doomed to be tossed
about for ever. She is now a spectral ship, and hovers about the Cape of
Good Hope as an omen of bad luck to mariners who are so unfortunate as
to see her.
The dangerous places at each end of the Firth were likened to the Scylla
and Charybdis between Italy and Sicily, where, in avoiding one mariners
were often wrecked by the other; but the dangers in the Firth were from
the "Merry Men of Mey," a dangerous expanse of sea, where the water was
always boiling like a witch's cauldron at one end, and the dreaded
"Swalchie Whirlpool" at the other. This was very dangerous for small
boats, as they could sail over it safely in one state of the tide, but
when it began to move it carried the boat round so slowly that the
occupants did not realise their danger until too late, when they found
themselves going round quicker and quicker as they descended into the
awful vortex below, where the ancient Vikings firmly believed the
submarine mill existed which ground the salt that supplied the ocean.
We ought not to have read these dismal stories just before retiring to
rest, as the consequence was that we were dreaming of dangerous rocks,
storms, and shipwrecks all through the night, and my brother had toiled
up the hill at the back of the town and found Bessie Miller there, just
as Sir Walter Scott described her, with "a clay-coloured kerchief folded
round her head to match the colour of her corpse-like complexion." He
was just handing her a sixpence to pay for a favourable wind, when
everything was suddenly scattered by a loud knock at the door, followed
by the voice of our hostess informing us that it was five o'clock and
that the boat was "awa' oot" at six.
We were delighted to find that in place of the great storm pictured in
our excited imagination there was every prospect of a fine day, and that
a good "fish breakfast" served in Mrs. Spence's best style was waiting
for us below stairs.
_Thursday, September 14th._
After bidding Mrs. Spence farewell, and thanking her for her kind
attention to us during our visit to Stromness, we made our way to the
sloop, which seemed a frail-looking craft to cross the stormy waters of
the Pentland Firth. We did not, of course, forget our large basket which
we had had so much difficulty in finding, and which excited so much
attention and attracted so much curiosity towards ourselves all the way
to John o' Groat's. It even caused the skipper to take a friendly
interest in us, for after our explanation he stored that ancient basket
amongst his more valuable cargo.
There was only a small number of passengers, but in spite of the early
hour quite a little crowd of people had assembled to witness our
departure, and a considerable amount of banter was going on between
those on board the sloop and the company ashore, which continued as we
moved away, each party trying to get the better of the other. As a
finale, one of our passengers shouted to his friend who had come to see
him off: "Do you want to buy a cow?" "Yes," yelled his friend, "but I
see nothing but a calf." A general roar of laughter followed this
repartee, as we all thought the Orkneyman on shore had scored. We should
have liked to have fired another shot, but by the time the laughter had
subsided we were out of range. We did not expect to be on the way more
than three or four hours, as the distance was only about twenty-four
miles; but we did not reach Thurso until late in the afternoon, and we
should have been later if we had had a less skilful skipper. In the
first place we had an unfavourable wind, which prevented our sailing by
the Hoy Sound, the shortest and orthodox route, and this caused us to
miss the proper sea view of the "Old Man of Hoy," which the steamboat
from Stromness to Thurso always passed in close proximity, but we could
perceive it in the distance as an insular Pillar of Rock, standing 450
feet high with rocks in vicinity rising 1,000 feet, although we could
not see the arch beneath, which gives it the appearance of standing on
two legs, and hence the name given to the rock by the sailors. The
Orcadean poet writes:
See Hoy's Old Man whose summit bare
Pierces the dark blue fields of air;
Based in the sea, his fearful form
Glooms like the spirit of the storm.
[Illustration: "OLD MAN OF HOY."]
When pointing out the Old Man to us, the captain said that he stood in
the roughest bit of sea round the British coast, and the words "wind and
weather permitting" were very applicable when stoppages wore
contemplated at the Old Man or other places in these stormy seas.
We had therefore to sail by way of Lang Hope, which we supposed was a
longer route, and we were astonished at the way our captain handled his
boat; but when we reached what we thought was Lang Hope, he informed the
passengers that he intended to anchor here for some time, and those who
wished could be ferried ashore. We had decided to remain on the boat,
but when the captain said there was an inn there where refreshments
could be obtained, my brother declared that he felt quite hungry, and
insisted upon our having a second breakfast. We were therefore rowed
ashore, and were ushered into the parlour of the inn as if we were the
lords of the manor and sole owners, and were very hospitably received
and entertained. The inn was appropriately named the "Ship," and the
treatment we received was such as made us wish we were making a longer
stay, but time and tide wait for no man.
For the next inn he spurs amain,
In haste alights, and scuds away--
But time and tide for no man stay.
[Illustration: THE SHIP INN, LANG HOPE. The sign has now been removed to
a new hotel, visible in the photograph, on the opposite side of the
ferry.]
Whether it was for time or tide or for one of those mysterious movements
in the Pentland Firth that our one-masted boat was waiting we never
knew. We had only just finished our breakfast when a messenger appeared
to summon us to rejoin the sloop, which had to tack considerably before
we reached what the skipper described as the Scrabster Roads. A stiff
breeze had now sprung up, and there was a strong current in the sea; at
each turn or tack our boat appeared to be sailing on her side, and we
were apprehensive that she might be blown over into the sea. We watched
the operations carefully and anxiously, and it soon became evident that
what our skipper did not know about the navigation of these stormy seas
was not worth knowing. We stood quite near him (and the mast) the whole
of the time, and he pointed out every interesting landmark as it came in
sight. He seemed to be taking advantage of the shelter afforded by the
islands, as occasionally we came quite near their rocky shores, and at
one point he showed us a small hole in the rock which was only a few
feet above the sea; he told us it formed the entrance to a cave in
which he had often played when, as a boy, he lived on that island.
[Illustration: DUNNET HEAD AND LIGHTHOUSE.]
The time had now arrived to cross the Pentland Firth and to sail round
Dunnet Head to reach Thurso. Fortunately the day was fine, and the
strong breeze was nothing in the shape of a storm; but in spite of these
favourable conditions we got a tossing, and no mistake! Our little ship
was knocked about like a cork on the waters, which were absolutely
boiling and foaming and furiously raging without any perceptible cause,
and as if a gale were blowing on them two ways at once. The appearance
of the foaming mass of waters was terrible to behold; we could hear them
roaring and see them struggling together just below us; the deck of the
sloop was only a few feet above them, and it appeared as if we might be
swallowed up at any moment. The captain told us that this turmoil was
caused by the meeting of the waters of two seas, and that at times it
was very dangerous to small boats.
Many years ago he was passing through the Firth with his boat on a
rather stormy day, when he noticed he was being followed by another boat
belonging to a neighbour of his. He could see it distinctly from time to
time, and he was sure that it could not be more than 200 yards away,
when he suddenly missed it. He watched anxiously for some time, but it
failed to reappear, nor was the boat or its crew ever seen or heard of
again, and it was supposed to have been carhat ever were lost in the Pentland Firth and
on the sands of Dunnet. He hesitated at first, but the love of gold
prevailed, and off they set to the cave in question. And here, says
the legend, he is confined with a chain of gold, sufficiently long to
admit of his walking at times on a small piece of sand under the
western side of the Head; and here, too, the fair siren laves herself
in the tiny waves on fine summer evenings, but no consideration will
induce her to loose his fetters of gold, or trust him one hour out of
her sight.
We walked on at a good pace and in high spirits, but, after having
knocked about for nine days and four nights and having travelled seven
or eight hundred miles by land and sea, the weight of our extra burden
began to tell upon us, and we felt rather tired and longed for a rest
both for mind and body in some quiet spot over the week's end,
especially as we had decided to begin our long walk on the Monday
morning.
Visions of a good hotel which we felt sure we should find at John o'
Groat's began to haunt us, and the more hungry we became the brighter
were our anticipations of the good fare that awaited us. But judge of
our surprise and disappointment when a man whom we met on the road told
us there was no hotel there at all! We asked if he thought we could get
lodgings at John o' Groat's House itself, but the sardonic grin that
spread over his features when he told us that that house had vanished
long ago was cruel. The information gave us quite a shock, and our
spirits seemed to fall below zero as we turned our backs on the man
without even thanking him for answering our questions. We felt not too
full, but too empty for words, as we were awfully hungry, and I heard my
brother murmur something that sounded very like "Liar"; but the man's
information turned out to be perfectly correct. Our luggage also began
to feel heavier, and the country gradually became more wild and
desolate. Our spirits revived a little when a fisherman told us of a
small inn that we should reach a mile or two before coming to John o'
Groat's. We thought we had surely come to the end of everywhere when we
reached the "Huna Inn," for it stood some distance from any other house
and at the extreme end of an old lane that terminated at the sea. It was
a small, primitive structure, but it was now our only hope, as far as we
knew, for obtaining lodgings, and we could scarcely restrain our delight
when we were told we could be accommodated there until Monday morning.
It was an intense relief to us to be separated from our cumbersome
luggage, and we must say that Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie did all in their
power to make us comfortable and happy and to make us feel at home. We
contented ourselves with some light refreshments which to some
non-pedestrians might have appeared decidedly heavy, and then decided to
see all that remained of John o' Groat's House.
Walking along the beach for about a mile and a half, the distance we
were told that separated the ruins from the inn, we failed to find them,
and were about to return when we met a shepherd who said we had already
passed them. We therefore returned with him, as he told us he was going
to the inn, and he showed us a few mounds of earth covered with grass
which marked the site of the foundations of John o' Groat's House, but
the stones had been removed to build a storehouse, or granary, at a
place he pointed out in the distance. We were rather disappointed, as we
expected to find some extensive remains, and, seeing they were so very
scanty, we wondered why, in a land where stones were so plentiful, some
monument or inscribed stone had not been erected to mark the site where
this remarkable house once stood, as, in the absence of some one to
direct them, strangers, like ourselves, might pass and repass these
remains without noticing them. We were not long in reaching the inn, for
the shepherd was a big man and took very long strides, and here we wrote
a few short letters to our friends to advise them of our safe arrival at
John o' Groat's, afterwards walking to the post office about a mile away
to post them, and ordering a high tea to be ready for us on our return.
It was half-past eight when we finished our tea, after which we were
conducted to a little room close to the sea, with two tiny windows in
it, one of them without a blind, and with a peat or turf fire burning
brightly on the hearth. Mrs. Mackenzie then brought us a small candle,
which she lighted, and handed us a book which she said was the "Album,"
and we amused ourselves with looking over this for the remainder of the
evening. It was quite a large volume, dating from the year 1839, and the
following official account of the Groat family, headed with a facsimile
of the "Groat Arms," was pasted inside the cover:
THE CHIEF OF THE RACE OF JOHN O' GROAT IS ALEXANDER G. GROAT, ESQ.,
ADVOCATE, EDINBURGH.
NOTICES OF JOHN O' GROAT'S HOUSE.
It is stated in _Sinclair's Statistical Accounts of Scotland_, vol.
8, page 167 and following:--"In the account of Cannisby by the Rev.
John Marison, D.D., that in the reign of James the Fourth, King of
Scotland, Malcom, Cairn and John de Groat, supposed to have been
brothers and originally from Holland, arrived in Caithness from the
south of Scotland, bringing with them a letter in Latin by that King
recommending him to the countenance and protection of his loving
subjects in the County of Caithness."
It is stated in _Chambers's Pictures of Scotland_, vol. 2, page 306,
"that the foundations or ruins of John o' Groat's House, which is
perhaps the most celebrated in the whole world, are still to be
seen."
Then followed the names and addresses of visitors extending over a
period of thirty-three years, many of them having also written remarks
in prose, poetry, or doggerel rhyme, so we found plenty of food for
thought and some amusement before we got even half way through the
volume. Some of these effusions might be described as of more than
ordinary merit, and the remainder as good, bad, and indifferent. Those
written in foreign languages--and there were many of them--we could
neither read nor understand, but they gave us the impression that the
fame of John o' Groat's had spread throughout the civilised world. There
were many references to Stroma, or the Island of the Current, which we
could see in the Pentland Firth about four miles distant, and to the
difficulties and danger the visitors had experienced in crossing that
"stormy bit of sea" between it and John o' Groat's. But their chief
complaint was that, after travelling so far, there was no house for them
to see. They had evidently, like ourselves, expected to find a
substantial structure, and the farther they had travelled the greater
their disappointment would naturally be. One visitor had expressed his
disappointment in a verse more forcible than elegant, but true as
regarded the stone.
I went in a boat
To see John o' Groat,
The place where his home doth lie;
But when I got there,
The hill was all bare,
And the devil a stone saw I.
The following entry also appeared in the Album:--
Elihu Burrit of New Britain, Connecticut, U.S. America, on a walk
from Land's End to John o' Groat's, arrived at Huna Inn, upon Monday
Sep. 28th, 1863. He visited the site of that famous domicile so
celebrated in the world-wide legend for its ingenious construction to
promote domestic happiness, and fully realised all he had anticipated
in standing on a spot so rich with historical associations and
surrounded with such grand and beautiful scenery. He desires also to
record his testimony to the hospitality and comfort of the cosy
little sea-side Inn, where he was pleasantly housed for the night,
and of which he will ever cherish an interesting remembrance.
_Saturday, September 16th._
"Now for the shells!" exclaimed my brother, as we awoke early in the
morning, for we expected to have a hard day's work before we gathered
shells enough to fill our large baskets. So we hurried on with our
breakfast, and then, shouldering our hampers, walked quickly along the
beach to the place where we had been informed we should find them. When
we got there we saw a sight which surely could not have had its parallel
in the British Isles, for the beach was white with them for the greater
part of two miles. We were greatly astonished, for in some places the
beach was so thickly covered that, had we possessed a shovel, we could
have filled both our baskets with shells in a very few minutes. We
decided therefore to select those best suited to our purpose, and we
worked away until we had filled both our hampers. We then carried them
one at a time to the "Huna Inn," and arranged with Mr. Mackenzie to have
them carefully packed and delivered to the local carrier to be conveyed
by road to the steamboat office at Wick, and thence forwarded by water
to our home, where we knew their contents would be appreciated for
rockery purposes. The whole of our operations were completed by noon,
instead of occupying the whole of the day as anticipated, for we had a
great advantage in having such an enormous number of shells to select
from. Our host told us that farmers occasionally moved them by
cart-loads to serve as lime manure on their land. Their accumulation at
that particular spot was a mystery which he could not explain beyond the
fact that the shells were washed up from the Pentland Firth during the
great storms; so we concluded that there must be a land of shell fish in
or near that stormy deep, perhaps corresponding with that of the larger
fish whose destruction we had seen represented in the Strata of Pomona
in the Orkneys.
[Illustration: ROCKS AT DUNCANSBAY.]
We must not forget to record, however, that amongst the vast number of
shells we had turned over we found some of those lovely little shells
known as "John o' Groat's buckies," so highly prized by visitors. They
were difficult to find, as they were so very small, but we found quite a
number, and considered them to be perfect little gems, and so very
pretty that we reserved them for special presents to our friends. We
afterwards learned that they were known to science as Cyproe Artoca, or
European Cowry.
* * * * *
An interesting account of John o' Groat's House and the shells was
written in the year 1698 by the Rev. John Brand, Commissioner of the
General Assembly:--
The landing-place was called John o' Groat's House, the northernmost
house in Scotland; the man who now liveth in it and keepeth an inn
there is called John Grot, who saith his house hath been in the
possession of his predecessors of that name for some hundreds of
years; which name of Grot is frequent in Caithness.
Upon the sand by John Grot's house are found many small pleasant
buckies and shells, beautified by diverse colours, which some use to
put upon a string as beads, and account much of their rarity. It is
also observed of these shells that not one of them can be found
altogether like another, and upon the review of the parcel I had I
discovered some difference among them which variety renders them the
more beautiful.
[Illustration: THE STACKS OF DUNCANSBAY.]
After our midday dinner had partially digested, for we had eaten rather
too much, we started for Duncansbay Head, following the coast line on an
up-gradient until we reached the top, which formed the north-eastern
extremity of Scotland, and from where we had to start on Monday morning.
It was a lonely spot, and we were the only visitors; but we had a lively
time there, as the thousands of wild birds whose homes were in the
rocks, judging from the loud noises they made as they new about us in
endless processions, resented our intrusion into their sacred
domain--hovering around us in every direction. Perhaps they were only
anxious to ascertain whether we were friends or foes, but we were very
much interested in their strange movements. They appeared to be most
numerous on and about two or three perpendicular rocks which rose from
the sea like pinnacles to a great height. These rocks were named the
"Stacks," or the "Boars of Duncansbay," their sides and summits being
only accessible to birds, and forming safe resting and nesting-places
for them, and on the top of the highest stack the golden-coloured eagles
had for ages reared their young. The "Stacks" might once have formed
part of the headland or of some adjacent island which had been wasted
away by the winds and waves of ages until only these isolated portions
remained, and these were worn into all kinds of crevices and fantastic
shapes which impressed us with a sense of their great antiquity. We
walked along the top of the cliffs, which here presented the appearance
of one vast amphitheatre lined with precipices, with small promontories
here and there jutting out into the sea resembling fortresses, some of
them having the ruins of ancient castles crowning their highest points.
We could scarcely bring our minds to realise that these were the very
rocks we had seen from the deck of the s.s. _St. Magnus_ only a few days
since. We had passed through so many scenes, and had had so many
adventures both by night and day since then, that the lapse of time
seemed to us to be more like years than days. We retraced our steps to
the head, and stood there for some time watching the ships far out at
sea, trying to distinguish the _St. Magnus_, as it was just about the
time she was again due on her outward journey; but the demands of our
hungry insides were again claiming urgent attention, and so we hastened
our return to the "Huna Inn." On our way we again encountered the
shepherd who had shown us the site of John o' Groat's House, and we
invited him to look us up in the evening, as we were anxious to get
further information about John and his famous house. "Huna Inn," in
spite of its disadvantages, was quite a romantic place to stay at, as it
was situated almost on the edge of the boiling torrent of the Pentland
Firth, which at times was so stormy that the island of Stroma could not
be reached for weeks.
The "Swalchie," or whirlpool of Stroma, has been mentioned by many
ancient writers, but the most interesting story is that of its origin as
given in the old Norse legend headed, "Fenja and Menja," and containing
a famous ballad known as the "Grotta Songr," or the "Mill Song," grotta
being the Norse for mill, or quern.
Odin had a son by name Skjold from whom the Skjoldungs. He had his
throne and ruled in the lands that are now called Denmark but were
then called Gotland. Skjold had a son by name Fridleif, who ruled the
lands after him. Fridleif's son was Frode. He took the kingdom after
his father, at the time when the Emperor Augustus established peace
in all the earth, and Christ was born. But Frode being the mightiest
King in the Northlands, this peace was attributed to him by all who
spake the Danish tongue and the Norsemen called it the Peace of
Frode. No man injured the other, even though he might meet, loose or
in chains, his father's or brother's bane (murderer). There was no
thief or robber so that a gold ring would lie a long time on
Jalanger's heath. King Frode sent messengers to Sirthjod, to the King
whose name was Fjolner, and bought there two maidservants, whose
names were Fenja and Menja. They were large and strong. About this
time were found in Denmark two millstones so large that no one had
the strength to turn them. But the nature belonged to these
millstones that they ground whatever was demanded of them by the
miller. The name of the mill was Grotte. But the man to whom King
Frode gave the mill was called Hengekjapt. King Frode had the
maidservants led to the mill and requested them to grind for him gold
and peace and Frode's happiness. Then he gave them no longer time to
rest or sleep than while the cuckoo was silent or while they sang a
song. It is said they sang the song called the "Grotte Song," and
before they ended it they ground out a host against Frode, so that on
the same night there came the Sea-King whose name was Mysing and slew
Frode and took a large amount of booty. Mysing took with him Grotte
and also Fenja and Menja and bade them grind salt, and in the middle
of the night they asked Mysing whether he did not have salt enough.
He bade them grind more. They ground only a short time longer before
the ship sank. But in the ocean arose a whirlpool (maelstrom,
mill-stream) in the place where the sea runs into the mill-eye: the
Swalchie of Stroma.
The story "Why is the sea salt?" or "How the sea became salt," has
appeared in one form or another among many nations of the world, and
naturally appealed strongly to the imagination of the youth of a
maritime nation like England. The story as told formerly amongst
schoolboys was as follows:
Jack had decided to go to sea, but before doing so he went to see his
fairy godmother, who had a strange looking old coffee-mill on the
mantelshelf in her kitchen. She set the table for tea without
anything on it to eat or drink, and then, taking down the old mill,
placed it on the table and asked it to grind each article she
required. After the tea-pot had been filled, Jack was anxious for
something to eat, and said he would like some teacakes, so his fairy
godmother said to the mill:
"Mill! Mill! grind away.
Buttered tea-cakes now I pray!"
for she knew Jack liked plenty of butter on his cakes, and out they
came from the mill until the plate was well filled, and then she
said:
"Mill! Mill! rest thee now,
Thou hast ground enough I trow,"
and immediately the mill stopped grinding. When Jack told her he was
going away on a ship to sea, his fairy godmother made him a present
of the old mill, which he would find useful, as it would grind
anything he asked it to; but he must be careful to use the same words
that he had heard her speak both in starting and stopping the mill.
When he got to the ship, he stored the old mill carefully in his box,
and had almost forgotten it when as they neared the country they were
bound for the ship ran short of potatoes, so Jack told the Captain he
would soon find him some, and ran for his mill, which he placed on
the deck of the ship, and said to it:
"Mill! Mill! grind away,
Let us have some potatoes I pray!"
and immediately the potatoes began to roll out of the mill and over
the deck, to the great astonishment and delight of the sailors, who
had fine fun gathering them up. Then Jack said to the mill:
"Mill! Mill! rest thee now,
Thou hast ground enough I trow,"
and immediately the mill ceased grinding.
The Captain determined to get the mill from Jack, who would not part
with it, and tried to steal it, but did not succeed, and when they
reached the port, Jack took the mill ashore with him, and rented a
shop that happened to be empty, and had a sign-board placed over it
with the words painted in large letters, "All sorts of things
supplied here on the shortest notice," and he soon got a pile of
money, the last order being one from the King, who wanted clothing
for his soldiers in a hurry, as war had broken out unexpectedly.
Jack's good fortune was soon heard of by the Captain, and when his
ship was ready to sail he contrived to get one of his friends to
invite Jack to a party that evening, and then with the help of some
of his crew he broke into the shop and stole the old mill.
When Jack returned in the morning his mill was gone, and he could
just see the sails of the ship far out at sea. But he did not care
much, as he had now money enough to keep himself for many years.
Meantime the Captain in his hurry to get away had forgotten to bring
some things that were wanted, and when he found they had no salt on
board, he brought the old mill on deck, and said:
"Mill! Mill! grind away
Let us have some salt I pray,"
and immediately the mill began to grind salt at a great speed and
presently covered the deck all round where it was working, but the
Captain had forgotten the words spoken by Jack when he stopped the
mill, and though he used all the words he could think of, the mill
kept on grinding, and was rapidly filling every available space on
the deck. The Captain then ran to his cabin and brought out his
sword, and with a terrific blow he cut the mill in halves; but each
piece formed itself into a mill, and both mills continued grinding
until the ship sank to the bottom of the sea, where the mills are
still grinding in the terrible Swalchie of Stroma, and that is why
the water in the sea is salt!
There had been a ferry at John o' Groat's years before our visit, and
mails and passengers had been carried across the Firth to and from the
Orkney Islands, the distance across being shorter from this point than
from any other in Scotland; but for some unexplained reason the service
had been discontinued, and the presence of the ferry would probably
account for so many names being written in the album. The day was
already drawing to a close as we sat down to tea and the good things
provided by Mrs. Mackenzie, and we were waited upon by a Scotch lassie,
who wore neither shoes nor stockings; but this we found was nothing
unusual in the north of Scotland in those days. After tea we adjourned
to our room, and sat down in front of our peat fire; but our
conversational powers soon exhausted themselves, for we felt uncommonly
drowsy after having been exposed so long to the open air. We sat there
silently watching the curling smoke as it went up the chimney and
dreamily gazing into the caverns which had been formed in the fire
below, imagining that we could see all kinds of weird objects therein,
and then we thought of the times when we should not have been able to
rest so securely and comfortably in the "Huna Inn," when one Scottish
clan was trying to exterminate another not so far away from where we
were then sitting, for no more apparent reason than that the Scots were
born soldiers, and if they had no foreigners to fight they must fight
among themselves. We must have been nearly asleep when our reveries were
interrupted by the entrance of the shepherd, whom for the moment we had
entirely forgotten. He had come in response to our invitation to talk
with us about things in general, but particularly about John o' Groat,
and we were glad to see him, and we now give--
THE SHEPHERD'S STORY
John o' Groat was a fisherman belonging to Holland who was caught
when at sea in a great storm which damaged his sails so that his boat
drifted almost helplessly across the sea. When he came in sight of
the Scottish coast he was carried with the current into the Pentland
Firth, and as he could not repair the sails in the boat and could not
get back to Holland with them in their damaged condition, he decided
to land on one of the islands and repair them on shore. His wife was
very much opposed to his landing on Stroma, as she thought it was a
desert island, so he got his boat across from there to the Scottish
coast; but when he attempted to land at Huna, the natives opposed his
landing, for they thought he was a pirate. Fortunately for him he
had a few kegs of gin in his boat, and when the canny Scots saw these
they became more friendly, especially as they had a great respect for
Holland's gin, and so they allowed him to land, and even helped him
to mend his sails. They afterwards allowed him to settle amongst them
on condition that he did not attempt to go into the interior of the
country, and that he built his house on the seashore. He got on well
amongst his new friends, and in time became their chief and had eight
sons, and on one festive occasion, when they all came to see him,
they quarrelled as to which should have precedence at his table, so
John told them that the next time they came he would have matters so
arranged as to avoid that kind of thing in the future. He therefore
built an entirely new house with eight sides to it and a door in
each, and made a table inside of the same octagonal shape, so that
when they came to see him again each of them could enter by his own
door and sit at his own head of the table.
In reply to our questions the shepherd said he thought this event
happened about 350 years ago, but the house had long since disappeared,
and only the site of the foundations which he had shown us previously
now remained. He also said that heaps of ladies and gentlemen came there
to picnic on the site, and he had seen them take even small stones away;
but though he had lived there for fifty years, he had never seen John o'
Groat's any different from what it was now. We asked him why John did
not return to Holland, and he said it was because he had a letter from
the king. We thanked the shepherd for his story, and, having suitably
rewarded him, bade him farewell and hurried off to bed in the fading
light of our rapidly diminishing candle.
_Sunday, September 17th._
The strict observance of the Sabbath Day in Scotland was to us a most
pleasing feature in Scottish life, and one to which we had been
accustomed from early childhood, so we had no desire to depart from it
now. We were, therefore, very pleased when Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie
invited us to accompany them to the Free Kirk service, and, as half-past
ten o'clock was the time fixed for our departure from the inn, we
concluded that the kirk could not be far away, as that was the hour that
service began in our village church in Cheshire, but we could not
remember seeing any kirk in the neighbourhood of the "Huna Inn." We
continued walking one mile after another for more than an hour, and must
have walked quite four miles before we came in sight of the kirk, and we
were then informed that the service did not commence until twelve
o'clock! The country through which we passed was very bare, there being
a total absence of hedges and trees, so we could see people coming
towards the kirk from every direction. Everybody seemed to know
everybody else, and, as they came nearer the sacred enclosure, they
formed themselves into small groups and stood conversing with each
other, chiefly on religious matters, until the minister arrived to take
charge of his flock. He was a quaintly dressed and rather elderly man,
evidently well known, as he had a nod or a smile of recognition and a
friendly word for all. We followed him into the kirk, where we found
ourselves in the presence of quite a large congregation, and sat with
Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie in their own pew in the rear of the kirk. The
form of the service was quite different from that to which we had been
accustomed. The congregation stood up while they prayed and sat down
while they sang the Psalms, with the exception of one man, who remained
standing in what we thought was the clerk's desk immediately below the
pulpit. This man acted as leader of the singing, but he failed to get
much assistance from the people, and had great difficulty in keeping the
singing going. Possibly the failure of the congregational singing might
be accounted for by the absence of an organ or other instrument of music
to assist and encourage the people to sing, the nearest approach to
anything of the kind being the tuning-fork which the conductor held in
his hand. There was also the fact that the sitting posture was not the
best position for bringing out the powers of the human voice; but we
came to the conclusion that music was not looked upon favourably in that
remote part of Scotland.
In front of the pulpit there was an enclosure, fenced in by the
communion rail, and inside this were seated the elders, or deacons of
the church. These were very old men with bent heads and white hair, and
had the appearance of centenarians; they were indeed the
queerest-looking group of old men we had ever seen assembled together.
But it was their noses that chiefly attracted our attention, as they
were so very long and crooked, and the strange feature about them was
that they were all of the same pattern. Their only rival, as far as we
could see, in length of nose was the minister, but we thought he had
enlarged his by artificial means, as we found to our surprise that he
was addicted to snuff-taking, a habit very prevalent in Scotland in
those days.
Then came the sermon. On the pulpit was the Bible, and beside it a
substantial box of snuff, to which the minister resorted occasionally in
the course of his long discourse. His pinches must have been
considerable, for every sniff lasted from two to three seconds, and
could be heard distinctly all over the kirk. This had a tendency to
distract our attention from his sermon, which, by the way, was a very
good one; but, owing to his rather slow delivery, we experienced a
feeling of relief when he reached the end, for it had lasted quite an
hour.
There was now a slight movement amongst the congregation, which we
interpreted as a sign that the service was at an end, and we rose to
leave; but, imagine our consternation when our friends told us that what
we had listened to was only the first part of the service, and that we
must on no account leave, as the second part was to follow immediately.
We therefore remained not altogether unwillingly, for we were curious to
know what the next service was like. It proved to be almost exactly the
same as the first, and we could not distinguish much difference between
the two sermons; but we listened attentively, and were convinced that
the preacher was a thoroughly conscientious man in spite of his
occasional long sniffs of snuff, which were continued as before, but
what astonished us was that the old gentleman never once sneezed! It
was the most remarkable service we had ever attended, and it concluded
exactly at three o'clock, having lasted three hours.
We had then to retrace our four-mile walk to "Huna Inn," but the miles
seemed rather longer, as Mrs. Mackenzie could only walk in a leisurely
manner and we were feeling very hungry. We whiled away the time by
talking about the sermons and the snuff, but chiefly about the deacons
and their wonderful noses, and why they were all alike and so strangely
crooked. Mr. Mackenzie suggested that they were crooked because if they
had grown straight they would have projected over their mouths and
prevented them from eating, the crook in them being a provision of
nature to avoid this; or, they might have descended from the Romans or
some other ancient race who had formerly inhabited the coast of that
part of Scotland. Books had been written and sermons preached about
noses, and the longer the nose the greater the intellect of the owner
was supposed to be. We told our host that there was only one-sixteenth
part of an inch between the length of Napoleon's nose and that of
Wellington's. We had forgotten which was the longer, but as Wellington's
was so conspicuous that he was nicknamed "Nosey" by his troops, and as
he had won the great battle of Waterloo, we concluded that it was his,
and gave him the benefit of the doubt. We quoted the following lines:
Knows he, that never took a pinch,
Nosey, the pleasure thence that flows?
Knows he the titillating joy
Which my nose knows?
O Nose, I am as proud of thee
As any mountain of its snows;
I gaze on thee, and feel that pride
A Roman knows.
Our host confided to us the reason why he was so anxious that we should
not leave in the middle of the service. The second service was
originally intended for those who had to come long distances to reach
the kirk, some of whom came from a place seven miles away, but in late
years the two services had become continuous. A few Sundays before our
visit some persons had left the kirk at the end of the first part, and
in his second sermon the minister had plainly described them as
followers of the Devil! so we supposed our host was anxious that we
should not be denounced in the same way.
We found our tea-dinner waiting our arrival at the inn. We sat down to
it at half-past four, and, as we rose from what was left of it at five
o'clock, having worked hard meanwhile, we may safely be credited with
having done our duty.
We had a walk with our host along the shore, and had not proceeded far
before we saw a dark-looking object some distance away in the sea. We
thought it looked like a man in a boat, rising and falling with the
waves, but Mr. Mackenzie told us that it was two whales following the
herrings that were travelling in shoals round the coasts. We were very
much interested in their strange movements, as they were the only
whales we ever saw alive, but we could not help feeling sorry for the
fish. Evening was coming on as we re-entered "Huna Inn," and when we
were again seated before our turf fire, joined by our host and hostess,
our conversation was chiefly on the adventures we had already had, the
great walk we were to begin on the morrow, and the pleasure it had given
us to see the manifest and steadfast determination of the people at the
kirk to observe the Commandment of the God of the Sabbath, "REMEMBER
THAT THOU KEEP HOLY THE SABBATH DAY." We wondered how much the
prosperity of the Scottish nation and its representatives in every part
of the "wide, wide world" was attributable to their strict observance of
the Sabbath. Who knows?
WE BEGIN OUR JOURNEY
_Monday, September 18th._
We rose early and walked along the beach to Duncansbay Head, or Rongisby
as the old maps have it, gathering a few of those charming little shells
called John o'Groat Buckies by the way. After walking round the site of
John o'Groat's house, we returned to our comfortable quarters at the
Huna Inn for breakfast. John o'Groat seems to have acted with more
wisdom than many entrusted with the affairs of a nation. When his sons
quarrelled for precedence at his table, he consoled them with the
promise that when the next family gathering took place the matter should
be settled to the satisfaction of all. During the interval he built a
house having eight sides, each with a door and window, with an octagonal
table in the centre so that each of his eight sons could enter at his
own door and sit at his own side or "head" of the table. By this
arrangement--which reminded us of King Arthur's use of his round
table--he dispelled the animosity which previously prevailed. After
breakfast, and in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, we made an
entry in the famous Album with name and address, object of journey, and
exact time of departure, and they promised to reserve a space beneath
the entry to record the result, which was to be posted to them
immediately we reached our journey's end.
[Illustration: JOHN O'GROAT'S HOUSE.]
It was about half-past ten o'clock when we started on our long walk
along a circuitous and unknown route from John o'Groat's to Land's End.
Our host and hostess stood watching our departure and waving adieux
until we disappeared in the distance. We were in high spirits, and soon
reached the junction of roads where we turned to the left towards Wick.
The first part of our walk was through the Parish of Canisbay, in the
ancient records of which some reference is made to the more recent
representatives of the Groat family, but as these were made two hundred
years ago, they were now almost illegible. Our road lay through a wild
moorland district with a few farms and cottages here and there, mainly
occupied by fishermen. There were no fences to the fields or roads, and
no bushes or trees, and the cattle were either herded or tied to stakes.
After passing through Canisbay, we arrived at the most northerly house
in the Parish of Wick, formerly a public-house, and recognised as the
half-way house between Wick and John o'Groat's. We found it occupied as
a farm by Mr. John Nicolson, and here we saw the skeleton of a whale
doing duty as a garden fence. The dead whale, seventy feet in length,
had been found drifting in the sea, and had been hauled ashore by the
fishermen. Mr. Nicolson had an ingenious son, who showed us a working
sun-dial in the garden in front of the house which he had constructed
out of a portion of the backbone, and in the same bone he had also
formed a curious contrivance by which he could tell the day of the
month. He told us he was the only man that studied painting in the
North, and invited us into the house, wherein several rooms he showed us
some of his paintings, which were really excellent considering they were
executed in ordinary wall paint. His mother informed us that he began to
study drawing when he was ill with a slow fever, but not bed-fast. Two
of the pictures, that of an old bachelor and a Scotch lassie, a servant,
were very good indeed. We also saw a picture of an old woman, a local
celebrity, about a hundred years old, which was considered to be an
excellent likeness, and showed the old lady's eyes so sunk in her head
as to be scarcely visible. We considered that we had here found one of
Nature's artists, who would probably have made a name for himself if
given the advantages so many have who lack the ability, for he certainly
possessed both the imaginative faculty and no small degree of dexterity
in execution. He pointed out to us the house of a farmer over the way
who slept in the Parish of Wick and took his meals in that of Canisbay,
the boundary being marked by a chimney in the centre of the roof. He
also informed us that his brother accompanied Elihu Burritt, the
American blacksmith, for some distance when he walked from London to
John o'Groat's.
We were now about eleven miles from Wick, and as Mr. Nicolson told us of
an old castle we had missed, we turned back across the moors for about a
mile and a half to view it. He warned us that we might see a man
belonging to the neighbourhood who was partly insane, and who, roaming
amongst the castle ruins, usually ran straight towards any strangers as
if to do them injury; but if we met him we must not be afraid, as he was
perfectly harmless. We had no desire to meet a madman, and luckily,
although we kept a sharp look-out, we did not see him. We found the
ruined castle resting on a rock overlooking the sea with the rolling
waves dashing on its base below; it was connected with the mainland by a
very narrow strip broken through in one place, and formerly crossed by a
drawbridge. As this was no longer available, it was somewhat difficult
to scale the embankment opposite; still we scrambled up and passed
triumphantly through the archway into the ruins, not meeting with that
resistance we fancied we should have done in the days of its daring
owner. A portion only of the tower remained, as the other part had
fallen about two years before our visit. The castle, so tradition
stated, had been built about the year 1100 by one Buchollie, a famous
pirate, who owned also another castle somewhere in the Orkneys. How men
could carry on such an unholy occupation amidst such dangerous
surroundings was a mystery to us.
[Illustration: MR. NICOLSON'S HOME, SHOWING THE ARCH OF WHALE'S JAW.]
On our return we again saw our friend Mr. Nicolson, who told us there
were quite a number of castles in Caithness, as well as Pictish forts
and Druidical circles, a large proportion of the castles lying along the
coast we were traversing. He gave us the names of some of them, and told
us that they materially enhanced the beauty of this rock-bound coast. He
also described to us a point of the coast near Ackergill, which we
should pass, where the rocks formed a remarkably perfect profile of the
Great Duke of Wellington, though others spoke of it as a black giant. It
could only be seen from the sea, but was marvellously correct and
life-like, and of gigantic proportions.
Acting on Mr. Nicolson's instructions, we proceeded along the beach to
Keiss Castle, and ascended to its second storey by means of a rustic
ladder. It was apparently of a more recent date than Buchollie, and a
greater portion of it remained standing. A little to the west of it we
saw another and more modern castle, one of the seats of the Duke of
Portland, who, we were told, had never yet visited it. Before reaching
the village of Keiss, we came to a small quay, where we stayed a short
time watching the fishermen getting their smacks ready before sailing
out to sea, and then we adjourned to the village inn, where we were
provided with a first-class tea, for which we were quite ready. The
people at the inn evidently did not think their business inconsistent
with religion, for on the walls of the apartment where we had our tea
were hanging two pictures of a religious character, and a motto "Offer
unto God thanksgiving," and between them a framed advertisement of
"Edinburgh Ales"!
After tea we continued our journey until we came to the last house in
the village of Keiss, a small cottage on the left-hand side of the road,
and here we called to inspect a model of John o'Groat's house, which had
been built by a local stonemason, and exhibited at the great Exhibition
in London in 1862. Its skilful builder became insane soon after he had
finished it, and shortly afterwards died. It was quite a palatial model
and much more handsome than its supposed original was ever likely to
have been. It had eight doors with eight flights of steps leading up to
them, and above were eight towers with watchmen on them, and inside the
house was a table with eight sides made from wood said to have been from
the original table in the house of Groat, and procured from one of his
descendants. The model was accompanied by a ground plan and a print of
the elevation taken from a photo by a local artist. There was no charge
for admission or for looking at the model, but a donation left with the
fatherless family was thankfully received.
We now walked for miles along the seashore over huge sand-hills with
fine views of the herring-boats putting out to sea. We counted fifty-six
in one fleet, and the number would have been far greater had not Noss
Head intervened to obstruct our view, as many more went out that night
from Wick, although the herring season was now nearly over. We passed
Ackergill Tower, the residence of Sir George Dunbar, and about two miles
farther on we came to two old castles quite near to each other, which
were formerly the strongholds of the Earls of Caithness. They were named
Girnigoe and Sinclair. Girnigoe was the oldest, and under the ruins of
the keep was a dismal dungeon.
It was now getting dark, and not the pleasantest time to view old
castles surrounded by black rocks with the moan of the sea as it invaded
the chasms of the rocks on which they stood. Amongst these lonely ruins
we spoke of the past, for had our visit been three centuries earlier,
the dismal sounds from the sea below would have mingled with those from
the unfortunate young man chained up in that loathsome dungeon, whose
only light came from a small hole high up in the wall. Such was John,
Master of Caithness, the eldest son of the fifth Sinclair, Earl of
Caithness, who is said to have been imprisoned here because he had wooed
and won the affections of the daughter of a neighbouring laird, marked
out by his father, at that time a widower, for himself. He was confined
in that old dungeon for more than six long years before death released
him from his inhuman parent.
During his imprisonment John had three keepers appointed over
him--Murdoch Roy and two brothers named Ingram and David Sinclair. Roy
attended him regularly, and did all the menial work, as the other two
keepers were kinsmen of the earl, his father, who had imprisoned him.
Roy was sorry for the unfortunate nobleman, and arranged a plot to set
him at liberty, which was unfortunately discovered by John's brother
William, who bore him no good will. William told his father, the earl,
who immediately ordered Roy to be executed. The poor wretch was
accordingly brought out and hanged on the common gibbet of the castle
without a moment being allowed him to prepare for his final account.
Soon afterwards, in order to avenge the death of Roy, John, who was a
man of great bodily strength and whose bad usage and long imprisonment
had affected his mind, managed to seize his brother William on the
occasion of his visit to the dungeon and strangle him. This only
deepened the earl's antipathy towards his unhappy son, and his keepers
were encouraged to put him to death. The plan adopted was such as could
only have entered the imagination of fiends, for they withheld food from
their prisoner for the space of five days, and then set before him a
piece of salt beef of which he ate voraciously. Soon after, when he
called for water, they refused to give him any, and he died of raging
thirst. Another account said they gave him brandy, of which he drank so
copiously that he died raving mad. In any case, there is no doubt
whatever that he was barbarously done to death.
[Illustration: GIRNIGOE CASTLE.]
Every castle along the seacoast had some story of cruelty connected with
it, but the story of Girnigoe was perhaps the worst of all, and we were
glad to get away from a place with such dismal associations.
About a hundred years after this sad event the Clan of the Campbells of
Glenorchy declared war on the Sinclairs of Keiss, and marched into
Caithness to meet them; but the Sinclairs instead of going out to meet
them at the Ord of Caithness, a naturally fortified position, stayed at
home, and the Campbells took up a strong position at Altimarloch, about
two miles from Wick. The Sinclairs spent the night before the battle
drinking and carousing, and then attacked the Campbells in the strong
position they had taken up, with the result that the Sinclairs were
routed and many of them perished.
They meet, they close in deadly strife,
But brief the bloody fray;
Before the Campbells' furious charge
The Caithness ranks give way.
The shrieking mother wrung her hands,
The maiden tore her hair,
And all was lamentation loud,
And terror, and despair.
It was commonly said that the well-known quicksteps, "The Campbells are
coming" and the "Braes of Glenorchy" obtained their names from this
raid.
The Sinclairs of Keiss were a powerful and warlike family, and they soon
regained their position. It was a pleasing contrast to note that in 1765
Sir William Sinclair of Keiss had laid aside his sword, embracing the
views held by the Baptists, and after being baptized in London became
the founder of that denomination in Caithness and a well-known preacher
and writer of hymns.
In his younger days he was in the army, where he earned fame as an
expert swordsman, his fame in that respect spreading throughout the
countryside. Years after he had retired from the service, while sitting
in his study one forenoon intently perusing a religious work, his valet
announced the arrival of a stranger who wished to see him. The servant
was ordered to show him into the apartment, and in stalked a strong
muscular-looking man with a formidable Andrea Ferrara sword hanging by
his side, and, making a low obeisance, he thus addressed the knight:
"Sir William, I hope you will pardon my intrusion. I am a native of
England and a professional swordsman. In the course of my travels
through Scotland, I have not yet met with a gentleman able to cope with
me in the noble science of swordsmanship. Since I came to Caithness I
have heard that you are an adept with my favourite weapon, and I have
called to see if you would do me the honour to exchange a few passes
with me just in the way of testing our respective abilities."
Sir William was both amused and astonished at this extraordinary
request, and replied that he had long ago thrown aside the sword, and,
except in case of necessity, never intended to use it any more. But the
stranger would take no denial, and earnestly insisted that he would
favour him with a proof of his skill.
"Very well," said Sir William, "to please you I shall do so," and,
rising and fetching his sword, he desired the stranger, who was an
ugly-looking fellow, to draw and defend himserrels along the
quay at Wick making a sight worth seeing.
We had not gone far when we turned aside to visit the ruins of Wick
Castle, which had been named by the sailors "The Auld Man o'Wick." It
was built like most of the others we had seen, on a small promontory
protected by the sea on three sides, but there were two crevices in the
rock up which the sea was rushing with terrific force. The rock on which
its foundations rested we estimated to be about 150 feet high, and there
was only a narrow strip of land connecting it with the mainland. The
solitary tower that remained standing was about fifty feet high, and
apparently broader at the top than at the bottom, being about ten or
twelve yards in length and breadth, with the walls six or seven feet
thick. The roar of the water was like the sound of distant thunder,
lending a melancholy charm to the scene. It was from here that we
obtained our first land view of those strange-looking hills in Caithness
called by the sailors, from their resemblance to the breasts of a
maiden, the Maiden's Paps. An old man directed us the way to Lybster by
what he called the King's Highway, and looking back from this point we
had a fine view of the town of Wick and its surroundings.
Taught by past experience, we had provided ourselves with a specially
constructed apparatus for tea-making, with a flask to fit inside to
carry milk, and this we used many times during our journey through the
Highlands of Scotland. We also carried a reserve stock of provisions,
since we were often likely to be far away from any human habitation.
To-day was the first time we had occasion to make use of it, and we had
our lunch not in the room of an inn, but sitting amongst the heather
under the broad blue canopy of heaven. It was a gloriously fine day, but
not a forerunner of a fine day on the morrow, as after events showed. We
had purchased six eggs at a farmhouse, for which we were only charged
fourpence, and with a half-pound of honey and an enormous oatmeal
cake--real Scotch--we had a jovial little picnic and did not fare badly.
We had many a laugh at the self-satisfied sublimity of our friend the
barber, but the sublimity here was real, surrounded as we were by
magnificent views of the distant hills, and through the clear air we
could see the mountains on the other side of the Moray Firth probably
fifty miles distant. Our road was very hilly, and devoid of fences or
trees or other objects to obstruct our view, so much so that at one
point we could see two milestones, the second before we reached the
first.
We passed Loch Hempriggs on the right of our road, with Iresgoe and its
Needle on the seacoast to the left, also an old ruin which we were
informed was a "tulloch," but we did not know the meaning of the word.
After passing the tenth milestone from Wick, we went to look at an
ancient burial-ground which stood by the seaside about a field's breadth
from our road. The majority of the gravestones were very old, and
whatever inscriptions they ever had were now worn away by age and
weather; some were overgrown with grass and nettles, while in contrast
to these stood some modern stones of polished granite. The inscriptions
on these stones were worded differently from those places farther south.
The familiar words "Sacred to the memory of" did not appear, and the
phrasing appeared rather in the nature of a testimonial to the
benevolence of the bereft. We copied two of the inscriptions:
ERECTED BY ROBERT WALLACE, MERCHANT, LYBSTER, TO THE MEMORY
OF HIS SPOUSE CHARLLOT SIMPSON WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOV. 21
1845 AGED 30 YEARS.
_Lovely in Life_.
PLACED BY JOHN SUTHERLAND, FISHERMAN, LYBSTER, IN MEMORY OF
HIS WIFE WILLIAMINIA POLSON WHO DIED 28TH MAY 1867 AGED 29
YEARS.
_At Death still lovely_.
In the yard we noticed a large number of loose stones and the remains of
a wall which we supposed had been part of the kirk. The name of the
village near here was Mid Clyth, and the ruins those of an old Roman
Catholic chapel last used about four hundred years ago. Several attempts
had been made to obtain power to remove the surplus stones, but our
informant stated that although they had only about a dozen Romanists in
the county, they were strong enough to prevent this being done, and it
was the only burial-ground between there and Wick. He also told us that
there were a thousand volunteers in Caithness.
[Illustration: THE NEEDLE OF IRESGOE.]
The people in the North of Caithness in directing us on our way did not
tell us to turn to right or left, but towards the points of the
compass--say to the east or the west as the case might be, and then turn
south for a given number of chains. This kind of information rather
puzzled us, as we had no compass, nor did we know the length of a chain.
It seemed to point back to a time when there were no roads at all in
that county. We afterwards read that Pennant, the celebrated tourist,
when visiting Caithness in 1769, wrote that at that time there was not
a single cart, nor mile of road properly so called in the county. He
described the whole district as little better than an "immense morass,
with here and there some fruitful spots of oats and bere (barley), and
much coarse grass, almost all wild, there being as yet very little
cultivated." And he goes on to add:
Here are neither barns nor granaries; the corn is thrashed out and
preserved in the chaff in bykes, which are stacks in the shape of
beehives thatched quite round. The tender sex (I blush for the
Caithnessians) are the only animals of burden; they turn their
patient backs to the dunghills and receive in their cassties or straw
baskets as much as their lords and masters think fit to fling in with
their pitchforks, and then trudge to the fields in droves.
A more modern writer, however, thought that Pennant must have been
observant but not reflective, and wrote:
It is not on the sea coast that woman looks on man as lord and
master. The fishing industry more than any other leads to great
equality between the sexes. The man is away and the woman conducts
all the family affairs on land. Home means all the comfort man can
enjoy! His life is one persistent calling for self-reliance and
independence and equally of obedience to command.
The relations Pennant quoted were not of servility, but of man assisting
woman to do what she regarded as her natural work.
To inland folk like ourselves it was a strange sight to see so many
women engaged in agricultural pursuits, but we realised that the men had
been out fishing in the sea during the night and were now in bed. We saw
one woman mowing oats with a scythe and another following her, gathering
them up and binding them into sheaves, while several others were cutting
down the oats with sickles; we saw others driving horses attached to
carts. The children, or "bairns," as they were called here, wore neither
shoes nor stockings, except a few of the very young ones, and all the
arable land was devoted to the culture of oats and turnips.
We passed through Lybster, which in Lancashire would only be regarded as
a small village, but here was considered to be a town, as it could boast
of a population of about eight hundred people. We made due note of our
reaching what was acknowledged to be the second plantation of trees in
the county; there were six only in the entire county of Caithness, and
even a sight like this was cheery in these almost treeless regions.
An elderly and portly-looking gentleman who was on the road in front of
us awaited our arrival, and as an introduction politely offered us a
pinch of snuff out of his well-filled snuff-box, which we accepted. We
tried to take it, but the application of a small portion to our noses
caused us to sneeze so violently that the gentleman roared with laughter
at our expense, and was evidently both surprised and amused at our
distress. We were soon good friends, however, and he was as pleased with
our company as we were with his, but we accepted no more pinches of
snuff in Scemselves, there was a
forest with no roads through it, and if we got there, we should have to
make our way as best we could across the moors to Helmsdale. They showed
us the best way to reach the foot of the mountain, but we found the
going much worse than we anticipated, since the storm had now developed
into one of great magnitude. Fortunately the wind was behind us, but the
higher we ascended the stronger it became, and it fairly took our breath
away even when we turned our heads towards it sideways, which made us
realise how impossible it was for us to turn back, however much we
might wish to do so; consequently we struggled onwards, occasionally
taking advantage of the shelter of some projecting rock to recover our
breathing--a very necessary proceeding, for as we approached the summit
the rain became more like sleet, the wind was very cold, and the rocks
were in a frozen and slippery condition. We were in great danger of
being blown over and losing our lives, and as we could no longer walk
upright in safety, we knelt down, not without a prayer to heaven as we
continued on our way. Thus we crawled along upon our hands and knees
over the smooth wind-swept summit of the Maiden's Paps, now one immense
surface of ice. The last bit was the worst of all, for here the raging
elements struck us with full and uninterrupted force. We crossed this
inches at a time, lying flat on the smooth rock with our faces
downwards. Our feelings of thankfulness to the Almighty may be imagined
when we finally reached the other side in safety.
Given a fine day we should have had a glorious view from this point,
and, as it was, in spite of the rain we could see a long distance, but
the prospect was far from encouraging. A great black rock, higher than
that we had climbed, stood before us, with its summit hidden in the
clouds, and a wide expanse of hills and moors, but not a house or tree
so far as the eye could reach. This rather surprised us, as we expected
the forest region to be covered with trees which would afford us some
shelter on our farther way. We learned afterwards that the "forest" was
but a name, the trees having disappeared ages ago from most of these
forests in the northern regions of Scotland.
We were wet through to the skin and shivering with cold as we began to
descend the other side of the Maiden's Paps--a descent we found both
difficult and dangerous. It looked an awful place below us--a wild
amphitheatre of dreary hills and moors!
We had no compass to guide us, and in the absence of light from the sun
we could not tell in what direction we were travelling, so with our
backs towards the hills we had crossed, we made our way across the bog,
now saturated with water. We could hear it gurgling under our feet at
every stride, even when we could not see it, and occasionally we slipped
into holes nearly knee-deep in water. After floundering in the bog for
some time, and not knowing which way to turn, as we appeared to be
surrounded with hills, we decided to try to walk against the wind which
was blowing from the sea, for we knew that if we could reach the coast
we should also reach the highway, which ran alongside it. But we soon
had to give in, for we came to great rocks impossible for us to scale,
so we had to abandon this direction and try another. The rain still
continued, and our hands had now been bleached quite white with the rain
beating on them, just like those of a washerwoman after a heavy day's
washing. We knew that the night would shortly be coming on, and the
terrible thought of a dark night on the moors began to haunt us. If we
could only have found a track we should not have cared, but we were now
really LOST.
We were giving way to despair and beginning to think it might be a
question of life or death when a bright thought suddenly struck us, and
we wondered why we had not thought of it before. Why not follow the
water, which would be sure to be running towards the sea? This idea
inspired us with hope, and seemed to give us new life; but it was
astonishing what a time elapsed before we found a running stream, for
the water appeared to remain where it fell. At length we came to a small
stream, the sight of which gave us renewed energy, and we followed it
joyfully on its downward course. Presently we saw a few small bushes;
then we came to a larger stream, and afterwards to a patch of grassland
which clearly at one time had been under cultivation. At last we came to
trees under which we could see some deer sheltering from the storm: by
this time the stream had become a raging torrent. We stood watching the
deer for a moment, when suddenly three fine stags rushed past us and
dashed into the surging waters of the stream, which carried them down a
considerable distance before they could land on its rocky bank on the
other side. It was an exciting adventure, as the stags were so near us,
and with their fine antlers presented an imposing appearance.
We now crossed over some heather in order to reach a small path which we
could see alongside the swollen river. How pleased we were when we knew
we were out of danger! It seemed to us like an escape from a terrible
fate. We remembered how Mungo Park, when alone in the very heart of
Africa, and in the midst of a great wilderness, derived consolation from
very much smaller sources than the few trees which now cheered us on our
way. The path became broader as we passed through the grounds of Lord
Galloway's hunting-box, and we soon reached the highway, where we
crossed the boiling torrent rushing along with frightful rapidity on its
way to the sea. The shades of night were coming on as we knocked at the
door of the keeper's cottage, and judge of our surprise when we were
informed that, after walking from ten o'clock in the morning to six
o'clock at night, we were only about six miles from Dunbeath, whence we
had started that morning, and had still about ten miles to walk before
we could reach Helmsdale.
We were almost famished with hunger, but we were lucky enough to secure
a splendid tea at the keeper's cottage. Fortunately for us the good lady
of the house had provided a sumptuous repast for some sporting gentlemen
she was expecting, but who had been prevented from coming owing to the
storm. We kept no record of our gastronomical performances on this
occasion, but we can safely state that of a whole rabbit very little
remained, and the same remark would apply to a whole series of other
delicacies which the keeper's wife had so kindly and thoughtfully
provided for her more distinguished but absent guests. We took the
opportunity of drying some of our wet clothing, and before we finished
our tea the keeper himself came in, to whom we related our adventures.
Though accustomed to the broken regions and wild solitudes we had passed
through, he was simply astounded that we had come over them safely,
especially on such a day.
It was pitch dark when we left the keeper's cottage, and he very kindly
accompanied us until we reached the highroad in safety. The noise caused
by the rushing waters of the rivers as they passed us on their way in
frantic haste to the sea, now quite near us, and the roar of the sea
itself as it dashed itself violently against the rocky coast, rendered
conversation very difficult, but our companion gave us to understand
that the road to Helmsdale was very hilly and lonely, and at one time
was considered dangerous for strangers. Fortunately the surface was very
good, and we found it much easier to walk upon than the wet heather we
had passed over for so many miles. The black rocks which lined the road,
the darkness of the night, and the noise from the sea as the great waves
dashed and thundered on the rocks hundreds of feet below, might have
terrified timid travellers, but they seemed nothing to us compared with
our experience earlier in the day. The wind had moderated, but the rain
continued to fall, and occasionally we were startled as we rounded one
of the many bends in the road by coming suddenly on a burn swollen with
the heavy rains, hurling itself like a cataract down the rocky sides of
the hill, and rushing under the road beneath our feet in its noisy
descent helter-skelter towards the sea.
We walked on as rapidly as the hilly nature of our road would permit,
without seeing a house or human being, until we approached Helmsdale,
when we were surprised by the sudden appearance of the stage-coach drawn
by three horses and displaying its enormous red lamp in front. The
driver suddenly pulled up his horses, for, as he said, he did not know
"what the de'il it was coming in front": he scarcely ever met any one on
that road, and particularly on such an "awful" stormy night. We asked
him how far we were from the town, and were delighted to hear it was
only about two miles away. It was after ten o'clock when we arrived at
Helmsdale, tired and footsore, but just in time to secure lodgings for
the night at the Commercial Inn.
(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)
_Thursday, September 21st._
Helmsdale was a pleasant little town inhabited chiefly by fishermen, but
a place of some importance, for it had recently become the northern
terminus of the railway. A book in the hotel, which we read while
waiting for breakfast, gave us some interesting information about the
road we had travelled along the night before, and from it we learned
that the distance between Berriedale and Helmsdale was nine and a half
miles, and that about half-way between these two places it passed the
Ord of Caithness at an elevation of 1,200 feet above the sea-level, an
"aclivity of granite past which no railway can be carried," and the
commencement of a long chain of mountains separating Caithness from
Sutherland.
Formerly the road was carried along the edge of a tremendous range of
precipices which overhung the sea in a fashion enough to frighten both
man and beast, and was considered the most dangerous road in Scotland,
so much so that when the Earl of Caithness or any other great landed
proprietor travelled that way a troop of their tenants from the borders
of Sutherland-shire assembled, and drew the carriage themselves across
the hill, a distance of two miles, quadrupeds not being considered safe
enough, as the least deviation would have resulted in a fall over the
rocks into the sea below. This old road, which was too near the sea for
modern traffic, was replaced by the present road in the year 1812. The
old path, looked at from the neighbourhood of Helmsdale, had more the
appearance of a sheep track than a road as it wound up the steep brow of
the hill 300 or 400 feet above the rolling surge of the sea below, and
was quite awe-inspiring even to look at, set among scenery of the most
wild and savage character.
We had now cleared the county of Caithness, which, like Orkney and
Shetland, was almost entirely devoid of trees. To our way of thinking a
sprinkling of woods and copses would have much enhanced the wild beauty
of the surroundings, but there was a difference of opinion or taste on
this point as on everything else. A gentleman who had settled in
America, and had had to clear away the trees from his holding, when he
passed through Caithness on his way to John o' Groat's was continually
ejaculating, "What a beautiful country!" "What a very beautiful
country!" Some one who heard him remarked, "You can hardly call it a
very beautiful country when there are no trees." "Trees," cried the
Yankee; "that's all stuff Caithness, I calculate, is the finest clearing
I ever saw in my life!"
We had often wondered, by the way, how the Harbour Works at Wick would
be affected by the great storms, and we were afterwards greatly
interested when we read in a Scotch provincial newspaper the following
telegrams:
TERRIFIC GALE AT WICK THREATENED DESTRUCTION OF THE HARBOUR WORKS
_From our Wick Correspondent_
_Wick, Wednesday_, 12:50--A terrific storm is raging here to-day. It
is a gale from the south-east, with an extraordinary surf which is
making a complete break of the new Harbour Works, where a number of
large stones have been dislodged and serious damage is threatened.
1:30 _p.m._--The storm still continues. A large concrete block,
weighing 300 tons, has been dislodged, and the whole building seems
doomed unless the storm abates very soon.
These hours corresponded with the time we were crossing the Maiden's
Paps mountains, and we are not likely ever to forget the great danger we
were in on that occasion.
We were rather backward in making a start on our journey to-day, for our
feet were very sore; but we were advised to apply common soap to our
stocking feet, from which we experienced great relief. As we left the
town we saw some ruins, which we assumed were those of Helmsdale Castle,
and we had now the company of the railway, which, like our road, hugged
the seacoast for some miles. About two miles after leaving Helmsdale we
sighted the first railway train we had seen since we left Aberdeen a
fortnight before. Under ordinary conditions this might have passed
unnoticed, but as we had been travelling through such wild country we
looked upon it as a sign that we were approaching a part of the country
which had communication with civilisation, other than that afforded by
sea or mail-coach.
[Illustration: PICTISH TOWER (EXTERIOR).]
We now walked through the Parish of Loth, where in Glen Loth we were
informed the last wolf in Scotland was killed, and about half a mile
before reaching Brora we climbed over a stone fence to inspect the ruins
of a Pictish castle standing between our road and the railway. The ruins
were circular, but some of the walls had been built in a zig-zag form,
and had originally contained passages and rooms, some of which still
existed, but they looked so dark that we did not care to go inside them,
though we were informed that about two years before our visit
excavations had been made and several human skulls were discovered. The
weather continued wet, and we passed through several showers on our way
from Helmsdale to Brora, where, after a walk of twelve miles, we stayed
for lunch, and it was again raining as we left there for Golspie.
[Illustration: PICTISH TOWER (INTERIOR).]
At Brora we heard stories of wonderful fossils which were to be found in
the rocks on the shore--shells and fish-scales and remains of bigger
creatures--and of a bed of real coal. Certainly the rocks seemed to
change their character hereabouts, which may account for the softening
of the scenery and the contrast in agricultural pursuits in this region
with those farther north. Here the appearance of the country gradually
improved as we approached the woods and grounds and more cultivated
regions surrounding the residence of the Duke of Sutherland.
[Illustration: DUNROBIN CASTLE. "It was the finest building we had
seen, not at all like the gloomy-looking castles, being more like a
palace, with a fine display of oriel windows, battlements, steeples, and
turrets."]
We came in sight of another Pictish castle, which we turned aside to
visit; but by this time we had become quite familiar with the formation
of these strange old structures, which were nearly all built after the
sawas known as "The
Mound," a bank thrown across what looked like an arm of the sea. It was
upwards of half a mile long, and under the road were six arches to admit
the passage of the tide as it ebbed and flowed. Here we turned off to
the right along the hill road to Bonar Bridge, and visited what had been
once a mansion, but was now nearly all fallen to the ground, very little
remaining to tell of its former glory. What attracted us most was the
site of the garden behind the house, where stood four great yew trees
which must have been growing hundreds of years. They were growing in
pairs, and in a position which suggested that the road had formerly
passed between them.
Presently our way passed through a beautiful and romantic glen, with a
fine stream swollen by the recent rains running alongside it. Had the
weather been more favourable, we should have had a charming walk. The
hills did not rise to any great elevation, but were nicely wooded down
to the very edge of the stream, and the torrent, with its innumerable
rapids and little falls, that met us as we travelled on our upward way,
showed to the best advantage. In a few miles we came to a beautiful
waterfall facing our road, and we climbed up the rocks to get a near
view of it from a rustic bridge placed there for the purpose. A large
projecting rock split the fall into the shape of a two-pronged fork, so
that it appeared like a double waterfall, and looked very pretty.
Another stream entered the river near the foot of the waterfall, but the
fall of this appeared to have been artificially broken thirty or forty
times on its downward course, forming the same number of small lochs, or
ponds. We had a grand sight of these miniature lakes as they overflowed
one into another until their waters joined the stream below.
We now left the trees behind us and, emerging into the open country,
travelled many miles across the moors alongside Loch Buidhee, our only
company being the sheep and the grouse. As we approached Bonar Bridge we
observed a party of sportsmen on the moors. From the frequency of their
fire we supposed they were having good sport; a horse with panniers on
its back, which were fast being ladened with the fallen game, was
following them at a respectful distance. Then we came to a few small
houses, near which were large stacks of peat or turf, which was being
carted away in three carts. We asked the driver of the first cart we
overtook how far it was to Bonar Bridge, and he replied two miles. We
made the same inquiry from the second, who said three miles, and the
reply of the third was two and a half miles. As the distance between the
first and the third drivers was only one hundred yards, their replies
rather amused us. Still we found it quite far enough, for we passed
through shower after shower.
Our eighteen-mile walk had given us a good idea of "Caledonia stern and
wild," and at the same time had developed in us an enormous appetite
when by two o'clock we entered the hotel facing Bonar Bridge for our
dinner. The bridge was a fine substantial iron structure of about 150
feet span, having a stone arching at either end, and was of great
importance, as it connected main roads and did away with the ferry which
once existed there. As we crossed the bridge we noticed two vessels from
Sunderland discharging coals, and some fallen fir-trees lying on the
side of the water apparently waiting shipment for colliery purposes, apt
illustrations of the interchange of productions. There were many fine
plantations of fir-trees near Bonar Bridge, and as we passed the railway
station we saw a rather substantial building across the water which we
were informed was the "Puirshoose," or "Poor House."
Observing a village school to the left of our road, we looked through
the open door; but the room was empty, so we called at the residence of
the schoolmaster adjoining to get some reliable information about our
further way, We found him playing on a piano and very civil and
obliging, and he advised us to stay for the night at what was known as
the Half-way House, which we should find on the hill road to Dingwall,
and so named because it was halfway between Bonar and Alness, and nine
miles from Bonar. Our road for the first two miles was close along
Dornoch Firth, and the fine plantations of trees afforded us some
protection against the wind and rain; then we left the highway and
turned to the right, along the hill road. After a steep ascent for more
than a mile, we passed under a lofty elevation, and found ourselves once
more amongst the heather-bells so dear to the heart of every true Scot.
At this point we could not help lingering awhile to view the magnificent
scene below. What a gorgeous panorama! The wide expanse of water, the
bridge we had lately crossed and the adjoining small village, the fine
plantations of trees, the duke's monument rising above the woods at
Golspie, were all visible, but obscured in places by the drifting
showers. If the "Clerk of the Weather" had granted us sunshine instead
of rain, we should have had a glorious prospect not soon to be
forgotten. But we had still three miles to walk, or, as the people in
the north style it, to travel, before we could reach the Half-Way House,
when we met a solitary pedestrian, who as soon as he saw us coming sat
down on a stone and awaited us until we got within speaking distance,
when he began to talk to us. He was the Inspector of Roads, and had been
walking first in one direction and then in the other during the whole of
the day. He said he liked to speak to everybody he saw, as the roads
were so very lonely in his district. He informed us that the Half-Way
House was a comfortable place, and we could not do better than stay
there for the night.
We were glad when we reached the end of our nine-mile walk, as the day
had been very rough and stormy. As it was the third in succession of the
same character, we did not care how soon the weather took a turn for the
better. The Half-Way House stood in a deserted and lonely position on
the moor some little distance from the road, without another house being
visible for miles, and quite isolated from the outer world. We entered
the farmyard, where we saw the mistress busy amongst the pigs, two dogs
barking at us in a very threatening manner. We walked into the kitchen,
the sole occupant of which was a "bairn," who was quite naked, and whom
we could just see behind a maiden of clothes drying before the fire. The
mistress soon followed us into the house, and in reply to our query as
to whether we could be accommodated for the night said, "I will see,"
and invited us into the parlour, a room containing two beds and sundry
chairs and tables. The floor in the kitchen was formed of clay, the
parlour had a boarded floor, and the mantelpiece and roof were of very
old wood, but there was neither firegrate nor fire.
After we had waited there a short time, the mistress again made her
appearance, with a shovel full of red-hot peat, so, although she had not
given us a decided answer as to whether we could stay the night or not,
we considered that silence gave consent, especially when seconded by the
arrival of the welcome fire.
"You surely must have missed your train!" she said; but when we told her
that we were pedestrian tourists, or, as my brother described it, "on a
walking expedition," she looked surprised.
When she entered the room again we were sorting out our letters and
papers, and she said, "You surely must be sappers!" We had some
difficulty in making her understand the object of our journey, as she
could not see how we could be walking for pleasure in such bad weather.
We found the peat made a very hot fire and did good service in helping
to dry our wet clothing. We wanted some hot milk and bread for supper,
which she was very reluctant to supply, as milk was extremely scarce on
the moors, but as a special favour she robbed the remainder of the
family to comply with our wishes. The wind howled outside, but we heeded
it not, for we were comfortably housed before a blazing peat fire which
gave out a considerable amount of heat. We lit one of our ozokerite
candles, of which we carried a supply to be prepared for emergencies,
and read our home newspaper, _The Warrington Guardian_, which was sent
to us weekly, until supper-time arrived, and then we were surprised by
our hostess bringing in an enormous bowl, apparently an ancient punch
bowl, large enough to wash ourselves in, filled with hot milk and bread,
along with two large wooden spoons. Armed with these, we both sat down
with the punch-bowl between us, hungry enough and greedy enough to
compete with one another as to which should devour the most. Which won
would be difficult to say, but nothing remained except the bowl and the
spoons and our extended selves.
We had walked twenty-seven miles, and it must have been weather such as
we had experienced that inspired the poet to exclaim:
The west wind blows and brings rough weather,
The east brings cold and wet together,
The south wind blows and brings much rain,
The north wind blows it back again!
The beds were placed end to end, so that our feet came together, with a
wooden fixture between the two beds to act as the dividing line.
Needless to say we slept soundly, giving orders to be wakened early in
the morning.
(_Distance walked twenty-seven miles_.)
_Saturday, September 23rd._
We were awakened at six o'clock in the morning, and after a good
breakfast we left the Half-Way House (later the "Aultnamain Inn"), and
well pleased we were with the way the landlady had catered for our
hungry requirements. We could see the sea in the distance, and as we
resumed our march across the moors we were often alarmed suddenly by the
harsh and disagreeable cries of the startled grouse as they rose
hurriedly from the sides of our path, sounding almost exactly like "Go
back!--go back!" We were, however, obliged to "Go forward," and that
fairly quickly, as we were already a few miles behind our contemplated
average of twenty-five miles per day. We determined to make the loss
good, and if possible to secure a slight margin to our credit, so we set
out intending to reach Inverness that night if possible. In spite,
therefore, of the orders given in such loud and unpleasant tones by the
grouse, we advanced quickly onwards and left those birds to rejoice the
heart of any sportsman who might follow.
Cromarty Firth was clearly visible as we left the moors, and we could
distinguish what we thought was Cromarty itself, with its whitewashed
houses, celebrated as the birthplace of the great geologist, Hugh
Miller, of whom we had heard so much in the Orkneys. The original cause
of the whitewashing of the houses in Cromarty was said to have been the
result of an offer made by a former candidate for Parliamentary
honours, who offered to whitewash any of the houses. As nearly all the
free and independent electors accepted his offer, it was said that
Cromarty came out of the Election of 1826 cleaner than any other place
in Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that it happened in an age when
parliamentarian representation generally went to the highest bidder.
We crossed the Strathrory River, and leaving the hills to our right
found ourselves in quite a different kind of country, a veritable land
of woods, where immense plantations of fir-trees covered the hills as
far as the eye could reach, sufficient, apparently, to make up for the
deficiency in Caithness and Sutherland in that respect, for we were now
in the county of Ross and Cromarty.
Shortly afterwards we crossed over the River Alness. The country we now
passed through was highly cultivated and very productive, containing
some large farms, where every appearance of prosperity prevailed, and
the tall chimneys in the rear of each spoke of the common use of coal.
The breeding of cattle seemed to be carried on extensively; we saw one
large herd assembled in a field adjoining our road, and were amused at a
conversational passage of arms between the farmer and two cattle-dealers
who were trying to do business, each side endeavouring to get the better
of the other. It was not quite a war to the knife, but the fight between
those Scots was like razor trying to cut razor, and we wished we had
time to stay and hear how it ended.
Arriving at Novar, where there was a nice little railway station, we
passed on to the village inn, and called for a second breakfast, which
we thoroughly enjoyed after our twelve-mile walk. Here we heard that
snow had fallen on one of the adjacent hills during the early hours of
the morning, but it was now fine, and fortunately continued to be so
during the whole of the day.
Our next stage was Dingwall, the chief town in the county of Ross, and
at the extreme end of the Cromarty Firth, which was only six miles
distant. We had a lovely walk to that town, very different from the
lonely moors we had traversed earlier in the day, as our road now lay
along the very edge of the Cromarty Firth, while the luxuriant foliage
of the trees on the other side of our road almost formed an arch over
our way. The water of the Firth was about two miles broad all the way to
Dingwall, and the background formed by the wooded hills beyond the Firth
made up a very fine picture. We had been fully prepared to find Dingwall
a very pretty place, and in that we were not disappointed.
The great object of interest as we entered this miniature county town
was a lofty monument fifty or sixty feet high,[Footnote: This monument
has since been swept away.] which stood in a separate enclosure near a
graveyard attached to a church. It was evidently very old, and leaning
several points from the perpendicular, and was bound together almost to
the top with bands of iron crossed in all directions to keep it from
failing. A very curious legend was attached to it. It was erected to
some steward named Roderick Mackenzie, who had been connected with the
Cromarty estate many years ago, and who appeared to have resided at
Kintail, being known as the Tutor of Kintail. He acted as administrator
of the Mackenzie estates during the minority of his nephew, the
grandfather of the first Earl of Cromarty, and was said to have been a
man of much ability and considerable culture for the times in which he
lived. At the same time he was a man of strong personality though of
evil repute in the Gaelic-speaking districts, as the following couplet
still current among the common people showed:
The three worst things in Scotland--
Mists in the dog-days, frost in May, and the Tutor of Kintail.
The story went that the tutor had a quarrel with a woman who appeared to
have been quite as strong-minded as himself. She was a dairymaid in
Strathconon with whom he had an agreement to supply him with a stone of
cheese for every horn of milk given by each cow per day. For some reason
the weight of cheese on one occasion happened to be light, and this so
enraged the tutor that he drove her from the Strath. Unfortunately for
him the dairymaid was a poetess, and she gave vent to her sorrow in
verse, in which it may be assumed the tutor came in for much abuse. When
she obtained another situation at the foot of Ben Wyvis, the
far-reaching and powerful hand of the tutor drove her from there also;
so at length she settled in the Clan Ranald Country in Barrisdale, on
the shores of Loch Hourn on the west coast of Inverness-shire, a place
at that time famous for shell-fish, where she might have dwelt in peace
had she mastered the weakness of her sex for demanding the last word;
but she burst forth once more in song, and the tutor came in for another
scathing:
Though from Strathconon with its cream you've driven me,
And from Wyvis with its curds and cheese;
While billow beats on shore you cannot drive me
From the shell-fish of fair Barrisdale.
These stanzas came to the ear of the tutor, who wrote to Macdonald of
Barrisdale demanding that he should plough up the beach, and when this
had been done there were no longer any shell-fish to be found there.
The dairymaid vowed to be even with the tutor, and threatened to
desecrate his grave. When he heard of the threat, in order to prevent
its execution he built this strange monument, and instead of being
buried beneath it he was said to have been buried near the summit; but
the woman was not to be out-done, for after the tutor's funeral she
climbed to the top of the pinnacle and kept her vow to micturate there!
As our time was limited, we were obliged to hurry away from this
pleasantly situated town, and in about four miles, after crossing the
River Conon, we entered Conon village, where we called for refreshments,
of which we hastily disposed. Conon was quite an agricultural village,
where the smithy seemed to rival the inn in importance, as the smiths
were busy at work. We saw quite a dozen ploughs waiting to be repaired
in order to fit them to stir up the soil during the ploughing season,
which would commence as soon as the corn was cleared off the land. Here
we observed the first fingerpost we had seen since leaving John o'
Groat's, now more than a hundred miles distant, although it was only an
apology for one, and very different from those we were accustomed to see
farther south in more important but not more beautiful places. It was
simply an upright post with rough pieces of wood nailed across the top,
but we looked upon it as a sign that we were approaching more civilised
regions. The gentry had shown their appreciation of this delightful part
of the country by erecting fine residences in the neighbourhood, some of
which we passed in close proximity. Just before crossing over the
railway bridge we came to a frightful figure of a human head carved on a
stone and built in the battlement in a position where it could be seen
by all. It was coloured white, and we heard it was the work of some
local sculptor. It was an awful-looking thing, and no doubt did duty for
the "boggard" of the neighbourhood. The view of the hills to the right
of our road as we passed along was very fine, lit up as they were by the
rays of the evening sun, and the snow on Ben Wyvis in the distance
contrasted strangely with the luxuriant foliage of the trees near us, as
they scarcely yet showed the first shade of the autumn tints.
About four miles farther on we arrived at a place called the Muir of
Ord, a rather strange name of which we did not know the meaning,
reaching the railway station there just after the arrival of a train
which we were told had come from the "sooth." The passengers consisted
of a gentleman and his family, who were placing themselves in a large
four-wheeled travelling-coach to which were attached four rather
impatient horses. A man-servant in livery was on the top of the coach
arranging a large number of parcels and boxes, those intolerable
appendages of travel. We waited, and watched their departure, as we had
no desire to try conclusions with the restless feet of the horses, our
adventures with the Shetland pony in the north having acted as a warning
to us. Shortly afterwards we crossed a large open space of land studded
with wooden buildings and many cattle-pens which a man told us was now
the great cattlemarket for the North, where sales for cattle were held
each month--the next would be due in about a week's time, when from
30,000 to 35,000 sheep would be sold. It seemed strange to us that a
place of such importance should have been erected where there were
scarcely any houses, but perhaps there were more in the neighbourhood
than we had seen, and in any case it lay conveniently as a meeting-place
for the various passes in the mountain country.
We soon arrived at Beauly, which, as its name implied, was rather a
pretty place, with its houses almost confined to the one street, the
Grammar School giving it an air of distinction. Our attention was
attracted by some venerable ruins at the left of our road, which we
determined to visit, but the gate was locked. Seeing a small girl
standing near, we asked her about the key, and she volunteered to go and
tell the man who kept it to come at once. We were pressed for time, and
the minutes seemed very long as we stood awaiting the arrival of the
key, until at last we decided to move on; but just as we were walking
away we saw an old man coming up a side street with the aid of a crutch
and a stick.
[Illustration: ON THE BEAULY RIVER.]
He pointed with his stick towards the cathedral, so we retraced our
steps and awaited his arrival with the key. A key it certainly was, and
a large one too, for it weighed 2 lbs. 4 ozs. and the bore that fitted
the lock was three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It was the biggest
key we saw in all our long journey. We listened to all the old man had
to tell us about the cathedral, the building of which begun in the year
1230. It measured 152 feet in length and about 24 feet in breadth, but
was ruined in the time of Cromwell. He showed us what he described as
the Holy Water Pot, which was quite near the door and had some water in
it, but why the water happened to be there the old man could not
explain. The front gable of the nave was nearly all standing, but that
at the back, which at one time had contained a large window, was nearly
all down. The old font was in the wall about half-way down the
cathedral; the vestry and chapter house were roofless. The grave-stones
dated from the year 1602, but that which covered the remains of the
founder was of course very much older. Beauly was formerly a
burial-place of the ancient Scottish chieftains, and was still used as
the burial-ground of the Mackenzies, the name reminding us of our
friends at the "Huna Inn." Rewarding our guide and the bairn who had
returned with him for their services, we walked quickly away, as we had
still twelve miles to walk before reaching Inverness.
[Illustration: BEAULY PRIORY.]
After crossing the bridge over the River Beauly we had the company for
about a mile of a huge servant-girl, a fine-looking Scotch lassie, with
whom we ventured to enter into conversation although we felt like dwarfs
in her presence. She told us she had never been in England, but her
sister had been there in service, and had formed a bad opinion of the
way the English spent their Sundays. Some of them never went to church
at all, while one young man her sister knew there actually whistled as
he was going to church! It was very different in Scotland, where, she
said, all went to church and kept holy the Sabbath day. She evidently
thought it a dreadful offence to whistle on Sundays, and we were careful
not to offend the susceptibilities of the Scots, and, we may safely say,
our own, by whistling on the Lord's day. Whistling was, however, an
accomplishment of which we were rather proud, as we considered ourselves
experts, and beguiled many a weary mile's march with
quicksteps--English, Scotch, Welsh, and Irish--which we flattered
ourselves sounded better amongst the hills of the Highlands of Scotland
even than the sacred bagpipes of the most famous Scotch regiments.
We thanked our formidable-looking friend for her company and, presenting
her with a John o' Groat's buckie, bade her farewell. When she must have
been a distance away we accelerated our pace by whistling "Cheer, Boys,
Cheer!" one of Charles Russell's songs. We could not keep it up for
long, as we were not only footsore, but sore in every joint, through
friction, and we were both beginning to limp a little when we came to a
junction in the roads. Here it was necessary to inquire about our way,
and seeing a farm quite near we went to it and asked a gentleman who was
standing in the yard which way we should turn for Inverness and how far
it was. He kindly directed us, and told us that town was nine miles
distant, but added, "I am just going there in my 'machine,' which will
be ready directly, and will be glad to give you a lift." This kind offer
formed one of the greatest temptations we had during our long journey,
as we had already walked thirty miles that day, and were in a pitiable
condition, and it was hard to say "No." We thanked the gentleman
heartily, and explained why we could not accept it, as we had determined
to walk all the way to Land's End, and with an effort both painful and
slow we mournfully took our way. We had only travelled a short distance
when he overtook us with a spirited horse and a well-appointed
conveyance, bidding us "Good night" as he passed.
We had a painful walk for the next three miles, and it was just at the
edge of dark when we called for tea at the "Bogroy Inn." We were shown
into the parlour by the mistress herself, a pleasant elderly lady, very
straight, but very stout, and when my brother complimented her on her
personal appearance, she told him that when she first came into that
neighbourhood thirty-five years ago she only weighed eleven stone, but
six years since she weighed twenty-two stone; now, she rather
sorrowfully added, "I only weigh seventeen stone!" She evidently thought
she had come down in the world, but she was an ideal landlady of the
good old sort, for she sent us some venison in for our tea, the first we
had ever tasted, and with eggs and other good things we had a grand
feast. Moreover, she sent her daughter, a prepossessing young lady, to
wait upon us, so we felt ourselves highly honoured.
As we were devouring the good things provided we heard some mysterious
tappings, which we were unable to locate. My brother suggested the house
might be haunted, but when the young lady entered the room again we
discovered that the tappings were outside the house, on the shutters
which covered the windows, for every one in the Highlands in those days
protected their lower windows with wooden shutters. The tappings were
accompanied by a low whistle, by which we could see the young lady was
visibly affected, until finally she left the room rather hurriedly,
never to appear again; nor did we hear the tappings any more, and the
requiem we sung was:
If she be not fair for me,
What care I how fair she be?
We were sorry to leave the "Bogroy Inn," as the mistress said she would
have been glad of our further patronage, but we had determined to reach
Inverness as a better place to stay over the week end. With great
difficulty we walked the remaining six miles under the trees, through
which the moon was shining, and we could see the stars twinkling above
our heads as we marched, or rather crawled, along the Great North Road.
On arriving at Inverness we crossed the bridge, to reach a house that
had been recommended to us, but as it was not up to our requirements we
turned back and found one more suitable across the water. Our week's
walk totalled 160 miles, of which thirty-nine had been covered that day.
(_Distance walked thirty-nine miles._)
_Sunday, September 24th._
After a good night's rest and the application of common soap to the
soles of our feet, and fuller's earth to other parts of our
anatomy--remedies we continued to employ, whenever necessary, on our
long journey--we were served with a good breakfast, and then went out to
see what Inverness looked like in the daylight. We were agreeably
surprised to find it much nicer than it appeared as we entered it, tired
out, the night before, and we had a pleasant walk before going to the
eleven-o'clock service at the kirk.
Inverness, the "Capital of the Highlands," has a long and eventful
history. St. Columba is said to have visited it as early as the year
565, and on a site fortified certainly in the eighth century stands the
castle, which was, in 1039, according to Shakespeare, the scene of the
murder of King Duncan by Macbeth. The town was made a Royal Burgh by
David I, King of Scotland. The Lords of the Isles also appear to have
been crowned here, for their coronation stone is still in existence, and
has been given a name which in Gaelic signifies the "Stone of the Tubs."
In former times the water supply of the town had to be obtained from the
loch or the river, and the young men and maidens carrying it in tubs
passed this stone on their way--or rather did not pass, for they
lingered a while to rest, the stone no doubt being a convenient
trysting-place. We wandered as far as the castle, from which the view of
the River Ness and the Moray Firth was particularly fine.
We attended service in one of the Free Churches, and were much
interested in the proceedings, which were so different from those we had
been accustomed to in England, the people standing while they prayed and
sitting down while they sang. The service began with the one hundredth
Psalm to the good old tune known as the "Old Hundredth" and associated
in our minds with that Psalm from our earliest days:
All people that on earth do dwell,
Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice.
Him serve with fear, His praise forth tell,
Come ye before Him, and rejoice.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL, INVERNESS.]
During the singing of this, all the people remained seated except the
precentor, who stood near the pulpit. Then followed a prayer, the people
all standing; and then the minister read a portion of Scripture from the
thirty-fourth chapter of the prophet Ezekiel beginning at the eleventh
verse: "For thus saith the Lord God; Behold I, even I, will both search
My sheep, and seek them out."
Another hymn was followed by the Lord's Prayer; after which came the
sermon, preached by the Rev. Donald Fraser, M.A., of Marylebone, London,
a former minister of the church. He read the last three verses of the
ninth chapter of St. John's gospel, continued reading down to the
sixteenth verse of the tenth chapter, and then selected for his text the
fourth, ninth, and tenth verses of that chapter, the first verse of
these reading: "And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before
them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice."
The sermon had evidently been well thought out and was ably delivered,
the subject being very appropriate to a district where sheep abound and
where their habits are so well known. Everybody listened with the
greatest attention. At the close there was a public baptism of a child,
whose father and mother stood up before the pulpit with their backs to
the congregation. The minister recited the Apostles' Creed, which was
slightly different in phraseology from that used in the Church of
England, and then, descending from the pulpit, proceeded to baptize the
child in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The closing hymn
followed, and the people stood while the minister pronounced the
benediction, after which the congregation slowly separated.
[Illustration: INVERNESS CASTLE.]
During the afternoon we visited an isolated hill about a mile from the
town named Tomnahurich, or the "Hill of the Fairies." Nicely wooded, it
rose to an elevation of about 200 feet above the sea, and, the summit
being comparatively level and clear from trees, we had a good view of
Inverness and its surroundings. This hill was used as the Cemetery, and
many people had been buried, both on the top and along the sides of the
serpentine walk leading up to it, their remains resting there peacefully
until the resurrection, "when the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall
be raised incorruptible." We considered it an ideal place for the burial
of the dead, and quite a number of people were walking up and down the
paths leading under the trees, many of them stopping on their way to
view the graves where their friends had been buried.
In the evening we attended service in the cathedral, a large modern
structure, with two towers, each of which required a spire forty feet
high to complete the original design. Massive columns of Aberdeen
granite had been erected in the interior to support the roof of polished
oak, adorned with carved devices, some of which had not yet been
completed. The Communion-table, or altar, made in Italy and presented to
the cathedral by a wealthy layman, stood beneath a suspended crucifix,
and was further adorned with a cross, two candlesticks, and two vases
containing flowers. The service, of a High-Church character, was fully
choral, assisted by a robed choir and a good organ. The sermon was
preached by the Rev. Provost Powell, who took for his text Romans xiv.
7: "For none liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself." He gave us
a clever oration, but whether extempore or otherwise we could not tell,
as from where we sat we could not see the preacher. There was not a
large congregation, probably owing to the fact that the people in the
North are opposed to innovations, and look upon crosses and candlesticks
on the Communion-table as imitations of the Roman Catholic ritual, to
which the Presbyterians could never be reconciled. The people generally
seemed much prejudiced against this form of service, for in the town
early in the morning, before we knew this building was the cathedral, we
asked a man what kind of a place of worship it was, and he replied, in a
tone that implied it was a place to be avoided, that he did not know,
but it was "next to th' Catholics." Our landlady spoke of it in exactly
the same way.
SECOND WEEK'S JOURNEY
_Monday, September 25th._
[Illustration: CAIRN ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF CULLODEN MUIR.]
We rose early, but were not in very good trim for walking, for a mild
attack of diarrhoea yesterday had become intensified during the night,
and still continued. After breakfast we went to the post office for our
"poste restante" letters, and after replying to them resumed our march.
Culloden Muir, the site of the great battle in 1746, in which the
Scottish Clans under Prince Charlie suffered so severely at the hands of
the Duke of Cumberland, is only six miles away from Inverness, and we
had originally planned to visit it, but as that journey would have taken
us farther from the Caledonian Canal, the line of which we were now
anxious to follow, we gave up the idea of going to Culloden. We were,
moreover, in no humour for digressions since we had not yet recovered
from the effects of our long walk on Saturday, and our bodily ailments
were still heavy upon us. As we crossed the suspension-bridge, in close
proximity to the castle, we purchased a few prints of the town and the
neighbourhood through which we were about to pass.
Inverness is built in a delightful situation, skirting the Ness, which
here takes the form of a beautiful, shallow river moving peacefully
forward to its great receptacle, Loch Ness, a few miles away; but,
although the country near the town is comparatively level, it is
surrounded by mountain scenery of the most charming description. Our
route lay along the north-western side of the Caledonian Canal in the
direction of Fort Augustus, and we again passed the Tomnahurich Hill.
Near this we saw a large building which we were surprised to learn was a
lunatic asylum--an institution we did not expect to find here, for we
had only heard of one madman in the three counties of Scotland through
which we had passed. We concluded it must have been built for persons
from farther south.
[Illustration: CULLODEN MUIR.]
The diarrhoea still continued to trouble us, so we asked the advice of a
gentleman we met on the road, and he recommended us to call at the next
farmhouse, which, fortunately, happened to be only a short distance
away, and to "take a quart of milk each, as hot as you can drink it." So
away we walked to the farm, which we found standing a short distance
from our road, and, after explaining our troubles and wishes to the
farmer, were invited into the house, where the mistress quickly provided
us with the hot milk, which luckily proved to be a safe and simple
remedy. The farmer and his wife were as pleased with our company as we
were with theirs, and were just the sort of people that tourists like to
meet. We had a long talk with them about the crops, the markets, our
long walk, and, last but not least, the weather. Speaking of diarrhoea,
the farmer informed us that the water of Inverness often affected
strangers in that way, and that it had even been known to produce
dysentery.
After regaining our road, we had a lovely walk that day; the scenery
and the weather were both very fine, and, about a mile farther on, we
had a glorious view over Loch Ness, beside which our walk led us,
through a delightful country studded with mansions amidst some of
nature's most beautiful scenery. Presently we met a party of men,
consisting of two soldiers and three civilians, engaged in cutting
branches from the trees that were likely to interfere with the working
of the telegraph, which passed along the side of the road. It consisted
of a single wire, and had only just been erected, for we noticed each
post bore the Government mark and the date 1871. We asked the men if
they knew of a good remedy for our complaint, and one of the soldiers,
who had seen service abroad, recommended "a spoonful of sweet oil and
cinnamon mixed with it." Our former remedy had proved to be efficacious,
so we had no need to try this, but we give the information here for the
benefit of all whom it may concern.
[Illustration: THE BURYING-PLACE OF THE CLANS.]
We were certainly in for the best day's march we had yet experienced, if
not for distance, certainly for beauty of route; and if we had had the
gift of poetry--which only affected us occasionally--we should have had
here food for poems sufficient to fill the side of a newspaper. Mountain
rills, gushing rivulets, and murmuring waters! Here they were in
abundance, rolling down the rocky mountains from unknown heights, and
lending an additional charm to the landscape! Is it necessary to dilate
on such beauties?--for if words were conjured in the most delicate and
exquisite language imaginable, the glories of Loch Ness and its
surroundings are, after all, things to be seen before they can be fully
appreciated. The loch is over twenty miles long, and averages about a
mile broad; while a strange fact is that its water never freezes.
Scientific men, we were told, attributed this to the action of
earthquakes in distant parts of the world, their vibrations affecting
the surface of the water here; while others, apparently of the more
commonsense type, attribute it to the extreme depth of the water in the
loch itself, for in the centre it is said to exceed 260 yards.
As we loitered along--for we were very lazy--we decided to have a picnic
amongst the large stones on the shore of the loch, so we selected a
suitable position, and broke into the provisions we carried in our bags
as a reserve for emergencies. We were filling our water-boiling
apparatus from the loch, when we saw a steamboat approaching from the
direction of Glasgow. It presented quite a picture as it passed us, in
the sunshine, with its flags flying and its passengers crowded on the
deck, enjoying the fine scenery, and looking for Inverness, where their
trip on the boat, like the Caledonian Canal itself, would doubtless end.
There was music on board, of which we got the full benefit, as the sound
was wafted towards us across the water, to echo and re-echo amongst the
hills and adjoining woods; and we could hear the strains of the music
long after the boat was cut off from our vision by the branches of the
trees which partially surrounded us.
[Illustration: THE WELL OF THE DEAD, CULLODEN MUIR. The stone marks the
spot where MacGillivray of Dunmaglass died while stretching out his hand
toward the little spring of water.]
We were, in reality, having a holiday compared with our exertions on
Saturday, and, as we were practically on the sick-list, considered
ourselves fully entitled to it. We thought we had travelled quite far
enough for invalids when, at fourteen miles from Inverness, and in the
light of a lovely sunset, we reached Drumnadrochit, a village on the
side of the loch.
Is it to be wondered at that we succumbed to the seductions of the
famous inn there, as distinguished men had done before us, as the
records of the inn both in prose and poetry plainly showed? One poetical
Irishman had written a rhyme of four verses each ending with the word
Drumnadrochit, one of which we thought formed a sufficient invitation
and excuse for our calling there; it read:
Stop, traveller! with well-pack'd bag,
And hasten to unlock it;
You'll ne'er regret it, though you lag
A day at Drumnadrochit.
One of the best advertisements of this hotel and Drumnadrochit generally
appeared in a letter written by Shirley Brooks to _Punch_ in 1860, in
which he wrote:
The inn whence these lines are dated faces a scene which, happily, is
not too often to be observed in this planet. I say happily, sir,
because we are all properly well aware that this world is a vale of
tears, in which it is our duty to mortify ourselves and make
everybody else as uncomfortable as possible. If there were many
places like Drumnadrochit, persons would be in fearful danger of
forgetting that they ought to be miserable.
But who would have thought that a quiet and sedate-looking Quaker like
John Bright, the famous M.P. for Birmingham, could have been moved by
the spirit to write a verse of poetry--such an unusual thing for a
member of the Society of Friends! Here it is:
In the Highland glens 'tis far too oft observed,
That man is chased away and game preserved;
Glen Urquhart is to me a lovelier glen--
Here deer and grouse have not supplanted men.
But was the position reversed when Mr. Bright visited it? and did the
men supplant the deer and grouse then?
[Illustration: DRUMNADROCHIT.]
Glen Urquhart was one of the places we had to pass on the following day,
but as we had no designs on the deer and grouse, since our sporting
proclivities did not lie in that direction, we thought that we might be
safely trusted to leave the game undisturbed.
(_Distance walked fourteen miles_.)
_Tuesday, September 26th._
We set out from Drumnadrochit early in the morning, and, leaving Glen
Urquhart to the right, after walking about two miles turned aside to
view Urquhart Castle, a ruin occupying a commanding position on the side
of Loch Ness and immediately opposite the entrance to the glen. The
castle was besieged by Edward I when he was trying to subdue Scotland,
and a melancholy story was told of that period. The Scots, who were
defending the castle, were "in extremis," as their provisions were
exhausted and they knew that when they surrendered they would all be
slain. The Governor, however, was anxious to save his wife, who was
shortly to become a mother, so he bade her clothe herself in rags and
drove her from the gate as though she were a beggar who had been shut up
in the castle and whom they had driven away because their provisions
were running short. The ruse succeeded, for the English, believing her
story, let her go; after the garrison saw that she was safe they sallied
forth to meet their fate, and were all killed.
[Illustration: URQUHART CASTLE.]
The approach to the ruins from the road is by upwards of a hundred rough
hardwood steps, and the castle must have been a well-nigh impregnable
stronghold in former times, protected as it was on three sides by the
water of the loch and by a moat on the fourth, the position of the
drawbridge being still clearly denned.
Beneath the solitary tower is a dismal dungeon, and we wondered what
horrors had been enacted within its time-worn and gloomy walls! Once a
grim fortress, its ruins had now been mellowed by the hand of time, and
looked quite inviting amidst their picturesque surroundings. To them
might fitly be applied the words: "Time has made beautiful that which at
first was only terrible."
Whilst we were amongst the ruins, a steamboat which had called at
Drumnadrochit passed close alongside the castle, and we waved our
handkerchiefs to those on board, our silent salutations being returned
by some of the passengers. We afterwards learned we had been recognised
by a gentleman who had met us on the previous day.
About ten miles from Drumnadrochit we reached Invermoriston, and visited
a church which was almost filled with monuments to the memory of the
Grant family, the lairds of Glenmoriston. Among them was the tombstone
of the son of a former innkeeper, with the following inscription, which
reminded us of our own mortality:
Remember, Friend, when this you see,
As I am now so you must be;
As you are now so once was I.
Remember, Friend, that you must die.
There was also another tombstone, apparently that of his mother,
inscribed:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JEAN SCOTT, THE AMIABLE WIFE OF WILLIAM
FALL, INVERMORISTON, INNKEEPER, WHO DIED ON THE 13TH DAY OF
APRIL 1837 AGED 68 YEARS.
and on this appeared the following epitaph:
Weep not for me, O friends,
But weep and mourn
For your own sins.
[Illustration: LOCH NESS FROM FORT AUGUSTUS.]
We then went to visit the remarkable waterfall of Glenmoriston, where
the water after rushing down the rocks for some distance entered a
crevice in a projecting rock below, evidently worn in the course of ages
by the falls themselves. Here the water suddenly disappeared, to
reappear as suddenly some distance below, where, as if furious at its
short imprisonment, it came out splashing, dashing, and boiling in
fantastic beauty amongst the rocks over which it pursued its downward
course. We descended a few paces along a footpath leading to a small
but ancient building, probably at one time a summer house, in the centre
of which a very old millstone had done duty as a table. Here we were
fairly in the whirl of waters, and had a splendid view of the falls and
of the spray which rose to a considerable height. There was no doubt
that we saw this lovely waterfall under the best possible conditions,
and it was some recompense to us when we thought that the heavy rainfall
through which we had passed had contributed to this result. The thistle
may overshadow many more beautiful falls than the falls of Glenmoriston,
but we claim a share of praise for this lively little waterfall as
viewed by us in full force from this shady retreat.
[Illustration: GENERAL WADE'S ROAD NEAR FORT AUGUSTUS, WITH LOCH NESS IN
THE DISTANCE.]
[Illustration: A LIGHTHOUSE ON LOCH NESS.]
[Illustration: FALLS OF FOYERS AND LOCH NESS. "Here in the whirl of
waters ... the spray rose to a considerable height."]
After refreshing ourselves at the inn, we started on our next stage of
ten miles to Fort Augustus, the loneliness of our journey through its
beauties of scenery being enlivened by occasionally watching the pranks
of the squirrels and gazing at the many burns that flowed down the
mountain slopes. Before reaching Fort Augustus we had a splendid view as
we looked backward over Loch Ness, dotted here and there with several
ships tacking and retacking, their white sails gleaming in the sunshine.
It had been a calm and lovely day; the sun was sinking in the west as
we entered Fort Augustus, but we had only time enough for a superficial
survey, for we had to proceed farther, and, however important the Fort
might have been in 1729 when General Wade constructed his famous
military road, or when the Duke of Cumberland made it his headquarters
while he dealt severely with the adherents of Prince Charlie, shooting
ruthlessly, laying waste on every side, and driving women and children
into the moors only to die, it looked very insignificant that night. The
Highland Clans never looked favourably on the construction of these
military roads, and would doubtless have preferred the mountain tracks
to remain as they were, for by using the Fort as a base these roads
became a weapon to be used against them; their only eulogy was said to
have been written by an Irish officer:
Had you but seen these roads before they were made,
You would lift up your eyes, and bless General Wade.
My brother said he must have been a real Irishman, with the eye of
faith, to see roads _before they were made_!
[Illustration: PRINCE CHARLIE'S CAVE, INVERMORISTON.]
Fort Augustus stands at the extremity of Loch Ness, at the point where
its surplus waters are lowered by means of locks to swell those of Loch
Oich, so as to make both lochs navigable for the purposes of the
Caledonian Canal. We noticed some corn-stacks here that were thatched
with broom, and some small houses that were roofed with what looked like
clods of earth, so we concluded that the district must be a very poor
one.
[Illustration: IN GLENMORISTON.]
As darkness was now coming on, we were anxious to find lodgings for the
night, and, hearing that there was an inn at a place called Invergarry,
seven and a half miles from Fort Augustus, we were obliged to go there.
The moon was just beginning to relieve the darkness when we reached
Invergarry, and, seeing a servant removing some linen from a
clothes-line in a small garden, we asked the way to the inn; she pointed
to a building opposite, and said we had "better go in at that door." We
entered as directed at the side door, and found ourselves in a rather
large inn with a passage through it from end to end. We saw what we
supposed to be the master and the mistress snugly ensconced in a room,
and asked the master if we could obtain lodgings for the night. He said
"yes," but we heard the mistress, who had not seen us, mutter something
we could not hear distinctly. My brother said he was sure he heard the
words "Shepherd's room." The landlord then conducted us into a room at
the end of the long dark passage, in which, we found several shepherds
drinking and conversing with each other in Gaelic. One of them said to
us "Good night," and as we returned his salutation they all retired from
the room. We were now able to look about us, and found the room
contained two tables, four forms, and at least two beds ranged
lengthways along one side. Presently a servant came in and began to make
one of the beds, and then another servant came who, we thought, eyed us
rather closely, as we were holding our faces down to conceal the
laughter which we could scarcely restrain. When she had made the other
bed my brother asked if both the beds were for us. The servant said she
couldn't tell, but "Missis says they are both to be made." We had
evidently been taken for shepherds, and at first we were inclined to
feel angry, for no one came to ask us if we required anything to eat or
drink. We could have done with a good supper, but fortunately we had
replenished our bags at Fort Augustus, so we were in no danger of being
starved. We scribbled in our diaries by the feeble light of the candle
which the servants had left on one of the tables, and as no one turned
up to claim the second bed we occupied both. There was no lock or
fastening on the door, but we barricaded it securely with two of the
forms--and it was perhaps as well that we did so, for some one tried to
open it after we were in bed--and we slept that night not on feathers,
but on chaff with which the beds or mattresses were stuffed.
(_Distance walked twenty-seven miles_.)
_Wednesday, September 27th._
"The sleep of a labouring man is sweet," and so was ours on the
primitive beds of the shepherds. But the sounds in the rear of the hotel
awoke us very early in the morning, and, as there was every appearance
of the weather continuing fine, we decided to walk some distance before
breakfast. We asked one of the servants how much we had to pay, and she
returned with an account amounting to the astounding sum of sixpence!
Just fancy, ye Highland tourists! ye who have felt the keen grip of many
an hotel-keeper there--just fancy, if ye can, two of us staying a night
at a large hotel in the Highlands of Scotland for sixpence!
We followed the servant to a small room at the front of the hotel, where
a lady was seated, to whom the money had to be paid; the surprised and
disappointed look on her face as we handed her a sovereign in payment of
our account was rich in the extreme, amply repaying us for any annoyance
we might have experienced the night before. What made the matter more
aggravating to the lady was that she had not sufficient change, and had
to go upstairs and waken some unwilling money-changer there! Then the
change had to be counted as she reluctantly handed it to us and made a
forlorn effort to recover some of the coins. "Won't you stay for
breakfast?" she asked; but we were not to be persuaded, for although we
were hungry enough, we were of an unforgiving spirit that morning, and,
relying upon getting breakfast elsewhere, we thanked her and went on our
way rejoicing!
About a mile farther on we reached the ruins of Glengarry Castle, which
stand in the private grounds of the owner, but locks and bolts prevented
us from seeing the interior. This castle remains more complete than many
others and still retains its quadrangular appearance, much as it was
when Prince Charlie slept there during his flight after Culloden, and,
although not built on any great elevation, it looks well in its wooded
environs and well-kept grounds. A story was told of the last Lord
Glengarry who, in 1820, travelled 600 miles to be present at the
Coronation of King George IV. He was dressed on that magnificent and
solemn occasion in the full costume of a Highland chief, including, as a
matter of course, a brace of pistols. A lady who was at the reception
happened to see one of the pistols in his clothing, and, being greatly
alarmed, set up a loud shriek, crying, "Oh Lord! Oh Lord! there's a man
with a pistol," and alarming the whole assembly. As she insisted on
Glengarry being arrested, he was immediately surrounded, and the Garter
King of Arms came forward and begged him to give up the much-dreaded
pistols; but he refused, as they were not loaded, and pleaded that they
formed an essential part of his national garb. At length, however, after
much persuasion, he gave them up.
Glengarry wrote a letter to the editor of _The Times_, in which he said:
"I have worn my dress continually at Court, and was never so insulted
before. Pistols, sir, are as essential to the Highland courtier's dress
as a sword is to English, French, or German; and those used by me on
such occasions as unstained with powder as any courtier's sword, with
blood. It is only grossest ignorance of Highland character and costume
which imagined that the assassin lurked under their bold and manly
form."
Glengarry, who, it was said, never properly recovered from the effects
of this insult, died in 1828.
After about another mile we came to a monument near the side of the
road, on the top of which were sculptured the figures of seven human
heads held up by a hand clasping a dagger. On each of the four sides of
the base there was an inscription in one of four different
languages--English, French, Latin, and Gaelic--as follows:
As a memorial to the ample and summary vengeance which in the swift
course of Feudal justice inflicted by the orders of the Lord
MacDonnell and Aross overtook the perpetrators of the foul murder of
the Keppoch family, a branch of the powerful and illustrious Clan of
which his Lordship was the Chief, this Monument is erected by Colonel
MacDonnell of Glengarry XVII Mac-Minc-Alaister his successor and
Representative in the year of our Lord 1812. The heads of the seven
murderers were presented at the feet of the noble chief in Glengarry
Castle after having been washed in this spring and ever since that
event which took place early in the sixteenth century it has been
known by the name "Tobar-nan-Ceann" or the Well of the Heads.
The monument was practically built over the well, an arched passage
leading down to the water, where we found a drinking-utensil placed for
any one who desired a drink. We were glad to have one ourselves, but
perhaps some visitors might be of such refined and delicate taste that
they would not care to drink the water after reading the horrible
history recorded above.
It appeared that Macdonald of Keppoch, the owner of the estate, had two
sons whom he sent to France to be educated, and while they were there he
died, leaving the management of his estate to seven kinsmen until the
return of his sons from France; when they came back, they were murdered
by the seven executors of their father's will. The Bard of Keppoch urged
Glengarry to take vengeance on the murderers, and this monument was
erected to commemorate the ample and summary vengeance inflicted about
1661.
[Illustration: INVERGARRY CASTLE.]
Leaving this memorial of "ample and summary vengeance," we crossed the
Loggan Bridge and gained the opposite bank of the Caledonian Canal. The
country we now passed through was very lonely and mountainous, and in
one place we came to a large plantation of hazel loaded with nuts. We
reflected that there were scarcely any inhabitants to eat them, as the
persons we met did not average more than a dozen in twenty miles, and on
one occasion only six all told; so we turned into nut-gatherers
ourselves, spurred on by the fact that we had had no breakfast and our
appetites were becoming sharpened, with small prospect of being appeased
in that lonely neighbourhood.
A little farther on, however, we met a man with two dogs, who told us he
was the shepherd, and, in reply to our anxious inquiry, informed us that
we could get plenty to eat at his house, which we should find a little
farther on the road. This was good news, for we had walked eight miles
since leaving Invergarry. When we reached the shepherd's house, which
had formerly been an inn, we found the mistress both civil and
obliging, and she did her best to provide for our hungry requirements.
The house was evidently a very old one, and we wondered what queer
people had sat in that ingle-nook and what strange stories they had told
there. The fireplace was of huge dimensions; hanging above it was a
single-and a double-barrelled gun, while some old crockery and ancient
glass bottles adorned various parts of the kitchen--evidently family
heirlooms, which no doubt had been handed down from one generation to
another--and a very old bed reposed in the chimney corner.
The mistress provided us with a splendid breakfast, upon which we
inflicted "ample and summary vengeance," for those words were still
ringing in our minds and ears and had already become by-words as we
travelled along. The "best tea-pot," which looked as if it had not been
used for ages, was brought from its hiding-place; and, amongst other
good things, we were treated by way of dessert to some ripe
blackberries, which the mistress called brambleberries and which she
told us she had gathered herself. It was half-past ten o'clock when we
left the shepherd's house, and shortly afterwards we had a view of the
snow-covered summit of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Great Britain.
We had a lonely walk alongside Loch Lochy, which is ten miles in length;
but in about six miles General Wade's road, which we followed, branched
off to the left. About four miles from the junction we reached Spean
Bridge, over which we crossed the river of that name, which brings along
the waters of sundry lochs as well as others from the valley of Glen
Roy. This Glen forms an almost hidden paradise beloved of geologists, as
along the sides of the valley are the famous "Parallel Roads" belonging
to the Glacial Period. We replenished our stock of provisions, which we
had rather neglected, at Spean Bridge, and treated ourselves to another
little picnic in the lonely country beyond. It was dark before we
reached Fort William, where we found comfortable lodgings at the house
of Mrs. MacPherson opposite the Ben Nevis Hotel, and retired with the
intention of ascending Ben Nevis the following day.
(_Distance walked twenty-five and a half miles_.)
_Thursday, September 28th._
After breakfast we commissioned Mrs. MacPherson to engage the services
of the guide to conduct us to the top of Ben Nevis, which is 4,406 feet
high, offering to pay him the sum of one sovereign for his services. We
had passed the old castle of Inverlochy in the dark of the previous
night, and, as we wished to visit it in the daylight that morning, we
arranged that the guide should meet us on a bridge outside the town,
which we must cross on our way to and from what we were told was once a
royal castle, where King Achius signed a treaty with Charlemagne. The
castle was some distance from the town, and quite near the famous
distillery where the whisky known as "Long John" or the "Dew of Ben
Nevis" was produced. We found ready access to the ruins, as the key had
been left in the gate of the walled fence which surrounded them. "Prince
Charlie," we learned, had "knocked" the castle to its present shape from
an adjoining hill, and what he had left of it now looked very solitary.
It was a square structure, with four towers one at each corner, that at
the north-west angle being the most formidable. The space enclosed was
covered with grass. What interested us most were four very old guns, or
cannons, which stood in front of the castle, mounted on wheels supported
on wood planks, and as they were of a very old pattern, these relics of
the past added materially to the effect of the ancient and warlike
surroundings.
We did not stay long in the ruins, as we were anxious to begin our big
climb, so we returned to the bridge to await the arrival of the guide
engaged for us by our hostess, and whom we had not yet seen. We waited
there for more than half an hour, and were just on the point of
returning to the town when we noticed the approach of a military-looking
man carrying a long staff spiked at one end, who turned out to be the
gentleman we were waiting for, and under whose guidance we soon began
the ascent of the big mountain. After climbing for some time, we came to
a huge stone on which the Government engineers had marked the altitude
as 1,000 feet above sea-level, and as we climbed higher still we had a
grand view of the hills and waters in the distance. We went bravely
onward and upward until we arrived at a lake, where on a rock we saw the
Government mark known as the "broad arrow," an emblem which we also saw
in many other places as we walked through the country, often wondering
what the sign could mean. We surmised that it stood for England,
Scotland, and Ireland united in one kingdom, but we afterwards learned
that it was introduced at the end of the seventeenth century to mark
Government stores, and that at one time it had a religious significance
connected with the Holy Trinity. The altitude was also marked on the
rock as 2,200 feet, so that we had now ascended half-way to the top of
Ben Nevis.
[Illustration:]
On our way up the mountain we had to stop several times, for our guide
complained of diarrhoea, but here he came to a dead stop and said he
could not proceed any farther. We were suspicious at first that he was
only feigning illness to escape the bad weather which we could see
approaching. We did our best to persuade him to proceed, but without
effect, and then we threatened to reduce his fee by one-half if he did
not conduct us to the summit of Ben Nevis as agreed. Finally we asked
him to remain where he was until we returned after completing the ascent
alone; but he pleaded so earnestly with us not to make the attempt to
reach the summit, and described the difficulties and dangers so vividly,
that we reluctantly decided to forgo our long-cherished ambition to
ascend the highest mountain in Great Britain. We were very much
disappointed, but there was no help for it, for the guide was now really
ill, so we took his advice and gave up the attempt.
Ben Nevis, we knew, was already covered with snow at the top, and a
further fall was expected, and without a guide we could not possibly
find the right path. We had noticed the clouds collecting upon the upper
peaks of the great mountain and the sleet was already beginning to fall,
while the wind, apparently blowing from an easterly direction, was icy
cold. My brother, who had had more experience in mountain-climbing than
myself, remarked that if it was so bitterly cold at our present altitude
of 2,200 feet, what might we expect it to be at 4,400, and reminded me
of a mountain adventure he had some years before in North Wales.
On his first visit to the neighbourhood he had been to see a relative
who was the manager of the slate quarries at Llanberis and resided near
Port Dinorwic. The manager gave him an order to ride on the slate train
to the quarries, a distance of seven miles, and to inspect them when he
arrived there. Afterwards he went to the Padaro Villa Hotel for dinner,
and then decided to go on to Portmadoc. There was no railway in those
days, and as the coach had gone he decided to walk. The most direct way,
he calculated, was to cross Snowdon mountain, and without asking any
advice or mentioning the matter to any one he began his walk over a
mountain which is nearly 3,600 feet high. It was two o'clock in the
afternoon when he left the hotel at Llanberis, and from the time he
passed a stone inscribed "3-3/4 miles to the top of Snowdon" he did not
see a single human being. It was the 23rd of November, and the top of
the mountain, which was clearly visible, was covered with snow.
All went well with him until he passed a black-looking lake and had
reached the top of its rocky and precipitous boundary, when with
scarcely any warning he suddenly became enveloped in the clouds and
could only see a yard or two before him. He dared not turn back for fear
he should fall down the precipice into the lake below, so he continued
his walk and presently reached the snow. This, fortunately, was frozen,
and he went on until he came to a small cabin probably used by the guide
in summertime, but the door was locked, the padlock resting upon the
snow; soon afterwards he arrived at the cairn which marked the summit of
Snowdon. It was very cold, and he was soon covered with the frozen
particles from the clouds as they drifted against him in the wind, which
gave out a mournful sound like a funeral dirge as it drove against the
rocks.
He walked round the tower several times before he could find a way down
on the other side, but at length his attention was attracted by a black
peak of rock rising above the snow, and to his astonishment, in a
sheltered corner behind it, he could distinctly see the footprints of a
man and a small animal, probably a dog, that had gone down behind the
rock just before the snow had frozen. The prints were not visible
anywhere else, but, fortunately, it happened to be the right way, and he
crossed the dreaded "Saddleback" with a precipice on each side of him
without knowing they were there. It was a providential escape, and when
he got clear of the clouds and saw miles of desolate rocky country
before him bounded by the dark sea in the background and strode down the
remainder of the seven miles from the top of Snowdon, his feelings of
thankfulness to the Almighty may be better imagined than described. He
himself--a first-class walker--always considered they were the longest
and quickest he ever accomplished. He occupied two hours in the ascent,
but not much more than an hour in the descent, reaching, just at the
edge of dark, the high-road where the words "Pitt's Head" were painted
in large letters on some rocks, which he afterwards learned represented
an almost exact profile of the head of William Pitt the famous Prime
Minister. He stayed for tea at Beddgelert and then walked down the Pass
of Aberglaslyn on a tree-covered road in almost total darkness, with the
company of roaring waters, which terrified him even more than the
dangers he had already encountered, as far as Tremadoc, where he stayed
the night.
We had a dismal descent from Ben Nevis, and much more troublesome and
laborious than the ascent, for our guide's illness had become more acute
and he looked dreadfully ill. It was a pitiable sight to see him when,
with scarcely strength enough to stand, he leaned heavily upon his staff
on one side and on ourselves alternately on the other. We could not help
feeling sorry for him for we had so recently suffered from the same
complaint ourselves, though in a much milder form. We were compelled to
walk very slowly and to rest at frequent intervals, and to add to our
misery the rain was falling heavily. We were completely saturated long
before reaching Fort William, and were profoundly thankful when we
landed our afflicted friend at his own door. We handed him his full fee,
and he thanked us and said that although he had ascended Ben Nevis on
nearly 1,200 occasions, this was the only time he had failed.
[Illustration: BEN NEVIS]
We had not been quite satisfied that the cause assigned to our attack at
Inverness was the real one, as we had drunk so little water there. We
thought now that there might be some infectious epidemic passing through
that part of Scotland, perhaps a modified form of the cholera that
decimated our part of England thirty or forty years before, and that our
guide as well as ourselves had contracted the sickness in that way.
We must not forget to record that on our way up the "Ben" we saw a most
beautiful rainbow, which appeared to great advantage, as it spread
itself between us and the opposite hills, exhibiting to perfection all
its seven colours.
We were as hungry as hunters when we returned to our lodgings, and,
after changing some of our clothes and drying the others, we sat down to
the good things provided for our noon dinner, which we washed down with
copious libations of tea.
As the rain continued, we decided to stop another night at Mrs.
MacPherson's, so we went out to make some purchases at the chemist's
shop, which also served as an emporium--in fact as a general stores. We
had a chat with the proprietor, who explained that Fort William was a
very healthy place, where his profession would not pay if carried on
alone, so he had to add to it by selling other articles. The Fort, he
told us, was originally built in the time of Cromwell by General Monk to
overawe the Highlanders, but was afterwards re-erected on a smaller
scale by William III; hence its name of Fort William.
[Illustration: BEN NEVIS AS SEEN FROM BANAVIE.]
We asked the chemist if he could recommend to us a good shoemaker, who
could undertake to sole and heel two pairs of boots before morning, as
ours were showing signs of wear-and-tear owing to the long distances we
had walked both before and after reaching John o' Groat's. This he
promised to do, and he sent one across to Mrs. MacPherson's immediately.
After we had parted with our boots, we were prisoners for the remainder
of the day, though we were partially reconciled to our novel position
when we heard the wind driving the rain against the windows instead of
against ourselves. But it seemed strange to us to be sitting down hour
after hour reading the books our hostess kindly lent to us instead of
walking on the roads. The books were chiefly historical, and interested
us, as they related to the country through which we were passing.
Terrible histories they contained too! describing fierce battles and
murders, and giving us the impression that the Scots of the olden times
were like savages, fighting each other continually, and that for the
mere pleasure of fighting. Especially interesting to us was the record
of the cruel massacre of Glencoe, for we intended visiting there, if
possible, on the morrow. It was not the extent of the carnage on that
occasion, but the horrible way in which it was carried out, that excited
the indignation of the whole country, and my brother spent some time in
copying in his note-book the following history of--
THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE
After King William had defeated the Highland Clans, he gave the
Highland Chiefs a year and a half to make their submission to his
officers, and all had done this except MacDonald of Glencoe, whose
Chief--MacIan--had delayed his submission to the last possible day.
He then went to Fort William to tender his Oath of Allegiance to the
King's Officer there, who unfortunately had no power to receive it,
but he gave him a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, who was at Inverary,
asking him to administer the Oath to MacIan. The aged Chief hastened
to Inverary, but the roads were bad and almost impassable owing to a
heavy fall of snow, so that the first day of January, 1692, had
passed before he could get there; Campbell administered the Oath and
MacIan returned to Glencoe thinking that all was now right. But a
plot was made against him by the Campbells, whose flocks and herds,
it was said, the MacDonalds had often raided, and it was decided to
punish MacIan and to exterminate his clan; and a company of the Earl
of Argyle's regiment, commanded by Captain Campbell of Glenlyon, was
sent to Glen Coe to await orders. MacIan's sons heard that the
soldiers were coming, and thought that they were coming to disarm
them, so they removed their arms to a place of safety, and, with a
body of men, they went to meet the soldiers to ask if they were
coming as friends or foes. They assured them that they were coming as
friends and wished to stay with them for a short time, as there was
no room for them, for the garrison buildings at Fort William were
already full of soldiers. Alaster MacDonald, one of MacIan's sons,
had married a niece of Glenlyon's, so that the soldiers were
cordially received and treated with every possible hospitality by
MacIan and his Clan, with whom they remained for about a fortnight.
Then Glenlyon received a letter from Duncanson, his commanding
officer, informing him that all the MacDonalds under seventy years of
age must be killed, and that the Government was not to be troubled
with prisoners. Glenlyon lost no time in carrying out his orders. He
took his morning's draught as usual at the house of MacIan's son, who
had married his niece, and he and two of his officers accepted an
invitation to dinner from MacIan, whom, as well as the whole clan, he
was about to slaughter. At four o'clock the next morning, February
13, 1692, the massacre was begun by a party of soldiers, who knocked
at MacIan's door and were at once admitted. Lindsay, who was one of
the officers who had accepted his invitation to dinner, commanded the
party, and shot MacIan dead at his own bedside while he was dressing
himself and giving orders for refreshments to be provided for his
visitors. His aged wife was stripped by the savage soldiers, who
pulled off the gold rings from her fingers with their teeth, and she
died next day from grief and the brutal treatment she had received.
The two sons had had their suspicions aroused, but these had been
allayed by Glenlyon. However, an old servant woke them and told them
to flee for their lives as their father had been murdered, and as
they escaped they heard the shouts of the murderers, the firing of
muskets, the screams of the wounded, and the groans of the dying
rising from the village, and it was only their intimate knowledge of
the almost inaccessible cliffs that enabled them to escape. At the
house where Glenlyon lodged, he had nine men bound and shot like
felons. A fine youth of twenty years of age was spared for a time,
but one, Captain Drummond, ordered him to be put to death; and a boy
of five or six, who had clung to Glenlyon's knees entreating for
mercy and offering to become his servant for life if he would spare
him, and who had moved Glenlyon to pity, was stabbed by Drummond with
a dirk while he was in the agony of supplication. Barber, a
sergeant, with some soldiers, fired on a group of nine MacDonalds
who were round their morning fire, and killed four of them, and one
of them, who escaped into a house, expressed a wish to die in the
open air rather than inside the house, "For your bread, which I have
eaten," said Barber, "I will grant the request." Macdonald was
accordingly dragged to the door, but he was an active man and, when
the soldiers presented their firelocks to shoot him, he cast his
plaid over their eyes and, taking advantage of their confusion and
the darkness, he escaped up the glen. Some old persons were also
killed, one of them eighty years of age; and others, with women and
children who had escaped from the carnage half clad, were starved and
frozen to death on the snow-clad hills whither they had fled.
The winter wind that whistled shrill,
The snows that night that cloaked the hill,
Though wild and pitiless, had still
Far more than Southern clemency.
It was thrilling to read the account of the fight between the two Clans,
Mackenzie and MacDonnell, which the Mackenzies won. When the MacDonnells
were retreating they had to cross a river, and those who missed the ford
were either drowned or killed. A young and powerful chief of the
MacDonnells in his flight made towards a spot where the burn rushed
through a yawning chasm, very wide and deep, and was closely followed by
one of the victorious Mackenzies; but MacDonnell, forgetting the danger
of the attempt in the hurry of his flight and the agitation of the
moment, and being of an athletic frame and half naked, made a desperate
leap, and succeeded in clearing the rushing waters below.
Mackenzie inconsiderately followed him, but, not having the impulse of
the powerful feelings that had animated MacDonnell, he did not reach the
top of the opposite bank, succeeding only in grasping the branch of a
birch tree, where he hung suspended over the abyss. Macdonnell, finding
he was not being followed, returned to the edge of the chasm, and,
seeing Mackenzie's situation, took out his dirk, and as he cut off the
branch from the tree he said, "I have left much behind me with you
to-day; take that also," and so Mackenzie perished.
There was another incident of Highland ferocity that attracted us
powerfully, and read as follows: "Sir Ewen encountered a very powerful
English officer, an over-match for him in strength, who, losing his
sword, grappled with the chief, and got him under; but Lochiel's
presence of mind did not forsake him, for grasping the Englishman by the
collar and darting at his extended throat with his teeth, he tore away
the bloody morsel, which he used to say was the sweetest morsel he had
ever tasted."
We felt that the people hereabouts were still of another nation. The
descendants of Prince Charlie's faithful adherents still clung to their
ancient religion, and they preserved many of their old customs and
traditions in spite of the changes in outlook which trade and the great
canal had brought about.
It was therefore not to be wondered at that, after impressing our
memories with these and other fearful stories and eating the heavy
supper provided for us by our landlady, our dreams that night rather
disturbed our slumbers.
[Illustration: SCENE OF THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. "Especially
interesting to us was the account of the cruel massacre of Glencoe. Here
was enacted one of the blackest crimes in the annals of Scottish
history."]
Personally I was in the middle of a long journey, engaged in
disagreeable adventures in which I was placed at a considerable
disadvantage, as I was walking without my boots, when I was relieved
from an unpleasant position by the announcement that it was six o'clock
and that our boots had arrived according to promise.
(_Distance walked nine miles_.)
_Friday, September 29th._
There was a delightful uncertainty about our journey, for everything we
saw was new to us, and we were able to enjoy to the fullest extent the
magnificent mountain and loch scenery in the Highlands of Scotland, with
which we were greatly impressed. It was seven o'clock in the morning, of
what, fortunately for us, proved to be a fine day, as we left Fort
William, and after coming to the end of the one street which formed the
town we reached a junction of roads, where it was necessary to inquire
the way to Glencoe. We asked a youth who was standing at the door of a
house, but he did not know, so went into the house to inquire, and came
out with the information that we could get there either way. We had
already walked along the full length of Loch Ness, Loch Oich, and Loch
Lochy, so we decided to walk alongside Loch Linnhe, especially as that
road had the best surface. So on we went at a quick pace, for the
half-day's holiday yesterday had resulted in renewed energy. We could
see the great mountains in front which we knew we must cross, and after
walking three and a half miles we met a pedestrian, who informed us that
we were on the right way, and must go on until we reached Ballachulish,
where we could cross the ferry to Glencoe.
This information rather troubled us, as we had determined to walk all
the way, so he advised us to go round the "Head of the Loch"--an
expression we often heard used in Scotland--and to make our way there
across the open country; in this case the loch was Loch Leven, so we
left the highway and Loch Linnhe and walked to a small farm we could see
in the distance. The mistress was the only person about, but she could
only speak Gaelic, and we were all greatly amused at our efforts to make
ourselves understood. Seeing some cows grazing quite near, my brother
took hold of a quart jug standing on a bench and, pointing to the cows,
made her understand that we wanted a quart of milk, which she handed to
us with a smile. We could not ask her the price, so we handed her
fourpence, the highest price we had known to have been paid for a quart
of the best milk at home, and with which she seemed greatly pleased.
We were just leaving the premises when the farmer came up, and he
fortunately could speak English. He told us he had seen us from a
distance, and had returned home, mistaking us for two men who
occasionally called upon him on business. He said we had gone "three
miles wrong," and took great pains to show us the right way. Taking us
through a fence, he pointed out in the distance a place where we should
have to cross the mountains. He also took us to a track leading off in
that direction, which we were to follow, and, leaving him, we went on
our way rejoicing. But this mountain track was a very curious one, as it
broke away in two or three directions and shortly disappeared. It was
unfenced on the moorland, and there were not enough people travelling
that way to make a well-defined path, each appearing to have travelled
as he pleased. We tried the same method, but only to find we had gone
out of the nearest way. We crossed several small burns filled with
delightfully clear water, and presently saw another house in the
distance, to which we now went, finding it to be the shepherd's house.
Here the loud and savage barking of a dog brought out the shepherd's
wife, who called the dog away from us, and the shepherd, who was having
his breakfast, also made his appearance. He directed us to a small
river, which he named in Gaelic, and pointed to a place where it could
easily be forded, warning us at the same time that the road over the
hills was not only dangerous, but difficult to find and extremely
lonely, and that the road to Glencoe was only a drovers' road, used for
driving cattle across the hills. We made the best of our way to the
place, but the stream had been swollen by the recent rains, and we
experienced considerable difficulty in crossing it. At length, after
sundry walkings backwards and forwards, stepping from one large stone to
another in the burn, we reached the opposite bank safely. The only
mishap, beyond getting over shoe-tops in the water, was the dropping of
one of our bags in the burn; but this we were fortunate enough to
recover before its contents were seriously damaged or the bag carried
away by the current.
[Illustration: THE PASS.]
We soon reached the road named by the shepherd, which was made of large
loose stones. But was it a road? Scotland can boast of many good roads,
and has material always at hand both for construction and repair; but
of all the roads we ever travelled on, this was the worst! Presently we
came to a lonely cottage, the last we were to see that day, and we
called to inquire the way, but no English was spoken there. This was
unfortunate, as we were in doubt as to which was our road, so we had to
find our way as best we could. Huge rocks and great mountains reared
their heads on all sides of us, including Ben Nevis, which we could
recognise owing to the snowy coverlet still covering his head. The
country became very desolate, with nothing to be seen but huge rocks,
inaccessible to all except the pedestrian. Hour after hour we toiled up
mountains--sometimes we thought we reached an elevation of two thousand
feet--and then we descended into a deep ravine near a small loch. Who
could forget a day's march like this, now soaring to an immense height
and presently appearing to descend into the very bowels of the earth! We
must have diverged somewhat from the road known as the "Devil's
Staircase," by repute the worst road in Britain, for the track we were
on was in one section like the bed of a mountain torrent and could not
have been used even by cattle. Late in the afternoon we reached the
proper track, and came up with several herds of bullocks, about three
hundred in number, all told, that were being driven over the mountains
to find a better home in England, which we ourselves hoped to do later.
[Illustration: IN GLENCOE.]
We were fortunate in meeting the owner, with whom we were delighted to
enter into conversation. When we told him of our adventures, he said we
must have missed our way, and congratulated us on having a fine day, as
many persons had lost their lives on those hills owing to the sudden
appearance of clouds. He said a heap of stones we passed marked the spot
where two young men had been found dead. They were attempting to descend
the "Devil's Stair," when the mist came on, and they wandered about in
the frost until, overcome by sleep, they lay down never to rise again in
this world.
He had never been in England, but had done business with many of the
nobility and gentlemen there, of whom several he named belonged to our
own county of Chester. He had heard that the bullocks he sold to them,
after feeding on the rich, pastures of England for a short time, grew to
a considerable size, which we thought was not to be wondered at,
considering the hardships these shaggy-looking creatures had to battle
with in the North. We got some information about our farther way, not
the least important being the fact that there was a good inn in the Pass
of Glencoe; and he advised us to push on, as the night would soon be
coming down.
[Illustration: THE PASS IN GLENCOE.]
At the close of day we could just see the outline of a deep, dark valley
which we knew was the Pass of Glencoe, with a good road, hundreds of
feet below. Acting on the advice of the drover, we left the road and
descended cautiously until we could go no farther in safety; then we
collected an enormous number of old roots, the remains of a forest of
birch trees which originally covered the mountain-side, and with some
dry heather lighted an enormous tire, taking care to keep it within
bounds. A small rill trickling down the mountain-side supplied us with
water, and, getting our apparatus to work and some provisions from our
bags, we sat down as happy as kings to partake of our frugal meal, to
the accompaniment of the "cup that cheers but not inebriates," waiting
for the rising of the full moon to light us on our farther way to the
road below. We were reclining amongst the heather, feeling thankful to
the Almighty that we had not shared the fate of the two young men whose
cairn we had seen on the hills above--an end we might easily have met,
given the weather of yesterday and similar conditions--when suddenly we
heard voices below us. Our fire now cast a glare around it, and
everything looked quite dark beyond its margin. Our feelings of surprise
increased as from the gloom emerged the gigantic figures of two stalwart
Highlanders. We thought of the massacre of Glencoe, for these men were
nearly double our size; and, like the Macdonalds, we wondered whether
they came as friends or foes, since we should have fared badly had it
been the latter. But they had been attracted by the light of our fire,
and only asked us if we had seen "the droves." We gave them all the
information we could, and then bidding us "good night" they quietly
departed.
[Illustration: "THE SISTERS," GLENCOE. "Here was wild solitude in
earnest.... The scene we looked upon was wild and rugged, as if
convulsed by some frightful cataclysm."]
The darkness of the night soon became modified by the reflected light
from the rising moon behind the great hills on the opposite side of the
glen. We extinguished the dying embers of our fire and watched the full
moon gradually appearing above the rocks, flooding with her glorious
light the surrounding scene, which was of the sublimest grandeur and
solitude.
[Illustration: THE RIVER COE, GLENCOE.]
Many descriptions of this famous glen have been written, and no one who
could see it under such favourable and extraordinary conditions as we
enjoyed that night would be disposed to dispute the general opinion of
its picturesque and majestic beauty. Surely Nature is here portrayed in
her mightiest form! How grand, and yet how solemn! See the huge masses
of rock rising precipitously on both sides of the glen and rearing their
rugged heads towards the very heavens! Here was wild solitude in
earnest, and not even the cry of the eagle which once, and even now, had
its abode in these vast mountain recesses broke the awful silence which
that night prevailed in the Pass, disturbed only by the slumberous
rippling of water. The scene we looked upon was wild and rugged, as if
convulsed by some frightful cataclysm, and we saw it under conditions in
which Nature conspired to enhance its awfulness--a sight which few
painters could imitate, few writers could graphically describe. The
infidel may deny the existence of the Creator of the universe, but there
was here sufficient to fill the soul with awe and wonder, and to
influence even the sceptic to render acknowledgment to the great God who
framed these majestic hills. The reflection of the moon on the hills was
marvellous, lighting up the white road at the upper end of the pass and
the hills opposite, and casting great black shadows elsewhere which made
the road appear as if to descend and vanish into Hades. We fancied as we
entered the pass that we were descending into an abyss from which it
would be impossible to extricate ourselves; but we were brought up sharp
in our thoughts, for when we reached the road it suddenly occurred to us
that we had forgotten to ask in which direction we had to turn for the
"Clachaig Inn" named by the drover.
We sat down by the roadside in the hope that some one would come from
whom we might obtain the information, and were just beginning to think
it was a forlorn hope when we heard the sound of horse's feet
approaching from the distance. Presently the rider appeared, who proved
to be a cattle-dealer, he told us he had some cattle out at the foot of
the glen, and said the inn was seven miles away in the direction in
which he was going. We asked him if he would kindly call there and tell
them that two travellers were coming who required lodgings for the
night. This he promised to do, and added that we should find the inn on
the left-hand side of the road. We then started on our seven-mile walk
down the Pass of Glencoe in the light of the full moon shining from a
clear sky, and in about an hour's time in the greatest solitude we were
almost startled by the sudden appearance of a house set back from the
left-hand side of the road with forms and tables spread out on the grass
in front. Could this be the inn? It was on the left-hand side, but we
could not yet have walked the distance named by the cattle-dealer; so we
knocked at the door, which was opened by a queer-looking old man, who
told us it was not the inn, but the shepherd's house, and that the forms
and tables in front were for the use of passengers by the coach, who
called there for milk and light refreshments. Then the mistress, who was
more weird-looking still, came forward, and down the passage we could
see other strange-looking people. The old lady insisted upon our coming
in, saying she would make us some porridge; but my brother, whose nerves
seemed slightly unstrung, thought that we might never come out of the
house again alive! We found, however, that the company improved on
closer acquaintance.
The meal was served in two deep bowls, and was so thick that when our
spoons were placed in it on end they stood upright without any further
support, so it was, as the Lancashire people describe it, proper "thick
porridge." We were unable to make much impression on it, as we had not
yet digested the repast we had enjoyed on the hills above, and the good
old lady added to our difficulties by bringing a plentiful supply of
milk. It was the first time we had tasted meal porridge in Scotland.
Needless to say, after paying our hostess for her hospitality, we were
allowed to depart in peace, nor were we molested during the remainder of
our romantic evening walk. After proceeding about two miles farther
amidst some of the most lonely and impressive scenery in the Highlands,
we arrived at the "Clachaig Inn." It was after closing-time, but as the
gentleman on horseback had delivered our message according to promise,
the people of the inn were awaiting our arrival. We received a friendly
welcome, and proceeded to satisfy what remained of a formerly voracious
appetite by a weak attack on the good things provided for supper, after
which, retiring to rest in the two beds reserved for us, we slept so
soundly that in the morning when roused by a six-o'clock call we could
not recall that our dreams had been disturbed even by the awful massacre
enacted at Glencoe, which place was now so near.
(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)
_Saturday, September 30th._
By seven o'clock a.m. we were again on the road bound for Inverary,
which place we were anxious to visit, as it had recently been the scene
of a royal wedding, that of the Princess Louise with the Marquis of
Lorne. The morning was beautifully fine, but there had been a frost
during the night and the grass on the sides of the road was quite white.
The sky was clear, not a cloud being visible as we resumed our walk down
the glen, and in about three miles we reached the village of Glencoe.
Here we heard blasting operations being carried on quite near our road,
and presently we reached the edge of the loch, where there was a pier
and a ferry. We now found that in directing us to Inverary our friends
at the inn had taken it for granted that we wished to go the nearest
way, which was across this ferry, and we were told there were others to
cross before reaching Inverary. We therefore replenished our stock of
provisions at the village shop and turned back up the glen, so that
after seeing it in the light of the full moon the night before we had
now the privilege of seeing it in the glorious sunshine. We walked on
until we got to the shepherd's house where we had been treated to such a
heavy repast of meal porridge the previous evening, and there we had a
substantial meal to fortify us for our farther journey. On our way up
the glen we had passed a small lake at the side of our road, and as
there was not sufficient wind to raise the least ripple on its surface
it formed a magnificent mirror to the mountains on both sides. Several
carts laden with wool had halted by the side of the lake and these also
were reflected on its surface. We considered the view pictured in this
lake to be one of the prettiest sights we had ever seen in the sunshine,
and the small streams flowing down the mountain sides looked very
beautiful, resembling streaks of silver. We compared the scene in
imagination with the changes two months hence, when the streams would be
lines of ice and the mountain roads covered with a surface of frozen
snow, making them difficult to find and to walk upon, and rendering
travelling far less pleasant than on this beautiful morning. We often
thought that we should not have completed our walk if we had undertaken
it at the same period of the year but in the reverse direction, since we
were walking far too late in the season for a journey of this
description. We considered ourselves very fortunate in walking from John
o' Groat's to Land's End, instead of from Land's End to John o' Groat's,
for by the time we finished deep snow might have covered these Northern
altitudes. How those poor women and children must have suffered at the
time of the massacre of Glencoe, when, as Sir Walter Scott writes--
flying from their burning huts, and from their murderous visitors,
the half-naked fugitives committed themselves to a winter morning of
darkness, snow, and storm, amidst a wilderness the most savage in the
Western Highlands, having a bloody death behind them, and before them
tempest, famine, and desolation when some of them, bewildered by the
snow-wreaths, sank in them to rise no more!
[Illustration: BRIDGE OF ORCHY.]
They were doubtless ignorant of the danger they were in, even as they
escaped up the glen, practically the only way of escape from Glencoe,
for Duncanson had arranged for four hundred soldiers to be at the top
end of the pass at four o'clock that morning, the hour at which the
massacre was to begin at the other end. Owing to the heavy fall of snow,
however, the soldiers did not arrive until eleven o'clock in the
forenoon--long after the fugitives had reached places of safety.
Like many other travellers before us, we could not resist passing a
bitter malediction on the perpetrators of this cruel wrong, although
they had long since gone to their reward. And yet we are told that it
hastened that amalgamation of the two kingdoms which has been productive
of so much good.
We had our breakfast or lunch served on one of the tables ranged outside
the front of the shepherd's house, and in quite a romantic spot, whence
we walked on to a place which had figured on mileposts for a long
distance named "Kingshouse." Here we expected to find a village, but as
far as we could see there was only one fairly large house there, and
that an inn. What king it was named after did not appear, but there was
no other house in sight. Soon after passing it we again came in contact
with the master cattle-drover we had interviewed the day before, who
told us that he had brought his bullocks from the Isle of Skye, from
which place they had to travel seventy-one miles. We also passed several
other droves, some of which we might have seen previously, and by
nightfall came to Inveroran. Here we saw a comfortable inn which would
have just suited us, but as there was no church there and the next day
was Sunday, we decided to walk to the next village, about three miles
farther on, where we were informed there was a church, and a drover's
house quite near it where we could get lodgings. By this time it was
quite dark, and we passed Loch Tulla without either seeing it or knowing
it was there, and arriving at the Bridge of Orchy we found the drover's
house near the church. To our great disappointment the accommodation had
all been taken up, and the only place that the lady of the house knew of
in the direction we were going was a farmhouse about four miles away,
where she said, with a tone of doubt in her voice, "we might get in!" We
crossed the bridge and passed over the River Orchy, which connected Loch
Tulla with Loch Awe, some sixteen miles distant.
Fortunately for us the moon now rose, though obscured by great black
clouds, which we could see meant mischief, probably to make us pay
dearly for the lovely weather during the day. But luckily there was
sufficient light to enable us to see the many burns that crossed the
surface of the road, otherwise it would have been impossible for us to
have found our way. The streams were very numerous, and ran into the
river which flowed alongside our road, from among some great hills the
outlines of which we could see dimly to the left. We were tired, and the
miles seemed very long, but the excitement of crossing the rushing
waters of the burns and the noise of the river close by kept us awake.
We began to think we should never reach that farmhouse, and that we had
either missed our way or had been misinformed, when at length we reached
the desired haven at a point where a gate guarded the entrance to the
moor. All was in darkness, but we went to the house and knocked at the
front door. There was no response, so we tried the shutters that
barricaded the lower windows, our knocks disturbing the dogs at the back
of the house, which began to bark and assisted us to waken the
occupants. Presently we heard a sleepy voice behind the shutters, and my
brother explained the object of our visit in a fine flow of language
(for he was quite an orator), including references, as usual, to our
"walking expedition," a favourite phrase of his. As the vehement words
from within sounded more like Gaelic than English, I gathered that his
application for lodgings had not been successful. Tired as I was, I
could not help laughing at the storm we had created, in which the
"walking expedition" man heartily joined. But what were we to do? Here
we were on a stormy night, ten miles from the inn at Dalmally, which for
aught we knew might be the next house, hungry and tired, cold and wet;
and having covered thirty miles that day and thirty miles the day
before, how could we walk a further ten miles? Our track was unfenced
and bounded by the river on one side and the moors on the other, but
presently we came to a place where the surface of the moor rose sharply
and for some distance overhung the road, forming a kind of a cove. Here
we gathered, some of the dry heather that extended under that which
ornamented the sides of the cove, made quite a respectable fire, and ate
our last morsel of food, with which unluckily we were poorly provided.
To add to our misfortune, the wind grew into a hurricane and whirled the
smoke in every direction, forcing us at last to beat a hasty retreat.
We now faced the prospect of a night on the moors, and resolved to crawl
along at a sufficient speed to keep up our circulation, stopping at the
first house we came to. Here again the subdued light from the moon
proved useful, for we had not gone very far before we saw what appeared
to be a small house on the moor about a hundred yards away. We
approached it very cautiously, and found it was a small hut. How glad we
were to see that hut! We struck a light, and at once began an
exploration of the interior, which we found contained a form, a rustic
table reared against the wall, and, better than all, a fireplace with a
chimney above it about a yard high; the door was lying loose outside the
hovel. It may have been a retreat for keepers, though more likely a
shelter for men who had once been employed on the land, for attached to
it was a small patch of land fenced in which looked as though it had
been cultivated. With a few sticks which we found in one corner and a
handful of hay gathered from the floor we lighted a fire, for we were
now becoming experts in such matters; but the smoke seemed undecided
which way it should go, for at one minute it went up the chimney, at
another it came down. We went outside and altered the chimney a little,
for it was only formed of loose stones, and thus effected an improvement
for a time. The door gave us the most trouble, since being loose we had
the greatest difficulty in keeping it in its proper position, for the
wind was now blowing hard--so much so that we thought at times that the
hut itself would be blown over. At last a tremendous gust came, and down
went the chimney altogether. The fire and smoke now made towards the
doorway, so that we had frequently to step outside in order to get a
breath of fresh air. We tried to build the chimney up again, but this
was impossible owing to the velocity of the wind and rain and the
exposed situation. Our slender supply of fuel was nearly exhausted,
which was the worst feature, as it was imperative that we should keep
ourselves warm; so we decided to go back towards the river, where we had
seen a few small trees or bushes lining the bank between our track and
the water. Luckily, however, we discovered a dead tree inside the
enclosed land, and as I was somewhat of an expert at climbing, I
"swarmed" up it and broke off all the dead branches I could reach with
safety, it being as much as I could do to retain my hold on the slippery
trunk of the tree.
With the dead wood and some heather and pieces of turf we returned laden
and wet through to our dug-out, where we managed to get our fire burning
again and to clear away some of the stones that had fallen upon it.
Still there was no sleep for us that night, which was the most miserable
one almost that we ever experienced.
But just fancy the contrast! In the dead of night, in a desolate
Highland glen, scaling a stone fence in a pitiless storm of wind and
rain, and climbing up a dead tree to break off a few branches to serve
as fuel for a most obstinate fire--such was the reality; and then
picture, instead of this, sitting before a good fire in a comfortable
inn, with a good supper, and snug apartments with every
accommodation--these had been our fond anticipations for the week-end!
We certainly had a good supply of wet fuel, and perhaps burned something
else we ought not to have done: but we were really prisoners for the
night. The merciless wind and rain raged throughout, and we had to stick
to our novel apartment and breathe until daylight the awful smoke from
the fire we were compelled to keep alight. Yet our spirits were not
entirely damped, for we found ourselves in the morning, and often during
the night, singing the refrain of an old song:
We'll stand the storm, it won't be long;
We'll anchor by and by.
Just occasionally the gloom thickened when we ventured to think of
details, among which came uppermost the great question, "Where and when
shall we get our breakfast?"
(_Distance walked, including that to Dalmally, forty miles_.)
_Sunday, October 1st._
Soon after daylight appeared the rain moderated, and so did the wind,
which now seemed to have exhausted itself. Our sleep, as may easily be
imagined, had been of a very precarious and fitful character; still the
hut had rendered substantial service in sheltering us from the fury of
the storm. Soon after leaving our sorry shelter we saw a white house
standing near the foot of a hill beyond the moor, and to this we
resolved to go, even though it was a long distance away, as it was now
imperative that we should obtain food. A knock at the door, more than
once repeated--for it was still very early--at last roused the mistress
of the house, who opened the door and with kindly sympathy listened to
our tale of woe. She at once lit the fire, while the other members of
the family were still asleep in the room, and found us some soap and
water, our hands and faces being as black as smoke and burnt sticks
could make them. After a good wash we felt much better and refreshed,
although still very sleepy. She then provided us with some hot milk and
oatcake, and something we had never tasted before, which she called
"seath." It proved to be a compound of flour and potatoes, and after our
long fast it tasted uncommonly good. Altogether we had an enormous
breakfast, the good wife waiting upon us meanwhile in what we supposed
was the costume common to the Highlands--in other words, minus her gown,
shoes, and stockings. We rewarded her handsomely and thanked her
profusely as she directed us the nearest way to Dalmally.
On arrival at the well-appointed inn there, we received every
attention, and retired to our bedrooms, giving strict orders to the
waiter to see that we were called in time for lunch, and for the English
service at the kirk, which he told us would be held that day between one
and two o'clock. In accordance with our instructions we were called, but
it was not surprising, after walking quite forty miles since Saturday at
daybreak, that we should be found soundly sleeping when the call came.
Lunch was waiting for us, and, after disposing of it as hungry folk
should, we went to Glenorchy Church, only to find that, unfortunately,
there was no service that day. The minister, who had charge of two
parishes, was holding a service at his other church, seven miles distant
up the glen! We therefore hurried to the Free Kirk, which stood in
another part of the village; but as the Gaelic service had been taken at
one o'clock and the English service followed it immediately afterwards,
the minister had already begun his sermon when we arrived. The door was
shut, so entering quietly and closing it behind us, we were astonished
to find a table in the vestibule with a plate exposing to our view a
large number of coins evidently the result of the collection from the
worshippers within. We were surprised at the large proportion of silver
coins, an evidence that the people had given liberally. We added our
mites to the collection, while we wondered what would have become of the
money if left in a similar position in some districts we could think of
farther south. We were well pleased with the sermon, and as the
congregation dispersed we held a conversation and exchanged views with
one of the elders of the church chiefly on the subject of collections.
He explained that the prevailing practice in the Scottish Churches was
for the collection to be taken--or rather given--on entering the House
of God, and that one or two of the deacons generally stood in the
vestibule beside the plate. We told him it was the best way of taking a
collection that we had ever seen, since it did not interrupt or
interfere with the service of the church, and explained the system
adopted in the churches in England.
In our youthful days collections were only made in church on special
occasions, and for such purposes as the support of Sunday schools and
Missionary Societies. The churchwardens collected the money in large and
deep wooden boxes, and the rattle of the coins as they were dropped into
the boxes was the only sound we could hear, for the congregation
remained seated in a deep and solemn silence, which we in our youthful
innocence thought was because their money was being taken away from
them.
In later years brass plates were substituted for boxes in some churches,
and each member of the congregation then seemed to vie with his
neighbours for the honour of placing the most valuable coin on the
plate. The rivalry, however, did not last long, and we knew one church
where this custom was ended by mutual arrangement. The hatchet was
buried by substituting bags, attached, in this case, to the end of long
sticks, to enable the wardens to reach the farthest end of the pews when
necessary.
This system continued for some time, but when collections were
instituted at each service and the total result had to be placarded on
the outside of the church door, with the numbers and total value of each
class of coin recorded separately, the wardens sometimes found a few
items in the bags which were of no monetary value, and could not be
classified in the list without bringing scandal to the church and
punishment to the, perhaps youthful, offenders; so the bags were
withdrawn and plates reinstated, resulting in an initial increase of 10
per cent, in the amount collected.
The church was a large one, and a great number of ladies attended it on
Sundays, their number being considerably augmented by the lady students
from the Collegiate Institutions in the town, who sat in a portion of
the church specially reserved for them.
The Rector of the parish was an elderly man and an eloquent preacher,
who years before had earned his reputation in London, where in a minor
capacity he had been described by Charles Dickens as the model East End
curate.
Eight gentlemen were associated with him as wardens and sidesmen, all
well-known men in the town, one of whom being specially known for the
faultless way in which he was dressed and by his beautiful pink
complexion--the presence of the light hair on his face being scarcely
discernible, and giving him the appearance of being endowed with
perpetual youth. His surname also was that of the gentleman for whom all
young ladies are supposed to be waiting, so it was not to be wondered at
that he was a general favourite with them, and that some slight feeling
of jealousy existed among his colleagues. It was part of their duties to
collect the offerings from the congregation, and afterwards assemble at
the west end of the church, marching two and two in military step to the
east end to hand their collections to the clergyman who stood there
waiting to receive them.
One Sunday morning, when the favourite collector reached that end of the
church where most of the young ladies were located, he was surprised to
notice that all of them received him with a smile as he handed them the
plate. Several of them actually went so far as to incline their heads
slightly, as if adding a nod to their smiles. He thought at first that
they were amused at something connected with his new suit of clothes--of
which, by the way, he was quite proud--but a hasty examination of his
person from collar downwards showed everything to be in perfect order.
He felt annoyed and very uncomfortable when the ladies continued to
smile as he visited each pew, without his being able to ascertain the
reason why, and he was greatly relieved when he got away from them to
rejoin his colleagues. As he was advancing with them up the centre of
the church his eye chanced to rest for a moment on the contents of his
plate, and there, to his horror, he saw a large white mint-drop about
the size of a half-crown, which had been placed face upwards bearing the
words printed in clear red letters, "WILL YOU MARRY ME?" Then he
understood why the young ladies smiled and nodded acceptance so
pleasantly that morning, for, unconsciously, he had been "popping the
question" all round; although inquired into at the time, the mystery of
the mint-drop was never satisfactorily solved.
A gentleman to whom we told this story said it reminded him of another
of what he called a "swell"--a fine young fellow, with apparently more
money than sense--who dropped into a country church for service and was
shown into the squire's pew. The squire was old and of fixed habits.
After settling in his seat he drew out his half-crown as usual and
placed it on the ledge in front. His companion pulled out a sovereign
and ostentatiously put it on the ledge too. The squire stared hard at
him and soon reckoned him up. He then placed a second half-crown on the
first, and the stranger produced a second sovereign. Five times was this
repeated during the service. At last the churchwarden brought his brass
plate, which the squire gravely took and held out to his neighbour, who
swept the five sovereigns on to it in a very grand manner. The squire
picked up one half-crown for the plate and, with a twinkle in his eye,
returned the rest to his pocket!
Since the days of King David singing has always been considered a most
valuable aid in the offering up of prayers and praises to the Almighty,
and nothing sounded better in our ears than the hearty singing of a good
old hymn by the entire congregation. But why this period in the Church
Service should have been chosen in later years as a suitable time for
the wardens to disturb the harmony and thoughts of the parishioners by
handing round their collection plates was beyond our comprehension. The
interruption caused by that abominable practice often raised
unchristian-like feelings in our minds, and we wished at times that the
author of it, whoever he might be, could be brought to the gallows and
publicly hanged for his services; for why should our devotions be
disturbed by the thought that at any moment during the singing of a hymn
the collector might suddenly appear on the scene, possibly sneaking up
from the rear like a thief in the night, to the annoyance of every one
within reach? If the saving of time is the object, why not reduce the
length of the sermon, which might often be done to advantage? or,
failing that, why not adopt the system which prevailed in the Scottish
Churches?
[Illustration: DUNCAN-BANN-MACINTYRE'S MONUMENT.]
The elder of the Free Kirk at Dalmally was much interested in what we
told him about our English Services, where the congregations both prayed
and sang in positions differing from those adopted in Scotland, and to
continue the conversation he walked with us as far as Dalmally Bridge,
where we parted company. We then continued on our way to visit a
monument erected on a hill we could see in the distance "to the memory
of Duncan-Bann-Macintyre, the Glenorchy poet, who was born in the year
1724 and departed this life in 1812"; and, judging from the size of the
monument, which was in the style of a Grecian temple in grey granite and
inscribed to the memory of the "Sweetest and Purest of Gaelic Bards," he
must have been a man of considerable importance. From that point we had
a fine view of Loch Awe, perhaps the finest obtainable, for although it
is above twenty miles long, the lake here, in spite of being at its
greatest breadth, appeared almost dwarfed into a pool within the mighty
mass of mountains with lofty Ben Cruachan soaring steeply to the clouds,
and forming a majestic framework to a picture of surpassing beauty. The
waters of the lake reflected the beauties of its islands and of its
mountainous banks. These islands all had their own history or clan
legend and were full of mysteries. Inishail, once a nunnery, and for
ages the burying-place of the clan chieftains; Innischonell, from the
eleventh century the stronghold of the Argyll, whence they often sent
forth their famous slogan or defiant war-cry, "It's a far cry to
Lochawe"; Fraoch Eilean, where the hero Fraoch slew and was himself
slain by the serpent that guarded the apples for which the fair Mego
longed.
We then retraced our steps slowly to the Dalmally inn, where we were
served with tea in the sumptuous manner common to all first-class inns
in the Highlands of Scotland, after which we retired to rest, bent on
making good the sleep we had lost and on proceeding on our journey early
the following morning.
THIRD WEEKS JOURNEY
_Monday, October 2nd._
[Illustration: KILCHURN CASTLE AND LOCH AWE.]
We left our comfortable quarters at Dalmally at seven o'clock in the
morning, and presently reached Loch Awe, with the poet's monument still
in sight and some islands quite near to us in the loch. We soon left
Loch Awe, turning off when we reached Cladich and striking over the
hills to the left. After walking about two miles all uphill, we reached
the summit, whence we had a fine backward view of Loch Awe, which from
this point appeared in a deep valley with its sides nicely wooded. Here
we were in the neighbourhood of the Cruachan mountains, to which, with
Loch Awe, a curious tradition was attached that a supernatural being
named "Calliach Bhere," or "The Old Woman," a kind of female genie,
lived on these high mountains. It was said that she could step in a
moment with ease from one mountain to another, and, when offended, she
could cause the floods to descend from the mountains and lay the whole
of the low ground perpetually under water. Her ancestors were said to
have lived from time immemorial near the summit of the vast mountain of
Cruachan, and to have possessed a great number of herds in the vale
below. She was the last of her line, and, like that of her ancestors,
her existence was bound up with a fatal fountain which lay in the side
of her native hill and was committed to the charge of her family since
it first came into existence. It was their duty at evening to cover the
well with a large flat stone, and in the morning to remove it again.
This ceremony was to be performed before the setting and the rising of
the sun, that its last beam might not die upon nor its first ray shine
upon the water in the well. If this care were neglected, a fearful and
mysterious doom would be the punishment. When the father of the Calliach
Bhere died, he committed the charge to her, warning her of its
importance and solemnity and the fatality attending its neglect. For
many years this mysterious woman attended carefully to her duties, but
one unlucky evening, tired with her exertions in hunting and ascending
the hills, she sat down by the fountain to await the setting of the sun,
and falling asleep, did not awake until morning. When she arose she
looked around, but the vale had vanished and a great sheet of water
taken its place. The neglected well had overflowed while she slept, the
glen was changed into a lake, the hills into islets, and her people and
cattle had perished in the deluge. The Calliach took but one look over
the ruin she had caused, and all that remained of her large possessions
in the glen was Loch Awe and its islands! Then she herself vanished into
oblivion.
It is strange how these old stories are told with but little variation
in so many places. This very story appears in Wales and Ireland and
other regions where Celts predominate, and except in one instance, that
of the destruction of the Lowland Hundreds, now under the water of
Cardigan Bay, always in connection with a woman. We first heard it in
Shropshire, but there it was an old woman who lived in a small cottage
and possessed the only well in the place, charging the townspeople one
farthing per bucket for the water. In those remote times this formed a
great tax on the poor people, and many were the prayers offered up that
the imposition might be removed. These prayers were answered, for one
night a great storm arose, the well continued to overflow, and in the
morning the old woman and her cottage had disappeared, and in place of
the well appeared the beautiful Lake of Ellesmere.
[Illustration: INVERARY CASTLE.]
We had a fine walk down Glen Aray, with the River Aray on the left for
some distance to keep us company, and after about four miles' walking we
came to a ladder inserted in a high stone wall to the left of our road,
which was here covered with trees. My brother climbed up to see what was
on the other side, and reported that there was a similar ladder in the
wall for descent, that he could see the river rushing down the rocks,
and that a pretty little pathway ran under the trees alongside the
stream. We had not met a single person since leaving the neighbourhood
of Cladich, and as there was no one about from whom to make inquiries,
we took "French leave" and climbed over the fence, to see at once a
pretty waterfall and to follow a lovely path for a mile or two until it
landed us in one of the main drives from Inverary Castle. Here we
stopped to consider whether we should proceed or retreat, for we were
sure we had been trespassing. My brother reminded me of an experience
that occurred to us in the previous year in London. Before we began our
walk home from that great city we visited as many of the sights of
London as we could, and amongst these was the famous Tower. We had
passed through the Gateway, but were then uncertain how to proceed,
when, peeping round a corner, we saw a man dressed in a very
strange-looking uniform, whom we afterwards learned was called a
"Beef-eater." We approached him rather timidly to make inquiries, to
which he kindly replied, but told us afterwards that he knew we were
Englishmen the minute he saw us coming round the corner. Foreigners in
coming through the gateway always walked firmly and quickly, while the
English came creeping along and looking round the corners as if they
were afraid. "My advice to you, young men," he said, "when visiting
strange places, is to go on until you are stopped!" So on this occasion
we decided to follow that advice and to go on towards the castle we
could see in the distance. We had not proceeded very far, however,
before we met a couple of two-horse open carriages followed by quite a
number of persons on horseback. Feeling rather guilty, we stepped upon
the grass by the roadside, and tried to look as if we were not there,
but we could see that we had been observed by the occupants of the
carriages and by their retinue. We knew from their appearance that they
belonged to the aristocracy, and were not surprised to learn that the
second carriage contained the Duke and Duchess of Argyll, while the
people on horseback were the younger members of their family. We had
almost reached the castle when we were stopped by a servant in livery,
to whom we explained the cause of our presence, asking him the nearest
way to Inverary, which he pointed out. He told us, among other things,
that the Duke could drive many miles in his own domain, and that his
family consisted of thirteen children, all of whom were living. We
thanked him, and as we retired along the road he had directed us, we
considered we had added one more adventure to enliven us on our journey.
We had only walked a little way from the castle when a lady came across
the park to speak to us, and told us that the cannon and the large
wooden structure we could see in the park had been used for the "spree"
at the royal wedding, when the Marquis of Lome, the eldest son of the
Duke, had been married to the Princess Louise of England. She also told
us that the Princess and the Marquis had been staying at the castle a
short time before, but were not there then. Who the lady was we did not
know, but she was of fine appearance and well educated, and from her
conversation had evidently travelled extensively both at home and
abroad. We thanked her for her courage and courtesy in coming to speak
to us, at which she smiled and, bowing gracefully, retired towards the
castle. How her conduct compared with that of some people in England may
be judged from the following extract which we clipped from a Scottish
newspaper shortly afterwards:
A War Office clerk was riding outside the Oban coach from Inverary. A
fellow-passenger at his side remarked, "What a glorious view! what a
lovely scene!" to which the young gentleman of the War Office, with a
strong glance at the speaker, replied, "Sir, I don't know you; we
have not been introduced."
It was a fine afternoon, and Inverary town looked at its best and quite
pleasant in the sunshine, for most of the houses were coloured white. We
halted awhile at the picturesque sculptured cross, where many a weary
pilgrim had rested before us, with a glorious view over Loch Fyne and
the mountains beyond. The church stood at the end of the street, and the
"Argyll Arms Hotel" would have been a fine place to stay at for the
night. There was also quite a large temperance hotel where carriages
could be hired; but we had only walked about sixteen miles, so we had to
resist these attractions and walk on to Cairndow, a further distance of
ten miles.
[Illustration: INVERARY CROSS]
Loch Fyne, along the edge of which our road ran all the way to Cairndow,
is tidal and about two miles wide at Inverary. We were now on the
opposite side of the castle grounds, and could see another entrance
gate, which had been decorated for the royal wedding. Fine woods bounded
our road on the left until we reached the round hill of Duniquaich,
where it turned rather abruptly until at Strone Point it was nearly
opposite Inverary. From this place we had a magnificent view of the
district we had just passed through; the splendid castle with its grey
walls and the lofty tower on the wooded hill adjoining it contrasted
finely with the whitened houses of the town of Inverary, as it stood in
the light of the setting sun. We journeyed on alongside the loch, when
as the shades of evening were coming on we met a young man and a young
woman apparently in great distress. They told us they had crossed the
loch in a small boat to look for ferns, and as the tide was going out
had thought they might safely leave their boat on the side of the loch,
but when they returned they could not find it anywhere. They seemed to
have been equally unsuccessful with regard to the ferns, as we could not
see any in their possession, but we guessed they had other interests, so
we went to their assistance and soon found the boat, which doubtless was
in the place where they had left it. The tide must have receded farther
than they had anticipated, and they had looked for it too near the
water. We assisted them to launch the boat, and when they were safely
seated the young woman, who had looked far more alarmed than her
companion, smiled upon us sweetly. In response to their looks and words
of thanks we wished them a pleasant and safe journey; but we never saw
any ferns! Our conversation as we resumed our walk was largely upon this
adventure, and we wondered if the ferns could not have been found as
easily on the other side of the loch as on this--but then we knew that
Love is proverbially blind, and we consigned this fern story to the
region of our mythological remembrances, and were still in good humour
and not too tired when we reached the Cairndow inn, where we were
hospitably, sumptuously, and we could safely add, when we paid the bill
next morning, expensively entertained. But was this partly accounted for
by the finely flavoured herrings known as Loch Fyne kippers we had for
breakfast, which were said to fetch a higher price than any others in
Scotland?
(_Distance walked twenty-five miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 3rd._
We left Cairndow early in the morning, and soon afterwards turned away
from Loch Fyne to ascend a rough and lonely road leading towards Loch
Long, about eight miles distant. It was a cold, bleak, and showery
morning as we travelled along Glen Kinglas against a strong head wind,
which greatly impeded our progress. On reaching the top of the glen, we
came to the small Loch Restil, reposing at the foot of a mountain the
summit of which was 2,955 feet above sea-level. The only persons we had
seen on our way up the glen were two shepherds on the slope of one of
the hills some distance from our road; but now we came to two men
mending the road, in which great holes had been caused by the heavy
rainfall. We chatted with them, and they told us that a little farther
on we should come to "The Rest." Though it may seem a trifling matter to
record, we were very glad to see those two men, as our way had been
excessively lonely and depressing, for the pass only reached about 900
feet at its crown, while the great hills which immediately adjoined the
road on either side rose to an altitude of from 2,500 to 3,300 feet!
When we arrived at "The Rest" we found a rock on which were inscribed
the words "Rest and be Thankful," while another inscription informed us
that "This is a Military Road repaired by the 93rd Regiment in 1768." We
thought that at one time there must have been a stone placed there, to
do duty as a travellers' rest, where weary travellers might "Rest and be
Thankful," but nothing of the kind existed now except the surface of the
road on which we were walking. On reaching a short stiff rise, followed
by a sharp double bend in the road, we passed the entrance of a track
leading down to "Hell's Glen"; but if this glen was any worse than Glen
Kinglas which we had just ascended, or Glen Croe which we now descended,
it must have been a very dreadful place indeed. Fortunately for us, the
weather began to improve, and before we reached Loch Long with its lofty
ramparts the sun shone out in all its matchless glory and lighted up not
only the loch but the whole of the amphitheatre formed by the lofty
hills that surrounded it. A passenger steamboat plying on the bosom of
the loch lent additional interest to the scene, and the combined view
quite cheered our drooping spirits. The change, both as regarded scenery
and atmosphere, between this side of the pass and the other was really
marvellous, reminding us of the contrast between winter and summer. The
sight of the numerous little waterfalls flowing over the rocks above to
contribute their quota to the waters of the loch below was quite
refreshing. One of the great hills we had passed without being able to
see its summit--for it was quite near our road--was the well-known Ben
Arthur, 2,891 feet high, commonly spoken of either as "The Cobbler" or
"The Cobbler and his Wife." It was not until we had got some distance
away that our attention was called to it. We walked round the head of
Loch Long and crossed a bridge, some words on the iron fixtures
informing us that we were now passing from Argyllshire into
Dumbartonshire. The coping on the bridge was of fresh, neatly clipped
grass instead of the usual stonework we expected to find, and looked
very remarkable; we saw nothing like it on our further travels.
[Illustration: "REST AND BE THANKFUL," GLEN CROE.]
We asked a gentleman who was standing in the road about the various
objects of interest in the neighbourhood. Pointing to Ben Arthur in the
distance, he very kindly tried to explain the curious formation of the
rocks at the summit and to show us the Cobbler and his Wife which they
were said to represent. We had a long argument with him, and although he
explained that the Cobbler was sitting down, for the life of us we could
not distinguish the form either of him or of his Wife. We could see that
he considered we were very stupid for not being able to see objects so
plain to himself; and when my brother asked him jocularly for the third
time which was the Cobbler and which was his Wife, he became very angry
and was inclined to quarrel with us. We smoothed him down as well as we
could by saying that we now thought we could see some faint resemblance
to the objects referred to, and he looked as if he had, as the poet
says, "cleared from thick films of vice the visual ray."
[Illustration: "THE COBBLER," FROM ARROCHAR.]
We thanked him kindly for all the trouble he had taken, and concluded,
at first, that perhaps we were not of a sufficiently imaginative
temperament or else not in the most favourable position for viewing the
outlines. But we became conscious of a rather strong smell of whisky
which emanated from our loquacious friend, from which fact we persuaded
ourselves that he had been trying to show us features visible only under
more elevated conditions. When we last saw him he was still standing in
the road gazing at the distant hills, and probably still looking at the
Cobbler and his Wife.
I asked my brother, as we walked along, why he put his question in that
particular form: "Which is the Cobbler and which is his Wife?" He told
me he was thinking of a question so expressed many years ago, long
before revolving pictures were thought of, and when pictures of any kind
were very scarce. A fair was being held in the country, and a showman
was exhibiting pictures which were arranged in a row alongside his booth
or van in such a way that his customers could pass from one picture to
another and which they could see by looking through slightly magnifying
glasses placed in pairs, one to fit each eye after the fashion of a pair
of spectacles. Before the show stood a number of small boys who would
have been pleased to have a peep at the pictures if they could have
raised the money. Just at that moment a mother with her two little girls
appeared, and when the children came near the show, one of them called
out, "Oh, Ma! may we see the peep-shows? It's only a penny!" whereupon
the mother took out her purse and handed each of the little girls a
penny. When the showman saw them approaching, he shouted angrily to the
small boys who were blocking the entrance; "Get away, you little ragged
rascals that have no money," and then he added in a much milder tone,
"and let the little dears come up what's a-going to pay." When the
children reached the first peep-show, he said: "Now, my little dears,
look straight forwards, blow your noses, and don't breathe upon the
glass! Here you see the combat between the Scotch Lion, Wallace, and the
English Bulldogs, for eight hundred guineas a side, while the spectators
are a-looking on in the most facetious manner. Here you see the lion has
got his paws on one of the dogs whilst he is whisking out the eyes of
another with his tail!"
The little girls could see a picture but could not quite make out what
it was, so one of them called out: "Please, Mr. Showman, which is the
lion and which is the dogs?" and he said: "Oh! whichever you please, my
little dears, and the likes was never seen, and all for the small sum of
one penny!"
My brother said that when he asked the gentleman which was the Cobbler
and which was his Wife he would not have been surprised if he had said
angrily, "Whichever you please," and had walked away, since he seemed in
a very irritable frame of mind.
Since those "good old times" the character of these country fairs has
changed entirely, and we no longer sing the old ballad:
Oh yes, I own 'tis my delight
To see the laughter and the fright
In such a motley, merry sight
As at a country fair.
Boys on mamma's treacle fed,
On spicy cakes and gingerbread.
On everybody's toes they tread
All at a country fair.
The village of Arrochar stood in a very pleasant position, at the head
of Loch Long amid scenery of the loftiest and most varied description.
Illuminated as it was by the magic rays of the sun, we thought it would
compare favourably with any other watering-place in the Highlands, and
was just the spot to offer irresistible temptations to those who
required a short respite from the more busy scenes of life.
[Illustration: LOCH LOMOND FROM INVERSNAID.]
We were in high spirits and inclined to speak to every one we saw, so,
when we met a boy, we asked him if he had seen a cow on the road, to
which he replied, rather seriously, that he had not. We thought
afterwards that we had laid ourselves open to a reply like that given by
the Orkneyman at Stromness, for the loss of a cow in Scotland was looked
upon as a very serious matter, but we escaped for a time. Shortly
afterwards, however, we saw a vehicle approaching in the distance
labelled "Royal Mail," and then another vehicle, similarly marked,
passed us from the opposite direction, in which we noticed the boy we
had just seen. When the two conveyances met, they stopped and a number
of bags were transferred from the one conveyance to the other, so that
it was obvious that they were exchanging their sacks of letters. When we
came up to them, the driver of the one that had overtaken us asked if we
had lost a cow, and when we answered "No," he said, "But didn't you ask
the boy there if he had seen one on the road?" When we answered "Yes,"
and it was found to be all a joke, there was a general laugh all round,
which was joined in heartily by the boy himself, for he had evidently
got a ride on the strength of the story of the lost cow. We observed
that the cart that overtook us had two horses, whilst that we met had
only one, so we conjectured that our further way would be comparatively
level, and this we afterwards found to be correct. The boy did not
altogether miss his opportunity, for when we had reached, as he thought,
a safe distance, we heard him shout: "Ask your mother when you get home
if _she_ has seen a cow!"--but perhaps "two calves" would have been
nearer the mark.
We had a lovely two-mile walk between Arrochar and Tarbet, with a
magnificent view of Loch Lomond on our way; while before us, across the
loch, stood Ben Lomond, a mountain which rises to the height of 3,192
feet above sea-level.
The scene was one that cannot properly be described--the blue waters, of
the loch, with the trees beyond, and behind them this magnificent
mountain, its top covered with pure white snow, and the sun shining on
all, formed a picture beautiful beyond description, which seemed to
lift our hearts and minds from the earth to the blue heavens above, and
our thoughts to the great Almighty Who is in all and over all in that
"land of pure delight where saints immortal reign."
[Illustration: LOCH LOMOND AND THE BEN.]
Our road now skirted the banks of Loch Lomond, the largest fresh-water
lake in Scotland or England, being twenty-four miles long and five miles
in width at its broadest point, and containing over twenty islands, some
of which we saw. At the hotel where we called for tea it was thus
described:
Loch Lomond is the paragon of Scottish lakes. In island beauty
unrivalled, for all that forms romance is here--scenery varying and
increasing in loveliness, matchless combinations of grandeur and
softness united, forming a magic land from which poesy and painting
have caught their happiest inspirations. Islands of different forms
and magnitude. Some are covered with the most luxuriant wood of every
different tint; but others show a beautiful intermixture of rock and
coppices--some, like plains of emerald, scarcely above the level of
the water, are covered with grass; and others, again, are bare rocks,
rising into precipices and destitute of vegetation.
Scotland has produced many men mighty in mind as well as in body, and
their ideas have doubtless been enlarged not only by their advanced
system of education, but by the great things which have surrounded
them--the great rocks and the great waters. So long as these qualities
are turned in a good direction, all goes well, but when in a bad one
like the "facilis descensus" described in George Cruikshank's great
picture "The Worship of Bacchus," then all goes badly. An illustration
of these large ideas turned to a bad account appeared in a story we read
of a degenerate son of the North to whom the gods had granted the
fulfilment of three wishes: First, he would have a Loch Lomond of
whisky; secondly, a Ben Lomond of snuff; thirdly, (with some hesitation)
another Loch Lomond of whisky.
We did not attempt the ascent of Ben Lomond, as our experiences of
mountain climbing hitherto had not been very encouraging. Nor did we
require the aid of those doubtful articles so ardently desired by the
degenerate Scot as we walked along the good road, sheltered with trees,
that lay alongside Loch Lomond, with the slopes of the high hills to the
right and to the left, the great loch with its lovely islands backed by
the mountains beyond.
Tarbet, which we soon left behind us, was notorious as the port of
Magnus the Norseman, whose followers dragged their boats there from the
sea to harry the islands whither so many of the natives had fled for
safety.
Ninnius, writing in the eighth century, tells of the great King Arthur,
who defeated the Scots and drove them for refuge to Loch Lomond, "in
which there were sixty islands and sixty rocks, and on each an eagle's
nest. Every first of May they came together, and from the sound of their
voices the men of that country knew what should befall during the coming
year. And sixty rivers fell into this remarkable lake, but only one
river ran from the lake to the sea." The exactness of every point rather
amused us, for of course the invincible Arthur, like all other
mythological heroes, must ever succeed, and he soon cleared the Scots
from their stronghold.
Sir Walter Scott has made this district famous, and we could have
lingered long in the region of the Trossachs, and should have been
delighted to see Loch Katrine, close by, which the "Lady of the Lake"
had rendered so familiar, but time is a hard taskmaster and we had to be
content with what Loch Lomond provided for us.
We therefore hurried on, and eventually reached the lovely little
village of Luss, where, as we entered, we were welcomed by the warbling
of a robin singing out right merrily, as if to announce our arrival. Our
first impression soon told us that Luss was well patronised by visitors
and by artists ever on the alert for scenery such as here abounded. It
was quite an English-looking village, with a small quarry, not as
extensively worked as formerly, we were informed, for only about twenty
men were now employed.
Before proceeding farther we called for refreshments, and learned that a
steamboat called periodically at Luss. We left this favourite resort by
the Dumbarton road, walking alongside Loch Lomond--one of the finest
walks we ever took and quite baffling description. It was rather
provoking, therefore, when darkness came on just as we reached the
widest part of the Loch where quite a number of islands could be seen.
The road still continued beautiful, being arched over with trees in some
places, with the stars shining brightly above.
Luss, we learned, had its place in history as the home of the
Colquhouns, whose feud with the MacGregors led to such murderous
results. But perhaps its associations with Robert Bruce in his days of
adversity form its greater claim to fame, and the yews on Inch Lonaig,
just above, are said to have been planted by him to supply his bowmen.
Before we reached the end of the loch we turned on the Dumbarton road,
following the road for Helensburgh, as we wanted to see the River Clyde.
This road was fairly level, but about two miles from Helensburgh it rose
to an elevation of about 300 feet. On reaching the top, we saw a sight
which fairly startled us, for a great stretch of water suddenly and
unexpectedly came in view, and across its surface we could see hundreds
of gas lights, twinkling like stars in the darkness. We found afterwards
that they were those of the town of Greenock, on the other side of the
Clyde Estuary, which was some five or six miles across this, its widest
part. We considered this was one of the greatest sights of our journey,
and one well worth while climbing the hill to see. It must, however, be
noted that these were the first gas lights we had seen for what seemed
to us to be ages. We went straight to the Temperance Hotel, which had
been closed for the night, but we gained admission and found comfortable
quarters there.
(_Distance walked thirty-one miles_.)
_Wednesday, October 4th._
We had pictured Helensburgh, from its name, as a very old town, and were
rather surprised when we discovered that it was only founded at the
close of the eighteenth century, by Sir James Colquhoun, who named the
place after his wife, the Lady Helen Sutherland. At the time of our
visit it was a favourite resort of visitors from across the Clyde and
elsewhere. We were unable to explore the town and its environs, owing to
a dense mist or fog which had accumulated during the night; and this
probably accounted for our sleeping longer than usual, for it was quite
nine o'clock before we left Helensburgh on our way to Dumbarton. If the
atmosphere had been clear, we should have had fine views of Greenock,
Port Glasgow, Roseneath Castle, the residence of the Marquis of Lorne,
and other places of interest across the Clyde, and of the ships passing
up and down the river. As it was, we had to be content with listening to
the busy sounds of labour and the thuds of the steam hammers in the
extensive shipbuilding yards across the water, and the ominous sounds of
the steam-whistles from the ships, as they ploughed their way along the
watery tracks on the Clyde. We were naturally very much disappointed
that we had to pass along this road under such unfavourable conditions,
but, as the mist cleared a little, we could just discern the outlines of
one or two of the steamboats as we neared Dumbarton. The fields
alongside our road were chiefly devoted to the growth of potatoes, and
the fine agricultural land reminded us of England. We stayed to speak
with one of the farmers, standing at his gate, and he told us that he
sent potatoes to the Manchester market, which struck us with surprise
because of the great distance. We also stayed awhile, just before
entering Dumbarton, as there had been a slight railway accident,
probably owing to the fog, and the officials, with a gang of men, were
making strenuous efforts to remove the remains of a truck which had come
to grief. We were walking into the town quite unconscious of the
presence of the castle, and were startled at its sudden appearance, as
it stood on an isolated rock, rising almost perpendicularly to the
height of about 300 feet, and we could only just see its dim outline
appearing, as it were, in the clouds. We left it for future inspection
and, as it was now twelve o'clock, hurried into the town for a noon
dinner, for which we were quite ready.
As a sample of the brief way in which the history of an important town
can be summarised, we give the following extract:--
Dumbarton, immortalised by Osian, possessed in turns by first Edward
and John Balliol, the prison of William Wallace, and the scene of
that unavailing remorse which agonised the bosom of his betrayer (a
rude sculpture within the castle represents Sir John Monteith in an
attitude of despair, lamenting his former treachery), captured by
Bruce, unsuccessfully besieged by the fourth Edward, reduced by the
Earl of Argyll, surprised, while in false security, by the daring of
a bold soldier, Captain Crawford, resided in by James V, visited by
that fair and erring Queen, the "peerless Mary," and one of the four
castles kept up by the Act of Union.
And we have been told that it was the birthplace of Taliesin, the early
poet of the Celts, and Gildas their historian.
In former times the castle of Dumbarton was looked upon as one of the
strongest places in the world, and, rising precipitously from the level
plain, it appeared to us to be quite impregnable. Captain Crawford's
feat in capturing this castle equals anything else of the kind recorded
in history. In the time of Queen Elizabeth of England, when a quarrel
was raging in Scotland between the partisans of King James and his
mother Queen Mary, and when even the children of the towns and villages
formed themselves into bands and fought with sticks, stones, and even
knives for King James or Queen Mary, the castle of Dumbarton was held
for the Queen; but a distinguished adherent of the King, one Captain
Crawford of Jordanhill, resolved to make an attempt to take it. There
was only one access to the castle, approached by 365 steps, but these
were strongly guarded and fortified. The captain took advantage of a
misty and moonless night to bring his scaling-ladders to the foot of the
rock at the opposite side, where it was the most precipitous, and
consequently the least guarded by the soldiers at the top. The choice of
this side of the rock was fortunate, as the first ladder broke with the
weight of the men who attempted to climb it, and the noise of the fall
must have betrayed them if they had been on the other and more guarded
side. Crawford, who was assisted by a soldier who had deserted from the
castle, renewed the attempt in person, and, having scrambled up a
projecting ledge of rock, fastened the ladder by tying it to the roots
of a tree which grew midway up the rock. Here they found a footing for
the whole party, which was, of course, small in number. In scaling the
second precipice, however, one of the party was seized with an
epileptic fit, to which he was subject, brought on, perhaps, by terror
in the act of climbing the ladder. He could neither ascend nor descend;
moreover, if they had thrown him down, apart from the cruelty of the
thing, the fall of his body might have alarmed the garrison. Crawford,
therefore, ordered him to be tied fast to one side of the ladder, and,
turning it round, they mounted with ease. When the party gained the
summit, they slew the sentinel before he had time to give the alarm, and
easily surprised the slumbering garrison, who had trusted too much to
the security of their position. Some of the climbing irons used are
shown within the castle.
[Illustration: DUMBARTON CASTLE]
We now set out from Dumbarton, with its old castle, and the old sword
worn by the brave Wallace reposing in the armoury, at the same time
leaving the River Clyde and its fine scenery, which, owing to the fog,
we had almost totally missed. We proceeded towards Stirling, where we
hoped to arrive on the following day; but we now found ourselves passing
through a semi-manufacturing district, and gradually it dawned upon us
that we had now left the Highlands and were approaching the Lowlands of
Scotland. We thought then and many times afterwards of that verse of
Robbie Burns's:--
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild deer and following the roe--
My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.
We passed through Renton, where there were bleaching and calico
printing works. A public library graced the centre of the village, as
well as a fine Tuscan column nearly 60 feet high, erected to Tobias
Smollett, the poet, historian and novelist, who was born in 1721 not
half a mile from the spot. The houses were small and not very clean. The
next village we came to was Alexandria, a busy manufacturing place where
the chief ornament was a very handsome drinking-fountain erected to a
member of the same family, a former M.P., "by his tenants and friends,"
forming a striking contrast to its mean and insignificant surroundings
of one-storied houses and dismal factories. We were soon in the country
again, and passed some fine residences, including the modern-looking
Castle of Tullichewan situated in a fine park, and reached Balloch at
the extreme end of Loch Lomond, from which point we had a momentary view
of the part of the lake we had missed seeing on the preceding evening.
Here we paid the sum of one halfpenny each for the privilege of passing
over the Suspension Bridge, which gave us access to a very pleasant part
of the country, and crossed one spur of a hill, from the top of which,
under favourable conditions, we might have seen nearly the whole of Loch
Lomond, including the islands and the ranges of hills on either side--
[Illustration: MAINS CASTLE, KILMARONOCK]
Mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
But though it was only about a mile and a half from our path to the
summit, and the total elevation only 576 feet, 297 of which we had
already ascended, we did not visit it, as the mist would have prevented
an extended view. It stood in a beautiful position, surrounded by woods
and the grounds of Boturich Castle; why such a pretty place should be
called "Mount Misery" was not clear, unless it had some connection with
one of the Earls of Argyll who came to grief in that neighbourhood in
1685 near Gartocharn, which we passed shortly afterwards. He had
collected his clan to overthrow the Government of James VII (James II of
England) and had crossed the Leven at Balloch when he found Gartocharn
occupied by the royal troops. Instead of attacking them, he turned
aside, to seek refuge among the hills, and in the darkness and amid the
bogs and moors most of his men deserted, only about five hundred
answering to their names the following morning. The Earl, giving up the
attempt, was captured an hour or two later as he was attempting to cross
the River Clyde, and the words applied to him, "Unhappy Argyll,"
indicated his fate. We passed Kilmaronock church in the dark and, after
crossing the bridge over Endrick Water, entered Drymen and put up at the
"Buchanan Arms" Inn, where we had been recommended to stay the night.
(_Distance walked twenty miles_.)
_Thursday, October 5th._
We were up early this morning and went to have a look round the village
of Drymen and its surroundings before breakfast. We were quite near
Buchanan Castle, and took the liberty of trespassing for a short time in
the walks and woods surrounding it. The Duke of Montrose here reigned
supreme, his family the Grahams having been in possession for twenty
generations; among his ancestors were Sir Patrick de Graham, who was
killed at the Battle of Dunbar in 1296, and Sir John de Graham, the
beloved friend of the immortal Wallace, who was slain at the Battle of
Falkirk in 1298. The village had been built in the form of a square
which enclosed a large field of grass called the Cross Green, with
nothing remarkable about it beyond an enormous ash tree supposed to be
over 300 years old which stood in the churchyard. It measured about 17
feet in circumference at 5 feet from the ground, and was called the Bell
Tree, because the church bell which summoned the villagers to worship
was suspended from one of its branches. The tree began to show signs of
decay, so eventually the bell had to be taken down and a belfry built to
receive it.
[Illustration: THE SQUARE, DRYMEN]
We finished our breakfast at 8.30, and then, with the roads in a
fearfully muddy condition owing to heavy downfalls of rain, started on
our walk towards Stirling. The region here was pleasing agricultural
country, and we passed many large and well-stocked farms on our way,
some of them having as many as a hundred stacks of corn and beans in
their stack-yards. After walking about seven miles we arrived at the
dismal-looking village of Buchlyvie, where we saw many houses in ruins,
standing in all their gloominess as evidences of the devastating effects
of war. Some of the inhabitants were trying to eke out their livelihood
by hand-loom weaving, but there was a poverty-stricken appearance about
the place which had, we found, altered but little since Sir Walter Scott
wrote of it in the following rhyme which he had copied from an old
ballad:
Baron of Buchlivie,
May the foul fiend drive ye
And a' to pieces rive ye
For building sic a town,
Where there's neither horse meat
Nor man's meat, nor a chair to sit down.
We did not find the place quite so bad as that, for there were two or
three small inns where travellers could get refreshments and a chair to
sit down upon; but we did not halt for these luxuries until we reached
Kippen, about five miles farther on. Before arriving there we overtook
two drovers who were well acquainted with Glencoe and the Devil's
Stairs, and when we told them of our adventures there they said we were
very lucky to have had a fine day when we crossed those hills. They told
us the story of the two young men who perished there, but thought their
death was partially caused through lack of food. Kippen, they informed
us, was on the borders of Perthshire and Stirlingshire, and when we told
them we intended calling for refreshments they advised us to patronise
the "Cross Keys Inn." We found Kippen, or, as it was sometimes named,
the Kingdom of Kippen, a pleasant place, and we had no difficulty in
finding the "Cross Keys." Here we learned about the King of Kippen, the
Scottish Robin Hood, and were told that it was only two miles away to
the Ford of Frew, where Prince Charlie crossed the River Forth on his
way from Perth to Stirling, and that about three minutes' walk from the
Cross there was a place from which the most extensive and beautiful
views of the country could be obtained. Rising like towers from the
valley of the Forth could be seen three craigs--Dumyate Craig, Forth
Abbey Craig, and the craig on which Stirling Castle had been built;
spreading out below was the Carse of Stirling, which merged into and
included the Vale of Monteith, about six miles from Kippen; while the
distant view comprised the summits of many mountains, including that of
Ben Lomond.
[Illustration: OLD BELFRY, KIPPEN]
As usual in Scotland, the village contained two churches--the Parish
Church and the United Free Church. In the old churchyard was an ancient
ivy-covered belfry, but the church to which it belonged had long since
disappeared. Here was the burial-place of the family of Edinbellie, and
here lived in olden times an attractive and wealthy young lady named
Jean Kay, whom Rob Roy, the youngest son of Rob Roy Macgregor, desired
to marry. She would not accept him, so leaving Balquidder, the home of
the Macgregors, accompanied by his three brothers and five other men, he
went to Edinbellie and carried her off to Rowardennan, where a sham form
of marriage was gone through. But the romantic lover paid dearly for his
exploit, as it was for robbing this family of their daughter that Rob
forfeited his life on the scaffold at Edinburgh on February 16th, 1754,
Jean Kay having died at Glasgow on October 4th, 1751.
[Illustration: QUEEN MARY'S BOWER, INCHMAHOME.]
We were well provided for at the "Cross Keys," and heard a lot about
Mary Queen of Scots, as we were now approaching a district where much of
the history of Scotland was made. Her name seemed to be on everybody's
lips and her portrait in everybody's house, including the smallest
dwellings. She seemed to be the most romantic character in the minds of
the Scots, by whom she was almost idolised--not perhaps so much for her
beauty and character as for her sufferings and the circumstances
connected with her death. The following concise account of the career of
this beautiful but unfortunate Queen and her son King James greatly
interested us. She was born at Linlithgow Palace in the year 1542, and
her father died when she was only eight days old. In the next year she
was crowned Queen of Scotland at Stirling, and remained at the Castle
there for about four years. She was then removed to Inchmahome, an
island of about six acres in extent situated in the small Lake of
Monteith, about six miles north of Kippen. In 1547, when six years old,
she was sent to France in a Flemish ship from Dumbarton, and in the
following year she was married to the Dauphin of France, afterwards King
Francis II, who died in the year 1560. Afterwards she returned to
Scotland and went to Stirling Castle, where she met her cousin Lord
Darnley and was married to him at Holyrood in 1565, her son being born
in 1566. Troubles, however, soon arose, and for a short time she was
made a prisoner and placed in the Castle of Loch Leven, from which she
escaped with the intention of going to Dumbarton Castle for safety. Her
army under the Earl of Argyll accompanied her, but on the way they met
an opposing army commanded by the Regent Murray, who defeated her army,
and Queen Mary fled to England. Here she again became a prisoner and was
placed in various castles for the long period of nineteen years, first
in one and then in another, with a view probably to preventing her being
rescued by her friends; and finally she was beheaded in 1587 in the
forty-eighth year of her age at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire,
by command of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth.
Her son James VI of Scotland, who subsequently became James I of
England, was baptised in the Royal Chapel at Stirling Castle in 1566,
and in 1567, when he was only about thirteen months old, was crowned in
the parish church at Stirling, his mother Queen Mary having been forced
to abdicate in favour of her son. The great Puritan divine John Knox
preached the Coronation sermon on that occasion, and the young king was
educated until he was thirteen years of age by George Buchanan, the
celebrated scholar and historian, in the castle, where his class-room is
still to be seen. He succeeded to the English throne on the death of
Queen Elizabeth, and was crowned as King James I of England in the year
1603.
Leaving Kippen, we passed through Gargunnock, with the extraordinary
windings of the River Forth to our left, and arrived at Stirling at 5.15
p.m., where at the post-office we found a host of letters waiting our
arrival and at the railway-station a welcome change of clothing from
home.
(_Distance walked twenty-two miles_.)
_Friday, October 6th._
Stirling is one of the most attractive towns in Scotland, and we could
not resist staying there awhile to explore it. It is the "key to the
Highlands," and one of the oldest of the Royal burghs. It was a place of
some importance in the time of the Romans, as it stood between the two
great Firths of the Clyde and the Forth, where the Island of Britain is
at its narrowest. The first Roman wall was built between the Forth and
the Clyde, and the Second Roman Legion was stationed at Stirling.
According to an old inscription on a stone near the Ballengeich road,
they kept a watch there day and night, and in A.D. 81 a great battle
was fought near by against 30,000 Caledonians, who were defeated.
Stirling has a commanding geographical position, and all the roads
converge there to cross the River Forth. It was at Stirling Bridge that
Wallace defeated the army of 50,000 soldiers sent against him in the
year 1297 by Edward I, King of England. The town had also a lively time
in the days of Charles Edward Stuart, "Bonnie Prince Charlie," whose
father, during his exile in France, had been encouraged by the French to
return and lay claim to the English Crown. Landing in Inverness-shire in
1745, Prince Charlie was immediately joined by many of the Highland
clans, and passed with his army through Stirling on his way towards
London. Not finding the support they expected from the south, they were
compelled to return, followed closely along their line of retreat by the
English Army, and they were soon back again at Stirling, where they made
a desperate but unsuccessful effort to obtain possession of the castle,
which was held for the English. The Duke of Cumberland's Army by this
time was close upon their heels, and gave them no rest until they caught
them and defeated them with great slaughter up at Culloden, near
Inverness.
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE AND NECROPOLIS.]
There was much in Stirling and its environs that we wished to see, so we
were astir early in the morning, although the weather was inclined to be
showery. First of all, we went to see the cemetery, which occupies a
beautiful position on a hill overlooking the wonderful windings of the
River Forth, and here we found the tomb of the Protestant martyrs
"Margaret and Agnes," the latter only eighteen years of age, who were
tied to stakes at low water in the Bay of Wigtown on May 11th, 1685,
and, refusing an opportunity to recant and return to the Roman Catholic
faith, were left to be drowned in the rising tide. Over the spot where
they were buried their figures appeared beautifully sculptured in white
marble, accompanied by that of an angel standing beside them; the
epitaph read:
M. O A.
MARGARET
VIRGIN MARTYR OF THE OCEAN WAVE
WITH HER LIKE-MINDED SISTER
AGNES.
Love, many waters cannot quench! GOD saves
His chaste impearled One! in Covenant true.
"O Scotia's Daughters! earnest scan the Page."
And prize this Flower of Grace, blood-bought for you.
PSALMS IX., XIX.
[Illustration: THE PROTESTANT MARTYRS]
We stayed there for a few solemn moments, for it was a sight that
impressed us deeply, and then we went to inspect an old stone with the
following curious inscription cut on its surface:
Some . only . breakfast . and . away:
Others . to . dinner . stay .
And . are . full . fed .
the . oldest . man . but . sups:
And . goes . to . bed:
large . is . his . debt:
that . lingers . out . the . day:
he . that . goes . soonest:
has . the . least . to . pay:
We saw another remarkable structure called "The Rock of Ages," a large
monument built of stone, on each of the four sides of which was a Bible
sculptured in marble with texts from the Scriptures, and near the top a
device like that of a crown. It was a fine-looking and substantial
building, but we could not ascertain the reason for its erection.
There were two churches quite near to each other standing at one end of
the cemetery, and these, we were informed, were known as the East and
West Churches, and had been formed out of the old Church of Stirling,
formerly noted for its bells, which were still in existence. One of
them, a Dutch bell, was marked "Rotterdam, 1657," and inscribed "Soli
Deo Gloria"; the only pre-Reformation bell was one that was said to have
come from Cambuskenneth Abbey, measuring 8 ft. 6-1/2 in. round the
mouth, 4 ft. 6 in. over the neck, and 2 ft. 1-1/2 in. in depth, and
bearing a Latin inscription, in Old English characters, which was said
to be the angelic salutation from St. Luke i. 28: "Hail, Mary, full of
grace, God is with thee; blessed art thou among women and to be
blessed." This bell, dating from the fourteenth century, was perfect in
sound, and had been the tone bell in the old abbey. The remainder of the
bells of Cambuskenneth had been lost owing to the swamping of the boat
that was bringing them across the river.
[Illustration: THE GATEWAY TO THE CASTLE.]
We now went to view the castle, and as we approached the entrance we
were accosted by a sergeant, whom we engaged to act as our guide.
The ramparts of the castle command the noblest prospect
imaginable--Grampian, Ochil and Pentland Hills, the River Forth,
through all its windings, and "Auld Reekie" in the distance--twelve
foughten fields are visible--the bridge where Archbishop Hamilton was
hanged, the mound on which the Regent, Earl of Levenax, was beheaded
on May 25th, 1425, along with the Duke of Albany, his son-in-law, and
his grandson--the chamber where the Scottish King James II was
assassinated--a noble valley, where tournaments were held, and the
hill, whence Beauty viewed "gentle passages of arms" and rewarded
knights' valour with her smiles, lie just below the ramparts. Here
James I lived, and James II was born, and it was a favourite
residence of James III. From these walls the "Good Man of
Ballangeich" made many an excursion, and here James V and James VI
were indoctrinated at the feet of that stern preceptor, George
Buchanan, and the seventh James and the second of England visited
here in company with the future Queen Anne and the last of the
Stuarts.
[Illustration: THE PALACE, STIRLING CASTLE.]
[Illustration: STIRLING BRIDGE. "At Stirling Bridge Wallace defeated the
army of fifty thousand soldiers sent against him by Edward I; ... it was
a battle won by strategy."]
[Illustration: STIRLING CASTLE. "The ramparts of the castle command the
noblest prospect imaginable--from the top of the walls the sites of
seven battlefields were pointed out to us."]
Such was the official description of the place we were now visiting. As
our guide conducted us through the archway into the castle, he showed us
the old chains that worked the portcullis. We noted how cautious the old
occupants of these strongholds were, for while one of the massive doors
was being drawn up the other went down, so that the inner entrance was
always protected. From the top of the walls the sites of seven
battlefields were pointed out to us, including those of Bannockburn and
Stirling Bridge. The Battle of Stirling Bridge was won by Wallace by
strategy; he had a much smaller army than the English, but he watched
them until they had got one-half their army over the narrow bridge, and
then attacked each half in turn, since the one could not assist the
other, the river being between them. In the following year he was
defeated himself, but as he retreated he reduced Stirling and its castle
to ruins. The Bridge of Allan, which could be seen in the distance, was
described as a miniature Torquay without the sea, and the view from the
castle on a clear day extended a distance of nearly fifty miles. We were
shown the aperture through which Mary Queen of Scots watched the games
in the royal garden below, and of course we had to be shown the exact
spot where "our most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria with the Prince of
Wales" sat on a much more recent date. The castle stood on a rock,
rising precipitously on two of its sides, and was now being used as a
barracks. It was a fine sight to see the soldiers as they were being
drilled. The old Chapel Royal was used as the armoury, and our guide
told us of many objects of interest which were stored there; but we had
no time to see them, so, rewarding him suitably for his services, we
hastened back to the town to refresh the "inner man."
It appeared that in former times none of the members of the Town Council
accepted any gift or emolument while in office; and, before writing was
as common as it is now, the old treasurer kept his accounts in a pair of
boots which he hung one on each side of the chimney. Into one of them he
put all the money he received and into the other the vouchers for the
money he paid away, and balanced his accounts at the end of the year by
emptying his boots, and counting the money left in one and that paid
away by the receipts in the other. What a delightfully simple system of
"double entry," and just fancy the "borough treasurer" with a balance
always in hand! Whether the non-payment for services rendered by the
Council accounted for this did not appear; but there must have been some
select convivials even in those days, as the famous Stirling Jug
remained as evidence of something of the kind. It was a fine old vessel
made of brass and taken great care of by the Stirling people, who became
possessed of it four or five hundred years before our visit.
We then walked some distance to see Wallace's Monument, the most
conspicuous object for many miles round, and which had only just been
erected to perpetuate the memory of that great warrior, having been
opened by the Duke of Atholl in 1869. We paid twopence each for
admission, and in addition to climbing the hill to reach the entrance
to the monument we had to ascend a further 220 feet by means of a flight
of 246 steps before we could reach the top. There were several rooms in
the basement, in one of which we found an enthusiastic party of young
Scots who were vociferously singing:
Scots, wha hae wie Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has often led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie.
* * * * *
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Let us do or die!
These were the first and last verses of the poem written by the immortal
Burns to represent Robert Bruce's address to his army before the Battle
of Bannockburn. We did not reveal our nationality to the uproarious
Scots, but, after listening to the song, which we had never heard sung
before, and the cheers which followed it, in which we ourselves joined,
we went quietly past them, for fear they might treat us as the
"usurpers" named in the last verse and "lay _us_ low."
[Illustration: WALLACE MONUMENT.]
On reaching the top of the monument we had a magnificent view, which
well repaid us for our exertions in climbing up the craig and ascending
the tower, and we lingered awhile to view the almost fairy-like scene
that lay below us, with the distant mountains in the background. On
descending, we entered our names in the visitors' book and took our
departure.
Just as we were leaving, our attention was attracted by a notice which
informed us that Cambuskenneth Abbey was only one mile away, so we
walked along the banks of the Forth to that ancient ruin. The abbey was
supposed to have taken its name from one Kenneth, who fought a
successful battle with the Picts on the site where it was built. A
Parliament was held within its walls in 1314 by King Robert Bruce, but
the abbey was destroyed, with the exception of the tower, in 1559. The
chief object of interest was the tomb of James III, King of Scots, and
his Queen, the Princess Margaret of Denmark, who were buried near the
High Altar. The tomb, which appeared quite modern, recorded that King
James died June 11th, 1488, and that "This Restoration of the Tomb of
her Ancestors was executed by command of Her Majesty Queen Victoria,
A.D. 1865."
We now walked back to Stirling, and were again among the windings of the
River Forth, which are a striking feature whether viewed from Wallace's
Monument, the Castle walls, or the cemetery. To follow them in some
places, the traveller, it was said, would have to go four times farther
than by the straighter road.
[Illustration: ST. NINIANS CHURCH TOWER.]
Recovering possession of our bags from the hotel, we resumed our march
along the road to Falkirk, eleven miles distant, and, on the way, came
to the village of St. Ninians, with its long, narrow street of
dismal-looking houses, many of them empty and in ruins, and some marked
"To Let"; and, from their dingy appearance, we imagined they were likely
to remain so. The people who lived in these houses were formerly of evil
reputation, as, before railways were constructed so far north, all the
cattle from the Western Isles and the North were driven along the roads
to Falkirk to be sold, and had to pass through St. Ninians, which was so
dreaded by the drovers that they called this long, narrow street "The
Pass of St. Ninians." For, if a sheep happened to go through a doorway
or stray along one of the passages, ever open to receive them, it was
never seen again and nobody knew of its whereabouts except the thieves
themselves. We walked along this miry pass and observed what we thought
might be an old church, which we went to examine, but found it to be
only a tower and a few ruins. The yard was very full of gravestones. A
large building at the bottom of the yard was, we were told, what now did
duty for the original church, which in the time of Prince Charlie was
used as a powder magazine, and was blown up in 1745 by a party of his
Highlanders to prevent its falling into the hands of the advancing
English Army, before which they were retreating.
Shortly afterwards we overtook a gentleman whom we at first thought was
a farmer, but found afterwards to be a surgeon who resided at
Bannockburn, the next village. He was a cheerful and intelligent
companion, and told us that the large flagstaff we could see in the
fields to the left was where Robert Bruce planted his standard at the
famous Battle of Bannockburn, which, he said, was fought at midsummer in
the year 1314. Bruce had been preparing the ground for some time so as
to make it difficult for the English to advance even though they were
much more numerous and better armed than the Scots. As soon as the
armies came in sight of each other on the evening of June 24th, King
Robert Bruce, dressed in armour and with a golden crown on his helmet,
to distinguish him from the rest of his army, mounted on a small pony,
and, with a battle-axe in his hand, went up and down the ranks of his
army to put them in order. Seeing the English horsemen draw near, he
advanced a little in front of his own men to have a nearer view of the
enemy. An English knight, Sir Henry de Bohun, seeing the Scottish king
so poorly mounted, thought he would rise to fame by killing Bruce and so
putting an end to the war at once. So he challenged him to fight by
galloping at him suddenly and furiously, thinking with his long spear
and tall, powerful horse to extinguish Bruce immediately. Waiting until
Bohun came up, and then suddenly turning his pony aside to avoid the
point of his lance, Bruce rose in his stirrups and struck Sir Henry, as
he passed at full speed, such a terrific blow on the head with his
battle-axe that it cut through his helmet and his head at the same time,
so that he died before reaching the ground. The only remark that Bruce
is said to have made was, "I have broken my good battle-axe."
This fearful encounter and the death of their champion was looked upon
as a bad omen by the English, and Sir Walter Scott thus describes it:
The heart had hardly time to think,
The eyelid scarce had time to wink,
* * * * *
High in his stirrups stood the King,
And gave his battle-axe the swing;
Right on De Boune, the whiles he pass'd,
Fell that stern dint--the first--the last!--
Such strength upon the blow was put,
The helmet crash'd like hazel-nut;
The axe shaft, with its brazen clasp,
Was shiver'd to the gauntlet grasp.
Springs from the blow the startled horse,
Drops to the plain the lifeless corse.
The battle began on the following morning, Midsummer Day, and the mighty
host of heavily armed men on large horses moved forward along what they
thought was hard road, only to fall into the concealed pits carefully
prepared beforehand by Bruce and to sink in the bogs over which they had
to pass. It can easily be imagined that those behind pressing forward
would ride over those who had sunk already, only to sink themselves in
turn. Thousands perished in that way, and many a thrown rider, heavily
laden with armour, fell an easy prey to the hardy Scots. The result was
disastrous to the English, and it was said that 30,000 of them were
killed, while the Scots were able afterwards to raid the borders of
England almost to the gates of York.
The surgeon said that in the Royal College of Surgeons in London a rib
of Bruce, the great Scottish king, was included in the curios of the
college, together with a bit of the cancerous growth which killed
Napoleon. It was said that Bruce's rib was injured in a jousting match
in England many years before he died, and that the fracture was made
good by a first-class surgeon of the time. In 1329 Bruce died of leprosy
in his fifty fifth year and the twenty-third of his reign, and was
buried in the Abbey Church of Dunfermline. In clearing the foundation
for the third church on the same site, in 1818, the bones of the hero
were discovered, Sir Walter Scott being present. The breastbone of the
skeleton had been sawn through some 500 years before, as was customary,
in order to allow of the removal of the heart, which was then embalmed,
and given to Bruce's friend, Sir James Douglas, to be carried to
Palestine and buried in Jerusalem.
The surgeon also told us--in order, we supposed, to cheer our drooping
spirits--of another battle fought in the neighbourhood of Bannockburn in
1488, but this time it was the Scottish King James III who came to
grief. He had a fine grey courser given him "that could war all the
horse of Scotland if the king could sit up well." But he was a coward
and could not ride, and when some men came up shouting and throwing
arrows, they frightened the king. Feeling the spurs, the horse went at
"flight speed" through Bannockburn, and a woman carrying water, when she
saw the horse coming, dropped her bucket down on the road and ran for
safety. The horse, frightened by the bucket, jumped over the brook that
turned the mill, and threw the king off at the mill door. The miller and
his wife, who saw the accident, not knowing that the rider was the king,
put him in a nook in the mill and covered him with a cloth. When he came
round, he asked for a priest and told them he was the king. But he had
fallen into the hands of his enemies. The miller's wife clapped her
hands, and ran out crying for a priest for the king. A man called out,
"I am a priest; where is the king?" When he saw the king he told him he
might recover if he had a good leeching, but the king desired him to
give him the Sacrament. The supposed priest said, "That I shall do
quickly," and suiting the action to the word, he stabbed him several
times in the heart. The corpse he took away on his back, no one knew
whither, and the king's soldiers, now leaderless, fled to Stirling and
Linlithgow.
We thanked our friend for his company and bade him farewell, as we
reached Bannockburn village. We observed there, as in most villages near
Stirling, many houses in ruins or built with the ruins of others. We
thought what a blessing it was that the two nations were now united, and
that the days of these cruel wars were gone for ever! At a junction of
roads a finger-post pointed "To the Bannockburn Collieries," and we saw
several coal-pits in the distance with the ruins of an old building near
them, but we did not take the trouble to inspect them.
The shades of night were coming on when, after walking a few miles, we
saw an old man standing at the garden gate of a very small cottage by
the wayside, who told us he was an old sailor and that Liverpool had
been his port, from which he had taken his first voyage in 1814. He
could remember Birkenhead and that side of the River Mersey when there
was only one house, and that a farm from which he used to fetch
buttermilk, and when there was only one dock in Liverpool--the Prince's.
We thought what a contrast the old man would find if he were to visit
that neighbourhood now! He told us of a place near by named Norwood,
where were the remains of an old castle of Prince Charlie's time, with
some arches and underground passages, but it was now too dark to see
them. We proceeded towards Camelon, with the great ironworks of Carron
illuminating the sky to our left, and finally arrived at Falkirk. Here,
in reply to our question, a sergeant of police recommended us to stay
the night at the "Swan Inn," kept by a widow, a native of Inverness,
where we were made very comfortable. After our supper of bread and milk,
we began to take off our boots to prepare for bed, but we were requested
to keep them on as our bedroom was outside! We followed our leader along
the yard at the back of the inn and up a flight of stone steps, at the
top of which we were ushered into a comfortable bedroom containing three
beds, any or all of which, we were informed, were at our service. Having
made our selection and fastened the door, we were soon asleep,
notwithstanding the dreadful stories we had heard that day, and the
great battlefields we had visited--haunted, no doubt, by the ghosts of
legions of our English ancestors who had fallen therein!
(_Distance walked seventeen miles_.)
_Saturday, October 7th._
Falkirk, which stands on a gentle slope on the great Carse of Forth, is
surrounded by the Grampian Hills, the Ochills, and the Campsie Range.
Here King Edward I entirely routed the Scottish Army in the year 1298.
Wallace's great friend was slain in the battle and buried in the
churchyard, where an inscription recorded that "Sir John de Grahame,
equally remarkable for wisdom and courage, and the faithful friend of
Wallace, being slain in the battle by the English, lies buried in this
place."
We left the inn at six o'clock in the morning, the only people visible
being workmen turning out for their day's work. The last great fair of
the season was to be held that day, and we had the previous day seen the
roads filled with cattle making for Falkirk Fair, perhaps one of the
largest fairs in the kingdom. We had been told by the drovers that the
position was well adapted for the purpose, as the ground was very sandy
and therefore not so liable to be trampled into mud by the animals'
feet.
We passed through the village of Laurieston, where Alfred Nobel, the
inventor of dynamite and blasting gelatine, lived, and saw a plough at
work turning up potatoes, a crowd of women and boys following it and
gathering up the potatoes in aprons and then emptying them into a long
row of baskets which extended from one end of the field to the other. A
horse and cart followed, and the man in charge emptied the contents of
the baskets into the cart. We questioned the driver of the plough, who
assured us that no potatoes were left in the land, but that all were
turned up and gathered, and that it was a much better way than turning
them out by hand with a fork, as was usual in England.
[Illustration: LINLITHGOW PALACE.]
[Illustration: ANCIENT KEY OF LINLITHGOW PALACE.]
About two miles farther on we passed the romantic village of Polmont,
and on through a fine stretch of country until we reached another
fair-sized village called Linlithgow Bridge. We were then about a mile
and a half from the old town of Linlithgow; here the River Avon
separates the counties of Stirlingshire and Linlithgowshire. The old
bridge from which the place takes its name is said to have been built by
Edward I of England. In 1526 the Battle of Linlithgow Bridge was fought
at this spot; it was one of those faction fights between two contending
armies for predominance which were so prevalent in Scotland at the time,
the real object, however, being to rescue King James V from the
domination of the Earl of Angus. The opposing fronts under Angus and
Lennox extended on both sides of the Avon. The Earl of Lennox was slain
by Sir James Hamilton after quarter had been granted to the former. His
sword was afterwards found, and may still be seen in the small museum at
Linlithgow. In this village Stephen Mitchell, tobacco and snuff
manufacturer, carried on business and had an old snuff mill here; he was
the first founder in Great Britain of a Free Library. Burns the Scottish
poet stayed a night here on August 25th, 1787.
We arrived at the royal and ancient burgh of Linlithgow at about nine
o'clock. The town, as Burns says, "carries the appearance of rude,
decayed, idle grandeur"; it is, however, very pleasantly situated, with
rich, fertile surroundings. There is a fine old royal palace here within
which, on December 7th, 1542, the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots was
born, whose beauty and magnificence have imbued her history with so deep
and melancholy an interest. Sir Walter Scott in "Marmion" sings the
praises of this palace as follows:--
Of all the palaces so fair,
Built for the royal dwelling.
In Scotland, far beyond compare
Linlithgow is excelling.
We fully endorsed the great Sir Walter's opinion, for it certainly was a
magnificent structure and occupied a grand situation, with a large lake
in front covering perhaps a hundred acres. We were now, however, getting
ravenously hungry, so we adjourned to the hotel for breakfast, which was
quickly served and almost as quickly eaten. The palace was not open
until ten o'clock, so we had to be content with a view of the exterior,
nor could we visit the fine old church, for we wanted to reach
Edinburgh, where we had decided to stay the week-end in order to see
some of the sights of the historic capital.
[Illustration: MONUMENT EXECUTED BY A ONE-ARMED MAN.]
A halo of deepest interest surrounded the history of Linlithgow, whose
every stone spoke volumes of the storied past. The traditions of the
place go far back into the dim shadowy regions where historic fact
merges into myth and legend. Solid ground is only reached about the
twelfth century. The English had possession of the palace in 1313, and
the way it was taken from them was probably unique in the history of
such places. The garrison was supplied with hay for the horses by a
local farmer named Binnock, who determined to strike a blow for the
freedom of his country. A new supply of hay had been ordered, and he
contrived to conceal eight men, well armed, under it. The team was
driven by a sturdy waggoner, who had a sharp axe concealed in his
clothing, while Binnock himself walked alongside. The porter, on seeing
their approach, lowered the drawbridge and raised the portcullis to
admit of the passage of the hay within the castle walls. Just as they
reached the centre of the gateway the driver drew his axe and cut off
the tackle that attached the oxen to the waggon, at the same time
striking the warder dead and shouting a preconcerted signal--"Call all!
Call all!" "The armed men jumped from amongst the hay, and a strong
party of Scots, who by arrangement were in ambush outside, rushed in and
attacked the astonished garrison, who were unprepared for the
onslaught--the load of hay being so placed that the gate could not be
closed nor the bridge raised--and so the Scots made themselves masters
of the palace."
[Illustration: WINDOW IN SOUTH CHANCEL OF ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH, WHERE
JAMES IV SAW THE VISION BEFORE THE BATTLE OF FLODDEN.]
The last event of any historical interest or importance connected with
this palace was the visit paid to it by Prince Charles Stewart in 1745;
it was destroyed in the following year.
The beautiful old Gothic church of St. Michael is situated close to the
palace. Perhaps no tradition connected with this church is more
interesting than the vision which is said to have appeared to James IV
while praying within St. Catherine's Aisle immediately before the Battle
of Flodden. According to Lindsay of Pitscottie, on whose authority the
tale rests, the King, being "in a very sad and dolorous mood, was making
his devotions to God to send him good chance and fortune in his voyage"
when a man "clad in ane blue gown" appeared to him, and with little
ceremony declared to the King that he had been sent to desire him "nocht
to pass whither he purposed," for if he did, things "would not fare well
with him or any who went with him." How little this warning was heeded
by the King is known to all readers of Scottish history. The "ghost,"
if it may be called so, was in all likelihood an attempt to frighten the
King, and it is certain that the tale would never have gained the weird
interest it possesses if Flodden Field had not proved so disastrous. It
has been helped to immortality by Sir Walter Scott, who in "Marmion" has
invested Pitscottie's antique prose with the charm of imperishable
poetry.
[Illustration: THE OLD CROSS WELL.]
One characteristic of the towns or villages in Scotland through which we
passed was their fine drinking-fountains, and we had admired a very fine
one at Falkirk that morning; but Linlithgow's fountain surpassed it--it
was indeed the finest we had seen, and a common saying occurred to us:
Glasgow for bells,
Linlithgow for wells.
Linlithgow has long been celebrated for its wells, some of them of
ancient date and closely associated with the history of the town. We
came to an old pump-well with the date 1720, and the words "Saint
Michael is kinde to straingers." As we considered ourselves to be
included in that category, we had a drink of the water.
[Illustration: THE TOWN HERALD, LINLITHGOW (A survival of the past)]
At the end of the village or town we passed the union workhouse, where
the paupers were busy digging up potatoes in the garden, and a short
distance farther on we passed a number of boys with an elderly man in
charge of them, who informed us they came from the "institute," meaning
the workhouse we had just seen, and that he took them out for a walk
once every week. Presently we met a shepherd who was employed by an
English farmer in the neighbourhood, and he told us that the man we had
met in charge of the boys was an old pensioner who had served fifty-two
years in the army, but as soon as he got his pension money he spent it,
as he couldn't keep it, the colour of his nose showing the direction in
which it went. It struck us the shepherd seemed inclined that way
himself, as he said if he had met us nearer a public-house he would have
"treated us to a good glass." We thought what a pity it was that men had
not a better eye to their own future interests than to spend all their
money "for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which
satisfieth not," and how many there were who would ultimately become
burdens to society who might have secured a comfortable competency for
old age by wisely investing their surplus earnings instead of allowing
them to flow down that awful channel of waste!
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S WELL.]
We w and elsewhere. Every one listened attentively,
for the Professor was a good speaker and he was frequently applauded by
his audience.
We had spent a very pleasant evening, and the schoolmaster accompanied
us nearly all the way to our lodgings, which we reached at 11 p.m.
(_Distance walked up to 2 p.m. twenty-four miles_.)
_Sunday, October 8th._
To judge by what we heard and saw, there were connected with Edinburgh
three great characters who stand out above all others in historic
importance--Mary Queen of Scots, John Knox, and Sir Walter Scott; but we
thought and read more about John Knox this day than either of the
others, possibly because it was Sunday. We attended service in three
different churches, and give the following particulars for the
information of our clerical and other friends who "search the
Scriptures," in the hope that they may find in the reading of the texts
food for thought.
[Illustration: EDINBURGH FROM THE CASTLE]
In the morning we went to the High Church. Preacher, the Rev. C. Giffin,
M.A. Text. 2 Corinthians viii. 13 and to the end.
In the afternoon to the Tron Church. Preacher, the Rev. James McGregor,
D.D. Text: Isaiah lvii., the last three verses, and Ephesians ii. and
the first clause of verse 14.
In the evening to the Wesleyan Chapel, Nicolson Square. Preacher, the
Rev. Dr. James, President of the Wesleyan Conference. Text: I
Corinthians ii. 1, 2.
The excellence of the sermons, and the able way in which they had been
prepared and were delivered, gave us the impression that rivalry existed
between the ministers of the different churches as to which of them
could preach the best sermon. They were all fine orations, carefully
thought out and elaborated, especially that by Dr. James.
During the intervals between the services we walked about the city, and
again passed the splendid monument to Sir Walter Scott with the
following remarkable inscription, written by Lord Jeffery, beneath its
foundation stone:
_This Graven Plate, deposited in the base of a votive building on the
fifteenth day of August in the year of Christ 1840, and never likely
to see the light again till all the surrounding structures are
crumbled to dust by the decay of time, or by human or elemental
violence, may then testify to a distant posterity that his countrymen
began on that day to raise an effigy and architectural monument to
the memory of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., whose admirable writings were
then allowed to have given more delight and suggested better
feelings to a large class of readers in every rank of society than
those of any other author, with the exception of Shakespeare alone,
and which were, therefore, thought likely to be remembered long after
this act of gratitude on the part of the first generation of his
admirers should be forgotten. He was born at Edinburgh 15th August
1771: and died at Abbotsford, 21st September 1832._
We also passed that ancient and picturesque mansion in the High Street
known as the "House of John Knox," in which the distinguished reformer
died in 1572. Born in the year 1505, it was he who, in the reign of Mary
Queen of Scots, stirred Scotland to mighty religious impulses, boldly
denouncing Mary as a Papist and a Jezebel. How he escaped being beheaded
or burned or assassinated was, considering the nature of the times in
which he lived, a mystery almost amounting to a miracle.
[Illustration: MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS]
Queen Mary sailed from France and landed at Leith, near Edinburgh, on
August 19th, 1561, where she was welcomed by the Scots as Dowager of
France, Queen of Scotland, and heiress of England, and was "gorgeouslie
and magnificentlie" received, according to Scottish ideas, by the lords
and ladies who came to meet and accompany her to Edinburgh; but,
according to the diary of one of the Queen's ladies, "when they saw them
mounted on such wretched little hackneys so wretchedly caparisoned they
were greatly disappointed, and thought of the gorgeous pomp and superb
palfreys they had been accustomed to in France, and the Queen began to
weep." On their arrival at Edinburgh they retired to rest in the Abbey,
"a fine building and not at all partaking of that country, but here came
under her window a crew of five or six hundred scoundrels from the city,
who gave her a serenade with wretched violins and little rebecks of
which there are enough in that country, and began to sing Psalms so
miserably mis-tuned and mis-timed that nothing could be worse. Alas!
what music, and what a night's rest!" What the lady would have written
if bagpipes had been included in the serenade we could not imagine, but
as these instruments of torture were not named, we concluded they must
have been invented at a later period.
[Illustration: JOHN KNOX'S HOUSE, EDINBURGH. "We also passed the ancient
and picturesque mansion in the High Street ... in which that
distinguished reformer died."]
Mary had been away in France for about thirteen years, and during that
time she had for her companions four young ladies of the same name as
her own and of about the same age, Mary Fleming, Mary Bethune, Mary
Livingstone, and Mary Seaton, all of whom formed part of her retinue on
her return to Scotland, where they were known as the "Queen's Marys."
[Illustration: GROTESQUE HEADS ON TRINITY COLLEGE CHURCH.]
She was a staunch adherent of the Romish Church, a fact which accounted
for many of her trials and mortifications. Mainly owing to the powerful
preaching of John Knox, many of the people of Scotland, both of high and
low degree, had become fierce opponents of that form of religion, which
they considered idolatrous. The first Sunday after her arrival was St.
Bartholomew's Day, August 24th, and preparations had been made to
celebrate mass in the Chapel Royal, at which the Queen was to be
present. But no sooner was this known, than a mob rushed towards the
edifice, exclaiming: "Shall the idol be again erected in the land?" and
shouting, "The idolatrous priests shall die the death!" On September 2nd
the Queen made her public entry into Edinburgh, and on the same day John
Knox had an audience with Mary, who, hearing of a furious sermon he had
preached against the Mass on the previous Sunday in St. Giles's Church,
thought that a personal interview would mitigate his sternness. The
Queen took him to task for his book entitled _The First Blast of the
Trumpet against the Monstrous Regimen of Women_, and his intolerance
towards every one who differed from him in opinion, and further
requested him to obey the precepts of the Scriptures, a copy of which
she perceived in his possession, and urged him to use more meekness in
his sermons. Knox in reply, it was said, "knocked so hastily upon her
heart," that he made her weep with tears of anguish and indignation, and
she said, "My subjects, it would appear, must obey you, and not me; I
must be subject to them, and not they to me!" Knox left Holyrood that
day convinced that Mary's soul was lost for ever, and that she despised
and mocked all exhortation against the Mass.
When Mary attended her first Parliament, accompanied by her ladies, the
Duke of Chatelherault carrying the Crown, the Earl of Argyll the
Sceptre, and the Earl of Moray the Sword, she appeared so graceful and
beautiful that the people who saw her were quite captivated, and many
exclaimed, "God save that sweet face!"
During this short Parliament Knox preached in St. Giles's Church, and
argued that they ought to demand from the Queen "that which by God's
Word they may justly require, and if she would not agree with them in
God, they were not bound to agree with her in the devil!" and concluded
with some observations respecting the Queen's rumoured marriage with
Don Carlos of Spain, declaring, "Whenever ye consent that an infidel,
and all Papists are infidels, shall be our head to our soverane, ye do
so far as in ye lieth to banisch Christ Jesus from his realme; ye bring
God's vengeance upon this country, a plague upon yourselves, and
perchance ye shall do no small discomfirt to your soverane."
[Illustration: JOHN KNOX.]
Mary heard of this furious attack upon her, which Knox admitted had
offended both Papists and Protestants, and he was again summoned to
Holyrood. As soon as Mary saw Knox she was greatly excited, and
exclaimed: "Never was prince handled as I am." "I have borne with you,"
she said to Knox, "in all your vigorous manner of speaking, both against
myself and my uncles; yea, I have sought your favour by all possible
means--I offered unto you presence and audience whenever it pleased you
to admonish me, and yet I cannot be quit of you. I vow to God I shall be
once avenged."
Knox answered, "True it is, Madam, your Grace and I have been at divers
controversies into the which I never perceived your Grace to be offended
at me; but when it shall please God to deliver you from that bondage of
darkness and error in the which ye have been nourished for the lack of
true doctrine, your majesty will find the liberty of my tongue nothing
offensive. Without the preaching-place, Madam, I am not master of
myself, for I must obey Him who commands me to speak plain, and flatter
no flesh upon the face of the earth."
The Queen asked him again, "What have ye to do with my marriage, or what
are ye in this commonwealth?" "A subject born within the same, Madam,"
was the stern reply; "and albeit I be neither Earl, Lord, nor Baron
within it, yet has God made me, how abject soever I may be in your eyes,
a profitable member within the same."
He was entering into some personal explanations, when the Queen ordered
him to leave the Cabinet, and remain in the ante-chamber till her
pleasure should be intimated. Here Knox found himself in the company of
the Queen's Marys and other ladies, to whom he gave a religious
admonition. "Oh, fair ladies," he said, "how pleasing is this life of
yours if it would ever abide, and then in the end that you pass to
Heaven with all this gay gear! But fie upon the knave Death, that will
come whether we will or not, and when he has laid on his arrest, the
foul worms will be busy with this flesh, be it never so fair and tender;
and the silly soul, I fear, shall be so feeble, that it can neither
carry with it gold, garnishing, targetting, pearl nor precious stones."
Several noblemen had accompanied Knox when he went to see the Queen, but
only Erskine of Dun was admitted to the Cabinet, and Lord Ochiltree
attended Knox in the ante-room while Queen Mary held a consultation with
Lord John Stuart and Erskine lasting nearly an hour, at the end of which
Erskine appeared and accompanied Knox home. Knox must have been in great
danger of losing his life owing to his fearless and determined daring in
rebuking those in high places, and indeed his life was afterwards
repeatedly aimed at; but Providence foiled all attempts to assassinate
him, and in the end he died a peaceful death. On November 9th, 1572, a
fortnight before he died, he preached his farewell sermon, the entire
congregation following his tottering footsteps to his home. When the
time came for him to die he asked for I Corinthians xv., and after that
had been read he remarked: "Is not that a comfortable chapter?" There
was also read to him Isaiah liii. Asked if he could hear, he replied: "I
hear, I thank God, and understand far better." He afterwards said to his
wife, "Read, where I cast my first anchor." Mrs. Knox knew what he
meant, and read to him his favourite seventeenth chapter of St. John's
Gospel. His friend Bannatyne, seeing that he was just about to depart,
and was becoming speechless, drew near to him saying, "Hast thou hope?"
and asked him if he heard to give them a sign that he died in peace.
Knox pointed upwards with two of his fingers, and thus he died without a
struggle. Truly one of the most remarkable men that ever lived in
Scotland, and whose end was peace.
[Illustration: OLD TOWN FROM CALTON HILL.]
A vast concourse of people attended his funeral, the nobility walking in
front of the procession, headed by Morton, who had been appointed Regent
of Scotland on the very day on which Knox died, and whose panegyric at
the grave was: "Here lieth a man who in his life never feared the face
of man."
St. Giles's was the first parochial church in Edinburgh, and its history
dates from the early part of the twelfth century. John Knox was
appointed its minister at the Reformation. When Edinburgh was created a
bishopric, the Church of St. Giles became the Cathedral of the diocese.
A remarkable incident happened at this church on Sunday, July 23rd,
1639, when King Charles I ordered the English service-book to be used.
It was the custom of the people in those days to bring their own seats
to church, in the shape of folding-stools, and just as Dean Hanney was
about to read the collect for the day, a woman in the congregation named
Jenny Geddes, who must have had a strong objection to this innovation,
astonished the dean by suddenly throwing her stool at his head. What
Jenny's punishment was for this violent offence we did not hear, but her
stool was still preserved together with John Knox's pulpit and other
relics.
[Illustration: ST. GILES'S CATHEDRAL, EDINBURGH.]
Although three hundred years save one had elapsed since John Knox
departed this life, his memory was still greatly revered in Edinburgh,
and his spirit still seemed to pervade the whole place and to dwell in
the hearts and minds of the people with whom we came in contact. A good
illustration of this was the story related by an American visitor. He
was being driven round the city, when the coachman pointed out the
residence of John Knox. "And who was John Knox?" he asked. The coachman
seemed quite shocked that he did not know John Knox, and, looking down
on him with an eye of pity, replied, in a tone of great solemnity,
"Deed, mawn, an' d'ye no read y'r Beeble!"
As we walked about the crowded streets of Edinburgh that Sunday evening
we did not see a single drunken person, a fact which we attributed to
the closing of public houses in Scotland on Sundays. We wished that a
similar enactment might be passed in England, for there many people
might habitually be seen much the worse for liquor on Sunday evenings,
to the great annoyance of those returning from their various places of
worship.
FOURTH WEEK'S JOURNEY
_Monday, October 9th_
There were some streets in Edinburgh called wynds, and it was in one of
these, the College Wynd, that Sir Walter Scott was born in the year
1771. It seemed a strange coincidence that the great Dr. Samuel Johnson
should have visited the city in the same year, and have been conducted
by Boswell and Principal Robertson to inspect the college along that
same wynd when the future Sir Walter Scott was only about two years old.
We had not yet ventured to explore one of these ancient wynds, as they
appeared to us like private passages between two rows of tall houses. As
we could not see the other end, we looked upon them as traps for the
unwary, but we mustered up our courage and decided to explore one of
them before leaving the town. We therefore rose early and selected one
of an antiquated appearance, but we must confess to a feeling of some
apprehension in entering it, as the houses on each side were of six to
eight storeys high, and so lofty that they appeared almost to touch each
other at the top. To make matters worse for us, there were a number of
poles projecting from the windows high above our track, for use on
washing days, when clothes were hung upon them to dry. We had not gone
very far, when my brother drew my attention to two women whose heads
appeared through opposite windows in the upper storeys, and who were
talking to each other across the wynd. On our approach we heard one of
them call to the other in a mischievous tone of voice, "See! there's twa
mair comin'!" We were rather nervous already, so we beat an ignominious
retreat, not knowing what might be coming on our devoted heads if we
proceeded farther. In the event of hostilities the two ladies were so
high up in the buildings, which were probably let in flats, that we
should never have been able to find them, and, like the stray sheep in
the Pass of St. Ninians, we might never have been found ourselves. We
were probably taken for a pair of sporting young medical students
instead of grave searchers after wisdom and truth. We therefore returned
to our hotel for the early breakfast that was waiting for us, and left
Edinburgh at 8.10 a.m. on our way towards Peebles.
[Illustration: QUEEN MARY'S BATH.]
[Illustration: CRAIGMILLAR CASTLE.]
We journeyed along an upward gradient with a view of Craigmillar Castle
to our left, obtaining on our way a magnificent view of the fine city we
had left behind us, with its castle, and the more lofty elevation known
as Arthur's Seat, from which portions of twelve counties might be seen.
It was a curiously shaped hill with ribs and bones crossing in various
directions, which geologists tell us are undoubted remains of an old
volcano. It certainly was a very active one, if one can judge by the
quantity of debris it threw out. There was an old saying, especially
interesting to ladies, that if you washed your face at sunrise on May
1st, with dew collected off the top of Arthur's Seat, you would be
beautiful for ever. We were either too late or too soon, as it was now
October 9th, and as we had a lot to see on that day, with not overmuch
time to see it in, we left the dew to the ladies, feeling certain,
however, that they would be more likely to find it there in October than
on May Day. When we had walked about five miles, we turned off the main
road to visit the pretty village of Rosslyn, or Roslin, with its three
great attractions: the chapel, the castle, and the dell. We found it
surrounded by woods and watered by a very pretty reach of the River Esk,
and as full of history as almost any place in Scotland.
The unique chapel was the great object of interest. The guide informed
us that it was founded in 1446 by William St. Clair, who also built the
castle, in which he resided in princely splendour. He must have been a
person of very great importance, for he had titles enough even to weary
a Spaniard, being Prince of Orkney, Duke of Oldenburg, Earl of Caithness
and Stratherne, Lord St. Clair, Lord Liddlesdale, Lord Admiral of the
Scottish Seas, Lord Chief Justice of Scotland, Lord Warden of the three
Marches, Baron of Roslin, Knight of the Cockle, and High Chancellor,
Chamberlain, and Lieutenant of Scotland!
The lords of Rosslyn were buried in their complete armour beneath the
chapel floor up to the year 1650, but afterwards in coffins. Sir Walter
Scott refers to them in his "Lay of the Last Minstrel" thus:--
There are twenty of Rosslyn's Barons bold
Lie buried within that proud Chapelle.
[Illustration: ROSSLYN CHAPEL--THE "MASTER AND 'PRENTICE PILLARS"]
[Illustration: THE "'PRENTICE PILLAR."]
There were more carvings in Rosslyn Chapel than in any place of equal
size that we saw in all our wanderings, finely executed, and with every
small detail beautifully finished and exquisitely carved. Foliage,
flowers, and ferns abounded, and religious allegories, such as the Seven
Acts of Mercy, the Seven Deadly Sins, the Dance of Death, and many
scenes from the Scriptures; it was thought that the original idea had
been to represent a Bible in stone. The great object of interest was the
magnificently carved pillar known as the "'Prentice Pillar," and in the
chapel were two carved heads, each of them showing a deep scar on the
right temple. To these, as well as the pillar, a melancholy memory was
attached, from which it appeared that the master mason received orders
that this pillar should be of exquisite workmanship and design. Fearing
his inability to carry out his instructions, he went abroad to Rome to
see what designs he could find for its execution. While he was away his
apprentice had a dream in which he saw a most beautiful column, and,
setting to work at once to carry out the design of his dream, finished
the pillar, a perfect marvel of workmanship. When his master returned
and found the pillar completed, he was so envious and enraged at the
success of his apprentice that he struck him on the head with his mallet
with such force that he killed him on the spot, a crime for which he was
afterwards executed.
We passed on to the castle across a very narrow bridge over a ravine,
but we did not find much there except a modern-looking house built with
some of the old stones, under which were four dungeons. Rosslyn was
associated with scenes rendered famous by Bruce and Wallace, Queen Mary
and Rizzio, Robert III and Queen Annabella Drummond, by Comyn and
Fraser, and by the St. Clairs, as well as by legendary stories of the
Laird of Gilmorton Grange, who set fire to the house in which were his
beautiful daughter and her lover, the guilty abbot, so that both of them
were burnt to death, and of the Lady of Woodhouselee, a white-robed,
restless spectre, who appeared with her infant in her arms. Then there
was the triple battle between the Scots and the English, in which the
Scots were victorious:
Three triumphs in a day!
Three hosts subdued by one!
Three armies scattered like the spray,
Beneath one vernal sun.
[Illustration: ROSSLYN CASTLE.]
Here, too, was the inn, now the caretaker's house, visited by Dr.
Johnson and Boswell in 1773, the poet Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy
in 1803, while some of the many other celebrities who called from time
to time had left their signatures on the window-panes. Burns and his
friend Nasmyth the artist breakfasted there on one occasion, and Burns
was so pleased with the catering that he rewarded the landlady by
scratching on a pewter plate the two following verses:
My blessings on you, sonsie wife,
I ne'er was here before;
You've gien us walth for horn and knife--
Nae heart could wish for more.
Heaven keep you free from care and strife.
Till far ayont four score;
And while I toddle on through life,
I'll ne'er gang bye your door.
Rosslyn at one time was a quiet place and only thought of in Edinburgh
when an explosion was heard at the Rosslyn gunpowder works. But many
more visitors appeared after Sir Walter Scott raised it to eminence by
his famous "Lay" and his ballad of "Rosabelle":
Seem'd all on fire that chapel proud.
Where Rosslyn's chiefs uncoffin'd lie.
Hawthornden was quite near where stood Ben Jonson's sycamore, and
Drummond's Halls, and Cyprus Grove, but we had no time to see the caves
where Sir Alexander Ramsay had such hairbreadth escapes. About the end
of the year 1618 Ben Jonson, then Poet Laureate of England, walked from
London to Edinburgh to visit his friend Taylor, the Thames waterman,
commonly known as the Water Poet, who at that time was at Leith. In the
January following he called to see the poet Drummond of Hawthornden, who
was more frequently called by the name of the place where he lived than
by his own. He found him sitting in front of his house, and as he
approached Drummond welcomed him with the poetical salutation:
"Welcome! welcome! Royal Ben,"
to which Jonson responded,
"Thank ye, thank ye, Hawthornden."
[Illustration: HAWTHORNDEN.]
The poet Drummond was born in 1585, and died in 1649, his end being
hastened by grief at the execution of Charles I. A relative erected a
monument to his memory in 1784, to which the poet Young added the
following lines:
O sacred solitude, divine retreat,
Choice of the prudent, envy of the great!
By the pure stream, or in the waving shade
I court fair Wisdom, that celestial maid;
Here from the ways of men, laid safe ashore,
I smile to hear the distant tempest roar;
Here, blest with health, with business unperplex'd,
This life I relish, and secure the next.
Rosslyn Glen was a lovely place, almost like a fairy scene, and we
wondered if Burns had it in his mind when he wrote:
Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;
Far dearer to me yon lone glen of green bracken,
Wi' the burn stealing under the long yellow broom.
[Illustration: PENNICUICK HOUSE COURT]
We walked very quietly and quickly past the gunpowder works, lest
conversation might cause an explosion that would put an end to our
walking expedition and ourselves at the same time, and regained the
highway at a point about seven miles from Edinburgh. Presently we came
to the Glencorse Barracks, some portions of which adjoined our road,
and, judging from the dress and speech of the solitary sentinel who was
pacing to and fro in front of the entrance, we concluded that a regiment
of Highlanders must be stationed there. He informed us that in the time
of the French Wars some of the prisoners were employed in making Scotch
banknotes at a mill close by, and that portions of the barracks were
still used for prisoners, deserters, and the like. Passing on to
Pennicuick, we crossed a stream that flowed from the direction of the
Pentland Hills, and were informed that no less than seven paper mills
were worked by that stream within a distance of five miles. Here we saw
a monument which commemorated the interment of 309 French prisoners who
died during the years 1811 to 1814, a list of their names being still in
existence. This apparently large death-rate could not have been due to
the unhealthiness of the Glencorse Barracks, where they were confined,
for it was by repute one of the healthiest in the kingdom, the road
being 600 feet or more above sea-level, and the district generally,
including Pennicuick, considered a desirable health-resort for persons
suffering from pulmonary complaints. We stayed a short time here for
refreshments, and outside the town we came in contact with two young men
who were travelling a mile or two on our way, with whom we joined
company. We were giving them an outline of our journey and they were
relating to us their version of the massacre of Glencoe, when suddenly a
pretty little squirrel crossed our path and ran into a wood opposite.
This caused the massacre story to be ended abruptly and roused the
bloodthirsty instinct of the two Scots, who at once began to throw
stones at it with murderous intent. We watched the battle as the
squirrel jumped from branch to branch and passed from one tree to
another until it reached one of rather large dimensions. At this stage
our friends' ammunition, which they had gathered hastily from the road,
became exhausted, and we saw the squirrel looking at them from behind
the trunk of the tree as they went to gather another supply. Before they
were again ready for action the squirrel disappeared. We were pleased
that it escaped, for our companions were good shots. They explained to
us that squirrels were difficult animals to kill with a stone, unless
they were hit under the throat. Stone-throwing was quite a common
practice for country boys in Scotland, and many of them became so expert
that they could hit small objects at a considerable distance. We were
fairly good hands at it ourselves. It was rather a cruel sport, but
loose stones were always plentiful on the roads--for the surfaces were
not rolled, as in later years--and small animals, such as dogs and cats
and all kinds of birds, were tempting targets. Dogs were the greatest
sufferers, as they were more aggressive on the roads, and as my brother
had once been bitten by one it was woe to the dog that came within his
reach. Such was the accuracy acquired in the art of stone-throwing at
these animals, that even stooping down in the road and pretending to
lift a stone often caused the most savage dog to retreat quickly. We
parted from the two Scots without asking them to finish their story of
Glencoe, as the details were already fixed in our memories. They told us
our road skirted a moor which extended for forty-seven miles or nearly
as far as Glasgow, but we did not see much of the moor as we travelled
in a different direction.
[Illustration: "JOUGS" AT A CHURCH, PEEBLESSHIRE.]
We passed through Edleston, where the church was dedicated to St. Mungo,
reminding us of Mungo Park, the famous African traveller, and, strangely
enough, it appeared we were not far away from where he was born. In the
churchyard here was a tombstone to the memory of four ministers named
Robertson, who followed each other in a direct line extending to 160
years. There was also to be seen the ancient "Jougs," or iron rings in
which the necks of criminals were enclosed and fastened to a wall or
post or tree. About three miles before reaching Peebles we came to the
Mansion of Cringletie, the residence of the Wolfe-Murray family. The
name of Wolfe had been adopted because one of the Murrays greatly
distinguished himself at the Battle of Quebec, and on the lawn in front
of the house was a cannon on which the following words had been
engraved:
_His Majesty's Ship Royal George of 108 guns, sunk at Spithead 29th
August 1782. This gun, a 32 pounder, part of the armament of the
Royal George, was fished up from the wreck of that ship by Mr. Deans,
the zealous and enterprising Diver, on the 15th November 1836, and
was presented by the Master-General and Board of Ordnance to General
Durham of Largo, the elder Brother of Sir Philip Charles Henderson
Durham, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Military Order of
the Bath, Knight Commander of the Most Ancient Military Order of
Merit of France, Admiral of the White Squadron of Her Majesty's
Fleet, and Commander-in-Chief of the Port of Portsmouth, 1836._
Sir Philip was serving as a lieutenant in the _Royal George_, and was
actually on duty as officer of the watch upon deck when the awful
catastrophe took place. He was providentially and miraculously saved,
but nearly 900 persons perished, amongst them the brave Admiral
Kempenfelt, whose flag went down with the ship.
The wreck of the _Royal George_ was the most awful disaster that had
hitherto happened to the Royal Navy. William Cowper the poet, as soon as
the sad news was brought to him, wrote a solemn poem entitled "The Loss
of the _Royal George_," from which it seems that Admiral Kempenfelt was
in his cabin when the great ship suddenly foundered.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
* * * * *
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone:
His last sea-fight is fought,
His work of glory done.
* * * * *
Toll for the brave!
The brave that are no more.
All sunk beneath the wave.
Fast by their native shore!
It was nearly dark when we entered the town of Peebles, where we called
at the post office for letters, and experienced some difficulty at first
in obtaining lodgings, seeing that it was the night before the Hiring
Fair. We went first to the Temperance Hotel, but all the beds had been
taken down to make room for the great company they expected on the
morrow; eventually we found good accommodation at the "Cross Keys Inn,"
formerly the residence of a country laird.
We had seen notices posted about the town informing the public that, by
order of the Magistrates, who saw the evil of intoxicating drinks,
refreshments were to be provided the following day at the Town Hall. The
Good Templars had also issued a notice that they were having a
tea-party, for which of course we could not stay.
We found Peebles a most interesting place, and the neighbourhood
immediately surrounding it was full of history. The site on which our
hotel had been built was that of the hostelage belonging to the Abbey of
Arbroath in 1317, the monks granting the hostelage to William Maceon, a
burgess of Peebles, on condition that he would give to them, and their
attorneys, honest lodging whenever business brought them to that town.
He was to let them have the use of the hall, with tables and trestles,
also the use of the spence (pantry) and buttery, sleeping chambers, a
decent kitchen, and stables, and to provide them with the best candles
of Paris, with rushes for the floor and salt for the table. In later
times it was the town house of Williamson of Cardrona, and in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries became one of the principal inns,
especially for those who, like ourselves, were travelling from the
north, and was conducted by a family named Ritchie. Sir Walter Scott,
who at that time resided quite near, frequented the house, which in his
day was called the "Yett," and we were shown the room he sat in. Miss
Ritchie, the landlady in Scott's day, who died in 1841, was the
prototype of "Meg Dobs," the inn being the "Cleikum Inn" of his novel
_St. Ronan's Well_.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH AND MONASTERY OF THE HOLY CROSS, PEEBLES, AD
1261.]
There was a St. Mungo's Well in Peebles, and Mungo Park was intimately
associated with the town. He was born at Foulshiels, Yarrow, in the same
year as Sir Walter Scott, 1771, just one hundred years before our visit,
and, after studying for the Church, adopted medicine as his profession.
He served a short time with a doctor at Selkirk, before completing his
course at the University of Edinburgh, and sailed in 1792 for the East
Indies in the service of the East India Company. Later he joined an
association for the promotion of discovery in Africa, and in 1795 he
explored the basin of the Niger. In 1798 he was in London, and in 1801
began practice as a doctor in Peebles. He told Sir Walter Scott, after
passing through one of the severe winters in Peebleshire, that he would
rather return to the wilds of Africa than pass another winter there. He
returned to London in December 1803 to sail with another expedition, but
its departure was delayed for a short time, so he again visited Peebles,
and astonished the people there by bringing with him a black man named
"Sidi Omback Boubi," who was to be his tutor in Arabic. Meantime, in
1779, he had published a book entitled _Travels in the Interior of
Africa_, which caused a profound sensation at the time on account of the
wonderful stories it contained of adventures in what was then an unknown
part of the world. This book of "Adventures of Mungo Park" was highly
popular and extensively read throughout the country, by ourselves
amongst the rest.
[Illustration: THE BLACK DWARF.]
It was not until January 29th, 1805, that the expedition left Spithead,
and before Mungo Park left Peebles he rode over to Clovenfords, where
Sir Walter Scott was then residing, to stay a night with him at
Ashestiel. On the following morning Sir Walter accompanied him a short
distance on the return journey, and when they were parting where a small
ditch divided the moor from the road Park's horse stumbled a little. Sir
Walter said, "I am afraid, Mungo, that is a bad omen," to which Park
replied, smiling, "Friets (omens) follow those that look for them," and
so they parted for ever. In company with his friends Anderson and Scott
he explored the rivers Gambia and Niger, but his friends died, and Dr.
Park himself was murdered by hostile natives who attacked his canoe in
the River Niger.
Quite near our lodgings was the house where this famous African
traveller lived and practised blood-letting as a surgeon, and where
dreams of the tent in which he was once a prisoner and of dark faces
came to him at night, while the door at which his horse was tethered as
he went to see Sir Walter Scott, and the window out of which he put his
head when knocked up in the night, were all shown as objects of interest
to visitors. Mungo had at least one strange patient, and that was the
Black Dwarf, David Ritchie, who lies buried close to the gate in the old
churchyard. This was a horrid-looking creature, who paraded the country
as a privileged beggar. He affected to be a judge of female beauty, and
there was a hole in the wall of his cottage through which the fair
maidens had to look, a rose being passed through if his fantastic
fancies were pleased; but if not, the tiny window was closed in their
faces. He was known to Sir Walter Scott, who adopted his name in one of
his novels, _The Bowed Davie of the Windus_. His cottage, which was
practically in the same state as at the period of David Ritchie's death,
bore a tablet showing that it had been restored by the great Edinburgh
publishers W. and R. Chambers, who were natives of Peebles, and worded:
"In memory D.R., died 1811. W. and R. Chambers, 1845."
Dr. Pennicuick, who flourished A.D. 1652-1722, had written:
Peebles, the Metropolis of the shire,
Six times three praises doth from me require;
Three streets, three ports, three bridges, it adorn,
And three old steeples by three churches borne,
Three mills to serve the town in time of need.
On Peebles water, and on River Tweed,
Their arms are _proper_, and point forth their meaning,
Three salmon fishes nimbly counter swimming;
but there were other "Threes" connected with Peebles both before and
after the doctor's time: "The Three Tales of the Three Priests of
Peebles," supposed to have been told about the year 1460 before a
blazing fire at the "Virgin Inn."
There were also the Three Hopes buried in the churchyard, whose
tombstone records:
Here lie three Hopes enclosed within,
Death's prisoners by Adam's sin;
Yet rest in hope that they shall be
Set by the Second Adam free.
And there were probably other triplets, but when my brother suggested
there were also three letter e's in the name of Peebles, I reminded him
that it was closing-time, and also bed-time, so we rested that night in
an old inn such as Charles Dickens would have been delighted to
patronise.
(_Distance walked twenty-five miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 10th._
This was the day of the Great Peebles Fair, and everybody was awake
early, including ourselves. We left the "Cross Keys" hotel at six
o'clock in the morning, and a very cold one it was, for there had been a
sharp frost during the night. The famous old Cross formerly stood near
our inn, and the Cross Church close at hand, or rather all that remained
of them after the wars. In spite of the somewhat modern appearance of
the town, which was probably the result of the business element
introduced by the establishment of the woollen factories, Peebles was in
reality one of the ancient royal burghs, and formerly an ecclesiastical
centre of considerable importance, for in the reign of Alexander III
several very old relics were said to have been found, including what was
supposed to be a fragment of the true Cross, and with it the calcined
bones of St. Nicholas, who suffered in the Roman persecution, A.D. 294.
On the strength of these discoveries the king ordered a magnificent
church to be erected, which caused Peebles to be a Mecca for pilgrims,
who came there from all parts to venerate the relics. The building was
known as the Cross Church, where a monastery was founded at the desire
of James III in 1473 and attached to the church, in truly Christian
spirit, one-third of its revenues being devoted to the redemption of
Christian captives who remained in the hands of the Turks after the
Crusades.
[Illustration: ST. ANDREWS CHURCH, PEEBLES, A.D. 1195.]
If we had visited the town in past ages, there would not have been any
fair on October 10th, since the Great Fair, called the Beltane Festival,
was then held on May Day; but after the finding of the relics it was
made the occasion on which to celebrate the "Finding of the Cross,"
pilgrims and merchants coming from all parts to join the festivities and
attend the special celebrations at the Cross Church. On the occasion of
a Beltane Fair it was the custom to light a fire on the hill, round
which the young people danced and feasted on cakes made of milk and
eggs. We thought Beltane was the name of a Sun-god, but it appeared that
it was a Gaelic word meaning Bel, or Beal's-fire, and probably
originated from the Baal mentioned in Holy Writ.
As our next great object of interest was Abbotsford, the last house
inhabited by Sir Walter Scott, our course lay alongside the River Tweed.
We were fortunate in seeing the stream at Peebles, which stood at the
entrance to one of the most beautiful stretches in the whole of its
length of 103 miles, 41 of which lay in Peeblesshire. The twenty miles
along which we walked was magnificent river scenery.
[Illustration: THE SEAL OF THE CROSS CHURCH.]
We passed many castles and towers and other ancient fortifications along
its banks, the first being at Horsburgh, where the castle looked down
upon a grass field called the Chapelyards, on which formerly stood the
chapel and hospice of the two saints, Leonard and Lawrence. At this
hospice pilgrims from England were lodged when on their way to Peebles
to attend the feasts of the "Finding of the Cross" and the "Exaltation
of the Cross," which were celebrated at Beltane and Roodmass
respectively, in the ancient church and monastery of the Holy Cross. It
was said that King James I of England on his visits to Peebles was also
lodged here, and it is almost certain the Beltane Sports suggested to
him his famous poem, "Peebles to the Play," one of its lines being:
Hope Kailzie, and Cardrona, gathered out thickfold,
Singing "Hey ho, rumbelow, the young folks were full bold."
both of which places could be seen from Horsburgh Castle looking across
the river.
We saw the Tower of Cardrona, just before entering the considerable
village, or town, of Innerleithen at six miles from Peebles, and
although the time was so early, we met many people on their way to the
fair. Just before reaching Innerleithen we came to a sharp deep bend in
the river, which we were informed was known as the "Dirt Pot" owing to
its black appearance. At the bottom of this dark depth the silver bells
of Peebles were supposed to be lying. We also saw Glennormiston House,
the residence of William Chambers, who, with his brother, Robert,
founded _Chambers's Journal_ of wide-world fame, and authors, singly and
conjointly, of many other volumes. The two brothers were both
benefactors to their native town of Peebles, and William became Lord
Provost of Edinburgh, and the restorer of its ancient Cathedral of St.
Giles's. His brother Robert died earlier in that very year in which we
were walking. We reached Innerleithen just as the factory operatives
were returning from breakfast to their work at the woollen factories,
and they seemed quite a respectable class of people. Here we called at
the principal inn for our own breakfast, for which we were quite ready,
but we did not know then that Rabbie Burns had been to Innerleithen,
where, as he wrote, he had from a jug "a dribble o' drink," or we should
have done ourselves the honour of calling at the same place. At
Innerleithen we came to another "Bell-tree Field," where the bell hung
on the branch of a tree to summon worshippers to church, and there were
also some mineral springs which became famous after the publication of
Sir Walter Scott's novel, _St. Ronan's Well_.
[Illustration: TRAQUAIR HOUSE.]
Soon after leaving Innerleithen we could see Traquair House towering
above the trees by which it was surrounded. Traquair was said to be the
oldest inhabited house in Scotland. Sir Walter Scott knew it well, it
being quite near to Ashiestiel, where he wrote "The Lay of the Last
Minstrel," "Marmion," and "The Lady of the Lake." It was one of the
prototypes of "Tully Veolan" in his _Waverley_. There was no abode in
Scotland more quaint and curious than Traquair House, for it was
turreted, walled, buttressed, windowed, and loopholed, all as in the
days of old. Within were preserved many relics of the storied past and
also of royalty. Here was the bed on which Queen Mary slept in 1566;
here also the oaken cradle of the infant King James VI. The library was
rich in valuable and rare books and MSS. and service books of the
twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries in beautiful penmanship
upon fine vellum. The magnificent avenue was grass-grown, the gates had
not been opened for many years, while the pillars of the gateway were
adorned with two huge bears standing erect and bearing the motto: "Judge
Nocht." Magnificent woods adorned the grounds, remains of the
once-famous forest of Ettrick, said to be the old classical forest of
Caledon of the days of King Arthur.
Here was also Flora Hill, with its beautiful woods, where Hogg, the
Ettrick Shepherd, lays the scene of his exquisite poem "Kilmeny" in the
_Queen's Wake_, where--
Bonnie Kilmeny gae'd up the Glen,
But it wisna to meet Duneira's men, etc.
Through beautiful scenery we continued alongside the Tweed, and noticed
that even the rooks could not do without breakfast, for they were busy
in a potato field. We were amused to see them fly away on our approach,
some of them with potatoes in their mouths, and, like other thieves,
looking quite guilty.
Presently we came to a solitary fisherman standing knee-deep in the
river, with whom we had a short conversation. He said he was fishing for
salmon, which ascended the river from Berwick about that time of the
year and returned in May. We were rather amused at his mentioning the
return journey, as from the frantic efforts he was making to catch the
fish he was doing his best to prevent them from coming back again. He
told us he had been fishing there since daylight that morning, and had
caught nothing. By way of sympathy my brother told him a story of two
young men who walked sixteen miles over the hills to fish in a stream.
They stayed that night at the nearest inn, and started out very early
the next morning. When they got back to the hotel at night they wrote
the following verse in the visitors' book:
Hickory dickory dock!
We began at six o'clock,
We fished till night without a bite.
Hickory dickory dock!
This was a description, he said, of real fishermen's luck, but whether
the absence of the "bite" referred to the fishermen or to the fish was
not quite clear. It had been known to apply to both.
Proceeding further we met a gentleman walking along the road, of whom we
made inquiries about the country we were passing through. He told us
that the castle we could see across the river was named "Muckle Mouthed
Meg." A certain man in ancient times, having offended against the laws,
was given a choice for a sentence by the King of Scotland---either he
must marry Muckle Mouthed Meg, a woman with a very large mouth, or
suffer death. He chose the first, and the pair lived together in the old
castle for some years. We told him we were walking from John o' Groat's
to Land's End, but when he said he had passed John o' Groat's in the
train, we had considerable doubts as to the accuracy of his statements,
for there was no railway at all in the County of Caithness in which John
o' Groat's was situated. We therefore made further inquiries about the
old castle, and were informed that the proper name of it was Elibank
Castle, and that it once belonged to Sir Gideon Murray, who one night
caught young Willie Scott of Oakwood Tower trying to "lift the kye." The
lowing of the cattle roused him up, and with his retainers he drove off
the marauders, while his lady watched the fight from the battlement of
the Tower. Willie, or, to be more correct, Sir William Scott, Junr., was
caught and put in the dungeon. Sir Gideon Murray decided to hang him,
but his lady interposed: "Would ye hang the winsome Laird o' Harden,"
she said, "when ye hae three ill-favoured daughters to marry?" Sir
Willie was one of the handsomest men of his time, and when the men
brought the rope to hang him he was given the option of marrying Muckle
Mou'd Meg or of being hanged with a "hempen halter." It was said that
when he first saw Meg he said he preferred to be hanged, but he found
she improved on closer acquaintance, and so in three days' time a
clergyman said, "Wilt thou take this woman here present to be thy lawful
wife?" knowing full well what the answer must be. Short of other
materials, the marriage contract was written with a goose quill on the
parchment head of a drum. Sir William found that Meg made him a very
good wife in spite of her wide mouth, and they lived happily together,
the moral being, we supposed, that it is not always the prettiest girl
that makes the best wife.
Shortly afterwards we left the River Tweed for a time while we walked
across the hills to Galashiels, and on our way to that town we came to a
railway station near which were some large vineries. A carriage was
standing at the entrance to the gardens, where two gentlemen were buying
some fine bunches of grapes which we could easily have disposed of, for
we were getting rather hungry, but as they did not give us the chance,
we walked on. Galashiels was formerly only a village, the "shiels"
meaning shelters for sheep, but it had risen to importance owing to its
woollen factories. It was now a burgh, boasting a coat-of-arms on which
was represented a plum-tree with a fox on either side, and the motto,
"Sour plums of Galashiels." The origin of this was an incident that
occurred in 1337, in the time of Edward III, when some Englishmen who
were retreating stopped here to eat some wild plums. While they were so
engaged they were attacked by a party of Scots with swords, who killed
every one of them, throwing their bodies into a trench afterwards known
as the "Englishman's Syke." We passed a road leading off to the left to
Stow, where King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were said to
have defeated the Heathens. We left Galashiels by the Melrose Road, and,
after walking about a mile and a half, we turned aside to cross the
River Tweed, not by a ferry, as that was against our rule, but by a
railway bridge. No doubt this was against the railway company's by-laws
and regulations, but it served our purpose, and we soon reached
Abbotsford, that fine mansion, once the residence of the great Sir
Walter Scott, the king of novelists, on the building of which he had
spent a great amount of money, and the place of his death September
21st, 1832.
[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD FROM THE RIVER.]
Abbotsford, including the gardens, park, walks and woods, was all his
own creation, and was so named by him because the River Tweed was
crossed at that point by the monks on their way to and from Melrose
Abbey in the olden times.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT.]
We found the house in splendid condition and the garden just as Sir
Walter had left it. We were shown through the hall, study, library, and
drawing-room, and even his last suit of clothes, with his white beaver
hat, was carefully preserved under a glass case. We saw much armour, the
largest suit belonging formerly to Sir John Cheney, the biggest man who
fought at the battle of Bosworth Field. The collection of arms gathered
out of all ages and countries was said to be the finest in the world,
including Rob Roy Macgregor's gun, sword, and dirk, the Marquis of
Montrose's sword, and the rifle of Andreas Hofer the Tyrolese patriot.
Amongst these great curios was the small pocket-knife used by Sir
Walter when he was a boy. We were shown the presents given to him from
all parts of the kingdom, and from abroad, including an ebony suite of
furniture presented to him by King George IV. There were many portraits
and busts of himself, and his wife and children, including a marble bust
of himself by Chantrey, the great sculptor, carved in the year 1820. The
other portraits included one of Queen Elizabeth, another of Rob Roy; a
painting of Queen Mary's head, after it had been cut off at Fotheringay,
and a print of Stothard's _Canterbury Pilgrims_. We also saw an iron box
in which Queen Mary kept her money for the poor, and near this was her
crucifix. In fact, the place reminded us of some great museum, for there
were numberless relics of antiquity stored in every nook and corner, and
in the most unlikely places. We were sorry we had not time to stay and
take a longer survey, for the mansion and its surroundings form one of
the great sights of Scotland, whose people revere the memory of the
great man who lived there.
[Illustration: SIR WALTER SCOTT'S STUDY.]
The declining days of Sir Walter were not without sickness and sorrow,
for he had spent all the money obtained by the sale of his books on this
palatial mansion. After a long illness, and as a last resource, he was
taken to Italy; but while there he had another apoplectic attack, and
was brought home again, only just in time to die. He expressed a wish
that Lockhart, his son-in-law, should read to him, and when asked from
what book, he answered, "Need you ask? There is but one." He chose the
fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel, and when it was ended, he said,
"Well, this is a great comfort: I have followed you distinctly, and I
feel as if I were yet to be myself again." In an interval of
consciousness he said, "Lockhart! I may have but a minute to speak to
you, my dear; be a good man, be virtuous, be religious, be a good man.
Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here."
A friend who was present at the death of Sir Walter wrote: "It was a
beautiful day--so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly
still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle
ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible--as we
kneeled around his bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes."
We could imagine the wish that would echo in more than one mind as Sir
Walter's soul departed, perhaps through one of the open windows, "Let me
die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his."
So coldly sweet, so deadly fair,
We start, for soul is wanting there;
It is the loneliness in death
That parts not quite with parting breath,
But beauty with that fearful bloom,
The hue which haunts it to the tomb,
Expression's last receding ray;
A gilded halo hov'ring round decay.
[Illustration: ABBOTSFORD.]
We passed slowly through the garden and grounds, and when we reached the
road along which Sir Walter Scott had so often walked, we hurried on to
see the old abbey of Melrose, which was founded by King David I. On our
way we passed a large hydropathic establishment and an asylum not quite
completed, and on reaching Melrose we called at one of the inns for tea,
where we read a description by Sir Walter of his "flitting" from
Ashiestiel, his former residence, to his grand house at Abbotsford. The
flitting took place at Whitsuntide in 1812, so, as he died in 1832, he
must have lived at Abbotsford about twenty years. He was a great
collector of curios, and wrote a letter describing the comical scene
which took place on that occasion. "The neighbours," he wrote, "have
been very much delighted with the procession of furniture, in which old
swords, bows, targets, and lances made a very conspicuous show. A family
of turkeys was accommodated within the helmet of some _preux chevalier_
of ancient Border fame, and the very cows, for aught I know, were
bearing banners and muskets. I assure you that this caravan, attended by
a dozen ragged, rosy, peasant children carrying fishing-rods and spears,
and leading ponies, greyhounds, and spaniels, would, as it crossed the
Tweed, have furnished no bad subject for the pencil."
[Illustration: THE CHANCEL, MELROSE ABBEY.]
Melrose Abbey was said to afford the finest specimen of Gothic
architecture and Gothic sculpture of which Scotland could boast, and the
stone of which it had been built, though it had resisted the weather for
many ages, retained perfect sharpness, so that even the most minute
ornaments seemed as entire as when they had been newly wrought. In some
of the cloisters there were representations of flowers, leaves, and
vegetables carved in stone with "accuracy and precision so delicate that
it almost made visitors distrust their senses when they considered the
difficulty of subjecting so hard a substance to such intricate and
exquisite modulation." This superb convent was dedicated to St. Mary,
and the monks were of the Cistercian Order, of whom the poet wrote:
Oh, the monks of Melrose made gude kail (broth)
On Fridays when they fasted;
Nor wanted they gude beef and ale,
So lang's their neighbours' lasted.
There were one hundred monks at Melrose in the year 1542, and it was
supposed that in earlier times much of the carving had been done by
monks under strong religious influences. The rose predominated amongst
the carved flowers, as it was the abbot's favourite flower, emblematic
of the locality from which the abbey took its name. The curly green, or
kale, which grew in nearly every garden in Scotland, was a very
difficult plant to sculpture, but was so delicately executed here as to
resemble exactly the natural leaf; and there was a curious gargoyle
representing a pig playing on the bagpipes, so this instrument must have
been of far more ancient origin than we had supposed when we noticed its
absence from the instruments recorded as having been played when Mary
Queen of Scots was serenaded in Edinburgh on her arrival in Scotland.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO MELROSE ABBEY.]
Under the high altar were buried the remains of Alexander II, the dust
of Douglas the hero of Otterburn, and others of his illustrious and
heroic race, as well as the remains of Sir Michael Scott. Here too was
buried the heart of King Robert the Bruce. It appeared that Bruce told
his son that he wished to have his heart buried at Melrose; but when he
was ready to die and his friends were assembled round his bedside, he
confessed to them that in his passion he had killed Comyn with his own
hand, before the altar, and had intended, had he lived, to make war on
the Saracens, who held the Holy Land, for the evil deeds he had done. He
requested his dearest friend, Lord James Douglas, to carry his heart to
Jerusalem and bury it there. Douglas wept bitterly, but as soon as the
king was dead he had his heart taken from his body, embalmed, and
enclosed in a silver case which he had made for it, and wore it
suspended from his neck by a string of silk and gold. With some of the
bravest men in Scotland he set out for Jerusalem, but, landing in Spain,
they were persuaded to take part in a battle there against the Saracens.
Douglas, seeing one of his friends being hard pressed by the enemy, went
to his assistance and became surrounded by the Moors himself. Seeing no
chance of escape, he took from his neck the heart of Bruce, and speaking
to it as he would have done to Bruce if alive, said, "Pass first in the
fight as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee or die."
With these words he threw the king's heart among the enemy, and rushing
forward to the place where it fell, was there slain, and his body was
found lying on the silver case. Most of the Scots were slain in this
battle with the Moors, and they that remained alive returned to
Scotland, the charge of Bruce's heart being entrusted to Sir Simon
Lockhard of Lee, who afterwards for his device bore on his shield a
man's heart with a padlock upon it, in memory of Bruce's heart which was
padlocked in the silver case. For this reason, also, Sir Simon's name
was changed from Lockhard to Lockheart, and Bruce's heart was buried in
accordance with his original desire at Melrose.
Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, who also lies buried in the abbey,
flourished in the thirteenth century. His great learning, chiefly
acquired in foreign countries, together with an identity in name, had
given rise to a certain confusion, among the earlier historians, between
him and Michael Scott the "wondrous wizard and magician" referred to by
Dante in Canto xxmo of the "Inferno." Michael Scott studied such
abstruse subjects as judicial astrology, alchemy, physiognomy, and
chiromancy, and his commentary on Aristotle was considered to be of such
a high order that it was printed in Venice in 1496. Sir Walter Scott
referred to Michael Scott:
The wondrous Michael Scott
A wizard, of such dreaded fame,
That when in Salamanca's Cave
Him listed his magic wand to wave
The bells would ring in Notre Dame,
and he explained the origin of this by relating the story that Michael
on one occasion when in Spain was sent as an Ambassador to the King of
France to obtain some concessions, but instead of going in great state,
as usual on those occasions, he evoked the services of a demon in the
shape of a huge black horse, forcing it to fly through the air to Paris.
The king was rather offended at his coming in such an unceremonious
mannere seventy winters old;
A palmer's amice wrapp'd him round,
With a wrought Spanish baldric bound,
Like a pilgrim from beyond the sea:
His left hand held his Book of Might;
A silver cross was in his right;
The lamp was placed beside his knee:
High and majestic was his look,
At which the fellest fiends had shook.
And all unruffled was his face:
They trusted his soul had gotten grace.
* * * * *
Often had William of Deloraine
Rode through the battle's bloody plain,
And trampled down the warriors slain,
And neither known remorse nor awe;
Yet now remorse and awe he own'd;
His breath came thick, his head swam round.
When this strange scene of death he saw.
Bewilder'd and unnerved he stood.
And the priest pray'd fervently and loud:
With eyes averted prayed he;
He might not endure the sight to see.
Of the man he had loved so brotherly.
* * * * *
And when the priest his death-prayer had pray'd,
Thus unto Deloraine he said:--
"Now, speed thee what thou hast to do,
Or, Warrior, we may dearly rue;
For those, thou may'st not look upon,
Are gathering fast round the yawning stone!"--
Then Deloraine, in terror, took
From the cold hand the Mighty Book,
With iron clasp'd, and with iron bound:
He thought, as he took it, the dead man frown'd;
But the glare of the sepulchral light,
Perchance, had dazzled the Warrior's sight.
* * * * *
When the huge stone sunk o'er the tomb.
The night return'd in double gloom;
For the moon had gone down, and the stars were few;
And, as the Knight and Priest withdrew.
With wavering steps and dizzy brain,
They hardly might the postern gain.
'Tis said, as through the aisles they pass'd,
They heard strange noises on the blast;
And through the cloister-galleries small,
Which at mid-height thread the chancel wall,
Loud sobs, and laughter louder, ran,
And voices unlike the voices of man;
As if the fiends kept holiday,
Because these spells were brought to day.
I cannot tell how the truth may be;
I say the tale as 'twas said to me.
* * * * *
"Now, hie thee hence," the Father said,
"And when we are on death-bed laid,
O may our dear Ladye, and sweet St. John,
Forgive our souls for the deed we have done!"--
The Monk return'd him to his cell,
And many a prayer and penance sped;
When the convent met at the noontide bell--
The Monk of St. Mary's aisle was dead!
Before the cross was the body laid,
With hands clasp'd fast, as if still he pray'd.
What became of Sir William Deloraine and the wonderful book on his
return journey we had no time to read that evening, but we afterwards
learned he fell into the hands of the terrible Black Dwarf. We had
decided to walk to Hawick if possible, although we were rather reluctant
to leave Melrose. We had had one good tea on entering the town, and my
brother suggested having another before leaving it, so after visiting
the graveyard of the abbey, where the following curious epitaph appeared
on one of the stones, we returned to the inn, where the people were
highly amused at seeing us return so soon and for such a purpose:
The earth goeth to the earth
Glist'ring like gold;
The earth goeth to the earth
Sooner than it wold;
The earth builds on the earth
Castles and Towers;
The earth says to the earth,
All shall be ours.
Still, we were quite ready for our second tea, and wondered whether
there was any exercise that gave people a better appetite and a greater
joy in appeasing it than walking, especially in the clear and sharp air
of Scotland, for we were nearly always extremely hungry after an hour or
two's walk. When the tea was served, I noticed that my brother lingered
over it longer than usual, and when I reminded him that the night would
soon be on us, he said he did not want to leave before dark, as he
wanted to see how the old abbey appeared at night, quoting Sir Walter
Scott as the reason why:
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery.
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
Then go--but go alone the while--
Then view St. David's ruin'd pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear.
Was ever scene so sad and fair?
I reminded my brother that there would be no moon visible that night,
and that it would therefore be impossible to see the old abbey "by the
pale moonlight"; but he said the starlight would do just as well for
him, so we had to wait until one or two stars made their appearance, and
then departed, calling at a shop to make a few small purchases as we
passed on our way. The path alongside the abbey was entirely deserted.
Though so near the town there was scarcely a sound to be heard, not even
"the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave." Although we had no
moonlight, the stars were shining brightly through the ruined arches
which had once been filled with stained glass, representing the figures
"of many a prophet and many a saint." It was a beautiful sight that
remained in our memories long after other scenes had been forgotten.
According to the Koran there were four archangels: Azrael, the angel of
death; Azrafil, who was to sound the trumpet at the resurrection;
Gabriel, the angel of revelations, who wrote down the divine decrees;
and Michael, the champion, who fought the battles of faith,--and it was
this Michael whose figure Sir Walter Scott described as appearing full
in the midst of the east oriel window "with his Cross of bloody red,"
which in the light of the moon shone on the floor of the abbey and
"pointed to the grave of the mighty dead" into which the Monk and
William of Deloraine had to descend to secure possession of the "Mighty
Book."
After passing the old abbey and the shade of the walls and trees to find
our way to the narrow and rough road along which we had to travel
towards Hawick, we halted for a few moments at the side of the road to
arrange the contents of our bags, in order to make room for the small
purchases we had made in the town. We had almost completed the
readjustment when we heard the heavy footsteps of a man approaching, who
passed us walking along the road we were about to follow. My brother
asked him if he was going far that way, to which he replied, "A goodish
bit," so we said we should be glad of his company; but he walked on
without speaking to us further. We pushed the remaining things in our
bags as quickly as possible, and hurried on after him. As we did not
overtake him, we stood still and listened attentively, though
fruitlessly, for not a footstep could we hear. We then accelerated our
pace to what was known as the "Irishman's Trig"--a peculiar step,
quicker than a walk, but slower than a run--and after going some
distance we stopped again to listen; but the only sound we could hear
was the barking of a solitary dog a long distance away. This was very
provoking, as we wanted to get some information about our road, which,
besides being rough, was both hilly and very lonely, and more in the
nature of a track than a road. Where the man could have disappeared to
was a mystery on a road apparently without any offshoots, so we
concluded he must have thought we contemplated doing him some bodily
harm, and had either "bolted" or "clapp'd," as my brother described it,
behind some rock or bush, in which case he must have felt relieved and
perhaps amused when he heard us "trigging" past him on the road.
[Illustration: LILLIESLEAF AND THE EILDON HILLS.]
We continued along the lonely road without his company, with the ghostly
Eildon Hills on one side and the moors on the other, until after walking
steadily onwards for a few miles, we heard the roar of a mountain stream
in the distance. When we reached it we were horrified to find it running
right across our road. It looked awful in the dark, as it was quite
deep, and although we could just see where our road emerged from the
stream on the other side, it was quite impossible for us to cross in the
dark. We could see a few lights some distance beyond the stream, but it
was useless to attempt to call for help, since our voices could not be
heard above the noise of the torrent. Our position seemed almost
hopeless, until my brother said he thought he had seen a shed or a small
house behind a gate some distance before coming to the stream. We
resolved to turn back, and luckily we discovered it to be a small lodge
guarding the entrance to a private road. We knocked at the door of the
house, which was in darkness, the people having evidently gone to bed.
Presently a woman asked what was wanted, and when we told her we could
not get across the stream, she said there was a footbridge near by,
which we had not seen in the dark, and told us how to find it a little
higher up the stream. Needless to relate, we were very pleased when we
got across the bridge, and we measured the distance across that
turbulent stream in fifteen long strides.
We soon reached the lights we had seen, and found a small village, where
at the inn we got some strange lodgings, and slept that night in a bed
of a most curious construction, as it was in a dark place under the
stairs, entered by a door from the parlour. But it was clean and
comfortable, and we were delighted to make use of it after our long
walk.
(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)
_Wednesday, October 11th._
We had been warned when we retired to rest that it was most likely we
should be wakened early in the morning by people coming down the stairs,
and advised to take no notice of them, as no one would interfere with us
or our belongings. We were not surprised, therefore, when we were
aroused early by heavy footsteps immediately over our heads, which we
supposed were those of the landlord as he came down the stairs. We had
slept soundly, and, since there was little chance of any further
slumber, we decided to get up and look round, the village before
breakfast. We had to use the parlour as a dressing-room, and not knowing
who might be coming down the stairs next, we dressed ourselves as
quickly as possible. We found that the village was called Lilliesleaf,
which we thought a pretty name, though we were informed it had been
spelt in twenty-seven different ways, while the stream we came to in the
night was known by the incongruous name of Ale Water. The lodge we had
gone back to for information as to the means of crossing was the East
Gate guarding one of the entrances to Riddell, a very ancient place
where Sir Walter Scott had recorded the unearthing of two graves of
special interest, one containing an earthen pot filled with ashes and
arms, and bearing the legible date of 729, and the other dated 936,
filled with the bones of a man of gigantic size.
A local historian wrote of the Ale Water that "it is one thing to see it
on a summer day when it can be crossed by the stepping-stones, and
another when heavy rains have fallen in the autumn--then it is a
strong, deep current and carries branches and even trees on its surface,
the ford at Riddell East Gate being impassable, and it is only then that
we can appreciate the scene." It seemed a strange coincidence that we
should be travelling on the same track but in the opposite direction as
that pursued by William Deloraine, and that we should have crossed the
Ale Water about a fortnight later in the year, as Sir Walter described
him in his "Lay" as riding along the wooded path when "green hazels o'er
his basnet nod," which indicated the month of September.
Unchallenged, thence pass'd Deloraine,
To ancient Riddell's fair domain,
Where Aill, from mountain freed,
Down from the lakes did raving come;
Each wave was crested with tawny foam,
Like the mane of a chestnut steed.
In vain! no torrent, deep or broad.
Might bar the bold moss-trooper's road.
* * * * *
At the first plunge the horse sunk low,
And the water broke o'er the saddlebow;
Above the foaming tide, I ween,
Scarce half the charger's neck was seen;
For he was barded from counter to tail,
And the rider was armed complete in mail;
Never heavier man and horse
Stemm'd a midnight torrent's force.
The warrior's very plume, I say
Was daggled by the dashing spray;
Yet, through good heart, and Our Ladye's grace,
At length he gain'd the landing place.
What would have become of ourselves if we had attempted to cross the
treacherous stream in the dark of the previous night we did not know,
but we were sure we should have risked our lives had we made the
attempt.
We were only able to explore the churchyard at Lilliesleaf, as the
church was not open at that early hour in the morning. We copied a
curious inscription from one of the old stones there:
Near this stone we lifeless lie
No more the things of earth to spy,
But we shall leave this dusty bed
When Christ appears to judge the dead.
For He shall come in glory great
And in the air shall have His seat
And call all men before His throne.
Rewarding all as they have done.
We were served with a prodigious breakfast at the inn to match, as we
supposed, the big appetites prevailing in the North, and then we resumed
our walk towards Hawick, meeting on our way the children coming to the
school at Lilliesleaf, some indeed quite a long way from their
destination. In about four miles we reached Hassendean and the River
Teviot, for we were now in Teviot Dale, along which we were to walk,
following the river nearly to its source in the hills above. The old
kirk of Hassendean had been dismantled in 1693, but its burial-ground
continued to be used until 1795, when an ice-flood swept away all
vestiges both of the old kirk and the churchyard. It was of this
disaster that Leyden, the poet and orientalist, who was born in 1775 at
the pretty village of Denholm close by, wrote the following lines:
By fancy wrapt, where tombs are crusted grey,
I seem by moon-illumined graves to stray,
Where now a mouldering pile is faintly seen--
The old deserted church of Hassendean,
Where slept my fathers in their natal clay
Till Teviot waters rolled their bones away.
[Illustration: LEYDEN'S COTTAGE.]
Leyden was a great friend of Sir Walter Scott, whom he helped to gather
materials for his "Border Minstrelsie," and was referred to in his novel
of _St. Ronan's Well_ as "a lamp too early quenched." In 1811 he went to
India with Lord Minto, who was at that time Governor-General, as his
interpreter, for Leyden was a great linguist. He died of fever caused by
looking through some old infected manuscripts at Batavia on the coast of
Java. Sir Walter had written a long letter to him which was returned
owing to his death. He also referred to him in his _Lord of the Isles_:
His bright and brief career is o'er,
And mute his tuneful strains;
Quench'd is his lamp of varied lore,
That loved the light of song to pour;
A distant and a deadly shore
Has Leyden's cold remains.
The Minto estate adjoined Hassenden, and the country around it was very
beautiful, embracing the Minto Hills or Crags, Minto House, and a castle
rejoicing, as we thought, in the queer name of "Fatlips."
The walk to the top of Minto Crags was very pleasant, but in olden times
no stranger dared venture there, as the Outlaw Brownhills was in
possession, and had hewn himself out of the rock an almost inaccessible
platform on one of the crags still known as "Brownhills' Bed" from which
he could see all the roads below. Woe betide the unsuspecting traveller
who happened to fall into his hands!
But we must not forget Deloraine, for after receiving instructions from
the "Ladye of Branksome"--
[Illustration: "FATLIPS" CASTLE.]
Soon in the saddle sate he fast,
And soon the steep descent he past,
Soon cross'd the sounding barbican.
And soon the Teviot side he won.
Eastward the wooded path he rode.
Green hazels o'er his basnet nod;
He passed the Peel of Goldieland,
And crossed old Borthwick's roaring strand;
Dimly he view'd the Moat-hill's mound.
Where Druid shades still flitted round;
In Hawick twinkled many a light;
Behind him soon they set in night;
And soon he spurr'd his courser keen
Beneath the tower of Hazeldean.
* * * * *
The clattering hoofs the watchmen mark;--
"Stand, ho! thou courier of the dark."--
"For Branksome, ho!" the knight rejoin'd.
And left the friendly tower behind.
He turn'd him now from Tiviotside,
And, guided by the tinkling rill,
Northward the dark ascent did ride.
And gained the moor at Horsliehill;
Broad on the left before him lay,
For many a mile, the Roman Way.
* * * * *
A moment now he slacked his speed,
A moment breathed his panting steed;
Drew saddle-girth and corslet-band,
And loosen'd in the sheath his brand.
On Minto-crags the moonbeams glint,
Where Barnhills hew'd his bed of flint;
Who flung his outlaw'd limbs to rest,
Where falcons hang their giddy nest
Mid cliffs, from whence his eagle eye
For many a league his prey could spy;
Cliffs, doubling, on their echoes borne,
The terrors of the robber's horn!
We passed through a cultivated country on the verge of the moors, where
we saw some good farms, one farmer telling us he had 900 acres of arable
land with some moorland in addition. He was superintending the gathering
of a good crop of fine potatoes, which he told us were "Protestant
Rocks." He was highly amused when one of us suggested to the other that
they might just have suited a country parson we knew in England who
would not have the best variety of potatoes, called "Radicals," planted
in his garden because he did not like the name. He was further amused
when we innocently asked him the best way to reach Hawick, pronouncing
the name in two syllables which sounded like Hay-wick, while the local
pronunciation was "Hoike." However, we soon reached that town and had a
twelve-o'clock lunch at one of the inns, where we heard something of the
principal annual event of the town, the "Common Riding," the occasion on
which the officials rode round the boundaries. There was an artificial
mound in the town called the "Mote-Hill," formerly used by the Druids.
It was to the top of this hill the cornet and his followers ascended at
sunrise on the day of the festival, after which they adjourned to a
platform specially erected in the town, to sing the Common Riding Song.
We could not obtain a copy of this, but we were fortunate in obtaining
one for the next town we were to visit--Langholm--which proved to be the
last on our walk through Scotland. From what we could learn, the
ceremony at Hawick seemed very like the walking of the parish boundaries
in England, a custom which was there slowly becoming obsolete. We could
only remember attending one of these ceremonies, and that was in
Cheshire. The people of the adjoining parish walked their boundaries on
the same day, so we were bound to meet them at some point _en route_,
and a free fight, fanned by calling at sundry public-houses, was
generally the result. The greatest danger-zone lay where a stream formed
the boundary between the two parishes, at a point traversed by a culvert
or small tunnel through a lofty embankment supporting a canal which
crossed a small valley. This boundary was, of course, common to both
parishes, and representatives of each were expected to pass through it
to maintain their rights, so that it became a matter of some anxiety as
to which of the boundary walkers would reach it first, or whether that
would be the point where both parties would meet. We remembered coming
to a full stop when we reached one entrance to the small tunnel, while
the scouts ascended the embankment to see if the enemy were in sight on
the other side; but as they reported favourably, we decided that two of
our party should walk through the culvert, while the others went round
by the roads to the other end. There was a fair amount of water passing
through at that time, so they were very wet on emerging from the
opposite end, and it was impossible for the men to walk upright, the
contracted position in which they were compelled to walk making the
passage very difficult. What would have happened if the opposition had
come up while our boundary walkers were in the tunnel we could only
surmise.
Hawick is in Roxburghshire and was joined on to Wilton at a house called
the Salt Hall, or the "Saut Ha'," as it is pronounced in Scotch, where a
tragedy took place in the year 1758. The tenant of the Hall at that time
was a man named Rea, whose wife had committed suicide by cutting her
throat. In those days it was the custom to bury suicides at the dead of
night where the laird's lands met, usually a very lonely corner, and a
stake was driven through the body of the corpse; but from some cause or
other the authorities allowed "Jenny Saut Ha'," as she was commonly
called, to be buried in the churchyard. This was considered by many
people to be an outrage, and the body was disinterred at night, and the
coffin placed against the Saut Ha' door, where Rea was confronted with
it next morning. There was a sharp contest between the Church
authorities and the public, and the body was once more interred in the
churchyard, but only to fall on Rea when he opened his door the next
morning. The authorities were then compelled to yield to the popular
clamour, and the corpse found a temporary resting-place in a remote
corner of Wilton Common; but the minister ultimately triumphed, and
Jenny was again buried in the churchyard, there to rest for all time in
peace.
[Illustration: WILTON OLD CHURCH.]
We had now joined the old coach road from London to Edinburgh, a stone
on the bridge informing us that that city was fifty miles distant. We
turned towards London, and as we were leaving the town we asked three
men, who had evidently tramped a long distance, what sort of a road it
was to Langholm, our next stage. They informed us that it was
twenty-three miles to that town, that the road was a good one, but we
should not be able to get a drink the whole way, for "there wasn't a
single public-house on the road."
Presently, however, we reached a turnpike gate across our road, and as
there was some fruit exhibited for sale in the window of the toll-house
we went inside, and found the mistress working at her spinning-wheel,
making a kind of worsted out of which she made stockings. We bought as
much fruit from her as the limited space in our bags allowed, and had a
chat with her about the stocking trade, which was the staple industry of
Hawick. She told us there were about 800 people employed in that
business, and that they went out on strike on the Monday previous, but
with an advance in their wages had gone in again that morning.
The stockings were now made by machines, but were formerly all made by
hand. The inventor of the first machine was a young man who had fallen
deeply in love with a young woman, who, like most others living
thereabouts at that time, got her living by making stockings. When he
proposed to her, she would not have him, because she knew another young
man she liked better. He then told her if she would not marry him he
would make a machine that would make stockings and throw her out of work
and ruin them all. But the girl decided to remain true to the young man
she loved best, and was presently married to him.
[Illustration: GOLDIELANDS TOWER.]
The disappointed lover then set to work, and, after much thought and
labour, succeeded in making a stocking machine; and although it created
a great stir in Hawick, where all three were well known, it did not
throw any one out of work, but was so improved upon with the result that
more stockings were made and sold at Hawick than ever before!
We thanked the old lady for her story, and, bidding her good-bye, went
on our way. Presently we came to the ruins of a castle standing near the
road which a clergyman informed us was Goldielands Tower, mentioned with
Harden by Sir Walter Scott in the "Lay of the Last Minstrel." He told us
that a little farther on our way we should also see Branxholm, another
place referred to by Scott. Although we were on the look out for
Branxholm, we passed without recognising it, as it resembled a large
family mansion more than the old tower we had expected it to be.
[Illustration: BRANXHOLM TOWER.]
It was astonishing what a number of miles we walked in Scotland without
finding anything of any value on the roads. A gentleman told us he once
found a threepenny bit on the road near a village where he happened to
be staying at the inn. When his find became known in the village, it
created quite a sensation amongst the inhabitants, owing to the "siller"
having fallen into the hands of a "Saxon," and he gravely added to the
information that one-half of the people went in mourning and that it was
even mentioned in the kirk as the "awfu'" waste that had occurred in the
parish!
[Illustration]
We were not so lucky as to find a silver coin, but had the good fortune
to find something of more importance in the shape of a love-letter which
some one had lost on the road, and which supplied us with food for
thought and words for expression, quite cheering us up as we marched
along our lonely road. As Kate and John now belong to a past generation,
we consider ourselves absolved from any breach of confidence and give a
facsimile of the letter (see page 198). The envelope was not addressed,
so possibly John might have intended sending it by messenger, or Kate
might have received it and lost it on the road, which would perhaps be
the more likely thing to happen. We wondered whether the meeting ever
came off.
[Illustration: COVENANTER'S GRAVE.]
Shortly after passing Branxholm, and near the point where the Allan
Water joined the River Teviot, we turned to visit what we had been
informed was in the time of King Charles I a hiding place for the people
known as Covenanters. These were Scottish Presbyterians, who in 1638, to
resist that king's encroachments on their religious liberty, formed a
"Solemn League," followed in 1643 by an international Solemn League and
Covenant "between England and Scotland to secure both civil and
religious liberty." These early Covenanters were subjected to great
persecution, consequently their meetings were held in the most lonely
places--on the moors, in the glens, and on the wild mountain sides. We
climbed up through a wood and found the meeting-place in the ruins of a
tower--commonly said to have been built by the Romans, though we
doubted it--the remains of which consisted of an archway a few yard
longs and a few yards square, surrounded by three trenches. It occupied
a very strong position, and standing upon it we could see a hill a short
distance away on the top of which was a heap of stones marking the spot
where a bon-fire was lit and a flag reared when Queen Victoria drove
along the road below, a few years before our visit.
In former times in this part of Scotland there seemed to have been a
bard, poet, or minstrel in every village, and they appeared to have been
numerous enough to settle their differences, and sometimes themselves,
by fighting for supremacy, for it was at Bradhaugh near here that a
deadly combat took place in 1627 between William Henderson, known as
"Rattling Roaring Willie," and Robert Rule, another Border minstrel, in
which, according to an old ballad, Willie slew his opponent, for--
Rob Roole, he handled rude.
And Willie left Newmill's banks
Red-wat wi' Robin's blude.
[Illustration: HENRY SCOTT RIDDELL.]
At Teviothead our road parted company with the River Teviot, which
forked away to the right, its source being only about six miles farther
up the hills from that point. In the churchyard at Teviothead, Henry
Scott Riddell, the author of _Scotland Yet_, had only recently been
buried. Near here also was Caerlanrig, where the murder of Johnnie
Armstrong of Gilnockie, a very powerful chief who levied blackmail along
the Border from Esk to Tyne, or practically the whole length of
Hadrian's Wall, took place in 1530. Johnnie was a notorious freebooter
and Border raider, no one daring to go his way for fear of Johnnie or
his followers. But of him more anon.
The distance from Caerlanrig, where Armstrong was executed, to Gilnockie
Tower, where he resided, was about seventeen miles, and we had to
follow, though in the opposite direction and a better surfaced road, the
same lonely and romantic track that he traversed on that occasion. It
formed a pass between the hills, and for the first seven miles the
elevations in feet above sea-level on each side of the road were:
To our right:--1193. 1286. 1687. 1950. 1714. 1317. 1446. To our
left:--1156. 1595. 1620. 1761. 1741. 1242. 1209.
The distance between the summits as the crow flies was only about a
mile, while the road maintained an altitude above the sea of from five
to eight hundred feet, so that we had a most lonely walk of about
thirteen miles before we reached Langholm. The road was a good one, and
we were in no danger of missing our way, hemmed in as it was on either
side by the hills, which, although treeless, were covered with grass
apparently right away to their tops, a novelty to us after the bare and
rocky hills we had passed elsewhere. We quite enjoyed our walk, and as
we watched the daylight gradually fade away before the approaching
shadows of the night, we realised that we were passing through the
wildest solitudes. We did not meet one human being until we reached
Langholm, and the only habitation we noted before reaching a small
village just outside that town was the "Halfway House" between Hawick
and Langholm, known in stage-coach days as the "Mosspaul Inn." It was a
large house near the entrance to a small glen, but apparently now
closed, for we could not see a solitary light nor hear the sound of a
human voice.
How different it must have appeared when the stage-coaches were passing
up and down that valley, now deserted, for even the railway, which
supplanted them, had passed it by on the other side! In imagination we
could hear the sound of the horn, echoing in the mountains, heralding
the approach of the stage-coach, with its great lamp in front, and could
see a light in almost every window in the hotel. We could picture mine
host and his wife standing at the open door ready to receive their
visitors, expectant guests assembled behind them in the hall and
expectant servants both indoors and out; then staying for the night,
refreshing ourselves with the good things provided for supper, and
afterwards relating our adventures to a friendly and appreciative
audience, finally sinking our weary limbs in the good old-fashioned
feather-beds!
But these visions passed away almost as quickly as they appeared, so we
left the dark and dreary mansion whose glory had departed, and marched
on our way, expecting to find at Langholm that which we so badly
needed--food and rest.
The old inn at Mosspaul, where the stage-coaches stopped to change
horses, was built at the junction of the counties of Dumfries and
Roxburgh, and was very extensive with accommodation for many horses, but
fell to ruin after the stage-coaches ceased running. Many notable
visitors had patronised it, among others Dorothy Wordsworth, who visited
it with her brother the poet in September 1803, and described it in the
following graphic terms:
The scene, with this single dwelling, was melancholy and wild, but
not dreary, though there was no tree nor shrub: the small streamlet
glittered, the hills were populous with sheep, but the gentle bending
of the valley, and the correspondent softness in the forms of the
hills were of themselves enough to delight the eye.
A good story is told of one of the Armstrongs and the inn:
Once when Lord Kames went for the first time on the Circuit as
Advocate-depute, Armstrong of Sorbie inquired of Lord Minto in a whisper
"What long black, dour-looking Chiel" that was that they had broc'ht
with them?
"That," said his lordship, "is a man come to hang a' the Armstrongs."
"Then," was the dry retort, "it's time the Elliots were
ridin'."[Footnote: Elliot was the family name of Lord Minto.]
The effusions of one of the local poets whose district we had passed
through had raised our expectations in the following lines:
There's a wee toon on the Borders
That my heart sair langs to see,
Where in youthful days I wander'd,
Knowing every bank and brae;
O'er the hills and through the valleys,
Thro' the woodlands wild and free,
Thro' the narrow straits and loanings,
There my heart sair langs to be.
[Illustration: THE COMMON RIDING, LANGHOLM.]
There was also an old saying, "Out of the world and into Langholm,"
which seemed very applicable to ourselves, for after a walk of
thirty-two and a half miles through a lonely and hilly country, without
a solitary house of call for twenty-three, our hungry and weary
condition may be imagined when we entered Langholm just on the stroke of
eleven o'clock at night.
We went to the Temperance Hotel, but were informed they were full. We
called at the other four inns with the same result. Next we appealed to
the solitary police officer, who told us curtly that the inns closed at
eleven and the lodgings at ten, and marched away without another word.
The disappointment and feeling of agony at having to walk farther cannot
be described, but there was no help for it, so we shook the dust, or
mud, off our feet and turned dejectedly along the Carlisle road.
Just at the end of the town we met a gentleman wearing a top-hat and a
frock-coat, so we appealed to him. The hour was too late to find us
lodgings, but he said, if we wished to do so, we could shelter in his
distillery, which we should come to a little farther on our way. His men
would all be in bed, but there was one door that was unlocked and we
should find some of the rooms very warm. We thanked him for his kindness
and found the door, as he had described, opening into a dark room. We
had never been in a distillery before, so we were naturally rather
nervous, and as we could not see a yard before us, we lighted one of our
candles. We were about to go in search of one of the warmer rooms when
the thought occurred to us that our light might attract the attention of
some outsider, and in the absence of any written authority from the
owner might cause us temporary trouble, while to explore the distillery
without a light was out of the question, for we might fall through some
trap-door or into a vat, besides which, we could hear a great rush of
water in the rear of the premises, so we decided to stay where we were.
The book we had obtained at Hawick contained the following description
of the Langholm "Common Riding," which was held each year on July 17th
when the people gathered together to feast on barley bannock and red
herring, of course washed down with plenteous supplies of the
indispensable whisky. The Riding began with the following proclamation
in the marketplace, given by a man standing upright on horseback, in the
presence of thousands of people:
Gentlemen,--The first thing that I am going to acquaint you with are
the names of the Portioners' Grounds of Langholm:--
Now, Gentlemen, we're gan' frae the Toun,
An' first of a' the Kil Green we gang roun',
It is an ancient place where Clay is got,
And it belangs to us by Right and Lot,
And then frae here the Lang-Wood we gang throu'
Where every ane may breckons out an' pu',
An' last of a' oor Marches they be clear,
An' when unto the Castle Craigs we come,
I'll cry the Langholm Fair and then we'll beat the drum.
Now, Gentlemen. What you have heard this day concerning going round
our Marches, it is expected that every one who has occasion for
Peats, Breckons, Flacks, Stanes, or Clay, will go out in defence of
their Property, and they shall hear the Proclamation of the Langholm
Fair upon the Castle Craigs.
Now, Gentlemen, we have gane roun our hill,
So now I think it's right we had oor fill
Of guid strang punch--'twould make us a' to sing.
Because this day we have dune a guid thing;
For gangin' roun' oor hill we think nae shame,
Because frae it oor peats and flacks come hame;
So now I will conclude and say nae mair.
An' if ye're pleased I'll cry the Langholm Fair.
Hoys, yes! that's ae time! Hoys, yes! that's twae times!!
Hoys, yes! that's the third and the last time!!!
This is to Give Notice,
That there is a muckle Fair to be hadden in the muckle Toun o' the
Langholm, on the 15th day of July, auld style, upon his Grace the
Duke of Buccleuch's Merk Land, for the space of eight days and
upwards; and a' land-loupers, and dub-scoupers, and
gae-by-the-gate-swingers, that come here to breed hurdums or durdums,
huliments or buliments, haggle-ments or braggle-ments, or to molest
this public Fair, they shall be ta'en by order of the Bailie and Toun
Council, and their lugs be nailed to the Tron wi' a twal-penny nail,
and they shall sit doun on their bare knees and pray seven times for
the King, and thrice for the Mickle Laird o' Ralton, and pay a groat
to me, Jemmy Ferguson, Bailie o' the aforesaid Manor, and I'll awa'
hame and ha'e a bannock and a saut herrin'.
HUZZA! HUZZAH!! HUZZAH!!!
[Illustration: GILNOCKIE BRIDGE, LANGHOLM.]
The monument on the top of Whita Hill was erected in memory of one of
the famous four Knights of Langholm, the sons of Malcolm of Burn Foot,
whose Christian names were James, Pulteney, John, and Charles, all of
whom became distinguished men. Sir James was made a K.C.B, and a Colonel
in the Royal Marines. He served on board the _Canopus_ at the Battle of
San Domingo, taking a prominent part in the American War of 1812. He
died at Milnholm, near Langholm, at the age of eighty-two. Pulteney
Malcolm rose to the rank of Admiral and served under Lord Nelson, but as
his ship was refitting at Gibraltar he missed taking part in the Battle
of Trafalgar, though he arrived just in time to capture the Spanish
120-gun ship _El Kago_. He became intimately acquainted with Napoleon
Bonaparte, as he had the command of the British worships that guarded
him during his captivity at St. Helena. Sir John Malcolm was a
distinguished Indian statesman, and it was to him that the monument on
Whita Hill had been erected. The monument, which was visible for many
miles, was 100 feet high, and the hill itself 1,162 feet above
sea-level. Sir Charles Malcolm, the youngest of the four brothers, after
seeing much active service, rose to be Vice-Admiral of the Fleet.
[Illustration: GILNOCKIE TOWER]
If the great fair-day had been on when we reached Langholm we should not
have been surprised at being unable to find lodgings, but as it was we
could only attribute our failure to arriving at that town so late in the
evening, nearly an hour after the authorised closing time of the inns.
We found we could not stay very long in the distillery without a fire,
for a sharp frost had now developed, and we began to feel the effect of
the lower temperature; we therefore decided, after a short rest, to
continue our walk on the Carlisle road. Turning over the bridge that
crossed the rapidly running stream of the River Esk--the cause of the
rush of water we heard in the distillery--we followed the river on its
downward course for some miles. It was a splendid starlight, frosty
night, but, as we were very tired and hungry, we could only proceed
slowly--in fact scarcely quickly enough to maintain our circulation.
Being also very sleepy, we had to do something desperate to keep
ourselves awake, so we amused ourselves by knocking with our heavy oaken
sticks at the doors or window-shutters of the houses we passed on our
way. It was a mild revenge we took for the town's inhospitality, and we
pictured to ourselves how the story of two highwaymen being about the
roads during the midnight hours would be circulated along the
countryside during the following day, but we could not get any one to
come beyond the keyhole of the door or the panes of the shuttered
windows. We were, however, becoming quite desperate, as we were now
nearly famished, and, when we came to a small shop, the sounds from our
sticks on the door quickly aroused the mistress, who asked us what we
wanted. My brother entered into his usual explanation that we were
pedestrian tourists on a walking expedition, and offered her a
substantial sum for some bread or something to eat; but it was of no
use, as the only answer we got was, "I ha' not a bit till th' baker
coomes ith' morn'."
This reply, and the tone of voice in which it was spoken, for the woman
"snaffled," was too much for us, and, tired as we were, we both roared
with laughter; absurd though it may seem, it was astonishing how this
little incident cheered us on our way.
It was a lovely country through which we were travelling, and our road,
as well as the river alongside, was in many places overhung by the
foliage of the fine trees, through which the brilliant lustre of the
stars appeared overhead; in fact we heard afterwards that this length of
road was said to include the finest landscapes along the whole of the
stage-coach road between London and Edinburgh. The bridge by which we
recrossed the river had been partially built with stones from the ruins
of Gilnockie Tower, once the stronghold of the famous freebooter Johnnie
Armstrong, of whom we had heard higher up the country.
[Illustration: COCKBURN'S GRAVE.]
Sir Walter Scott tells us that King James V resolved to take very
serious measures against the Border Warriors, and under pretence of
coming to hunt the deer in those desolate regions he assembled an army,
and suddenly appeared at the Castle of Piers Cockburn of Henderland,
near where we had been further north. He ordered that baron to be seized
and executed in spite of the fact that he was preparing a great feast of
welcome. Adam Scott of Tushielaw, known as the King of the Border, met
with the same fate, but an event of greater importance was the fate of
John Armstrong. This free-booting chief had risen to such consequence,
that the whole neighbouring district of England paid him "black-mail," a
sort of regular tribute in consideration of which he forbore to plunder
them. He had a high idea of his own importance, and seems to have been
unconscious of having merited any severe usage at the king's hands. On
the contrary, he went to meet his sovereign at Carlingrigg Chapel,
richly dressed, and having twenty-four gentlemen, his constant retinue,
as well attired as himself. The king, incensed to see a freebooter so
gentlemanly equipped, commanded him instantly to be led to execution,
saying, "What wants this knave save a crown to be as magnificent as a
king?" John Armstrong made great offers for his life, offering to
maintain himself, with forty men, to serve the king at a moment's
notice, at his own expense, engaging never to hurt or injure any
Scottish subject, as indeed had never been his practice, and undertaking
that there was not a man in England, of whatever degree, duke, earl,
lord, or baron, but he would engage, within a short time, to present him
to the king, dead or alive. But when the king would listen to none of
his oilers, the robber chief said very proudly, "I am but a fool to ask
grace at a graceless face; but had I guessed you would have used me
thus, I would have kept the Border-side in spite of the King of England
and you, both, for I well know that the King Henry would give the weight
of my best horse in gold to know that I am sentenced to die this day."
John Armstrong was led to execution, with all his men, and hanged
without mercy. The people of the inland countries were glad to get rid
of him; but on the Borders he was both missed and mourned, as a brave
warrior, and a stout man-of-arms against England.
But to return to Gilnockie Bridge! After crossing it we struggled on for
another mile or two, and when about six miles from Langholm we reached
another bridge where our road again crossed the river. Here we stopped
in mute despair, leaning against the battlements, and listening to the
water in the river as it rushed under the bridge. We must have been half
asleep, when we were suddenly aroused by the sound of heavy footsteps
approaching in the distance. Whoever could it be? I suggested one of the
Border freebooters; but my brother, who could laugh when everybody else
cried, said it sounded more like a free-clogger. We listened again, and
sure enough it was the clattering of a heavy pair of clogs on the partly
frozen surface of the road. We could not be mistaken, for we were too
well accustomed to the sound of clogs in Lancashire; but who could be
the wearer! We had not long to wait before a man appeared, as much
surprised to see us as we were to see him. We told him of our long walk
the day before, how we had been disappointed in not getting lodgings,
and asked him how far we were away from an inn. He told us we were quite
near one, but it was no use going there, as "they wouldn't get up for
the Queen of England." He further told us he was going to the two
o'clock "shift" at the colliery. "Colliery!" my brother ejaculated; "but
surely there isn't a coal-pit in a pretty place like this?" He assured
us that there was, and, seeing we were both shivering with cold, kindly
inviteescaped to Brittany, and finally died at Rome in the arms of the Master
of Nairn in 1788. In 1794 the Beds of Esk, a large sandbank where the
tide meets the stream, presented an unusual spectacle, and a striking
tribute to the dangerous character of the river especially when in
flood. Collected together on the beach were a varied assortment of
animals and human beings, consisting of no less than 9 black cattle, 3
horses, 1,040 sheep, 45 dogs, 180 hares, many smaller animals, and 3
human beings, all of whom had been cut off by the rapidly advancing
tide.
Many other events have happened in this neighbourhood, one of the most
sensational perhaps being the death of King Edward I, "The Hammer of the
Scots," also nicknamed "Longshanks," from the length of his lower limbs,
who died in 1307 on these marshes, requesting his effeminate son, the
Prince of Wales, as he bade him farewell, not to bury his body until the
Scots were utterly subdued, but this wish was prevented by the defeat at
the Battle of Bannockburn.
We passed by some large peat-fields, and, crossing the River Sark, were
once more in Scotland, notwithstanding the fact that we had so recently
given three cheers as we passed out of it. We traversed the length of
Springfield, a stone-built village of whitewashed, one-storied cottages,
in which we could see handloom weavers at work, nearly fifty of them
being employed in that industry. Formerly, we were told, the villagers
carried on an illicit commerce in whisky and salt, on which there were
heavy duties in England, but none on whisky in Scotland. The position
here being so close to the borders, it was a very favourable one for
smuggling both these articles into England, and we heard various
exciting stories of the means they devised for eluding the vigilance of
the excise officers. As we passed through the neighbourhood at a quick
rate, the villagers turned out to have a look at us, evidently thinking
something important was going on.
We saw many workers in the fields, who called out to us hinting about
the nature of our journey, as we travelled towards Gretna Green. Some of
the women went so far as to ask us if we wanted any company. The most
conspicuous objects in the village were the church and the remarkably
high gravestones standing like sentinels in the churchyard. Bonnie
Prince Charlie arrived here on the afternoon of his birthday in 1745,
stabling his horse in the church, while the vicar fled from what he
described in the church book as "the Rebels." A small cottage--said to
be the oldest in Gretna--is shown in which Prince Charlie slept. The
village green appeared to us as if it had been fenced in and made into
a garden, and a lady pointed out an ancient-looking building, which she
said was the hall where the original "Blacksmith" who married the
runaway couples resided, but which was now occupied by a gentleman from
Edinburgh. She explained the ceremony as being a very simple one, and
performed expeditiously: often in the road, almost in sight of the
pursuers of the runaway pair. All sorts and conditions of men and women
were united there, some of them from far-off lands, black people amongst
the rest, and she added with a sigh, "There's been many an unhappy job
here," which we quite believed. There were other people beside the
gentleman at the hall who made great profit by marrying people, both at
Springfield and Gretna, and a list of operators, dated from the year
1720, included a soldier, shoemaker, weaver, poacher, innkeeper,
toll-keeper, fisherman, pedlar, and other tradesmen. But the only
blacksmith who acted in that capacity was a man named Joe Paisley, who
died in 1811 aged seventy-nine years. His motto was, "Strike while the
iron's hot," and he boasted that he could weld the parties together as
firmly as he could one piece of iron to another.
[Illustration: JOSEPH PAISLEY, The Celebrated Gretna-Green Parson Dec'd
January 9, 1811, aged 79. The first great "priest" of Gretna Green.]
Joe was a man of prodigious strength; he could bend a strong iron poker
over his arm, and had frequently straightened an ordinary horse-shoe in
its cold state with his hands. He could also squeeze the blood from the
finger ends of any one who incurred his anger. He was an habitual
drunkard, his greatest boast being that he had once been "teetotal" for
a whole forenoon. When he died he was an overgrown mass of superfluous
fat, weighing at least twenty-five stone. He was said to have earned
quite a thousand pounds per year by his encroachments into the province
of the cleric, and when on his deathbed he heard three carriages arrive,
he consented to marry the three wealthy couples they contained, and
found himself two or three hundred pounds richer than before. He also
boasted that the marriage business had been in his family for quite one
hundred years, and that his uncle, the old soldier Gordon, used to marry
couples in the full uniform of his regiment, the British Grenadiers. He
gave a form of certificate that the persons had declared themselves to
be single, that they were married by the form of the Kirk of Scotland,
and agreeably to that of the Church of England.
[Illustration: GRETNA GREEN.]
One of the most celebrated elopements to Gretna was that of the Earl of
Westmorland and Miss Child, the daughter of the great London banker. The
earl had asked for the hand of Sarah, and had been refused, the banker
remarking, "Your blood is good enough, but my money is better," so the
two young people made it up to elope and get married at Gretna Green.
The earl made arrangements beforehand at the different stages where they
had to change horses, but the banker, finding that his daughter had
gone, pursued them in hot haste. All went well with the runaway couple
until they arrived at Shap, in Westmorland, where they became aware they
were being pursued. Here the earl hired all the available horses, so as
to delay the irate banker's progress. The banker's "money was good,"
however, and the runaways were overtaken between Penrith and Carlisle.
Hero the earl's "blood was good," for, taking deliberate aim at the
little star of white on the forehead of the banker's leading horse, he
fired successfully, and so delayed the pursuit that the fugitives
arrived at Gretna first; and when the bride's father drove up, purple
with rage and almost choking from sheer exasperation, he found them
safely locked in what was called the bridal chamber! The affair created
a great sensation in London, where the parties were well known, heavy
bets being made as to which party would win the race. At the close of
the market it stood at two to one on the earl and the girl.
In those days "postboys" were employed to drive the runaways from the
hotels at Carlisle to Gretna, one of the most noted of whom was Jock
Ainslie, on the staff of the "Bush Inn" at Carlisle. On one occasion he
was commissioned to drive a runaway couple, who had just arrived by the
coach from London, to Gretna, but when they got as far as Longtown they
insisted they were tired and must stay for dinner before going forward,
so they sent Jock back. He returned to Carlisle rather reluctantly,
advising the runaways to lose no time. But when he got back to the "Bush
Inn" he saw the mother of the lady whom he had left at Longtown drive up
to the hotel door accompanied by a Bow Street officer. While they were
changing horses, Jock went to the stable, saddled a horse, rode off to
Longtown, and told his patrons what he had seen. They immediately
hurried into a chaise, but had not gone far before they heard the
carriage wheels of their pursuers. Jock Ainslie was quite equal to the
occasion, and drove the chaise behind a thick bush, whence the pair had
the satisfaction of seeing "Mamma" hurry past at full speed in pursuit.
While she was continuing her search on the Annan Road, Jock quietly
drove into Springfield and had his patrons "hitched up" without further
delay, and doubtless was well rewarded for his services.
[Illustration: WILLIE LANG The last of the "Lang" line of priests.]
It seemed a strange thing that Lord Brougham, who brought in the famous
Act, should himself have taken advantage of a "Scotch" marriage, and
that two other Lord Chancellors, both celebrated men, should have acted
in the same manner; Lord Eldon, the originator of the proverb--
New brooms sweep clean,
was married at Gretna, and Lord Erskine at Springfield. Marriage in this
part of Scotland had not the same religious significance as elsewhere,
being looked upon as more in the nature of a civil contract than a
religious ceremony. The form of marriage was almost entirely a secular
matter, and if a man and woman made a declaration before two witnesses
that they were single persons and had resided twenty-one days in
Scotland, they were considered as being man and wife. At the point where
the Black Esk and White Esk Rivers join, a remarkable custom called
"Handfasting" prevailed hundreds of years ago. Here, at a place known
as Handfasting Hough, young men and women assembled in great numbers and
made matrimonial engagements by joining hands. The marriage was only
binding for one year, but if both parties were then satisfied, the
"handfasting" was continued for life. King Robert II of Scotland, it was
said, was one of those who was "hand-fasted" there.
[Illustration: (Facsimile of Lord Erskine's signature.)]
[Illustration: SPRINGFIELD TOLL.]
We now left Gretna, still single, for Carlisle, nine and a half miles
away, the distance to Glasgow in the opposite direction being
eighty-five miles. We recrossed the River Sark, the boundary here
between Scotland and England, the famous tollbar through which eloping
couples had to hurry before they could reach Gretna Green. In those days
gangs of men were ever on the watch to levy blackmail both on the
pursued and their pursuers, and the heaviest purse generally won when
the race was a close one. We saw a new hotel on the English side of the
river which had been built by a Mr. Murray specially for the
accommodation of the runaways while the "Blacksmith" was sent for to
join them together on the other side of the boundary, but it had only
just been finished when Lord Brougham's Act rendered it practically
useless, and made it a bad speculation for Mr. Murray. Passing through
the tollgate we overtook a man with half a dozen fine greyhounds, in
which, after our conversation with the owner of the racing dog at
Canonbie Collieries, we had become quite interested; and we listened to
his description of each as if we were the most ardent dog-fanciers on
the road. One of the dogs had taken a first prize at Lytham and another
a second at Stranraer. We passed through a country where there were
immense beds of peat, hurrying through Todhilis without even calling at
the "Highland Laddie" or the "Jovial Butcher" at Kingstown, and we
crossed the River Eden as we entered the Border city of Carlisle,
sometimes called "Merrie Carlisle," or, as the Romans had it, Lugovalum.
An elderly gentleman whom we overtook, and of whom we inquired
concerning the objects of interest to be seen, appeared to take more
interest in business matters than in those of an antiquarian nature, for
he told us that "Carr's Biscuit Manufactory" with its machinery was a
far finer sight than either the cathedral or the castle. Perhaps he was
right, but our thoughts were more in the direction of bygone ages, with
the exception of the letters that were waiting for us at the post
office, and for which we did not forget to call. Merrie Carlisle, we
were informed, was the chief residence of King Arthur, whose supposed
ghostly abode and that of his famous knights, or one of them, we had
passed earlier in the week. We were now told that near Penrith, a town
to the south of Carlisle, there was still to be seen a large circle
surrounded by a mound of earth called "Arthur's Round Table," and that
in the churchyard were the giants' graves.
In the very old ballad on the "Lothely Lady" King Arthur was described
as returning after a long journey to his Queen Guenevere, in a very sad
mood:
And there came to him his cozen, Sir Gawain,
Y' was a courteous Knight;
Why sigh you soe sore, Unkle Arthur, he said,
Or who hath done thee unright?
Arthur told him he had been taken prisoner by a fierce, gigantic chief,
who had only released him and spared his life on condition that he would
return and pay his ransom on New Year's Day, the ransom being that he
must tell the giant "that which all women most desire." When the morning
of the day arrived, Arthur was in great despair, for nearly all the
women he had asked had given him different answers, but he was in honour
bound to give himself up; and as he rode over the moors he saw a lady
dressed in scarlet, sitting between an oak and a green holly. Glancing
at her, Arthur saw the most hideous woman he had ever seen.
Then there as shold have stood her mouth,
Then there was sett her e'e,
The other was in her forhead fast,
The way that she might see.
Her nose was crooked, and turned outward,
Her mouth stood foul awry;
A worse formed lady than she was,
Never man saw with his eye.
King Arthur rode on and pretended not to see her, but she called him
back and said she could help him with his ransom. The King answered, "If
you can release me from my bond, lady, I shall be grateful, and you
shall marry my nephew Gawain, with a gold ring." Then the lothely lady
told Arthur that the thing all women desired was "to have their own
way." The answer proved to be correct, and Arthur was released; but the
"gentle Gawain" was now bound by his uncle's promise, and the "lothely
lady" came to Carlisle and was wedded in the church to Gawain. When
they were alone after the ceremony she told him she could be ugly by day
and lovely by night, or _vice versa_, as he pleased, and for her sake,
as she had to appear amongst all the fine ladies at the Court, he begged
her to appear lovely by day. Then she begged him to kiss her, which with
a shudder he did, and immediately the spell cast over her by a
witch-step mother was broken, and Gawain beheld a young and lovely
maiden. She was presented to Arthur and Guenevere, and was no longer a
"loeating the lines:
Slowly moves the march of ages,
Slowly grows the forest king,
Slowly to perfection cometh
Every great and glorious thing!
It was 8 p.m. as we entered Aspatria, where we found lodgings for the
night at Isaac Tomlinson's. We expected Aspatria, from its name, to have
had some connection with the Romans, but it appeared to have been so
called after Aspatrick, or Gospatrick, the first Lord of Allerdale, and
the church was dedicated to St. Kentigern. The Beacon Hill near the town
was explored in 1799, and a vault discovered containing the skeleton of
a gigantic warrior seven feet long, who had been buried with his sword,
dagger, gold bracelet, horse's bit, and other accoutrements dating from
the sixth century.
We had passed a small village near our road named Bromfield, which was
said to possess strong claims to have been the site of the Battle of
Brunanburch, fought in the year 937, when Anlaf, King of Dublin, formed
a huge confederacy with the King of the Scots, the King of Strathclyde,
and Owen, King of Cumbria, against Athelstan, King of England, by whom,
however, they were signally defeated; but we afterwards came to a place
a long way further south which also claimed to have been the site of
that famous battle.
According to the following record, however, our native county of Chester
appeared to have the strongest claim to that distinction:
It is not actually certain where the Battle of Brunanburch was
fought, but it is by all historians said to have taken place in the
Wirral Peninsula about the site where Bromborough is now situated.
The Battle took place in 937 A.D., and it was here that Athelstan
defeated the united forces of Scotland, Cumberland, and the British
and Danish Chiefs, which is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle in a
great war song. The name given in the Chronicle is Brunesburgh, but
at the time of the Conquest it was called Brunburgh.
The fleet set sail from Dublin under the command of the Danish King
Anlaf or Olaf to invade England. He had as his father-in-law,
Constantine, King of the Scots, and many Welsh Chieftains supported
him. They made good their landing but were completely routed by King
Athelstan, Grandson of Alfred, as stated above.
It is more than probable that Anlaf sailing from Dublin would come over
to England by the usual route to the havens opposite, near the great
roadstead of the Dee estuary.
One must not forget that the sea has made great ravages upon this coast,
destroying much ground between Wallasey and West Kirby, though
compensating for it in some measure by depositing the material in the
estuary itself in the shape of banks of mud and sand. Nor must one
overlook the existence of the old forest of Wirral, which stretched, as
the old saying ran--
From Blacon Point to Hilbre
Squirrels in search of food
Might then jump straight from tree to tree.
So thick the forest stood!
Chester was held by the king, for the warlike daughter of Alfred,
Ethelfleda, had rebuilt it as a fort after it had been lying in waste
for generations, and had established another at Runcofan, or Runcorn. It
was natural, therefore, for Anlaf to avoid the waters protected by
Athelstan's fleet and seek a landing perhaps at the old Roman
landing-place of Dove Point, near Hoylake, or in the inlet now carved
into the Timber Float at Birkenhead. Norse pirates had made a settlement
here beforehand, as the place names, Kirby, Calby, Greasby, and
Thorstaston, seem to indicate.
Bromborough would be just the spot for a strategist like Athelstan to
meet the invader, trying to force a way between the forest and the
marshes about Port Sunlight. This old port at Dove Point has been washed
away, though many wonderful relics of Roman and earlier times have been
found there, and are safely housed in the Chester Museum. Once again it
was used for the embarking of the army under William III, when he sailed
for Ireland to meet the late king, James II, in battle.
When Chester began to lose its trade through the silting up of its
harbour, about the reigns of the Lancastrian kings, it became necessary
to sail from lower down the estuary, Parkgate being in the best position
and possessing a quay, while Dawpool was also frequently used. But a
good port was necessary, because Ireland was frequently in rebellion,
and troops were usually passed over the channel from this region.
Parkgate was most prosperous in the eighteenth century, but the
construction of the great Irish road through Llangollen to Holyhead, and
of a good coach road from Warrington to Liverpool, and the later
development of railways caused its decline, until in our time it was
only known for its shrimps and as the headquarters of a small coast
fleet of fishing-boats.
It was to Dawport, or Darport, that Dean Swift usually sailed from
Dublin at the beginning of the eighteenth century for his frequent
visits to his brother wits, Addison and Steele. It was strange how many
common sayings of to-day were his in origin such as, "There is none so
blind as they that won't see," and, "A penny for your thoughts." Like
many witty people, he must needs have his little joke. He was made Dean
of St. Patrick's, Dublin, in 1713, and was accustomed to preach there
each Sunday afternoon, and was said to have preached on the same subject
on sixteen consecutive occasions. On making his seventeenth appearance
he asked the congregation if they knew what he was going to preach
about. Most of them answered "Yes," while others replied "No." "Some of
you say Yes," said the Dean, "and some of you say No. Those who know,
tell those who don't know," and he immediately pronounced the
benediction and left the pulpit!
At Chester he was accustomed to stay at the "Yacht Inn" in Watergate
Street, the old street of Roman origin, which led westwards to the river
beneath the River Gate. A dean is a dean, and his dignity must be
preserved in a Cathedral city. Of a Dean of Chester of the early
nineteenth century it is recounted that he would never go to service at
the Cathedral except in stately dignity, within his stage coach with
postillions and outriders, and would never even take his wife with him
inside. Dean Swift probably announced his arrival to his brother of
Chester as one king announces his approach to another king. But the
story goes that a great cathedral function was on and no one came to
welcome the great man. Perhaps there was a little excuse, for most
likely they had suffered from his tongue. But, however much they might
have suffered, they would have hurried to see him had they foreseen his
revenge. And perhaps a poor dinner had contributed to the acidity of his
mind when he scratched on one of the windows the following verse:
Rotten without and mouldering within.
This place and its clergy are all near akin!
It is a far cry from the battle of Brunanburch to Dean Swift, but the
thought of Anlaf took us back to Ireland, and Ireland and Chester were
closely connected in trade for many centuries.
So it was with thoughts of our homeland that we retired for the night
after adding another long day's walk to our tour.
(_Distance walked thirty-two and a half miles_.)
_Saturday, October 14th._
The long, straggling street of Aspatria was lit up with gas as we passed
along it in the early morning on the road towards Maryport, and we
marched through a level and rather uninteresting country, staying for
slight boot repairs at a village on our way. We found Maryport to be
quite a modern looking seaport town, with some collieries in the
neighbourhood. We were told that the place had taken its name from Mary
Queen of Scots; but we found this was not correct, as the name was given
to it about the year 1756, after Mary the wife of Humphrey Senhouse, the
Lord of the Manor at that period, the first house there apart from the
old posting-house, having been built in the year 1748. For centuries
there had been a small fishing-village at the mouth of the river, which
in the time of Edward I was named Ellenfoot, while the river itself was
named the Alne, now corrupted into Ellen. Maryport was of some
importance in the time of the Romans, and their camp, about five
acres in extent, still overlooked the sea. It was probably founded by
Agricola about A.D. 79, and in A.D. 120 was the station of the Roman
Fleet under Marcus Menaeius Agrippa, Admiral of the Roman Fleet in
British Waters, and a personal friend of Hadrian. The Roman name of the
station was probably Glanoventa, though other names have been suggested.
The North-east Gateway was more distinct than other portions of the
camp, the ruts made by the chariot wheels of the Romans being still
visible inside the threshold. The Roman village in those days covered
the four fields on the north-east side of the camp, and since the
seventeenth century about forty Roman altars had been found, seventeen
of them having been discovered in 1870, the year before our visit. They
had been carefully buried about 300 yards east of the camp, and were
discovered through a plough striking against one of them. Among them
were altars to Jupiter, Mars, Virtue, Vulcan, Neptune, Belatucadrus,
Eternal Rome, Gods and Goddesses, Victory, and to the Genius of the
Place Fortune, Rome. In addition there were twelve small or household
altars, querns, Roman millstones, cup and ring stones, a large,
so-called, serpent stone, and several sepulchral slabs, sculptures, etc.
There were also large quantities of Samian and other pottery, and
articles in glass, bronze, lead, and iron, with about 140 coins, many of
these remains being unique. This wonderful discovery proved that the
Romans were resident here right up to the end of their occupation of
Britain, as the coins bore the names of thirty-two Roman Emperors. The
altars themselves were buried where they were found probably before A.D.
200. It is well known that their soldiers were drafted from many other
nations, and there is distinct evidence that amongst others the first
cohort of Spaniards appeared to have been prominent, while the Legionary
Stones were of the Second and Twentieth Legions, the latter being
stationed for a long time at Chester and moved to the north of England
in the latter half of the fourth century.
[Illustration: ALTAR STONES. "Roman remains found at Maryport, and
dating probably about or before A.D. 200."]
[Illustration: ALTAR STONES. "Among them were altars to Jupiter, Mars,
Vulcan, household altars, and legionary stones."]
[Illustration: THE SERPENT STONE.]
The Roman ships carried stores here from Deva, their station on the
Dee, now known as Chester, for the use of the builders of Hadrian's
Wall, so that Maryport ought to be a happy hunting-ground for
antiquaries. After the departure of the Romans, Maryport must have been
left to decay for over a thousand years, and it seemed even now to be a
place that very few tourists visiteded in the Patriot's mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings meet for holier rest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw's top; but he to heaven was vowed.
Through his industrious life, and Christian faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.
We attended the same church in the afternoon, and both the sermons were
preached by the curate, his texts being Deut. vi. 5 in the morning and
Hebrews iv. 3 in the afternoon. We were surprised to see such large
congregations on a wet day, but concluded that the people were so
accustomed to rain in that part of the country that they looked upon it
as a matter of course. The people of Keswick evidently had other views
as regards church-going than is expressed in the following lines by an
author whose name we do not remember:
No pelting rain can make us stay
When we have tickets for the play;
But let one drop the side-walk smirch.
And it's too wet to go to church.
At the morning service we sat in a pew in the rear of the church, and at
one point in the service when it was usual in that part of the country
for the congregation to sit down, one gentleman only remained standing.
We could scarcely believe our own eyes when we recognised in this
solitary figure the commanding form of Colonel Greenall of the
Warrington Volunteers, a gentleman whom we know full well, for his
brother was the rector of Grappenhall, our native village, where the
Colonel himself formerly resided.
He was a great stickler for a due recognition of that pleasing but
old-fashioned custom now fallen out of use, of the boys giving the
rector, the squire, or any other prominent member of their families a
respectful recognition when meeting them in the village or on their
walks abroad. On one occasion the boys had forgotten their usual
obeisance when meeting some relatives of the Colonel. He was highly
indignant at this sin of omission, and took the earliest opportunity to
bring the matter forcibly before his Sunday-school class, of which my
brother was a member. The Colonel spoke long and feelingly to the boys
on the subject of ordering themselves lowly and reverently before all
their "betters," including governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and
masters, and to all those who were put in authority over them, and wound
up his peroration with these words, which my brother never forgot, "And
now, boys, whenever you meet ME, or any of MY FAMILY, mind you always
touch your HATS!"
[Illustration: CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, KESWICK.]
We did not stop to speak to the Colonel, as he was at the other end of
the church and passed out through another door, but we were recognised
by one of his men, who told us the Colonel had only just removed to that
neighbourhood. He had liked his summer's experiences there, but did not
know how he would go on in the winter. The Colonel and his man were the
only persons we saw on the whole of our journey that we knew.
To return to our boyish experiences and to the Colonel, the subject of
his Sunday-school lesson was taken from the Summary of the Ten
Commandments in the Church of England Prayer Book, where they were
divided into two parts, the first four relating to our duty to God, and
the remaining six to our duty towards our neighbour. It was surprising
how these questions and answers learned in the days of our youth dwelt
in our memories, and being Sunday, we each wrote them down from memory
with the same result, and we again record them for the benefit of any of
our friends who wish to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."
"_Question_.--What is thy duty towards God?
"_Answer_.--My duty towards God, is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and
to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and
with all my strength; to worship Him, to give Him thanks, to put my
whole trust in Him, to call upon Him, to honour His holy Name and His
Word, and to serve Him truly all the days of my life.
"_Question_.--What is thy duty towards thy Neighbour?
"_Answer_.--My duty towards my Neighbour, is to love him as myself, and
to do unto all men, as I would they should do unto me: To love, honour,
and succour my father and mother: To honour and obey the Queen, and all
that are put in authority under her: To submit myself to all my
governors, teachers, spiritual pastors and masters: To order myself
lowly and reverently to all my betters: To hurt no body by word nor
deed: To be true and just in all my dealing: To bear no malice nor
hatred in my heart: To keep my hands from picking and stealing, and my
tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering: To keep my body in
temperance, soberness, and chastity: Not to covet nor desire other men's
goods; but to learn and labour truly to get mine own living, and to do
my duty in that state of life, unto which it shall please God to call
me."
The word "duty" in the last paragraph of the explanation of one's duty
to one's neighbour must have been in the thoughts of both Nelson and his
men at the Battle of Trafalgar when he signalled, "England expects that
every man this day will do his duty." Although objections may be raised
to clauses in the summary, we always thought that our country could be
none the worse, but all the better, if every one learned and tried to
act up to the principles contained in these summaries of the Ten
Commandments.
In the evening we attended St. John's Church, where the Vicar officiated
and preached from Isaiah lxvii. 7 to a large congregation, and after the
service we returned to our hotel.
Keswick was a great resort of tourists and holiday people, and we were
not without company at the hotel, from whom we obtained plenty of advice
concerning our route on the morrow. We were strongly recommended to see
the Druidical Circle and to climb Skiddaw, whose summit was over 3,000
feet above sea-level, from which we should have a view scarcely
surpassed in the whole of Europe, and a scene that would baffle the
attempts of ordinary men to describe, having taxed even the powers of
Southey and Wordsworth. These recommendations and others were all
qualified with the words "if fine." But, oh that little word "if"--so
small that we scarcely notice it, yet how much does it portend! At any
rate we could not arrive at a satisfactory decision that night, owing to
the unfavourable state of the weather.
FIFTH WEEK'S JOURNEY
A WEEK IN THE RAIN
_Monday, October 16th._
The morning was showery, but we were obliged to continue our walk, so we
left Keswick with the intention of visiting the Falls of Lodore, the
large Bowder Stone, and the Yew Trees in Borrowdale, and afterwards
crossing over the fells to visit the graves of the poets at Grasmere. We
had been recommended to ascend the Castle Rigg, quite near the town, in
order to see the fine views from there, which included Bassenthwaite
Lake and Derwent Water. The poet Gray, who died in 1771, was so much
impressed by the retrospect, and with what he had seen from the top
where once the castle stood, that he declared he had "a good mind to go
back again." Unfortunately we had to forgo even that ascent, as the rain
descended in almost torrential showers. So we journeyed on in the rain
alongside the pretty lake of Derwent Water, which is about three miles
long and about a mile and a half broad, the water being so clear, we
were informed, that a small stone could be seen even if five or six
yards below the surface. It was certainly a lovely lake, and, with its
nicely wooded islands dotting its surface, recalled memories of Loch
Lomond. The first of these islands, about six acres in extent, was named
the Vicar's or Derwent Island, on which a family mansion had been
erected. On Lord's Island, which was quite near the side, were the ruins
of an old summer-house built by the Ratcliffe family with the stones
from their ruined castle on Castlerigg. The third island, which was in
the centre of the lake, also had a summer-house that had been built
they might have perpetual spring, but the
story relates that in this they were not entirely successful, for the
cuckoo just managed to get over the wall. We now continued our journey
to find the famous Yew Trees of Borrowdale, which Wordsworth describes
in one of his pastorates as "those fraternal four of Borrowdale":
But worthier still of note
Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved;
Nor uniformed with Phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
From whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially--beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose decked
With unrejoicing berries--ghostly shapes
May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope,
Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton,
And Time the Shadow; there to celebrate,
As in a natural temple scattered o'er
With altars undisturbed of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose
To lie, and listen to the mountain flood
Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.
[Illustration: BORROWDALE AND SEATHWAITE]
It was a lonely place where the four yew trees stood, though not far
from the old black lead works which at one time produced the finest
plumbago for lead pencils in the world. As the rain was falling heavily,
we lit a fire under the largest of the four trees, which measured about
twenty-one feet in circumference at four feet from the ground, and
sheltered under its venerable shade for about an hour, watching a
much-swollen streamlet as it rolled down the side of a mountain.
Near the yew trees there was a stream which we had to cross, as our next
stage was over the fells to Grasmere; but when we came to its swollen
waters, which we supposed came from "Glaramara's inmost Caves," they
were not "murmuring" as Wordsworth described them, but coming with a
rush and a roar, and to our dismay we found the bridge broken down and
portions of it lying in the bed of the torrent. We thought of a stanza
in a long-forgotten ballad:
London Bridge is broken down!
Derry derry down, derry derry down!
Luckily we found a footbridge lower down the stream. It was now
necessary to inquire our way at one of the isolated farms in the
neighbourhood of Borrowdale, where the people knew very little of what
was going on in the world outside their own immediate environs. We heard
a story relating to the middle of the eighteenth century, when in the
absence of roads goods had to be carried on horseback. A rustic, who had
been sent for a bag of lime, the properties of which were unknown in
remote places, placed the bag on the back of his horse, and while he was
returning up the hills the rain came on, soaking the bag so that the
lime began to swell and smoke. The youth thought that it was on fire,
so, jumping off his horse, he filled his hat with water from the stream
and threw it on the bag. This only made matters worse, for the lime
began smoking more than ever; so he lifted it from the horse's back and
placed it in the water at the edge of the stream, where, in addition to
smoking, it began to boil and to make a hissing sound, which so
frightened the young man that he rode home in terror, feeling sure that
it was the Devil who had sneaked inside the bag!
We made our way to a farmhouse which we could see in the distance, but
the farmer advised us not to attempt to cross the fells, as it was misty
and not likely to clear up that day. So we turned back, and in about two
miles met a countryman, who told us we could get to Grasmere over what
he called the "Green Nip," a mountain whose base he pointed out to us.
We returned towards the hills, but we had anything but an easy walk, for
we could find no proper road, and walked on for hours in a "go as you
please" manner. Our whereabouts we did not know, since we could only see
a few yards before us. We walked a long way up hill, and finally landed
in some very boggy places, and when the shades of evening began to come
on we became a little alarmed, and decided to follow the running water,
as we had done on a very much worse occasion in the north of Scotland.
Presently we heard the rippling of a small stream, which we followed,
though with some difficulty, as it sometimes disappeared into the rocks,
until just at nightfall we came to a gate at the foot of the fells, and
through the open door of a cottage beheld the blaze of a tire burning
brightly inside. We climbed over the gate, and saw standing in the
garden a man who stared so hard at us, and with such a look of
astonishment, that we could not have helped speaking to him in any
case, even had he not been the first human being we had seen for many
hours. When we told him where we had come from, he said we might think
ourselves lucky in coming safely over the bogs on such a misty day, and
told us a story of a gentleman from Bradford who had sunk so deeply in
one of the bogs that only with the greatest difficulty had he been
rescued.
He told us it was his custom each evening to come out of his cottage for
a short time before retiring to rest, and that about a month before our
visit he had been out one night as usual after his neighbours had gone
to bed, and, standing at his cottage door, he thought he heard a faint
cry. He listened again: yes, he could distinctly hear a cry for help. He
woke up his neighbours, and they and his son, going in the direction
from which the cries came, found a gentleman fast in the rocks. He had
been on a visit to Grasmere, and had gone out for an afternoon's walk on
the fells, when the mist came on and he lost his way. As night fell he
tried to get between some rocks, when he slipped into a crevice and
jammed himself fast between them--fortunately for himself as it
afterwards proved, for when the rescuing party arrived, they found him
in such a dangerous position that, if he had succeeded in getting
through the rocks the way he intended, he would inevitably have fallen
down the precipice and been killed.
After hearing these stories, we felt very thankful we were safely off
the fells. Without knowing it, we had passed the scene of the Battle of
Dunmail Raise, where Dunmail, the last King of Cumbria, an old British
kingdom, was said to have been killed in 945 fighting against Edmund,
King of England.
The place we had stumbled upon after reaching the foot of the fells was
Wythburn, at the head of Thirlmere Lake, quite near Amboth Hall, with
its strange legends and associations. The mansion was said to be haunted
by supernatural visitors, midnight illuminations, and a nocturnal
marriage with a murdered bride. The most remarkable feature of the
story, however, was that of the two skulls from Calgarth Hall, near
Windermere, which came and joined in these orgies at Amboth Hall. These
skulls formerly occupied a niche in Calgarth Hall, from which it was
found impossible to dislodge them. They were said to have been buried,
burned, ground to powder, dispersed by the wind, sunk in a well, and
thrown into the lake, but all to no purpose, for they invariably
appeared again in their favourite niche until some one thought of
walling them up, which proved effectual, and there they still remain.
The rain had now ceased, and the moon, only three days old, was already
visible and helped to light us on our four-mile walk to Grasmere. On our
way we overtook a gentleman visitor, to whom we related our adventure,
and who kindly offered us a drink from his flask. We did not drink
anything stronger than tea or coffee, so we could not accept the whisky,
but we were glad to accept his guidance to the best inn at Grasmere,
where we soon relieved the cravings of our pedestrian appetites, which,
as might be imagined, had grown strongly upon us.
(_Distance walked twenty-two miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 17th._
GRASMERE. Our first duty in the morning was to call at the post office
for our letters from home, and then to fortify ourselves with a good
breakfast; our next was to see the graves of the poets in the
picturesque and quiet churchyard. We expected to find some massive
monuments, but found only plain stone flags marking their quiet
resting-places, particularly that of Wordsworth, which was inscribed:
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1850
MARY WORDSWORTH 1859.
The grave of Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, who was buried in
1849, was also there. There are few who do not know his wonderful poem,
"The Ancient Mariner," said to have been based on an old manuscript
story of a sailor preserved in the Bristol Library. Strange to say, not
far from his grave was that of Sir John Richardson, a physician and
arctic explorer, who brought home the relics of Sir John Franklin's
ill-fated and final voyage to the Arctic regions to discover the
North-West Passage. This brought to our minds all the details of that
sorrowful story which had been repeatedly told to us in our early
childhood, and was, to our youthful minds, quite as weird as that of
"The Ancient Mariner."
[Illustration: GRASMERE CHURCH.]
Sir John Franklin was born in 1786. Intended by his parents for the
Church, but bent on going to sea, he joined the Royal Navy when he was
fourteen years of age, and served as a midshipman on the _Bellerophon_
at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, afterwards taking part in Captain
Flinders' voyage of discovery along the coast of Australia. His first
voyage to the Arctic Regions was in 1818, and after a long and eventful
career he was created Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837, whither
criminals convicted of grave offences involving transportation for life
were sent from England, where he did much for the improvement and
well-being of the colony.
On May 19th, 1845, he left England with the two ships _Erebus_ and
_Terror_, having on board 28 officers and 111 men--in all 134 souls--on
a voyage to the Arctic Regions in the hope of discovering the North-West
Passage. They reached Stromness, in the Orkneys, on July 1st, and were
afterwards seen and spoken to in the North Sea by the whaler _Prince of
Wales_, belonging to Hull. After that all was blank.
Lady Franklin did not expect to receive any early news from her husband,
but when two years passed away without her hearing from him, she became
anxious, and offered a large reward for any tidings of him. In 1848 old
explorers went out to search for him, but without result. Still
believing he was alive, she sent out other expeditions, and one was even
dispatched from America. All England was roused, and the sympathy of the
entire nation was extended to Lady Franklin.
Nine long years passed away, but still no news, until intelligence
arrived that an Eskimo had been found wearing on his head a gold
cap-band which he said he had picked up where "the dead white men were."
Lady Franklin then made a final effort, and on July 1st, 1857, Captain
McClintock sailed from England in the _Fox_. In course of time the
matter was cleared up. It was proved that the whole of the expedition
had perished, Sir John Franklin having died on June 11th, 1847. Many
relics were found and brought back to England.
[Illustration: DOVE COTTAGE.]
Lady Franklin, who died in 1875, was still alive at the time we passed
through Grasmere. One of her last acts was to erect a marble monument to
Sir John Franklin in Westminster Abbey, and it was her great wish to
write the epitaph herself, but as she died before this was accomplished,
it was written by Alfred Tennyson, a nephew of Sir John by marriage, and
read as follows:
Not here! the white North hath thy bones, and thou
Heroic Sailor Soul!
Art passing on thy happier voyage now
Towards no earthly pole.
Dean Stanley added a note to the effect that the monument was "Erected
by his widow, who, after long waiting and sending many in search of him,
herself departed to seek and to find him in the realms of light, 18th
July, 1875, aged eighty-three years."
But to return to Grasmere. Wordsworth lived there from 1803 to 1809 at
the Dove Cottage, of which, in the first canto of "The Waggoner," he
wrote:
For at the bottom of the brow
Where once the "Dove and Olive-Bough"
Offered a greeting of good ale
To all who entered Grasmere Vale;
And called on him who must depart
To leave it with a jovial heart;
There, where the "Dove and Olive-Bough"
Once hung, a poet harbours now,
A simple water-drinking Bard.
When Wordsworth moved to Rydal Mount, this cottage, which had formerly
been a public-house, was taken by that master of English prose, Thomas
de Quincey, author of the _Confessions of an English Opium Eater_.
[Illustration: RYDAL MOUNT.]
[Illustration: THE POET'S SEAT, RYDAL WATER.]
Wordsworth had the habit of reciting his poetry aloud as he went along
the road, and on that account the inhabitants thought he was not quite
sane. When Hartley Coleridge, his great friend, asked an old man who was
breaking stones on the road if he had any news, he answered, "Why, nowte
varry partic'lar; only awd Wordsworth's brokken lowse ageean!" (had
another fit of madness). On another occasion, a lady visitor asked a
woman in the village whether Wordsworth made himself agreeable among
them. "Well," she said, "he sometimes goes booin' his pottery about
t'rooads an' t'fields an' tak's na nooatish o' neabody, but at udder
times he'll say 'Good morning, Dolly,' as sensible as owder you or me."
The annual sports held at Grasmere were of more than local interest, and
the Rush-bearing was still kept up, but not quite in the manner
prevalent in earlier centuries. When heating apparatus was unknown in
churches, the rushes were gathered, loaded in a cart, and taken to the
church, where they were placed on the floor and in the pews to keep the
feet of the worshippers warm while they were in the church, being
removed and replenished each year when the rush-bearing festival came
round again. One of our earliest recollections was sitting amongst the
rushes on the floor of a pew in the ancient country church at Lymm in
Cheshire.
[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE.]
An item in the Church Book at Grasmere, dating from the seventeenth
century, recorded the cost of "Ye ale bestowed on ye Rush Bearers,"
while in 1830 gingerbread appeared to have been substituted or added as
a luxury to "ye ale."
We passed alongside the pretty lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water amid
beautiful scenery. Mrs. Hemans, in her sonnet, "A remembrance of
Grasmere," wrote:
O vale and lake, within your mountain urn,
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return.
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep.
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands, remote
Isles of the blest:--and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene
Most loved by Evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar
The perfect music of the charm serene:
Still, still unchanged, may _one_ sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer!
On our way to Ambleside we passed Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's residence
until his death in 1850 in the eightieth year of his age. Mrs. Hemans
has described it as "a lovely cottage-like building, almost hidden by a
profusion of roses and ivy." Ambleside was a great centre for tourists
and others, being situated at the head of the fine Lake of Windermere,
to which its admirers were ambitious enough to apply Sir Walter Scott's
lines on Loch Katrine:
In all her length far winding lay
With promontory, creek, and bay,
And islands that impurpled bright
Floated amid the livelier light.
And mountains that like Giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land.
There was a Roman camp which we proposed visiting, and possibly
Helvellyn, but we were compelled for a time to seek refuge in one of the
hotels from the rain. There we met a gentleman, a resident in the
locality, who was what we might describe as a religious enthusiast, for
he had a very exalted opinion of the Vicar of Ambleside, whom he
described as a "Christian man"--a term obviously making distinctions
among vicars with which we heartily agreed. There must have been an
atmosphere of poetry in the Lake District affecting both visitors and
natives, for in a small valley, half a mile from a lonely chapel, stood
the only inn, bearing the strange sign of "The Mortal Man" on which some
native poet, but not Wordsworth, had written:
O Mortal Man, who liv'st on bread,
What is't that makes thy nose so red?--
Thou silly ass, that looks so pale.
It is with drinking Burkett's ale.
[Illustration: THE OLD MILL AT AMBLESIDE.]
Immediately behind Ambleside there was a fearfully steep road leading up
to the head of Kirkstone Pass, where at an altitude of quite 1,400 feet
stood the "Travellers' Rest Inn." In our time walking was the only means
of crossing the pass, but now visitors are conveyed up this hill in
coaches, but as the gradient is so steep in some parts, they are
invariably asked to walk, so as to relieve the horses a little, a fact
which found expression in the Visitors' Book at the "Travellers' Rest"
in the following lines:
He surely is an arrant ass
Who pays to ride up Kirkstone Pass,
For he will find, in spite of talking,
He'll have to walk and pay for walking.
Three parts of Windermere is in Lancashire, and it is the largest and
perhaps the deepest water in the Lake District, being ten and a half
miles long by water, and thirteen miles by road along its shores; the
water is at no point more than two miles broad. It is said to maintain
the same level at the upper end whether it rains or not, and is so clear
that in some places the fish can plainly be seen swimming far beneath
its surface. The islands are clustered together at its narrowest part,
by far the largest being Belle Isle, a finely wooded island with a
mansion in the centre, and a noted stronghold of the Royalists during
the Civil War, at which time it was in the possession of the ancient
Westmorland family of Phillipson. We did not walk alongside Windermere,
but passed by the head of the lake to the old-world village of
Hawkshead, and called at the quaint old-fashioned inn known by the
familiar sign of the "Red Lion." While tea was being prepared we
surveyed the village, and on a stone in the churchyard we found the
following epitaph:
This stone can boast as good a wife
As ever lived a married life,
And from her marriage to her grave
She was never known to mis-behave.
The tongue which others seldom guide,
Was never heard to blame or chide;
From every folly always free
She was what others ought to be.
[Illustration: HAWKSHEAD SQUARE AND INN.]
We had a long talk with the mistress of the inn, who told us that
Wordsworth was educated at the Grammar School in the village, and we
were surprised to hear from her that the Rev. Richard Greenall, whom we
had often heard officiate when he was curate of our native village of
Grappenhall, was now the vicar of Hawkshead. We had quite as exalted an
opinion of him as the gentleman we met at Ambleside had of his vicar.
He was a clergyman who not only read the prayers, but prayed them at the
same time:
I often say my prayers,
But do I ever pray?
and it was a pleasure to listen to the modulations of his voice as he
recited the Lord's Prayer, and especially when repeating that fine
supplication to the Almighty, beginning with the words "Almighty and
most merciful Father." At that time it was not the custom to recite,
read, or sing the prayers in one continual whine on one note (say G
sharp) when offering up supplications to the Almighty--a note which if
adopted by a boy at school would have ensured for him a severe caning,
or by a beggar at your door a hasty and forcible departure. Nor were the
Lessons read in a monotone, which destroys all sense of their full
meaning being imparted to the listeners--but this was in the "good old
times"!
[Illustration: CONISTON.]
We had to listen to another version of the story of the two Calgarth
skulls, from which it appeared that the Phillipsons wanted a piece of
land that belonged to Dorothy, the wife of Kraster Cook, who refused to
sell it, although asked repeatedly to do so. Myles Phillipson swore he
would have that land "be they alive or dead." After a quiet interval he
invited Kraster and his wife Dorothy to a feast, and afterwards accused
them of stealing a silver cup. This they strongly denied, but the cup
was found in their house, where it had been purposely hidden by the
squire's orders. Stealing was at that time a capital offence, and as
Phillipson was the magistrate he sentenced them both to death. In the
court-room Dorothy arose, and, glaring at the magistrate, said loudly,
"Guard thyself, Myles Phillipson. Thou thinkest thou hast managed
grandly; but that tiny lump of land is the dearest a Phillipson has ever
bought or stolen; for you will never prosper, neither your breed:
whatever scheme you undertake will wither in your hand; the side you
take will always lose; the time shall come when no Phillipson will own
one inch of land; and while Calgarth walls shall stand, we'll haunt it
night and day--never will ye be rid of us." They were both executed and
their property appropriated, but ever afterwards the Phillipsons had two
skulls for their guests. They were found at Christmas at the head of a
stairway; they were buried in a distant region, but they turned up in
the old house again; they were brazed to dust and cast to the wind; they
were several years sunk in the lake; but the Phillipsons never could get
rid of them. Meanwhile old Dorothy's prophecy came true, and the family
of Phillipson came to poverty and eventually disappeared.
We left Hawkshead by a road leading to Ulverston, for we had decided to
visit Furness Abbey. Had the weather been fine and clear, we should have
had some splendid views, since we had Windermere on one side and
Coniston Water on the other; but the showers continued, and we could not
even see the "Coniston Old Man," although he raised his head to the
height of 2,577 feet above sea-level. We were, in fact, passing through
the district of Seathwaite, where the rainfall is very much heavier than
in any other district in England. We consoled ourselves, however, with
the thought that we could not expect to see fine lakes in a land where
there was no rainfall, and after walking a considerable distance in the
darkness, two weary and rain-soddened pedestrians took refuge for the
remainder of the night in the well-appointed Temperance Hotel at
Ulverston.
(_Distance walked twenty-four and a half miles_.)
_Wednesday, October 18th._
Ulverston has been described as the "Key to the Lake District," and
Swartmoor, which adjoined the town, took its name from a German--Colonel
Martin Swart---to whom the Duchess of Burgundy in 1486 gave the command
of about 2,000 Flemish troops sent to support the pretended title of
Lambert Simnel to the Crown of England. He landed in Ireland, where a
great number of the Irish joined him, and then, crossing over to
England, landed in Furness and marshalled his troops on the moor which
still bears his name, and where he was joined by many other
conspirators. They encountered the forces of King Henry VII near
Newark-on-Trent in June 1487, and after a stubborn fight were defeated,
4,000 men, with all their commanders, being killed.
Ulverston is also associated with George Fox, the founder of the Society
of Friends. He was born in 1624, at Drayton-on-the-Clay, in
Leicestershire, and in 1650 was imprisoned at Derby for speaking
"publickly" in a church after Divine Service, and bidding the
congregation to "_tremble at the Word of God_." This expression was
turned into one of ridicule, and caused the Society of Friends all over
the kingdom to be known as "Quakers." Fox preached throughout the
country, and even visited America. When he came to Ulverston, he
preached at Swartmoor Hall, where he converted Judge Fell and his wife,
after which meetings at the Hall were held regularly. The judge died in
1658, and in 1669, eleven years after her husband's death, Mrs. Fell,
who suffered much on account of her religion, married George Fox, who in
1688 built the Meeting-house at Ulverston. He died two years
afterwards, aged sixty-seven years, at White Hart Court, London, and
was buried in Banhill Fields.
Leaving our bags at the hotel, we walked to Furness Abbey, which,
according to an old record, was founded byed according to the number of animals and wheels attached to them,
a painted table of tolls being affixed to the tollhouse. The gates were
kept closed, and were only opened when vehicles and cattle arrived, and
after payment of the charges. There was no charge made to pedestrians,
for whom a small gate or turnstile was provided at the side nearest the
tollhouse. The contractors who rented the tolls had to depend for their
profit or loss upon the total amount of the tolls collected minus the
amount of rent paid and toll-keepers' wages. Towards the close of the
Trusts the railways had made such inroads upon the traffic passing by
road that it was estimated that the cost of collection of tolls amounted
to 50 per cent. of the total sum collected.
The tollgate-keeper informed us that Dick Turpin, the highwayman, never
paid any tolls, for no collector dare ask him for payment, and if the
gate was closed, "Black Bess," his favourite mare, jumped over it.
He had a lot to tell us about Furness Abbey. He knew that it had been
built by King Stephen, and he said that not far from it there was a park
called Oxen Park, where the king kept his oxen, and that he had also a
Stirk Park.
He asked us if we had seen the small and very old church of Cartmel
Fell, and when we told him we had not, he said that travellers who did
not know its whereabouts often missed seeing it, for, although not far
from the road, it was hidden from view by a bank or small mound, and
there was a legend that some traveller, saint, or hermit who slept on
the bank dreamed that he must build a church between two rivers running
in opposite directions. He travelled all the world over, but could not
find any place where the rivers ran in opposite directions, so he came
back disappointed, only to find the rivers were quite near the place he
started from. The church was of remote antiquity, and was dedicated to
St. Anthony, the patron saint of wild boars and of wild beasts
generally; but who built the church, and where the rivers were to be
found, did not transpire.
We had carried our mackintoshes all the way from John o' Groat's, and
they had done us good service; but the time had now arrived when they
had become comparatively useless, so, after thanking the keeper of the
tollhouse for allowing us to shelter there, we left them with him as
relics of the past. The great objection to these waterproofs was that
though they prevented the moisture coming inwards, they also prevented
it going outwards, and the heat and perspiration generated by the
exertion of walking soon caused us to be as wet as if we had worn no
protection at all. Of course we always avoided standing in a cold wind
or sitting in a cold room, and latterly we had preferred getting wet
through to wearing them.
We arrived in Kendal in good time, and stayed at the temperance hotel.
In the town we purchased two strong but rather rustic-looking umbrellas,
without tassels or gold or silver handles--for umbrellas in the rainy
region of the "North Countrie" were wanted for use and not for ornament.
We found them quite an agreeable change from the overalls. Of course we
held them up skilfully, and as we thought almost scientifically, when
walking in the rain, and it was astonishing how well they protected us
when holding them towards the same side and angle as the falling rain.
Many people we met were holding them straight up, and looking quite
happy, reminding us of the ostrich when hunted and hard pressed, hiding
its head in the sand and imagining that its body was covered also! The
draper who sold us the umbrellas told us that Professor Kirk, whom we
had heard in Edinburgh, was to deliver an address in the evening on the
Good Templar Movement, so we decided to attend. The Professor, a good
speaker, informed us that there were between five and six hundred
members of the Order in Kendal. Mr. Edward Dawson of Lancaster also
addressed the meeting, and told us there were about three hundred
members in Lancaster, while the Professor estimated the number in
Scotland at between fifty and sixty thousand. It was quite a new
movement, which had its origin apparently in America, and was becoming
the prevailing subject of conversation in the country we travelled
through.
[Illustration: KENDAL CASTLE.]
Kendal was an ancient place, having been made a market town by licence
from Richard Coeur de Lion. Philippa, the Queen of Edward III, wisely
invited some Flemings to settle there and establish the manufacture of
woollen cloth, which they did. Robin Hood and his "merrie men" were
said to have been clothed in Kendal Green, a kind of leafy green which
made the wearers of it scarcely distinguishable from the foliage and
vegetation of the forests which in Robin Hood's time covered the greater
part of the country. Linc buried with him. There was
also the tomb of Samuel Watson, the "old Quaker," who interrupted the
service in the church in 1659, when the people "brok his head upon ye
seates." Then there was the famous Grammar School, a very old foundation
dating back to early in the sixteenth century. We were delighted with
our visit to Giggleswick, and, crossing the old bridge over the River
Ribble, here but a small stream, we entered the town of Settle and
called for tea at Thistlethwaite's Tea and Coffee Rooms. There were
several small factories in the neighbourhood. We noticed that a concert
had recently been held in the town in aid of a fund for presenting a
lifeboat to the National Society, one having already been given by this
town for use on the stormy coasts of the Island of Anglesey.
[Illustration: GIGGLESWICK CHURCH.]
Leaving Settle by the Skipton road, we had gone about a mile when we met
two men who informed us we were going a long way round either for Ripon
or York. They said an ancient road crossed the hills towards York, and
that after we had climbed the hill at the back of the town we should see
the road running straight for fourteen miles. This sounded all right,
and as the new moon was now shining brightly, for it was striking six
o'clock as we left the town, we did not fear being lost amongst the
hills, although they rose to a considerable height. Changing our course,
we climbed up a very steep road and crossed the moors, passing a small
waterfall; but whether we were on or off the ancient road we had no
means of ascertaining, for we neither saw nor met any one on the way,
nor did we see any house until we reached the ancient-looking village of
Kirby Malham. Here we got such very voluminous directions as to the way
to Malham that neither of us could remember them beyond the first turn,
but we reached that village at about ten o'clock. We asked the solitary
inhabitant who had not retired to rest where we could find lodgings for
the night. He pointed out a house at the end of the "brig" with the word
"Temperance" on it in large characters, which we could see easily as the
moon had not yet disappeared, and told us it belonged to the village
smith, who accommodated visitors. All was in darkness inside the house,
but we knocked at the door with our heavy sticks, and this soon brought
the smith to one of the upper windows. In reply to our question, "Can we
get a bed for the night?" he replied in the Yorkshire dialect, "Our
folks are all in bed, but I'll see what they say." Then he closed the
window, and all was quiet except the water, which was running fast under
the "brig," and which we found afterwards was the River Aire, as yet
only a small stream. We waited and waited for what seemed to us a very
long time, and were just beginning to think the smith had fallen asleep
again, when we heard the door being unbolted, and a young man appeared
with a light in his hand, bidding us "Come in," which we were mighty
glad to do, and to find ourselves installed in a small but very
comfortable room. "You will want some supper," he said; and we assured
him it was quite true, for we had not had anything to eat or drink since
we left Settle, and, moreover, we had walked thirty-five miles that day,
through fairly hilly country. In a short time he reappeared with a quart
of milk and an enormous apple pie, which we soon put out of sight; but
was milk ever so sweet or apple pie ever so good! Forty-five years have
passed away since then, but the memory still remains; and the sweet
sleep that followed--the rest of the weary--what of that?
(_Distance walked thirty-five miles_.)
_Saturday, October 21st._
One great advantage of staying the night in the country was that we were
sure of getting an early breakfast, for the inns had often farms
attached to them, and the proprietors and their servants were up early
to attend to their cattle. This custom of early rising also affected the
business of the blacksmiths, for the farmers' horses requiring attention
to their shoes were always sent down early to the village smithy in
order that they could be attended to in time to turn out to their work
on the roads or in the fields at their usual hour. Accordingly we were
roused from our sound slumber quite early in the morning, and were glad
to take advantage of this to walk as far as possible in daylight, for
the autumn was fast coming to a close. Sometimes we started on our walk
before breakfast, when we had a reasonable prospect of obtaining it
within the compass of a two-hours' journey, but Malham was a secluded
village, with no main road passing through it, and it was surrounded by
moors on every side.
There were several objects of interest in Malham which we were told were
well worth seeing: Malham Cove, Janet's Foss or Gennetth's Cave, and
Gordale Scar. The first of these we resolved to see before breakfast.
We therefore walked along a path which practically followed the course
of the stream that passed under the brig, and after a fine walk of about
three-quarters of a mile through the grass patches, occasionally
relieved by bushes and trees, we reached the famous cove. Here our
farther way was barred by an amphitheatre of precipitous limestone rocks
of a light grey colour, rising perpendicularly to the height of about
200 feet, which formed the cove itself. From the base of these rocks,
along a horizontal bedding plane and at one particular spot, issued the
stream along which we had walked, forming the source of the River Aire,
which flows through Skipton and on to Leeds, the curious feature about
it being that there was no visible aperture in the rocks, neither arch
nor hole, from which it could come. The water appeared to gain volume
from the loose stones under our feet, and as we had not seen a sight
like this in all our travels, we were much surprised to find it forming
itself immediately into a fair-sized brook. We gazed upwards to the top
of the rocks, which were apparently unprotected, and wondered what the
fate would be of the lost traveller who unconsciously walked over them,
as there seemed nothing except a few small bushes, in one place only, to
break his fall. We heard afterwards of a sorrowful accident that had
happened there. It related to a young boy who one day, taking his little
brother with him for company, went to look for birds' nests. On reaching
the cove they rambled to the top of the cliff, where the elder boy saw a
bird's nest, to which he went while his little brother waited for him at
a distance, watching him taking the eggs. All at once he saw him stoop
down to gather some flowers to bring to him, and then disappear. He
waited some time expecting his brother to return, but as he did not
come back the little fellow decided to go home. On the way he gathered
some flowers, which he gleefully showed to his father, who asked him
where he had got them, and where his brother was. The child said he had
gone to sleep, and he had tried to waken him but couldn't; and when he
told the full story, the father became greatly alarmed, and, taking his
child with him, went to the foot of the cliffs, where he found his son
lying dead where he had fallen, with the flowers still clasped in his
hand!
[Illustration: MALHAM COVE.]
We were afterwards told that above the cliff and a few miles up a valley
a great stream could be seen disappearing quietly down into the rock. It
was this stream presumably which lost itself in a subterranean channel,
to reappear at the foot of Malham Cove.
After breakfast we again resumed our journey, and went to inspect
Janet's Cave or Foss--for our host told us that it was no use coming to
see a pretty place like Malham without viewing all the sights we could
while we were there. We walked up a lovely little glen, where it was
said a fairy once resided, and which if it had been placed elsewhere
would certainly have been described as the Fairy Glen; but whether or
not Janet was the name of the fairy we did not ascertain. In it we came
to a pretty little waterfall dropping down from one step to another, the
stream running from it being as clear as crystal. The rocks were lined
with mosses, which had become as fleecy-looking as wool, as they were
almost petrified by the continual dropping of the spray from the
lime-impregnated water that fell down the rocks. There were quite a
variety of mosses and ferns, but the chief of the climbing plants was
what Dickens described "as the rare old plant, the ivy green," which not
only clung to the rocks, but had overshadowed them by climbing up the
trees above. To see the small dark cave it was necessary to cross the
stream in front of the waterfall, and here stepping-stones had been
provided for that purpose, but, owing to the unusual depth of water,
these were covered rather deeply, with the result that all the available
spaces in our boots were filled with water. This was, of course, nothing
unusual to us, as we had become quite accustomed to wet feet, and we now
looked upon it as an ordinary incident of travel. The cave was said to
have been the resort of goblins, and when we wondered where they were
now, my brother mildly suggested that we might have seen them if we had
possessed a mirror. We had seen a list of the names of the different
mosses to be found in the Malham district, but, as these were all in
Latin, instead of committing them to memory, we contented ourselves with
counting the names of over forty different varieties besides hepaties,
lichens, ferns, and many flowers:
Hie away, hie away,
Over bank and over brae,
Where the copsewood is the greenest,
Where the fountains glisten sheenest.
Where the lady-fern grows strongest,
Where the morning dew lies longest,
Where the blackcock sweetest sips it.
Where the fairy latest trips it;
Hie to haunts right seldom seen,
Lovely, lonesome, cool and green;
Over bank and over brae
Hie away, hie away!
So we now "hied away" to find Gordale Scar, calling at a farmhouse to
inquire the way, for we knew we must cross some land belonging to the
farm before we could reach the Scar. We explained to the farmer the
object of our journey and that we wished afterwards to cross the moors.
After directing us how to reach the Scar, he said there was no necessity
for us to return to Malham if we could climb up the side of the
waterfall at the Scar, since we should find the road leading from Malham
a short distance from the top. He wished us good luck on our journey,
and, following his instructions, we soon reached Gordale Scar. It was
interesting to note the difference in the names applied to the same
objects of nature in the different parts of the country we passed
through, and here we found a scar meant a rock, a beck a brook, and a
tarn, from a Celtic word meaning a tear, a small lake. Gordale Scar was
a much more formidable place than we had expected to find, as the rocks
were about five yards higher than those at Malham Cove, and it is almost
as difficult to describe them as to climb to the top!
[Illustration: GORDALE SCAR.]
Gordale Beck has its rise near Malham Tarn, about 1,500 feet above
sea-level; and, after running across the moor for about three miles,
gathering strength in its progress, it reaches the top of this cliff,
and, passing over it, has formed in the course of ages quite a
considerable passage, widening as it approaches the valley below, where
it emerges through a chasm between two rocks which rise to a great
height. It was from this point we had to begin our climb, and few people
could pass underneath these overhanging rocks without a sense of danger.
The track at this end had evidently been well patronised by visitors,
but the last of these had departed with the month of September, and as
it was now late in October we had the Scar all to ourselves. It was,
therefore, a lonely climb, and a very difficult one as we approached the
top, for the volume of water was necessarily much greater after the
heavy autumnal rainfall than when the visitors were there in the summer;
and as we had to pass quite near the falls, the wind blew the spray in
some places over our path. It seemed very strange to see white foaming
water high above our heads. There was some vegetation in places; here
and there a small yew tree, which reminded us of churchyards and the
dark plumes on funeral coaches; but there were also many varieties of
ferns in the fissures in the rocks. When we neared the top, encumbered
as we were with umbrellas, walking-sticks, and bags, we had to assist
each other from one elevation to another, one climbing up first and the
other handing the luggage to him, and we were very pleased when we
emerged on the moors above.
[Illustration: KILNSEY CRAGS.]
Here we found the beck running deeply and swiftly along a channel which
appeared to have been hewn out expressly for it, but on closer
inspection we found it quite a natural formation. We have been told
since by an unsentimental geologist that the structure is not difficult
to understand. As in the case of the Malham Cove stream, this one passed
into the rock and gradually ate out a hollow, while ultimately escaping
from the cliff as in the cove; but the roof of the cave collapsed,
forming the great chasm and revealing the stream as it leaped down from
one level to another. Looking about us on the top we saw lonely moors
without a house or a tree in sight, and walked across them until we came
to a very rough road--possibly the track which we expected to find
leading from Malham. Malham Tarn was not in sight, but we had learned
that the water was about a mile in length and the only things to be seen
there were two kinds of fish--perch and trout---which often quarrelled
and decimated each other. The weather was dull, and we had encountered
several showers on our way, passing between the Parson's Pulpit to the
left, rising quite 1,700 feet, and the Druid's Altar to our right; but
we afterwards learned that it was a poor specimen, and that there were
much finer ones in existence, while the Parson's Pulpit was described as
"a place for the gods, where a man, with a knowledge of nature and a
lover of the same, might find it vantage ground to speak or lecture on
the wonders of God and nature."
We were pleased to get off the moors before further showers came on, and
before we reached Kilnsey, where this portion of the moors terminated
abruptly in the Kilnsey Crags, we passed by a curious place called
Dowker Bottom Cave, where some antiquarian discoveries had been made
about fifteen years before our visit, excavations several feet below the
lime-charged floor of the cave having revealed the fact that it had been
used by cave-dwellers both before and after the time of the Romans:
there were also distinct traces of ancient burials.
The monks of Furness Abbey formerly owned about 6,000 acres of land in
this neighbourhood, and a small vale here still bore the name of
Fountains Dell; but the Scotch raiders often came down and robbed the
monks of their fat sheep and cattle. The valley now named Littondale was
formerly known as Amerdale, and was immortalised as such by Wordsworth
in his "White Doe of Rylstone":
Unwooed, yet unforbidden.
The White Doe followed up the vale,
Up to another cottage, hidden
In the deep fork of Amerdale.
The road passes almost under Kilnsey Crag, but though it seemed so near,
some visitors who were throwing stones at it did not succeed in hitting
it. We were a little more successful ourselves, but failed to hit the
face of the rock itself, reminding us of our efforts to dislodge rooks
near their nests on the tops of tall trees: they simply watched the
stones rising upwards, knowing that their force would be spent before
either reaching their nests or themselves. On arriving at Kilnsey, we
called at the inn for refreshments, and were told that the ancient
building we saw was Kilnsey Old Hall, where, if we had come earlier in
the year, before the hay was put in the building, we could have seen
some beautiful fresco-work over the inside of the barn doors!
After lunch we had a very nice walk alongside the River Wharfe to a
rather pretty place named Grassington, where an ancient market had been
held since 1282, but was now discontinued. We should have been pleased
to stay a while here had time permitted, but we were anxious to reach
Pateley Bridge, where we intended making our stay for the week-end. We
now journeyed along a hilly road with moors on each side of us as far as
Greenhow Hill mines, worked by the Romans, and there our road reached
its highest elevation at 1,320 feet above sea-level--the village church
as regarded situation claiming to be the highest in Yorkshire. We had
heard of a wonderful cave that we should find quite near our road, and
we were on the look-out for the entrance, which we expected would be a
black arch somewhere at the side of the road, but were surprised to find
it was only a hole in the surface of a field. On inquiry we heard the
cave was kept locked up, and that we must apply for admission to the
landlord of the inn some distance farther along the road. We found the
landlord busy, as it was Saturday afternoon; but when we told him we
were walking from John o' Groat's to Land's End and wanted to see all
the sights we could on our way, he consented at once to go with us and
conduct us through the cave. We had to take off our coats, and were
provided with white jackets, or slops, and a lighted candle each. We
followed our guide down some steps that had been made, into what were to
us unknown regions.
We went along narrow passages and through large rooms for about two
hundred yards, part of the distance being under the road we had just
walked over. We had never been in a cave like this before. The
stalactites which hung from the roof of the cavern, and which at first
we thought were long icicles, were formed by the rain-water as it slowly
filtered through the limestone rock above, all that could not be
retained by the stalactite dropping from the end of it to the floor
beneath. Here it gradually formed small pyramids, or stalagmites, which
slowly rose to meet their counterparts, the stalactites, above, so that
one descended while the other ascended. How long a period elapsed before
these strange things were formed our guide could not tell us, but it
must have been very considerable, for the drops came down so slowly. It
was this slow dropping that made it necessary for us to wear the white
jackets, and now and then a drop fell upon our headgear and on the
"slops." Still we felt sure it would have taken hundreds of years before
we should have been transformed into either stalactites or stalagmites.
In some of the places we saw they had long since met each other, and in
the course of ages had formed themselves into all kinds of queer shapes.
In one room, which our guide told us was the "church," we saw the
"organ" and the "gallery," and in another the likeness of a "bishop,"
and in another place we saw an almost exact representation of the four
fingers of a man's hand suspended from the roof of the cave. Some of the
subterranean passages were so low that we could scarcely creep through
them, and we wondered what would become of us if the roof had given way
before we could return. Many other images were pointed out to us, and we
imagined we saw fantastic and other ghostly shapes for ourselves.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE CAVE.]
We were careful to keep our candles alight as we followed our guide on
the return journey, and kept as close together as we could. It was
nearly dark when we reached the entrance of the cavern again, and our
impression was that we had been in another world. Farther south we
explored another and a larger cave, but the vandals had been there and
broken off many of the "'tites," which here were quite perfect. We had
not felt hungry while we were in the cave, but these well-known pangs
came on us in force immediately we reached the open air, and we were
glad to accept the landlord's offer to provide for our inward
requirements, and followed him home to the inn for tea. The landlord had
told the company at the inn about our long walk, and as walking was more
in vogue in those days than at later periods, we became objects of
interest at once, and all were anxious to form our acquaintance.
[Illustration: STUMP CROSS CAVES The Four Fingers. The "'tites" and
"'mites."]
We learned that what we had noted as the Greenhow Cave was known by the
less euphonius name of the "Stump Cross Cavern." It appeared that in
ancient times a number of crosses were erected to mark the limits of the
great Forest of Knaresborough, a royal forest as far back as the twelfth
century, strictly preserved for the benefit of the reigning monarch. It
abounded with deer, wild boars, and other beasts of the chase, and was
so densely wooded that the Knaresborough people were ordered to clear a
passage through it for the wool-carriers from Newcastle to Leeds. Now we
could scarcely see a tree for miles, yet as recently as the year 1775
the forest covered 100,000 acres and embraced twenty-four townships.
Before the Reformation, the boundary cross on the Greenhow side was
known as the Craven Cross, for Craven was one of the ancient counties
merged in what is called the West Riding. The Reformers objected to
crosses, and knocked it off its pedestal, so that only the stump
remained. Thus it gradually became known as the Stump Cross, and from
its proximity the cavern when discovered was christened the Stump Cross
Cavern. We were informed that the lead mines at Greenhow were the oldest
in England, and perhaps in the world, and it was locally supposed that
the lead used in the building of Solomon's Temple was brought from here.
Two bars of lead that had been made in the time of the Romans had been
found on the moors, and one of these was now to be seen at Ripley Castle
in Yorkshire, while the other was in the British Museum.
Eugene Aram, whose story we heard for the first time in the inn, was
born at a village a few miles from Greenhow. The weather had been
showery during the afternoon, but we had missed one of the showers,
which came on while we were in the cavern. It was now fine, and the moon
shone brightly as we descended the steep hill leading to Pateley Bridge.
We had crossed the River Dibb after leaving Grassington, and now, before
crossing the River Nidd at Pateley Bridge, we stayed at the "George
Inn," an old hostelry dating from the year 1664.
(_Distance walked twenty-one and a half miles_.)
_Sunday, October 22nd._
We spent a fairly quiet day at Pateley Bridge, where there was not a
great deal to see. What there was we must have seen, as we made good use
of the intervals between the three religious services we attended in
exploring the town and its immediate neighbourhood. We had evidently not
taken refuge in one of the inns described by Daniel Defoe, for we were
some little distance from the parish church, which stood on a rather
steep hill on the opposite bank of the river. Near the church were the
ruins of an older edifice, an ancient description running, "The old
Chappel of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Pateley Brigg in Nidderdale." We
climbed the hill, and on our way came to an old well on which was
inscribed the following translation by Dryden from the Latin of Ovid [43
B.C.-A.D. 18]:
Ill Habits gather by unseen degrees,
As Brooks run rivers--Rivers run to Seas.
and then followed the words:
The way to church.
We did not go there "by unseen degrees," but still we hoped our good
habits might gather in like proportion. We went to the parish church
both morning and evening, and explored the graveyards, but though
gravestones were numerous enough we did not find any epitaph worthy of
record--though one of the stones recorded the death in July 1755 of the
four sons of Robert and Margaret Fryer, who were born at one birth and
died aged one week.
In the afternoon we went to the Congregational Chapel, and afterwards
were shown through a very old Wesleyan Chapel, built in 1776, and still
containing the old seats, with the ancient pulpit from which John Wesley
had preached on several occasions.
It was curious to observe how anxious the compilers of the histories of
the various places at which we stayed were to find a remote beginning,
and how apologetic they were that they could not start even earlier.
Those of Pateley Bridge were no exception to the rule. The Roman
Occupation might perhaps have been considered a reasonable foundation,
but they were careful to record that the Brigantes were supposed to have
overrun this district long before the Romans, since several stone
implements had been found in the neighbourhood. One of the Roman pigs of
lead found hereabouts, impressed with the name of the Emperor
"Domitian," bore also the word "Brig," which was supposed to be a
contraction of Brigantes. A number of Roman coins had also been
discovered, but none of them of a later date than the Emperor Hadrian,
A.D. 139, the oldest being one of Nero, A.D. 54-68.
[Illustration: THE OLD PARISH CHURCH, PATELEY BRIDGE.]
Previous to the fourteenth century the River Nidd was crossed by means
of a paved ford, and this might originally have been paved by the
Romans, who probably had a ford across the river where Pateley Bridge
now stands for the safe conveyance of the bars of lead from the Greenhow
mines, to which the town owed its importance, down to the beginning of
the nineteenth century. But though it could boast a Saturday market
dating from the time of Edward II, it was now considered a quiet and
somewhat sleepy town.
The valley along which the River Nidd runs from its source in the moors,
about ten miles away, was known as Nidderdale. In the church book at
Middlesmoor, about six miles distant, were two entries connected with
two hamlets on the banks of the Nidd near Pateley Bridge which fix the
dates of the christening and marriage of that clever murderer, Eugene
Aram. We place them on record here:
RAMSGILL.--Eugenious Aram, son of Peter Aram, bap. ye 2nd of October,
1704. LOFTUS.--Eugenius Aram and Anna Spence, married May 4th, after
banns thrice pub. 1731.
We retired to rest early. Our last week's walk was below the average,
and we hoped by a good beginning to make up the mileage during the
coming week, a hope not to be fulfilled, as after events proved.
SIXTH WEEK'S JOURNEY
A WEEK OF AGONY
_Monday, October 23rd._
We left Pateley Bridge at seven o'clock in the morning, and after
walking about two miles on the Ripley Road, turned off to the left along
a by-lane to find the wonderful Brimham rocks, of which we had been
told. We heard thrashing going on at a farm, which set us wondering
whether we were on the same road along which Chantrey the famous
sculptor walked when visiting these same rocks. His visit probably would
not have been known had not the friend who accompanied him kept a diary
in which he recorded the following incident.
They were walking towards the rocks when they, like ourselves, heard the
sound of thrashing in a barn, which started an argument between them on
their relative abilities in the handling of the flail. As they could not
settle the matter by words, they resolved to do so by blows; so they
made their way to the farm and requested the farmer to allow them to try
their hand at thrashing corn, and to judge which of them shaped the
better. The farmer readily consented, and accompanied them to the barn,
where, stopping the two men who were at work, he placed Chantrey and his
friend in their proper places. They stripped for the fight, each taking
a flail, while the farmer and his men watched the duel with smiling
faces. It soon became evident that Chantrey was the better of the two.
The unequal contest was stopped, much to the chagrin of the keeper of
the diary, by the judge giving his verdict in favour of the great
sculptor. This happened about seventy years before our visit, but even
now the old-fashioned method of thrashing corn had not yet been ousted
by steam machinery, and the sound of the flails as they were swung down
upon the barn floors was still one of the commonest and noisiest that,
during the late autumn and winter months, met our ears in country
villages.
When the time came for the corn to be thrashed, the sheaves were placed
on the barn floor with their heads all in the same direction, the
binders which held them together loosened, and the corn spread out. Two
men were generally employed in this occupation, one standing opposite
the other, and the corn was separated from the straw and chaff by
knocking the heads with sticks. These sticks, or flails, were divided
into two parts, the longer of which was about the size of a
broom-handle, but made of a much stronger kind of wood, while the other,
which was about half its length, was fastened to the top by a hinge made
of strong leather, so that the flail was formed into the shape of a
whip, except that the lash would not bend, and was as thick as the
handle. The staff was held with both hands, one to guide and the other
to strike, and as the thrashers were both practically aiming at the same
place, it was necessary, in order to prevent their flails colliding,
that one lash should be up in the air at the same moment that the other
was down on the floor, so that it required some practice in order to
become a proficient thch scientific people adopt, that these irregular crags are made of
millstone grit, and that the fantastic shapes are due to long exposure
to weather and the unequal hardness of the rock. Our guide accompanied
us first to the top of a great rock, which he called Mount Pisgah, from
which we could see on one side a wilderness of bare moors and mountains,
and on the other a fertile valley, interspersed with towns and villages
as far as the eye could reach. Here the guide told my brother that he
could imagine himself to be like Moses of old, who from Pisgah's lofty
height viewed the Promised Land of Canaan on one side, and the
wilderness on the other! But we were more interested in the astonishing
number of rocks around us than in the distant view, and when our guide
described them as the "finest freak of nature of the rock kind in
England," we thoroughly endorsed his remarks. We had left our luggage at
the caretaker's house, which had been built near the centre of this
great mass of stones in the year 1792, by Lord Grantley, to whom the
property belonged, from the front door of which, we were told, could be
seen, on a clear day, York Minster, a distance of twenty-eight miles as
the crow flies. As may be imagined, it was no small task for the guide
to take us over fifty acres of ground and to recite verses about every
object of interest he showed us, some of them from his book and some
from memory. But as we were without our burdens we could follow him
quickly, while he was able to take us at once to the exact position
where the different shapes could be seen to the best advantage. How long
it would have taken that gentleman we met near Loch Lomond in Scotland
who tried to show us "the cobbler and his wife," on the top of Ben
Arthur, from a point from which it could not be seen, we could not
guess, but it was astonishing how soon we got through the work, and were
again on our way to find "fresh fields and pastures new."
[Illustration: THE HIGH ROCK.]
We saw the "Bulls of Nineveh," the "Tortoise," the "Gorilla," and the
"Druids' Temple"--also the "Druids' Reading-desk," the "Druids' Oven,"
and the "Druid's Head." Then there was the "Idol," where a great stone,
said to weigh over two hundred tons, was firmly balanced on a base
measuring only two feet by ten inches. There was the usual Lovers' Leap,
and quite a number of rocking stones, some of which, although they were
many tons in weight, could easily be rocked with one hand. The largest
stone of all was estimated to weigh over one hundred tons, though it was
only discovered to be movable in the year 1786. The "Cannon Rock" was
thirty feet long, and, as it was perforated with holes, was supposed to
have been used as an oracle by the Ancients, a question asked down a
hole at one end being answered by the gods through the priest or
priestess hidden from view at the other. The different recesses, our
guide informed us, were used as lovers' seats and wishing stones. The
"Frog and the Porpoise," the "Oyster Rock," the "Porpoise's Head," the
"Sphinx," the "Elephant and Yoke of Oxen," and the "Hippopotamus's Head"
were all clearly defined. The "Dancing Bear" was a splendidly shaped
specimen, and then there was a "Boat Rock," with bow and stern complete.
But on the "Mount Delectable," as our guide called it, there was a very
romantic courting and kissing chair, which, although there was only room
for one person to sit in it at a time, he assured us was, in summer
time, the best patronised seat in the lot.
We remunerated him handsomely, for he had worked hard and, as "England
expects," he had done his duty. He directed us to go along a by-lane
through Sawley or Sawley Moor, as being the nearest way to reach
Fountains Abbey: but of course we lost our way as usual. The Brimham
Rocks were about 1,000 feet above sea-level, and from them we could see
Harrogate, which was, even then, a fashionable and rising inland
watering-place. Our guide, when he showed us its position in the
distance, did not venture to make any poetry about it, so we quote a
verse written by another poet about the visitors who went there:
Some go for the sake of the waters--
Well, they are the old-fashioned elves--
And some to dispose of their daughters,
And some to dispose of themselves.
But there must be many visitors who go there to search in its bracing
air for the health they have lost during many years of toil and anxiety,
and to whom the words of an unknown poet would more aptly apply:
We squander Health in search of Wealth,
We scheme, and toil, and save;
Then squander Wealth in search of Health,
And only find a Grave.
We live! and boast of what we own!
We die! and only get a STONE!
[Illustration: FOUNTAINS AND THE RIVER SKELL.]
[Illustration: FOUNTAINS ABBEY. "How grand the fine old ruin appeared,
calmly reposing in the peaceful valley below."]
[Illustration: THE CLOISTERS, FOUNTAINS ABBEY. "Many great warriors were
buried beneath the peaceful shade of Fountains Abbey."]
[Illustration: THE NAVE]
Fortunately we happened to meet with a gentleman who was going part of
the way towards Fountains Abbey, and him we accompanied for some
distance. He told us that the abbey was the most perfect ruin in
England, and when we parted he gave us clear instructions about the way
to reach it. We were walking on, keeping a sharp look out for the abbey
through the openings in the trees that partially covered our way, when
suddenly we became conscious of looking at a picture without realising
what it was, for our thoughts and attention had been fixed upon the
horizon on the opposite hill, where for some undefined reason we
expected the abbey to appear. Lo and behold, there was the abbey in the
valley below, which we might have seen sooner had we been looking down
instead of up. The effect of the view coming so suddenly was quite
electrical, and after our first exclamation of surprise we stood there
silently gazing upon the beautiful scene before us; and how grand the
fine old ruin appeared calmly reposing in the beautiful valley below! It
was impossible to forget the picture! Why we had expected to find the
abbey in the position of a city set upon a hill which could not be
hid we could not imagine, for we knew that the abbeys in the olden times
had to be hidden from view as far as possible as one means of protecting
them from warlike marauders who had no sympathy either with the learned
monks or their wonderful books. Further they required a stream of water
near them for fish and other purposes, and a kaleyard or level patch of
ground for the growth of vegetables, as well as a forest--using the word
in the Roman sense, to mean stretches of woodland divided by open
spaces--to supply them with logs and with deer for venison, for there
was no doubt that, as time went on, the monks, to use a modern phrase,
"did themselves well." All these conditions existed near the magnificent
position on which the great abbey had been built. The river which ran
alongside was named the Skell, a name probably derived from the Norse
word _Keld_, signifying a spring or fountain, and hence the name
Fountains, for the place was noted for its springs and wells, as--
From the streams and springs which Nature here contrives,
The name of Fountains this sweet place derives.
[Illustration: THE GREAT TOWER]
The history of the abbey stated that it was founded by thirteen monks
who, wishing to lead a holier and a stricter life than then prevailed in
that monastery, seceded from the Cistercian Abbey of St. Mary's at York.
With the Archbishop's sanction they retired to this desolate spot to
imitate the sanctity and discipline of the Cistercians in the Abbey of
Rieval. They had no house to shelter them, but in the depth of the
valley there grew a great elm tree, amongst the branches of which they
twisted straw, thus forming a roof beneath which they might dwell. When
the winter came on, they left the shelter of the elm and came under that
of seven yew-trees of extraordinary size. With the waters of the River
Skell they quenched their thirst, the Archbishop occasionally sent them
bread, and when spring came they built a wooden chapel. Others joined
them, but their accession increased their privations, and they often had
no food except leaves of trees and wild herbs. Even now these herbs and
wild flowers of the monks grew here and there amongst the old ruins.
Rosemary, lavender, hyssop, rue, silver and bronze lichens, pale rosy
feather pink, a rare flower, yellow mullein, bee and fly orchis, and
even the deadly nightshade, which was once so common at Furness Abbey.
One day their provisions consisted of only two and a half loaves of
bread, and a stranger passing by asked for a morsel. "Give him a loaf,"
said the Abbot; "the Lord will provide,"--and so they did. Marvellous to
relate, says the chronicle, immediately afterwards a cart appeared
bringing a present of food from Sir Eustace Fitz-John, the lord of the
neighbouring castle of Knaresborough, until then an unfriendly personage
to the monks.
[Illustration: "Beneath whose peaceful shades great warriors rest."]
Before long the monks prospered: Hugh, the Dean of York, left them his
fortune, and in 1203 they began to build the abbey. Other helpers came
forward, and in course of time Fountains became one of the richest
monasteries in Yorkshire. The seven yew trees were long remembered as
the "Seven Sisters," but only one of them now remains. Many great
warriors were buried beneath the peaceful shade of Fountains Abbey, and
many members of the Percy family, including Lord Henry de Percy, who,
after deeds of daring and valour on many a hard-fought field as he
followed the banner of King Edward I all through the wilds of Scotland,
prayed that his body might find a resting-place within the walls of
Fountains Abbey. Lands were given to the abbey, until there were 60,000
acres attached to it and enclosed in a ring fence. One of the monks from
Fountains went to live as a hermit in a secluded spot adjoining the
River Nidd, a short distance from Knaresborough, where he became known
as St. Robert the Hermit. He lived in a cave hewn out of the rock on one
side of the river, where the banks were precipitous and covered with
trees. One day the lord of the forest was hunting, and saw smoke rising
above the trees. On making inquiries, he was told it came from the cave
of St. Robert. His lordship was angry, and, as he did not know who the
hermit was, ordered him to be sent away and his dwelling destroyed.
These orders were in process of being carried out, and the front part of
the cave, which was only a small one, had in fact been broken down, when
his lordship heard what a good man St. Robert the Hermit was. He ordered
him to be reinstated, and his cave reformed, and he gave him some land.
When the saint died, the monks of Fountains Abbey--anxious, like most of
their order, to possess the remains of any saint likely to be popular
among the religious-minded--came for his body, so that they might bury
it in their own monastery, and would have taken it away had not a number
of armed men arrived from Knaresborough Castle. So St. Robert was buried
in the church at Knaresborough.
[Illustration: THE BOUNDARY STONE KNARESBOROUGH FOREST.]
St. Robert the Hermit was born in 1160, and died in 1218, so that he
lived and died in the days of the Crusades to the Holy Land. Although
his name was still kept in remembrance, his Cave and Chapel had long
been deserted and overgrown with bushes and weeds, while the overhanging
trees hid it completely from view. But after a lapse of hundreds of
years St. Robert's Cave was destined to come into greater prominence
than ever, because of the sensational discovery of the remains of the
victim of Eugene Aram, which was accidentally brought to light after
long years, when the crime had been almost forgotten and the murderer
had vanished from the scene of his awful deed.
The tragedy enacted in St. Robert's Cave has been immortalised in poetry
and in story: by Lord Lytton in his story of "Eugene Aram" and by Tom
Hood in "The Dream of Eugene Aram." Aram was a man of considerable
attainments, for he knew Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages, and
was also a good mathematician as well as an antiquarian. He settled in
Knaresborough in the year 1734, and among his acquaintances were one
Daniel Clark and another, John Houseman, and these three were often
together until suddenly Daniel Clark disappeared. No one knew what had
become of him, and no intelligence could be obtained from his two
companions. Aram shortly afterwards left the town, and it was noticed
that Houseman never left his home after dark, so they were suspected of
being connected in some way with the disappearance of Clark. It
afterwards transpired that Aram had induced Clark to give a great
supper, and to invite all the principal people in the town, borrowing
all the silver vessels he could from them, on the pretence that he was
short. The plot was to pretend that robbers had got in the house and
stolen the silver. Clark fell in with this plot, and gave the supper,
borrowing all the silver he could. After all was over, they were to meet
at Clark's house, put the silver in a sack, and proceed to St. Robert's
Cave, which at that time was in ruins, where the treasure was to be
hidden until matters had quieted down, after which they would sell it
and divide the money; Clark was to take a spade and a pick, while the
other two carried the bag in turns. Clark began to dig the trench within
the secluded and bush-covered cave which proved to be his own grave, and
when he had nearly finished the trench, Aram came behind and with one of
the tools gave him a tremendous blow on the head which killed him
instantly, and the two men buried him there.
[Illustration: ST. ROBERT'S AND EUGENE ARAM'S CAVE.]
Clark's disappearance caused a great sensation, every one thinking he
had run away with the borrowed silver. Years passed away, and the matter
was considered as a thing of the past and forgotten, until it was again
brought to recollection by some workmen, who had been digging on the
opposite side of the river to St. Robert's Cave, finding a skeleton of
some person buried there. As the intelligence was spread about
Knaresborough, the people at once came to the conclusion that the
skeleton was that of Daniel Clark, who had disappeared fourteen years
before. Although Aram had left the neighbourhood soon after Clark
disappeared, and no one knew where he had gone, Houseman was still in
the town, and when the news of the finding of the skeleton reached him,
he was drinking in one of the public-houses, and, being partly drunk,
his only remark was, "It's no more Dan Clark's skeleton than it's mine."
Immediately he was accused of being concerned in the disappearance of
Clark, and ultimately confessed that Aram had killed Clark, and that
together they had buried his dead body in St. Robert's Cave. Search was
made there, and Clark's bones were found. One day a traveller came to
the town who said he had seen Aram at Lynn in Norfolk, where he had a
school. Officers were at once sent there to apprehend Aram, and the same
night--
Two stern-faced men set out from Lynn,
Through the cold and heavy mist;
And Eugene Aram walked between
With gyves upon his wrist.
Aram was brought up for trial, and made a fine speech in defending
himself; but it was of no avail, for Houseman turned "King's Evidence"
against him, telling all he knew on condition that he himself was
pardoned. The verdict was "Guilty," and Aram was hanged at York in the
year 1759.
[Illustration: ST. ROBERTS CHAPEL.]
Fountains Abbey in its prime must have been one of the noblest and
stateliest sanctuaries in the kingdom. The great tower was 167 feet
high, and the nave about 400 feet long, while the cloisters--still
almost complete, for we walked under their superb arches several times
from one end to the other--were marvellous to see. One of the wells at
Fountains Abbey was named Robin Hood's Well, for in the time of that
famous outlaw the approach to the Abbey was defended by a very powerful
and brave monk who kept quite a number of dogs, on which account he was
named the Cur-tail Friar. Robin Hood and Little John were trying their
skill and strength in archery on the deer in the forest when, in the
words of the old ballad:
Little John killed a Hart of Greece
Five hundred feet him fro,
and Robin was so proud of his friend that he said he would ride a
hundred miles to find such another, a remark--
That caused Will Shadlocke to laugh.
He laughed full heartily;
There lives a curtail fryer in Fountains Abbey
Will beate bothe him and thee.
The curtell fryer, in Fountains Abbey,
Well can a strong bow draw;
He will beate you and your yeomen.
Set them all in a row.
[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S WELL, FOUNTAINS ABBEY.]
So Robin, taking up his weapons and putting on his armour, went to seek
the friar, and found him near the River Skell which skirted the abbey.
Robin arrd decided
in favour of Wilfrid. Like other cathedrals, Ripon had suffered much in
the wars, but there were many ancient things still to be seen there.
Near the font was a tomb covered with a slab of grey marble, on which
were carved the figures of a man and a huge lion, both standing amongst
some small trees. It was supposed to have covered the body of an Irish
prince who died at Ripon on his way home from the Holy War, in
Palestine, and who brought back with him a lion that followed him about
just like a dog. In the cathedral yard there was an epitaph to a
fisherman:
Here lies poor but honest Bryan Tunstall. He was a most expert angler
until Death, envious of his merit, threw out his line, and landed him
here
21st day of April, 1790.
[Illustration: RIPON MINSTER, WEST FRONT]
We left Ripon by the Boroughbridge road, and when about a mile from the
town we met one of the dignitaries of the cathedral, who from his dress
might have been anything from an archdeacon upwards. We asked him if he
could tell us of any objects of interest on our farther way. He told us
of Aldborough, with its Roman remains and the Devil's Arrows, of which
we had never heard before; and he questioned us about our long tramp,
the idea of which quite delighted him. We told him that we had thrown
our mackintoshes away, and why we had done so, and had bought umbrellas
instead; and he said, "You are now standing before a man who would give
fifty pounds if he had never worn a mackintosh, for they have given me
the rheumatism!"
The church at Kirkby Hill had just been restored. We saw an epitaph in
the churchyard similar to one which we found in a graveyard later on,
farther south:
Whence I came it matters not.
To whom related or by whom begot;
A heap of dust is all that remains of me,
'Tis all I am, and all the proud shall be.
[Illustration: THE DEVIL'S ARROWS.]
We soon reached the famous Boroughbridge, one of the most historical
places in all England, the borough meaning Aldborough, the ISUER of the
Brigantes and the ISURIUM of the Romans. Here we crossed the bridge
spanning the Yorkshire River Ouse, which almost adjoined Aldborough, and
were directed for lodgings to the house of a widowed lady quite near the
church. It was nearly dark then, the moon, though almost at the full
that night, not having yet risen. We decided to wait until after a
substantial meal before visiting the Devil's Arrows a short distance
away. There were only three of them left--two in a field on one side of
the road, and one in a field opposite. The stones were standing upright,
and were, owing to their immense size, easily found. We had inspected
the two, and were just jumping over the gate to cross the narrow lane to
see the other in the next field, when we startled a man who was
returning, not quite sober, from the fair at Boroughbridge. As we had
our sticks in our hands, he evidently thought we were robbers and meant
mischief, for he begged us not to molest him, saying he had only
threepence in his pocket, to which we were welcome. We were highly
amused, and the man was very pleased when he found he could keep the
coppers, "to pay," as he said, "for another pint." The stones, weighing
about 36 tons each, were 20 to 30 feet high, and as no one knew who
placed them there, their origin was ascribed to the Devil; hence their
name, "the Devil's Arrows." Possibly, as supposed in other similar
cases, he had shot them out of his bow from some great hill far away,
and they had stuck in the earth here. There was fairly authentic
evidence that twelve was the original number, and the bulk of opinion
favoured an origin concerned with the worship of the sun, one of the
earliest forms known. Others, however, ascribe them to the Romans, who
erected boundary stones, of which several are known, on the hills
farther south. We returned to our lodgings, but not to sleep, for our
sleeping apartment was within a few feet of the church clock, on the
side of a very low steeple. As we were obliged to keep our window open
for fresh air, we could hear every vibration of the pendulum, and the
sound of the ponderous bell kept us awake until after it struck the hour
of twelve. Then, worn out with fatigue, we heard nothing more until we
awoke early in the morning.
[Illustration: ALDBOROUGH CHURCH, BOROUGHBRIDGE.]
(_Distance walked twenty miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 24th._
The history of Aldborough, the old _burh_ or fortified Saxon settlement,
in spite of its Saxon name, could clearly be traced back to the time of
the Brigantes, the ancient Britons, who inhabited the territory between
the Tweed and the Humber. A Celtic city existed there long before
Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome, and it was at this city of
ISUER, between the small River Tut and its larger neighbour the Yore,
that their queen resided. Her name, in Gaelic, was Cathair-ys-maen-ddu
("Queen of stones black"), rather a long name even for a queen, and
meaning in English the Queen of the City of the Black Stones, the
remaining three, out of the original twelve, being those, now known as
the Devil's Arrows, which we had seen the preceding night.
[Illustration: CAER CARADOC HILL, CHURCH STRETTON.]
The Romans, however, when they invaded Britain, called her Cartismunda,
her city ISURIUM, and the Brigantes' country they named Brigantia. But
as the Brigantes made a determined resistance, their invasion of this
part of England, begun in A.D. 47, was not completed until A.D. 70.
Queen Cartismunda was related to the King of Siluria, which then
embraced the counties of Hereford and Monmouth, besides part of South
Wales. He was one of the greatest of the British chieftains, named
Caradoc by the Britons and Caractacus by the Romans. He fought for the
independence of Britain, and held the armies of the most famous Roman
generals at bay for a period of about nine years. But eventually, in
A.D. 50, he was defeated by the Roman general Ostorius Scapula, in the
hilly region near Church Stretton, in Shropshire, not far from a hill
still known as Caer Caradoc, his wife and daughters being taken
prisoners in the cave known as Caradoc's Cave. He himself escaped to the
Isle of Mona, afterwards named Anglesey, with the object of rallying the
British tribes there.
It so happened that some connection existed between Queen Cartismunda
and the Romans who had defeated Caradoc, and after that event Ostorius
Scapula turned his army towards the north, where he soon reached the
border of Brigantia.
As soon as the queen, of whose morals even the Britons held no high
opinion, heard of his arrival, she and her daughters hastened to meet
the conqueror to make terms. If beauty had any influence in the
settlement, she seems to have had everything in her favour, as, if we
are to believe the description of one of the Romans, who began his
letter with the words "Brigantes faemina dulce," the Brigantes ladies
must have been very sweet and beautiful.
A most objectional part of the bargain was that Caractacus should be
delivered up to the Roman general. So the queen sent some relatives to
Mona to invite him to come and see her at Isuer, and, dreaming nothing
of treachery, he came; but as soon as he crossed the border into the
queen's country he was seized, bound and handed over to Ostorius, who
sent him to Rome, together with his already captured wife and daughters.
On arrival at Rome Caractacus was imprisoned with some of his countrymen
and in course of time brought before the Emperor Claudius. The brave and
fearless speech he made before the Emperor on that occasion is one of
the most famous recorded in history, and has been immortalised both in
prose and poetry.
"Now I have spoken, do thy will;
Be life or death my lot.
Since Britain's throne no more I fill,
To me it matters not.
My fame is clear; but on my fate
Thy glory or thy shame must wait."
He ceased: from all around upsprung
A murmur of applause;
For well had truth and freedom's tongue
Maintained their holy cause.
The conqueror was the captive then--
He bade the slave be free again.
Tradition states that one of his companions in the prison in Rome was
St. Paul, who converted him to the Christian faith, with two of his
fellow-countrymen, Linus and Claudia, who are mentioned in St. Paul's
second Epistle to Timothy (iv. 21).
Descendants of Caradoc are still to be traced in England in the family
of Craddock, whose shield to this day is emblazoned with the words:
"Betrayed! Not conquered."
We awoke quite early in the morning--a fact which we attributed to the
church clock, although we could not remember hearing it strike. My
brother started the theory that we might have been wakened by some
supernatural being coming through the open window, from the greensward
beneath, where "lay the bones of the dead." Aldborough church was
dedicated to St. Andrew, and the register dated from the year
1538--practically from the time when registers came into being. It
contained a curious record of a little girl, a veritable "Nobody's
child," who, as a foundling, was brought to the church and baptized in
1573 as "Elizabeth Nobody, of Nobody."
[Illustration: KNARESBOROUGH CASTLE.]
Oliver Cromwell, about whom we were to hear so much in our further
travels, was here described in the church book as "an impious
Arch-Rebel," but this we afterwards found was open to doubt. He fought
one of his great battles quite near Aldborough, and afterwards besieged
Knaresborough Castle, about eight miles away. He lodged at an
old-fashioned house in that town. In those days fireplaces in bedrooms
were not very common, and even where they existed were seldom used, as
the beds were warmed with flat-bottomed circular pans of copper or
brass, called "warming-pans," in which were placed red-hot cinders of
peat, wood, or coal. A long, round wooden handle, like a broomstick, was
attached to the pan, by means of which it was passed repeatedly up and
down the bed, under the bedclothes, until they became quite warm, both
above and below. As this service was performed just before the people
retired to rest, they found a warm bed waiting for them instead of a
cold one. But of course this was in the "good old times." Afterwards,
when people became more civilised (!), they got into bed between linen
sheets that were icy cold, and after warming them with the heat of their
bodies, if they chanced to move an inch or two during the night they
were either awakened, or dreamed about icebergs or of being lost in the
snow!
The young daughter of the house where Oliver Cromwell lodged at
Knaresborough had the task of warming Oliver's bed for him, and in after
years when she had grown up she wrote a letter in which she said: "When
Cromwell came to lodge at our house I was then but a young girl, and
having heard so much talk about the man, I looked at him with wonder.
Being ordered to take a pan of coals and 'aire' his bed, I could not
forbear peeping over my shoulders to see this extraordinary man, who was
seated at the far side of the room untying his garters. Having aired the
bed I went out, and shutting the door after me, I peeped through the
keyhole, when I saw him rise from his seat, advance to the bed, and fall
on his knees, in which attitude I left him for some time. When returning
I found him still at prayer---and this was his custom every night as
long as he stayed at our house--I concluded he must be a good man, and
this opinion I always maintained, though I heard him blamed and
exceedingly abused."
Aldborough was walled round in the time of the Romans, and portions of
the walls were still to be seen. So many Roman relics had been found
here that Aldborough had earned the title of the Yorkshire Pompeii. So
interested were we in its antiquities that we felt very thankful to the
clerical dignitary at Ripon for having advised us to be sure to visit
this ancient borough.
[Illustration: TESSELLATED ROMAN PAVEMENT UNEARTHED AT ALDBOROUGH.]
We now wended our way to one of the village inns, where we had been told
to ask permission from the landlord to see the Roman tessellated
pavement in his back garden. We were conducted to a building, which had
been roofed over to cover it. Our attendant unlocked the door, and after
the sawdust which covered the floor had been carefully brushed aside,
there was revealed to our gaze a beautifully executed floor, in which
the colours of the small tiles were as bright as if they had been
recently put there. We could scarcely realise that the work we were
looking at was well-nigh two thousand years old: it looked more like the
work of yesterday. It had been accidentally discovered by a man who was
digging in the garden, at about two feet below the surface of the soil;
it was supposed to have formed the floor of a dwelling belonging to some
highly placed Roman officer. We were speculating about the depth of soil
and the difference in levels between the Roman Period and the present,
but we found afterwards that the preservation of this beautiful work,
and of others, was due not to any natural accumulations during the
intervening centuries, but to the fact that the devastating Danes had
burnt the town of Aldborough, along with many others, in the year 870,
and the increased depth of the soil was due to the decomposition of the
burnt ruins and debris. When we noted any event or object dating from
1771, we described it as "one hundred years before our visit," but here
we had an event to record that had happened one thousand years before.
Neither the attendant nor the landlord would accept any remuneration for
their services, and to our cordial thanks replied, "You are quite
welcome." We now went to see the cottage museum, which was well filled
with Roman relics of all kinds, arranged in such fashion as would have
done credit to a very much larger collection. The Roman remains stored
here were described as "one of the most comprehensive collections of
Roman relics in England," and included ornaments and articles in glass,
iron, and bronze. There was also much pottery and tiles; also coins,
images, and all kinds of useful and ornamental articles of the time of
the Roman Occupation in Britain. Besides self-coloured tiles, there were
some that were ornamented, one representing the "Capitoli Wolf," a
strange-looking, long-legged animal, with its face inclined towards the
spectator, while between its fore and hind legs could be seen in the
distance the figures of Romulus and Remus, the founders of the city of
Rome, who, tradition states, were suckled in their infancy by a wolf.
But my brother reminded me that none of these things were fit to eat,
and that our breakfast would now be ready, so away we sped to our
lodgings to get our breakfast and to pay our bill, and bid good-bye to
our landlady, who was a worthy, willing old soul. Just across the river,
about a mile away, was the site of the "White Battle," fought on October
12th, 1319--one of the strangest and most unequal battles ever fought.
It occurred after the English had been defeated at Bannockburn, and when
the Scots were devastating the North of England. The Scots had burnt and
plundered Boroughbridge in 1318 under Sir James Douglas, commonly known,
on account perhaps of his cruelty, as the "Black Douglas." Even the
children were afraid when his name was mentioned, for when they were
naughty they were frightened with the threat that if they were not good
the Black Douglas would be coming; even the very small children were
familiar with his name, for a nursery song or lullaby of that period
was--
Hush ye, hush ye, little pet ye,
Hush ye, hush ye, do not fret ye,
The Black Douglas shall not get ye.
Just before the "White Battle" the English Queen Isabel, wife of Edward
II, had taken up her abode with a small retinue in the country near
York, when an effort was made by the Scots to capture her; they nearly
succeeded, for she only just managed to get inside the walls of York
when the Scots appeared and demanded admittance. This was refused by the
aged Archbishop Melton, who had the bulwarks manned and the
fortifications repaired and defended. The Scots were enraged, as York
was strongly fortified, and they shouted all manner of epithets to the
people behind the walls; one of them actually rode up to the Micklegate
Bar and accused the queen of all manner of immoralities, challenging any
man to come forth and clear her fame. The Archbishop in a stirring
appeal called upon every man and youth to attack the invaders. His
eloquence was irresistible, and although there were not more than fifty
trained soldiers in the city, they attacked the Scots, who retreated.
The Archbishop's army was utterly unskilled in the arts of war, and
carried all kinds of weapons, many of them obsolete. The Bishop of Ely,
Lord High Chancellor of England, rode alongside the Archbishop, and
behind them rode the Lord Mayor, followed by a multitude of clergy in
white surplices, with monks, canons, friars, and other ecclesiastics,
all fully dressed in the uniform of their offices. But only one result
was possible, for they were opposed to 16,000 of Robert Bruce's
best-trained soldiers. Meantime the Scots did not know the character of
the foe before whom they were retreating, but, crossing the River Swale
near the point where it meets the Yore, they set fire to a number of
haystacks, with the result that the smoke blew into the faces of the
Archbishop and his followers, as the wind was blowing in their
direction. They, however, pressed bravely forward, but the Scots
attacked them both in front and rear, and in less than an hour four
thousand men and youths, their white robes stained with blood, were
lying dead on the field of battle, while many were drowned in the river.
The sight of so many surpliced clergy struck terror into the heart of
the Earl of Murray and his men, who, instead of pursuing farther the
retreating army, amongst whom were the aged Archbishop and his
prelates--the Lord Mayor had been killed--retired northwards.
Through the long hours of that night women, children, and sweethearts
gazed anxiously from the walls of York, watching and waiting for those
who would never return, and for many a long year seats were vacant in
the sacred buildings of York. Thus ended the "Battle of the White," so
named from the great number of surpliced clergy who took part therein.
The old Archbishop escaped death, and one of the aged monks wrote that--
The triumphal standard of the Archbishop also was saved by the
cross-bearer, who, mounted on a swift horse, plunged across the
river, and leaving his horse, hid the standard in a dense thicket,
and escaped in the twilight. The pike was of silver, and on the top
was fixed the gilded image of our Lord Jesus Christ. Near where it
was hidden a poor man was also hiding, and he twisted some bands of
hay round it, and kept it in his cottage, and then returned it to the
Bishop.
About this time England was like a house divided against itself, for the
barons had revolted against King Edward II. A battle was again fought at
Boroughbridge on June 22nd, 1322, between the rebel army led by the
Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, and the King's forces who were pursuing
them. They were obliged to retreat over the bridge, which at that time
was built of wood; but when they reached it, they found another part of
the King's army of whose presence they were unaware, so they had to
fight for the possession of the bridge. During the fight a Welshman,
armed with a long spear, and who was hidden somewhere beneath the
bridge, contrived to thrust his spear through an opening in the timbers
right into the bowels of Humphrey de Bohun, the Earl of Hereford, who
fell forward mortally wounded. Thus died one of the most renowned
warriors in England. The Earl of Lancaster made a final effort to cross
the bridge, but his troops gave way and fled, the Earl taking refuge in
the old chapel of Boroughbridge, from which he was dragged, stripped of
his armour, and taken to York. Thence he was conveyed to his own castle
at Pontefract, and lowered into a deep dungeon, into which, we were
told, when we visited that castle later, he had himself lowered others,
and soon afterwards he was condemned to death by the revengeful Edward,
who had not forgotten the Earl's share in the death of his favourite,
Piers Gaveston. Mounted on a miserable-looking horse, amidst the gibes
and insults of the populace, he was led to the block, and thus died
another of England's famous warriors.
[Illustration: OLIVER CROMWELL, THE GREAT PARLIAMENTARIAN.]
Needless to relate, we had decided to visit York Minster as our next
great object of interest after Fountains Abbey, and by accident rather
than design we had in our journey to and from York to pass over two
battle-fields of first importance as decisive factors in the history of
England--viz., Marston Moor and Towton Field. Marston Moor lay along our
direct road from Aldborough to York, a distance of about sixteen miles.
Here the first decisive battle was fought between the forces of King
Charles I and those of the Parliament. His victory at Marston Moor gave
Cromwell great prestige and his party an improved status in all future
operations in the Civil War. Nearly all the other battles whose sites we
had visited had been fought for reasons such as the crushing of a
rebellion of ambitious and discontented nobles, or perhaps to repel a
provoked invasion, and often for a mere change of rulers. Men had fought
and shed their blood for persons from whom they could receive no
benefit, and for objects in which they had no interest, and the country
had been convulsed and torn to pieces for the gratification of the
privileged few. But in the Battle of Marston Moor a great principle was
involved which depended en the issue. It was here that King and People
contended--the one for unlimited and absolute power, and the other for
justice and liberty. The iron grasp and liberty-crushing rule of the
Tudors was succeeded by the disgraceful and degrading reign of the
Stuarts. The Divine Right of Kings was preached everywhere, while in
Charles I's corrupt and servile Court the worst crimes on earth were
practised. Charles had inherited from his father his presumptuous
notions of prerogative and Divine Right, and was bent upon being an
absolute and uncontrolled sovereign. He had married Henrietta, the
daughter of the King of France, who, though possessed of great wit and
beauty, was of a haughty spirit, and influenced Charles to favour the
Roman Catholic Church as against the Puritans, then very numerous in
Britain, who "through the Bishop's courts were fined, whipt, pilloried,
and imprisoned, so that death was almost better than life."
[Illustration: JOHN HAMPDEN.]
A crisis had to come, and either one man must yield or a whole nation
must submit to slavery. The tax named "Ship Money," originally levied in
the eleventh century to provide ships for the Navy, was reintroduced by
Charles in 1634 in a very burdensome form, and the crisis came which
resulted in the Civil War, when Hampden, who resided in the
neighbourhood of the Chiltern Hills, one of the five members of
Parliament impeached by Charles, refused to pay the tax on the ground
that it was illegal, not having been sanctioned by Parliament. He lost
his case, but the nation was aroused and determined to vindicate its
power. Hampden was killed in a small preliminary engagement in the early
stages of the war. The King was supported by the bulk of the nobility,
proud of their ancient lineage and equipments of martial pomp, and by
their tenants and friends; while the strength of the Parliamentary Army
lay in the town population and the middle classes and independent
yeomanry: prerogative and despotic power on the one hand, and liberty
and privilege on the other. The Royal Standard was raised at Nottingham
and the din of arms rang through the kingdom. The fortress of Hull had
been twice besieged and bravely defended, and the drawn Battle of
Edgehill had been fought. In the early part of 1644 both parties began
the war in earnest. A Scottish army had been raised, but its advance had
been hindered by the Marquis of Newcastle, the King's commander in the
north. In order to direct the attention of Newcastle elsewhere, Lord
Fernando Fairfax and Sir Thomas his son, who had been commissioned by
Parliament to raise forces, attacked Bellasis, the King's Yorkshire
Commander, and Governor of York, who was at Selby with 2,000 men, and
defeated them with great loss, capturing Bellasis himself, many of his
men, and all his ordnance. Newcastle, dismayed by the news, hastened to
York and entered the city, leaving the Scots free to join Fairfax at
Netherby, their united forces numbering 16,000 foot and 4,000 horse.
These partially blockaded York, but Newcastle had a strong force and was
an experienced commander, and with a bridge across the River Ouse, and a
strong body of horse, he could operate on both sides of the stream; so
Crawford, Lindsey, and Fairfax sent messengers to the Earl of
Manchester, who was in Lincolnshire, inviting him to join them. He
brought with him 6,000 foot and 3,000 horse, of the last of which Oliver
Cromwell was lieutenant-general. Even then they could not invest the
city completely; but Newcastle was beginning to lose men and horses, and
a scarcity of provisions prevailed, so he wrote to the King that he must
surrender unless the city could be relieved. Charles then wrote to
Prince Rupert, and said that to lose York would be equivalent to losing
his crown, and ordered him to go to the relief of York forthwith.
[Illustration: PRINCE RUPERT.]
Rupert, the son of Frederick V, Elector of Bavaria, and a nephew of
Charles I, was one of the most dashing cavalry officers in Europe. He
lost no time in carrying out his commission, and in a few days Newcastle
received a letter saying that he was stabling his horses that same night
at Knaresborough, and that he would be at York the following day,
Rupert's own horse being stabled that same night in the church at
Boroughbridge. The news was received with great rejoicings by the
besieged garrison and the people in York, but spread dismay amongst the
besiegers, who thought York was about to capitulate. To stay in their
present position was to court disaster, so they raised the siege and
encamped on Hessey Moor, about six miles away, in a position which
commanded the road along which Rupert was expected to travel. But by
exercise of great military skill he crossed the river at an unexpected
point and entered York on the opposite side. The Prince, as may be
imagined, was received with great rejoicings; bells were rung, bonfires
lighted, and guns fired, and the citizens went wild with triumphant
excitement. Difficulties arose, however, between Newcastle, who was a
thoughtful and experienced commander, and Rupert, who, having relieved
the city, wanted to fight the enemy at once. As he scornfully refused
advice, Newcastle retired, and went with the army as a volunteer only,
Meantime there were dissensions among the Parliamentary generals, who
were divided in their opinions--the English wishing to fight, and the
Scots wishing to retreat. They were all on their way to Tadcaster, in
search of a stronger position, when suddenly the vanguard of Rupert
reached the rearguard of the other army at the village of Long Marston.
This division of the retreating army included their best soldiers, and
was commanded by Leslie and two other brave men, Sir Thomas Fairfax and
Oliver Cromwell. Their rearguard halted, and, seeing the plain covered
with pursuers, they sent word to the generals who had gone on in front,
asking them to return and take possession of the dry land of the Moor,
which was higher than that occupied by the Royalist army. Oliver
Cromwell had already risen in the opinion of the army by his conduct in
Lincolnshire, and he was dreaded by the Royalists, for he had already
shown his ability to command. Stalwart and clumsy in frame, he had an
iron constitution, and was a bold and good rider and a perfect master of
the broadsword then in use. He had also a deep knowledge of human
nature, and selected his troopers almost entirely from the sons of
respectable farmers and yeomen, filled with physical daring and
religious convictions, while his own religious enthusiasm, and his
superiority in all military virtues, gave him unbounded power as a
leader:
What heroes from the woodland sprung
When through the fresh awakened land
The thrilling cry of freedom rung.
And to the work of warfare strung
The Yeoman's iron hand.
The generals who had gone on in front now returned with their men to the
assistance of their rearguard, and the whole army was brought into
position on the high ground in the middle of the day, July 2nd, 1644.
The position was a good one, sloping down gradually towards the enemy.
The Royalist army numbered about 23,500 men, and that of the Parliament
slightly more. It must have been a wonderful sight to see these 50,000
of the best and bravest men the kingdom could produce, ready to wound
and kill each other. The war-cry of the Royalists was "God and the
King," and that of the others was "God with us"--both sides believing
they were fighting for the cause of religion. There were curses on one
side and prayers on the other, each captain of the Parliament prayed at
the head of his company and each soldier carried a Bible bearing the
title "The Souldier's Pocket Bible, issued for use in the Commonwealth
Army in 1643." It only consisted of fifteen pages of special passages
that referred particularly to the soldier's life and temptations.
Cromwell stood on the highest point of the field--the exact position,
locally know as "Cromwell's Gap," was pointed out to us--but at the time
of the great battle it was covered with a clump of trees, of which now
only a few remained. The battle, once begun, raged with the greatest
fury; but Cromwell and his "Ironsides" (a name given to them because of
their iron resolution) were irresistible, and swept through the enemy
like an avalanche; nothing could withstand them--and the weight of their
onset bore down all before it. Their spirit could not be subdued or
wearied, for verily they believed they were fighting the battles of the
Lord, and that death was only a passport to a crown of glory.
Newcastle's "White Coats," a regiment of thoroughly trained soldiers
from the borders of Cheshire and Wales, who would not retreat, were
almost annihilated, and Prince Rupert himself only escaped through the
superior speed of his horse, and retired into Lancashire with the
remains of his army, while Newcastle and about eighty others fled to
Scarborough, and sailed to Antwerp, leaving Sir Thomas Glemham, the
Governor of York, to defend that city. But as most of his artillery had
been lost at Marston Moor, and the victors continued the siege, he was
soon obliged to surrender. He made a very favourable agreement with the
generals of the Parliamentarian forces, by the terms of which,
consisting of thirteen clauses, they undertook to protect the property
and persons of all in the city, not plunder or deface any churches or
other buildings, and to give a safe conduct to officers and men--who
were to march out with what were practically the honours of war--as far
as Skipton.
The agreement having been signed by both parties on July 16th, 1644, Sir
Thomas Glemham, with his officers and men, marched out of the city of
York with their arms, and "with drums beating, colours flying, match
lighted, bullet in mouth, bag and baggage," made for Skipton, where they
arrived safely. The Battle of Marston Moor was a shock to the Royalist
cause from which it never recovered.
[Illustration: YORK MINSTER.]
From Marston Moor we continued along the valley of the River Ouse until
we arrived at the city of York, which Cromwell entered a fortnight after
the battle; but we did not meet with any resistance as we passed through
one of its ancient gateways, or "bars." We were very much impressed with
the immense size and grandeur of the great Minster, with its three
towers rising over two hundred feet in height. We were too late to see
the whole of the interior of this splendid old building, but gazed with
a feeling of wonder and awe on one of the largest stained-glass windows
in the world, about seventy feet high, and probably also the oldest, as
it dated back about five hundred years. The different scenes depicted in
the beautiful colours of the ancient glass panels represented every
important Biblical event from the Creation downwards. We were surprised
to find the window so perfect, as the stained-glass windows we had seen
elsewhere had been badly damaged. But the verger explained that when the
Minster was surrendered to the army of the Commonwealth in the Civil
War, it was on condition that the interior should not be damaged nor any
of the stained glass broken. We could not explore the city further that
afternoon, as the weather again became very bad, so we retreated to our
inn, and as our sorely-tried shoes required soling and heeling, we
arranged with the "boots" of the inn to induce a shoemaker friend of his
in the city to work at them during the night and return them thoroughly
repaired to the hotel by six o'clock the following morning. During the
interval we wrote our letters and read some history, but our room was
soon invaded by customers of the inn, who were brought in one by one to
see the strange characters who had walked all the way from John o'
Groat's and were on their way to the Land's End, so much so that we
began to wonder if it would end in our being exhibited in some show in
the ancient market-place, which we had already seen and greatly admired,
approached as it was then by so many narrow streets and avenues lined
with overhanging houses of great antiquity. We were, however, very
pleased with the interest shown both in ourselves and the object of our
walk, and one elderly gentleman seemed inclined to claim some sort of
relationship with us, on the strength of his having a daughter who was a
schoolmistress at Rainford village, in Lancashire. He was quite a jovial
old man, and typical of "a real old English gentleman, one of the olden
time." He told us he was a Wesleyan local preacher, but had developed a
weakness for "a pipe of tobacco and a good glass of ale." He said that
when Dick Turpin rode from London to York, his famous horse, "Black
Bess," fell down dead when within sight of the towers of the Minster,
but the exact spot he had not been able to ascertain, as the towers
could be seen from so long a distance. York, he said, was an older city
than London, the See of York being even older than that of Canterbury,
and a Lord Mayor existed at York long before there was one in London. He
described the grand old Minster as one of the "Wonders of the World." He
was very intelligent, and we enjoyed his company immensely.
[Illustration: YORK MINSTER.]
[Illustration: MICKLEGATE BAR, YORK.]
[Illustration: STONE GATE, YORK.]
York was the "Caer Ebranc" of the Brigantes, where Septimus Severus, the
Roman Emperor, died in A.D. 211, and another Emperor, Constantius, in
306. The latter's son, who was born at York, was there proclaimed
Emperor on the death of his father, to become better known afterwards as
Constantine the Great. In A.D. 521 King Arthur was said to have spent
Christmas at York in company with his courtiers and the famous Knights
of the Round Table; but Geoffrey of Monmouth, who recorded this, was
said to have a lively imagination in the way of dates and perhaps of
persons as well. It is, however, certain that William the Conqueror
built a castle there in 1068, and Robert de Clifford a large tower.
(_Distance walked sixteen miles_.)
_Wednesday, October 25th._
The boots awoke us early in the morning, only to say that he had sent a
messenger unsuccessfully into the town for our shoes; all the
consolation he got was that as soon as they were finished, his friend
the shoemaker would send them down to the hotel. It was quite an hour
after the time specified when they arrived, but still early enough to
admit of our walking before breakfast round the city walls, which we
found did not encircle the town as completely as those of our county
town of Chester. Where practicable we explored them, and saw many
ancient buildings, including Clifford's Tower and the beautiful ruins of
St. Mary's Abbey. We also paid a second visit to the ancient
market-place, with its quaint and picturesque surroundings, before
returning to our inn, where we did ample justice to the good breakfast
awaiting our arrival.
[Illustration: MONK BAR, YORK.]
We left the City of York by the same arched gateway through which we had
entered on the previous day, and, after walking for about a mile on the
Roman road leading to Tadcaster, the CALCARIA of the Romans and our next
stage, we arrived at the racecourse, which now appeared on our left.
Here we entered into conversation with one of the officials, who
happened to be standing there, and he pointed out the place where in
former years culprits were hanged. From what he told us we gathered that
the people of York had a quick and simple way of disposing of their
criminals, for when a man was sentenced to be hanged, he was taken to
the prison, and after a short interval was placed in a cart, to which a
horse was attached, and taken straightway to the gallows. Here a rope
was suspended, with a noose, or running knot, at the end, which was
placed round the culprit's neck, and after other preliminaries the
hangman saw to it that the man's hands were securely handcuffed and the
noose carefully adjusted. At a given signal from him the cart was drawn
from under the man's feet, leaving him swinging and struggling for
breath in the air, where he remained till life was extinct. The judge
when passing the death-sentence always forewarned the prisoner what
would happen to him, and that he would be taken from there to the
prison, and thence to the place of execution, "where you will be hanged
by the neck until you are dead, dead, dead." Why he repeated the last
word over and over again we could not explain. It was spoken very
solemnly, and after the first time he used it there was a pause, and
after the second, a longer pause, and then came the third in an almost
sepulchral tone of voice, while a death-like silence pervaded the court,
each word sounding like an echo of the one before it:
dead!--dead!!--dead!!! Perhaps, like the Trinity, it gave a sense of
completion.
[Illustration: ST. MARY'S ABBEY, YORK.]
The executions in those days were public, and many people attended them
as they would a fair or the races; and when held outside the towns, as
at York, a riotous mob had it in its power either to lynch or rescue the
prisoner. But hangings were afterwards arranged to take place on a
scaffold outside the prison wall, to which the prisoner could walk from
the inside of the prison. The only one we ever went to see was outside
the county gaol, but the character of the crowd of sightseers convinced
us we were in the wrong company, and we went away without seeing the
culprit hanged! There must have been a great crowd of people on the York
racecourse when Eugene Aram was hanged, for the groans and yells of
execration filled his ears from the time he left the prison until he
reached the gallows and the cart was drawn from under him, adding to the
agony of the moment and the remorse he had felt ever since the foul
crime for which he suffered. As we stood there we thought what an awful
thing it must be to be hanged on the gallows.[Footnote: In later years
we were quite horrified to receive a letter from a gentleman in
Yorkshire who lived in the neighbouring of Knaresborough in which he
wrote: "I always feel convinced in my own mind that Eugene Aram was
innocent. Note these beautiful lines he wrote the night before his
execution:
"Come, pleasing rest! eternal slumber fall,
Seal mine, that once must seal the eyes of all;
Calm and composed, my soul her journey takes,
No _guilt_ that _troubles_, and no _heart_ that _aches_!
Adieu, thou sun! all bright like her arise;
Adieu, fair friends! and all that's good and wise.
"I could give you," he added, "the most recent thoughts and opinions
about the tragedy, and they prove beyond doubt his innocence!"]
But, like other dismal thoughts, we got rid of it as soon as possible by
thinking how thankful we should be that, instead of being hanged, we
were walking through the level country towards Tadcaster, a Roman
station in the time of Agricola.
From some cause or other we were not in our usual good spirits that day,
which we accounted for by the depression arising from the dull autumnal
weather and the awful histories of the wars he had been reading the
previous night. But we afterwards attributed it to a presentiment of
evil, for we were very unfortunate during the remainder of the week.
Perhaps it is as well so; the human race would suffer much in
anticipation, did not the Almighty hide futurity from His creatures.
[Illustration: OLD GOTHIC CHURCH, TADCASTER.]
Just before reaching Tadcaster we crossed the River Wharfe, which we had
seen higher up the country, much nearer its source. Here we turned to
the left to visit Pontefract, for the sole reason, for aught we knew,
that we had heard that liquorice was manufactured there, an article that
we had often swallowed in our early youth, without concerning ourselves
where or how that mysterious product was made. It was quite a change to
find ourselves walking through a level country and on a level road, and
presently we crossed the River Cock, a small tributary of the Wharfe,
close by the finely wooded park of Grimstone, where Grim the Viking, or
Sea Pirate, settled in distant ages, and gave his name to the place; he
was also known as "the man with the helmet." We then came to the small
hamlet of Towton, where on the lonely heath was fought the Battle of
Towton Field, one of the most bloody battles recorded in English
history. This great and decisive battle was fought in the Wars of the
Roses, between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster, for the
possession of the English Crown--a rivalry which began in the reign of
Henry VI and terminated with the death of Richard III at the Battle of
Bosworth Field. It has been computed that during the thirty years these
wars lasted, 100,000 of the gentry and common people, 200 nobles, and 12
princes of the Royal Blood were killed, all this carnage taking place
under the emblems of love and purity, for the emblem or badge of the
House of Lancaster was the red rose, and that of York the white. The
rivalry between the two Houses only came to an end when Henry VII, the
Lancastrian, married the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward IV,
the Yorkist. The Battle of Towton, like many others both before and
since, was fought on a Sunday, which happened to be Palm Sunday in the
year 1461, and the historian relates that on that day the "heavens were
overcast, and a strong March wind brought with it a blinding snowstorm,
right against the faces of the Lancastrians as they advanced to meet the
Yorkists, who quickly took advantage of the storm to send many furious
showers of arrows from their strong bows right into the faces of the
Lancastrians, causing fearful havoc amongst them at the very outset of
the battle. These arrows came as it were from an unknown foe, and when
the Lancastrians shot their arrows away, they could not see that they
were falling short of the enemy, who kept advancing and retreating, and
who actually shot at the Lancastrians with their own arrows, which had
fallen harmlessly on the ground in front of the Yorkists. When the
Lancastrians had nearly emptied their quivers, their leaders hurried
their men forward to fight the enemy, and, discarding their bows, they
continued the battle with sword, pike, battle-axe, and bill. Thus for
nearly the whole of that Sabbath day the battle raged, the huge
struggling mass of humanity fighting like demons, and many times during
that fatal day did the fortune of war waver in the balance: sometimes
the White Rose trembling and then the Red, while men fought each other
as if they were contending for the Gate of Paradise! For ten hours, with
uncertain result, the conflict raged, which Shakespeare compared to "the
tide of a mighty sea contending with a strong opposing wind," but the
arrival of 5,000 fresh men on the side of the Yorkists turned the scale
against the Lancastrians, who began to retreat, slowly at first, but
afterwards in a disorderly flight. The Lancastrians had never
anticipated a retreat, and had not provided for it, for they felt as
sure of victory as the great Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, who, when
he was asked by a military expert what provision he had made for retreat
in the event of losing the battle, simply answered, "None!" The
Lancastrians were obliged to cross the small River Cock in their
retreat, and it seemed almost impossible to us that a small stream like
that could have been the cause of the loss of thousands upon thousands
of the finest and bravest soldiers in England. But so it happened. There
was only one small bridge over the stream, which was swollen and ran
swiftly in flood. This bridge was soon broken down with the rush of men
and horses trying to cross it, and although an active man to-day could
easily jump over the stream, it was a death-trap for men weighted with
heavy armour and wearied with exertion, the land for a considerable
distance on each side the river being very boggy. As those in front sank
in the bog, those from behind walked over them, and as row after row
disappeared, their bodies formed the road for others to walk over. The
carnage was terrible, for King Edward had ordered that no quarter must
be given and no prisoners taken. It was estimated that 28,000 of the
Lancastrians were slaughtered in this battle and in the pursuit which
followed, and that 37,776 men in all were killed on that dreadful day.
In some parts of Yorkshire the wild roses were very beautiful, ranging
in colour from pure white to the deepest red, almost every shade being
represented; the variation in colour was attributed to the difference in
the soil or strata in which they grew. But over this battle-field and
the enormous pits in which the dead were buried there grew after the
battle a dwarf variety of wild rose which it was said would not grow
elsewhere, and which the country people thought emblematical of the
warriors who had fallen there, as the white petals were slightly tinged
with red, while the older leaves of the bushes were of a dull bloody
hue; but pilgrims carried many of the plants away before our time, and
the cultivation of the heath had destroyed most of the remainder. In the
great Battle of Towton Field many noblemen had perished, but they
appeared to have been buried with the rank and file in the big pits dug
out for the burial of the dead, as only a very few could be traced in
the local churchyards. The Earl of Westmorland, however, had been buried
in Saxton church and Lord Dacres in Saxton churchyard, where his remains
rested under a great stone slab, 7 feet long, 4-1/2 feet wide, and 7
inches thick, the Latin inscription on which, in old English characters,
was rapidly fading away:
HIC JACET RANULPHUS D.S. DE DAKREET--MILES ET OCCISUS ERAT IN BELLO
PRINCIPE HENRICO VIe ANNO DOM 1461.--29 DIE MARTII VIDELICET DOMICA
DIE PALMARUM--CUJUS ANIME PROPITIETUR DEUS.--AMEN.
The local poet, in giving an account of the battle, has written:--
The Lord Dacres
Was slain at Nor acres,
for his lordship had been killed in a field known as the North Acres. He
had removed his gorget, a piece of armour which protected the throat,
for the purpose, it was supposed, of getting a drink to quench his
thirst, when he was struck in the throat by a bolt, or headless arrow,
shot from a cross-bow by a boy who was hiding in a bur-tree or elder
bush. The boy-archer must have been a good shot to hit a warrior clothed
from head to foot in armour in the only vulnerable point exposed, but in
those days boys were trained to shoot with bows and arrows from the
early age of six years, their weapons, being increased in size and
strength as they grew older; their education was not considered complete
until they could use that terrible weapon known as the English long-bow,
and hit the smallest object with their arrows. Lord Dacres was buried in
an upright position, and his horse was buried with him; for many years
the horse's jaw-bone and teeth were preserved at the vicarage, One of
his lordship's ancestors, who died fighting on Flodden Field, had been
buried in a fine tomb in Lanercrost Abbey.
Lord Clifford was another brave but cruel warrior who was killed in a
similar way. He had removed his helmet from some unexplained
cause--possibly to relieve the pressure on his head--when a random arrow
pierced his throat; but his death was to many a cause of rejoicing, for
owing to his cruel deeds at the Battle of Wakenfield, he had earned the
sobriquet of "the Butcher." While that battle was raging, the Duke of
York's son, the Earl of Rutland, a youth only seventeen years of age,
described as "a fair gentleman and maiden-like person," was brought by
his tutor, a priest, from the battle-field to shelter in the town. Here
he was perceived by Clifford, who asked who he was. The boy, too much
afraid to speak, fell on his knees imploring for mercy, "both by holding
up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone
from fear." "Save him," said the tutor, "for he is a prince's son and,
peradventure, might do you good hereafter." With that word Clifford
marked him, and said, "By God's blood thy father slew mine, and so will
I thee, and all thy kin," and, saying this, he struck the Earl to the
heart with his dagger, and bade the tutor bear word to his mother and
brothers what he had said and done. Not content with this, when he came
to the body of the Duke, the child's father, he caused the head to be
cut off and a paper crown to be placed on it; then, fixing it on a pole,
he presented it to the Queen, saying, "Madame, your war is done--here is
your King's ransom." The head was placed over the gates of York by the
side of that of the Earl of Salisbury, whom Queen Margaret had ordered
to be beheaded.
For some little time we had been walking through what was known as the
"Kingdom of Elmet," but whether this was associated with the helmet of
Grim we were unable to ascertain, though we shrewdly suspected it was an
old Celtic word. We arrived at the village of Sherburn-in-Elmet, an
important place in ancient times, where once stood the palace of
Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred the Great, the first ruler of all
England, who was crowned King of England in the year 925. In celebration
of his great victory over the combined army of the Danes and Scots at
Brunnanburgh, King Athelstan presented his palace here, along with other
portions of the Kingdom of Elmet, to the See of York, and it remained
the Archbishop of York's Palace for over three hundred years. But when
the See of York was removed to Cawick, a more convenient centre, the
Sherburn Palace was pulled down, and at the time of our visit only the
site and a portion of the moat remained. We were much interested in the
church, as the historian related that "within the walls now existing the
voices of the last Saxon archbishop and the first Norman archbishop have
sounded, and in the old church of Sherburn has been witnessed the
consummation of the highest ambition of chivalric enterprise, and all
the pomp attending the great victory of Athelstan at Brunnanburgh."
Here in the time of Edward II, in 1321, "a secret conclave was held,
attended by the Archbishop, the Bishops of Durham and Carlisle, and
Abbots from far and near, the Earls of Lancaster and Hereford, and many
Barons, Baronets, and Knights. To this assembly Sir John de Bek, a
belted Knight, read out the Articles which Lancaster and his adherents
intended to insist upon." But what interested us most in the church was
the "Janus Cross" The Romans dedicated the month of January to Janus,
who was always pictured with two faces, as January could look back to
the past year and forwards towards the present. The Janus Cross here had
a curious history; it had been found in the ruins of an ancient chapel
in the churchyard dedicated to the "Honour of St. Mary and the Holy
Angels." One of the two churchwardens thought it would do to adorn the
walls of his residence, but another parishioner thought it would do to
adorn his own, and the dispute was settled by some local Solomon, who
suggested that they should cut it in two and each take one half. So it
was sawn vertically in two parts, one half being awarded to each. In
course of time the parts were again united and restored to the church.
[Illustration: ST. JANUS CROSS, SHERBURN-IN-ELMERT CHURCH.]
Arriving at Ferry Bridge, we crossed the River Aire, which we had seen
at its source, but which here claimed to have become one of the most
useful rivers in Yorkshire, for its waters were valuable for navigation
and for the manufacturing towns near which they passed.
My foot, which had pained me ever since leaving York, so that I had been
limping for some time, now became so painful that I could scarcely walk
at all. Still, we were obliged to reach Pontefract in order to procure
lodgings for the night, so my brother relieved me of all my luggage
excepting the stick, in order that I might hobble along to that town. It
was with great difficulty that I climbed up the hill to the inn, which
was in the upper part of the town, and there I was painfully relieved by
the removal of my boot, and found that my ankle was seriously swollen
and inflamed. It might, of course, have arisen through over-exertion,
but we came to the conclusion that it was caused through the repair of
my boots at York. Before arriving there the heels were badly worn down
at one side, and as I had been practically walking on the sides of my
feet, the sudden reversion to the flat or natural position had brought
on the disaster that very nearly prevented us from continuing our walk.
We applied all the remedies that both our hostess and ourselves could
think of, but our slumbers that night were much disturbed, and not
nearly so continuous as usual.
(_Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles_.)
_Thursday, October 26th._
[Illustration: THE OLD CHURCH, PONTEFRACT.]
The great object of interest at Pontefract was the castle, the ruins of
which were very extensive. Standing on the only hill we encountered in
our walk of the previous day, it was formerly one of the largest and
strongest castles in England, and had been associated with many stirring
historical events. It was here that King Richard II was murdered in the
year 1399, and the remains of the dismal chamber where this tragedy took
place still existed. During the Wars of the Roses, when in 1461 Queen
Margaret appeared in the north of Yorkshire with an army of 60,000 men,
the newly appointed King, Edward IV, sent the first portion of his army
to meet her in charge of his most influential supporter, the Earl of
Warwick, the "King Maker." The King followed him to Pontefract with the
remainder of his army, and the old castle must have witnessed a
wonderful sight when that army, to the number of 40,660 men, was
marshalled in the plains below.
But it was in the Civil War that this castle attained its greatest
recorded notoriety, for it was besieged three times by the forces of the
Parliament. Sir Thomas Fairfax was in charge of the first siege, and
took possession of the town in 1644, driving the garrison into the
castle. He had a narrow escape from death on that occasion, as a
cannon-ball passed between him and Colonel Forbes so close that the wind
caused by its passage knocked both of them down to the ground, Forbes
losing the sight of one of his eyes. The castle was strongly defended,
but just as one of the towers collapsed, a shot from the castle struck a
match, and the spark, falling into Fairfax's powder stores, caused a
tremendous explosion which killed twenty-seven of his men. In January
1645 Forbes sent a drum to the castle to beat a parley, but the
Governor, Colonel Lowther, and his brave garrison said they would go on
with the defence to the last extremity. The besiegers then began to lay
mines, but these were met by counter-mines driven by the garrison, who
now began to suffer from want of food. At this critical moment a
Royalist force of 2,000 horse arrived under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, who
had made a forced march from Oxford to relieve the garrison. He drove
off the besiegers, first to Ferry Bridge, and afterwards to Sherburn and
Tadcaster, inflicting severe loss, and so the garrison was revictualled.
The Parliamentary forces, however, soon made their appearance again, and
on March 21st, 1645, the second siege began. They again took possession
of the town, and after four months of incessant cannonading the garrison
capitulated and the castle was garrisoned by the other side.
The war continued in other parts of the country, and towards the end of
it a conspiracy was formed by the Royalists to recover possession of the
castle, which through the treachery of a Colonel Maurice was successful.
Many of the garrison at that time lived outside the walls of the castle,
and Maurice persuaded the Governor, Cotterel, to order them to move
their homes inside, to which he assented, issuing an order in the
country for beds to be provided on a certain day. Taking advantage of
this, Maurice and another conspirator dressed themselves as country
gentlemen, with swords by their sides, and with nine others, disguised
as constables, made their appearance at the castle entrance early in the
morning, so as to appear like a convoy guarding the safe passage of the
goods. The Governor, who kept the keys, was still in bed, and the
soldier on guard at the inside of the gates, who was in league with
Maurice, went to inform him the beds had arrived. He handed over the
keys, and, not suspecting treachery, remained in bed with his sword at
his side as usual. The remainder of the conspirators then drew their
swords, and the garrison, on condition that their lives should be
spared, surrendered, and were put into one of the prison dungeons. The
conspirators then went to the room of the Governor, who, hearing a
noise, jumped out of bed and defended himself, but was soon wounded,
disarmed, and placed in the dungeon along with the rest, while the
Royalists took possession of the castle. This happened in June 1648.
The dungeons in the castle, which were still to be seen, were of the
most awful description, for, sunk deep down into the solid rock, it was
scarcely necessary to write over them--
Abandon Hope, all ye who enter here.
There was one dungeon under the Round Tower, which was reached by
passing down some winding steps, into which no ray of light ever
entered, as dark and dismal a place as could be imagined. Here Earl
Rivers and his fellow peers were incarcerated, praying for their
execution to end their misery. There was also a cellar for the storage
of food and drink, sunk some forty or fifty feet in the solid rock, and
capable of holding two or three hundred men, and this too was used as a
dungeon by the Royalists. Here the prisoners taken by the Royalist army
were confined, and many of their names appeared cut in the walls of
solid rock. The history of these places, if it could be written, would
form a chapter of horrors of the most dreadful character, as in olden
times prisoners were often forgotten by their captors, and left in the
dungeons to perish.
It was not without a tinge of satisfaction that we heard that the Earl
of Lancaster, to whom the castle belonged, was himself placed in one of
these dungeons after the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, and after
being imprisoned there a short time, where he had so often imprisoned
others, was led out to execution.
The third siege of Pontefract Castle happened in the autumn of 1648, for
after the Parliamentarians had gained the upper hand, the castles that
still held out against them were besieged and taken, but the turn of
Pontefract Castle came last of all. Oliver Cromwell himself undertook to
superintend the operations, and General Lambert, one of the ablest of
Cromwell's generals, born at Kirkby Malham, a Yorkshire village through
which we had passed some days before, was appointed Commander-in-Chief
of the forces. He arrived before the castle on December 4th, 1648, but
such was the strength of the position that though he had a large number
of soldiers and a great service of artillery, it was not until March
25th, 1649, when scarcely one hundred men were left to defend the walls,
that the garrison capitulated. Meantime the tremendous effect of the
artillery brought to bear against them had shattered the walls, and
finally Parliament ordered the castle to be dismantled. With the
surrender of this castle the Civil War came to an end, but not before
King Charles I had been beheaded.
[Illustration: THE GATE AND KEEP, PONTEFRACT CASTLE.]
Last year, before we began our walk from London to Lancashire, we
visited Whitehall and saw the window in the Banqueting-hall through
which, on January 30th, 1649, about two months before Pontefract Castle
surrendered, he passed on his way to the scaffold outside.
In its prime Pontefract Castle was an immense and magnificent
fortification, and from its ruins we had a fine view on all sides of the
country it had dominated for about six hundred years.
We were now journeying towards the more populous parts of the country,
and the greater the mileage of our walk, the greater became the interest
taken both in us and our adventures. Several persons interviewed us in
our hotel at Pontefract, and much sympathy was extended towards myself,
as my foot was still very painful in spite of the remedies which had
been applied to it; but we decided not to give in, my brother kindly
consenting to carry all the luggage, for we were very anxious not to
jeopardise our twenty-five miles' daily average beyond recovery. My boot
was eased and thoroughly oiled; if liquorice could have done it any
good, we could have applied it in addition to the other remedies, as we
had bought some both for our own use and for our friends to eat when we
reached home. All we had learned about it was that it was made from the
root of a plant containing a sweet juice, and that the Greek name of it
was _glykyr-rhiza_, from _glykys_, sweet, and _rhiza_, root. After
making a note of this formidable word, I did not expect my brother to
eat any more liquorice; but his special aversion was not Greek, but
Latin, as he said both his mind and body had been associated with that
language through the medium of the cane of his schoolmaster, who
believed in the famous couplet:
'Tis Education forms the common mind.
And with the cane we drive it in behind!
He was always suspicious of the Latin words attached to plants, and
especially when quoted by gardeners, which I attributed to jealousy of
their superior knowledge of that language; but it appeared that it was
founded on incidents that occurred many years ago.
He was acquainted with two young gardeners who were learning their
business by working under the head gardener at a hall in Cheshire, the
owner of which was proud of his greenhouses and hothouses as well as of
the grounds outside. As a matter of course everything appeared up to
date, and his establishment became one of the show-places in the
neighbourhood. The gardener, an elderly man, was quite a character. He
was an Irishman and an Orangeman as well, and had naturally what was
known in those parts as "the gift of the gab." The squire's wife was
also proud of her plants, and amongst the visitors to the gardens were
many ladies, who often asked the gardener the name of a plant that was
strange to them. As no doubt he considered it _infra dig._ to say he did
not know, and being an Irishman, he was never at a loss when asked,
"What do you call this plant?" he would reply, "Oh, that, mum, is the
Hibertia Canadensus, mum!" and a further inquiry would be answered in a
similar manner--"That, mum, is the Catanansus Rulia, mum!" and again the
lady would thank him and walk on apparently quite pleased and happy,
probably forgetting the name of the plant before she had gone through
the gardens. The young men were often at work in the houses while the
visitors were going through, and of course they were too deeply engaged
in their work either to see the visitors or to hear all the conversation
that was going on, but they told my brother that they could always tell
when the gardener did not know the real name of a plant by his
invariably using these two names on such occasions, regardless of the
family or species of the plant in question.
Pomfret was the local abbreviation of Pontefract, the name of the town,
and "Pomfret Liquorice" claimed not only to be a sweetmeat, but a throat
remedy as well, and was considered beneficial to the consumer. The
sample we purchased was the only sweet we had on our journey, for in
those days men and women did not eat sweets so much as in later times,
they being considered the special delicacies of the children. The sight
of a man or woman eating a sweet would have caused roars of ridicule.
Nor were there any shops devoted solely to the sale of sweets in the
country; they were sold by grocers to the children, though in nothing
like the variety and quantity that appeared in later years. The most
common sweet in those days was known as "treacle toffy," which was sold
in long sticks wrapped from end to end in white paper, to protect the
children's fingers when eating it, in spite of which it was no unusual
sight to see both hands and faces covered with treacle marks, and thus
arose the name of "treacle chops," as applied to boys whose cheeks were
smeared with treacle. There was also toffy that was sold by weight, of
which Everton toffee was the chief favourite. My brother could remember
a little visitor, a cousin of ours, who could not speak very plainly,
and who always called a cup a "tup," being sent to the village shop for
a pound of coffee, and his delight when he returned laden with a pound
of toffy, which was of course well-nigh devoured before the mistake was
found out!
By this day we were ready for anything except walking as we crawled out
of the town to find our way to Doncaster, and our speed, as might be
imagined, was not excessive; for, including stoppages, which were
necessarily numerous, we only averaged one mile per hour! There was a
great bazaar being held in Pontefract that day, to be opened by Lord
Houghton, and we met several carriages on their way to it. After we had
walked some distance, we were told--for we stopped to talk to nearly
every one we met--that we were now passing through Barnsdale Forest. We
could not see many trees, even though this was formerly the abode of
Robin Hood and Little John, as well as Will Scarlett.
It was in this forest that Robin, hearing of the approach of the Bishop
of Hereford, ordered his men to kill a good fat deer, and to make a
repast of it by the side of the highway on which the Bishop was
travelling. Robin dressed himself and six of his men in the garb of
shepherds, and they took their stand by the fire at which the venison
was being roasted. When the Bishop came up, with his retinue, he asked
the men why they had killed the King's deer, and said he should let the
King know about it, and would take them with him to see the King.
"Oh pardon, oh pardon," said bold Robin Hood,
"Oh pardon, I thee pray.
For it becomes not your Lordship's coat
To take so many lives away."
"No pardon, no pardon," said the Bishop,
"No pardon I thee owe;
Therefore make haste and come along with me,
For before the King ye shall go."
Then Robin pulled his bugle horn from beneath his coat and blew a long
blast, and threescore and ten of his followers quickly appeared--
All making obeysance to Robin Hood,
'Twas a comely sight to see;
"What is the matter, master?" said Little John,
"That you blow so heartily?"
Robin replied that the Bishop of Hereford refused all pardon for slaying
the deer, and had said they must at once accompany him to the King.
Little John then suggested that they should cut off the Bishop's head
and throw him in a grave; but the Bishop craved pardon of the outlaw for
his interference, and declared that had he known who was on the road,
"he would have gone some other way."
"No pardon, no pardon," said bold Robin Hood,
"No pardon I thee owe;
Therefore make haste and come along with me,
For to merry Barnsdale you shall go."
So thither they led the Bishop, and made him sup with them right merrily
and royally.
"Call in a reckoning," said the Bishop,
"For methinks it grows wondrous high;"
"Lend me your purse, master," said Little John,
"And I'll tell you by and bye!"
Little John took the Bishop's cloak
And spread it upon the ground.
And out of the Bishop's portmanteau
He told three hundred pound.
"Here's money enough, master," said Little John,
"And a comely sight to see;
It makes me in charity with the Bishop,
Though he heartily loveth not me."
Robin took the Bishop by the hand,
And he caused the music to play;
And he made the Bishop to dance in his boots.
And glad he could get away!
[Illustration: DONCASTER RACECOURSE. "We had walked for five days over
the broad acres of Yorkshire and had seen many fine horses, for
horse-breeding was a leading feature of that big county, and horses a
frequent subject of conversation."]
We heard all sorts of stories from the roadmen, some of which might not
be true; but in any case about seven miles from Doncaster we reached
Robin Hood's Well, at the side of the road. It was quite a substantial
structure, built of soft limestone, and arched over, with a seat
inside--on which doubtless many a weary wayfarer had rested before us.
The interior was nearly covered with inscriptions, one dated 1720 and
some farther back than that. We had a drink of water from the well, but
afterwards, when sitting on the seat, saw at the bottom of the well a
great black toad, which we had not noticed when drinking the water. The
sight of it gave us a slight attack of the horrors, for we had a
particular dread of toads. We saw at the side of the road a large house
which was formerly an inn rejoicing in the sign of "Robin Hood and
Little John," one of the oldest inns between York and London. We called
at a cottage for tea, and here we heard for the first time of the
Yorkshireman's coat-of-arms, which the lady of the house told us every
Yorkshireman was entitled to place on his carriage free of tax! It
consisted of a flea, and a fly, a flitch of bacon, and a magpie, which
we thought was a curious combination. The meaning, however, was
forthcoming, and we give the following interpretation as given to us:
A flea will bite! and so will a Yorkshireman;
A fly will drink out of anybody's cup! and so will a Yorkshireman;
A magpie will chatter! and so will a Yorkshireman:
And a flitch of bacon looks best when it's hung! and so does a
Yorkshireman.
We fancied a Lancashire man must have written that ditty.
[Illustration: ROBIN HOOD'S WELL.]
The moon was shining brightly as we left the cottage, and a man we met,
when he saw me limping so badly, stopped us to inquire what was the
matter. He was returning from Doncaster, and cheered us up by pointing
to the moon, saying we should have the "parish lantern" to light us on
our way. This appeared to remind him of his parish church, where a
harvest thanksgiving had just been held, with a collection on behalf of
the hospital and infirmary. He and seven of his fellow servants had
given a shilling each, but, although there were "a lot of gentry" at the
service, the total amount of the collection was only one pound odd. The
minister had told them he could scarcely for shame carry it in, as it
was miserably small for an opulent parish like that!
We arrived at Doncaster at 8.30 p.m., and stayed at the temperance hotel
in West Laith Street. The landlord seemed rather reluctant about letting
us in, but he told us afterwards he thought we were "racing characters,"
which greatly amused us since we had never attended a race-meeting in
our lives!
(_Distance walked fourteen miles_.)
_Friday, October 27th._
Our host at Doncaster took a great interest in us, and, in spite of my
sprained ankle, we had a good laugh at breakfast-time at his mistaking
us for "racing characters." My brother related to him his experiences on
the only two occasions he ever rode on the back of a horse unassisted.
The first of these was when, as quite a young boy, he went to visit his
uncle who resided near Preston in Lancashire, and who thought it a
favourable opportunity to teach him to ride. He was therefore placed on
the back of a quiet horse, a groom riding behind him on another horse,
with orders not to go beyond a walking pace; but when they came near the
barracks, and were riding on the grass at the side of the road, a
detachment of soldiers came marching out through the entrance, headed by
their military band, which struck up a quickstep just before meeting the
horses. My brother's horse suddenly reared up on its hind legs, and
threw him off its back on to the grass below, or, as he explained it,
while the horse reared up he reared down! He was more frightened than
hurt, but the groom could not persuade him to ride on the horse's back
any farther, so he had to lead the horses home again, a distance of two
miles, while my brother walked on the footpath.
It was years before he attempted to ride on horseback again, but this
time he was mounted upon an old horse white with age, and very quiet,
which preferred walking to running; this second attempt also ended
disastrously. It was a very hot day, and he had ridden some miles into
the country when he came to a large pit, on the opposite side of the
road to a farmhouse, when, without any warning, and almost before my
brother realised what was happening, the horse walked straight into this
pit, and, in bending its head to drink at the water, snatched the bridle
out of his hands. He had narrowly escaped drowning on several occasions,
and was terrified at the thought of falling into the water, so,
clutching hold of the horse's mane with both hands, he yelled out with
all his might for help--which only served to make the horse move into a
deeper part of the pit, as if to have a bathe as well as a drink. His
cries attracted the attention of some Irish labourers who were at work
in a field, and they ran to his assistance. One of them plunged into the
water, which reached half way up his body, and, taking hold of my
brother, carried him to the road and then returned for the horse. He was
rewarded handsomely for his services, for my brother verily believed he
had saved him from being drowned. He was much more afraid of the water
than of the horse, which was, perhaps, the reason why he had never
learned to swim, but he never attempted to ride on horseback again. On
the wall in front of the farmhouse an old-fashioned sundial was
extended, on the face of which were the words:
Time that is past will never return,
and on the opposite corner were the Latin words _Tempus fugit_ (Time
flies). My brother seemed to have been greatly impressed by these
proverbs, and thought of them as he led the white horse on his
three-mile walk towards home; they seemed engraven upon his memory, for
he often quoted them on our journey.
[Illustration: THE GUILDHALL, DONCASTER.]
My ankle seemed to be a shade easier, and, after the usual remedies had
again been applied, we started on another miserable walk, or limp, for
we only walked twelve miles in twelve hours, following the advice of our
host to take it easy, and give the ankle time to recover. We rested many
times on the road, stopped to talk to many people, got to know all about
the country we were passing through, read papers and books, called for
refreshments oftener than we needed them, wrote letters to our friends,
and made copious entries in our diaries---in fact did everything except
walk. The country was very populous, and we attracted almost universal
sympathy: myself for my misfortune, and my brother for having to carry
all the luggage.
Doncaster takes its name from the River Don, on which it is situated,
and it was the only town in England, after London and York, that
possessed a "Mansion House." We had walked for five days over the broad
acres of Yorkshire and had seen many fine horses, for horse-breeding, we
found, was a leading feature in that big county, and horses a frequent
subject of conversation. Doncaster was no exception to the rule, as the
Doncaster Races were famous all over England, and perhaps in other
countries beyond the seas. We were too late in the year for the great
St. Leger race, which was held in the month of September, and was always
patronised by Royalty. On that occasion almost every mansion in the
county was filled with visitors "invited down" for the races, and there
was no doubt that agricultural Yorkshire owed much of its prosperity to
the breeding of its fine horses. The racecourse was situated on a moor a
little way out of the town, the property of the Corporation, and it was
said that the profit made by the races was so great that the Doncaster
people paid no rates. This might of course be an exaggeration, but there
could be no doubt that the profit made by the Corporation out of the
moor on which the races were held would largely reduce the rates of the
town.
Doncaster races owed their origin to a famous Arab horse named
Rasel-Fedawi (or the "Headstrong"), which was purchased from the Anazeh
tribe of Arabs by a Mr. Darley, an Englishman who at that time resided
at Aleppo, a Turkish trading centre in Northern Syria. This gentleman
sent the horse to his brother at Aldby Park in Yorkshire, and what are
now known as "thoroughbreds" have descended from him. His immediate
descendants have been credited with some wonderful performances, and the
"Flying Childers," a chestnut horse with a white nose and four white
legs, bred from a mare born in 1715, named "Betty Leedes," and owned by
Leonard Childers of Doncaster, was never beaten. All sorts of tales were
told of his wonderful performances: he was said to have covered 25 feet
at each bound, and to have run the round course at Newmarket, 3 miles 6
furlongs, in six minutes and forty seconds. After him came another
famous horse named "Eclipse" which could, it was said, run a mile a
minute. When he died in 1789 his heart was found to weigh 14 pounds,
which accounted for his wonderful speed and courage. Admiral Rous
records that in the year 1700 the English racehorse was fifteen hands
high, but after the Darley Arabian, the average height rose to over
sixteen hands. It was said that there were races at Doncaster in the
seventeenth century, but the great St. Leger was founded by General St.
Leger in 1778, and the grand stand was built in the following year. The
Yorkshire gentlemen and farmers were naturally all sportsmen, and were
credited with keeping "both good stables and good tables." The
invitation to "have a bite and a sup" was proverbial, especially in the
wold or moorland districts, where hospitality was said to be unbounded.
A learned man wrote on one occasion that "an honest walk is better than
a skilled physician. It stimulates heart, brain, and muscles alike,
sweeping cobwebs from the mind and heaviness from the heart." But this
was probably not intended to apply to a man with a sore foot, and it was
difficult to understand why the ankle failure had come so suddenly. We
could only attribute it to some defect in the mending of the boot at
York, but then came the mystery why the other ankle had not been
similarly affected. The day was beautifully fine, but the surroundings
became more smoky as we were passing through a mining and manufacturing
district, and it was very provoking that we could not walk through it
quickly. However, we had to make the best of it, imagining we were
treading where the saints had trod, or at any rate the Romans, for this
was one of their roads to the city of York upon which their legions must
have marched; but while we crossed the rivers over bridges, the Romans
crossed them by paved fords laid in the bed of the streams, traces of
which were still to be seen.
We made a long stay at Comsborough, and saw the scanty remains of the
castle, to which Oliver Cromwell had paid special attention, as, in the
words of the historian, "he blew the top off," which had never been
replaced. And yet it had a very long history, for at the beginning of
the fourth century it was the Burgh of Conan, Earl of Kent, who with
Maximian made an expedition to Armorica (now Brittany), where he was
eventually made king, which caused him to forsake his old Burgh in
England. Maximian was a nephew of King Coel, or Cole, the hero of the
nursery rhyme, of which there are many versions:
Old King Cole was a jolly old soul,
And a jolly old soul was he;
He called for his ale, and he called for his beer,
And he called for his fiddle-diddle-dee.
[Illustration: CONISBOROUGH CASTLE.]
But he seemed to have been a jolly old sinner as well, for he formed the
brilliant idea of supplying his soldiers with British wives, and
arranged with his father-in-law, the Duke of Cornwall, to send him
several shiploads from the "old country," for British women were famous
for their beauty. His request was complied with, but a great storm came
on, and some of the ships foundered, while others were blown out of
their course, as far as Germany, where the women landed amongst savages,
and many of them committed suicide rather than pass into slavery. Who
has not heard of St. Ursula and her thousand British virgins, whose
bones were said to be enshrined at Cologne Cathedral, until a prying
medico reported that many of them were only dogs' bones--for which
heresy he was expelled the city as a dangerous malignant.
Troublesome times afterwards arose in England, and on the Yorkshire
side, Briton and Saxon, and Pict and Scot, were mixed up in endless
fights and struggles for existence. It was about this period that
Vortigern, the British King, invited Hengist and Horsa, the Saxon
Princes, to lend their assistance against the Picts and the Scots, which
they did for a time; and when Hengist asked for a residence in his
country, the King gave him Conan's Burgh, which was then vacant. Conan
was never again seen in England, but in 489 his great-grandson Aurelius
Ambrosius became King of the Britons. In the meantime the Saxons had so
increased in numbers that they determined to fight for the possession of
the country, and, headed by Hengist, who had turned traitor, fought a
great battle, in the course of which Eldol, Duke of Gloucester,
encountered Hengist in single combat, and, seizing him by the helmet,
dragged him into the British ranks shouting that God had given his side
the victory. The Saxons were dismayed, and fled in all directions, and
Hengist was imprisoned in his own fortress of Conisborough, where a
council of war was held to decide what should be his fate. Some were
against his being executed, but Eldol's brother Eldad, Bishop of
Gloucester, "a man of great wisdom and piety," compared him to King
Agag, whom the prophet "hewed to pieces," and so Hengist was led through
the postern gate of the castle to a neighbouring hill, and beheaded.
Here Aurelius commanded him to be buried and a heap of earth to be
raised over him, because "he was so good a knight." A lady generally
appeared in these old histories as the cause of the mischief, and it was
said that one reason why King Vortigern was so friendly with Hengist was
that Hengist had a very pretty daughter named Rowena, whom the King
greatly admired: a road in Conisborough still bears her name.
Aurelius then went to Wales, but found that Vortigern had shut himself
up in a castle into which Aurelius was unable to force an entrance, so
he burnt the castle and the King together; and in a wild place on the
rocky coast of Carnarvonshire, Vortigern's Valley can still be seen. Sir
Walter Scott, who was an adept in selecting old ruins for the materials
of his novels, has immortalised Conisborough in his novel of _Ivanhoe_
as the residence, about the year 1198, of the noble Athelstane or
Athelstone, who frightened his servants out of their wits by demanding
his supper when he was supposed to be dead.
Yorkshire feasts were famous, and corresponded to the "wakes" in
Lancashire and Cheshire. There was a record of a feast at Conisborough
on the "Morrow of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross," September 15th,
1320, in the "14th year of King Edward, son of King Edward," which was
carried out by Sir Ralph de Beeston, one of our Cheshire knights, and
Sir Simon de Baldiston (Stewards of the Earl of Lancaster), to which the
following verse applied:
They ate as though for many a day
They had not ate before.
And eke as though they all should fear
That they should eat no more.
And when the decks were fairly cleared
And not a remnant nigh,
They drank as if their mighty thirst
Would drain the ocean dry.
A curious old legend was attached to the town well in Wellgate, which
formerly supplied most of the inhabitants of Conisborough with water;
for once upon a time, when the town was suffering from a great drought,
and the people feared a water famine, they consulted an old man known by
the name of St. Francis, who was very wise and very holy. He told the
people to follow him singing psalms and hymns to the Willow Vale, on the
Low Road. There he cut a wand from a willow tree, and stuck it into the
ground, and forthwith a copious supply of water appeared which had
flowed steadily ever since. The wand had been so firmly and deeply
stuck into the ground by St. Francis that it took root and grew into a
large tree.
In 1863 there was a great flood in Sheffield, which did a lot of damage,
and amongst the debris that floated down the river was noticed a cradle
containing a little baby. It was rescued with some difficulty, and was
still alive when we passed through the town, being then eight years old.
[Illustration: ROCHE ABBEY.]
After leaving Conisborough we lost sight of the River Don, which runs
through Mexborough; but we came in touch with it again where it was
joined by the River Rother, at Rotherham. Here we crossed over it by the
bridge, in the centre of which stood the decayed Chapel of our Lady. On
our way we had passed to our right Sprotborough, where in 664 King
Wulfhere when out hunting came to a cave at the side of the river where
a hermit named St. Ceadde or St. Chad dwelt, the country at that time
being "among sheep and distant mountains which looked more like
lurking-places for robbers and dens of wild beasts than dwellings of
men." There were many objects of interest on each side of our road,
including, a few miles to the left, Roche Abbey, the seat of the Earl of
Scarborough, and to the right Wentworth House, one of the largest
private houses in England, and the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam, the owner
of the far-famed Wharncliffe Crags, which are skirted by the waters of
the River Don.
It was in Wharncliffe Forest that Friar Tuck, the jolly chaplain of
Robin Hood, had his abode; and below the crags, in the bed of the River
Don, there was a rock that appeared to be worn by the friction of some
cylindrical body coiled about it. This was supposed to be the famous
Dragon of Wantley, an old name for Wharncliffe. It was here that the
monster was attacked and slain by Guy, the famous Earl of Warwick. Near
the top of the crag, which was formerly a hunting-seat, stood a lodge
where an inscription on a stone in the floor of the back kitchen stated
that "Geoffrey de Wortley, Knight of the body to the Kings Richard III,
Henry VII, and Henry VIII, built this Lodge for his pleasure, so that he
might hear the red deer bray." In the lodge too was a most ponderous
boot said to have been worn by Oliver Cromwell at the Battle of Marston
Moor. We stayed at Rotherham for the night.
(_Distance walked twelve miles_.)
_Saturday, October 28th._
The inn where we stayed the night had not been very satisfactory, as,
although the cooking was good, the upper apartments were below the
average. We took to the road again as early as possible, especially as a
decided improvement showed itself in the condition of my swollen foot,
and we were able to make a little better progress. For some days we had
been walking through a comparatively level country, but from the
appearance of the hills to our right as well as before us, we
anticipated a stiff climb. It was not until we approached Sheffield that
the tug of war began, and, strange to say, I found it easier to walk
uphill than on a level surface. Meantime we continued through a level
and busy country, and were in no danger of losing our way, for there
were many people to inquire of in case of necessity. At one time it had
been a wild and lonely place, known as Attercliffe Common, and we were
told that Dick Turpin had been gibbeted there. We had often heard of
Turpin, and knew that he was hanged, but did not remember where, so we
were anxious to see the exact spot where that famous "knight of the
road" ended his existence. We made inquiries from quite a number of
people, but could get no satisfactory information, until we met with an
elderly gentleman, who informed us that it was not Dick Turpin who was
gibbeted there, but a "gentleman" in the same profession, whose name was
Spence Broughton, the only trace of him now being a lane that bore his
name. As far as he knew, Dick Turpin had never been nearer Sheffield
than Maltby, a village five miles away, and that was on his ride from
London to York. He was hanged at Tyburn.
The hills we could see were those of the Pennine range, with which we
must have formed acquaintance unconsciously when farther north, as
although the high hills in the Lake District, through which we had
passed, were not included in the range, some of the others must have
been, since the Pennines were bounded on one side by Cumberland,
Westmorland, and Lancashire, and on the other by Northumberland, Durham,
and Yorkshire, attaining an elevation of 3,000 feet in the north and
2,000 feet in the south. The Pennines here were described to us as the
"backbone of England," for they were looked upon as being in the centre,
equidistant from the east and west coasts, and hereabouts thirty miles
in breadth. The district verging upon Sheffield was well known to the
Romans as producing the best iron in the world, the ore or iron-stones
being obtained in their time by digging up the earth, which was left in
great heaps after the iron-stones had been thrown out; many of these
excavations were still to be seen. In manufacturing the iron they took
advantage of the great forests around them to provide the fuel for
smelting the ore, for it was a great convenience to have the two
elements so near at hand, as it saved carriage from one to the other.
Forests still existed thereabouts in tis ground like a true
hero, ministering to his parishioners; and, although his wife contracted
the disease and died, and though he referred to himself as "a dying
man," yet was he mercifully preserved; so too was the Rev. Thomas
Stanley, who had been ejected from the rectory after eighteen years'
service because he would not subscribe to the Corporation Act of 1661.
He stood by Mompesson and did his duty quite as nobly; and some years
afterwards, when some small-minded people appealed to the Duke of
Devonshire as Lord Lieutenant of the county to have Stanley removed, he
indignantly refused and rebuked the petitioners very strongly.
William and Mary Howitt wrote a long poem entitled "The Desolation of
Hyam," and described the village as--
Among the verdant mountains of the Peak
There lies a quiet hamlet, where the slope
Of pleasant uplands wards the north winds bleak:
Below, wild dells romantic pathways ope:
Around, above it, spreads a shadowy cope
Of forest trees: flower, foliage and clear rill
Wave from the cliffs, or down ravines elope:
It seems a place charmed from the power of ill
By sainted words of old:--so lovely, lone and still.
William Wood wrote the _Plague Chronicle_, and on his gravestone was
inscribed:
Men like visions are;
Time all doth claim;
He lives who dies and leaves
A lasting name.
We had often read the wonderful epitaphs on the tombs of the nobility,
but we had been warned that in former times these were often written by
professional men who were well paid for their services, and the greater
the number of heavenly virtues attributed to the deceased, the greater
of course the fee; but those written by the poetical curate of Eyam were
beyond suspicion if we may judge from the couplet he wrote to be placed
on the gravestone of a parishioner:
Since life is short and death is always nigh,
On many years to come do not rely.
We were now passing through Little John's country, and we heard more
about him in this neighbourhood than of his master, Robin Hood, for
Little John's Well was not far away, and Hathersage, our next stage, was
where he was buried. We were very much interested in Robin Hood and
Little John, as my name was Robert, and my brother's name was John. He
always said that Little John was his greatest ancestor, for in the old
story-books his name appeared as John Nailer. But whether we could claim
much credit or no from the relationship was doubtful, as the stanza in
the old ballad ran:
Robin Hood did little good
And Little John did less.
In later times the name had been altered to Naylor, in order, we
supposed, to hide its humble though honourable origin; for there was no
doubt that it was a Nailer who fastened the boards on Noah's Ark, and
legend stated that when he came to nail the door on, he nailed it from
the inside!
The stanza, he explained, might have been written by the Bishop of
Hereford or one of Robin Hood's other clients, whom he and Little John
had relieved of his belongings; but the name Naylor was a common one in
South Yorkshire, and, although our branch of the family were natives of
South Lancashire, their characteristics showed they were of the same
stock, since, like Little John, they were credited with having good
appetites and with being able to eat and retain any kind of fooWind Gates, owing to the force of the
wind at this spot. The castle was not a large one, and there were higher
elevations quite near; but deep chasms intervened, and somewhere beneath
us was the largest cave in England. While we were resting our friend
related the history of the castle, which had been built by William
Peverell in 1068, and rebuilt by Henry II in 1176-7 after he had
received here the submission of Malcolm, King of Scotland. Peverell was
a natural son of William the Conqueror, who had distinguished himself at
the Battle of Hastings, for which William had bestowed upon him many
manors in Derbyshire. What was known as the Peak of Derbyshire we found
was not one single rock, as we supposed, but a huge tableland with
rising heights here and there. Our friend, whose name was William, told
us a legend connected with the Peverell family. Pain Peverell, the Lord
of Whittington, in Shropshire, had two daughters, the elder of whom was
very beautiful, and had so many admirers that she could not decide which
of them to accept. So she consulted her father on the matter, who
advised her to accept only the "Bravest of the Brave," or the one who
could prove himself to excel all others in martial skill. Her father
therefore proclaimed a tournament, which was to take place, in the words
of an ancient writer, at "Peverell's Place in the Peke," inviting all
young men of noble birth to compete for the hand of the beautiful
"Mellet," whose dowry was to be Whittington Castle. The contest, as
might be supposed, was a severe one, and was won by a knight bearing a
maiden shield of silver with a peacock for his crest, who vanquished,
amongst others, a Knight of Burgundy and a Prince of Scotland. He proved
to be Fitzwarren, and the Castle of Whittington passed to him together
with his young bride.
[Illustration: CASTLETON ROCKS.]
Our friend was surprised when we told him we knew that castle and the
neighbourhood very well, and also a cottage there where Dick Whittington
was born, who afterwards became Sir Richard de Whittington, Lord Mayor
of London. We again discussed the question of the desirability of
returning home, as we were now much nearer than when at Furness Abbey,
where we had nearly succumbed to home-sickness before; but my brother
said he should continue the journey alone if I gave in, and as he kindly
consented again to carry all the luggage, I agreed to complete the
journey with him.
[Illustration: THE WINNATS, CASTLETON.]
I walked down the hill supported by my brother on one side and our
friend on the other, and returned to the latter's home for tea, after
which our host showed us some remarkable spar stones--dog-tooth spar we
were told was their name--found in the lead mines, whose white crystals
glistened in the light, and I could see by the covetous look in my
brother's eyes that he was thinking of the rockeries at home. His look
was also seen by our worthy host, for he subsequently presented him with
the stones, which my brother afterwards declared were given to him as a
punishment for coveting his neighbour's goods. It was now time to fulfil
our engagement to accompany our friend to the Wesleyan Chapel and to go
through what proved one of the most extraordinary services we ever
attended. Our host and hostess went with us, but they sat in a pew,
while we three sat on a form. We remained for the "Prayer Meeting,"
which the minister announced would be held after the usual service. We
had read that the "Amens" of the early Christians could be heard at long
distances, but we never attended a meeting where the ejaculations were
so loud and fervent as they were here. Each man seemed to vie with his
neighbour as to which could shout the louder, and every one appeared to
be in great earnest. The exclamations were not always "Amens," for we
heard one man shout "Aye!" at exactly the same moment as another man
shouted "Now!" and if the Leader had not been possessed of a stentorian
voice he would not at times have been able to make himself heard. The
primitive custom of conducting prayer meetings was evidently kept up at
Castleton, as might perhaps have been expected in a place which before
the appearance of the railway was so remote and inaccessible, but it
was difficult to realise that "yes" and "no," or "aye" and "now," could
have the same meaning when ejaculated at the same moment. Still, it
might have been so in this case. Who knows!
In travelling through the country we had noticed that in the
neighbourhood of great mountains the religious element was more
pronounced than elsewhere, and the people's voices seemed stronger. At
the close of this second service, for which nearly the whole of the
congregation stayed, the conductor gave out one of Isaac Watts's
well-known hymns, and the congregation sang it with heart and voice that
almost made the rafters in the roof of the chapel vibrate as if even
they were joining in the praises of the Lord! These were the first two
verses:
Jesus shall reign where'er the sun
Doth his successive journeys run;
His Kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Till moons shall wax and wane no more.
People and realms of every tongue
Dwell on His love with sweetest song,
And infant voices shall proclaim
Their early blessing on His Name.
We must say we joined as heartily as any of the others, for it was sung
to one of the good old Methodist tunes common to all the Churches in the
days of Wesley. As we walked back through the village we felt all the
better for having attended the full service, and later, when we watched
the nearly full moon rise in the clear night air above the hills, our
thoughts turned instinctively towards the Great Almighty, the Father and
Maker and Giver of All!
SEVENTH WEEK'S JOURNEY
_Monday, October 30th._
[Illustration: PEVERIL CASTLE.]
The Scots as a nation are proverbial for their travelling propensities;
they are to be found not only in every part of the British Isles, but in
almost every known and unknown part of the wide world. It was a jocular
saying then in vogue that if ever the North Pole were discovered, a
Scotsman would be found there sitting on the top! Sir Walter Scott was
by no means behind his fellow countrymen in his love of travel, and like
his famous Moss-troopers, whose raids carried them far beyond the
Borders, even into foreign countries, he had not confined himself "to
his own--his Native Land." We were not surprised, therefore, wrhen we
heard of him in the lonely neighbourhood of the Peak of Derbyshire, or
that, although he had never been known to have visited the castle or its
immediate surroundings, he had written a novel entitled _Peveril of the
Peak_. This fact was looked upon as a good joke by his personal friends,
who gave him the title of the book as a nickname, and Sir Walter, when
writing to some of his most intimate friends, had been known to
subscribe himself in humorous vein as "Peveril of the Peak."
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE PEAK CAVERN.]
There were several objects of interest well worth seeing at Castleton
besides the great cavern; there was the famous Blue John Mine, that took
its name from the peculiar blue stone found therein, a kind of fibrous
fluor-spar usually blue to purple, though with occasional black and
yellow veins, of which ornaments were made and sold to visitors, and
from which the large blue stone was obtained that formed the magnificent
vase in Chatsworth House, the residence of the Duke of Devonshire, and
in other noble mansions which possess examples of the craft. In the mine
there were two caverns, one of them 100 feet and the other 150 feet
high, "which glittered with sparkling stalactites." Then there was the
Speedwell Mine, one of the curiosities of the Peak, discovered by miners
searching for ore, which they failed to find, although they laboured for
years at an enormous cost. In boring through the rock, however, they
came to a large natural cavern, now reached by descending about a
hundred steps to a canal below, on which was a boat for conveying
passengers to the other end of the canal, with only a small light or
torch at the bow to relieve the stygian darkness. Visitors were landed
on a platform to listen to a tremendous sound of rushing water being
precipitated somewhere in the fearful and impenetrable darkness, whose
obscurity and overpowering gloom could almost be felt. On the slope of
the Eldon Hill there was also a fearful chasm called the Eldon Hole,
where a falling stone was never heard to strike the bottom. This had
been visited in the time of Queen Elizabeth by the Earl of Leicester,
who caused an unfortunate native to be lowered into it to the full
length of a long rope; when the poor fellow was drawn up again he was
"stark mad," and died eight days afterwards.
We had to leave all these attractions to a later visit, since we had
come to Castleton to see the largest cavern of all, locally named the
"Devil's Hole," but by polite visitors the "Peak Cavern." The approach
to the cavern was very imposing and impressive, perpendicular rocks
rising on both sides to a great height, while Peveril Castle stood on
the top of the precipice before us like a sentinel guarding entrance to
the cavern, which was in the form of an immense Gothic arch 120 feet
high, 42 feet wide, and said to be large enough to contain the Parish
Church and all its belongings. This entrance, however, was being used as
a rope-walk, where, early as it was, the workers were already making
hempen ropes alongside the stream which flowed from the cavern, and the
strong smell of hemp which prevailed as we stood for a few minutes
watching the rope-makers was not at all unpleasant.
[Illustration: ROPE-WALK AT ENTRANCE INSIDE CAVE, CASTLETON, IN 1871.]
If it had been the entrance to Hades, to which it had been likened by a
learned visitor, we might have been confronted by Cerberus instead of
our guide, whom our friends had warned overnight that his attendance
would be required early this morning by distinguished visitors, who
would expect the cave to be lit up with coloured lights in honour of
their visit. The guide as he handed a light to each of us explained
apologetically that his stock of red lights had been exhausted during
the season, but he had brought a sufficient number of blue lights to
suit the occasion. We followed him into the largest division of the
cavern, which was 270 feet long and 150 feet high, the total length
being about half a mile. It contained many other rooms or caves, into
which he conducted us, the first being known as the Bell House, and here
the path we had been following suddenly came to an end at an arch about
five yards wide, where there was a stream called the River Styx, over
which he ferried us in a boat, landing us in a cave called the Hall of
Pluto, the Being who ruled over the Greek Hades, or Home of Departed
Spirits, guarded by a savage three-headed dog named Cerberus. The only
way of reaching the "Home," our guide told us, was by means of the ferry
on the River Styx, of which Charon had charge, and to ensure the spirit
having a safe passage to the Elysian Fields it was necessary that his
toll should be paid with a coin placed beforehand in the mouth or hand
of the departed. We did not, however, take the hint about the payment of
the toll until after our return journey, when we found ourselves again
at the mouth of the Great Cavern, a privilege perhaps not extended to
Pluto's ghostly visitors, nor did we see any of those mysterious or
mythological beings; perhaps the nearest approach to them was the figure
of our guide himself, as he held aloft the blue torch he had in his hand
when in the Hall of Pluto, for he presented the appearance of a man
afflicted with delirium tremens or one of those "blue devils" often seen
by victims of that dreadful disease. We also saw Roger Rain's House,
where it always rained, summer and winter, all the year round, and the
Robbers' Cave, with its five natural arches. But the strangest cave we
visited was that called the "Devil's Wine Cellar," an awful abyss where
the water rushed down a great hole and there disappeared. Her Most
Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, visited the cavern in 1832, and one of
the caves was named Victoria in memory of that event; we had the honour
of standing on the exact spot where she stood on that occasion.
Our visit to the cavern was quite a success, enhanced as it was by the
blue lights, so, having paid the guide for his services, we returned to
our lodgings to "pack up" preparatory to resuming our walk. The white
stones so kindly presented to my brother--of which he was very proud,
for they certainly were very fine specimens--seemed likely to prove a
white elephant to him. The difficulty now was how to carry them in
addition to all the other luggage. Hurrying into the town, he returned
in a few minutes with an enormous and strongly made red handkerchief
like those worn by the miners, and in this he tied the stones, which
were quite heavy and a burden in themselves. With these and all the
other luggage as well he presented a very strange appearance as he
toiled up the steep track through Cave Dale leading from the rear of the
town to the moors above. It was no small feat of endurance and strength,
for he carried his burdens until we arrived at Tamworth railway station
in Staffordshire, to which our next box of clothes had been ordered, a
distance of sixty-eight and a half miles by the way we walked. It was
with a feeling of real thankfulness for not having been killed with
kindness in the bestowal of these gifts that he deposited the stones in
that box. When they reached home they were looked upon as too valuable
to be placed on the rockeries and retained the sole possession of a
mantelshelf for many years. My ankle was still very weak, and it was as
much as I could do to carry the solitary walking-stick to assist me
forwards; but we were obliged to move on, as we were now quite fifty
miles behind our projected routine, and we knew there was some hard work
before us. When we reached the moors, which were about a thousand feet
above sea-level, the going was comparatively easy on the soft rich grass
which makes the cow's milk so rich, and we had some good views of the
hills. That named Mam Tor was one of the "Seven wonders of the Peak,"
and its neighbour, known as the Shivering Mountain, was quite a
curiosity, as the shale, of which it was composed, was constantly
breaking away and sliding down the mountain slope with a sound like that
of falling water. Bagshawe Cavern was near at hand, but we did not visit
it. It was so named because it had been found on land belonging to Sir
William Bagshawe, whose lady christened its chambers and grottos with
some very queer names. Across the moors we could see the town of
Tideswell, our next objective, standing like an oasis in the desert, for
there were no trees on the moors. We had planned that after leaving
there we would continue our way across the moors to Newhaven, and then
walk through Dove Dale to Ashbourne in the reverse direction to that
taken the year before on our walk from London to Lancashire. Before
reaching Tideswell we came to a point known as Lane Head, where six
lane-ends met, and which we supposed must have been an important
meeting-place when the moors, which surrounded it for miles, formed a
portion of the ancient Peak Forest. We passed other objects of interest,
including some ancient remains of lead mining in the form of curious
long tunnels like sewers on the ground level which radiated to a point
where on the furnaces heaps of timber were piled up and the lead ore was
smelted by the heat which was intensified by these draught-producing
tunnels.
[Illustration: TIDESWELL CHURCH.]
When Peak Forest was in its primeval glory, and the Kings of England
with their lords, earls, and nobles came to hunt there, many of the
leading families had dwellings in the forest, and we passed a relic of
these, a curious old mansion called Hazelbadge Hall, the ancient home of
the Vernons, who still claim by right as Forester to name the coroner
for West Derbyshire when the position falls vacant.
Tideswell was supposed to have taken its name from an ebbing and flowing
well whose water rose and fell like the tides in the sea, but which had
been choked up towards the end of the eighteenth century, and reopened
in the grounds of a mansion, so that the cup-shaped hollow could be seen
filling and emptying.
A market had existed at Tideswell since the year 1250, and one was
being held as we entered the town, and the "George Inn," where we called
for refreshments, was fairly well filled with visitors of one kind or
another.
We left our luggage to the care of the ostler, and went to visit the
fine old church adjacent, where many ancient families lie buried; the
principal object of interest was the magnificent chancel, which has been
described as "one Gallery of Light and Beauty," the whole structure
being known as the Cathedral of the Peak. There was a fine monumental
brass, with features engraved on it which throw light on the Church
ritual of the day, to the memory of Bishop Pursglove, who was a native
of Tideswell and founder of the local Grammar School, who surrendered
his Priory of Gisburn to Henry VIII in 1540, but refused, in 1559, to
take the Oath of Supremacy. Sampson Meverill, Knight Constable of
England, also lies buried in the chancel, and by his epitaph on a marble
tomb, brought curiously enough from Sussex, he asks the reader "devoutly
of your charity" to say "a Pater Noster with an Ave for all Xtian
soules, and especially for the soule of him whose bones resten under
this stone." Meverill, with John Montagu, Earl of Shrewsbury, fought as
"a Captain of diverse worshipful places in France," serving under John,
Duke of Bedford, in the "Hundred Years' War," and after fighting in
eleven battles within the space of two years he won knighthood at the
duke's hands at St. Luce. In the churchyard was buried William Newton,
the Minstrel of the Peak, and Samuel Slack, who in the last quarter of
the eighteenth century was the most popular bass singer in England. When
quite young Slack competed with others for a position in a college choir
at Cambridge, and sang Purcell's famous air, "They that go down to the
sea in ships." When he had finished, the Precentor rose immediately and
said to the other candidates, "Gentlemen, I now leave it to you whether
any one will sing after what you have just heard!" No one rose, and so
Slack gained the position.
Soon afterwards Georgiana, Duchess of Sutherland, interested herself in
him, and had him placed under Spofforth, the chief singing master of the
day, under whose tuition he greatly improved, taking London by storm. He
was for many years the principal bass at all the great musical
festivals. So powerful was his voice, it is said, that on one occasion
when he was pursued by a bull he uttered a bellow which so terrified the
animal that it ran away, so young ladies who were afraid of these
animals always felt safe when accompanied by Mr. Slack. When singing
before King George III at Windsor Castle, he was told that His Majesty
had been pleased with his singing. Slack remarked in his Derbyshire
dialect, which he always remembered, "Oh, he was pleased, were he? I
thow't I could do't." Slack it was said made no effort to improve
himself either in speech or in manners, and therefore it was thought
that he preferred low society.
When he retired and returned to his native village he was delighted to
join the local "Catch and Glee Club," of which he soon became the ruling
spirit. It held its meetings at the "George Inn" where we had called for
refreshments, and we were shown an old print of the club representing
six singers in Hogarthian attitudes with glasses, jugs, and pipes, with
Slack and his friend Chadwick of Hayfield apparently singing heartily
from the same book Slack's favourite song, "Life's a Bumper fill'd by
Fate." Tideswell had always been a musical town; as far back as the year
1826 there was a "Tideswell Music Band," which consisted of six
clarionets, two flutes, three bassoons, one serpent, two trumpets, two
trombones, two French horns, one bugle, and one double drum--twenty
performers in all.
They had three practices weekly, and there were the usual fines for
those who came late, or missed a practice, for inattention to the
leader, or for a dirty instrument, the heaviest fine of all being for
intoxication. But long after this there was a Tideswell Brass Band which
became famous throughout the country, for the leader not only wrote the
score copies for his own band, but lithographed and sold them to other
bands all over the country.
[Illustration: "LIFE'S A BUMPER."]
We were particularly interested in all this, for my brother had for the
past eight years indulged in the luxury of a brass band himself. The
band consisted of about twenty members when in full strength, and as
instruments were dear in those days it was a most expensive luxury, and
what it had cost him in instruments, music, and uniforms no one ever
knew. He had often purchased "scores" from Metcalf, the leader of the
Tideswell Band, a fact that was rather a source of anxiety to me, as I
knew if he called to see Metcalf our expedition for that day would be at
an end, as they might have conversed with each other for hours. I could
not prevent him from relating at the "George" one of his early
reminiscences, which fairly "brought down the house," as there were some
musicians in the company.
His band had been formed in 1863, and consisted of about a dozen
performers. Christmas time was coming on, when the bandsmen resolved to
show off a little and at the same time collect some money from their
friends to spend in the New Year. They therefore decided that the band
should go out "busgainst a burst in any of
these, which would have caused the water to run out of the canal, it was
narrowed at each end of the embankment so that only one boat could pass
through at a time, this narrow passage being known as a "stop place."
At the entrance to this a door was so placed at the bottom of the canal
that if any undue current should appear, such as would occur if the
embankment gave way, one end of it would rise into a socket prepared for
it in the stop-place, and so prevent any water leaving the canal except
that in the broken section, a remedy simple but ingenious. On arriving
at Runcorn the boats were lowered by a series of locks into the River
Mersey, a double service of locks being provided so that boats could
pass up and down at the same time and so avoid delay.
[Illustration: JAMES BRINDLEY.]
When the water was first turned into the canal, Brindley mysteriously
disappeared, and was nowhere to be found; but as the canal when full did
not burst its embankments, as he had feared, he soon reappeared and was
afterwards employed to construct even more difficult canals. He died in
1772, and was buried in Harriseahead Churchyard on the Cheshire border
of Staffordshire. It is computed that he engineered as many miles of
canals as there are days in the year.
[Illustration: THE BOTTOM LOCKS AT RUNCORN.]
It must have been a regular custom for the parsons in Derbyshire to keep
diaries in the eighteenth century, for the Vicar of Wormhill kept one,
like the Vicar of Castleton, both chancing to be members of the Bagshawe
family, a common name in that neighbourhood. He was a hard-working and
conscientious man, and made the following entry in it on February 3rd,
1798
_Sunday_.--Preached at Wormhill on the vanity of human pursuits and
human pleasures, to a polite audience, an affecting sermon. Rode in
the evening to Castleton, where I read three discourses by Secker. In
the forest I was sorry to observe a party of boys playing at
Football. I spoke to them but was laughed at, and on my departure one
of the boys gave the football a wonderful kick--a proof this of the
degeneracy of human nature!
On reaching Miller's Dale, a romantic deep hollow in the limestone, at
the bottom of which winds the fast-flowing Wye, my brother declared
that he felt more at home, as it happened to be the only place he had
seen since leaving John o' Groat's that he had previously visited, and
it reminded him of a rather amusing incident.
[Illustration: THE BRIDGEWATER CANAL--WHERE IT ENTERS THE MINES AT
WORSLEY.]
Our uncle, a civil engineer in London, had been over on a visit, and was
wearing a white top-hat, then becoming fashionable, and as my brother
thought that a similar hat would just suit the dark blue velveteen coat
he wore on Sundays, he soon appeared in the prevailing fashion. He was
walking from Ambergate to Buxton, and had reached Miller's Dale about
noon, just as the millers were leaving the flour mills for dinner. One
would have thought that the sight of a white hat would have delighted
the millers, but as these hats were rather dear, and beyond the
financial reach of the man in the street, they had become an object of
derision to those who could not afford to wear them, the music-hall
answer to the question "Who stole the donkey?" being at that time "The
man with the white hat!"
He had met one group of the millers coming up the hill and another lot
was following, when a man in the first group suddenly turned round and
shouted to a man in the second group, "I say, Jack, who stole the
donkey?" But Jack had not yet passed my brother, and, as he had still to
face him, he dared not give the customary answer, so, instead of
replying "The man with the white hat," he called out in the Derbyshire
dialect, with a broad grin on his face, "Th' feyther." A roar of
laughter both behind and in front, in which my brother heartily joined,
followed this repartee.
Probably some of the opprobrium attached to the white hat was because of
its having been an emblem of the Radicals. We had seen that worn by Sir
Walter Scott in his declining days, but we could not think of including
him in that extreme political party, though its origin dated back to
the time when he was still alive. Probably the emblem was only local,
for it originated at Preston in Lancashire, a place we knew well,
commonly called Proud Preston, no doubt by reason of its connection with
the noble family of Stanley, who had a mansion in the town. Preston was
often represented in Parliament by a Stanley, and was looked upon as a
Pocket Borough. In the turbulent times preceding the Abolition of the
Corn Laws a powerful opponent, in the person of Mr. Henry Hunt, a
demagogue politician, who had suffered imprisonment for advocating
Chartism, appeared at the Preston election of 1830 to oppose the
Honourable E.G. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby. He always appeared
wearing a white hat, and was an eloquent speaker, and for these reasons
earned the sobriquet of "Orator" Hunt and "Man with the White Hat." The
election contest was one of the most exciting events that ever occurred
in Preston, and as usual the children took their share in the
proceedings, those on Mr. Stanley's side parading the streets singing in
a popular air:
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever! Stanley for Ever!
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever Ho!
Stanley, Stanley, Stanley, Ho!
Stanley is my honey Ho!
When he weds he will be rich,
He will have a coach and six.
Then followed the chorus to the accompaniment of drums and triangles:
Hey! Ho! Stanley for Ever, Ho!
In spite of this, however, and similar ditties, "Orator Hunt," by a
total vote of 3,730, became M.P. for Preston, and it was said that it
was through this incident that the Radicals adopted the White Hat as
their emblem.
Lord Derby was so annoyed at the result of the election that he closed
his house, which stood across the end of a quiet street, and placed a
line of posts across it, between which strong chains were hung, and on
which my brother could remember swinging when a boy.
One of our uncles was known as the "Preston Poet" at that time, and he
wrote a poem entitled "The Poor, God Bless 'Em!" the first verse
reading:
Let sycophants bend their base knees in the court
And servilely cringe round the gate,
And barter their honour to earn the support
Of the wealthy, the titled, the great;
Their guilt piled possessions I loathe, while I scorn
The knaves, the vile knaves who possess 'em;
I love not to pamper oppression, but mourn
For the poor, the robb'd poor--God bless 'em!
A striking contrast to the volubility of Mr. Hunt was Mr. Samuel
Horrocks, also M.P. for Preston, whose connection with the "Big Factory"
in Preston probably gained him the seat. He was said to have been the
"quiet Member," never known to make a speech in the House of Commons,
unless it was to ask some official to close a window. The main
thoroughfare in Preston was Fishergate, a wide street, where on one
Saturday night two men appeared walking up the middle of the street,
carrying large papers suspended over their arms and shouting at the top
of their voices.
"The Speech of Samuel Horrocks, Esquire, M.P., in the British House of
Commons! one penny," which they continued to repeat.
"Eh! owd Sammy's bin makkin' a speech," and a rush was made for the
papers. The streets were poorly lighted in those days, and the men did a
roaring business in the dark. One man, however, was so anxious to read
the speech that he could not wait until he got home, but went to a shop
window, where there was a light, but the paper was blank. Thinking they
had given him the wrong paper, he ran after the men and shouted,
pointing to the paper, "Hey, there's nowt on it." "Well," growled one of
the men, "_he said nowt_."
[Illustration: CHATSWORTH HOUSE.]
We now climbed up the opposite side of the dale, and continued on the
moorland road for a few miles, calling at the "Flagg Moor Inn" for tea.
By the time we had finished it was quite dark, and the landlady of the
inn did her best to persuade us to stay there for the night, telling us
that the road from there to Ashbourne was so lonely that it was possible
on a dark night to walk the whole distance of fourteen miles without
seeing a single person, and as it had been the Great Fair at Newhaven
that day, there might be some dangerous characters on the roads. When
she saw we were determined to proceed farther, she warned us that the
road did not pass through any village, and that there was only a
solitary house here and there, some of them being a little way from the
road. The road was quite straight, and had a stone wall on each side all
the way, so all we had got to do was to keep straight on, and to mind we
did not turn to the right or the left along any of the by-roads lest we
should get lost on the moors. It was not without some feeling of regret
that we bade the landlady "Good night" and started out from the
comfortable inn on a pitch-dark night. Fortunately the road was dry,
and, as there were no trees, the limestone of which it was composed
showed a white track easily discernible in the inky darkness which
surrounded it. As we got farther on our way we could see right in front
a great illumination in the mist or clouds above marking the glare from
the country fair at Newhaven, which was only four miles from the inn we
had just left. We met quite a number of people returning from the fair,
both on foot and in vehicles, and as they all appeared to be in good
spirits we received a friendly greeting from all who spoke to us.
Presently arriving at Newhaven itself, which consisted solely of one
large inn, we found the surrounding open space packed with a noisy and
jovial crowd of people, the number of whom absolutely astonished us, as
the country around appeared so desolate, and we wondered where they all
could have come from. Newhaven, which had been a very important place in
the coaching-days, was a big three-storeyed house with twenty-five
bedrooms and stabling for a hundred horses. It stood at a junction of
roads about 1,100 feet above sea-level in a most lonely place, and in
the zenith of its popularity there was seldom a bedroom empty, the house
being quite as gay as if it had been in London itself. It had been
specially built for the coach traffic by the then Duke of Devonshire,
whose mansion, Chatsworth House, was only a few miles distant. King
George IV stayed at Newhaven on one occasion, and was so pleased with
his entertainment that he granted to the inn a free and perpetual
licence of his own sovereign pleasure, so that no application for
renewal of licence at Brewster Sessions was ever afterwards required; a
fact which accounted in some measure for the noisy company congregated
therein, in defiance of the superintendent of police, who, with five or
six of his officers, was standing in front of the fair. Booths had been
erected by other publicans, but the police had ordered these to be
removed earlier in the day to prevent further disturbances.
We noticed they had quite a number of persons in custody, and when I saw
a policeman looking very critically at the miscellaneous assortment of
luggage my brother was carrying, I thought he was about to be added to
the number; but he was soon satisfied as to the honesty of his
intentions. The "New Haven" must have meant a new haven for passengers,
horses, and coaches when the old haven had been removed, as the word
seemed only to apply to the hotel, which, as it was ten miles both from
Buxton and Ashbourne, and also on the Roman road known as Via Gellia,
must have been built exactly to accommodate the ten-mile run of the
coaches either way. It quite enlivened us to see the old-fashioned
shows, the shooting-boxes, the exhibitions of monstrosities, with stalls
displaying all sorts of nuts, sweets, gingerbreads, and all the
paraphernalia that in those days comprised a country fair, and we should
have liked to stay at the inn and visit some of the shows which were
ranged in front of it and along the green patches of grass which lined
the Ashbourne road; but in the first place the inn was not available,
and in the second our twenty-five-mile average daily walk was too much
in arrears to admit of any further delay.
[Illustration: THE DOVE HOLES, DOVEDALE.]
All the shows and stalls were doing a roaring trade, and the naphtha
lamps with which they were lighted flared weirdly into the inky darkness
above. Had we been so minded, we might have turned aside and found
quarters at an inn bearing the odd sign of "The Silent Woman" (a woman
with her head cut off and tucked under her arm, similar to one nearer
home called the "Headless Woman"--in the latter case, however, the tall
figure of the woman was shown standing upright, without any visible
support, while her head was calmly resting on the ground--the idea
seeming to be that a woman could not be silent so long as her head was
on her body), but we felt that Ashbourne must be reached that night,
which now seemed blacker than ever after leaving the glaring lights in
the Fair. Nor did we feel inclined to turn along any by-road on a dark
night like that, seeing that we had been partly lost on our way from
London the previous year, nearly at the same place, and on quite as dark
a night. On that memorable occasion we had entered Dovedale near Thorpe,
and visited the Lovers' Leap, Reynard's Cave, Tissington Spires, and
Dove Holes, but darkness came on, compelling us to leave the dale to
resume our walk the following morning. Eventually we saw a light in the
distance, where we found a cottage, the inmates of which kindly
conducted us with a lantern across a lonely place to the village of
Parwich, which in the Derbyshire dialect they pronounced "Porritch,"
reminding us of our supper.
[Illustration: TISSINGTON SPIRES.]
[Illustration: REYNARD'S CAVE, DOVEDALE.]
It was nearly closing-time when we were ushered into the taproom of the
village inn among some strange companions, and when the hour of closing
arrived we saw the head of the village policeman appear at the shutter
through which outside customers were served with beer. The landlord
asked him, "Will you have a pint?" Looking significantly at ourselves,
he replied, "No, thank you," but we noticed the "pint" was placed in the
aperture, and soon afterwards disappeared!
At Newhaven we ascertained that we were now quite near Hartington and
Dovedale. Hartington was a famous resort of fishermen and well known to
Isaak Walton, the "Father of Fishermen," and author of that famous book
_The Compleat Angler or the Contemplative Man's Recreation_, so full of
such cheerful piety and contentment, such sweet freshness and
simplicity, as to give the book a perennial charm. He was a great friend
of Charles Cotton of Beresford Hall, who built a fine fishing-house near
the famous Pike Pool on the River Dove, over the arched doorway of which
he placed a cipher stone formed with the combined initials of Walton and
himself, and inscribed with the words "Piscatoribus Sacrum." It was said
that when they came to fish in the fish pool early in the morning,
Cotton smoked tobacco for his breakfast!
What spot more honoured than this beautiful place?
Twice honoured truly. Here Charles Cotton sang,
Hilarious, his whole-hearted songs, that rang
With a true note, through town and country ways,
While the Dove trout--in chorus--splashed their praise.
Here Walton sate with Cotton in the shade
And watched him dubb his flies, and doubtless made
The time seem short, with gossip of old days.
Their cyphers are enlaced above the door,
And in each angler's heart, firm-set and sure.
While rivers run, shall those two names endure,
Walton and Cotton linked for evermore---
And Piscatoribus Sacrum where more fit
A motto for their wisdom worth and wit?
Say, where shall the toiler find rest from his labours,
And seek sweet repose from the overstrung will?
Away from the worry and jar of his neighbours
Where moor-tinted streamlets flow down from the hill.
Then hurrah! jolly anglers, for burn and for river.
The songs of the birds and the lowing of kine:
The voice of the river shall soothe us for ever,
Then here's to the toast, boys--"The rod and the line!"
[Illustration: TISSINGTON HALL, GATEWAY.]
We walked in the darkness for about six miles thinking all the time of
Dovedale, which we knew was running parallel with our road at about two
miles' distance. When we reached Tissington, about three miles from
Ashbourne, the night had become lighter, and there ought to have been a
considerable section of the moon visible if the sky had been clear. Here
we came to quite a considerable number of trees, but the village must
have been somewhere in the rear of them. Well-dressing was a custom
common in Derbyshire, and also on a much smaller scale in some of the
neighbouring counties; but this village of Tissington was specially
noted in this respect, for it contained five wells, all of which had to
be dressed. As the dressers of the different wells vied with each other
which should have the best show, the children and young people had a
busy time in collecting the flowers, plants, buds, and ferns necessary
to form the display. The festival was held on Holy Thursday, and was
preceded with a service in the church followed by one at each of the
wells, and if the weather was fine, hundreds of visitors assembled to
criticise the work at the different wells. The origin of well-dressing
is unknown, but it is certainly of remote antiquity, probably dating
back to pagan times. That at Tissington was supposed to have developed
at the time of the Black Plague in the fourteenth century, when,
although it decimated many villages in the neighbourhood, it missed
Tissington altogether--because, it was supposed, of the purity of the
waters. But the origin of well-dressing must have been of much greater
antiquity: the custom no doubt had its beginnings as an expression of
praise to God from whom all blessings flow. The old proverb, "We never
know the value of water till the well runs dry," is singularly
appropriate in the hilly districts of Derbyshire, where not only the
wells, but the rivers also have been known to dry up, and when the
spring comes and brings the flowers, what could be more natural than to
thank the Almighty who sends the rain and the water, without which they
could not grow.
[Illustration: TISSINGTON CHURCH.]
We were sorry to have missed our walk down Dove Dale, but it was all for
the best, as we should again have been caught in the dark there, and
perhaps I should have injured my foot again, as the path along the Dale
was difficult to negotiate even in the daylight. In any case we were
pleased when we reached Ashbourne, where we had no difficulty in finding
our hotel, for the signboard of the "Green Man" reached over our heads
from one side of the main street to the other.
(_Distance walked twenty-six and a half miles_.)
_Tuesday, October 31st._
The inn we stayed at was a famous one in the days of the stagecoaches,
and bore the double name "The Green Man and the Black's Head Royal
Hotel" on a sign which was probably unique, for it reached across the
full width of the street. A former landlord having bought another
coaching-house in the town known as the "Black's Head," transferred the
business to the "Green Man," when he incorporated the two signs. We were
now on the verge of Dr. Johnson's country, the learned compiler of the
great dictionary, who visited the "Green Man" in company with his
companion, James Boswell, whose _Life of Dr. Johnson_ is said to be the
finest biography ever written in the English language. They had a friend
at Ashbourne, a Dr. Taylor, whom they often visited, and on one occasion
when they were all sitting in his garden their conversation turned on
the subject of the future state of man. Johnson gave expression to his
views in the following words, "Sir, I do not imagine that all things
will be made clear to us immediately after death, but that the ways of
Providence will be explained to us very gradually."
[Illustration: "THE GREEN MAN AND BLACK'S HEAD."]
Boswell stayed at the "Green Man" just before journeying with Dr.
Johnson to Scotland, and was greatly pleased by the manners of the
landlady, for he described her as a "mighty civil gentlewoman" who
curtseyed very low as she gave him an engraving of the sign of the
house, under which she had written a polite note asking for a
recommendation of the inn to his "extensive acquaintance, and her most
grateful thanks for his patronage and her sincerest prayers for his
happiness in time and in blessed eternity." The present landlady of the
hotel appeared to be a worthy successor to the lady who presided there
in the time of Boswell, for we found her equally civil and obliging,
and, needless to say, we did justice to a very good breakfast served up
in her best style.
[Illustration: IN ASHBOURNE CHURCH IN YE OLDEN TIME.]
The Old Hall of Ashbourne, situated at the higher end of the town, was a
fine old mansion, with a long history, dating from the Cockayne family,
who were in possession of lands here as early as the year 1372, and who
were followed by the Boothby family.
The young Pretender, "Bonnied clothing of
the past ages, the two most gorgeous tombs being those of the tenth and
eleventh lords, in all the grandeur of plate armour, collars,
decorations, spurs, and swords; one had an angel and the other a monk to
hold his foot as he crossed into the unknown. The figures of their
families as sculptured below them were also very fine. Considering that
one of the lords had seventeen children and the other fifteen it was
scarcely to be wondered at that descendants of the great family still
existed.
Sir Nicholas, who died in 1473, occupied the first tomb, his son the
second, and his children were represented dressed in the different
costumes of their chosen professions, the first being in armour with a
cross, and the next as a lawyer with a scroll, while another was
represented as a monk with a book, but as the next had his head knocked
off it was impossible to decipher him; others seemed to have gone into
businesses of one kind or another.
The oldest monument in the church was a stone cross-legged effigy of a
warrior in armour, dating from about the year 1300; while the plainest
was the image of a female corpse in a shroud, on a gravestone, who was
named ... Elysebeth ...
The which decessed the yeare that is goone,
A thousand four hundred neynty and oone.
The church was dedicated to St. Barloke, probably one of the ancient
British Divines.
On returning to Ellastone we learned that the inn was associated with
"George Eliot," whose works we had heard of but had not read. We were
under the impression that the author was a man, and were therefore
surprised to find that "George Eliot" was only the _nom de plume_ of a
lady whose name was Marian Evans. Her grandfather was the village
wheelwright and blacksmith at Ellastone, and the prototype of "Adam
Bede" in her famous novel of that name.
[Illustration: GEORGE ELLIOT'S "DONNITHORPE ARMS," ELLASTONE.]
It has been said that no one has ever drawn a landscape more graphically
than Marian Evans, and the names of places are so thinly veiled that if
we had read the book we could easily have traced the country covered by
"Adam Bede." Thus Staffordshire is described as Loamshire, Derbyshire as
Stoneyshire, and the Mountains of the Peak as the barren hills, while
Oakbourne stands for Ashbourne, Norbourne for Norbury, and Hayslope,
described so clearly in the second chapter of _Adam Bede_, is Ellastone,
the "Donnithorpe Arms" being the "Bromley Arms Hotel," where we stayed
for refreshments. It was there that a traveller is described in the
novel as riding up to the hotel, and the landlord telling him that there
was to be a "Methodis' Preaching" that evening on the village green, and
the traveller stayed to listen to the address of "Dinah Morris," who was
Elizabeth Evans, the mother of the authoress.
[Illustration: ALTON TOWERS.]
Wootton Hall, which stands immediately behind the village of Ellastone,
was at one time inhabited by Jean Jacques Rousseau, the great French
writer, who, when he was expelled from France, took the Hall for twelve
months in 1776, beginning to write there his _Confessions_, as well as
his _Letters on Botany_, at a spot known as the "Twenty oaks." It was
very bad weather for a part of the time, and snowed incessantly, with a
bitterly cold wind, but he wrote, "In spite of all, I would rather live
in the hole of one of the rabbits of this warren, than in the finest
rooms in London."
We now hurried across the country, along old country lanes and over
fields, to visit Alton Towers; but, as it was unfortunately closed on
that day, it was only by trespassing that we were able to see a part of
the grounds. We could see the fine conservatories, with their richly
gilded domes, and some portion of the ground and gardens, which were in
a deep dell. These were begun by Richard, Earl of Shrewsbury, in the
year 1814, who, after years of labour, and at enormous expense,
converted them from a wilderness into one of the most extraordinary
gardens in Europe, almost baffling description. There was a monument
either to himself or the gardener, on which were the words:
He made the desert smile.
From the Uttoxeter Road we could see a Gothic bridge, with an embankment
leading up to it, and a huge imitation of Stonehenge, in which we were
much interested, that being one of the great objects of interest we
intended visiting when we reached Salisbury Plain. We were able to
obtain a small guide-book, but it only gave us the information that the
gardens consisted of a "labyrinth of terraces, walls, trellis-work,
arbours, vases, stairs, pavements, temples, pagodas, gates, parterres,
gravel and grass walks, ornamental buildings, bridges, porticos, seats,
caves, flower-baskets, waterfalls, rocks, cottages, trees, shrubs and
beds of flowers, ivied walls, moss houses, rock, shell, and root work,
old trunks of trees, etc., etc.," so, as it would occupy half a day to
see the gardens thoroughly, we decided to come again on some future
occasion. A Gothic temple stood on the summit of a natural rock, and
among other curiosities were a corkscrew fountain of very peculiar
character, and vases and statues almost without end.
We now followed the main road to the Staffordshire town of Uttoxeter,
passing the ruins of Croxden Abbey in the distance, where the heart of
King John had been buried, and where plenty of traces of the extreme
skill in agriculture possessed by the monks can be seen. One side of the
chapel still served as a cowshed, but perhaps the most interesting
features were the stone coffins in the orchard as originally placed,
with openings so small, that a boy of ten can hardly lie in one.
But we missed a sight which as good churchmen we were afterwards told we
ought to have remembered. October 31st was All-Hallows Eve, "when ghosts
do walk," and here we were in a place they revelled in--so much so that
they gave their name to it, Duninius' Dale. Here the curious sights
known as "Will-o'-the-Wisp" could be seen magnificently by those who
would venture a midnight visit. But we had forgotten the day.
[Illustration: CROXDEN ABBEY.]
We stopped for tea at Uttoxeter, and formed the opinion that it was a
clean but rather sleepy town. There was little to be seen in the church,
as it was used in the seventeenth century as a prison for Scottish
troops, "who did great damage." It must, however, have been a very
healthy town, if we might judge from the longevity of the notables who
were born there: Sir Thomas Degge, judge of Western Wales and a famous
antiquary, was born here in 1612, and died aged ninety-two; Thomas
Allen, a distinguished mathematician and philosopher, the founder of the
college at Dulwich and the local Grammar School as well, born 1542, died
aged ninety; Samuel Bentley, poet, born 1720, died aged eighty-three;
Admiral Alan Gardner, born at the Manor House in 1742, and who, for
distinguished services against the French, was raised to the Irish
Peerage as Baron Gardner of Uttoxeter, and was M.P. for Plymouth, died
aged sixty-seven; Mary Howitt, the well-known authoress, born 1799, also
lived to the age of eighty-nine. A fair record for a small country town!
John Wesley preached in the marketplace, in the centre of which was a
fountain erected to the memory of Dr. Samuel Johnson, the distinguished
lexicographer. His father, whose home was at Lichfield, was a bookseller
and had a bookstall in Uttoxeter Market, which he attended on market
days. The story is told that on one occasion, not feeling very well, he
asked his son, Samuel, to take his place, who from motives of pride
flatly refused to do so. From this illness the old man never recovered,
and many years afterwards, on the anniversary of that sorrowful day, Dr.
Samuel Johnson, then in the height of his fame, came to the very spot in
the market-place where this unpleasant incident occurred and did
penance, standing bareheaded for a full hour in a pitiless storm of wind
and rain, much to the surprise of the people who saw him.
[Illustration: THE WHITE CATTLE OF CHARTLEY.]
We now bade good-bye to the River Dove, leaving it to carry its share of
the Pennine Range waters to the Trent, and walked up the hill leading
out of the town towards Abbots Bromley. We soon reached a lonely and
densely wooded country with Bagot's Wood to the left, containing trees
of enormous age and size, remnants of the original forest of Needwood,
while to the right was Chartley Park, embracing about a thousand acres
of land enclosed from the same forest by the Earl of Derby, about the
year 1248. In this park was still to be seen the famous herd of wild
cattle, whose ancestors were known to have been driven into the park
when it was enclosed. These animals resisted being handled by men, and
arranged themselves in a semi-circle on the approach of an intruder. The
cattle were perfectly white, excepting their extremities, their ears,
muzzles, and hoofs being black, and their long spreading horns were also
tipped with black. Chartley was granted by William Rufus to Hugh Lupus,
first Earl of Chester, whose descendant, Ranulph, a Crusader, on his
return from the Holy War, built Beeston Castle in Cheshire, with
protecting walls and towers, after the model of those at Constantinople.
He also built the Castle at Chartley about the same period, A.D. 1220,
remarkable as having been the last place of imprisonment for the
unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, as she was taken from there in 1586 to
be executed at Fotheringhay.
[Illustration: THE "BANK INN," CHARTLEY.]
[Illustration: BEGGARS' OAK, BAGOTS WOOD. "We soon reached a lonely and
densely wooded country with Bagots Wood to the left, containing trees of
enormous size--remnants of the original forest of Needham."]
We were interested in these stories of Chartley Castle, for in our own
county cattle with almost the same characteristics were preserved in the
Parks of Lyme and Somerford, and probably possessed a similar history.
That Ranulph was well known can be assumed from the fact that Langland
in his _Piers Plowman_ in the fourteenth century says:
I cannot perfitly my paternoster as the Priest it singeth.
But I can rhymes of Robin Hood and Randall Erie of Chester.
Queer company, and yet it was an old story that Robin did find an asylum
at Chartley Castle.
[Illustration: THE HORN DANCERS, ABBOTS BROMLEY.]
We overtook an elderly man on the road returning home from his day's
toil on the Bagot estate, and he told us of an old oak tree of
tremendous size called the "Beggar's Oak"; but it was now too dark for
us to see it. The steward of the estate had marked it, together with
others, to be felled and sold; but though his lordship was very poor, he
would not have the big oak cut down. He said that both Dick Turpin and
Robin Hood had haunted these woods, and when he was a lad a good many
horses were stolen and hidden in lonely places amongst the thick bushes
to be sold afterwards in other parts of the country.
The "Beggar's Oak" was mentioned in the _History of Staffordshire_ in
1830, when its branches were measured by Dr. Darwen as spreading 48 feet
in every direction. There was also a larger oak mentioned with a trunk
21 feet 4-1/2 inches in circumference, but in a decayed condition. This
was named the Swilcar Lawn Oak, and stood on the Crown lands at
Marchington Woodlands, and in Bagot's wood were also the Squitch, King,
and Lord Bagot's Walking stick, all fine trees. There were also two
famous oaks at Mavesyn Ridware called "Gog and Magog," but only their
huge decayed trunks remained. Abbots Bromley had some curious
privileges, and some of the great games were kept up. Thus the heads of
the horses and reindeers for the "hobby horse" games were to be seen at
the church.
[Illustration: MARKET PLACE, ABBOT'S BROMLAY]
The owner of this region, Lord Bagot, could trace his ancestry back to
before the Conquest, for the Normans found one Bagod in possession. In
course of time, when the estate had become comparatively poor, we heard
that the noble owner had married the daughter of Mr. Bass, the rich
brewer of Burton, the first of the Peerage marriages with the families
of the new but rich.
We passed the Butter Cross and the old inn, reminiscent of stage-coach
days, as the church bell was tolling, probably the curfew, and long
after darkness had set in, for we were trying to reach Lichfield, we
came to the village of Handsacre, where at the "Crown Inn" we stayed the
night.
(_Distance walked twenty-five miles_.)
_Wednesday, November 1st._
Although the "Crown" at Handsacre was only a small inn, we were very
comfortable, and the company assembled on the premises the previous
evening took a great interest in our travels. We had no difficulty in
getting an early breakfast, and a good one too, before leaving the inn
this morning, but we found we had missed seeing one or two interesting
places which we passed the previous night in the dark, and we had also
crossed the River Trent as it flowed towards the great brewery town of
Burton, only a few miles distant.
[Illustration: WHERE OFFA'S DYKE CROSSES THE MAIS ROAD.]
[Illustration: LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL]
Daylight found us at the foot of the famous Cannock Chase. The Chase
covered about 30,000 acres of land, which had been purposely kept out of
cultivation in olden hing; the second showed him being carried to school between the
shoulders of two boys, another boy following closely behind, as if to
catch him in the event of a fall; while the third panel represents him
standing in the market-place at Uttoxeter, doing penance to propitiate
Heaven for the act of disobedience to his father that had happened fifty
years ago. When very young he was afflicted with scrofula, or king's
evil; so his mother took him in 1712, when he was only two and a half
years old, to London, where he was touched by Queen Anne, being the last
person so touched in England. The belief had prevailed from the time of
Edward the Confessor that scrofula could be cured by the royal touch,
and although the office remained in our Prayer Book till 1719, the
Jacobites considered that the power did not descend to King William and
Queen Anne because "Divine" hereditary right was not fully possessed by
them; which doubtless would be taken to account for the fact that
Johnson was not healed, for he was troubled with the disease as long as
he lived. When he was three years old he was carried by his father to
the cathedral to hear Dr. Sacheverell preach. This gentleman, who was a
Church of England minister and a great political preacher, was born in
1672. He was so extremely bitter against the dissenters and their Whig
supporters that he was impeached before the House of Lords, and
suspended for three years, while his sermon on "Perils of False
Brethren," which had had an enormous sale, was burnt by the common
hangman! It was said that young Johnson's conduct while listening to the
doctor's preaching on that occasion was quite exemplary.
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO SAMUEL JOHNSON, LICHFIELD.]
Johnson was educated at the Lichfield Grammar School under Dr. Hunter,
who was a very severe schoolmaster, and must have been one of those who
"drove it in behind," for Johnson afterwards wrote: "Med, slain in battle, forced to abdicate, tortured to death,
committed suicide, and gone mad, we came to the conclusion that
Shakespeare was right when he wrote, "Uneasy lies the head that wears a
crown." In his _King Richard II_ he makes the King say:
"And nothing can we call our own but death,
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of Kings:
How some have been deposed, some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,
Some poison'd by their wives, some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd."
One good result of the Battle of Bosworth Field was that it ended the
"Wars of the Roses," which had been a curse to England for thirty years.
[Illustration: BULL BAITING STONE, ATHERSTONE.]
Bull-baiting was one of the favourite sports of our forefathers, the
bull being usually fastened to an iron ring in the centre of a piece of
ground, while dogs were urged on to attack it, many of them being killed
in the fight. This space of land was known as the Bull-ring, a name
often found in the centre of large towns at the present day. We knew a
village in Shropshire where the original ring was still to be seen
embedded in the cobbled pavement between the church and the village inn.
But at Atherstone the bull had been fastened to a large stone, still to
be seen, but away from the road, which had now been diverted from its
original track.
The ancient whipping-post, along with the stocks, which had
accommodation for three persons, had found their last resting-place
inside the old market-hall. They must have been almost constantly
occupied and used in the good old times, as Atherstone was not only on
the great Watling Street, but it had a unique position on the other
roads of the country, as an old milestone near our hotel, where we found
our refreshments waiting our arrival, informed us that we were a hundred
miles from London, a hundred miles from Liverpool, and a hundred miles
from Lincoln, so that Atherstone could fairly claim to be one of the
central towns in England, though the distance to Lincoln had been
overstated.
[Illustration: STOCKS IN ATHERSTONE MARKET-HALL.]
We continued walking along the Watling Street for a short distance,
until we reached the end of the town, and then we forked on to the right
towards Nuncaton; but in a very short distance we came to the village of
Mancetter, where there was a fine old church, apparently the Parish
Church of Atherstone. When the Romans were here they protected their
"Street" by means of forts, and one in a small chain of these was at
Mancetter, the Manduesdum of the Romans, their camp appearing in the
form of a square mound, with the "Street" passing through the centre.
Inside the church were quite a number of very old books, in one of which
we were shown a wood-cut representing the burning of Robert Glover and
Cornelius Bongley at Coventry in 1555. Glover was a gentleman who lived
at the Manor House here, and was one of the Mancetter Martyrs, the other
being Mrs. Lewis, a tenant of his who lived at the Manor House Farm. She
was burnt in 1557, two years later. A large tablet was placed in the
church to their memories, both of them having suffered for their
adherence to the Protestant Faith. The east-end window was a curiosity,
for it contained a large quantity of thirteenth-century stained glass
which had been brought here from Merevale Abbey. It was probably damaged
both there and in transit, as it seemed to have a somewhat rough
appearance; the verger informed us, when pointing out several defects
in the figures, that a local glazier had been employed to erect it who
did not understand such work, and though he had no doubt done his best,
he had made some awkward mistakes. Why David's sword appeared behind his
back the verger could not explain, so my brother suggested that either
the head or the body had been turned the wrong way about.
[Illustration: THE MANOR HOUSE, MANCETTER.]
There were five bells in the church tower, the largest of which was, of
course, the tenor bell, weighing thirty-three hundredweight, and the
words that had been cast on it set us a-thinking:
My soaring sound does warning give
That a man on earth not only lives.
There were usually some strange records in these country churchyards,
and we generally found them in the older portions of the burial-grounds;
but we had very little time to look for them as the night was coming on,
so we secured the services of the verger, who pointed out in the new
part of the churchyard a stone recording the history of Charles Richard
Potter in the following words:
Born--May 11, 1788.
Married--May 11, 1812.
Died--May 11, 1858.
So the eleventh day of May was a lucky or an unlucky day for Mr.
Potter--probably both; but one strange feature which we only thought of
afterwards was that he had lived exactly the allotted span of three
score years and ten. In the old part of the yard were the following
epitaphs:
The Earth's a City
Full of crooked streets
Death is ye market-place
Where all must meet
If life was merchandise
That man could buy
The rich would always live
Ye poor must die.
In bygone times it was no unusual thing to find dead bodies on the road,
or oftener a short distance from it, where the owners had laid
themselves down to die; we ourselves remembered, in a lonely place, only
a field's breadth from the coach road to London, a pit at the side of
which years ago the corpse of a soldier had been found in the bushes.
Here, apparently, there had been a similar case, with the exception that
the man had been found by the side of the Watling Street instead of the
fields adjoining. No one in the district knew who the stranger was, but
as sufficient money had been found on him to pay the cost of the burial,
his corpse was placed in Mancetter Churchyard, and as his name was
unknown, some mysterious initials, of which no one now living knew the
meaning, appeared on the headstone.
Here lieth interr'd the Body of
I.
H. I. M.
What Ere we was or am
it matters not
to whom related,
or by whom begot,
We was, but am not.
Ask no more of me
'Tis all we are
And all that you must be.
We now hurried on, but as every finger-post had been painted white to
receive the new letters, the old words beneath the paint were quite
illegible, and, the road being lonely, of course we got lost, so,
instead of arriving at Nuneaton, we found ourselves again at the Watling
Street, at a higher point than that where we had left it when leaving
Atherstone. Nearly opposite the lane end from which we now emerged there
was a public-house, set back from the road, where a sign, suspended from
a pole, swung alongside the Watling Street to attract the attention of
travellers to the inn, and here we called to inquire our way to
Nuneaton. The name of the house was the "Royal Red Gate Inn," the pole
we had seen on the Watling Street holding a wooden gate painted red. We
asked why the red gate was a royal one, and the landlady said it was
because Queen Adelaide once called there, but who Queen Adelaide was,
and when she called there, she did not know. When asked what she called
for, she replied, "I don't know, unless it was for a drink!" As we did
not know who Queen Adelaide was ourselves, we had to wait until we
reached Nuneaton, where we were informed that she was the wife of
William IV, and that in her retirement she lived at Sudbury Hall in
Derbyshire, so this would be on her coach road to and from London. The
lane at one end of the Red Gate went to Fenney Drayton, where George Fox
the Quaker was born, about whom we had heard farther north; but we had
to push on, and finally did reach Nuneaton for the night.
_(Distance walked twenty-seven miles_.)
_Thursday, November 2nd._
In our early days we used to be told there was only one man in
Manchester, which fact was true if we looked at the name; in the sed not quite free,
Y'et for a very moderate fee;
Nor fear but what it is ordained
That all the money thus obtained
Shall to the fund be handed down
For aid to sick in yonder Town.
VII
The owner of this blest domain
Himself to sojourn here is fain;
And if by land or sea he roam
Yet loveth best his native home,
Which, for two centuries or near,
His ancestors have held so dear.
VIII
Admire well the graceful art
Of Nature's hand in every part:
Full well he knoweth how to prize
This fair Terrestrial Paradise;
And 'tis his wish sincere and true
That others should enjoy it too.
But to return to the High Cross and the Watling Street. The description
on the Cross was in Latin, of which the following is a translation:
The noblemen and gentry, ornaments of the counties of Warwickshire
and Leicestershire at the instance of the Right Honourable Basil Earl
of Denbigh, have caused this pillar to be erected in grateful as well
as perpetual remembrance of peace at last restored by her Majesty
Queen Anne. If, Traveller, you search for the footsteps of the
ancient Romans you may here behold them. For here their most
celebrated ways crossing one another extend to the utmost boundaries
of Britain. Here the Bennones kept their quarters and at the distance
of one mile from here Claudius, a certain commander of a Cohort,
seems to have had a camp towards the Street, and towards the Fosse a
tomb.
We were pleased to see that the remains of the Cross had been enclosed
in the garden of a house belonging to the Earl of Denbigh, a descendant
of the Earl who had been instrumental in building it, and it was now
comparatively safe from further defacement.
The Romans built stations along their roads, and near the High Cross
stood their military station Bennones, on the side of which many Roman
remains, including a Roman urn, had been discovered. It was of great
importance to them that any hostile movement amongst the turbulent
Britons should be reported immediately, so young men who were quick
runners were employed to convey intelligence from one station to
another; but this system was improved upon later by building on the side
of the road, in as prominent a position as possible, at intervals of
five or six miles, a house where forty horses were stabled so that news
or soldiers could, if required, be carried by relays of horses a
distance of a hundred miles along the road in the course of a single
day. We were now only about twelve miles from Leicester, and we had to
walk about six miles in that county in order to reach Lutterworth,
famous throughout England as the parish where the great Reformer John
Wiclif spent the last nineteen years of his life as rector. We passed
through a fine grazing and fox-hunting country on our way, and found
Lutterworth a rather pleasantly situated little town. Our first visit
was naturally to the church, and as we walked along the quiet street
leading up to it we saw a woman standing at her cottage door, to whom
we spoke concerning the great divine, asking incidentally how long it
was since he was rector there. She said she did not know exactly, but as
far as she could remember she thought it was about 146 years since he
died. On arriving at the church we found that it was about 487 years
since Wiclif departed, and we thought it strange that a lady who lived
almost under the shadow of the church steeple could have been so
ill-informed. The church had recently been restored, and a painting of
the Day of Doom, or Judgment, had been discovered over the arch of the
chancel under the whitewash or plaster, which we were told Oliver
Cromwell had ordered to be put on. At the top of this picture our
Saviour was represented as sitting on a rainbow with two angels on each
side, two of whom were blowing trumpets, and on the earth, which
appeared far down below, the graves were opening, and all sorts of
strange people, from the king down to the humblest peasant, were coming
out of their tombs, while the fire and smoke from others proclaimed the
doom of their occupants, and skulls and bones lay scattered about in all
directions.
[Illustration: JOHN WICLIF. _From the portrait in Lutterworth Church_]
It was not a very pleasant picture to look upon, so we adjourned to the
vestry, where we were shown a vestment worn by Wiclif in which some
holes had been cut either with knives or scissors. On inquiry we were
informed that the pieces cut out had been "taken away by visitors,"
which made us wonder why the vestment had not been taken better care of.
We were shown an old pulpit, and the chair in which Wiclif fell when he
was attacked by paralysis, and in which he was carried out of church to
die three days afterwards. We could not describe his life and work
better than by the inscription on the mural monument subscribed for in
1837:
Sacred to the Memory of John Wiclif the earliest Champion of
Ecclesiastical Reformation in England. He was born in Yorkshire in
the year 1324, and in the year 1375 he was presented to the Rectory
of Lutterworth. At Oxford he acquired not only the renown of a
consummate Schoolman, but the far more glorious title of the
Evangelical Doctor. His whole life was one perpetual struggle against
the corruptions and encroachments of the Papal Court and the
impostures of its devoted auxiliaries, the Mendicant Fraternities.
His labours in the cause of Scriptural truths were crowned by one
immortal achievement, his Translation of the Bible into the English
tongue. This mighty work drew on him, indeed, the bitter hatred of
all who were making merchandise of the popular credulity and
ignorance, but he found abundant reward in the blessing of his
countrymen of every rank and age, to whom he unfolded the words of
Eternal Light. His mortal remains were interred near this spot, but
they were not allowed to rest in peace. After a lapse of many years
his bones were dragged from the grave and consigned to the flames;
and his ashes were cast in the waters of the adjoining stream.
That he was a man of distinction may be taken for granted, as he was
master of that famous college at Oxford, Balliol College, where his
picture hangs in the dining-hall to-day.
When in Lichfield Cathedral, where we saw Chantrey's monument of Bishop
Ryder, we had omitted to ask for particulars about him, but here we were
told that he was appointed Rector of Lutterworth in 1801, and had been a
benefactor to the town. He was made Canon of Windsor in 1808, Dean of
Wells 1812, Bishop of Gloucester 1815, and finally became Bishop of
Lichfield and Coventry. He died at Hastings in 1836, and as Chantrey
himself died in 1841, his monument of Bishop Ryder, that had impressed
us so deeply, must have been one of his latest and best productions.
[Illustration: LUTTERWORTH CHURCH]
Lutterworth was the property of William the Conqueror in 1086, and it
was King Edward III who presented the living to Wiclif, who was not only
persecuted by the Pope, but also by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the
Bishop of London. On two occasions he hahan any other part of England, so we were not
surprised when we heard that we were passing through a country that had
been associated with the Gunpowder Plot, and that one incident connected
with it had occurred at Combe Abbey, which we would pass a mile or two
farther on our way. The originator of the Gunpowder Plot, Catesby, was
intimately connected with many of the leading families in these
counties, and was lineally descended from the Catesby of King Richard
III's time, whose fame had been handed down in the old rhyme:
The Rat, the Cat, and Lovel the Dog
Rule all England under the Hog.
the rat meaning Ratcliffe, the cat Catesby, and the hog King Richard,
whose cognisance was a boar. Robert Catesby, the descendant of the
"cat," was said to be one of the greatest bigots that ever lived; he was
the friend of Garnet, the Jesuit, and had been concerned in many plots
against Queen Elizabeth; when that queen died and King James, the son of
Mary Queen of Scots, ascended the throne, their expectations rose high,
for his mother had suffered so much from Queen Elizabeth that they
looked upon her as a martyr, and were sure that their form of religion
would now be restored. But great was their chagrin when they found that
James, probably owing to his early education under John Knox in
Scotland, was more ready to put the laws in force against the Papists
than to give them greater toleration.
[Illustration: THE OLD MANOR HOUSE, ASHBY ST. LEDGERS.]
Catesby and his friends resolved to try to depose James and to place the
Princess Elizabeth, daughter of James I, afterwards the beautiful Queen
of Bohemia, whom her royal parents had placed under the care of the Earl
of Harrington, then the owner of Combe Abbey, about five miles from
Coventry, on the throne in his stead. The conspirators assembled at
Dunchurch, near Rugby, but held their meetings about six miles away, in
a room over the entrance to the old Manor House at Ashby St. Ledgers,
the home of Catesby, where it was proposed to settle matters by blowing
up the Houses of Parliament. These were to be opened on November 5th,
1605, when the King, Queen, and Prince of Wales, with the Lords and
Commons, would all be assembled. In those days the vaults, or cellars,
of the Parliament House were let to different merchants for the storage
of goods, and one of these immediately under the House of Lords was
engaged and filled with some innocent-looking barrels, in reality
containing gunpowder, which were covered by faggots of brushwood. All
preparations were now completed except to appoint one of their number to
apply the torch, an operation which would probably involve certain
death. In the meantime Catesby had become acquainted with Guy Fawkes, a
member of an old Yorkshire family, and almost as bigoted a Papist as
himself, who had joined the conspirators at Dunchurch, the house where
he lodged being still known as Guy Fawkes' House, and when the question
came up for decision, he at once volunteered his services, as he was a
soldier and a brave man. They were accepted, and Sir Everard Digby was
to stay at Dunchurch in order to be ready to seize the young Princess
Elizabeth while the others went to London. It so happened that one of
the conspirators had a friend, Lord Monteagle, whom he knew would be
sure to attend the opening of Parliament, and as he did not want him to
be killed he caused an anonymous letter to be written warning him not to
attend the opening of Parliament, "for though there be no appearance of
any stir, yet I say they shall receive a terrible blow this Parliament,
and yet shall not see who hurts them." The letter was delivered to
Monteagle by a man in a long coat, who laid it on his table and
disappeared immediately. It was afterwards handed to King James, who,
after reading the last paragraph, repeated it aloud, "and yet they shall
not see who hurts them," and said to Cecil, "This smells gunpowder!"
Their suspicions were aroused, but they waited until midnight on
November 4th, and then sent soldiers well armed to search the vaults,
where they found a man with a long sword amongst the barrels. He fought
savagely, but was soon overpowered. When the conspirators found that
their plot had been discovered, and that Guy Fawkes was in custody,
instead of escaping to France as they might easily have done, they
hastened down to Dunchurch, "as if struck by infatuation," in the wild
hope of capturing the young Princess and raising a civil war in her
name; but by the time they reached Combe Abbey, the Earl of Harrington
had removed Elizabeth to Coventry, which at that time was one of the
most strongly fortified places in England. They now realised that their
game was up, and the gang dispersed to hide themselves; but when the
dreadful nature of the plot became known, it created such a profound
sensation of horror throughout the country, that every one joined in the
search for the conspirators, who in the end were all captured and
executed. Great rejoicings were held, bonfires lit, bells rung, and guns
fired in almost every village, and thereby the people were taught to--
Remember, remember, the Fifth of November
The Gunpowder, Treason, and Plot.
These celebrations have been continued on each fifth of November for
centuries, November 5th becoming known as "Bonfire Day." And in our Book
of Common Prayer there was a special service for the day which was only
removed in the time of Queen Victoria. Guy Fawkes was executed on
February 6th, 1606.
Fortunately for the Protestants the reign of the queen who was known by
them as the "Bloody Queen Mary" was of short duration, for they were
then subjected to very great cruelties; on the other hand there was no
doubt that during the much longer reign of Queen Elizabeth that
followed, the Papists also suffered greatly; still under James they were
now bound to suffer more in every way, short of death, for the great
mass of their fellow-countrymen had turned against them owing to the
murderous character of the Gunpowder Plot, so--
On Bonfire Day, as Britons should,
They heaped up sticks, and turf, and wood;
And lighted Bonfires bright and hot,
In memory of the Popish Plot!
We were ourselves greatly interested in November 5th, which was now due
to arrive in three days' time; not because some of our ancestors had
been adherents to the Roman Catholic Faith, nor because of the
massacres, for in that respect we thought one side was quite as bad as
the other; but because it happened to be my birthday, and some of our
earliest and happiest associations were connected with that day. I could
remember the time when a candle was placed in every available
window-pane at home on November 5th, and when I saw the glare of the big
bonfire outside and the pin-wheels, the rip-raps, and small fireworks,
and heard the church bells ringing merrily, and the sound of the guns
firing, I naturally thought as a child that all these tokens of
rejoicing were there because it was my birthday. Then the children from
the village came! first one small group and then another; these were the
"Soulers," or "Soul-Cakers," who ought to have appeared, according to
history, on All Souls' Day; they were generally satisfied with apples or
pears, or with coppers. The most mysterious visitor was the horse's
head, or hobby horse, which came without its body or legs, but could
make a noise just like the neighing of a horse, and could also open its
mouth so wide that a glass filled with beer could pass down its throat.
To complete the illusion we could hear its jaws, which were filled with
very large teeth, close together with a crack, and although the glass
was returned in some way or other, we never saw the beer again. The
horse's head was accompanied by a lot of men known as Mummers, dressed
in all sorts of queer clothes, who acted a short play, but the only
words I could remember were, "King George, King George, thou hast killed
my only son!" and at that point one of the actors fell on the grass as
if he were dead. But these were reveries of the past; when the spell
broke I found myself walking with my brother in the dark alongside the
grounds of Combe Abbey, the only lights we could see being some in the
park, which might have been those from the abbey itself. We were
expecting to come upon a private menagerie which was supposed to exist
somewhere in the park, and we had prepared ourselves for the roars of
the lions seeking their prey as they heard our footsteps on the road, or
for the horrid groans of other wild animals; but beyond a few minor
noises, which we could not recognise, all was quiet, and passing the
small village of Binley we soon arrived at Coventry, where we stayed for
the night at an ancient hostelry near the centre of the town.
St. George, the Patron Saint of England, who lived in the early part of
the fourth century, and was reckoned among the seven champions of
Christendom, was said to have been born in Coventry. In olden times a
chapel, named after him, existed here, in which King Edward IV, when he
kept St. George's Feast on St. George's Day, April 23rd, 1474, attended
service. Coventry was a much older town than we expected to find it,
and, like Lichfield, it was known as the city of the three spires; but
here they were on three different churches. We had many arguments on our
journey, both between ourselves and with others, as to why churches
should have towers in some places and spires in others. One gentleman
who had travelled extensively through Britain observed that towers were
more numerous along the sea coasts and on the borders of Wales and
Scotland, while spires were most in evidence in the low Midland plains
where trees abounded. In these districts it was important to have part
of the church standing out from the foliage, while on a hill or a bare
cliff a short tower was all that was needed. He actually knew more than
one case where the squires in recent times had a short spire placed on
the top of the church tower, like the extinguisher of an old
candlestick, because it was said they needed guide-posts by which to
find their way home from hunting!
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S CHURCH SPIRE, COVENTRY.]
In olden times, ere the enemy could approach the village, the cattle
were able to be driven in the church, while the men kept an easy
look-out from the tower, and the loopholes in it served as places where
arrows could be shot from safe cover. In some districts we passed
through we could easily distinguish the position of the villages by the
spires rising above the foliage, and very pretty they appeared, and at
times a rivalry seemed to have existed which should possess the loftiest
or most highly decorated spire, some of them being of exceptional
beauty. The parish churches were almost invariably placed on the highest
point in the villages, so that before there were any proper roads the
parishioners could find their way to church so long as they could see
the tower or spire, and to that position at the present day, it is
interesting to note, all roads still converge.
We had no idea that the story of Lady Godiva and Peeping Tom was so
ancient, but we found it dated back to the time of Leofric, Earl of
Mercia, who in 1043 founded an abbey here which was endowed by his wife,
the Lady Godiva. The earl, the owner of Coventry, levied very hard taxes
on the inhabitants, and treated their petitions for relief with scorn.
Lady Godiva, on the contrary, had moved amongst the people, and knew the
great privations they had suffered through having to pay these heavy
taxes, and had often pleaded with her husband on their behalf. At last
he promised her that he would repeal the taxes if she would ride naked
through the town, probably thinking his wife would not undertake such a
task. But she had seen so much suffering amongst the poor people that
she decided to go through the ordeal for their sakes, and the day was
fixed, when she would ride through the town. Orders were given by the
people that everybody should darken their windows and retire to the back
part of their houses until Lady Godiva had passed. All obeyed except one
man, "Tom the Tailor," afterwards nicknamed "Peeping Tom," who, as the
lady rode by on her palfrey, enveloped in her long tresses of hair,
which fell round her as a garment, looked down on her from his window,
and of him the historian related that "his eyes chopped out of his head
even as he looked." The ride ended, the taxes were repealed, and ever
afterwards the good Lady Godiva was enshrined in the hearts of the
people of Coventry. Many years later a beautiful stained-glass window
was placed in the Parish Church to commemorate this famous event, and
Leofric was portrayed thereon as presenting Godiva with a charter
bearing the words:
I Luriche for love of thee
Doe make Coventry toll free.
[Illustration: THOMAS PARR =_The Olde, Old, very Olde Man or Thomas Par,
the Sonne of John Parr of Winnington in the Parish of Alberbury. In the
County of Shropshire who was Borne in 1483 in The Raigne of King Edward
the 4th and is now living in The Strand, being aged 152 yeares and odd
Monethes 1635 He dyed November the 15th And is now buryed in Westminster
1635_=]
This story Tennyson has immortalised, and its memory is still
perpetuated in the pageants which are held from time to time in the
city. Coventry was described in 1642 by Jeremiah Wharton, an officer
under the Earl of Essex in the Parliamentary Army, as "a City environed
with a wall, co-equal with, if not exceeding, that of London, for
breadth and height, and with gates and battlements, and magnificent
churches and stately streets, and abundant fountains of water,
altogether a place very sweetly situated, and where there was no lack of
venison." The walls of Coventry, begun in the year 1355, were very
formidable, being six yards high and three yards thick, and having
thirty-two towers and twelve principal gates. They defied both Edward IV
and Charles I when with their armies they appeared before them and
demanded admission, but they were demolished after the Civil War by
order of Charles II, because the people of Coventry had refused
admission to his father, King Charles I. Coventry possessed a greater
number of archives than almost any other town in England, covering eight
centuries and numbering over eleven thousand. My brother was delighted
to find that one of them related to a very old man named Thomas Parr,
recording the fact that he passed through the town on his way to London
in 1635, at the age of 152 years. It reminded him of a family medicine
known as Old Parr's Pills, which at one time was highly prized; they had
been used by our grandfather, who died in his ninety-seventh year, and
he often wondered whether his longevity was in any way due to those
pills. They were supposed to have been made from the same kind of herbs
as old Parr was known to have used in his efforts to keep himself alive,
and during supper my brother talked about nothing else but that old man;
if he was an authority on anything, it was certainly on old Thomas Parr.
This man was born on the Montgomery border of Shropshire, where a tablet
to his memory in Great Wollaston Church bore the following inscription:
The old, old, very old man
THOMAS PARR
was born at Wynn in the Township of Winnington
within the Chapelry of Great Wollaston, and Parish of
Alberbury, in the County of Salop, in the year of our
Lord 1483. He lived in the reigns of 10 Kings and
Queens of England, King Edward IV. and V. Richard III.
Henry VII. VIII. Edward VI. Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth.
King James I. King Charles I.
He died the thirteenth and was buried at
Westminster Abbey on the fifteenth November 1635
Age 152 years and 9 months.
John Taylor, known as the Water Poet because he was a Thames waterman,
who was born in 1580, and died in 1656, was a contemporary of Parr, and
wrote a book in 1635, the same year that old Parr died, entitled _The
Olde, Olde, very Olde Man_, in which he described Thomas Parr as an
early riser, sober, and industrious:
Though old age his face with wrinkles fill.
He hath been handsome and is comely still;
Well-faced, and though his Beard not oft corrected
Yet neate it grows, not like a Beard neglected.
Earl Arundel told King Charles I about this very old man, and he
expressed a desire to see him; so the earl arranged to have him carried
to London. When the men reached old Parr's cottage, which is still
standing, they found an old man sitting under a tree, apparently quite
done. Feeling sure that he was the man they wanted, they roused him up,
and one said, "We have come for you to take you to the King!" The old
man looked up at the person who spoke to him, and replied, "Hey, mon!
it's not me ye want! it's me feyther!" "Your father!" they said, in
astonishment; "where is he?" "Oh, he's cuttin' th' hedges!" So they went
as directed, and found a still older man cutting away at a hedge in the
small field adjoining the cottage, and him they took, together with his
daughter, for whom the earl had provided a hor a shuttle-cock from one
party to be caught in the air, and returned from the opposite side of
the road by another, at which it was aimed.
[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO THE GREAT HALL, KENILWORTH.]
The arrival of the Queen, who had journeyed from Warwick Castle, had
been somewhat delayed, and the Guards had some difficulty in keeping the
course clear until she appeared with the lords and ladies who
accompanied her. It was dark when she approached the Castle, and
immediately there arose from the multitude a shout of applause, so
tremendously vociferous that the country echoed for miles around. The
Guards, thickly stationed upon the road by which the Queen was to
advance, caught up the acclamation, which ran like wildfire to the
castle, and announced to all within that Queen Elizabeth had entered the
Royal Castle of Kenilworth. The whole music of the castle sounded at
once, and a round of artillery, with a salvo of small arms, was
discharged from the battlements; but the noise of drums and trumpets,
and even of the cannon themselves, was but faintly heard amidst the
roaring and reiterated welcome of the multitude. As the noise began to
abate, a broad glare of light was seen to appear from the gate of the
park, and, broadening and brightening as it came nearer, advance along
the open and fair avenue that led towards the Gallery Tower, lined on
either hand by the retainers of the Earl of Leicester. The word was
passed along the lines, "The Queen! The Queen! Silence, and stand fast!"
Onward came the cavalcade, illuminated by 200 thick waxen torches, in
the hands of as many horsemen, which cast a light like that of broad day
all around the procession, but especially on the principal group, of
which the Queen herself, arrayed in the most splendid manner, and
blazing with jewels, formed the central figure. She was mounted on a
milk-white horse, which, she reined with peculiar grace and dignity, and
in the whole of her stately and noble carriage you saw the daughter of a
hundred kings.
[Illustration: KENILWORTH CASTLE IN 1871.]
Leicester, who glittered like a golden image with jewels and cloth of
gold, rode on her Majesty's right hand, as well in quality as her Host
as of her Master of the Horse. The black steed which he mounted had not
a single white hair on his body, and was one of the most renowned
chargers in Europe, having been purchased by the earl at large expense
for this royal occasion. As the noble steed chafed at the slow speed of
the procession, and, arching his stately neck, champed on the silver
bits which restrained him, the foam flew from his mouth and speckled his
well-formed limbs as if with spots of snow. The rider well became the
high place which he held and the proud animal which he bestrode, for no
man in England, or perhaps in Europe, was more perfect than Dudley in
horsemanship and all other exercises belonging to his rank. He was
bareheaded, as were all the courtiers in the train, and the red
torchlight shone upon his long curled tresses of dark hair and on his
noble features, to the beauty of which even the severest criticism could
only object the lordly fault, as it may be termed, of a forehead
somewhat too high. On that proud evening he wore all the graceful
solicitude of a subject, to show himself sensible of the high honour
which the Queen was conferring on him, and all the pride and
satisfaction which became so glorious a moment. The train, male and
female, who attended immediately upon the Queen's person, were of course
of the bravest and the fairest--the highest born nobles and the wisest
councellors of that distinguished reign, and were followed by a crowd of
knights and gentlemen. It was now the part of the huge porter, a man of
immense size, to deliver an address and drop his club and resign his
keys to give open way to the Goddess of the Night and all her
magnificent train, but as he was so overwhelmed with confusion of
spirit--the contents of one immense black jack of double ale--Sir Walter
only records the substance of what the gigantic warder ought to have
said in his address:
What stir, what turmoil, have we for the nones?
Stand back, my masters, or beware your bones!
Sirs, I'm a warder, and no man of straw,
My voice keeps order, and my club gives law.
Yet soft,--nay stay--what vision have we here?
What dainty darling this--what peerless peer?
What loveliest face, that loving ranks enfold.
Like brightest diamond chased in purest gold?
Dazzled and blind, mine office I forsake,
My club, my Key, my knee, my homage take.
Bright paragon, pass on in joy and bliss;--
Beshrew the gate that opes not wide at such a sight as this!
Elizabeth received most graciously the homage of the herculean porter
and then passed through the guarded tower amidst the sounds of trumpets
and other instruments stationed on the tower and in various parts of the
castle, and dismounted near Mortimer's Tower, which was as light as day
as she walked across the long bridge built especially for her and lit
with torches on either side. She had no sooner stepped upon the bridge
than a new spectacle was provided, for as soon as the music gave signal
that she was so far advanced, a raft on the lake, disposed as to
resemble a small floating island, illuminated by a great variety of
torches, and surrounded by floating pageants formed to represent
sea-horses, on which sat Tritons, Nereids, and other fabulous deities of
the seas and rivers, made its appearance upon the lake, and, issuing
from behind a small heronry where it had been concealed, floated gently
towards the farther end of the bridge. On the islet appeared a beautiful
woman, clad in a watchet-coloured silken mantle, bound with a broad
girdle, inscribed with characters like the phylacteries of the Hebrews.
Her feet and arms were bare, but her wrists and ankles were adorned with
gold bracelets of uncommon size. Amidst her long silky black hair she
wore a crown or chaplet of artificial mistletoe, and bore in her hand a
rod of ebony tipped with silver. Two nymphs attended on her, dressed in
the same antique and mystical guise. The pageant was so well managed
that the Lady of the Floating Island, having performed her voyage with
much picturesque effect, landed at Mortimer's Tower with her two
attendants, just as Elizabeth presented herself before that outwork. The
stranger then in a well-penned speech announced herself as that famous
Lady of the Lake renowned in the stories of King Arthur, who had nursed
the youth of the redoubted Sir Lancelot, and whose beauty had proved too
powerful both for the wisdom and the spells of the mighty Merlin. Since
that period she had remained possessed of her crystal dominions, she
said, despite the various men of fame and might by whom Kenilworth had
been successively tenanted. The Saxons, the Danes, the Normans, the
Saintlowes, the Clintons, the Montforts, the Mortimers, the
Plantagenets, great though they were in arms and magnificence, had
never, she said, caused her to raise her head from the waters which hid
her crystal palace. But a greater than all these great names had now
appeared, and she came in homage and duty to welcome the peerless
Elizabeth to all sport which the castle and its environs, which lake or
land, could afford! The queen received the address with great courtesy
and the Lady of the Lake vanished, and Arion, who was amongst the
maritime deities, appeared upon his dolphin in her place. But amidst all
this pageantry Sir Walter throws a side-light on Mervyn's Tower, where
we see a prisoner, a pale, attenuated, half dead, yet still lovely lady,
Amy Robsart, the neglected wife of Leicester, incarcerated there while
her husband is flirting with the queen in the gay rooms above. Her
features are worn with agony and suspense as she looks through the
narrow window of her prison on the fireworks and coloured fires outside,
wondering perhaps whether these were emblems of her own miserable life,
"a single spark, which is instantaneously swallowed up by the
surrounding darkness--a precarious glow, which rises but for a brief
space into the air, that its fall may be lower."
[Illustration: MERVYN'S TOWER, KENILWORTH CASTLE.]
Sir Walter Scott described Kenilworth as "a place to impress on the
musing visitor the transitory value of human possessions, and the
happiness of those who enjoy a humble lot in virtuous contentment," and
it was with some such thoughts as these in our own minds that we hurried
away across fields and along lovely by-lanes towards Leamington, our
object in going there by the way we did being to get a view of the great
mansion of Stoneleigh, the residence of Lord Leigh, who was also a
landowner in our native County of Chester. It seemed a very fine place
as we passed through the well-wooded park surrounding it, and presently
reached his lordship's village of Ashow, where the old church, standing
on a small knoll at the end of the village, looked down upon the River
Avon below, which was here only a small stream. The roofs of many of the
cottages were thatched with straw, and although more liable to be set on
fire than those covered with the red tiles so common in the County of
Warwick, they looked very picturesque and had the advantage of not being
affected so much by extremes of temperature, being warmer in winter and
cooler in summer for those who had the good fortune to live under them.
We noticed several alms houses in the village, and near the smithy had a
talk with an old man who was interested to know that we came from
Cheshire, as he knew his lordship had some property there. He told us
that when a former Lord Leigh had died, there was a dispute amongst the
Leigh family as to who was the next owner of the estate, and about fifty
men came up from Cheshire and took possession of the abbey; but as the
verdict went against them they had to go back again, and had to pay
dearly for their trespass. He did not know where the Leighs came from
originally, but thought "they might have come from Cheshire," so we told
him that the first time they were heard of in that county was when the
Devil brought a load of them in his cart from Lancashire. He crossed
the River Mersey, which divided the two counties, at a ford near
Warrington, and travelled along the Knutsford road, throwing one of them
out occasionally with his pikel, first on one side of the road and then
on the other, until he had only a few left at the bottom of his cart,
and as he did not think these worth taking any farther, he "keck'd" his
cart up and left them on the road, so there were persons named Lee,
Legh, or Leigh living on each side of that road to the present day. The
old man seemed pleased with our story and grinned considerably, and no
doubt it would be repeated in the village of Ashow after we had left,
and might probably reach the ears of his lordship himself.
Two of the Lees that the Devil left on the road when he upset his cart
took possession of the country on either side, which at that time was
covered with a dense forest, and selected large oak trees to mark their
boundaries, that remained long after the other trees had disappeared.
But in course of time it became necessary to make some other distinction
between the two estates, so it was arranged that one landlord should
spell his name Legh and the other Leigh, and that their tenants should
spell the name of the place High Legh in one case and High Leigh in the
other, so that when name-plates appeared on carts, each landlord was
able to tell to which estate they belonged. There were many antiquities
in the country associated with his Satanic Majesty, simply because their
origin was unknown, such as the Devil's Bridge over which we had passed
at Kirkby Lonsdale, and the Devil's Arrows at Aldborough, and it was
quite possible that the remote antiquity of the Legh family might
account for the legend connected with them. There were several facts
connected with the Cheshire estate of the Leghs which interested us, the
first being that my grandfather was formerly a tenant on the estate, and
the squire had in his possession the rent rolls for every year since
about 1289. A fact that might interest ladies who are on the lookout for
a Mr. Wright is, that out of a hundred tenants on that estate at the
present day, twenty-seven householders bear the name of Wright.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE BROAD OAK, HIGH LEGH.]
But the strangest incident connected with High Legh was the case of a
young man who came from Scotland to work in the squire's gardens there.
He had attended Warrington Market, and was returning over the river
bridge when he stopped to look at a placard announcing a missionary
meeting to be held in the town that night. He decided to stay, although
he had quite seven miles to walk on his way home, and was so impressed
by what he heard that he decided to become a missionary himself, and
became one of the most famous missionaries of the nineteenth century.
His name was Robert Moffat, and he laboured hard in South Africa, where
his son-in-law, David Livingstone, following his example, also became a
renowned explorer and missionary in the "Dark Continent."
Accept me for Thy service, Lord,
And train me for Thy will,
For even I in fields so broad
Some duties may fulfil;
And I will ask for no reward
Except to serve Thee still.
MOFFAT.
[Illustration: ROBERT MOFFAT.]
We soon arrived at Leamington, which was quite an aristocratic town, and
different from any other we had seen on our journey, for it consisted
chiefly of modern houses of a light stone colour, which contrasted
finely with the trees with which the houses were interspersed and
surrounded, and which must have appeared very beautiful in the spring
time.
The chief object of interest there was the Spa, which although known to
travellers in the seventeenth century, had only come into prominence
during recent times, or since the local poets had sung its praises. In
the introduction to a curious book, published in 1809 by James Bissett,
who described himself as "Medallist to his Majesty King George the
Third, proprietor of the Picture Gallery, public, news-room, and the
museum at Leamington," there appeared the following lines:
Nay! Foreigners of rank who this look o'er
To try the Wells may quit their native shore;
For when they learn the virtues of the Spaw
Twice tens of thousands to the spot will draw,
As when its wondrous powers are pointed out
And men found cap'ring who have had the gout;
When pallid cheeks regain their roseate blush
And vigorous health expels the hectic flush
When those once hypp'd cast the crutch away;
Sure when the pride of British Spas they see
They'll own the humble instrument in me!
The Spa, it appeared, had been patronised by royalty on several
occasions, and Queen Victoria in 1838 acceded to the request that the
inhabitants might henceforth style the town the "Royal Leamington Spa."
Benjamin Satchwell claimed to have discovered the principal well there
in 1784, and on his tombstone in the churchyard appeared the following:
Hail the unassuming tomb
Of him who told where health and beauty bloom,
Of him whose lengthened life improving ran--
A blameless, useful, venerable man.
We only stayed a short time here, and then walked quickly through a fine
country to the ancient town of Warwick, with Guy's Cliffe and Blacklow
Hill to our right, the monument on the hill being to Piers Gaveston,
Earl of Cornwall, the hated favourite of Edward II. Gaveston was
beheaded on the hill on July 1st, 1312, and the modern inscription
reads:
In the hollow of this rock was beheaded, on the first day of July
1312, by barons, lawless as himself, Piers Gaveston, Earl of
Cornwall, the minion of a hateful King, in life and death a memorable
instance of misrule.
[Illustration: GUY'S TOWER, WARWICK]
Gaveston surrendered to the insurgent barons at Scarborough, on
condition that his life should be spared; but he had offended the Earl
of Warwick by calling him the "Black Hound of Arden," and the earl
caused him to be conveyed to Warwick Castle. When brought before
Warwick there, the Earl muttered, "Now you shall feel the Hound's
teeth," and after a mock trial by torchlight he was led out of the
castle and beheaded on the hill. Every one of the barons concerned in
this rather diabolical action died by violence during the next few
years.
[Illustration: WARWICK CASTLE FROM THE RIVER. "As we crossed the bridge
we had a splendid view of Warwick Castle ... the finest example of a
fortified castle in England ... the 'fairest monument of anceep off the effects; the
tree was fenced round later on in memory of that rather inglorious
event. Although we were temperance men, we had to admit that the old
inns where the stage-coaches stopped to exchange passengers and horses
had a great attraction for us, and it was not without a feeling of
regret that we found them being gradually closed throughout the country
we passed through. They had mostly been built after the same model, the
gateway or door at the entrance being arched over and placed in the
centre of the front of the hotel. Through this archway the coaches, with
passengers and luggage, could pass in and out, a door on each side of
the entrance leading into different sections of the inn. The yards of
the inns were in the form of an oblong, generally roofed over, and along
each side were the out-offices, storerooms, and stables, with a flat
roof overhead, extending backwards as far as the bedroom doors, and
forming a convenient platform for passengers' luggage as it was handed
on and off the roof of the coach. The outside edge of the platform was
sometimes ornamented with a low palisade, which gave the interior of the
covered yard quite a pleasant and ornamental appearance.
[Illustration]
Such was the character of the inns that existed in the time of
Shakespeare, and although sanitary regulations in later times required
the horses to be provided for in stable-yards farther in the rear, very
little structural alteration in the form of the inns had taken place.
The actor told us that in Shakespeare's time nearly all the acting
outside London and much within was done in the courtyards of these inns.
The actors travelled in two covered wagons or coaches, and when they
arrived at the inn they were drawn into the inn yard, while two members
of the party went out into the town or village vigorously beating a drum
to announce the arrival of the actors, almost the entire resident
population, men, women, and children, following them to the inn yard to
listen to the play, which custom, he said, was referred to by
Shakespeare in one of his plays in the passage:
The Actors have come and the rout are following!
The covers were then taken off the top of the wagons and placed round
the sides of the wheels, to act as screens while the actors changed
their dresses, which had to be done underneath the coaches. Meanwhile
boards, kept at the inns specially for that purpose, were fastened over
the tops of the wagons, and on these the actors performed their plays.
The squire, or lord of the manor, had the right to see the plays free of
charge, and when he came, a bar of wood was placed across the entrance
to one of the horse-boxes to keep off the spectators who thronged the
inn yard. From these people the actors collected what money they could,
while those who were better able to pay were accommodated on the
platform above the stables, which commanded a better view of the play.
When theatres were built, he informed us, they were modelled in the same
shape as the yards of these inns, their arrangement being also the same:
the stage represented the boards on the wagons and the actors dressed
underneath it, the pit corresponded to the inn yard, the gallery to the
platform over the stables, the boxes to the place railed off for the
squire. The actor was not sure about the stalls, and thought these were
instituted at a later period; but we reminded him that stalls were a
necessary adjunct to stables.
[Illustration: STRATFORD-ON-AVON CHURCH.]
He also told us that the actors had a language peculiar to their
profession, which also dated from the time when they acted in the
country inn yards, for even when they travelled by train they were
always "on the road," and when acting in the theatre they were still "on
the boards."
We asked him if he knew about Shakespeare's stealing the deer from
Charlecote Park, Sir Thomas Lucy's property, and he said he did; but the
report was not quite correct, for at that time the park was surrounded
by Common Land, and it was there that Shakespeare shot the deer, which
only went into the park to die. Shakespeare followed it, and as he was
removing the carcase he was caught and summoned; the case hinged on
whether he had his weapon with him or not. As that could not be proved
against him, the case was dismissed. It appears that the Law of England
is the same on that point to-day as in the time of Shakespeare, for if a
man shoots a hare on his own land, and it dies on adjoining land
belonging to some one else, he has a perfect right to remove it,
providing he does not take his gun with him, which would constitute a
punishable offence. We were sorry to leave the hotel, as we should have
been very comfortable there, and the actor, who wanted to hear of our
adventures, did his best to persuade us to stay; but our average must be
made up, and I particularly wanted to celebrate my birthday on the
following Sunday at Oxford.
It was quite dark as we crossed the river bridge on our way to Kineton,
ten miles distant, and we soon lost sight of the lights of Stratford; as
we left we could see the church being lit up for evening service. A man
on the bridge in directing us the way to Kineton told us we should pass
the park where "old Shakespeare stole the deer," and he seemed to think
he was a regular poacher there. We could not see the deer, but we heard
them as we passed alongside the park, the noise resembling that of a
pig, but not nearly so loud. We soon afterwards arrived at a fair-sized
village about half-way between Stratford and Kineton, where we recrossed
the river and, turning towards the right, walked along a lonely road for
an hour or two, until we reached Kineton, where we intended to stay the
night. We were, however, doomed to disappointment, for, as the railway
was being cut through there, the whole place was completely filled with
engineers and navvies, who had taken up all the accommodation. There was
not even a chair "to be let," so we were obliged to move on in the hope
that we might come to some house or village on the road where we could
obtain lodgings for the night. We had already walked thirty miles and
were sleepy and tired and could not walk quickly enough to keep
ourselves warm, for the night was damp with fog and very cold, and our
quick walk had caused us to perspire, so that we were now in what might
be termed a cold sweat, a danger to which we were often exposed during
these later stages of our long journey. Fortunately for us, however, the
cuttings from the sides of the hedges and ditches, which extended for
miles, had been tied in neat little bundles, possibly for sale, and
deposited on the sides of the road, and every now and then we set fire
to one of these and stayed a few minutes to warm ourselves, expecting
every moment to attract the attention of a policeman, and get ourselves
into trouble, but none appeared. The last quarter of the moon was now
due, and although we could not see it through the misty clouds overhead,
it lighted up the air considerably when it rose, so that we could then
see the fields on either side of the road, especially when we came to an
upward gradient. We gradually became conscious of what appeared to be a
great black cloud in front of us as we climbed up the road, and were
astonished when we perceived that instead of a cloud it was a tremendous
hill, towards which our road was leading us. We had been walking for
days through a level country, and did not expect to come to a hill like
this, and this strange and sudden development sharpened us up a little,
for we had only been walking at about the rate, including stoppages, of
one mile per hour, so we walked steadily up the hill, and presently came
in sight of some large trees, from which we knew that we were
approaching civilisation; we had not seen a single habitation or a
living being of any kind since leaving Kineton. On the other side of a
field to the left of our road we could see a rustic-looking shed which
we resolved to visit, so, climbing over the fence, we walked cautiously
towards it, and found it was an ancient store-shed for hay and straw. We
listened attentively for a few moments and, as there was no wind, we
could have heard the breathing of a man or of any large animal that
might have been sleeping there; but as all appeared quiet, we sat down
on the dry straw thankful to be able to rest our weary limbs if only for
a short time.
We had some difficulty in keeping ourselves awake, but we durst not go
to sleep as the night was so very cold, and there was a rough floor
immediately above us which had caused us some uneasiness. When we heard
the footsteps of some small animal creeping stealthily amongst the straw
over our heads, as if preparing to make a spring, we decided to evacuate
our rather eerie position. It might have been a rat or more likely a
cat, but as we did not care for the company of either of these animals,
we lost no time in regaining the road.
As we approached the top of the hill we came to some quaint-looking
houses, which appeared much too large for their occupiers to take in
visitors at that early hour of the morning, especially two tramps like
ourselves. We were almost sure that one of the houses was an inn, as it
had a sign on the wall, though too high up for us to read in the dark.
Presently we passed what appeared to be an old castle.
We could now only walk very slowly, or at a speed that my musical
brother described as about equivalent to the "Dead March in Saul," and
at seven o'clock in the morning reached the entrance to the town of
Banbury, exciting considerable curiosity among the men we met on the way
to their work in the country.
We called at the first respectable-looking inn that we came to, where
the mistress informed us we could not have two beds, "as the other
people hadn't got up yet," but a gentleman who had to leave early was
just getting up now, and we "could have his bed if we liked." We were
glad to accept the offer lest in going farther we might fare worse. We
could hear the gentleman's heavy footsteps on the floor above our heads,
and as soon as the room was prepared we got into the bed he had vacated,
which was still quite warm, extremely thankful to get in anywhere, and
in spite of the noises usual in inns on Saturday morning we "slept like
bricks" until eleven o'clock, the hour arranged for our "call."
(_Distance walked forty-two and a half miles_.)
_Saturday, November 4th._
[Illustration: EDGE HILL.]
We were quite surprised to find that the night before we had been
walking along the site of one of the most famous battles--because it was
the first--in the Great Civil War of the seventeenth century, named
after the strange hill we had walked over, and known to history as the
"Battle of Edge Hill." We learned that had we crossed it on a fine clear
day instead of in the dark we should have obtained a splendid view over
the shires of Warwick, Gloucester, and Worcester, and portions of other
counties besides. The hill itself stood in Warwickshire, but we had
crossed the boundary into Oxfordshire on our way to Banbury some time in
the early hours of the morning. The Royalist Army, under King Charles I,
had encamped a few miles from Banbury, when Prince Rupert sent the king
word that the army of the Parliament, under the command of the Earl of
Essex, had arrived at Kineton. The king's army had left Shrewsbury two
days before Essex's army departed from Worcester, and, strange as it
might appear, although they were only about twenty miles away from each
other at the start, they travelled almost side by side for ten days
without either army knowing the whereabouts of the other. The distance
between them was only six miles when the news reached the king, who,
although the day was then far advanced, resolved to give battle at
once. The Earl of Lindsey, who had acquired his military experience
fighting in the Low Countries, was General of the king's army, while the
king's nephew, Prince Rupert, the finest cavalry officer of his day,
commanded the Horse, Sir Jacob Astley the Foot, Sir Arthur Aston the
Dragoons, Sir John Heyden the Artillery, and Lord Bernard a troop of
Guards. The estates and revenues of this single troop were estimated to
be at least equal to those of all the members who, at the commencement
of the war, voted in both Houses of Parliament; so if money could have
won the battle, the king's army ought to have been victorious; the king,
moreover, had the advantage of a strong position, as his army was well
placed under the summit of the hill. The battle was fought on Sunday,
October 23rd, 1643, and resulted in a draw, and, though the armies stood
facing each other the next day, neither of them had the heart to take
the initiative or to fight again, for, as usual in such warfare, brother
had been fighting against brother and father against son; so Essex
retired to Warwick and the king to Oxford, the only town on whose
loyalty he could depend. But to return to the battle! The prayer of Sir
Jacob Astley, the Commander of the king's foot soldiers, has been
recorded as if it were one of the chief incidents on that unhappy day,
and it was certainly admirable and remarkable, for he said, "O Lord!
Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou
forget me!" and then in place of the usual "Amen" he called out "March
on, boys!" Prince Rupert, with his dashing and furious charge, soon put
Essex's cavalry to flight, pursuing them for miles, while the right wing
was also driven back; but when the king's reserve, commanded by Sir John
Byron, saw the flight of both wings of Essex's army, they made sure that
the battle was won, and, becoming anxious for some share in the victory,
joined the others in their chase. Sir William Balfour, however, who
commanded Essex's reserve, seeing the advantage this afforded him,
wheeled about upon the Royal Infantry, now left without horse, and
dashed in amongst them, slaying right and left. Lindsay fell mortally
wounded, and was taken prisoner, and his son in trying to save him
shared the same fate, while the Royal Standard Bearer, Sir Edmund
Verney, was slain and the standard taken; but this was afterwards
recovered. When Rupert returned from his reckless chase, it looked more
like a defeat than a victory. Both armies had suffered severely, and
when Mr. Fisher, the Vicar of Kineton, was commissioned by Lord Essex to
number those killed on the side of the Parliament, he estimated them at
a little over 1,300 men, all of whom were buried in two large pits on
land belonging to what was afterwards known as Battle Farm, the
burial-places being known as the Grave Fields. As these were about
half-way between Radway and Kineton, we were quite near them when we
were lighting the fires on the sides of the road the night before, and
this may have accounted for the dreary loneliness of the road, as no one
would be likely to live on or near the fields of the dead if he could
find any more desirable place. It was at the village of Radway where
tradition stated the king and his sons breakfasted at a cottage in which
for many years afterwards the old table was shown to visitors on which
their breakfast stood, and it was on the hill near there where the
boy-princes, Charles and James, narrowly escaped being captured as they
were watching the battle that was being fought on the fields below.
We were in no hurry to leave Banbury, for we had not recovered from the
effects of our long walk of the previous day and night, and were more
inclined to saunter about the town than to push on. It is astonishing
how early remembrances cling to us in after life: we verily believed we
had come to Banbury purposely to visit its famous Cross, immortalised in
the nursery rhyme:
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady get on a white horse;
She's rings on her fingers and bells on her toes.
And she shall have music wherever she goes.
[Illustration: BANBURY CROSS.]
The rhyme must, like many others, have been of great antiquity, for the
old Cross of Banbury had been removed by the Puritans in the year 1602,
and its place taken by a much finer one, recently erected to commemorate
the marriage of the Emperor Frederick of Germany to the Princess Royal
of England. The fine lady and the white horse were also not to be found,
but we heard that the former was supposed to have been a witch, known as
the Witch of Banbury, while the white horse might have been an emblem of
the Saxons or have had some connection with the great white horse whose
gigantic figure we afterwards saw cut out in the green turf that covered
the white chalk cliffs of the Berkshire Downs. The nursery rhyme
incidentally recorded the fact that the steps at the base of the Cross
at Banbury were formerly used as a convenience to people in mounting on
the backs of their horses, and reminded us of the many isolated flights
of three or four stone steps we had seen on our travels, chiefly near
churches and public-houses and corners of streets, which had been used
for the same purpose, and pointed back to those remote times when people
rode on horseback across fields and swampy moors and along the
pack-horse roads so common in the country long before wheeled vehicles
came into common use.
We had eaten Eccles cakes in Lancashire, and Shrewsbury cakes in
Shropshire, and had walked through Scotland, which Robbie Burns had
described as--
The Land o' Cakes and brither Scots,
but we had never heard of Banbury cakes until we walked through the
streets of that town, and found that the making of these cakes formed
one of its leading industries. The cakes in Scotland were of a sterner,
plainer character than those farther south, the cakes at Banbury being
described as a mixture between a tart and a mince-pie. We purchased
some, and found them uncommonly good, so we stowed a few in our bags for
use on our way towards Oxford. This industry in Banbury is a very old
one, for the cakes are known to have been made there as far back as
1602, when the old Cross was pulled down, and are mentioned by Ben
Jonson, a great dramatist, and the friend of Shakespeare. He was Poet
Laureate from 1619, and had the honour of being buried in Westminster
Abbey. In his comedy _Bartholomew Fair_, published in 1614, he mentions
that a Banbury baker, whom he facetiously named Mr. "Zeal-of-the-Lord
Busy," had given up the making of these cakes "because they were served
at bridals and other profane feasts." This baker, we imagined, must have
been a Puritan, for from the reign of Queen Elizabeth to that of Charles
II Banbury had been noted for the large number of Puritans who lived
there, and for their religious zeal; they had even been accused of
altering the names of the staple industries of the town from "Cakes and
Ale" to "Cakes and Zeal," and were unpopular in some quarters, for
Braithwaite in his _Drunken Barnaby_ cuts at them rather savagely:
To Banbury came I, O profane one:
Where I saw a Puritane one
Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday.
[Illustration: THE PURITAN.]
The Academy at Banbury was famous as the place where Dean Swift began
to write his famous satire entitled _Travels of Lemuel Gulliver_, the
reading of which had been one of the pleasures of our schoolboy days. He
was said to have copied the name from a tombstone in the churchyard.
There were several charming old gabled houses in the town, and in "Ye
Olde Reindeere Inn" was a beautiful room called the "Globe," a name
given it from a globular chandelier which once stood near the entrance.
This room was panelled in oak now black with age, and lighted by a lofty
mullioned window extending right across the front, while the plastered
ceiling was considered to be one of the finest in the county of Oxford.
In the High Street stood a very fine old house with, three gables
erected about the year 1600, on which was placed an old sun-dial that
immediately attracted our attention, for inscribed on it appeared the
Latin words, "Aspice et abi" ("Look and Go"), which we considered as a
hint to ourselves, and as the Old Castle had been utterly demolished
after the Civil War, and the fine old Parish Church, "more like a
cathedral than a church," blown up with gunpowder in 1740 "to save the
expense of restoring it," we had no excuse for staying here any longer,
and quickly left the town on our way to Oxford.
[Illustration: THE REINDEER INN, BANBURY. (Outside the Globe Room.)]
The Latin motto "Look and Go" reminded my brother of an old timber-built
mansion in Staffordshire which, as it stood near a road, everybody
stayed to admire, its architectural proportions being so beautiful. It
was said that when the fugitive King Charles was in hiding there he was
greatly alarmed at seeing a man on the road staring stedfastly at the
house, and as he remained thus for a considerable period, the king at
last exclaimed impatiently, "Go, knave, what lookest at!" Long after the
king had departed the owner of the house caused his words to be carved
in large characters along a great beam extending in front of the
mansion, which travellers in the present day still stay to admire,
though many take the words as being meant for themselves, and move on as
we did at Banbury, but perhaps more slowly and reluctantly.
We had the valley of the River Cherwell to our left, and at Deddington
we saw the site of the old castle from which Piers Gaveston, the unlucky
favourite of Edward II, was taken by the Earl of Warwick. He had
surrendered to "Joseph the Jew," the Earl of Pembroke, at Scarborough
on condition that the barons spared his life, but Warwick said he never
agreed to that, and as Gaveston had greatly offended him by nicknaming
him the "Black Hound" or the "Black Dog," he took him to Warwick Castle
and wreaked his venegance upon him by cutting off his head.
By what we called a "forced march" we arrived at the grounds of the
famous Palace of Woodstock, and were lucky in meeting with a woodman who
took us across the park, where we had a fine view of the monument, the
lake, and the magnificent Palace of Blenheim.
[Illustration: BLENHEIM PALACE.]
Woodstock is a place full of history and in a delightful position, with
woods still surrounding it as in the days of yore, when it was the abode
of kings and a royal residence. A witenagemot, or supreme council, was
held here by King Ethelred in the year 866, and Alfred the Great pursued
his literary work here by translating the _Consolations of Boethius_,
and in the grounds he had a deer-fold. In Domesday Book it is described
as a royal forest, and Henry I had an enclosure made in the park for
lions and other wild beasts, which he surrounded by a very high wall, in
which menagerie he placed the first porcupine ever seen in England,
presented to him by William de Montpellier. The country people at that
time imagined that the quills of the porcupine were weapons which the
animal could shoot at those who hunted it. Henry II resided at the
palace with the lady of his love, the Fair Rosamond. She was the second
daughter of Walter, Lord de Clifford, who built his castle on a cliff
overlooking a ford on the River Wye at Clifford in Herefordshire, and
his daughter Rosa-mundi (the rose of the war of words ensued between him and the officer; as
we declined to open the bag, he requested us to follow him to a small
temporary police office that had been built on the side of the bridge.
Meantime a crowd of men had collected and followed us to the station;
every pane of glass in the office windows was occupied by the faces of
curious observers. The officer quite lost his temper, saying that he had
had men like us there before. We asked him to break the bag open, but he
declined to do so, and made himself very disagreeable, which caused my
brother to remark afterwards that we ought to have thrown him over the
parapet of the bridge into the river below, if only to cool his temper.
It would have pleased us to stay and fight the matter out, but we had a
friend meeting us at Buxton to accompany us on the last day's march
home, and were obliged to give in on that account; so we opened the bag,
and it was amusing to see the crestfallen appearance of the officer when
he saw the contents, and his fiery temperature almost fell below zero
when we told him we should report the matter to his chief. We heard in
the town that some of the squires on that side of Nottingham had been
troubled with poachers on their estates, and the police had orders to
examine all persons with suspicious-looking parcels coming into the
town by that road, whether by vehicles or on foot. About a fortnight
before our adventure the same policeman had stopped a man who was
carrying a similar bag to mine, and found in it a complete set of
housebreaker's tools. He had been complimented by the magistrates for
his smart capture, so possibly our reluctance to open the bag, and its
similarity to that carried by the housebreaker, had confirmed him in his
opinion that he was about to make a similar capture. Another thought,
however, that occurred to me was that the man I was walking with might
be "known to the police," as I noticed he disappeared in the crowd
immediately the officer approached. But be that as it may, we wrote to
the Chief Constable of Police at Nottingham soon after we reached home,
who replied very civilly, and said he hoped we would not proceed with
the case further, as just then the police in that neighbourhood had very
difficult duties to perform, and so the matter ended.
[Illustration: MERTON GARDENS.]
But to return to Oxford. My brother only smiled at my fears, and
remarked that being apprehended by the police would only be a small
matter compared with being taken to prison and put on the treadmill, a
position in which he boasted of having once been placed. When he
happened to mention this to a tramp on the road, I was greatly amused to
hear the tramp in a significant and confidential tone of voice quietly
ask, "What was you in for?"
He was only a small boy at the time, and had gone with our father, who
was on the jury, to the county prison. Part of the jury's business in
the interval was to inspect the arrangements there, which of course were
found in applepie order. My brother was greatly impressed by his own
importance when the man in livery at the head of the procession
repeatedly called to the crowd, "Make way for the Grand Jury!" He saw
the prisoners picking "oakum," or untwisting old ropes that had been
used in boats, tearing the strands into loose hemp to be afterwards used
in caulking the seams between the wood planks on the decks and sides of
ships, so as to make them water-tight; and as it was near the prisoners'
dinner-time, he saw the food that had been prepared for their dinner in
a great number of small tin cans with handles attached, each containing
two or three small pieces of cooked meat, which he said smelled very
savoury.
Finally they came to the treadmill, and as no prisoners were on it,
some of the jury expressed a wish to try it; one of the jurymen seeing
my brother, who was the only child present, kindly took him on and held
him by the hand. When all were in position the wheel was started slowly,
and as one step went down they mounted the next, and so on up the
stairs, but they never got to the top! The steps creaked under them as
the wheel turned slowly round, and a prison officer stood behind them
with a big stick, which he was careful not to use on any of the jurymen,
though my brother heard him say he had to use it sometimes on the
prisoners. As the wheel turned round it moved some kind of machinery
which they could not see.
[Illustration: GREAT TOM BELL, OXFORD.]
But to return to Oxford again. We were not suspected of being concerned
in the murder, nor did we venture to inquire whether the culprit had
been found, for fear that we might be suspected of being concerned in
the case; but if a police raid had been made on the Oxford Temperance
Hotel--most unlikely thing to happen--we should have been able to
produce a good record for that day, at any rate, for we attended four
different services in four different places of worship. The first was at
Christ Church, whither we had been advised to go to listen to the choir,
whose singing at that time was considered to be the best in Oxford.
Certainly the musical part of the service was all that could be desired.
There were more than twenty colleges at Oxford, and we had a busy day,
for between the services we looked through the "Quads," with their fine
gardens and beautiful lawns, hundreds of years old. In the services,
every phase of religious thought in the Church of England seemed to be
represented--the High Church, the Low Church, and the Broad Church; and
many men in all vocations and professions in life had passed through the
colleges, while valuable possessions had been bequeathed to them from
time to time, until Oxford had become a veritable storehouse of valuable
books, pictures, and relics of all kinds, and much of the history of the
British Empire seemed to have been made by men who had been educated
there. It would have taken us quite a week to see Oxford as it ought to
be seen, but we had only this one day, and that a Sunday.
[Illustration: TOM TOWER, WITH WOLSEY STATUE.]
Christ Church, where we went to our first service, one of the finest
buildings in Oxford, was founded by the great Wolsey in the reign of
Henry VIII. It contains the statue and portrait of the Cardinal, and in
the Library his Cardinal's Hat, also his Prayer Book--one of its most
valued possessions, beautifully illuminated and bound in crimson velvet
set with pearls and dated 1599. The famous bell of Christ Church, known
as the "Great Tom," weighing about 17,000 lbs., is tolled every night at
five minutes past nine o'clock--101 times, that being the original
number of the students at the college--and at its solemn sound most of
the colleges and halls closed their gates. The students were formerly
all supposed to be housed at that hour, but the custom is not now
observed--in fact, there was some doubt about it even in the time of
Dean Aldrich, the author of the well-known catch, "Hark! the bonny
Christ Church bells," published in 1673:
Hark the bonny Christ Church Bells
1 2 3 4 5 6--
They sound so wondrous great, so woundy sweet
As they trowl so merrily, merrily.
Oh! the first and second bell.
That every day at four and ten, cry,
"Come, come, come, come to prayers!"
And the verger troops before the Dean.
Tinkle, tinkle, ting, goes the small bell at nine.
To call the bearers home;
But the devil a man
Will leave his can
Till he hears the mighty Tom.
The great bell originally belonged to Oseney Abbey, and hung in the
fine cupola over the entrance gate, named after it the "Great Tom Gate,"
and had been tolled every night with one exception since May 29, 1684.
The statue of Wolsey, which now stood over the gateway, was carved by an
Oxford man named Bird in the year 1719, at the expense of Trelawny,
Bishop of Winchester, one of the seven bishops and hero of the famous
ballad--
And shall Trelawny die?
At the time of the Restoration Dr. John Fell was appointed
Vice-Chancellor, and he not only made the examinations very severe, but
he made the examiners keep up to his standard, and was cordially hated
by some of the students on that account. An epigram made about him at
that time has been handed down to posterity:
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell;
The reason why I cannot tell;
But this I know, and know full well,
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.
William Penn, the Quaker, the famous founder of the Colony of
Pennsylvania, "came up" to Christ Church in 1660, but was "sent down" in
1660 for nonconformity.
[Illustration: LEWIS CARROLL.]
But we were more interested in a modern student there, C.L. Dodgson, who
was born in 1832 at Daresbury in Cheshire, where his father was rector,
and quite near where we were born. There was a wood near his father's
rectory where he, the future "Lewis Carroll," rambled when a child,
along with other children, and where it was thought he got the first
inspirations that matured in his famous book _The Adventures of Alice in
Wonderland_, which was published in 1865--one of the most delightful
books for children ever written. We were acquainted with a clergyman who
told us that it was the greatest pleasure of his life to have known
"Lewis Carroll" at Oxford, and that Queen Victoria was so delighted with
Dodgson's book _Alice in Wonderland_, that she commanded him if ever he
wrote another book to dedicate it to her. Lewis Carroll was at that time
engaged on a rather abstruse work on _Conic Sections_, which, when
completed and published, duly appeared as "Dedicated by express command
to Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria." The appearance of this
book caused some surprise and amusement, as it was not known that the
Queen was particularly interested in _Conic Sections_. No doubt Her
Majesty anticipated, when she gave him the command personally, that his
next book would be a companion to the immortal _Alice_.
Our friend the vicar, who told us this story, rather surprised us when
he said that Lewis Carroll did not like the sea, and had written a "Sea
Dirge," which, when recited at parochial entertainments, generally
brought "down the house" at the conclusion of the ninth verse:
A SEA DIRGE
There are some things like a spider, a ghost.
The income tax, the gout, an umbrella for three.
That I hate, but the thing I hate the most,
Is a thing they call the sea.
Pour some salt water over the floor.
Ugly I'm sure you'll allow that to be,
Suppose it extended a mile or more,
That would be like the sea.
Beat a dog till it howls outright--
Cruel, but all very well for a spree;
Suppose it did so day and night,
That would be like the sea.
I had a vision of nursery maids,
Tens of thousands passed by me,
Each carrying children with wooden spades,
And that was by the sea.
Who could have invented those spades of wood?
Who was it that cut them out of the tree?
None, I think, but an idiot could--
Or one who loved the sea.
It is pleasant and dreamy, no doubt to float
With thoughts as boundless and souls as free,
But suppose you are very unwell in the boat--
Then how do you like the sea?
Would you like coffee with sand for dregs?
A decided hint of salt in your tea?
And a fishy taste in the very eggs?
Then by all means choose the sea.
And if with such dainties to drink and eat
You prefer not a vestige of grass or a tree,
And a chronic condition of wet in your feet,
Then--I recommend the sea.
There is an animal people avoid.
Whence is derived the verb to flee,
Where have you been by it most annoyed?
In lodgings by the sea.
Once I met with a friend in the street,
With wife and nurse and children three;
Never again such a sight may I meet,
As that party from the sea.
Their looks were sullen, their steps were slow,
Convicted felons they seemed to be,--
"Are you going to prison, dear friend?"--"Oh no;
We're returning from the sea!"
[Illustration: GUY FAWKES'S LANTERN.]
Every college had some legend or story connected with it, and University
College claimed to have been founded by King Alfred the Great, but this
is considered a myth; King Alfred's jewel, however, a fine specimen of
Saxon work in gold and crystal, found in the Isle of Athelney, was still
preserved in Oxford. Guy Fawkes's lantern and the sword given to Henry
VIII as Defender of the Faith were amongst the curios in the Bodleian
Library, but afterwards transferred to the Ashmolean Museum, which
claimed to be the earliest public collection of curiosities in England,
the first contributions made to it having been given in 1682 by Elias
Ashmole, of whom we had heard when passing through Lichfield. In the
eighteenth century there was a tutor named Scott who delivered a series
of lectures on Ancient History, which were considered to be the finest
ever known, but he could never be induced to publish them. In one of his
lectures he wished to explain that the Greeks had no chimneys to their
houses, and created much amusement by explaining it in his scholarly and
roundabout fashion: "The Greeks had no convenience by which the volatile
parts of fire could be conveyed into the open air." This tutor was a
friend of the great Dr. Johnson, and seemed to have been quite an
original character, for when his brother, John Scott, who was one of his
own pupils, came up for examination for his degree in Hebrew and
History, the only questions he put to him were, "What is the Hebrew for
skull?" to which John promptly replied "Golgotha," and "Who founded
University College?" to which his reply was "King Alfred!" Both the
brothers were very clever men, and the tutor developed into Lord
Stowell, while the pupil was created Lord Eldon.
[Illustration: THE QUADRANGLE, JESUS COLLEGE.]
Jesus, the Welsh College, possessed an enormous silver punch-bowl, 5
feet 2 inches in girth, which was presented in 1732 by the great Sir
Watkin Williams-Wynn, who was known as the King _in_ Wales. Over his
great kitchen mantelpiece there he had the words "Waste not, want not,"
a motto which did not appear to apply to the punchbowl, for the
conditions attached to it were that it was to become the property of him
who could span it with his arms and then drain the bowl empty after it
had been filled with strong punch. The first condition had been complied
with, and the second no doubt had been often attempted, but no one had
yet appeared who had a head strong enough to drain the bowl without
assistance, so it still remained the property of the College!
[Illustration: "MAY MORNING": THE CHOIR ON THE TOWER.]
Magdalen College--or Maudlen, as they pronounced it at Oxford--as easily
distinguished from the others by its fine tower, rising to the height of
145 feet, the building of which dates from the end of the fifteenth
century. We took a greater interest in that college because the rector
of Grappenhall in Cheshire, where we were born, had been educated there.
An ancient May-day custom is still observed by the college, called the
"Magdalen Grace" or the "May Morning Hymn," this very old custom having
been retained at Magdalen long after others disappeared. On May-day
morning the choristers ascend to the top of the great tower and enter
the portion railed off for them and other men who join in the singing,
while the remainder of the space is reserved for members of the
University, and other privileged persons admitted by ticket. They wait
until the bell has sounded the last stroke of five o'clock, and then
sing in Latin that fine old hymn to the Trinity, beginning with the
words:
Te Deum patrem colimus.
My brother, however, was sure our rector could never have sung that
hymn, since in cases of emergency he always appealed to him to start the
singing in the Sunday school--for although a very worthy man in other
respects, he was decidedly not musical.
Among the great Magdalen men of the past are the names of Cardinal
Wolsey, Cardinal Reginald Pole, Addison, Gibbon, Collins, Wilson, John
Hampden, and John Foxe, author of the _Book of Martyrs_. The
ecclesiastical students included two cardinals, four archbishops, and
about forty bishops; and my brother would have added to the Roll of
Honour the name of our rector, the Rev. Thomas Greenall, as that of a
man who conscientiously tried to do his duty and whom he held in lasting
remembrance.
[Illustration: AN OXFORDSHIRE FARM.]
There was a kind of haze hanging over Oxford, which gave me the
impression that the atmosphere of the neighbourhood was rather damp,
though my brother tried to persuade me it was the mist of antiquity; but
when I found the rivers Thames (or Isis) and the Cherwell encircled the
city on three sides, and that its name was derived from a passage over
which oxen could cross the water, and when I saw the stiff clay of the
brickfields, I was confirmed in my opinion.
[Illustration: HINKSEY STREAM.]
As early as the year 726 a prince named Didan settled at Oxford, and his
wife Saxfrida built a nunnery there for her daughter Frideswyde, so that
she could "take the veil" in her own church. As she was considered the
"flower of all these parts," we could not understand why this was
necessary, especially as she was sought in marriage by Algar, King of
Leicester, described as "a young and spritely prince," and who was so
persistent that he would not accept her refusal, actually sending
"ambassadors" to carry her away. These men, however, when they
approached her were smitten with blindness; and when Frideswyde saw that
she would not be safe in "her own church" nor able to remain in peace
there, she fled into the woods and hid herself in a place that had been
made as a shelter for the swine. King Algar was greatly enraged, and,
breathing out fire and sword, set out for Oxford. As he still pursued
her, he too was smitten with blindness; and she then returned, but did
not live long, as she died in 739. St. Frideswide's Chapel was said to
have been built over her shrine, around which Oxford, the "City of the
Spires," had extended to its present proportions.
Oxford is also mentioned in A.D. 912 in the _Saxon Chronicle_, and
Richard Coeur de Lion, the great Crusader, was born there in 1156, and
often made it his home. The city was besieged on three different
occasions--by Sweyne, the King of Denmark, in 1013, by William the
Conqueror in 1067, and by Fairfax in 1646--for it was one of the King's
great strongholds.
EIGHTH WEEK'S JOURNEY
_Monday, November 6th._
We had been very comfortable at our hotel, where I had spent a very
pleasant birthday at Oxford, and was sorry that we could not stay
another day. But the winter was within measurable distance, with its
short days and long dark nights, and we could no longer rely upon the
moon to lighten our way, for it had already reached its last quarter. We
therefore left Oxford early in the morning by the Abingdon Road, and
soon reached the southern entrance to the city, where in former days
stood the famous tower from which Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, and who
was one of the great pioneers in science and philosophy, was said to
have studied the heavens; it was shown to visitors as "Friar Bacon's
study."
[Illustration: FRIAR BACON'S STUDY, FOLLEY BRIDGE, OXFORD.]
A strange story was told relating to that wonderful man, from which it
appeared he had formed the acquaintance of a spirit, who told him that
if he could make a head of brass in one month, so that it could speak
during the next month, he would be able to surround England with a wall
of brass, and thus protect his country from her enemies. Roger Bacon, on
hearing this, at once set to work, and with the aid of another
philosopher and a demon the head was made; but as it was uncertain at
what time during the next month it would speak, it was necessary to
watch it. The two philosophers, therefore, watched it night and day for
three weeks, and then, getting tired, Bacon ordered his man Myles to
watch, and waken him when it spoke. About half an hour after they had
retired the head spoke, and said, "Time is," but Myles thought it was
too early to tell his master, as he could not have had sleep enough. In
another half-hour the head spoke again, and said, "Time was," but as
everybody knew that, he still did not think fit to waken his master, and
then half an hour afterwards the head said, "Time is past," and fell
down with a tremendous crash that woke the philosophers: but it was now
too late! What happened afterwards, and what became of Myles, we did not
know.
In the neighbouring village of North Hinksey, about a mile across the
meadows, stands the Witches' Elm. Of the Haunted House beside which it
stood hardly even a trace remained, its origin, like its legend,
stretching so far back into the "mists of antiquity" that only the
slenderest threads remained. Most of the villages were owned by the
monks of Abingdon Abbey under a grant of the Saxon King Caedwalla, and
confirmed to them by Caenwulf and Edwig. The Haunted House, like the
Church of Cumnor, was built by the pious monks, and remained in their
possession till the dissolution of the monastery, then passing into the
hands of the Earls of Abingdon.
[Illustration: THE WITCHES' ELM.]
The last tenant of the old house was one Mark Scraggs, or Scroggs, a
solitary miser who, the story goes, sold himself to the Devil, one of
the features of the compact being that he should provide for the wants
of three wise women, or witches, who on their part were to assist him in
carrying out his schemes and make them successful. In everything he
seemed to prosper, and accumulated great hoards of wealth, but he had
not a soul in the world to leave it to or to regret his leaving in spite
of his wealth.
At length the time approached when his terrible master would claim him
body and soul, but Scraggs worked out a scheme for evading his bond, and
for a time successfully kept Satan at bay and disposed of the three
witches by imprisoning them in a hollow tree close by, on which he cast
a spell which prevented them from communicating with their master the
evil one, or enabling him to find them. This spell was so successful
that Scraggs soon felt himself secure, but one day, venturing beyond the
charmed circle, he was immediately seized by the Devil, who attempted to
carry him off by way of the chimney, but failed, as the shaft was not
sufficiently wide for the passage of the man's body. In the struggle the
chimney was twisted in the upper part, and remained so till its total
destruction, while Satan, rinding he could not carry off his body, tore
him asunder, and carried off his soul, dashing the mutilated remains of
the miser upon the hearth beneath. The death of Scraggs dissolved the
spell which bound the witches, and their release split the tree in which
they were confined from the ground to the topmost branch.
The great uproar of this Satanic struggle aroused the neighbourhood, and
the miser's body, when it was discovered, was buried beneath the wall of
the church--neither inside nor outside the sacred edifice. Ever
afterwards the house was haunted by the apparition of old Scraggs
searching for his lost soul with groans and hideous cries, until at last
the old mansion was pulled down and its very stones were removed.
The old shattered and knarled elm alone remained to keep alive the
legend of this evil compact. The story, improbable as it may appear, no
doubt contained, as most of these stories do, the element of fact.
Possibly the old man was a miser who possessed wealth enough to become
the source of envy by some interested relations. Perhaps he was brutally
murdered, perhaps, too, the night of the deed may have been wild with
thunder and lightning raging in the sky. Probably the weird story, with
all its improbable trappings, was circulated by some one who knew the
truth, but who was interested in concealing it. Who knows?
[Illlustration: HINKSEY, AN OXFORDSHIRE VILLAGE IN WHICH THE ROAD WAS
CONSTRUCTED BY RUSKIN AND A BAND OF OXFORD STUDENTS.]
We were now passing through scenes and pastures, quiet fields and farms,
of which many of Oxford's famous students and scholars had written and
sung. Matthew Arnold had painted these fields and villages, hills and
gliding, reedy streams in some of his poems, and they were the objective
of many of his Rambles:
Hills where Arnold wander'd and all sweet
June meadows, from the troubling world withdrawn.
Here too in one of these small hamlets through which we passed Ruskin
with a gang of his pupils in flannels started roadmaking, and for days
and weeks were to be seen at their arduous task of digging and
excavation, toiling and moiling with pick, spade, and barrow, while
Ruskin stood by, applauding and encouraging them in their task of making
and beautifying the roads of these villages which he loved so well.
[Illustration: THE SCENE OF THE DIGGING OPERATIONS.]
This experiment was undertaken by Ruskin as a practical piece of
serviceable manual labour, for Ruskin taught in his lectures that the
Fine Arts required, as a necessary condition of their perfection, a
happy country life with manual labour as an equally necessary part of a
completely healthy and rounded human existence, and in this experiment
he practised what he preached. The experiment caused no little stir in
Oxford, and even the London newspapers had their gibe at the "Amateur
Navvies of Oxford"; to walk over to Hinksey and laugh at the diggers was
a fashionable afternoon amusement.
The "Hinksey diggings," as they were humorously called, were taken up
with an enthusiasm which burned so fiercely that it soon expended
itself, and its last flickering embers were soon extinguished by the
ironic chaff and banter to which these gilded youths were subjected.
The owner of the estate sent his surveyor to report the condition of the
road as they had left it, and it is said that in his report he wrote:
"The young men have done no mischief to speak of."
The River Thames, over which we now crossed, is known in Oxford as the
"Isis," the name of an Egyptian goddess--though in reality only an
abbreviated form of the Latin name Tamesis. As the Thames here forms the
boundary of Oxfordshire, we were in Berkshire immediately we crossed the
bridge. We followed the course of the river until we reached Kennington,
where it divides and encloses an island named the Rose Isle, a favourite
resort of boating parties from Oxford and elsewhere. It was quite a
lovely neighbourhood, and we had a nice walk through Bagley Woods, to
the pretty village of Sunningwell, where we again heard of Roger Bacon,
for he occasionally used the church tower there for his astronomical and
astrological observations. He must have been an enormously clever man,
and on that account was known as an alchemist and a sorcerer; he was
credited with the invention of gunpowder, and the air-pump, and with
being acquainted with the principle of the telescope. In the time of
Queen Mary, Dr. Jewel was the rector of Sunningwell, but had to vacate
it to escape persecution; while in the time of the Civil War Dr. Samuel
Fell, then Dean of Christ Church, and father of John Fell, was rector.
He died from shock in 1649 when told the news that his old master, King
Charles, had been executed. He was succeeded as Dean by John Fell, his
son.
[Illustration: SUNNINGWELL CHURCH.]
[Illustration: SUNNINGWELL, BISHOP JEWELL'S PORCH.]
[Illustration: ABBEY GATE, ABINGDON, SHOWING ALL THAT NOW REMAINS OF THE
ABBEY.]
We soon arrived at Abingdon, and were delighted with the view of the
town, with its church spire overlooking it as we approached to the side
of the Thames, which now appeared as a good-sized river. As we stopped a
minute or two on the bridge, my brother got a distant view of some
pleasure boats, and suggested we should stay there for the rest of the
day, to explore the town, and row up and down the river! He had
evidently fallen in love with Abingdon, but I reminded him that our
travelling orders were not to ride in any kind of conveyance during the
whole of our journey, and that, if we got drowned, we should never get
to the Land's End, "besides," I added, "we have not had our breakfast."
This finished him off altogether, and the pleasure-boat scheme vanished
immediately we entered the portals of a fine old hostelry, where the
smell of bacon and eggs recalled him from his day dreams. We handed our
luggage to the boots to take care of, and walked into the coffee-room,
where to our surprise we found breakfast set for two, and the waitress
standing beside it. When we told her how glad we were to find she had
anticipated our arrival, she said that the bacon and eggs on the table
were not prepared for us, but for two other visitors who had not come
downstairs at the appointed time. She seemed rather vexed, as the
breakfast was getting cold, and said we had better sit down to it, and
she would order another lot to be got ready and run the risk. So we
began operations at once, but felt rather guilty on the appearance of a
lady and gentleman when very little of the bacon and eggs intended for
them remained. The waitress had, however, relieved the situation by
setting some empty crockery on another table. Having satisfied our
requirements, we tipped the waitress handsomely while paying the bill,
and vanished to explore the town. We were captivated with the appearance
of Abingdon, which had quite a different look from many of the towns we
had visited elsewhere; but perhaps our good opinion had been enhanced by
the substantial breakfast we had disposed of, and the splendid appetites
which enabled us to enjoy it. There were other good old-fashioned inns
in the town, and a man named William Honey had at one time been the
landlord of one of the smaller ones, where he had adopted as his sign a
bee-hive, on which he had left the following record:
Within this Hive we're all alive,
Good Liquor makes us funny;
If you are dry, step in and try
The flavour of our Honey.
The early history of Abingdon-on-Thames appeared, like others, to have
begun with that of a lady who built a nunnery. Cilia was the name of
this particular lady, and afterwards Hean, her brother, built a
monastery, or an abbey, the most substantial remains of which appeared
to be the abbey gateway; but as the abbey had existed in one form or
another from the year 675 down to the time of Henry VIII, when it was
dissolved, in 1538, Abingdon must have been a place of considerable
antiquity. St. Nicholas's Church was mentioned in documents connected
with the abbey as early as 1189, and some of its windows contained old
stained glass formerly belonging to it, and said to represent the patron
saint of the church restoring to life some children who had been
mutilated and pickled by the devil. There was also a fine old tomb which
contained the remains of John Blacknall and Jane his wife, who appeared
to have died simultaneously, or, as recorded, "at one instant time at
the house within the site of the dissolved monastery of the Blessed
Virgin Marie, of Abingdon, whereof he was owner." The following was the
curious inscription on the tomb:
Here rest in assurance of a joyful resurrection the Bodies of John
Blacknall, Esquire, and his wife, who both of them finished an happy
course upon earth and ended their days in peace on the 21st day of
August in the year of our Lord 1625. He was a bountiful benefactor of
this Church--gave many benevolencies to the poor--to the Glory of
God--to the example of future ages:
When once they liv'd on earth one bed did hold
Their Bodies, which one minute turned to mould;
Being dead, one Grave is trusted with the prize,
Until that trump doth sound and all must rise;
Here death's stroke even did not part this pair,
But by this stroke they more united were;
And what left they behind you plainly see,
An only daughter, and their charitie.
And though the first by death's command did leave us,
The second we are sure will ne'er deceive us.
This church, however, was very small compared with its larger neighbour
dedicated to St. Helen, which claims to be one of the four churches in
England possessing five aisles, probably accounting for the fact that
its breadth exceeded its length by about eleven feet. The oldest aisle
dates from the year 1182, and the church contains many fine brasses and
tombs, including one dated 1571, of John Roysse, citizen and mercer of
London, who founded the Abingdon Grammar School. There is also a stone
altar-tomb in memory of Richard Curtaine, who died in 1643, and who was
described as "principalle magistrate of this Corpe"; on the tomb was
this charming verse in old English lettering:
Our Curtaine in this lower press.
Rests folded up in nature's dress;
His dust P.fumes his urne, and hee
This towne with liberalitee.
Abingdon is fortunate in having so many benefactors, who seem to have
vied with each other in the extent of their gifts; even the church
itself is almost surrounded with almshouses, which, owing to their
quaint architectural beauty, form a great attraction to visitors. It is
doubtful whether any town in England of equal size possesses so many
almshouses as Abingdon. Those near this church were built in the year
1446 by the Fraternity or Guild of the Holy Cross, and the fine old
hospital which adjoined them, with its ancient wooden cloisters and
gabled doorways and porch, was a sight well worth seeing. The hall or
chapel was hung with painted portraits of its benefactors, including
that of King Edward VI, who granted the Charter for the hospital. This
Guild of the Holy Cross assisted to build the bridges and set up in the
market-place the famous Abingdon Cross, which was 45 feet high. Standing
upon eight steps, this cross had "eight panels in the first storey and
six in the second; of stone, gilt and garnished, adorned with statuary
and coats of arms, a mightily goodly cross of stone with fair degrees
and imagerie." The design of the Abingdon Cross had been copied for
other crosses, including, it was said, portions of those of Coventry and
Canterbury; and it must have been of extraordinary beauty, for Elias
Ashmole, who was likely to know, declared that it was not inferior in
workmanship and design to any other in England. The cross was restored
in 1605, but when the army of the Parliament occupied the town in 1644,
it was "sawed down" by General Waller as "a superstitious edifice." The
Chamberlain's Accounts for that year contained an entry of money paid
"to Edward Hucks for carrying away the stones from the cross."
[Illustrr away. The third verse in the ballad referred to it as:
The Blewin Stun, in days gone by,
Wur King Alfred's bugle harn,
And the tharn tree you med plainly zee.
As is called King Alfred's tharn!
The thorn tree marked the spot where the rival armies met--the pagans
posted on the hill, and the Christians meeting them from below--it was
through the great victory won on that occasion that England became a
Christian nation.
We were now in "King Alfred's country," for he was born at Wantage in
849, but his palace, if ever he had one, and the thorn tree were things
of the past, and what traces there were of him in the town were very
scant. There were King Arthur's Well and King Arthur's Bath; the most
substantial building bearing his name was the "King Alfred's Head Inn,"
where we called for light refreshments, and where in former years the
stage-coaches plying between Oxford and London stopped to change horses.
Wantage must have been a place of some importance in ancient times, as a
Witenagemote was held there in the year 990 in the time of Ethelred, at
which the tolls were fixed for boats sailing along the Thames for
Billingsgate Market in London.
[Illustration: WANTAGE MARKET-PLACE.]
There were several old inns in the town, and many of the streets were
paved with cobble-stones. Tanning at one time had been the staple
industry, a curious relic of which was left in the shape of a small
pavement composed of knuckle-bones. Early in the century the town had an
evil reputation as the abode of coiners, and when a man was "wanted" by
the police in London, the Bow Street runners always came to search for
him at Wantage.
We had now to climb to the top of the downs, and after about two miles,
nearly all uphill, reached the fine old Roman camp of Segsbury, where
we crossed the Icknield Way, known locally as the Rudge or the
Ridge-way--possibly because it followed the ridge or summit of the
downs. It had every appearance of having been a military road from one
camp to another, for it continued straight from Segsbury Camp to the
Roman camp on the White Horse Hill, about six miles distant. The "Rudge"
was now covered with turf, and would have been a pleasant road to walk
along; but our way lay in another direction along a very lonely road,
where we saw very few people and still fewer houses.
It was quite dark when we crossed the small River Lambourn at the
village of West Shefford, and after a further walk of about six miles we
arrived at the town of Hungerford, where we stayed the night. What a
strange effect these lonely walks had upon us when they extended from
one centre of population to another! We could remember the persons and
places at either end, but the intervening space seemed like a dream or
as if we had been out of the world for the time being, and only
recovered consciousness when we arrived at our destination and again
heard the sounds of human voices other than our own.
The origin of the name Hungerford appeared to have been lost in
obscurity. According to one gentleman, whose interesting record we
afterwards saw, it "has been an etymological puzzle to the topographer
and local antiquarian, who have left the matter in the same uncertainty
in which they found it"; but if he had accompanied us in our walk that
day across those desolate downs, and felt the pangs of hunger as we did,
mile after mile in the dark, he would have sought for no other
derivation of the name Hungerford, and could have found ample
corroboration by following us into the coffee-room of the "Bear Hotel"
that night. We were very hungry.
(_Distance walked thirty miles_.)
_Tuesday, November 7th._
The "Bear Inn" at Hungerford, standing as it did on the great coach road
from London to the West, had been associated with stirring scenes. It
was there that a gentleman who had fallen ill while travelling by the
stage-coach had died, and was buried in the churchyard at Hungerford,
with the following inscription on his gravestone:
Here are deposited the remains of William Greatrake, Esqr., native of
Ireland, who on his way from Bristol to London, died in this town in the
52nd year of his age, on the 2nd August 1781
_Stat nominis umbra_
In the year 1769, some remarkably able and vigorous political letters
signed "Junius" appeared in the London _Public Advertiser_. They were so
cleverly written that all who read them wanted to know the author, but
failed to find out who he was. Afterwards they were published in book
form, entitled _The Letters of Junius_: in our early days the author of
these letters was still unknown, and even at the time of our walk the
matter was one of the mysteries of the literary world. The authorship of
_The Letters of Junius_ was one of the romances of literature. Whoever
he was, he must have been in communication with the leading political
people of his day, and further, he must have been aware of the search
that was being made for him, for he wrote in one of his letters, "If I
am a vain man, my gratification lies within a narrow circle. I am the
sole depository of my own secret; and it shall perish with me."
Controversy was still going on about the _Letters of Junius_, for early
in the year of our walk, 1871, a book was published entitled _The
Handwriting of Junius Professionally Investigated by Mr. Charles Chabot,
Expert_, the object being to prove that Sir Phillip Francis was the
author of the famous Letters. The publication of this book, however,
caused an article to be written in the _Times_ of May 22nd, 1871, to
show that the case was "not proven" by Mr. Chabot, for William Pitt, the
great Prime Minister, told Lord Aberdeen that he knew who wrote the
Junius Letters, and that it was not Francis; and Lady Grenville sent a
letter to the editor of _Diaries of a Lady of Quality_ to the same
effect.
While Mr. Greatrake was lying ill at the "Bear Inn" he was visited by
many political contemporaries, including the notorious John Wilkes, who,
born in 1729, had been expelled three times from the House of Commons
when Member for Middlesex; but so popular was he with the common people,
whose cause he had espoused, that they re-elected him each time. So "the
powers that be" had to give way, and he was elected Alderman, then
Sheriff, and then Lord Mayor of London, and when he died, in 1797, was
Chamberlain of London. Mr. Greatrake was born in County Cork, Ireland,
about the year 1725, and was a great friend of Lord Sherburn, who
afterwards became Prime Minister, in which capacity he had to
acknowledge the independence of the United States, and was eventually
created Marquis of Lansdowne. Mr. Greatrake was known to have been an
inmate of his lordship's house when the letters were being published,
and the motto on them was _Stat nominis umbra_--the words which appeared
on the tomb of Mr. Greatrake; and his autograph bore a stronger
resemblance than any other to that of Junius; so what was a secret in
his lifetime was probably revealed in that indirect way after his death.
The old church of Hungerford had fallen down, and a new one was built,
and opened in the year 1816, the ancient monument of the founder, Sir
Robert de Hungerford, being transferred to the new church--though, as
usual, in a damaged condition. It dated from 1325, and had been somewhat
mutilated in the time of the Civil War. The inscription over it in
Norman-French almost amounted to an absolution or remission of sins, for
it promised, on the word of fourteen bishops, that whoever should pray
for the soul of Sir Robert de Hungerford should have during his life,
and for his soul after his death, 550 days of pardon.
The list of the vicars of Hungerford showed that most of them for some
reason or other--my brother suggested hunger--had served for very short
periods, but there was one notable exception--the Rev. William Cookson,
son of William Cookson of Tomsett, Norfolk, doctor, who held the living
for the long term of forty-eight years (1818-1866).
The constables of Hungerford were elected annually, and the extracts
from their accounts were very interesting, as references were made to
instruments of torture: "Cucking stoole, Pilliry, Stocks, and a
Whippinge Post," the last-named having been most extensively used, for
the constables had to whip all wandering tramps and vagrants "by
stripping them naked from the middle upwards, and causing them to be
lashed until their bodies be bloody, in the presence of the Minister of
the Parish, or some other inhabitant, and then to send them away to
place of birth!" Women were stripped as well as men, and in 1692 the
town Serjeant had even to whip a poor blind woman. The whipping of
females was stopped by statute in 1791. As Hungerford was on one of the
main roads, many people passed through there, and in 1678 the whippings
were so numerous that John Savidge, the town Serjeant, was given a
special honorarium of five shillings "for his extraordinary paines this
year and whippinge of severall persons."
Prince William with his Dutch troops halted at Hungerford on December
8th, 1688, on his way from Torbay to London, where, three days
afterwards, he was proclaimed King William III. He was armed on his back
and breast, and wore a white plume, and rode on a white charger,
surrounded by nobles bearing his banner, on which were the words:
THE PROTESTANT RELIGION AND THE LIBERTY OF ENGLAND.
We were now practically at the end of Berkshire, and perhaps the River
Kennett, over which we passed, and on which John o' Gaunt of Lancaster
had given free fishery rights to Hungerford town, might have formed the
boundary between that county and Wiltshire. We could not hear of any
direct road to Stonehenge, so we left Hungerford by the Marlborough road
with the intention of passing through Savernake Forest---said to be the
finest forest in England, and to contain an avenue of fine beech trees,
in the shape of a Gothic archway, five miles long. The forest was about
sixteen miles in circumference, and in the centre was a point from which
eight roads diverged. We had walked about a mile on our way when we came
to some men working on the roads, who knew the country well, and
strongly advised us not to cross the forest, but to walk over the downs
instead. We decided to follow their advice, for the difficulty that
first occurred to us was that when we got to the eight roads there might
be no one there to direct us on our further way; and we quite saw the
force of the remark of one of the men when he said it was far better to
get lost on the down, where we could see for miles, than amongst the
bushes and trees in the forest. They could only give us general
information about the best way to get to Stonehenge, for it was a long
way off, but when we got to the downs we must keep the big hill well to
the left, and we should find plenty of roads leading across them. We
travelled as directed, and found that the "big hill" was the Inkpen
Beacon, over a thousand feet above sea-level, and the highest chalk down
cliff in England; while the "plenty of roads" were more in the nature of
unfenced tracks; still, we were fortunate in finding one leading in the
right direction for Stonehenge and almost straight.
The Marlborough Downs which adjoined Salisbury Plain are very extensive,
occupying together three-fifths of the county of Wilts, being accurately
described as "ranges of undulating chalk cliffs almost devoid of trees,
and devoted almost exclusively to the pasturage of sheep from remote
ages." These animals, our only companions for miles, can live almost
without water, which is naturally very scarce on chalk formations, since
the rain when it falls is absorbed almost immediately. Very few
shepherds were visible, but there must have been some about, for every
now and then their dogs paid us rather more attention than we cared for,
especially my brother, who when a small boy had been bitten by one,
since which time not much love had been lost between him and dogs. As
there were no fences to the roads, we walked on the grass, which was
only about an inch deep. Sheep had been pastured on it from time
immemorial, and the constant biting of the surface had encouraged the
side, or undergrowth, which made our walking easy and pleasant; for it
was like walking on a heavy Turkey carpet though much more springy. The
absence of trees and bushes enabled us to distinguish the presence of
ancient earth-works, but whether they were prehistoric, Roman, Dane, or
Saxon we did not know. Occasionally we came to sections of the downs
that were being brought under cultivation, the farms appearing very
large. In one place we saw four ploughs at work each with three horses,
while the farmer was riding about on horseback. We inquired about the
wages from one of the farm hands, who told us the
Shepherd of Salisbury Plain." We found he was not a mythical being, for
David Saunders, the shepherd referred to, was a real character, noted
for his homely wisdom and practical piety, and, as Mrs. More described
him, was quite a Christian Hero. He resided at Great Cherwell, near
Lavington, where his house was still pointed out to visitors. A typical
shepherd of Salisbury Plain was afterwards pictured by another lady, and
described as "wearing a long black cloak falling from neck to heels, a
round felt hat, like a Hermes cap without the wings to it, and sometimes
a blue milk-wort or a yellow hawk-weed in the brim, and walking with his
plume-tailed dog in front leading his sheep, as was customary in the
East and as described in the Scriptures--"the sheep follow him, for they
know his voice."
We did not see one answering to that description as we crossed the
Plain, but no doubt there were such shepherds to be found.
The sky had been overcast that day, and it was gloomy and cloudy when we
reached Stonehenge. Without a house or human being in sight, the utter
loneliness of the situation seemed to add to our feelings of wonder and
awe, as we gazed upon these gigantic stones, the remains of prehistoric
ages in England. We had passed through the circles of stones known as
the "Standing Stones of Stenness" when we were crossing the mainland of
the Orkney Islands on our way to John o' Groat's, but the stones we now
saw before us were much larger. There had been two circles of stones at
Stonehenge, one inside the other, and there was a stone that was
supposed to have been the sacrificial stone, with a narrow channel in it
to carry off the blood of the human victims slain by the Druids. In that
desolate solitude we could almost imagine we could see the priests as
they had been described, robed in white, with oak crowns on their heads,
and the egg of a mythical serpent round their necks; we could hear the
cries and groans of the victims as they were offered up in sacrifice to
the serpent, and to Bel (the sun). Tacitus said they held it right to
stain their altars with the blood of prisoners taken in war, and to seek
to know the mind of the gods from the fibres of human victims. One very
large stone outside the circles was called the "Friar's Heel," the
legend stating that when the devil was busy erecting Stonehenge he made
the observation to himself that no one would ever know how it had been
done. This remark was overheard by a friar who was hiding amongst the
stones, and he replied in the Wiltshire dialect, "That's more than thee
can tell," at which the devil took up a big stone to throw at him, but
he ran away as fast as he could, so that the stone only just grazed his
heel, at the place where it now stands.
[Illustration: DRUIDICAL REMAINS, STONEHENGE.]
We walked about these great stones wondering how they could have been
raised upright in those remote times, and how the large stones could
have been got into position, laid flat on the tops of the others. Many
of the stones had fallen down, and others were leaning over, but when
complete they must have looked like a circle of open doorways. The
larger stones, we afterwards learned, were Sarsen Stones or Grey
Wethers, of a siliceous sandstone, and were natural to the district, but
the smaller ones, which were named the blue stones, were quite of a
different character, and must have been brought from a considerable
distance. If the ancient Welsh story could be believed, the blue stones
were brought over in ships from Ireland after an invasion of that
country under the direction of Merlin the Wizard, and were supposed to
be mystical stones with a medicinal value. As to the time of the
erection of these stones, we both agreed to relegate the matter to the
mists of antiquity. Some thought that because Vespasian's Camp was on
Amesbury Hill, Stonehenge might have been built by the Romans in the
time of Agricola, but others, judging perhaps from the ancient tombs in
the neighbourhood, thought it might date backwards as far as 2,000 years
B.C. Nearly all agreed that it was a temple of the worshippers of the
sun and might even have been erected by the Phoenicians, who must have
known how the Egyptians raised much heavier stones than these. By some
Stonehenge wace, and the only industry that
we could hear of that ever existed there was the manufacture of tobacco
pipes branded with a gauntlet, the name of the maker. We had a lonely
walk, and about two miles from Salisbury saw to the right the outline of
a small hill which turned out to be Old Sarum, a name that figured on
the mileposts for many miles round Salisbury, being the ancient and
Roman name for that city. Old cities tend to be on hills, for defence,
but modern equivalents occur in the valley below, representative of
peace conditions and easy travelling for commercial purposes. It was
now, however, only a lofty grass mound, conical in shape and about a
hundred feet high. It was of great antiquity, for round about it stood
at one time one of the most important cities in the south of England,
after the prehistoric age the Sorbiodunum of the Romans, and the
Sarisberie of the Domesday Book. Cynric captured it by a victory over
the Britons in 552, and in 960 Edgar held a Council there. Sweyn and the
Danes pillaged and burnt it in 1003, and afterwards Editha, the Queen of
Edward the Confessor, established a convent of nuns there. It was made
an Episcopal See in 1072, and twenty years afterwards Bishop Osmond, a
kinsman of William the Conqueror, completed the building of the
cathedral. It was in 1076 that William, as the closing act of his
Conquest, reviewed his victorious army in the plain below; and in 1086,
a year before his death, he assembled there all the chief landowners in
the realm to swear that "whose men soever they were they would be
faithful to him against all other men," by which "England was ever
afterwards an individual kingdom." In course of time the population
increased to such an extent round the old mound that they were short of
room, and the soldiers and the priests began to quarrel, or, as an old
writer described it, "the souldiers of the Castell and chanons of Old
Sarum fell at odds, inasmuch that often after brawles they fell at last
to sadde blowes and the Cleargie feared any more to gang their boundes.
Hereupon the people missing their belly-chere, for they were wont to
have banketing at every station, a thing practised by the religious in
old tyme, they conceived forthwith a deadly hatred against the
Castellans." The quarrel ended in the removal of the cathedral to the
plain below, where Salisbury now stands, and the glory of Old Sarum
departed. As far back as the time of Henry VIII the place became utterly
desolate, and it was interesting to read what visitors in after times
had written about it.
[Illustration: OLD SARUM: BASE OF THE LOOK-OUT TOWER.]
John Leland, who was born in 1506 and was chaplain to Henry VIII, made a
tour of the kingdom, and wrote in his well-known _Itinerary_, "Their is
not one house, neither within or without Old Saresbyri inhabited. Much
notable minus building of the Castell yet remayneth. The diche that
envirined the old town was a very deepe and strong thynge." Samuel
Pepys, who was born in 1632, and who was secretary to the Admiralty
during the reigns of Charles II and James II, describes in his famous
_Diary_ many interesting incidents in the life of that period. He wrote
of Old Sarum: "I saw a great fortification and there light, and to it
and in it, and find it so prodigious as to frighten one to be in it at
all alone at that time of night." It would probably be at an earlier
hour of a lighter night when Mr. Pepys visited it, than when we passed
it on this occasion, for the hill now was enveloped in black darkness
"deserted and drear," and we should scarcely have been able to find the
entrance "to it and in it," and, moreover, we might not have been able
to get out again, for since his time an underground passage had been
opened, and who knows what or who might have been lurking there! Dr.
Adam Clark visited Old Sarum in 1806, and wrote: "We found here the
remains of a very ancient city and fortress, surrounded by a deep
trench, which still bears a most noble appearance. On the top of the
hill the castle or citadel stood, and several remains of a very thick
wall built all of flint stone, cemented together with a kind of
everlasting mortar. What is remarkable is that these ruins are still
considered in the British constitution as an inhabited city, and send
two members to Parliament. Within the breadth of a field from this noble
hill there is a small public-house, the only dwelling within a very
great space, and containing a very few persons, who, excepting the
crows, hens, and magpies, are the only beings which the worthy members
have to represent in the British Senate."
We were glad when we reached Salisbury and found a comfortable refuge
for the night in one of the old inns in the town. It was astonishing how
cosy the low rooms in these old-fashioned inns appeared, now that the
"back end" of the year was upon us and the nights becoming longer,
darker, and colder. The blazing fire, the ingle nook, the pleasant
company, such as it was, the great interest taken in our long walk--for
people knew what heavy walking meant in those days--all tended to make
us feel comfortable and at home. True, we did not care much for the
dialect in these southern counties, and should much have preferred "a
bit o' gradely Lankyshur," so as a rule we listened rather than joined
in the conversation; but we were greatly interested in the story of the
Wiltshire Moonrakers, which, as we were strangers, was apparently given
for our benefit by one of the older members of the rather jovial
company. It carried us back to the time when smuggling was prevalent,
and an occasion when the landlord of a country inn near the sea-coast
sent two men with a pony and trap to bring back from the smugglers' den
two kegs of brandy, on which, of course, duty had not been paid, with
strict orders to keep a sharp look-out on their return for the
exciseman, who must be avoided at all costs. The road on the return
journey was lonely, for most people had gone to bed, but as the moon was
full and shining brightly, all went well until the pony suddenly took
fright at a shadow on the road, and bolted. The men, taken by surprise,
lost control of the reins, which fell down on the pony and made matters
worse, for he fairly flew along the road until he reached a point where
it turned over a canal bridge. Here the trap came in contact with the
battlement of the bridge, causing the pony to fall down, and the two
men fell on top of him. Fortunately this saved them from being seriously
injured, but the pony was bruised, and one of the shafts of the trap
broken, while the kegs rolled down the embankment into the canal. With
some difficulty they managed to get the pony and broken trap into a farm
building near the bridge, but when they went to look for the kegs they
saw them floating in the middle of the canal where they could not reach
them. They went back to the farm building, and found two hay-rakes, and
were just trying to reach the kegs, the tops of which they could plainly
see in the light of the full moon, when a horseman rode up, whom, to
their horror, they recognised as the exciseman himself. When he asked
"What's the matter?" the men pretended to be drunk, and one of them said
in a tipsy tone of voice, "Can't you see, guv'nor? We're trying to get
that cheese out o' th' water!" The exciseman couldn't see any cheese,
but he could see the image of the full moon on the surface of the canal,
and, bursting into a roar of laughter at the silliness of the men, he
rode off on his way home. But it was now the rustics' turn to laugh as
they hauled the kegs out of the canal and carried them away in triumph
on their shoulders. The gentleman who told the story fairly "brought
down the house" when he added, "So you see, gentlemen, they were not so
silly after all."
[Illustration: HIGH STREET GATE, SALISBURY.]
One of the company asked my brother if he had heard that story before,
and when he said "No, but I have heard one something like it in
Yorkshire," he at once stood up and called for "Silence," announcing
that there was a gentleman present who could tell a story about the
Yorkshire Moonrakers. My brother was rather taken aback, but he could
always rise to the occasion when necessary, so he began in his usual
manner. "Once upon a time" there were two men living in a village in
Yorkshire, who went out one day to work in the fields amongst the hay,
taking their rakes with them. They were good workers, but as the day
turned out to be rather hot they paid too much attention to the large
bottle of beer in the harvest field, with the consequence that before
night came on the bottle was empty; so they went to the inn, and stayed
there drinking until it was nearly "closing time." By that time they
were quite merry, and decided to go home by the nearest way, leading
along the towing-path of one of the canals, which in the north are wider
and deeper than those farther south. As it was almost as light as day,
the moon being at its full, they got along all right until one of them
suddenly startled his mate by telling him that the moon had fallen into
the canal! They both stood still for a moment, thinking what an awful
thing had happened, but there seemed to be no doubt about it, whatever,
for there was the moon lying in the middle of the canal. It would never
do to leave it there, but what could they do to get it out? Their first
thought was the rakes they were carrying home on their shoulders, and
they decided to rake the moon to the side of the canal, where they would
reach it with their hands. They set to work--but although their rakes
were of the largest size, and their arms long and strong, the canal was
too wide to enable them to reach the moon. They were, however, agreed
that they must get it out some way or other, for it would be a pity if
it got drowned. At last they decided that they would both get into the
canal, and fetch the moon out themselves. They pulled off their coats,
therefore, and, laying them on the path, got into the water, only to
find it much deeper than they had expected; their feet sank into the mud
at the bottom, and the water came nearly up to their necks at once, and
as it was deeper towards the middle, they found it impossible to carry
out their task. But the worst feature was that neither of the men could
swim, and, being too deeply immersed in the water to reach high enough
on the canal bank to pull themselves out again, they were in great
danger of drowning. Fortunately, however, a boat was coming along the
canal, and when the man who was driving the horses attached to the boat
heard their cries, he ran forward, and, stopping where he found the
coats on the towing-path, was horrified to see the two men holding on to
the stones that lined the canal. They were fast losing consciousness,
but with the assistance of the other men on the boat he got them out on
the bank, and when they had recovered a little, assisted them home, for
they both had drunk too much beer. The incident created a great
sensation at the time, but as "all's well that ends well," it was
afterwards looked upon as a great joke--though the two men were ever
afterwards known as the Moonrakers, a nickname that was eventually
applied to all the inhabitants of that village.
The story was well received, but not quite so loudly applauded as that
which preceded it, until one gentleman in the company rose and asked my
brother if he could name the village in Yorkshire where the incident
occurred. "Certainly, sir," he replied; "the place was called Sloyit."
"Sloyit! Sloyit!" murmured the gentleman; and then he said, "How do you
spell it?" and, taking out his notebook and adjusting his gold-rimmed
spectacles, he prepared to record the name of the place as my brother
gave out each letter. And then followed one of the most extraordinary
scenes we had witnessed on our journey, for just at that moment some one
in the rear made a witty remark which apparently was aimed at the
searcher after knowledge, who was now on his feet, and which caused
general laughter amongst those who heard it. The gentleman was evidently
a man of some importance in the city, and his notebook was apparently
known to the company almost as well as himself, but perhaps not looked
upon as favourably, for its production under the present circumstances
seemed to have caused this unwonted amusement.
[Illustration: ST. ANN'S GATE, SALISBURY.]
My brother could not proceed until he could make himself heard, and it
was difficult to restore order at that late hour of the evening; but
when the laughter had subsided, he called to the gentleman in a loud
voice, "Are you ready, sir?" and when he said "I am, sir!" he proceeded
to call out each letter slowly and distinctly, so that all the company
could hear, the gentleman as he entered them in his book repeating the
letters in a minor key which sounded exactly like the echo.
"S," shouted my brother, "s," echoed the gentleman; "L," said my
brother, "L" softly responded the gentleman slowly; and then followed
A, a letter which the gentleman did not expect, as he said, "Did you say
'A,' sir?" "I did, sir," he replied, repeating the letter, which was
repeated doubtfully as the listener entered it in his book. The next
letters were "I" and "T," which were followed by the letter "H." These
were inserted without comment, beyond the usual repetition in a subdued
tone, but when my brother followed with "W," it became evident that the
gentleman thought that there was "something wrong somewhere," and that
he had a strong suspicion that he was being led astray. When my brother
assured him it was quite correct, he rather reluctantly entered it in
his book; but now there was a slight pause, as the space originally
allotted for the name had been fully occupied, and the remainder of the
word had to be continued on another page, much to the annoyance of the
writer.
The company had by this time become greatly interested in the
proceedings; but the fact was that the name of the place was not sounded
as it was spelled, and it was amusing to watch the expressions on their
faces as my brother proceeded to call out the remainder of the letters.
I could see they were enjoying the discomfiture of the old gentleman,
and that a suspicion was gaining ground that all the other letters of
the alphabet might yet be included! When the gentleman had selected the
corner in his note-book to record the remaining letters, and my brother
began with the letter "A," he remonstrated that he had given him that
letter previously, and a strong assurance from my brother was necessary
in order to ensure the entry of the letter in the notebook; but when it
was followed by "I" and "T" and including the "A" in exactly the same
order as he had recorded them before, his patience was quite exhausted,
and his previous suspicions confirmed that he was being hoaxed. The
remainder of the party amidst their hardly suppressed laughter insisted
upon their being entered, and when my brother called out the final
letter "E," and repeated the whole of the letters
SLAITHWAITE
and pronounced the word "Slawit" or "Sloyt," the hitherto suppressed
amusement burst in a perfect roar of laughter, the company evidently
thinking that the gentleman who had asked the question had got his
answer! Taking advantage of the general hilarity, we quietly and quickly
retreated to another and less noisy room upstairs, for the night.
(_Distance walked twenty-eight and a half miles_.)
_Wednesday, November 8th._
It must have been a great work to remove the City of Old Sarum and to
rebuild it in another position a mile or two away from its ancient site.
The removal began in 1219, and was continued during about 120 years;
Royal consent had to be obtained, as well as that of the Pope, Honorius
III. The reason then given for its removal was that Old Sarum was too
much exposed to the weather, and that there was also a scarcity of
water there--in fact "too much wind and too little water." There was
some difficulty in deciding the position on which the new cathedral
should be built, but this was solved by the Bishop shooting an arrow
from the top of the Castle of Old Sarum; wherever the arrow alighted the
new cathedral was to be built. The arrow fell very conveniently in the
meadows where four rivers ran--the Avon, Bourne, Nadder, and Wylye--and
amongst these the magnificent cathedral of Salisbury was built. The
rivers, which added to the picturesque beauty of the place, were fed by
open canals which ran through the main streets of the city, causing
Salisbury to be named at that time the "English Venice."
Nearly every King and Queen of England, from the time of Henry III, who
granted its first Charter in 1227, had visited Salisbury, and over
twenty of their portraits hung in the Council Chamber. Two Parliaments
were held in Salisbury, one in 1328 and another in 1384; and it was in
the market-place there, that Buckingham had his head cut off in 1483 by
order of his kinsman, Richard III, for promoting an insurrection in the
West of England. Henry VIII visited the city on two occasions, once with
Catherine of Aragon, and again with Anna Boleyn. James I too came to
Salisbury in 1611, and Charles II with his queen in 1665--on both these
occasions to escape the plagues then raging in London. Sir Walter
Raleigh was in the city in 1618, writing his _Apology for the Voyage to
Guiana_, before his last sad visit to London, where he was beheaded.
James II passed through the town in 1688 to oppose the landing of
William of Orange, but, hearing he had already landed at Torbay, he
returned to London, and William arrived here ten days later, occupying
the same apartments at the palace.
But the chief object of interest in Salisbury was the fine cathedral,
with its magnificent Decorated Spire, the highest and finest in England,
and perhaps one of the finest in Europe, for it is 404 feet high, forty
feet higher, we were informed, than the cross on the top of St. Paul's
Cathedral in London. This information rather staggered my brother, for
he had an exalted opinion of the height of St. Paul's, which he had
visited when he went to the Great Exhibition in London in 1862.
On that occasion he had ascended the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral from
the inside by means of the rickety stairs and ladders provided for that
purpose, and had reached the golden ball which supported the cross on
the top, when he found it already occupied by two gentlemen smoking
cigars, who had arrived there before him, and who kindly assisted him
into the ball, which, although it only appeared about the size of a
football when seen from the city below, was big enough to hold four men.
They also very kindly offered him a cigar, which he was obliged to
decline with thanks, for he did not smoke; but when they told him they
came from Scotland, he was not surprised to find them there, as Scotsmen
even in those days were proverbial for working their way to the top not
only of the cathedrals, but almost everywhere else besides. The "brither
Scots" were working to a previously arranged programme, the present item
being to smoke a cigar in the golden ball on the top of St. Paul's
Cathedral. When my brother began the descent, he experienced one of the
most horrible sensations of his life, for hundreds of feet below him he
could see the floor of the cathedral with apparently nothing whatever
in the way to break a fall; so that a single false step might have
landed him in eternity, for if he had fallen he must have been dashed
into atoms on the floor so far below. The gentlemen saw he was nervous,
and advised him as he descended the ladder backwards not to look down
into the abyss below, but to keep his eyes fixed above, and following
this excellent advice, he got down safely. He always looked back on that
adventure in the light of a most horrible nightmare and with
justification, for in later years the Cathedral authorities made the
Whispering Gallery the highest point to which visitors were allowed to
ascend.
We did not of course attempt to climb the Salisbury spire, although
there were quite a number of staircases inside the cathedral, and after
climbing these, adventurous visitors might ascend by ladders through the
timber framework to a door near the top; from that point, however, the
cross and the vane could only be reached by steeple-jacks. Like other
lofty spires, that of Salisbury had been a source of anxiety and expense
from time to time, but the timber used in the building of it had been
allowed to remain inside, which had so strengthened it that it was then
only a few inches out of the perpendicular. When a new vane was put on
in 1762 a small box was discovered in the ball to which the vane was
fixed. This box was made of wood, but inside it was another box made of
lead, and enclosed in that was found a piece of very old silk--a relic,
it was supposed, of the robe of the Virgin Mary, to whom the cathedral
was dedicated, and placed there to guard the spire from danger. The
casket was carefully resealed and placed in its former position under
the ball.
A very large number of tombs stood in the cathedral, including many of
former bishops, and we were surprised to find them in such good
condition, for they did not appear to have suffered materially in the
Civil War. The very oldest were those that had been removed from Old
Sarum, but the finest tomb was that of Bishop Giles de Bridport, the
Bishop when the new cathedral was completed and consecrated. He died in
1262, and eight carvings on the stone spandrel above him represented the
same number of scenes in his career, beginning with his birth and ending
with the ascent of his soul into heaven. The figure of a boy in full
episcopal robes, found under the seating of the choir in 1680, and named
the "Boy Bishop," was an object of special interest, but whether it was
a miniature of one of the bishops or intended to represent a "choral
bishop," formerly elected annually by the choir, was unknown.
There were also tombs and effigies to the first and second Earls of
Salisbury, the first, who died in 1226, being the son of Henry II and
Fair Rosamond, of whom we had heard at Woodstock. He was represented in
chain armour, on which some of the beautiful ornaments in gold and
colour still remained. His son, the second Earl, who went twice to the
Holy Land as a Crusader under St. Louis, was also represented in chain
armour and cross-legged.
Near this was the tomb of Sir John Cheney, a man of extraordinary size
and strength, his thigh-bone measuring 21 inches, whose great armour we
had seen in Sir Walter Scott's house at Abbotsford. He was bodyguard to
Henry of Richmond at the Battle of Bosworth Field, near which we passed
at Atherstone. Sir William Brandon was Richmond's standard-bearer, and
was cut down by King Richard himself, who tore his standard from him
and, flinging it aside, rode at Sir John Cheney and hurled him from his
horse just before he met his own fate.
[Illustration: SALISBURY CATHEDRAL. "The fine Cathedral, with its
magnificent Decorated spire, the highest and finest in England--perhaps
the finest in Europe, for it is forty feet higher than the Dome of St.
Paul's in London."]
There are a large number of pillars and windows in Salisbury Cathedral,
but as we had no time to stay and count them, we accepted the numbers
given by the local poet as being correct, when he wrote:
As many days as in one year there be,
So many windows in this Church we see;
As many marble pillars here appear
As there are hours throughout the fleeting year; (8760)
As many gates as moons one year does view.
Strange tale to tell; yet not more strange than true.
The Cathedral Close at Salisbury was the finest we had seen both for
extent and beauty, the half-mile area of grass and the fine trees giving
an inexpressible charm both to the cathedral and its immediate
surroundings. The great advantage of this wide open space to us was that
we could obtain a magnificent view of the whole cathedral. We had passed
many fine cathedrals and other buildings on our walk whose proportions
were hidden by the dingy property which closely surrounded them, but
Salisbury was quite an exception. True, there were houses in and around
the close, but these stood at a respectful distance from the cathedral,
and as they had formerly been the town houses of the aristocracy, they
contained fine old staircases and panelled rooms with decorated
ceilings, which with their beautiful and artistic wrought-iron gates
were all well worth seeing. The close was surrounded by battlemented
stone walls on three sides and by the River Avon on the fourth,
permission having been granted in 1327 by Edward III for the stones from
Old Sarum to be used for building the walls of the close at Salisbury;
hence numbers of carved Norman stones, fragments of the old cathedral
there, could be seen embedded in the masonry. Several gate-houses led
into the close, the gates in them being locked regularly every night in
accordance with ancient custom. In a niche over one of these, known as
the High Street Gate, there was a statue which originally represented
James I, but when he died it was made to do duty for Charles I by taking
off the head of James and substituting that of Charles, his successor to
the throne, with the odd result that the body of James carried the head
of Charles!
There were many old buildings in the city, but we had not time to
explore them thoroughly. Still there was one known as the Poultry Cross
nobody could fail to see whether walking or driving through Salisbury.
Although by no means a large erection, it formed one of the most
striking objects in the city, and a more beautiful piece of Gothic
architecture it would be difficult to imagine. It was formerly called
the Yarn Market, and was said to have been erected about the year 1378
by Sir Lawrence de St. Martin as a penance for some breach of
ecclesiastical law. It consisted of six arches forming an open hexagon,
supported by six columns on heavy foundations, with a central pillar
square at the bottom and six-sided at the top--the whole highly
ornamented and finished off with an elaborate turret surmounted by a
cross. It was mentioned in a deed dated November 2nd, 1335, and formed
a feature of great archaeological interest.
[Illustration: POULTRY CROSS, SALISBURY.]
The old portion of St. Nicholas' was in existence in 1227, and in the
Chorister's Square was a school established and endowed as far back as
the year 1314, to support fourteen choristers and a master to teach
them. Their costumes must have been rather picturesque, for they were
ordered to be dressed in knee-breeches and claret-coloured coats, with
frills at the neck instead of collars.
Quite a number of ancient inns in Salisbury were connected with the old
city life, Buckingham being beheaded in the yard of the "Blue Boar Inn"
in the market-place, where a new scaffold was provided for the occasion.
In 1838 a headless skeleton, believed to be that of Buckingham, was dug
out from below the kitchen floor of the inn.
The "King's Arms" was another of the old posting-houses where, when King
Charles was hiding on Salisbury Plain in the time of the Civil War,
after the Battle of Worcester, a meeting was held under the guidance of
Lord Wilmot, at which plans were made to charter a vessel for the
conveyance of the King from Southampton to some place on the Continent.
Here we saw a curiosity in the shape of a large window on the first
floor, from which travellers formerly stepped on and off the top of the
stage-coaches, probably because the archway into the yard was too low
for the outside passengers to pass under safely. There was also the
"Queen's Arms," with its quaint porch in the shape of a shell over the
doorway, and the "Haunch of Venison," and others; but in the time of the
Commonwealth we might have indulged in the luxury of staying at the
Bishop's Palace, for it was sold at that time, and used as an inn. It
must have had rough visitors, for when the ecclesiastical authorities
regained possession it was in a very dilapidated condition.
One of the oldest coaching-houses in Salisbury in former years was the
"George Inn," mentioned in the city records as far back as the year
1406; but the licence had lapsed, and the building was now being used
for other purposes. Its quaint elevation, with its old-fashioned
bow-windows, was delightful to see, and in the year 1623 it was declared
that "all Players from henceforth shall make their plays at the George
Inn." This inn seemed to have been a grand place, for Pepys, who stayed
there in 1668, wrote in his _Diary_ in his quaint, abrupt, and
abbreviated way: "Came to the George Inne, where lay in a silk bed and
very good diet"; but when the bill was handed to him for payment, he was
"mad" at the charges.
We left Salisbury with regret, and with the thought that we had not seen
all that we ought to have seen, but with an inward resolve to pay the
ancient city another visit in the future. Walking briskly along the
valley of the river Nadder, and taking advantage of a field road, we
reached the village of Bemerton. Here George Herbert, "the most
devotional of the English poets," was rector from 1630 to 1632, having
been presented to the living by Charles I. Herbert was born at
Montgomery Castle, near the Shropshire border, and came of a noble
family, being a brother of the statesman and writer Lord Herbert of
Chirbury, one of the Shropshire Herberts. He restored the parsonage at
Bemerton, but did not live long to enjoy it. He seems to have had a
presentiment that some one else would have the benefit of it, as he
caused the following lines to be engraved above the chimneypiece in the
hall, giving good advice to the rector who was to follow him:
If thou chance for to find
A new house to thy mind,
And built without thy cost.
Be good to the poor
As God gives thee store
And then my labour's not lost.
It was here that he composed most of his hymns, and here he died at what
his friend Izaak Walton described in 1632 as "the good and more pleasant
than healthful parsonage." A tablet inscribed "G.H. 1633" was all that
marked the resting-place of "the sweetest singer that ever sang God's
praise." Bemerton, we thought, was a lovely little village, and there
was a fig-tree and a medlar-tree in the rectory garden, which Herbert
himself was said to have planted with his own hands. Here we record one
of his hymns:
Let all the world in every corner sing
My God and King!
The Heavens are not too high.
His praises may thither fly;
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing
My God and King!
Let all the world in every corner sing
My God and King!
The Church with psalms must shout,
No door can keep them out;
But above all the heart
Must bear the longest part.
Let all the world in every corner sing
My God and King!
The old church of Chirbury belonged to the Herberts, and was noted for
its heavy circular pillars supporting the roof, which, with the walls,
were so much bent outwards that they gave one the impression that they
would fall over; but nearly all the walls in old churches bend that way
more or less, a fact which we always attributed to the weight of the
heavy roof pressing on them. At one village on our travels, however, we
noticed, hanging on one of the pillars in the church, a printed tablet,
which cleared up the mystery by informing us that the walls and pillars
were built in that way originally to remind us that "Jesus on the cross
His head inclined"; and we noticed that even the porches at the entrance
to ancient churches were built in the same way, each side leaning
outwards.
A great treat was in store for us this morning, for we had to pass
through Wilton, with its fine park surrounding Wilton House, the
magnificent seat of the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. Our
first impression was that Wilton was one of the pleasantest places we
had visited. Wiltshire took its name from the river Wylye, which here
joins the Nadder, so that Wilton had been an important place in ancient
times, being the third oldest borough in England. Egbert, the Wessex
King, had his palace here, and in the great contest with Mercia defeated
Beornwulf in 821 at Ellendune. A religious house existed here in very
early times. In the reign of Edward I it was recorded that Osborn de
Giffard, a relative of the abbess, carried off two of the nuns, and was
sentenced for that offence to be stripped naked and to be whipped in the
churches of Wilton and Shaftesbury, and as an additional punishment to
serve three years in Palestine. In the time of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn
wished to give the post of abbess to a friend, but King Henry had
scruples on the subject, for the proposed abbess had a somewhat shady
reputation; he wrote, "I would not for all the gold in the world clog
your conscience nor mine to make her a ruler of a house, which is of so
ungodly a demeanour, nor I trust you would not that neither for brother
nor sister I should so bestain mine honour or conscience." This we
thought to be rather good for such a stern moralist as Henry VIII, but
perhaps in his younger days he was a better man than we had been taught
to believe.
Wilton suffered along with Old Sarum, as the loss of a road was a
serious matter in those days, and Bishop Bingham, who appeared to have
been a crafty man, and not at all favourable to the Castellans at Old
Sarum, built a bridge over the river in 1244, diverting the main road of
Icknield Way so as to make it pass through Salisbury. As Leland wrote,
"The changing of this way was the total cause of the ruine of Old
Saresbyri and Wiltown, for afore Wiltown had 12 paroche churches or
more, and was the head of Wilesher." The town of Wilton was very
pleasant and old-fashioned. The chief industry was carpet-making, which
originally had been introduced there by French and Flemish weavers
driven by persecution from their own country. When we passed through the
town the carpet industry was very quiet, but afterwards, besides Wilton
carpets, "Axminster" and "Brussels" carpets were manufactured there,
water and wool, the essentials, being very plentiful. Its fairs for
sheep, horses, and cattle, too, were famous, as many as 100,000 sheep
having been known to change owners at one fair.
[Illustration: WILTON HOUSE FROM THE RIVER.]
We were quite astonished when we saw the magnificent church, on a
terrace facing our road and approached by a very wide flight of steps.
It was quite modern, having been built in 1844 by Lord Herbert of Lea,
and had three porches, the central one being magnificently ornamented,
the pillars resting on lions sculptured in stone. The tower, quite a
hundred feet high, stood away from the church, but was connected with it
by a fine cloister with double columns finely worked. The interior of
the church was really magnificent, and must have cost an immense sum of
money. It had a marble floor and some beautiful stained-glass windows;
the pulpit being of Caen stone, supported by columns of black marble
enriched with mosaic, which had once formed part of a thirteenth-century
shrine at Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, some of the stained glass also
belonging to the same period.
The great House of Wilton, the seat of the Herberts, had been built in a
delightful situation on the site of the old monastery, amidst beautiful
gardens and grounds. It was a veritable treasure-house for pictures by
the most famous painters, containing a special gallery filled almost
exclusively with portraits of the family and others painted by Vandyck.
The collection included a good portrait of Prince Rupert,[Footnote: See
page 303.] who gave the army of the Parliament such a lively time in the
Civil War, and who is said, in spite of his recklessness, to have been
one of the best cavalry officers in Europe. Queen Elizabeth stayed three
days there in 1573, and described her visit as "both merrie and
pleasante." During this visit she presented Sir Philip Sidney, the
author of _Arcadia_, with a "locke of her owne hair," which many years
afterwards was found in a copy of that book in the library, and attached
to it a very indifferent verse in the Queen's handwriting. Charles I,
it was said, visited Wilton every summer, and portraits of himself,
Henrietta Maria and their children, and some of their Court beauties,
were also in the Vandyck gallery.
Wilton Park attracted our attention above all, as the rivers Wylye and
Nadder combined to enhance its beauty, and to feed the ornamental lake
in front of the Hall. There were some fine cedar trees in the park, and
as we had often seen trees of this kind in other grounds through which
we had passed, we concluded they dated from the time of the Crusades,
and that the crusaders had brought small plants back with them, of which
these trees were the result. We were informed, however, that the cedar
trees at Wilton had only been planted in the year 1640 by the Earl of
Devonshire, who had sent men to collect them at Lebanon in the Holy
Land. Thus we were compelled to change our opinion, for the trees we had
seen elsewhere were of about the same girth as those at Wilton, and must
therefore have been planted at about the same period. The oak trees in
the park still retained many of their leaves, although it was now late
in the autumn, but they were falling off, and we tried to catch some of
them as they fell, though we were not altogether successful. My brother
reminded me of a verse he once wrote as an exercise in calligraphy when
at school:
Men are like leaves that on the trees do grow,
In Summer's prosperous time much love they show,
But art thou in adversity, then they
Like leaves from trees in Autumn fall away.
But after autumn and winter have done their worst there are still some
bushes, plants, or trees that retain their leaves to cheer the traveller
on his way. Buckingham, who was beheaded at Salisbury, was at one time a
fugitive, and hid himself in a hole near the top of a precipitous rock,
now covered over with bushes and known only to the initiated as
"Buckingham's Cave." My brother was travelling one winter's day in
search of this cave, and passed for miles through a wood chiefly
composed of oak trees that were then leafless. The only foliage that
arrested his attention was that of the ivy, holly, and yew, and these
evergreens looked so beautiful that he occasionally stopped to admire
them without exactly knowing the reason why; after leaving the great
wood he reached a secluded village far away from what was called
civilisation, where he inquired the way to "Buckingham's Cave" from a
man who turned out to be the village wheelwright. In the course of
conversation the man informed him that he occasionally wrote poetry for
a local newspaper with a large circulation in that and the adjoining
counties. He complained strongly that the editor of the paper had
omitted one verse from the last poem he had sent up; which did not
surprise my brother, who inwardly considered he might safely have
omitted the remainder. But when the wheelwright showed him the poem he
was so pleased that he asked permission to copy the verses.
The fairest flower that ever bloomed
With those of bright array
In Seasons' changeful course is doomed
To fade and die away;
While yonder's something to be seen--
It is the lovely evergreen!
The pretty flowers in summer-time
Bring beauty to our land,
And lovely are the forest trees--
In verdure green they stand;
But while we gaze upon the scene
We scarcely see the evergreen!
But lo! the wintry blast comes on,
And quickly falls the snow;
And where are all the beauties gone
That bloom'd a while ago?
While yonder stands through winter keen
The lovely-looking evergreen!
Our lives are like a fading flower,
And soon they pass away,
And earthly joys may last an hour
To disappear at close of day;
But Saints in Heaven abide serene
And lasting, like the evergreen!
My brother felt that here he had found one of nature's poets, and no
longer wondered why he had admired the evergreen trees and bushes when
he came through the forest.
[Illustration: COL. JOHN PENRUDDOCKE.]
In about two miles after leaving Wilton we parted company with the River
Nadder, and walked along the road which passes over the downs to
Shaftesbury. On our way we came in sight of the village of Compton
Chamberlain, and of Compton House and park, which had been for centuries
the seat of the Penruddocke family. It was Colonel John Penruddocke who
led the famous "forlorn hope" in the time of the Commonwealth in 1655.
He and another champion, with 200 followers, rode into Salisbury, where,
overcoming the guards, they released the prisoners from the gaol, and
seizing the two judges of assize proclaimed Charles II King, just as
Booth did in Cheshire. The people of the city did not rise, as they
anticipated, so Penruddocke and his companions dispersed and rode away
to different parts of the country; eventually they were all taken
prisoners and placed in the Tower of London. Penruddocke was examined
personally by Cromwell at Whitehall, and it was thought for a time that
he might be pardoned, but ultimately he was sent to the scaffold. He
compared the steps leading up to the scaffold to Jacob's ladder, the
feet on earth but the top reaching to heaven; and taking off his doublet
he said, "I am putting off these old rags of mine to be clad with the
new robes of the righteousness of Jesus Christ." The farewell letters
between him and his wife were full of tenderness and love, and what he
had done was doubtless under the inspiration of strong religious
convictions. It was said that it was his insurrection that led to the
division of the country into military districts, which have continued
ever since. The lace cap he wore on the scaffold, blood-stained and
showing the marks of the axe, was still preserved, as well as his sword,
and the beautiful letters that passed between him and his wife, and the
Colonel's portrait was still to be seen at the mansion.
About a mile before reaching Shaftesbury we left Wiltshire and entered
the county of Dorset, of which Shaftesbury was said to be the most
interesting town from an antiquarian point of view. Here the downs
terminate abruptly, leaving the town standing 700 feet above the sea
level on the extreme point, with precipices on three sides. Across the
far-famed Blackmoor Vale we could quite easily see Stourton Tower,
standing on the top of Kingsettle Hill, although it was twelve miles
distant. The tower marked the spot where, in 879, King Alfred raised his
standard against the Danes, and was built in 1766, the inscription on it
reading:
Alfred the Great A.D. 879 on this summit erected his standard against
Danish invaders. To him we owe the origin of Juries, the
establishment of a Militia, the creation of a Naval Force. Alfred,
the light of a benighted age, was a Philosopher, and a Christian, the
father of his people, the founder of the English monarchy and
liberty.
In the gardens near that tower the three counties of Dorset, Somerset,
and Wilts meet; and here in a grotto, where the water runs from a jar
under the arm of a figure of Neptune, rises the River Stour, whose
acquaintance we were to form later in its sixty-mile run through Dorset.
Shaftesbury had been a stronghold from the earliest times, and so long
ago, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was born A.D. 1100, that an
Eagle spoke to the people who were building the walls words that even he
dare not write. Elgiva, the queen of the Saxon King Edward the Elder,
was buried in the Abbey at Shaftesbury, as were also the remains of
Edward the Martyr, who was murdered by Elfrida his step-mother in 980.
When the bones of this canonised king began to work miraculous cures,
there was a rush of pilgrims to the town, which at one time contained
twelve churches. King Canute, it was stated, died here in 1035; and in
1313 Elizabeth, the wife of Robert Bruce of Scotland, was brought to the
Abbey as a prisoner. The building was demolished in the time of Henry
VIII, all that remained of it being what is known as the old Abbey wall.
Most of the old churches had disappeared too, but under St. Peter's
there was a wine-cellar belonging to a public-house displaying the
strange sign of the "Sun and Moon." The proximity of inns to churches
we had often noted on our journey, but thought _this_ intrusion had been
carried rather too far, although the age of the church proclaimed it to
be a relic of great antiquity. We must not forget to record that between
Wilton and Shaftesbury we saw a large quantity of pheasants feeding
under some oak trees. We counted more than twenty of them, and had never
seen so many gathered together before. Among them we noted three that
were white, the only white pheasants we had ever seen.
Leaving Shaftesbury, we crossed over one section of the Blackmoor Vale,
or what we might describe as the Stour country, for there were many
place-names in which the word Stour occurred. The place where the River
Stour rises is known as Stourhead; and we had seen a monument, rather a
fine one, in Salisbury Cathedral, to the murderer, Lord Charles
Stourton. Three holes on each side of the monument represented the
sources of the Stour at Stourhead, and these figured in the armorial
bearings of the family. Lord Charles was hanged with a silk cord instead
of the usual one made of hemp, the execution taking place in Salisbury
Market-place in 1556; his crime was the murder of two of the family
agents, father and son. His own four agents were hanged at the same time
along with him, and a piece of twisted wire resembling the halter was
suspended over his tomb for many years, to remind people of his
punishment and crime.
We took the precaution of getting our tea before leaving Shaftesbury, as
there was some uncertainty about the road to Sturminster, where,
attracted by the name, we expected to find a minster or cathedral, and
had therefore decided to make that town our next stage. We could see a
kind of mist rising at several points in the valley as we descended the
steep hill leading out of the town in the direction of the Stour valley.
No highway led that way except one following a circuitous route, so we
walked at a quick pace along the narrow by-road, as we had been
directed. Darkness soon came over us, and we had to moderate our speed.
We met very few persons on the road, and saw very few houses, and it
seemed to us a marvel afterwards that we ever reached Sturminster (or
Stourminster) that night. It would have been bad enough if we had been
acquainted with the road, but towards the close of our journey we could
hear the river running near us for miles in the pitch darkness, and
although my brother walked bravely on in front, I knew he was afraid of
the water, and no doubt in fear that he might stumble into it in the
dark. We were walking in Indian file, for there was no room to walk
abreast in safety, while in places we had absolutely to grope our way.
We moved along
Like one who on a lonely road
Doth walk in fear and dread.
And dare not turn his head,
For well he knows a fearful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
It is perhaps unnecessary to explain that the "fearful fiend" was not
either my brother or myself, but some one supposed to be somewhere in
the rear of us both; but in any case we were mightily pleased when we
reached the "King's Arms" at Sturminster, where we were looked upon as
heroes, having now walked quite 1,100 miles.
(_Distance that day, twenty-eight miles_.)
_Thursday, November 9th._
A sharp frost during the night reminded us of the approach of winter,
and we left Sturminster early this morning with the determination of
crossing the county of Dorset, and reaching the sea-coast that night,
thence to follow the coast-line as far as was consistent with seeing all
the sights we could, until we reached the Land's End. We again crossed
the bridge over the River Stour by which we had entered the town in the
black darkness of the previous night, and were careful not to damage any
of the six arches of which it was composed, as a notice inscribed on the
bridge itself stated that any one damaging any portion of it would be
guilty of felony and liable to transportation for life! We had not been
able to find any special object of interest in the town itself, although
King Edgar had given the manor to the monks of Glastonbury. Even the old
church, with the exception of the tower, had been pulled down and
rebuilt; so possibly the old and well-worn steps that had formed the
base of the cross long since disappeared might claim to be the most
ancient relic in the town. The landlord of the inn had told us that
Sturminster was famous for its fairs, which must have originated in very
early times, for they were arranged to be held on saints' days--St.
Philip and Jacob's, and St. Luke's respectively.
[Illustration: ALL THAT REMAINS OF STURMINSTER CROSS]
After crossing the bridge we climbed up the small hill opposite, to view
the scant ivy-clad ruins of Sturminster-Newton Castle, which was all
that remained of what was once a seat of the Saxon Kings, especially of
Edgar and Edward the Elder. We had a pleasant walk for some miles, and
made good progress across the southern end of the Vale of Blackmoor, but
did not keep to any particular road, as we crossed the country in the
direction of some hills we could occasionally see in the distance.
Eventually we reached Cerne-Abbas, where we were told we ought to have
come in the springtime to see the primroses which there grew in immense
profusion. We had heard of the "Cerne Giant," whose fixed abode was now
the Giant's Hill, immediately behind the village, and whose figure was
there cut out in the turf. Formerly this monster caused great loss to
the farmers by eating their sheep, of which he consumed large
quantities. They were quite powerless to stop him, owing to his immense
size and the enormous club he carried; but one day he had eaten so many
sheep that he felt drowsy and lay down to sleep. He was seen by the
farmers, who could tell by his heavy breathing that the giant was fast
asleep, so they got together all their ropes and quietly tied his limbs
and fastened him to the earth; then, attacking him with their knives and
axes, they managed to kill him. This was a great event, and to celebrate
their victory they cut his figure in the chalk cliff to the exact
life-size, so that future generations could see what a monster they had
slain. This was the legend; and perhaps, like the White Horses, of which
there were several, the Giant might have been cut out in prehistoric
times, or was it possible he could have grown larger during the
centuries that had intervened, for he was 180 feet in height, and the
club that he carried in his hand was 120 feet long! Cerne Abbas was a
very old place, as an early Benedictine Abbey was founded there in 987,
the first Abbot being Aelfric, who afterwards became Archbishop of
Canterbury. It was at Cerne that Queen Margaret sought refuge after
landing at Weymouth in 1471. Her army had been defeated at Barnet on the
very day she landed; but, accompanied by a small force of French
soldiers, she marched on until she reached Tewkesbury, only to meet
there with a final defeat, and to lose her son Edward, who was murdered
in cold blood, as well as her husband Henry VI. Very little remained of
the old abbey beyond its ancient gateway, which was three stories high,
and displayed two very handsome double-storeyed oriel windows.
We now followed the downward course of the River Cerne, and walking
along a hard but narrow road soon reached the village of Charminster.
The church here dated from the twelfth century, but the tower was only
built early in the sixteenth century by Sir Thomas Trenchard of
Wolfeton, whose monogram T.T. appeared on it as well as in several
places in the church, where some very old monuments of the Trenchard
family were also to be seen. Wolfeton House was associated with a very
curious incident, which materially affected the fortunes of one of
England's greatest ducal families. In 1506 the Archduke Philip of
Austria and Joanna his wife sailed from Middelburg, one of the Zeeland
ports, to take possession of their kingdom of Castile in Spain. But a
great storm came on, and their ship became separated from the others.
Becoming unmanageable, it drifted helplessly down the Channel, and to
make matters worse took fire just when the storm was at its height, and
narrowly escaped foundering. Joanna had been shipwrecked on a former
occasion, and when her husband came to inform her of the danger, she
calmly put on her best dress and, with all her money and jewels about
her, awaited her fate, thinking that when her body was found they would
see she was a lady of rank and give her a suitable burial. With great
difficulty the ship, now a miserable wreck, was brought into the port of
Weymouth, and the royal pair were taken out with all speed and conveyed
to the nearest nobleman's residence, which happened to be that of Sir
Thomas Trenchard, near Dorchester, about ten miles distant. They were
very courteously received and entertained, but the difficulty was that
Sir Thomas could neither speak Spanish nor French, and the visitors
could not speak English. In this dilemma he suddenly remembered a young
kinsman of his, John Russel of Berwick House, Bridport, who had
travelled extensively both in France and Spain, and he sent for him
post-haste to come at once. On receipt of the message young Russel lost
no time, but riding at full gallop, soon arrived at Wolfeton House. He
was not only a good linguist, but also very good-looking, and the royal
visitors were so charmed with him that when King Henry VII sent the Earl
of Arundel with an escort to convey Philip and Joanna to see him at
Windsor Castle, Russel went with them, and was introduced to King Henry
by his royal guests as "a man of abilities, fit to stand before princes
and not before meaner men." This was a good start for young Russel, and
led to the King's retaining him at Court. He prospered greatly, rising
high in office; and in the next reign, when Henry VIII dissolved the
monasteries, Russel came in for a handsome share of the spoils,
including Woburn Abbey; he was created a peer, and so founded the great
house of Bedford, made a dukedom in 1694 by William III. One of his
descendants, the third son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, was Lord John
Russell (the name being then able to afford an extra letter), who
brought the Great Reform Bill into Parliament in the year 1832. He was
Prime Minister then and in several subsequent Parliaments, and his name
was naturally a household word all over the kingdom; but what made my
brother more interested in this family was that as early as the year
1850 he was nicknamed "Lord John," after Lord John Russell, who was then
the Prime Minister.
We were now quite near Dorchester, but all we knew about that town
previously was from a song that was popular in those days about "Old
Toby Philpot," whose end was recorded in the last verse, when--
His breath-doors of life on a sudden were shut,
And he died full as big as a Dorchester butt!
Our expectations of finding a brewery there were fully realised, and, as
anticipated, the butts we saw were of much larger dimensions, especially
about the waist, than those we had seen farther north. If "Toby" was of
the same proportions as one of these he must have been quite a
monstrosity.
We were surprised to find Dorchester such a clean and pretty town.
Seeing it was the county town of Dorset, one of the most ancient
settlements in England, and the Durmovaria of the Romans, we expected to
find some of those old houses and quaint passages so common to ancient
county towns; but we learned that the old town had been destroyed by a
fire in 1613, and long before that (in 1003) Dorchester had been burnt
to the ground by the Danes. It had also suffered from serious fires in
1622, 1725, and 1775, the last having been extinguished by the aid of
Johnny Cope's Regiment of Dragoons, who happened then to be quartered in
the town. But the great fire in 1613 must have been quite a fearful
affair, as we saw a pamphlet written about it by an eye-witness, under
the title of _Fire from Heaven_. It gave such a graphic description of
what such a fire was like, that we copied the following extract, which
also displayed the quaint phraseology and spelling peculiar to that
period:
The instrument of God's wrath began first to take hold in a
tradesman's worke-house ... Then began the crye of fier to be spread
through the whole towne man, woman and childe ran amazedly up and
down the streetes, calling for water, so fearfully, as if death's
trumpet had sounded a command of present destruction. The fier began
between the hours of two and three in the afternoone, the wind
blowing very strong, and increased so mightily that, in a very short
space, the most part of the town, was tiered, which burned so
extreamely, the weather being hot, and the houses dry, that help of
man grew almost past ... The reason the fier at the first prevailed
above the strength of man was that it unfortunately happened in the
time of harvest, when people were most busied in the reaping of their
corne, and the towne most emptyest, but when this burnying Beacon of
ruyne gave the harvestmen light into the field, little booted it to
them to stay, but in more than reasonable hast poasted they homeward,
not only for the safeguard of their goods and houses, but for the
preservation of their wives and children, more dearer than all
temporall estate or worldly abundance. In like manner the
inhabitantes of the neighbouring townes and villages, at the fearful
sight of the red blazing element, ran in multitudes to assist them,
proffering the dear venture of their lives to oppresse the rigour of
the fier, but all too late they came, and to small purpose showed
they their willing minds, for almost every streete was filled with
flame, every place burning beyond help and recovery. Their might they
in wofull manner behold merchants' warehouses full of riche
commodities on a flaming fier, garners of breade corn consuming,
multitudes of Wollen and Linnen Clothes burned into ashes, Gold and
Silver melted with Brasse, Pewter and Copper, tronkes and chestes of
Damaskes and fine linnens, with all manner of rich stuffs, made
fewell to increase this universe sole conqueror.... The fierceness of
the fier was such that it even burnet and scorchet trees as they
grew, and converted their green liveries into black burned garments;
not so much as Hearbes and Flowers flourishing in Gardynes, but were
in a moment withered with the heat of the fier.... Dorchester was a
famous towne, now a heap of ashes for travellers that passe by to
sigh at. Oh, Dorchester, wel maist thou mourn for those thy great
losses, for never had English Towne the like unto thee.... A loss so
unrecoverable that unlesse the whole land in pitty set to their
devotions, it is like never to re-obtain the former estate, but
continue like ruinated Troy, or decayed Carthage. God in his mercy
raise the inhabitants up againe, and graunt that by the mischance of
this Towne both us, they and all others may repent us of our sins.
Amen.
It was computed that over three hundred houses were destroyed in this
great fire; but the prayer of the writer of the der of the New England
Company. It was in 1620 that the good ship _Mayflower_ arrived at
Plymouth with Robinson's first batch of pilgrims from Holland on their
way across the Atlantic. It is not certain that White crossed the ocean
himself; but his was the master-mind that organised and directed the
expeditions to that far-distant land, and he was ably seconded by Bishop
Lake, his friend and brother Wykehamist.
[Illustration: JOHN ENDICOTT, FIRST GOVERNOR OF MASSACHUSETTS.]
He also influenced John Endicott, "a man well known to divers persons of
note" and a native of Dorchester, where he was born in 1588, to take an
active part in developing the new Colonies, and mainly through the
influence of White a patent was obtained from the Council on March 19th,
1628, by which the Crown "bargained and sold unto some Knights and
Gentlemen about Dorchester, whose names included that of John Endicott,
that part of New England lying between the Merrimac River and the
Charles River on Massachusetts Bay."
At the time this "bargain" was made very little was known about America,
which was looked upon as a kind of desert or wilderness, nor had the
Council any idea of the extent of territory lying between the two
rivers. This ultimately became of immense value, as it included the site
on which the great town of Boston, U.S.A., now stands--a town that was
founded by pilgrims from Boston in Lincolnshire with whom John White was
in close contact.
John Endicott sailed from Weymouth in the ship _Abigail_, Henry Gauder,
Master, with full powers to act for the Company. The new Dorchester was
founded, and soon afterwards four "prudent and honest men" went out from
it and founded Salem. John White procured a patent and royal charter for
them also, which was sealed on March 4th, 1629. It seemed the irony of
fate that on the same day 147 years afterwards Washington should open
fire upon Boston from the Dorchester heights in the American War of
Independence.
A second Dorchester was founded in America, probably by settlers from
the second Dorchester in England--a large village near which we had
passed as we walked through Oxfordshire, where in the distance could be
seen a remarkable hill known as Dorchester Clump. Although it had been a
Roman town, the city where afterwards St. Birinus, the Apostle of
Wessex, set up his episcopal throne from 634 to 707, the head of the See
of Wessex, it was now only a village with one long street, and could not
compare with its much larger neighbour in Dorset. Its large ancient
church, with a fine Jesse window, gave the idea of belonging to a place
once of much greater size. The "hands across the sea" between the two
Dorchesters have never been separated, but the pilgrims now come in the
opposite direction, thousands of Americans visiting Dorchester and its
antiquities; we heard afterwards that the American Dorset had been
presented with one of the tessellated pavements dug up from a Roman
villa in what we might call "Dorchester, Senior," in England, and that a
memorial had been put up in the porch of Dorchester Church inscribed as
follows:
In this Porch lies the body of the Rev. John White, M.A., of New
College, Oxford. He was born at Christmas 1575. For about forty years
he was Rector of this Parish, and also of Holy Trinity, Dorchester.
He died here July 21st, 1648. A man of great godliness, good
scholarship, and wonderful ability. He had a very strong sway in this
town. He greatly forwarded the migration to the Massachusetts Bay
Colony, where his name lives in unfading remembrance.
[Illustration: STATUE OF WILLIAM BARNES.]
Another clergyman, named William Barnes, who was still living, had
become famous by writing articles for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ and
poems for the _Dorset County Chronicle_, and had published a ber part was like that of a
fish. The head was partly like that of a man and partly like that of a
hog. Its fins resembled hands, and it had forty-eight large teeth in
each jaw, not unlike those in the jaw-bone of a man. Just fancy one of
our Jack-tars diving from the Chesil Bank and finding a mate like that
below! But we were told that diving from that Bank into the sea would
mean certain death, as the return flows from the heavy swell of the
Atlantic which comes in here, makes it almost impossible for the
strongest swimmer to return to the Bank, and that "back-wash" in a storm
had accounted for the many shipwrecks that had occurred there in olden
times.
From where we stood we could see the Hill and Bill of Portland, in the
rear of which was the famous Breakwater, the foundation-stone of which
had been laid by the Prince Consort, the husband of Queen Victoria, more
than twenty years previously, and although hundreds of prisoners from
the great convict settlement at Portland had been employed upon the work
ever since, the building of it was not yet completed.
The stone from the famous quarries at Portland, though easily worked, is
of a very durable nature, and has been employed in the great public
buildings in London for hundreds of years. Inigo Jones used most of it
in the building of the Banqueting Hall at Whitehall, and Sir Christopher
Wren in the reconstruction of St. Paul's Cathedral after the Great Fire,
while it had also been used in the building of many churches and
bridges.
We had expected to find a path along the cliffs from Bridport Quay to
Lyme Regis, but two big rocks, "Thorncombe Beacon" and "Golden Cap," had
evidently prevented one from being made, for though the Golden Cap was
only about 600 feet above sea-level it formed the highest elevation on
the south coast. We therefore made the best of our way across the
country to the village of Chideoak, and from there descended into
Charmouth, crossing the river Char at the entrance to that village or
town by a bridge. On the battlement of this bridge we found a similar
inscription to that we had seen at Sturminster, warning us that whoever
damaged the bridge would be liable to be "transported for life," by
order of King George the Fourth."
Charmouth had been one of the Roman stations and the scene of the
fiercest battles between the Saxons and the Danes in 833 and 841, in the
reigns of Egbert and Ethelwolf, in which the Danes appeared to have been
victorious, as they were constantly being reinforced by
fellow-countrymen arriving by sea. But these were practically forgotten,
the memories of them having been replaced in more modern times by events
connected with the Civil War and with the wanderings of "Prince
Charles," the fugitive King Charles II. What a weary and anxious time he
must have had during the nineteen days he spent in the county of Dorset,
in fear of his enemies and watching for a ship by which he could escape
from England, while soldiers were scouring the county to find him!
[Illustration: HOUSE WHERE KING CHARLES LODGED IN CHARMOUTH.]
He wrote a _Narrative_, in which some of his adventures were recorded,
and from which it appeared that after the Battle of Worcester and his
escape to Boscobel, where the oak tree in which he hid himself was still
to be seen, he disguised himself as a manservant and rode before a lady
named Mrs. Lane, in whose employ he was supposed to be, while Lord
Wilton rode on in front. They arrived at a place named Trent, a village
on the borders of Somerset and Dorset, and stayed at the house of Frank
Wyndham, whom Charles described in his _Narrative_ as a "very honest
man," and who concealed him in "an old well-contrived secret place."
When they arrived some of the soldiers from Worcester were in the
village, and Charles wrote that he heard "one trooper telling the people
that he had killed me, and that that was my buff coat he had on," and
the church bells were ringing and bonfires lighted to celebrate the
victory. The great difficulty was to get a ship, for they had tried to
get one at Bristol, but failed. In a few days' time, however, Wyndham
ventured to go into Lyme Regis, and there found a boat about to sail for
St. Malo, and got a friend to arrange terms with the owner to take a
passenger "who had a finger in the pye at Worcester." It was arranged
that the ship should wait outside Charmouth in the Charmouth Roads, and
that the passenger should be brought out in a small boat about midnight
on the day arranged. Charles then reassumed his disguise as a male
servant named William Jackson, and rode before Mrs. Connisby, a cousin
of Wyndham's, while Lord Wilton again rode on in front. On arrival at
Charmouth, rooms were taken at the inn, and a reliable man was engaged
who at midnight was to be at the appointed place with his boat to take
the Prince to the ship.
Meantime the party were anxiously waiting at the inn; but it afterwards
appeared that the man who had been engaged, going home to change his
linen, confided to his wife the nature of his commission. This alarmed
her exceedingly, as that very day a proclamation had been issued
announcing dreadful penalties against all who should conceal the Prince
or any of his followers; and the woman was so terrified that when her
husband went into the chamber to change his linen she locked the door,
and would not let him come out. Charles and his friends were greatly
disappointed, but they were obliged to make the best of it, and stayed
at the inn all night. Early in the morning Charles was advised to leave,
as rumours were circulating in the village; and he and one or two others
rode away to Bridport, while Lord Wilton stayed at the inn, as his horse
required new shoes. He engaged the ostler at the inn to take his horse
to the smithy, where Hamnet the smith declared that "its shoes had been
set in three different counties, of which Worcestershire was one." The
ostler stayed at the inn gossiping about the company, hearing how they
had sat up with their horses saddled all the night, and so on, until,
suspecting the truth, he left the blacksmith to shoe the horse, and went
to see the parson, whom Charles describes as "one Westly," to tell him
what he thought. But the parson was at his morning prayers, and was so
"long-winded" that the ostler became tired of waiting, and fearing lest
he should miss his "tip" from Lord Wilton, hurried back to the smithy
without seeing the parson. After his lordship had departed, Hamnet the
smith went to see Mr. Westly--who by the way was an ancestor of John and
Charles Wesley--and told him the gossip detailed to him by the ostler.
So Mr. Westly came bustling down to the inn, and accosting the landlady
said: "Why, how now, Margaret! you are a Maid of Honour now."
"What mean you by that, Mr. Parson?" said the landlady.
"Why, Charles Stewart lay last night at your house, and kissed you at
his departure; so that now you can't be but a Maid of Honour!"
Margaret was rather vexed at this, and replied rather hastily, "If I
thought it was the King, I should think the better of my lips all the
days of my life; and so you, Mr. Parson, get out of my house!"
Westly and the smith then went to a magistrate, but he did not believe
their story and refused to take any action. Meantime the ostler had
taken the information to Captain Macey at Lyme Regis, and he started off
in pursuit of Charles; but before he reached Bridport Charles had
escaped. The inn at Charmouth many years afterwards had been converted
into a private house, but was still shown to visitors and described as
the house "where King Charles the Second slept on the night of September
22nd, 1652, after his flight from the Battle of Worcester," and the
large chimney containing a hiding-place was also to be seen there.
[Illustration: OMBERSLEY VILLAGE: "THE KING'S ARMS," WHERE CHARLES II
RESTED DURING HIS FLIGHT AFTER THE BATTLE OF WORCESTER, 1652.]
Prince Charles and some friends stood on the tower of Worcester
Cathedral watching the course of the battle, and when they saw they had
lost the day they rushed down in great haste, and mounting their horses
rode away as fast as they could, almost blocking themselves in the
gateway in their hurry. When they reached the village of Ombersley,
about ten miles distant, they hastily refreshed themselves at the old
timber-built inn, which in honour of the event was afterwards named the
"King's Arms." The ceiling, over the spot where Charles stood, is still
ornamented with his coat of arms, including the fleur-de-lys of France,
and in the great chimney where the smoke disappears above the ingle-nook
is a hiding-place capable of holding four men on each side of the
chimney, and so carefully constructed that no one would ever dream that
a man could hide there without being smothered by the smoke. The smoke,
however, is drawn by the draught past the hiding-place, from which there
would doubtless be a secret passage to the chamber above, which extended
from one side of the inn to the other. In a glass case there was at the
time of our visit a cat and a rat--the rat standing on its hind legs and
facing the cat--but both animals dried up and withered like leather,
until they were almost flat, the ribs of the cat showing plainly on its
skin. The landlord gave us their history, from which it appeared that it
had become necessary to place a stove in a back kitchen and to make an
entrance into an old flue to enable the smoke from the stove-pipe to be
carried up the large chimney. The agent of the estate to which the inn
belonged employed one of his workmen, nicknamed "Holy Joe," to do the
work, who when he broke into the flue-could see with the light of his
candle something higher up the chimney. He could not tell what it was,
nor could the landlord, whom "Joe" had called to his assistance, but it
was afterwards discovered to be the cat and the rat that now reposed in
the glass case. It was evident that the rat had been pursued by the cat
and had escaped by running up the narrow flue, whither it had been
followed by the cat, whose head had become jammed in the flue. The rat
had then turned round upon its pursuer, and was in the act of springing
upon it when both of them had been instantly asphyxiated by the fumes in
the chimney.
With the exception of some slight damage to the rat, probably caused in
the encounter, they were both almost perfect, and an expert who had
examined them declared they must have been imprisoned there quite a
hundred years before they could have been reduced to the condition in
which they were found by "Holy Joe"!
The proprietors of the hostelries patronised by royalty always made as
much capital out of the event as possible, and even the inn at Charmouth
displayed the following advertisement after the King's visit:
Here in this House was lodged King Charles.
Come in, Sirs, you may venture;
For here is entertainment good
For Churchman or Dissenter.
[Illustration: MISS MARY ANNING.]
We thought we had finished with fossils after leaving Stromness in the
Orkney Islands and trying to read the names of those deposited in the
museum there, but we had now reached another "paradise for geologists,"
this time described as a "perfect" one; we concluded, therefore, that
what the Pomona district in the Orkneys could not supply, or what Hugh
Miller could not find there, was sure to be found here, as we read that
"where the river Char filtered into the sea the remains of Elephants and
Rhinoceros had been found." But we could not fancy ourselves searching
"the surrounding hills for ammonites and belemnites," although we were
assured that they were numerous, nor looking along the cliffs for such
things as "the remains of ichthyosaurus, plesiosaurus, and other
gigantic saurians, which had been discovered there, as well as
pterodactyles," for my brother declared he did not want to carry any
more stones, his adventure in Derbyshire with them being still fresh on
his mind. We therefore decided to leave these to more learned people,
who knew when they had found them; but, like Hugh Miller with his
famous Asterolepis, a young lady named Mary Anning, who was described as
"the famous girl geologist," had, in 1811, made a great discovery here
of a splendid ichthyosaurus, which was afterwards acquired for the
nation and deposited in the British Museum.
[Illustration: HEAD OF THE ICHTHYOSAURUS.]
Charmouth practically consisted of one long street rising up the hill
from the river, and on reaching the top after getting clear of the town
we had to pass along a curved road cut deeply through the rock to
facilitate coach traffic. In stormy weather the wind blew through this
cutting with such terrific fury that the pass was known as the "Devil's
Bellows," and at times even the coaches were unable to pass through. The
road now descended steeply on the other side, the town of Lyme Regis
spread out before us, with its white houses and the blue sea beyond,
offering a prospect that dwelt in our memories for many years. No town
in all England is quite like it, and it gave us the impression that it
had been imported from some foreign country. In the older part of the
town the houses seemed huddled together as if to protect each other, and
many of them adjoined the beach and were inhabited by fishermen, while a
newer and larger class of houses was gradually being built on the hill
which rose rather abruptly at the rear of what might be called the old
town.
[Illustration: REMAINS OF ICHTHYOSAURUS DISCOVERED AT CHARMOUTH.]
A curious breakwater called the Cobb stretches out a few hundred yards
into the sea. This was originally built in the time of Edward I as a
shelter for the boats in stormy weather, but was destroyed by a heavy
sea in the reign of Edward III, who allowed a tax to be levied on all
goods imported and exported, the proceeds to be applied towards the
rebuilding of the Cobb.
[Illustration: DUKE OF MONMOUTH.]
After the death of Charles II his place was filled by his brother, who
ascended the throne as James II; but Charles had a natural son, James,
the Duke of Monmouth, who had been sent abroad, but who now claimed the
English crown. On June 11th, 1685, the inhabitants of Lyme were alarmed
by the appearance of three foreign ships which did not display any
flags. They were astonished to find that it was an expedition from
Holland, and that James, Duke of Monmouth, had arrived to lead a
rebellion against his uncle, James II. The Duke landed on the Cobb,
which at that time did not join the shore, so that he could not step on
shore without wetting his legs; but Lieut. Bagster of the Royal Navy,
who happened to be in a boat close by, jumped into the water and
presented his knee, upon which the Duke stepped and so reached the shore
without inconvenience. Monmouth then turned to Lieut. Bagster, and
familiarly striking him on the shoulder, said, "Brave young man, you
will join me!" But Bagster replied, "No, sir! I have sworn to be true to
the King, and no consideration shall move me from my fidelity." Monmouth
then knelt down on the beach and thanked God for having preserved the
friends of liberty and pure religion from the perils of the sea, and
implored the Divine blessing on what was to be done by land. He was
received with great rejoicings in Lyme, where there was a strong
Protestant element, and many joined his standard there, including Daniel
Defoe, the author of _Robinson Crusoe_, then only twenty-four years of
age. As the people generally had no grievance against James II,
Monmouth's rebellion failed from want of support, and although he raised
an army of 5,000 men by the time he reached Sedgmoor, in Somerset, he
was there defeated and taken prisoner by the King's army, and beheaded
in the same year. Defoe appears to have escaped capture, but twelve
local followers of Monmouth were hanged afterwards on the Cobb at Lyme
Regis. After Monmouth's execution a satirical ballad was printed and
hawked about the streets of London, entitled "The Little King of Lyme,"
one verse being:
Lyme, although a little place,
I think it wondrous pretty;
If 'tis my fate to wear a crown
I'll make of it a city.
We had a look through the old church, and saw a stained-glass window
which had been placed there in 1847 to the memory of Mary Anning, for
the services rendered by her to science through her remarkable discovery
of fossils in the cliffs of Lyme. There were also some chained books in
the church, one of which was a copy of the Breeches Bible, published in
1579, and so called because the seventh verse in the third chapter of
Genesis was rendered, "The eyes of them bothe were opened ... and they
sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches."
We passed from Dorsetshire into Devonshire as we walked up the hill
loading from Lyme Regis, and we had a fine view when we reached the
summit of the road at Hunter's Cross, where four roads meet. Here we saw
a flat stone supposed to have been the quoin of a fallen cromlech, and
to have been used for sacrificial purposes. From that point a sharp walk
soon brought us to the River Axe and the town of Axminster.
In the time of the Civil War the district between Lyme Regis and
Axminster appears to have been a regular battle-field for the contending
parties, as Lyme Regis had been fortified in 1643 and taken possession
of by Sir Walter Erie and Sir Thomas Trenchard in the name of the
Parliament, while Axminster was in the possession of the Royalists, who
looked upon the capture of Lyme as a matter of the highest importance.
In 1644 Prince Maurice advanced from Axminster with an army of nearly
five thousand Royalists and cannon and attacked Lyme from the higher end
of that town; but although they had possession of many fortified
mansions which acted as bases or depots they were defeated again and
again. The inhabitants of the town were enthusiastic about what they
considered to be the Protestant cause, and even the women, as in other
places, fought in male attire side by side with the men, to make the
enemy think they had a greater number opposed to them. The lion's share
of the defence fell to the lot of Captain Davey, who, from his fort
worked his guns with such amazing persistence that the enemy were
dismayed, while during the siege the town was fed from the sea by ships
which also brought ammunition and stores. After righting for nearly two
months and losing two thousand of his men Prince Maurice retired. The
cannon-balls that he used, of which some have been found since that time
on or near the shore, and in the outskirts of the town, weighed 17-1/2
lb.
One of the defenders was Robert Blake, the famous Admiral, who
afterwards defeated the Dutch in a great battle off Portland. He died in
his ship at Portsmouth, and his body was taken to Greenwich and
afterwards embalmed and buried in Westminster Abbey. But Charles II
remembered the part Blake had taken in the defeat of the Royalist forces
at Lyme Regis, and ordered his ashes to be raked from the grave and
scattered to the winds.
As may be imagined, in the fights between the two parties the
country-people suffered from depredations and were extensively plundered
by both sides. This was referred to in a political song entitled "The
West Husbandman's Lamentations," which, in the dialect then prevailing,
voices the complaint of a farmer who lost six oxen and six horses:
Ich had zix Oxen t'other day,
And them the Roundheads vetcht away--
A mischief be their speed!
And chad zix Horses left me whole.
And them the Cabballeeroes stole,
Chee vore men be agreed.
We were rather disappointed when we arrived at Axminster, for, having
often heard of Axminster carpets, we expected to find factories there
where they made them, but we found that industry had been given up for
many years. We saw the factory where they were formerly made, and heard
a lot about Mr. Whitty, the proprietor. He had made two beautiful
carpets, and exhibited them in London before sending them to a customer
abroad who had ordered them. They were despatched on board a ship from
the Thames, which did not arrive at its destination and was never heard
of afterwards. One of these carpets was described to us as being just
like an oil painting representing a battle scene. The carpets were made
in frames, a woman on each side, and were worked with a needle in a
machine. We saw the house where Mr. Whitty formerly resided, the factory
being at one end of it, while at the back were his dye-works, where, by
a secret method, he dyed in beautiful tints that would not fade. The
pile on the carpets was very long, being more like that on Turkey
carpets, so that when the ends were worn they could be cut off with a
machine and then the carpet appeared new again. Mr. Whitty never
recovered from the great loss of the two carpets, and he died without
revealing his secret process even to his son. The greater part of the
works was burnt down on Trinity Sunday, 1834, and though some portion
was rebuilt, it was never again used for making Axminster carpets, which
were afterwards made at Wilton, to which place the looms were removed in
1835; the industry, started in 1755, had existed at Axminster for eighty
years.
King Athelstan founded a college here in commemoration of the Battle of
Brunnenburh, fought in 937, in which fell five kings and seven earls.
The exact site of this battle did not appear to have been located,
though this neighbourhood scarcely had more substantial claims to it
than the place we passed through in Cumberland.
Axminster took its name from the river Axe, which passes near the town,
and falls into the sea at Axemouth, near Seaton; the name Axe, as well
as Exe and Usk, is Celtic and signifies water--all three being the names
of rivers. There was not much left of Axminster at the end of the Civil
War, except the church, for most of the buildings had been burnt down. A
letter written on November 21st, 1644, by a trooper from Lyme Regis to
his parents in London contained the following passage:
Hot newes in these parts: viz., the 15th of this present November wee
fell upon Axminster with our horse and foote, and through God's
mercie beat them off their works, insomuch that wee possessed of the
towne, and they betook them to the Church, which, they had fortified,
on which wee were loath to cast our men, being wee had a garrison to
look on. My brother and myselfe were both there. We fired part of the
towne, what successe we had you may reade by the particulars here
inclosed. Wee lost only one man in the taking of the towne, and had
five wounded. The Monday following wee marched to Axminster againe.
Major Sydenham having joyned with us that Lordis Day at night before,
thinking to have seized on the Church, and those forces that were in
it, but finding them so strong, as that it might indanger the loss of
many of our men, wee thought it not fit to fall upon the Church, but
rather to set the houses on fire that were not burnt at the first
firing, which accordingly we did, and burnt doune the whole toune,
unlease it were some few houses, but yet they would not come forth
out of the Church.
When Prince Charles, afterwards Charles II, was defeated at Worcester,
it was only natural that he should go amongst his friends for
protection, and a curious story was told here about his narrow escape
from his pursuers in this neighbourhood. He had stayed a short time with
the Wyndham family, near Chard, when news came that his pursuers were on
his track, and that no time must be lost, so he was sent to Coaxden, two
miles from Axminster, to take refuge with the Cogan family, relatives of
the Colonel Wyndham who took a leading part in securing his safe
retreat. He had only just gone when the soldiers arrived and insisted
upon looking through the house and searching it thoroughly; even a young
lady they met in the house was suspected of being the King in disguise,
and it was with some difficulty that they were persuaded otherwise. They
examined every room and linen chest, and then departed in full chase
towards the south. Meanwhile, Charles had arrived at Coaxden, and
entering the parlour, where Mrs. Cogan was sitting alone, threw himself
upon her protection. It was then the fashion for ladies to wear very
long dresses, and as no time was to be lost, the soldiers being on his
heels, she hastily concealed him beneath the folds of her dress. Mrs.
Cogan was in her affections a Royalist, but her husband, who was then
out upon his estate, belonged to the opposite party. Observing the
approach of the soldiers, he made towards the house, and together they
entered the room where the lady was sitting, who affected surprise at
their intrusion. The men immediately announced their business, stating
that Prince Charles had been traced very near the house, and as he must
be concealed upon the premises, they were authorised to make a strict
search for him. Assenting with apparent readiness to their object, Mrs.
Cogan kept her seat, whilst her husband accompanied the men into every
room. At length, having searched the premises in vain, they took their
departure, Mr. Cogan going out with them. Being now released from her
singular and perilous situation, the lady provided for the security of
the fugitive until it was prudent for him to depart, when, furnished
with provisions and a change of apparel, he proceeded on his journey to
Trent, and after further adventures, from thence to Brighthelmstone,
then a poor fishing town, where he embarked for France. After he had
reached the Continent Charles rewarded the lady's fidelity by sending
her a handsome gold chain and locket having his arms on the reverse,
which was long preserved in the family.
There was a curious stone in the churchyard at Axminster placed over the
remains of a crippled gentleman whose crutches were buried with him, a
copy of them being carved on the stone. He was the father of William
Buckland, the eminent geologist, who was Dean of Westminster and died in
1856.
Our next stage was Honiton, the "town of lace," and we walked quickly
onwards for about six miles until we reached the foot of Honiton Hill,
a considerable elevation which stood between ourselves and that town;
and after an upward gradient of a mile or two we gained a fine view both
of the town and the beautiful country beyond, which included Dumpdown
Hill, crowned with an ancient circular camp.
Several definitions of the word Honiton had been given, but the most
acceptable, and perhaps the correct one and certainly the sweetest, was
that of the "Honey Town," originating, it was said, at a time when the
hills which surrounded the place were covered with thyme, "sweet to the
taste and fragrant to the smell; and so attractive to the bees that
large quantities of honey were produced there." The bee-farmers even in
Saxon times were important personages, for sugar was not imported and
honey was the sweetener for all kinds of food and liquor. Honiton, like
many other towns, largely consisted of one wide street; and Daniel
Defoe, in his journey from London to Land's End, early in the year 1700,
described this "town of lace" as large and beautiful, and "so very
remarkably paved with small pebbles, that on either side the way a
little channel is left shouldered up on the sides of it; so that it
holds a small stream of fine running water, with a little square
dipping-place left at every door, so that every family in the town has a
clear running river just at their own door; and this so much finer, so
much pleasanter than that of Salisbury, that in my opinion there is no
comparison." The running streams had now disappeared both here and at
Salisbury, but we could quite understand why one was so much better than
the other, as the water running through Salisbury was practically on the
level, while that at Honiton ran down the hill and had ample fall.
Lancashire ideas of manufacturing led us to expect to find a number of
factories at Honiton where the lace was made for which the town was so
famous, but we found it was all being worked by hand by women and girls,
and in private houses. We were privileged to see some very beautiful
patterns that were being worked to adorn fashionable ladies in London
and elsewhere. The industry was supposed to have been introduced here
originally by Flemish refugees in the fifteenth century, and had been
patronised by Royalty since the marriage of Queen Charlotte in 1761, who
on that occasion wore a Honiton lace dress, every flower on which was
copied from nature. We were informed by a man who was standing near the
"Dolphin Inn," where we called for tea, that the lace trade was "a
bigger business before the Bank broke," but he could not tell us what
bank it was or when it "broke," so we concluded it must have been a
local financial disaster that happened a long time ago.
The Roman road from Bath to Exeter passed through Honiton, and the
weekly market had been held on each side of that road from time
immemorial; the great summer fair being also held there on the first
Wednesday and Thursday after July 19th. A very old custom was observed
on that occasion, for on the Tuesday preceding the fair the town crier
went round the town carrying a white glove on a pole and crying:
O yes! The Fair is begun,
And no man dare to be arrested
Until the Fair is done,
while on the Friday evening he again went round the town ringing his
bell, to show that the fair was over. The origin of this custom appeared
to be shrouded in mystery, as we could get no satisfactory explanation,
but we thought that those three days' grace must have served as an
invitation to evil-doers to visit the town.
The church contained the tomb of Thomas Marwood, who, according to an
inscription thereon, "practised Physick and Chirurgery above
seventy-five years, and being aged above 105 years, departed in ye
Catholic Faith September ye 18th Anno Domini 1617." Marwood became
famous in consequence of his having--possibly, it was suggested, by pure
accident--cured the Earl of Essex of a complaint that afflicted him, for
which service he was presented with an estate in the neighbourhood of
Honiton by Queen Elizabeth.
The "Dolphin Inn" at Honiton was where we made our first practical
acquaintance with the delectable Devonshire clotted cream, renewed
afterwards on every possible occasion. The inn was formerly the private
mansion of the Courtenay family, and its sign was one of the family
crests, "a Dolphin embowed" or bent like a bow. This inn had been
associated with all the chief events of the town and neighbourhood
during the past three centuries, and occupied a prominent position near
the market cross on the main road. In January 1688 the inn had been
willed to Richard Minify, and after his death to his daughter Ann
Minify, and it was in that year that William, Prince of Orange, set sail
for England, and landed at Torbay in Devonshire. The advanced guard of
his army reached Honiton on October 19th, and the commander, Colonel
Tollemache, and his staff occupied the "Dolphin." William was very
coldly received by the county families in Devonshire, as they remained
strongly attached to the Jacobite cause, and to demonstrate their
adhesion to the House of Stuart they planted Scotch fir trees near their
mansions. On the other hand, many of the clergy sympathised with the
rebellion, and to show their loyalty to the cause they planted avenues
of lime trees from the churchyard gate to the church porch. James II,
whom William came to replace, wrote in his memoirs that the events that
happened at Honiton were the turning-point of his fortunes, and it was
at the "Dolphin" that these events culminated, leading to the desertion
of the King's soldiers in favour of William. It seemed strange that a
popular song set to a popular tune could influence a whole army, and
incidentally depose a monarch from his throne. Yet such was the case
here.
[Illustration: EXAMPLES OF HONITON LACE. From specimens kindly lent by
Mrs. Fowler, of Honiton. The lower example is a corner of a handkerchief
specially made for Queen Mary.]
Lieutenant-General Richard Talbot, who was in Ireland in 1685, had
recommended himself to his bigoted master, James II, by his arbitrary
treatment of the Protestants in that country, and in the following year
he was created Earl of Tyrconnel, and, being a furious Papist, was
nominated by the King to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. In 1688 he was
going to Ireland on a second expedition at the time that the advanced
guard of William of Orange reached Honiton, and when the advanced guard
of King James's English army was at Salisbury. It was at this critical
period that Lord Wharton, who has been described as "a political
weathercock, a bad spendthrift, and a poet of some pretensions," joined
the Prince of Orange in the Revolution, and published this famous song.
He seems to have been a dissolute man, and ended badly, although he
was a visitor at the "Dolphin" at that time, with many distinguished
personages. In the third edition of the small pamphlet in which the song
was first published Lord Wharton was described "as a Late Viceroy of
Ireland who has so often boasted himself upon his talent for mischief,
invention, and lying, and for making a certain 'Lilliburlero' song with
which, if you will believe himself, he sung a deluded Prince out of
three kingdoms." It was said that the music of the song was composed by
Henry Purcell, the organist of Westminster Abbey, and contributed not a
little to the success of the Revolution. Be this as it may, Burnet, then
Bishop of Salisbury, wrote:
It made an impression on the King's army that cannot be imagined....
The whole army, and at last the people, both in city and country,
were singing it perpetually ... never had so slight a thing so great
an effect.
Purcell's music generally was much admired, and the music to "Lilli
Burlero," which was the name of the song, must have been "taking" and a
good tune to march to, for the words themselves would scarcely have had
such a momentous result. e midst of a fine agricultural
country, it was one of the stations of the Romans, and the terminus of
the ancient Icknield Way, so that an army landed there could easily
march into the country beyond. Afterwards it became the capital of the
West Saxons, Athelstan building his castle on an ancient earthwork
known--from the colour of the earth or rock of which it was composed--as
the "Red Mound." His fort, and the town as well, were partially
destroyed in the year 1003 by the Danes under Sweyn, King of Denmark.
Soon after the Norman invasion William the Conqueror built his castle on
the same site--the "Red Mound"--the name changing into the Norman tongue
as Rougemont; and when King Edward IV came to Exeter in 1469, in pursuit
of the Lancastrian Earls Clarence and Warwick, who escaped by ship from
Dartmouth, he was, according to Shakespeare's _Richard III_, courteously
shown the old Castle of Rougemont by the Mayor. We could not requisition
the services of his Worship at such an early hour this morning, but we
easily found the ruins of Rougemont without his assistance; though,
beyond an old tower with a dungeon beneath it and a small triangular
window said to be of Saxon workmanship, very little remained. The ruins
had been laid out to the best advantage, and the grounds on the slope of
the ancient keep had been formed into terraces and planted with flowers,
bushes, and trees. As this work had originally been carried out as far
back as the year 1612, the grounds claimed to be the oldest public
gardens in England: the avenues of great trees had been planted about
fifty years later.
Perkin Warbeck was perhaps one of the most romantic characters who
visited Exeter, for he claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, who, he
contended, was not murdered in the Tower of London, as generally
supposed. As the Duke he claimed to be more entitled to the Crown of
England than Henry VII, who was then on the throne, Perkin Warbeck, on
the other hand, was described as the son of a Tournai Jew, but there
seemed to be some doubt about this. In any case the Duchess of Burgundy
acknowledged him as "her dear nephew," and his claim was supported by
Charles VIII of France and James IV of Scotland; from the former he
received a pension, and from the latter the hand of his relative Lady
Catherine Gordon in marriage.
[Illustration: ATHELSTAN'S TOWER.]
He arrived at Exeter on September 27th, 1497, with 7,000 men, and after
burning the North Gate he forced his way through the city towards the
Castle, but was defeated there by Sir Richard Courtenay, the Earl of
Devon, and taken prisoner. For some mysterious reason it was not until
November 3rd, 1499, more than two years after the battle, that he was
hanged for treason, at Tyburn. Another strange incident was that when
King Henry VII came to Exeter after the battle, and the followers of
Perkin Warbeck were brought before him with halters round their necks
and bare-headed, to plead for mercy, he generously pardoned them and set
them at liberty.
The fighting in the district we had passed through last night occurred
in 1549, the second year of the reign of King Edward VI. A pleasing
story was related of this King, to the effect that when he was a boy and
wanted something from a shelf he could not quite reach, his little
playfellow, seeing the difficulty, carried him a big book to stand upon,
that would just have enabled him to get what he wanted; but when Edward
saw what book it was that he had brought he would not stand upon it
because it was the "Holy Bible."
The religious disturbances we have already recorded were not confined to
the neighbourhood of Exeter, but extended all over England, and were the
result of an Act of Parliament for which the people were not prepared,
and which was apparently of too sweeping a character, for by it all
private Masses were abolished, all images removed from churches, and the
Book of Common Prayer introduced. It was the agitation against this Act
that caused the 10,000 Cornish and Devonian men, who were described as
rebels, incited also by their priests, to besiege the city of Exeter,
and to summon the Mayor and Council to capitulate. This the
"Ever-Faithful City" refused to do, and held out for thirty-six days,
until Lord Russell and Lord Grey appeared on the scene with the Royal
army and raised the siege.
In 1643, during the Civil War, Exeter surrendered to Prince Maurice, the
nephew of Charles I, and three years later capitulated to the Army of
the Parliament on condition that the garrison should march out with all
the honours of war.
The unhappy wife of Charles I arrived at Exeter in 1644, having a few
days previously bidden her husband "Good-bye" for the last time, a
sorrowful parting which we had heard about at Abingdon, where it had
taken place, and whither Charles had accompanied her from Oxford. She
stayed at Bedford House in Exeter, where she was delivered of a
daughter, who was named Henrietta, being baptized in the cathedral in a
magnificent new font erected especially for the occasion. The Queen left
the city on July 14th, and sailed from Falmouth to France, where she
stayed at the Court of Louis XIV. Twelve days later the King reached
Exeter, and called to see his infant daughter, and he again stayed at
Bedford House on his d.
It was astonishing how many underground passages we had heard of on our
journey. What strange imaginations they conjured up in our minds! As so
few of them were now in existence, we concluded that many might have
been more in the nature of trenches cut on the surface of the land and
covered with timber or bushes; but there were old men in Exeter who were
certain that there was a tunnel between the site of the old castle and
the cathedral, and from there to other parts of the city, and they could
remember some of them being broken into and others blocked up at the
ends. We were also quite sure ourselves that such tunnels formerly
existed, but the only one we had actually seen passed between a church
and a castle. It had just been found accidentally in making an
excavation, and was only large enough for one man at a time to creep
through comfortably.
There were a number of old inns in Exeter besides the old "Globe," which
had been built on the Icknield Way in such a manner as to block that
road, forming a terminus, as if to compel travellers to patronise the
inn; and some of these houses were associated with Charles Dickens when
he came down from London to Exeter in 1835 to report on Lord John
Russell's candidature for Parliament for the _Morning Observer_. The
election was a very exciting one, and the great novelist, it was said,
found food for one of his novels in the ever-famous Eatonswill, and the
ultra-abusive editors. Four years afterwards Dickens leased a cottage at
Alphington, a village about a mile and a half away from Exeter, for his
father and mother, who resided there for three and a half years. Dickens
frequently came to see them, and "Mr. Micawber," with his ample seals
and air of importance, made a great impression on the people of the
village. Dickens freely entered into the social life of Exeter, and he
was a regular visitor on these occasions at the old "Turk's Head Inn,"
adjoining the Guildhall, where it was said he picked up the "Fat Boy" in
_Pickwick_. Mrs. Lupin of the "Blue Dragon" appeared as a character in
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, and "Pecksniff" was a local worthy whom he grossly
and unpardonably caricatured.
[Illustration: "MILE END COTTAGE," ALPHINGTON.]
On leaving Exeter we crossed the river by the Exe bridge and followed
the course of that stream on our way to regain the sea-coast, entering
the suburb of St. Thomas the Apostle, where at a church mentioned in
1222 as being "without the walls," we saw the tower from which the vicar
was hanged for being concerned in the insurrection of 1549. At
Alphington we had pointed out to us the "Mile End Cottage," formerly the
residence of the parents of Charles Dickens, and then walked on to
Exminster, expecting from its name to find something interesting, but we
were doomed to disappointment. On the opposite side of the river,
however, we could see the quaint-looking little town of Topsham, which
appeared as if it had been imported from Holland, a country which my
brother had visited seven years previously; we heard that the principal
treasures stored in the houses there were Dutch tiles. Ships had
formerly passed this place on their way to Exeter, but about the year
1290 Isabella de-Fortibus, Countess of Exeter, having been offended by
the people there, blocked up the river with rocks and stones, thereby
completely obstructing the navigation and doing much damage to the trade
of Exeter. At that time cloths and serges were woven from the wool for
which the neighbourhood of Exeter was famous, and exported to the
Continent, the ships returning with wines and other merchandise; hence
Exeter was at that time the great wine-importing depot of the country.
The weir which thus blocked the river was still known as the "Countess
Weir," and Topsham--which, by the way, unlike Exeter, absolutely
belonged to the Earls of Devon--increased in importance, for ships had
now to stop there instead of going through to Exeter. The distance
between the two places is only about four miles, and the difficulty
appeared to have been met in the first instance by the construction of a
straight road from Exeter, to enable goods to be conveyed between that
city and the new port. This arrangement continued for centuries, but in
1544 a ship canal was made to Topsham, which was extended and enlarged
in 1678 and again in 1829, so that Exeter early recovered its former
position, as is well brought out in the finely-written book of the
_Exeter Guild of Merchant Adventurers_, still in existence. Its Charter
was dated June 17th, 1599, and by it Queen Elizabeth incorporated
certain merchants under the style of "The Governors Consuls, and Society
of the Merchant Adventurers of the Citye and County of Exeter,
traffiqueing the Realme of Fraunce and the Dominions of the French
Kinge." The original canal was a small one and only adapted for boats
carrying about fifteen tons: afterwards it was enlarged to a depth of
fifteen feet of water--enough for the small ships of those days--for
even down to Tudor times a hundred-ton boat constituted a man-of-war.
This canal made Exeter the fifth port in the kingdom in tonnage, and it
claimed to be the first lock canal constructed in England. Its
importance gradually declined after the introduction of railways and the
demand for larger ships, and the same causes affected Topsham, its
rival.
[Illustration: POWDERHAM CASTLE.]
Leaving Exminster, we had a delightful walk to Powderham, the ancient
seat of the Courtenay family, the Earls of Devon, who were descended
from Atho, the French crusader. The first of the three branches of this
family became Emperors of the West before the taking of Constantinople
by the Turks, the second intermarried with the royal family of France,
and the third was Reginald Courtenay, who came to England in the
twelfth century and received honours and lands from Henry II. His family
have been for six centuries Earls of Devon, and rank as one of the most
honoured in England.
We called to see the little church at Powderham, which stood quite near
the river side, and which, like many others, was built of the dark red
sandstone peculiar to the district. There were figures in it of Moses
and Aaron, supposed originally to be placed to guard the two tablets
containing the Ten Commandments; and there were the remains of an old
screen, but the panels had suffered so severely that the figures and
emblems could not be properly distinguished. There was also under an
arch a very old monument, said to be that of the famous Isabella
de-Fortibus, Countess of Devon, who died in 1293. She was the sister of
the last Earl Baldwin de Redvers, and married William de-Fortibus, Earl
of Albemarle, in 1282. Her feet rested on a dog, while on either side
her head were two small child-angels, the dog and children being
supposed to point to her as the heroine of a story recorded in a very
old history of Exeter:
An inhabitant of the city being a very poor man and having many
children, thought himself blessed too much in that kind, wherefore to
avoid the charge that was likely to grow upon him in that way
absented himself seven years together from his wife. But then
returning, she within the space of a year afterwards was delivered of
seven male children at a birth, which made the poor man to think
himself utterly undone, and thereby despairing put them all in a
basket with full intent to have drowned them: but Divine Providence
following him, occasioned a lady then within the said city coming at
this instant of time in his way to demand of him what he carried in
that basket, who replied that he had there whelps, which she desired
to see, who, after view perceiving that they were children, compelled
the poor man to acquaint her with the whole circumstances, whom, when
she had sharply rebuked for such his humanity, presently commanded
them all to be taken from him and put to nurse, then to school, and
so to the university, and in process of time, being attained to man's
estate and well qualified in learning, made means and procured
benefices for every one of them.
The language used in this story was very quaint, and was probably the
best tale related about Isabella, the Countess of Devon; but old
"Isaacke," the ancient writer, in his history remarks that it "will
hardly persuade credit."
We could not learn what became of William her husband; but Isabella
seemed to have been an extremely strong-minded, determined woman, and
rather spiteful, for it was she who blocked the river so that the people
of Exeter, who had offended her, could have neither "fishing nor
shipping" below the weir. On one occasion, when four important parishes
had a dispute about their boundaries, she summoned all their principal
men to meet her on the top of a swampy hill, and throwing her ring into
the bog told them that where it lay was where the parishes met; the
place is known to this day as "Ring-in-the-Mire."
We passed by Powderham Castle, and saw some magnificent trees in the
park, and on a wooded hill the Belvedere, erected in 1773. This was a
triangular tower 60 feet high, with a hexagonal turret at each corner
for sight-seeing, and from it a beautiful view over land and sea could
be obtained.
With regard to the churches in this part of England, we learned that
while Somerset was noted for towers and Cornwall for crosses, the
churches in Devonshire were noted for screens, and nearly every church
we visited had a screen or traces where one had existed, some of them
being very beautiful, especially that in Kenton church, which we now
went to inspect. Farther north the images and paintings on the screens,
and even the woodwork, had been badly disfigured, but some of the old
work in Devon had been well preserved. The screens had been intended to
protect the chancel of the church from the nave, to teach people that on
entering the chancel they were entering the most sacred part of the
church, and images and paintings were placed along the screens. The same
idea, but in another direction, was carried out on the outside of the
churches; for there also the people, scarcely any of whom in those days
could read or write, were taught, by means of images and
horrible-looking gargoyles worked in stone placed on the outside of the
church and steeple, that everything vile and wicked was in the world
outside the church. The beautiful pictures and images inside the church
were intended to show that everything pure and holy was to be found
within: the image of the patron saint being generally placed over the
doorway.
[Illustration: BELVEDERE TOWER.]
[Illustration: KENTON CHURCH.]
The village of Kenton was hidden in a small dell, and possessed a
village green, in the centre of which were the remains of an old cross.
The church tower was one hundred feet high, surmounted by an unusually
tall pinnacle at each corner, the figure of a saint appearing in a
niche, presumably for protection. Kenton must have been a place of some
importance in early times, for Henry III had granted it an annual fair
on the feast of All Saints. The magnificent screen in the church not
only reached across the chancel, but continued across the two transepts
or chapels on either side, and rose in tiers of elaborate carving
towards the top of the chancel arch. No less than forty of its panels
retained their original pictures of saints and prophets, with scrolls of
Latin inscriptions alternating with verses from the Old Testament and
clauses from the Apostles' Creed. Most of the screen was
fifteenth-century work, and it was one of the finest in the county; much
of the work was Flemish. On it were images of saints, both male and
female, and of some of the prophets, the saints being distinguishable by
the nimbus or halo round their heads, and the prophets by caps and
flowing robes after the style of the Jewish costumes in the Middle Ages.
There was also a magnificent pulpit of about the same date as the
screen, and so richly designed as to equal any carved pulpit in Europe.
It was said to have been carved from the trunk of a single oak tree and
ornamented in gilt and colours.
The number of screens in the churches near the sea-coast caused us to
wonder whether some of them had been brought by sea from Flanders or
France, as we remembered that our Cheshire hero, and a famous warrior,
Sir Hugh de Calveley, who kept up the reputation of our county by eating
a calf at one meal, and who died about the year 1400, had enriched his
parish church with the spoils of France; but the lovely old oak
furniture, with beautifully figured panels, some containing figures of
saints finely painted, which he brought over, had at a recent
"restoration" (?) been taken down and sold at two pounds per cartload!
We sincerely hoped that such would not be the fate of the beautiful work
at Kenton.
We now came to Star Cross, a place where for centuries there had been a
ferry across the River Exe, between the extreme west and east of Devon.
The rights of the ferry had formerly belonged to the abbots of
Sherborne, who had surmounted the landing-place with a cross, which had
now disappeared. The ferry leads by a rather tortuous passage of two
miles to Exmouth, a town we could see in the distance across the water;
but troublesome banks of sand, one forming a rabbit warren, obstructed
the mouth of the river. We also passed through Cofton, a small village
noted for its cockles, which the women gathered along the shore in a
costume that made them resemble a kind of mermaid, except that the lower
half resembled that of a man rather than a fish. About two miles from
Cofton was the village of Mamhead, with its obelisk built in 1742, one
hundred feet high, on the top of a spur of the Great Haldon Hill. The
rector of the church here at one time was William Johnson Temple, often
mentioned in _Boswell's Life of Johnson_. He was the grandfather of
Frederick Temple, Bishop of Exeter at the time we passed through that
city, afterwards Bishop of London, and finally Archbishop of Canterbury,
to whose harsh voice and common sense we had once listened when he was
addressing a public meeting in Manchester. In the churchyard at Mamhead
was an enormous yew tree, over eight hundred years old. In 1775, when
Boswell came to see Lord Lisburne at Mamhead Park, and stayed at the
vicarage, he was so much impressed by the size and magnificence of this
great tree, that he made a vow beneath its great branches "never to be
drunk again"--a vow he soon forgot when he was out of sight of the tree.
We soon arrived at the pretty little town of Dawlish, and perhaps it was
its unique appearance that gave us the impression that we had reached
another of the prettiest places we had visited. There we halted for
refreshments and for a hurried excursion in and about the town, as we
were anxious to reach Torquay before night, where we had decided to stay
until Monday morning. We walked towards the source of the water, which
comes down from the higher lands in a series of pretty little
waterfalls, spreading out occasionally into small lakes adorned at the
sides with plots of grass and beds of flowers. The name Dawlish, we
learned, came from two Cornish words meaning "deep stream," or, as some
have it, "Devil's Water"; and behind the town on Haldon Hill was the
"Devil's Punchbowl," from which descended the water that passed through
the town, but which is in much too pleasant a position, we thought, to
be associated with his satanic majesty.
[Illustration: THE CONGER ROCK, DAWLISH]
Modern Dawlish (though "Doflisc" appears in early charters) only dated
from the year 1810, when the course of a small stream was changed, and
the pretty waterfalls made; rustic bridges were placed over it and
houses built near the banks; this scheme, which was intended to make the
fortunes of the prospectors and of the inhabitants generally, was
completed at the beginning of November in that year. But, sad to relate,
before nine o'clock on the morning of November 10th in that same year
scarcely a vestige of the improvements remained, and in place of a small
rippling stream came a great river, which swept away four houses with
stables and other buildings and eight wooden bridges. It seemed almost
as if the devil had been vexed with the prospectors for interfering with
his water, and had caused this devastation to punish them for their
audacity. But a great effort was made in 1818, and a more permanent
scheme on similar lines was completed; and Dawlish as we saw it in 1871
was a delightful place suggestive of a quiet holiday or honeymoon
resort. Elihu Burritt, in his _Walk from London to Land's End_, speaks
well of Dawlish; and Barham, a local poet and a son of the renowned
author of _Ingoldsby Legends_, in his legend "The Monk of Haldon," in
the July number of _Temple Bar_ in 1867, wrote:
Then low at your feet,
From this airy retreat,
Reaching down where the fresh and the salt water meet,
The roofs may be seen of an old-fashioned street;
Half village, half town, it is--pleasant but smallish,
And known where it happens to _be_ known, as Dawlish.
A place I'd suggest
As one of the best
For a man breaking down who needs absolute rest,
Especially too if he's weak in the chest;
Torquay may be gayer,
But as for the air
It really can not for a moment compare
With snug little Dawlish--at least so they say there.
[Illustration: ON THE COAST NEAR DAWLISH.]
The light-coloured cliffs of Dorsetshire had now given place to the dark
red sandstone cliffs of Devonshire, a change referred to by Barham in
"The Monk of Haldon," for he wrote:
'Tis certainly odd that this part of the coast,
While neighbouring Dorset gleams white as a ghost,
Should look like anchovy sauce spread upon toast.
We were now bound for Teignmouth, our next stage; and our road for a
short distance ran alongside, but above, the seashore. The change in
the colour of the cliffs along the sea-coast reminded my brother of an
incident that occurred when he was going by sea to London, about nine
years before our present journey. He had started from Liverpool in a
tramp steamboat, which stopped at different points on the coast to load
and unload cargo; and the rocks on the coast-line as far as he had
seen--for the boat travelled and called at places in the night as well
as day--had all been of a dark colour until, in the light of a fine day,
the ship came quite near Beachy Head, where the rocks were white and
rose three or four hundred feet above the sea. He had formed the
acquaintance of a young gentleman on board who was noting every object
of interest in a diary, and who, like my brother, was greatly surprised
at the white cliffs with the clear blue sky overhead. Presently the
captain came along, and the young man asked him why the rocks were
white. "Well, sir," said the captain, "the sea is as deep there as the
rocks are high, and they are so dangerous to ships in the dark that the
Government has ordered them to be whitewashed once a month to prevent
shipwreck." Out came the pocket-book, and as the captain watched the
passenger write it down, my brother looked hard in the captain's face,
who never moved a muscle, but a slight twinkle in one of his eyes showed
that he did not want to be asked any questions!
The Devon red sandstone was not very durable, and the action of the sea
had worn the outlying rocks into strange shapes. Before reaching
Teignmouth we had some good views of the rocks named "the Parson and the
Clerk," the history of which was by no means modern, the legend being
told in slightly different ways:
A great many years ago the vicar of Dawlish and his clerk had been to
Teignmouth to collect tithes, and were riding home along the cliffs on a
dark wet night when they lost their way. Suddenly they came to a house
that they did not remember having seen before. The windows were bright
and light, and they could hear the shouts and laughter of a very merry
company within; they were just wishing themselves inside when a window
was thrown open and they were invited to come in, an invitation they
very willingly accepted, and they soon began to enjoy themselves,
drinking deeply and waxing merrier every moment, the parson singing
songs that were quite unfit for a priest, entirely forgetting the
sanctity of his calling, while the clerk followed his master's example.
They stayed long, and when, with giddy heads and unsteady legs, they
rose to depart, the parson said he was sure he could not find the way,
and he must have a guide, even if it were the devil himself. The man who
had invited them into the house said he would put them on the right way
for Dawlish, and led them to the top of the road, and telling them to go
straight on, immediately disappeared. When they had gone a little way,
they thought the tide uncommonly high, as it reached their feet,
although a minute before they were sure they were on dry land; and the
more they attempted to ride away the faster rose the water! Boisterous
laughter now echoed around, and they shouted for help, and a bright
flash of lightning revealed the figure of their guide, who was none
other than the devil himself, jeering and pointing over the black stormy
sea into which they had ridden. Morning came, and their horses were
found quietly straying on the sands, but neither the parson nor his
clerk were ever seen again: but meantime two isolated rocks, in which
were seen their images, had risen in the sea as a warning to their
brethren of future generations to have no fellowship with the unfruitful
works of darkness.
From the Teignmouth side the Parson appeared seated in a pulpit the back
of which was attached to the cliff, while under him was an arch just
like the entrance to a cave, through which the sea appeared on both
sides; while the poor Clerk was some distance farther out at sea and
much lower down. We thought it was a shame that the parson should be
sitting up there, watching the poor clerk with the waves dashing over
him, as if perfectly helpless to save himself from drowning. Still, that
was the arrangement of the three-decker pulpit so common in the churches
of a hundred years ago--the clerk below, the parson above.
Our road terminated on the beach at Teignmouth, and near St. Michael's
Church, where on a tablet appeared the figure of a ship, and underneath
the following words:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY
OF
RICHARD WESTLAKE,
AGED 27 YEARS,
MASTER OF THE BRIG "ISLA,"
ALSO JOHN WESTLAKE,
HIS BROTHER, AGED 24 YEARS,
WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN THE SAID
BRIG WHICH FOUNDER'D IN THE STORM
ON THE 29TH DAY OF OCTOBER 1823
WITHIN SIGHT OF THIS CHURCH.
Readers be at all times ready, for you
Know not what a day may bring forth.
Teignmouth was a strange-looking town, and the best description of it
was by the poet Winthrop Mackworth Praed, who described it as seen in
his time from the top of the Ness Rock:
A little town was there,
O'er which the morning's earliest beam
Was wandering fresh and fair.
No architect of classic school
Had pondered there with line and rule--
The buildings in strange order lay,
As if the streets had lost their way;
Fantastic, puzzling, narrow, muddy,
Excess of toil from lack of study.
Where Fashion's very latest fangles
Had no conception of right angles.
Possibly the irregular way in which the old portion of the town had been
built was due to the inroads of the French, who had invaded and
partially destroyed the town on two occasions; for in those days the
English coast between Portland and Plymouth was practically undefended.
By way perhaps of reprisal Teignmouth contributed seven ships and 120
mariners to Edward III's expedition to Calais in 1347.
[Illustration: "THE PARSON AND CLERK ROCK," DAWLISH.]
That unfortunate young poet John Keats visited Teignmouth in 1818. He
had begun to write his poem "Endymion" in the Isle of Wight the year
before, and came here to revise and finish it. The house where he
resided, with its old-fashioned door and its three quaint bow windows
rising one above another, was pointed out to us, as well as a shop at
that time kept by the "three pretty milliners" in whom poor Keats was so
greatly interested. Endymion was a beautiful youth whom Selene, the
moon, wrapped in perpetual sleep that she might kiss him without his
knowledge. Keats, who was in bad health when he came to Teignmouth, was
reported to have said he could already feel the flowers growing over
him, and although he afterwards went to Rome, the warmer climate failed
to resuscitate him, and he died there in 1820, when only twenty-five
years old.
We had expected to have to walk thirty miles that day, via Newton Abbot,
before reaching Torquay; but were agreeably surprised to find we could
reduce the mileage to twenty-three and a half by crossing a bridge at
Teignmouth. The bridge was quite a formidable affair, consisting of no
less than thirty-four arches, and measured 1,671 feet from shore to
shore. It was, moreover, built of beams of wood, and as it had been in
existence since the year 1827, some of the timber seemed rather worn.
The open rails at the sides and the water below, and our solemn
thoughts about Keats, tended to give us the impression that we were not
altogether safe, and we were glad when we reached the other side, and
landed safely at St. Nicholas, or rather at the villages which formed
the southern portion of Teignmouth. With the Ness Rock, a huge dark red
rock with a nose turned upwards towards the sky, to our left, we walked
briskly along the coast road towards Torquay in order to reach that town
before dark, as we were obliged to find a good inn to stay in over the
Sunday. Continuing along this road, with fine views in the neighbourhood
of Anstey's Cove, we soon arrived at Torquay, of which we had heard such
glowing descriptions on our journey.
Near the entrance to the town we overtook a clergyman, with whom we
entered into conversation, telling him of our long journey, in which he
was much interested. We asked him if he could recommend us a good hotel
where we could stay until Monday morning, as we did not walk on Sundays;
and he suggested that we should stay at one of the boarding-houses. We
had never thought of staying at these places, but when he said he knew
of one that would just suit us, and would be pleased to accompany us
there, we were delighted to accept his kind offer.
[Illustration: TEIGNMOUTH NESS LIGHTHOUSE.]
I knew my brother was rather suspicious of boarding-houses, and when we
arrived opposite the rather nice house where the clergyman had taken us
I noticed he looked rather critically at the windows both below and
above. When he saw that the curtains were drawn equally on each side of
the windows and all the blinds drawn down to almost exactly the same
distance, he was quite satisfied, as he had often said it was a sure
sign that there was somebody in the house who was looking after it, and
that similar order would be certain to reign within.
[Illustration: ANSTEY'S COVE. TORQUAY.]
The clergyman was evidently well known to the people at the house, and
an introduction to the master and mistress, and (shall we record?) to
their two daughters as well, placed us immediately upon the best of
terms with the whole family. We received every attention, and after a
good tea we had a walk in and around the town, and were well pleased
with the appearance of Torquay. It was a much larger place than we had
anticipated. In a stationer's shop window we saw exhibited a small
_Guide to Torquay_, published in Manchester, and sold for the small sum
of one penny, from which we learned that the population of Torquay had
risen enormously during the past few years, for while it registered
11,294 in 1858 and 16,682 in 1868, in 1871, the year of our journey, it
stood at 26,477; and it further informed us that the distance from there
to London was 216 miles, and that "the express which leaves Paddington
at 9.15 and arrives at Torquay at 4.34 has a third-class carriage for
Torquay"--an example of the speed of express trains in those days. The
_Guide_ must have only just been issued, evidently in advance for the
coming year, as it gave the Torquay High Water Table from May to October
inclusive for 1872, and the following precise account of Anstey's Cove.
ANSTIS COVE
Anstis Cove deserves a special visit. Passing from the Strand, under
an avenue of trees opposite the Post-Office, and leaving the Public
Gardens on the right hand, the visitor will go as straight as the
road will permit till he comes in sight of St. Matthias' Church. The
road to the right leads down to Anstis Cove. He will notice among the
ferns and trees a door in the mossy bank, like the entrance to a
hermitage in the wilderness. It is the door of the venerable Kent's
Cavern. Persons who are now employed by the Torquay Natural History
Society will guide the visitor and supply candles. The vast cavern is
six hundred and fifty feet in length, with small caverns and
corridors, which are most dangerous without a guide, rugged, wet, and
slippery. Some years ago the skeleton of a woman who had lost her way
was found. No one now enters without a guide. In some parts the
cavern is so low that the visitors are obliged to crawl and squeeze,
but in other parts it is 30 feet high. The eminent geologist, Dr.
Buckland, here discovered the bones of rhinoceros, elephants, lions,
wolves, bears, hippopotami, and hyaenas--beasts of prey that haunted
the forests of prehistoric England before the times of the Celts.
Rude implements which have been found in the cavern prove that in
very remote times it was the resort of savage tribes. The cavern is
now in process of careful examination by qualified persons, at the
expense of the British Association, to whom they make periodical
reports. Fossil remains which have been, discovered may be seen at
the museum of the Natural History Society, in Park Street, between
the hours of ten and four daily.
But Anstis Cove is the object of our search. Proceeding down the
shady lane, taking the first turning on the left hand, we find a
gateway leading to a footpath among all kinds of bushes and shady
trees, down to the pebbly beach. The lofty limestone cliff of Walls
Hill is before us--such rocks as are nowhere else to be seen. They
seem like huge monsters creeping into the ocean. Here, amongst huge
rocks on the shore, are the bathing machines. The water is clear as
crystal. Rowing-boats are also here for hire, and here the strata of
the neighbouring cliffs hanging over the sea can be examined. Here is
a cottage, too, where lobsters and picnic viands may be procured. On
the beach the fossil Madrepore is often found.
We were the only visitors at the boarding-house, where the cleanliness
and the catering were all that could be desired. The young ladies vied
with each other to make our visit a pleasant one, and after a good
supper we stayed up relating some of our adventures until the clock
struck ten, when we retired for a well-earned rest, having walked quite
179 miles that week.
(_Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles_.)
_Sunday, November 12th._
We rose at our usual early hour this morning, and were downstairs long
before our friends anticipated our arrival, for they naturally thought
that after our long walk we should have been glad of an extra hour or
two's rest; but habit, as in the time of Diogenes, had become second
nature, and to remain in bed was to us equivalent to undergoing a term
of imprisonment. As boot-cleaning in those days was a much longer
operation than the more modern boot-polish has made it, we compromised
matters by going out in dirty boots on condition that they were cleaned
while we were having breakfast. It was a fine morning, and we were quite
enchanted with Torquay, its rocks and its fine sea views on one side,
and its wooded hills on the other, with mansions peeping out at
intervals above the trees. We could not recall to mind any more
beautiful place that we had visited.
[Illustration: TORQUAY FROM WALDON HILL IN 1871.]
After breakfast we attended morning service at the church recommended by
our host, but after travelling so much in the open air the change to the
closer atmosphere of a church or chapel affected us considerably.
Although we did not actually fall asleep, we usually became very drowsy
and lapsed into a dreamy, comatose condition, with shadowy forms
floating before us of persons and places we had seen in our travels. The
constant changes in position during the first part of the Church Service
invariably kept us fairly well alive, but the sermon was always our
chief difficulty, as during its delivery no change of posture was
required. When the service began, however, we were agreeably surprised
to find that the minister who officiated was none other than the
clergyman who had so kindly interested himself in finding us lodgings
yesterday. This awakened our interest in the service, which we followed
as closely as we could; but when the vicar announced his text, beginning
with the well-known words, "They that go down to the sea in ships," we
were all attention, for immediately our adventures in the North Sea came
into our minds, and the ocean, that great work of the Almighty, is so
graphically described in that 107th Psalm, and the dangers of the
sailors with their fears and hopes so clearly depicted, that we record
the whole text, as it appeared in the versified rendering of the Psalms,
in the hope that some one may "read, mark, learn and inwardly digest":
They that go down to the sea in ships: and occupy their business in
great waters; these men see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in
the deep. For at His word the stormy wind ariseth, which lifteth up
the waves thereof. They are carried up to the heaven, and down again
to the deep: and their soul melteth away because of the trouble. They
reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their
wit's end. So when they cry unto the Lord in their trouble, He
delivereth them out of their distress. For He maketh the storm to
cease, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad,
because they are at rest, and so He bringeth them unto the haven
where they would be. O that men would therefore praise the Lord for
His goodness, and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children
of men.
The preacher referred feelingly to a great storm or tornado which had
visited the South Coast about six years before, when a large number of
ships, sheltering in Torbay, were swept out by a sudden change in the
wind and over forty of them were sunk. This happened in the month of
January, when drifting snow filled the eyes of the spectators, who were
within hearing distance but could render no assistance. The Brixham
sailors acted most bravely and saved many lives, but over one hundred
people were drowned. We could see that some members of the congregation
still mourned the loss of friends who had perished on that sad occasion.
We were well pleased with the service, and after a short ramble returned
to our lodgings for dinner at one o'clock, afterwards adjourning to the
drawing-room, where we were presently joined by our host, who suggested
a walk that afternoon to see the beautiful views in the neighbourhood, a
proposition to which we readily assented.
[Illustration: THE OUTER HARBOUR, BRIXHAM.]
But while he was getting ready my brother happened to strike a few
chords on the piano, which immediately attracted the attention of the
two young ladies, who told us they had seen us at church, where they
were in the choir. They were beginning to learn some pieces to sing at
Christmas, and, producing a pianoforte copy, asked my brother to play
the accompaniment while they tried them over. He made some excuses, but
they said they knew he could play as soon as they heard him strike the
chords; so, as his excuses were not accepted, he had to submit to the
inevitable---not altogether unwillingly. They had only just begun when
their father came into the room and claimed our company for the promised
walk, and, as I was the only member of the party ready to join him, we
went out with the understanding that they would follow us. After walking
a short distance I suggested waiting for them, but the gentleman assured
me they knew the way he always went on Sundays, and would be sure to
find us. I enjoyed the company of our host, as he seemed to know the
history of the whole neighbourhood, and possessed a fund of information
ready at command concerning every object of interest we saw. He pointed
out Portland in the far distance, where convicts worked, and where the
stones used for sharpening scythes were produced. He also told me that
formerly Torqy historian of
those days had described him as "a very honest sensible man, who died in
the year of our Lord 1687, and his body, so like to be buried in the sea
and to feed fishes, lies buried in Paignton churchyard, where it
feasteth worms."
[Illustration: PAIGNTON OLD TOWER]
We could see Paignton, with its ivy-covered Tower, all that was left of
the old Palace of the Bishops of Exeter, but we did not visit it, as we
preferred to cross the hills and see some other places of which we had
heard, and also to visit Berry Pomeroy Castle on our way to Totnes.
Behind Torquay we passed along some of the loveliest little lanes we
had ever seen. They must have presented a glorious picture in spring and
summer, when the high hedges were "hung with ferns and banked up with
flowers," for even in November they were very beautiful. These by-lanes
had evidently been originally constructed for pedestrian and horse
traffic, but they had not been made on the surface of the land, like
those in Dorset and Wilts, and were more like ditches than roads. We
conjectured that they had been sunk to this depth in order that pirates
landing suddenly on the coast could see nothing of the traffic from a
distance. But therein consisted their beauty, for the banks on either
side were covered with luxuriant foliage, amongst which ferns and
flowers struggled for existence, and the bushes and trees above in many
places formed a natural and leafy arch over the road below. The surface
of the roads was not very good, being naturally damp, as the drying
influences of the wind and sun could scarcely penetrate to such
sheltered positions, and in wet weather the mud had a tendency to
accumulate; but we did not trouble ourselves about this as we walked
steadily onwards. The roads were usually fairly straight, but went up
and down hill regardless of gradients, though occasionally they were
very crooked, and at cross-roads, in the absence of finger-posts or any
one to direct us, it was easy to take a wrong turning. Still it was a
real pleasure to walk along these beautiful Devonshire lanes.
[Illustration: A TYPICAL DEVONSHIRE LANE.]
In a Devonshire lane, as I trotted along
T'other day, much in want of a subject for song,
Thinks I to myself, I have hit on a strain--
Sure, marriage is much like a Devonshire lane.
In the first place 'tis long, and when once you are in it,
It holds you as fast as a cage does a linnet;
For howe'er rough and dirty the road may be found,
Drive forward you must, there is no turning round.
But though 'tis so long, it is not very wide,
For two are the most that together can ride;
And e'en then 'tis a chance but they sit in a pother.
And joke and cross and run foul of each other.
But thinks I too, the banks, within which we are pent,
With bud, blossom, berry, are richly besprent;
And the conjugal fence, which forbids us to roam.
Looks lovely, when deck'd with the comforts of home.
In the rock's gloomy crevice the bright holly grows:
The ivy waves fresh o'er the withering rose,
And the evergreen love of a virtuous wife
Soothes the roughness of care--cheers the winter of life.
Then long be the journey, and narrow the way,
I'll rejoice that I've seldom a turnpike to pay;
And whate'er others say, be the last to complain.
Though marriage is just like a Devonshire lane.
Late though it was in the year, there was still some autumn foliage on
the trees and bushes and some few flowers and many ferns in sheltered
places; we also had the golden furze or gorse to cheer us on our way,
for an old saying in Devonshire runs--
When furze is out of bloom
Then love is out of tune,
which was equivalent to saying that love was never out of tune in
Devonshire, for there were three varieties of furze in that county which
bloomed in succession, so that there were always some blooms of that
plant to be found. The variety we saw was that which begins to bloom in
August and remains in full beauty till the end of January.
Beside the fire with toasted crabs
We sit, and love is there;
In merry Spring, with apple flowers
It flutters in the air.
At harvest, when we toss the sheaves,
Then love with them is toss't;
At fall, when nipp'd and sear the leaves,
Un-nipp'd is love by frost.
Golden furze in bloom!
O golden furze in bloom!
When the furze is out of flower
Then love is out of tune.
Presently we arrived at Cockington, a secluded and ancient village,
picturesque to a degree, with cottages built of red cobs and a quaint
forge or smithy for the village blacksmith, all, including the entrance
lodge to the squire's park, being roofed or thatched with straw. Pretty
gardens were attached to all of them, and everything looked so trim,
clean, and neat that it was hard to realise that such a pretty and
innocent-looking place had ever been the abode of smugglers or pirates;
yet so it was, for hiding-holes existed there which belonged formerly to
what were jocularly known as the early "Free Traders." Near Anstey's
Cove, in Torbay, we had seen a small cave in the rocks known as the
"Brandy Hole," near which was the smuggler's staircase. This was formed
of occasional flights of roughly-hewn stone steps, up which in days gone
by the kegs of brandy and gin and the bales of silk had been carried to
the top of the cliffs and thence conveyed to Cockington and other
villages in the neighbourhood where the smugglers' dens existed.
[Illustration: COCKINGTON VILLAGE.]
Possibly Jack Rattenbury, the famous smuggler known as "the Rob Roy of
the West," escaped to Cockington when he was nearly caught by the crew
of one of the King's ships, for the search party were close on his heels
when he saved himself by his agility in scaling the cliffs. But
Cockington was peaceful enough when we visited it, and in the park,
adorned with fine trees, stood the squire's Hall, or Court, and the
ivy-covered church. Cockington was mentioned in Domesday Book, and in
1361 a fair and a market were granted to Walter de Wodeland, usher to
the Chamber of the Black Prince, who afterwards created him a knight,
and it was probably about that time that the present church was built.
The screen and pews and pulpit had formerly belonged to Tor Mohun
church, and the font, with its finely carved cover and the other relics
of wood, all gave us the impression of being extremely old, and as they
were in the beginning. The Cary family were once the owners of the
estate, and in the time of the Spanish Armada George Cary, who was
afterwards knighted by Queen Elizabeth, with Sir John Gilbert, at that
time the owner of Tor Abbey, took charge of the four hundred prisoners
from the Spanish flagship _Rosario_ while they were lodged in the grange
of Tor Abbey.
[Illustration: COMPTON CASTLE.]
From Cockington we walked on to Compton Castle, a fine old fortified
house, one of the most interesting and best preserved remains of a
castellated mansion in Devonshire. One small portion of it was
inhabited, and all was covered with ivy, but we could easily trace the
remains of the different apartments. It was formerly the home of the
Gilbert family, of whom the best-known member was Sir Humphrey Gilbert,
a celebrated navigator and mathematician of the sixteenth century,
half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, and knighted by Queen Elizabeth for
his bravery in Ireland. Sir Humphrey afterwards made voyages of
discovery, and added Newfoundland, our oldest colony, to the British
Possessions, and went down with the _Squirrel_ in a storm off the
Azores. When his comrades saw him for the last time before he
disappeared from their sight for ever in the mist and gloom of the
evening, he held a Bible in his hand, and said cheerily, "Never mind,
boys! we are as near to Heaven by sea as by land!"
We had a splendid walk across the hills, passing through Marldon, where
the church was apparently the burial-place of the Gilbert family, of
which it contained many records, including an effigy of Otho Gilbert,
who was Sheriff of the County and who died in 1476. But the chief object
of interest at Marldon appeared to be a six-barred gate called the
Gallows Gate, which stood near the spot where the three parishes
converged: Kingskerswell, Cockington, and Marldon; near this the
culprits from those three places were formerly hanged. We looked for the
gate in the direction pointed out to us, but failed to find it. Some
people in the village thought its name of the Gallows Gate was derived
from an incident which occurred there many years ago. A sheep-stealer
had killed a sheep, and was carrying it home slung round his shoulders
when he came to this gate. Finding it fastened, he was climbing over,
when in the dark his foot slipped and the cord got across his neck. The
weight of the carcase as it fell backwards, added to his own, caused him
to be choked, so that he was literally hanged upon the gate instead of
the gallows for what was in those days a capital offence.
After passing the Beacon Hill, we had very fine views over land and sea,
extending to Dartmoor and Dartmouth, and with a downward gradient we
soon came to Berry Pomeroy, the past and present owners of which had
been associated with many events recorded in the history of England,
from the time of William the Conqueror, who bestowed the manor, along
with many others, on one of his followers named Ralph de Pomeroy. It was
he who built the Castle, where the Pomeroys remained in possession until
the year 1547, when it passed into the hands of the Seymour family,
afterwards the Dukes of Somerset, in whose possession it still remained.
After the Pomeroys disappeared the first owner of the manor and
castle was Edward Seymour, afterwards the haughty Lord Protector
Somerset, who first rose in royal favour by the marriage of his
eldest sister Jane Seymour to Henry VIII, and that monarch appointed
him an executor under his will and a member of the Council on whom
the duty devolved of guarding the powers of the Crown during the
minority of his son and successor Edward VI, who only reigned six
years, from 1547 to 1553; and Seymour's father, Sir John, had
accompanied King Henry VIII to his wars in France, and to the Field
of the Cloth of Gold.
Henry VIII had great faith in his brother-in-law, and after the
King's death Seymour quickly gained ascendency over the remaining
members of the Council, and was nominated Lord Treasurer of England,
and created Earl of Somerset, Feb. 17, 1567; two days afterwards he
obtained a grant of the office of Earl Marshal of England for life,
and on the 12th of March following he procured a patent from the
young King, who was his nephew, constituting himself the Protector of
the Realm, an office altogether new to the Constitution and that gave
him full regal power.
It was about that time that the English Reformation began, and the
free circulation of the Bible was permitted. The Latin Mass was
abolished, and the English Liturgy substituted, and 42 Articles of
Faith were adopted by the English Protestants. Protector Somerset was
a Protestant, and always took advice of Archbishop Cranmer, and care
was taken that the young King was instructed in the Reformed
Religion. King Henry VIII had arranged in his lifetime that Edward VI
should marry Mary, the young Queen of Scotland, and Somerset raised
an army and went to Scotland to secure her person: but after fighting
a battle he only just managed to win, he found that the proposed
union was not looked upon favourably in Scotland, and that the young
Queen had been sent away to France for greater safety.
Meantime Somerset's brother Thomas Seymour, High Admiral of England,
had married Catherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII, without the
knowledge of the Protector; and this, with the fierce opposition of
the Roman Catholics, and of the Barons, whose taking possession of
the common lands he had opposed, and the offence given to the
population of London through demolishing an ancient parish church in
the Strand there, so that he could build a fine mansion for himself,
which still bears the name of Somerset House, led to the rapid
decline of his influence, and after causing his brother to be
beheaded he himself shared a similar fate.
Berry Pomeroy was a lovely spot, and the foliage was magnificent as we
walked up to the castle and then to the village, while every now and
then we came to a peep-hole through the dense mass of bushes and trees
showing a lovely view beyond. The ruins of the castle were covered with
ivy, moss, and creeping plants, while ferns and shrubs grew both inside
and out, forming the most picturesque view of the kind that could be
imagined. We were fortunate in securing the services of an enthusiastic
and intelligent guide, who told us many stories of events that had taken
place there, some of them of a sensational character. He showed us the
precipice, then rapidly becoming obscured by bushes and trees, where the
two brothers Pomeroy, with their horses, were dashed to pieces. The
castle had been besieged for a long time, and when the two brothers
found they could hold out no longer, rather than submit to the besiegers
they sounded their horns in token of surrender, and, blindfolding their
horses, mounted and rode over the battlements into the depths below! The
horses seemed to know their danger, and struggled to turn back, but they
were whipped and spurred on to meet the same dreadful fate as their
masters. One look over the battlements was enough for us, as it was
horrible to contemplate, but our guide seemed to delight in piling on
the agony, as most awful deeds had been done in almost every part of the
ruins, and he did not forget to tell us that ghosts haunted the place at
night.
[Illustration: GUARD CHAMBER, BERRY POMEROY]
In a dismal room, or dungeon, under what was known as St. Margaret's
Tower, one sister had imprisoned another sister for years, because of
jealousy, and in another place a mother had murdered her child. He also
told us a story of an old Abbot who had been concerned in some dreadful
crime, and had been punished by being buried alive. Three days were
given him in which to repent, and on each day he had to witness the
digging in unconsecrated ground of a portion of his grave. He groaned
horribly, and refused to take any food, and on the third morning was so
weak that he had to be carried to watch the completion of the grave in
which he was to be buried the following day. On the fourth day, when the
monks came in to dress him in his burial garments and placed him on the
bier, he seemed to have recovered a little, and with a great effort he
twisted himself and fell off. They lifted him on again, and four lay
brothers carried him to the side of the deep grave. As he was lowered
into the tomb a solemn dirge was sung by the monks, and prayers were
offered for mercy on his sinful soul. The earth was being dropped slowly
on him when a faint groan was heard; for a few moments the earth above
him seemed convulsed a little, and then the grave was closed.
The ghost of the blood-stained Fontebrant and that of his assassin were
amongst those that haunted Pomeroy Castle and its lonely surroundings,
and cries and groans were occasionally heard in the village below from
the shrieking shade of the guilty Eleanor, who murdered her uncle. At
midnight she was said to fly from the fairies, who followed her with
writhing serpents, their tongues glistening with poisonous venom and
their pestiferous breath turning black everything with which they came
in contact, and thus her soul was tortured as a punishment for her
horrible deeds. Amongst the woods glided the pale ghosts of the Abbot
Bertrand and the mother with her murdered child.
What a difference there is in guides, and especially when no "tips" are
in sight! You go into a church, for instance, and are shown round in a
general kind of a way and inquiries are answered briefly. As you leave
the building you hand the caretaker a silver coin which he did not
expect, and then, conscience-stricken, he immediately becomes loquacious
and asks if you saw an object that he ought to have shown you, and it
generally ends in your turning back and seeing double the objects of
interest you saw before, and possibly those in the graveyard as well.
Then there are others whose hearts are in their work, and who insist
upon your seeing all there is to be seen and hearing the history or
legends connected with the place. Such was our guide that morning; he
was most enthusiastic when giving us his stories, but we did not accept
his invitation to come some evening to see the ghosts, as we could not
imagine a more lonely and "boggarty" spot at night than amongst the
thick bushes and foliage of Berry Castle, very beautiful though it
looked in the daylight; nor did we walk backwards three times round the
trunk of the old "wishing tree," and in the process wish for something
that we might or might not get; but we rewarded our guide handsomely for
his services.
[Illustration: BERRY POMEROY CHURCH.]
We had a look in the old church, where there were numerous tombs of the
Seymour family; but the screen chiefly attracted our attention. The
projection of the rood-loft still remained on the top, adorned with fan
tracery, and there was also the old door which led up to it. The lower
panels had as usual been much damaged, but the carved figures could
still be recognised, and some of the original colouring in gold,
vermilion, green, and white remained. The figures were said to
represent St. Matthew with his club, St. Philip with the spear, St.
Stephen with stones in his chasuble, St. Jude with the boat, St.
Matthias with the battle-axe, sword, and dagger, St. Mary Magdalene with
the alabastrum, St. Barbara with the tower, St. Gudala with the lantern,
and the four doctors of the Western Church. The ancient pulpit was of
the same period as the screen, as were also the old-fashioned,
straight-backed, oak pews.
[Illustration: THE SCREEN, BERRY POMEROY CHURCH]
The vicarage, which was as usual near the church, must have been a very
healthy place, for the Rev. John Prince, author of _The Worthies of
Devon_, published in 1901, who died in 1723, was vicar there for
forty-two years, and was succeeded by the Rev. Joseph Fox, who died in
1781, aged eighty-four, having been vicar for fifty-eight years. He was
followed by the Rev. John Edwards, who was vicar for fifty-three years,
and died in 1834 aged eighty-three. This list was very different from
that we had seen at Hungerford, and we wondered whether a parallel for
longevity in three successive vicars existed in all England, for they
averaged fifty-one years' service.
[Illustration: PARLIAMENT COTTAGES.]
There were some rather large thatched cottages in Berry Pomeroy village,
where Seymour, who was one of the first men of rank and fortune to join
the Prince of Orange, met the future King after he had landed at
Brixham on November 5th, 1688. A conference was held in these cottages,
which were ever afterwards known as "Parliament Buildings," that meeting
forming William's first Parliament. Seymour was at that time M.P. for
Exeter, and was also acting as Governor of that city. When William
arrived there four days afterwards, with an army of 15,000 men, he was
awarded a very hearty reception, for he was looked upon as more of a
deliverer than a conqueror.
It was only a short distance from Berry Pomeroy to Totnes, our next
stage, and we were now to form our first acquaintance with the lovely
valley of the River Dart, which we reached at the foot of the hill on
which that picturesque and quaint old town was situated. Formerly the
river had to be crossed by a rather difficult ford, but that had been
done away with in the time of King John, and replaced by a narrow bridge
of eight arches, which in its turn had been replaced in the time of
William and Mary by a wider bridge of three arches with a toll-gate upon
it, where all traffic except pedestrians had to contribute towards the
cost of its erection. A short distance to the right after crossing the
bridge was a monument to a former native of the town, to whom a
sorrowful memory was attached; it had been erected by subscription, and
was inscribed:
IN HONOR OF
WILLIAM JOHN WILLS
NATIVE OF TOTNES
THE FIRST WITH BURKE TO CROSS THE
AUSTRALIAN CONTINENT
HE PERISHED IN RETURNING, 28 JUNE
1861
When the Australian Government offered a reward for an exploration of
that Continent from north to south, Wills, at that time an assistant in
the Observatory at Melbourne, volunteered his services along with Robert
O'Hara Burke, an Irish police inspector. Burke was appointed leader of
the expedition, consisting of thirteen persons, which started from
Melbourne on August 20th, 1860, and in four months' time reached the
River Barco, to the east of Lake Eyre. Here it became necessary to
divide the party: Burke took Wills with him, and two others, leaving the
remainder at Cooper's Creek to look after the stores and to wait there
until Burke and his companions returned.
They reached Flinders River in February of the following year, but they
found the country to be quite a desert, and provisions failed them. They
were obliged to return, reaching Cooper's Creek on April 21st, 1861.
They arrived emaciated and exhausted, only to find that the others had
given up all hope of seeing them again, and returned home. Burke and his
companions struggled on for two months, but one by one they succumbed,
until only one was left--a man named King. Fortunately he was found by
some friendly natives, who treated him kindly, and was handed over to
the search-party sent out to find the missing men. The bodies of Burke
and Wills were also recovered, and buried with all honours at Melbourne,
where a fine monument was erected to their memory.
Many of the early settlers in Australia were killed by the aborigines or
bushmen, and a friend of ours who emigrated there from our native
village many years ago was supposed to have been murdered by them. He
wrote letters to his parents regularly for some years, and in his last
letter told his friends that he was going farther into the bush in
search of gold. For years they waited for further news, which never
arrived; and he was never heard of again, to the great grief of his
father and mother and other members of the family. It was a hazardous
business exploring the wilds of Australia in those days, and it was
quite possible that it was only the numerical strength of Burke's party
and of the search-party itself that saved them from a similar fate.
But many people attributed the misfortunes of the expedition to the
number who took part in it, as there was a great prejudice against the
number thirteen both at home and abroad. We had often, indeed, heard it
said that if thirteen persons sat down to dinner together, one of their
number would die! Some people thought that the legend had some
connection with the Lord's Supper, the twelve Apostles bringing the
number up to thirteen, while others attributed it to a much earlier
period. In Norse mythology, thirteen was considered unlucky, because at
a banquet in Valhalla, the Scandinavian heaven, where twelve had sat
down, Loki intruded and made the number thirteen, and Baldur was killed.
The Italians and even the Turks had strong objections to the number
thirteen, and it never appeared on any of the doors on the streets of
Paris, where, to avoid thirteen people sitting down to dinner, persons
named Quatorziennes were invited to make a fourteenth:
_Jamais on ne devrait
Se mettre a table treize,
Mais douze c'est parfait_.
My brother thought the saying was only a catch, for it would be equally
true to say all would die as one. He was quite prepared to run the risk
of being the thirteenth to sit down to dinner, but that was when he felt
very hungry, and even hinted that there might be no necessity for the
others to sit down at all!
But we must return to Totnes and its bridge, and follow the long narrow
street immediately before us named Fore Street until we reach "the
Arch," or East Gate. The old-fashioned houses to the right and left were
a great attraction to my brother, who had strong antiquarian
predilections, and when he saw the old church and castle, he began to
talk of staying there for the rest of the day and I had some difficulty
in getting him along. Fortunately, close at hand there was a quaint
Elizabethan mansion doing duty as a refreshment house, with all manner
of good things in the windows and the word "Beds" on a window in an
upper storey. Here we called for refreshments, and got some coffee and
some good things to eat, with some of the best Devonshire cream we had
yet tasted. After an argument in which I pointed out the danger of
jeopardising our twenty-five-mile average walk by staying there, as it
was yet early in the forenoon, we settled matters in this way; we would
leave our luggage in Totnes, walk round the town to the objects of
greatest interest, then walk to Dartmouth and back, and stay the night
on our return, thus following to some extent the example of Brutus, the
earliest recorded visitor:
Here I stand and here I rest,
And this place shall be called Totnes.
[Illustration: TOTNES CHURCH WALK]
There was no doubt about the antiquity of Totnes, for Geoffrey of
Monmouth, the author of the famous old English Chronicle, a compilation
from older authors, in his _Historia Britonum_, 1147, began his notes on
Totnes not in the time of the Saxons nor even with the Roman Occupation,
but with the visit of Brutus, hundreds of years before the Christian
era. Brutus of Troy had a strange career. His mother died in giving him
birth, and he accidentally shot his father with an arrow when out
hunting. Banished from Italy, he took refuge in Greece, where it was
said he married a daughter of the King, afterwards sailing to discover a
new country. Arriving off our shores, he sailed up the River Dart until
he could get no farther, and then landed at the foot of the hill where
Totnes now stands. The stone on which he first set foot was ever
afterwards known as Brutus's stone, and was removed for safety near to
the centre of the town; where for ages the mayor or other official gave
out all royal proclamations from it, such as the accessions to the
throne--the last before our visit having been that of her most gracious
Majesty Queen Victoria.
The Charter of Totnes was dated 1205, the mayor claiming precedence over
the Lord Mayor of London, for Totnes, if not the oldest, was one of the
oldest boroughs in England. It was therefore not to be wondered at that
the Corporation possessed many curios: amongst them were the original
ring to which the bull was fastened when bull-baiting formed one of the
pastimes in England; a very ancient wooden chest; the staves used by the
constables in past generations; a curious arm-chair used by the town
clerk; a list of mayors from the year 1377 to the present time; two
original proclamations by Oliver Cromwell; many old placards of
important events; an exceptionally fine fourteenth-century frieze; a
water-pipe formed out of the trunk of an elm tree; the old stocks; and
an engraving representing the arrival of William of Orange at Brixham.
There was a church at Totnes in the time of the Conquest, for it was
mentioned in a charter by which "Judhel de Totnais," the Norman Baron to
whom the Conqueror gave the borough, granted the "Ecclesiam Sancte Marie
de Toteneo" to the Benedictine Abbey at Angers; but the present church
was built in 1432 by Bishop Lacy, who granted a forty-days' indulgence
for all who contributed to the work. His figure and coat-of-arms were
still to be seen on the church tower, which was 120 feet high, with the
words in raised stone letters, "I made the Tour." There was also a
figure of St. Loe, the patron Saint of artificers in brass and iron, who
was shown in the act of shoeing a horse. The corporation appeared to
have had control of the church, and in 1450 had erected the altar
screen, which was perhaps the most striking object there, for after the
restoration, which was in progress at the time of our visit, of nine
stone screens in Devon churches, excepting that in Exeter Cathedral, it
claimed to be the most beautiful.
In the church there was also an elaborate brass candelabrum for eighteen
lights with this suitable inscription:
Thy Word is a Lantern to my Feet
And a light unto my Path.
_Donum Dei et Deo_
17th May 1701.
The corporation has also some property in the church in the shape of
elaborately carved stalls erected in 1636; also an ancient Bible and
Prayer Book handsomely bound for the use of the mayor, and presented
April 12th, 1690, by the Honble. Lady Anne Seymour of Berry Pomeroy
Castle, whose autograph the books contain; and in the Parvise Chamber
attached to the church there were about 300 old books dating from 1518
to 1676, one a copy of Sir Walter Raleigh's _History of the World_,
published in 1634.
The carved stone pulpit, of the same date as the screen, had at one time
been divided into Gothic panels, on which were shields designed to
represent the twelve sons of Israel: Judah was represented by a lion
couchant, Zebulon by a ship under sail, Issachar as a laden ass resting,
and Dan as a serpent coiled with head erect, and so on according to the
description given of each of the sons in the forty-ninth chapter of
Genesis.
There were a number of monuments in the church, the principal being that
of Christopher Blacall, who died in 1635. He was represented as kneeling
down in the attitude of prayer, while below were shown his four wives,
also kneeling.
The conductor showed us the very fine organ, which before being placed
there had been exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851; and
we also saw the key of the church door, which, as well as the lock, had
been in use for quite four hundred years.
[Illustration: SEXTON'S COTTAGE, TOTNES.]
We then paid a hurried visit to the ruins of the old castle, which in
the time of Henry VIII was described by Leland the antiquary as "The
Castelle waul and the strong dungeon be maintained; but the logginges of
the Castelle be cleane in ruine"; but about thirty years before our
visit the Duke of Somerset, the representative of the Seymour family,
laid out the grounds and made of them quite a nice garden, with a flight
of steps of easy gradient leading to the top of the old Norman Keep,
from which we had a fine view of the country between Dartmoor and the
sea.
Totnes was supposed to have been the Roman "Ad Darium," at the end of
the Fosse Way, and was also the famous harbour of the Celts where the
great Vortigern was overthrown by Ambrosius. As the seas were infested
with pirates, ports were chosen well up the estuaries of rivers, often
at the limit of the tides; and Totnes, to which point the Dart is still
navigated, remained of importance from Saxon times, through the
struggles with the Danes until the arrival of the Normans; after this it
was gradually superseded by Dartmouth.
At Totnes, when we asked the way to Dartmouth, the people jocularly told
us that the only direct way was by boat down the river; but our rules
and regulations would not permit of our going that way, so we decided to
keep as near to the river as we could on the outward journey and find an
alternative route on our return. This was a good idea, but we found it
very difficult to carry out in the former case, owing to the streams
which the River Dart receives on both sides on its way towards the sea.
Relieved of the weight of our luggage, we set off at a good speed across
fields and through woods, travelling along lanes the banks of which
were in places covered with ferns. In Cheshire we had plenty of bracken,
but very few ferns, but here they flourished in many varieties. A
gentleman whom we met rambling along the river bank told us there were
about forty different kinds of ferns and what he called "fern allies" to
be found in the lanes and meadows in Devonshire. He said it was also
noted for fungi, in which he appeared to be more interested than in the
ferns, telling us there were six or seven hundred varieties, some of
them being very beautiful both in colour and form; but we never cared
very much for these, as we thought them too much akin to poisonous
toadstools. We asked him why the lanes in Devonshire were so much below
the surface of the land, and he said they had been constructed in that
way in very ancient times to hide the passage of cattle and pe
over-thwarte or a travers the mouth of the haven of Dartmouth" from
Dartmouth Castle to Kingswear Castle on the opposite bank to keep out
all intruders. This "myghte cheyne" was raised across the entrance every
night so that no ships could get through, and the groove through which
it passed was still to be seen.
Dartmouth Castle stood low down on a point of land on the seashore, and
had two towers, the circular one having been built in the time of Henry
VIII. Immediately adjoining it was a very small church of a much earlier
date than the castle, dedicated to St. Petrox, a British saint of the
sixth century. Behind the castle and the church was a hill called
Gallants' Bower, formerly used as a beacon station, the hollow on the
summit having been formed to protect the fire from the wind. This rock
partly overhung the water and served to protect both the church and the
castle. Kingswear Castle, on the opposite side of the water, was built
in the fourteenth century, and had only one tower, the space between the
two castles being known as the "Narrows." They were intended to protect
the entrance to the magnificent harbour inland; but there were other
defences, as an Italian spy in 1599, soon after the time of the Spanish
Armada, reported as follows:
Dartmouth is not walled--the mountains are its walls. Deep water is
everywhere, and at the entrance five yards deep at low water. Bastion
of earth at entrance with six or eight pieces of artillery; farther
in is a castle with 24 pieces and 50 men, and then another earth
bastion with six pieces.
The harbour was at one time large enough to hold the whole British navy,
and was considered very safe, as the entrance could be so easily
defended, but its only representative now appeared to be an enormous
three-decker wooden ship, named the _Britannia_, used as a training-ship
for naval officers. It seemed almost out of place there, and quite
dwarfed the smaller boats in the harbour, one deck rising above another,
and all painted black and white. We heard afterwards that the real
_Britannia_, which carried the Admiral's flag in the Black Sea early in
the Crimean War, had been broken up in 1870, the year before our visit,
having done duty at Dartmouth as a training-ship since 1863. The ship we
now saw was in reality the _Prince of Wales_, also a three-decker, and
the largest and last built of "England's wooden walls," carrying 128
guns. She had been brought round to Dartmouth in 1869 and rechristened
_Britannia_, forming the fifth ship of that name in the British navy.
[Illustration: H.M.S. _BRITANNIA_ AND _HINDUSTANI_ AT THE MOUTH OF THE
DART.]
It was in that harbour that the ships were assembled in 1190 during the
Crusades, to join Richard Coeur-de-Lion at Messina. In his absence
Dartmouth was stormed by the French, and for two centuries alternate
warlike visits were made to the sea-coasts of England and France.
In 1338 the Dartmouth sailors captured five French ships, and murdered
all their crews except nine men; and in 1347, when the large armament
sailed under Edward III to the siege of Calais, the people of Dartmouth,
who in turn had suffered much from the French, contributed the large
number of 31 ships and 757 mariners to the King's Fleet, the largest
number from any port, except Fowey and London.
In 1377 the town was partly burnt by the French, and in 1403 Dartmouth
combined with Plymouth, and their ships ravaged the coasts of France,
where, falling in with the French fleet, they destroyed and captured
forty-one of the enemy.
In the following year, 1404, the French attempted to avenge themselves,
and landed near Stoke Fleming, about three miles outside Dartmouth, with
a view to attacking the town in the rear; but owing to the loquacity of
one of the men connected with the enterprise the inhabitants were
forewarned and prepared accordingly. Du Chatel, a Breton Knight, was the
leader of the Expedition, and came over, as he said, "to exterminate the
vipers"; but when he landed, matters turned out "otherwise than he had
hoped," for the Dartmouth men had dug a deep ditch near the seacoast,
and 600 of them were strongly entrenched behind it, many with their
wives, "who fought like wild cats." They were armed with slings, with
which they made such good practice that scores of the Bretons fell in
the ditch, where the men finished them off, and the rest of the force
retreated, leaving 400 dead and 200 prisoners in the hands of the
English.
[Illustration: OLD HOUSES IN HIGHER STREET, DARTMOUTH]
In 1620 the Pilgrim Fathers called at Dartmouth with their ships
_Speedwell_ and _Mayflower_, as the captain of the _Speedwell_ (who it
was afterwards thought did not want to cross the Atlantic) complained
that his ship needed repairs, but on examination she was pronounced
seaworthy. The same difficulty occurred when they reached Plymouth, with
the result that the _Mayflower_ sailed alone from that port, carrying
the Fathers to form a new empire of Englishmen in the New World.
We were delighted with the old towns on the south coast--so different
from those we had seen on the west; they seemed to have borrowed some of
their quaint semi-foreign architecture from those across the Channel.
The town of Dartmouth was a quaint old place and one of the oldest
boroughs in England. It contained, both in its main street and the
narrow passages leading out of it, many old houses with projecting
wooden beams ornamented with grotesque gargoyles and many other
exquisite carvings in a good state of preservation. Like Totnes, the
town possessed a "Butter Walk," built early in the seventeenth century,
where houses supported by granite pillars overhung the pavement. In one
house there was a plaster ceiling designed to represent the Scriptural
genealogy of our Saviour from Jesse to the Virgin Mary, and at each of
the four corners appeared one of the Apostles: St. Matthew with the bull
or ox, St. Luke with the eagle, St. Mark with the lion, and St. John
with the attendant angel---probably a copy of the Jesse stained-glass
windows, in which Jesse is represented in a recumbent posture with a
vine or tree rising out of his loins as described by Isaiah, xi. I: "And
there shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch
shall grow out of his roots."
The churches in Dartmouth were well worth a visit. St. Saviour's, built
in 1372, contained an elaborately carved oak screen, one of the finest
in the county and of singular beauty, erected in the fifteenth century.
It was in perfect condition, and spread above the chancel in the form of
a canopy supporting the rood-loft, with beautiful carving and painted
figures in panels. The pulpit was of stone, richly carved and gilt, and
showed the Tudor rose and portcullis, with the thistle, harp, and
fleur-de-lys; there were also some seat-ends nicely carved and some old
chandeliers dated 1701--the same date as the fine one we saw in the
church at Totnes.
[Illustration: ST. SAVIOUR'S CHURCH, DARTMOUTH.]
The chancel contained the tomb, dated 1394, of John Hawley, who died in
1408, and his two wives--Joan who died in 1394, and Alice who died in
1403. Hawley was a rich merchant, and in the war against France equipped
at his own expense a fleet, which seemed to have been of good service to
him, for in 1389 he captured thirty-four vessels from Rochelle, laden
with 1,500 tons of wine. John Stow, a famous antiquary of the sixteenth
century, mentioned this man in his _Annals_ as "the merchant of
Dartmouth who in 1390 waged war with the navies and ships of the ports
of our own shores," and "took 34 shippes laden with wyne to the sum of
fifteen hundred tunnes," so we considered Hawley must have been a pirate
of the first degree.
There was a brass in the chancel with this inscription, the moral of
which we had seen expressed in so many different forms elsewhere:
Behold thyselfe by me,
I was as thou art now:
And them in time shalt be
Even dust as I am now;
So doth this figure point to thee
The form and state of each dge-sized man, but with wide arms spread out at the top twisted and
twined in all directions. Their roots were amongst great boulders, where
adders' nests abounded, so that it behoved visitors to be doubly careful
in very hot weather. We could imagine the feelings of a solitary
traveller in days gone by, with perhaps no living being but himself for
miles, crossing this dismal moor and coming suddenly on the remains of
one of these crucified sacrificial victims.
Not far from Wistman's Wood was Crockern Tor, on the summit of which,
according to the terms of an ancient charter, the Parliament dealing
with the Stannary Courts was bound to assemble, the tables and seats of
the members being hewn out of the solid rock or cut from great blocks of
stone. The meetings at this particular spot of the Devon and Cornwall
Stannary men continued until the middle of the eighteenth century. After
the jury had been sworn and other preliminaries arranged, the Parliament
adjourned to the Stannary towns, where its courts of record were opened
for the administration of Justice among the "tinners," the word Stannary
being derived from the Latin "Stannum," meaning tin.
Some of the tors still retained their Druidical names, such as Bel-Tor,
Ham-Tor, Mis-Tor; and there were many remains of altars, logans, and
cromlechs scattered over the moors, proving their great antiquity and
pointing to the time when the priests of the Britons burned incense and
offered human victims as sacrifices to Bel and Baal and to the Heavenly
bodies.
There was another contingency to be considered in crossing Dartmoor in
the direction we had intended--especially in the case of a solitary
traveller journeying haphazard--and that was the huge prison built by
the Government in the year 1808 on the opposite fringe of the Moor to
accommodate prisoners taken during the French wars, and since converted
into an ordinary convict settlement. It was seldom that a convict
escaped, for it was very difficult to cross the Moor, and the prison
dress was so well known all over the district; but such cases had
occurred, and one of these runaways, to whom a little money and a change
of raiment would have been acceptable, might have been a source of
inconvenience, if not of danger, to any unprotected traveller, whom he
could have compelled to change clothing.
We therefore decided to go round the Moor instead of over it, and visit
the town of Plymouth, which otherwise we should not have seen.
The whole of Dartmoor was given by Edward III to his son the Black
Prince, when he gave him the title of Duke of Cornwall after his
victorious return from France, and it still belonged to the Duchy of
Cornwall, and was the property of the Crown; but all the Moor was open
and free to visitors, who could follow their own route in crossing it,
though in places it was gradually being brought into cultivation,
especially in the neighbourhood of the many valleys which in the course
of ages had been formed by the rivers on their passage towards the sea.
As our road for some miles passed along the fringe of the great Moor,
and as the streams crossed it in a transverse direction, on our way to
Plymouth we passed over six rivers, besides several considerable brooks,
after leaving the River Dart at Totnes. These rivers were named the
Harbourne, Avon, Lud, Erme, Yealm, and Plym, all flowing from Dartmoor;
and although there was such a heavy rainfall on the uplands, it was said
that no one born and bred thereon ever died of pulmonary consumption.
The beauty of Dartmoor lay chiefly along its fringes, where ancient
villages stood securely sheltered along the banks of these streams; but
in their higher reaches were the remains of "hut circles" and
prehistoric antiquities of the earliest settlers, and relics of
Neolithic man were supposed to be more numerous than elsewhere in
England.
There was no doubt in our minds that the earliest settlers were those
who landed on the south coast, and in occupying the country they
naturally chose positions where a good supply of water was available,
both for themselves and their cattle. The greater the number of running
streams, the greater would be the number of the settlers. Some of the
wildest districts in these southern countries, where solitude now
prevailed, bore evidence of having, at one time, been thickly populated.
We did not attempt to investigate any of these pretty valleys, as we
were anxious to reach Plymouth early in order to explore that town, so
the only divergence we made from the beaten track was when we came to
Ivybridge, on the River Erme. The ivy of course flourished everywhere,
but it was particularly prolific in some parts of Devon, and here it had
not only covered the bridge, over which we crossed, but seemed inclined
to invade the town, to which it had given its name. The townspeople had
not then objected to its intrusion, perhaps because, being always green,
it was considered to be an emblem of everlasting life--or was it because
in Roman mythology it was sacred to Bacchus, the God of Wine? In
Egyptian mythology the ivy was sacred to Osiris, the Judge of the Dead
and potentate of the kingdom of ghosts; but in our minds it was
associated with our old friend Charles Dickens, who had died in the
previous year, and whom we had once heard reading selections from his
own writings in his own inimitable way. His description of the ivy is
well worth recording--not that he was a poet, but he once wrote a song
for Charles Russell to sing, entitled "The Ivy Green ":
Oh! a dainty plant is the ivy green.
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are its meals, I ween;
In its cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim,
And the mouldering dust that years have made
Is a dainty meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings.
And a staunch old heart hath he:
How closely he twineth, how tight he clings.
To his friend the huge oak tree;
And slyly he traileth along the ground,
And his leaves he gently waves
As he joyously hugs and crawleth around
The rich mould of dead men's graves.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed,
And nations have scattered been;
But the stout old ivy shall never fade
From its hale and hearty green;
The brave old plant in its lonely days
Shall fatten upon the past,
For the stateliest building man can raise
Is the ivy's food at last.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the ivy green.
It is remarkable that the ivy never clings to a poisonous tree, but the
trees to which it so "closely twineth and tightly clings" it very often
kills, even "its friend the huge oak tree."
Near the bridge we stayed at a refreshment house to replenish the inner
man, and the people there persuaded us to ramble along the track of the
River Erme to a spot which "every visitor went to see"; so leaving our
luggage, we went as directed. We followed the footpath under the trees
that lined the banks of the river, which rushed down from the moor above
as if in a great hurry to meet us, and the miniature waterfalls formed
in dashing over the rocks and boulders that impeded its progress looked
very pretty. Occasionally it paused a little in its progress to form
small pools in which were mirrored the luxuriant growth of moss and
ferns sheltering beneath the branches of the trees; but it was soon away
again to form similar pretty pictures on its way down the valley. We
were pleased indeed that we had not missed this charming bit of scenery.
Emerging from the dell, we returned by a different route, and saw in the
distance the village of Harford, where in the church a brass had been
placed to the Prideaux family by a former Bishop of Worcester. This
bishop was a native of that village, and was in a humble position when
he applied for the post of parish clerk of a neighbouring village, where
his application was declined. He afterwards went to work at Oxford, and
while he was there made the acquaintance of a gentleman who recognised
his great talents, and obtained admission for him to one of the
colleges. He rose from one position to another until he became Bishop
of Worcester, and in after life often remarked that if he had been
appointed parish clerk he would never have become a bishop.
We recovered our luggage and walked quickly to Plymouth, where we
arrived in good time, after an easy day's walk. We had decided to stop
there for the night and, after securing suitable apartments, went out
into the town. The sight of so many people moving backwards and forwards
had quite a bewildering effect upon us after walking through moors and
rather sleepy towns for such a long period; but after being amongst the
crowds for a time, we soon became accustomed to our altered
surroundings. As a matter of course, our first visit was to the Plymouth
Hoe, and our first thoughts were of the great Spanish Armada.
[Illustration: SIR FRANCIS DRAKE. _From the picture in the possession of
Sir T.F. Elliot Drake._]
The position of England as the leading Protestant country, with the fact
of the refusal of Queen Elizabeth when the King of Spain proposed
marriage, made war between the two countries almost certain. Drake had
also provoked hostilities, for he had sailed to the West Indies in 1587,
and after defeating the Spaniards there had entered the Bay of Cadiz
with thirty ships and destroyed 10,000 tons of shipping--an achievement
which he described as "singeing the whiskers of the King of Spain." In
consequence of this Philip, King of Spain, declared war on Elizabeth,
Queen of England, and raised a great army of ships to overwhelm the
English.
It was on Friday, July 19, 1588, that Captain Thomas Fleming, in charge
of the pinnace _Golden Hind_, ran into Plymouth Sound with the news that
the Spanish Armada was off the Lizard. The English captains were playing
bowls on Plymouth Hoe when Captain Fleming arrived in hot haste to
inform them that when his ship was off the French coast they had seen
the Spanish fleet approaching in the distance, and had put on all sail
to bring the news. This was the more startling because the English still
believed it to be refitting in its own ports and unlikely to come out
that year. Great excitement prevailed among the captains; but Drake, who
knew all that could be known of the Spanish ships, and their way of
fighting, had no fear of the enemy, and looked upon them with contempt,
coolly remarking that they had plenty of time to finish the game and
thrash the Spaniards afterwards. The beacon fires were lighted during
the night, and--
Swift to east and swift to west
The ghastly war-flame spread;
High on St. Michael's Mount it shone,
It shone on Beachy Head.
Far on the deep the Spaniards saw
Along each southern shire
Cape beyond cape, in endless range
Those twinkling points of fire.
The Armada consisted of 131 large ships accompanied by galleys armed
with heavy guns, and many smaller vessels, carrying 27,345 men, of whom
8,050 were seamen and 19,295 soldiers. The twelve largest ships were
named after the twelve Apostles, and a hundred priests were distributed
through the fleet, for King Philip was a very pious man, and the Armada
had been blessed by the Pope. They were under the command of the Duke of
Medina Sidonia, and the Spaniards, who were proverbially cruel, were so
sure of victory that they had brought with them many strange instruments
of torture, some of which we had seen in the Tower of London on our
visit there the previous year.
The Lord High Admiral of England was Lord Charles Howard, a grandson of
the Duke of Norfolk and a cousin to Queen Elizabeth, besides being a
leader of the Court circle. He had, however, been trained as a sailor,
and the advice and assistance of such brave and experienced sailors as
Drake, Hawkins, and Frobisher were sufficient to carry him through any
crisis.
Drake had inspired his people so that none had any dread of the
Spaniards or of their big ships, which were constructed for fighting at
close quarters only; while Drake pinned his faith on light ships, easily
managed and capable of quick manoeuvring, but armed with big cannon, so
that he could pound away at a safe distance. Compared with the small
English ships, the big ships of the Spaniards, with their huge
superstructures, looked like castles floating on the sea, and the ocean
seemed to groan beneath its heavy burden. But how astonished the English
must have been, both at the vast number and size of the ships composing
the Armada, proudly floating up the Channel in a formation resembling an
arc e
Sandwich Islands; and he sailed from Plymouth on two occasions, 1768 and
1772. He made three voyages round the world, but on the third was
murdered by natives at Hawaii. He discovered Botany Bay in New South
Wales in 1770, which was afterwards made a penal colony, whither early
in the year 1787 eleven ships sailed from Plymouth, with 800 criminals,
over 200 officials, and many free settlers.
But the most important departure from the port was in 1620, when the
_Mayflower_ sailed for America with the "Pilgrim Fathers" on board. She
was only a little barque of 180 tons, and was sadly tossed about by the
big waves in the Atlantic. But after enduring many hardships, the
emigrants landed on the barren shores of Massachusetts Bay, and named
the spot where they landed "New Plymouth," that being no doubt what
Elihu Burritt had in his mind when he described Plymouth as "the Mother
Plymouth sitting by the Sea," for so many emigrants had gone from there
to America and other places that there were now quite forty places named
Plymouth in different parts of the world. The place whence the "Fathers"
left the port on their perilous journey was afterwards marked with a
stone. This we went to see, but we were driven off the Hoe by a heavy
shower of rain.
[Illustration: THE "MAYFLOWER STONE," PLYMOUTH HARBOUR.]
Plymouth was also the last port of call in Europe of the ship
_Northumberland_ bound for St. Helena, with Napoleon Bonaparte on board;
and we thought it a strange incident of travel that the list of
distinguished visitors here in 1871 should have included (in addition to
ourselves of course!) the names of the unfortunate Emperor Napoleon III,
and his still more unfortunate son, who had been there about a fortnight
before we arrived. During that year the French agreed to pay the great
indemnity which the Germans demanded, and which it was said laid the
foundation of the prosperity of the German Empire.
(_Distance walked twenty-three and a half miles_.)
_Wednesday, November 15th._
We left our hotel at daylight this morning, having made special
arrangements last night for a good breakfast to be served in time for an
early start, for we had a heavy day's walk, before us. We were now in
sight of Cornwall, the last county we should have to cross before
reaching Land's End. We had already traversed thirteen counties in
Scotland and fourteen in England since leaving John O' Groat's. But an
arm of the sea named the Hamoaze separated us from Cornwall, and as our
rules prevented us from crossing it either by boat or train, the
question arose how we were to get across the water, which was one of the
greatest naval anchorages in the world, and near the great dockyards in
which the Government employed some thousands of men. We had come that
way in the hope of seeing some of the big warships near Devonport, and
at length we came to the great railway bridge at Saltash. The thought
occurred to us that we might reach the Cornish coast by walking over the
bridge to the other side. We had walked across a railway bridge on one
occasion in Scotland to enable us to reach Abbotsford, the former
residence of the great Sir Walter Scott, so why not adopt a similar plan
here? We were some time before we could find a place where we could
scale the embankment, but ultimately we got on the railway and walked to
the entrance of the bridge; but when we reached the path at the side of
the bridge it looked such a huge affair, and such a long way across the
water, that we decided not to venture without asking some advice. We
waited until we saw coming along the railway track a workman, to whom we
confided our intention. He strongly advised us not to make the attempt,
since we should run great bodily risk, as well as make ourselves liable
to the heavy fine the railway company had power to inflict. We rather
reluctantly returned to the road we had left, but not before seeing some
of the big ships from the bridge--the finest and last of the iron
tubular bridges built by the famous engineer Brunel, the total length,
including approaches, being 2,200 feet. It had been opened by H.R.H. the
Prince Consort in 1859, and was named after him the "Royal Albert"
Bridge. We had now to leave the main road and find our way across
country, chiefly by means of by-lanes, until we reached Tavistock, where
there was a bridge by which we could cross the River Tavy. We had become
quite accustomed to this kind of experience, and looked upon it as a
matter of course, for repeatedly in Scotland we had been forced to make
a circuit to find the "head of the loch" because we objected to cross
the loch itself by a ferry.
[Illustration: THE "ROYAL ALBERT" BRIDGE, SALTASH]
We had only proceeded a mile or two beyond the great bridge at Saltash,
when we came in sight of the village of St. Budeaux, at the entrance of
which we came upon a large number of fine-looking soldiers, who, we were
informed, were the 42nd Highlanders, commonly known as the Black Watch.
They were crossing a grass-covered space of land, probably the village
green, and moving in the same direction as ourselves, not marching in
any regular order, but walking leisurely in groups. We were surprised to
see the band marching quietly in the rear, and wondered why they were
not marching in front playing their instruments. The soldiers, however,
were carrying firearms, which quite alarmed my brother, who never would
walk near a man who carried a gun--for if there was one thing in the
world that he was afraid of more than of being drowned, it was of being
shot with a gun, the very sight of which always made him feel most
uncomfortable. He had only used a gun once in all his life, when quite a
boy, and was so terrified on that occasion that nothing could ever
induce him to shoot again. He was staying at a farm in the country with
a cousin, who undertook to show him how to shoot a bird that was sitting
on its nest. It was a very cruel thing to do, but he loaded the gun and
placed it in my brother's hand in the correct position, telling him to
look along the barrel of the gun until he could see the bird, and then
pull the trigger. He did so, and immediately he was on the ground, with
the gun on top of him. His cousin had some difficulty in persuading him
that the gun had not gone off at the wrong end and that he was not shot
instead of the bird. It was one of the old-fashioned shot-guns known as
"kickers," and the recoil had sent him flying backwards at the moment of
the noise of the discharge--a combination which so frightened him that
he avoided guns ever afterwards.
[Illustration: THE HAMOAZE, SEPARATING DEVON AND CORNWALL]
We were obliged to walk quickly, for we knew we had a long walk before
us that day and must get past the Highlanders, who fortunately were in
no hurry. We passed one group after another until we reached the narrow
road along which we had been directed to turn. Here we saw the soldiers
going the same way, now walking in twos and threes, and presently the
road developed into one of the deep, narrow lanes so common in
Devonshire. We continued to pass the soldiers, but there was now a
greater distance between the small groups. Presently we were accosted by
a sergeant, one of the most finely proportioned men we had ever seen--a
giant, as we thought, amongst giants, for all the soldiers were very big
men--who said to us, "Now, my lads! if you see any of the enemy, tell
them we are two or three miles away, will you?" We wondered what he
meant, but as he smiled, we considered it a joke, and replied, "All
right!" as we moved on. We had passed all the soldiers except the first
two, who were about fifty yards ahead. They had climbed up the high bank
on the left-hand side of the lane, and were apparently looking over the
country and shading their eyes with their hands so as to get a better
view, when we saw a number of others belonging to the same regiment file
quietly down-the opposite side. Crossing the lane, they ran up the bank
where the two soldiers were still standing, and almost before they
realised what was happening their bonnets had been taken off their heads
and they found themselves prisoners. It was a clever capture, and as it
took place immediately before our eyes, we remained standing there
looking on with astonishment, for we had no idea what was about to
happen.
But immediately the scene changed, and soldiers appeared in front, both
in the lane and high up above the road. But the worst feature was that
they began firing their guns; so here we were in a deep lane from which
there was no escape, and, as we afterwards ascertained, between the two
halves of one of the most famous regiments in the British army, one
ambuscaded by the other! We were taken completely by surprise, as we had
never seen or heard of a sham fight before, and it appeared a terrible
thing to us, as the fiery eyes and fierce countenances of the soldiers
were fearful to see, and we became greatly alarmed, expecting every
minute to be taken prisoners. I consoled my brother by telling him the
guns were only loaded with blank cartridges, but his only remark was,
"But suppose one of them isn't, and we get shot," and he began to walk
onwards more quickly than I had ever seen him walk before. Keeping as
near one side the road as possible, and dodging between the soldiers,
with myself following closely behind his heels, perspiring profusely
with fear and exertion until there was scarcely a dry thread upon us, we
managed at last to escape, and were profoundly thankful when we got
clear of the Black Watch and so ended one of the most exciting
adventures we ever had. It reminded my brother of the Charge of the
Light Brigade, a story he was very familiar with, an Irish friend of his
named Donoghue being one of the trumpeters who sounded it, and of
Tennyson's words:
Cannon to right of them.
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them,
Volley'd and thundered.
In our case, he said, we had guns at our back in addition.
We did not know at that time that the 42nd Highlanders were so famous,
but a friend of ours, an officer in the army, has since handed us a
description of that regiment, bringing its history down to a later
period.
The 42nd Highlanders were originally formed from the independent
companies raised in the year 1729 to keep the King's peace among the
Highland Hills; the Black Watch, so called from the dark hue of its
tartan, was first paraded as a regiment of the British army in 1740.
They had distinguished themselves in all parts of the world: America,
India, Flanders, Egypt, Corunna, Waterloo, Sevastopol, Indian Mutiny,
Ashantee, Egypt, Nile, and South Africa, and lost heavily at
Ticonderago, Toulouse, Waterloo, and afterwards in the Boer War. They
were amongst our bravest soldiers, and were famous as being one of
the four regiments named for distinction by Wellington at Waterloo;
twice they had been specially called upon, once at the Battle of
Alexandria, when the Commander-in-Chief, Sir Ralph Abercromby, called
for a special effort at a critical period in the fight, saying, "My
brave Highlanders! Remember your forefathers! Remember your country!"
and victory immediately ensued; and again at the Battle of Corunna,
when Sir John Moore in the thick of the fight, before being mortally
wounded, exclaimed, "Highlanders! Remember Egypt!" and the foe was
scattered in all directions. In Egypt, after storming Tel-el-Kebir
and taking part in the battles that followed, such was the conduct of
the Black Watch that Lord Wolseley sent the following telegram:
"Well done, old comrades of the Black Watch."
Such we may venture to say were the men among whom we found ourselves on
that occasion. In after life we always took a deep interest in the
doings of that famous regiment, and we noticed that when any hard
fighting had to be done, the Black Watch nearly always assisted to do
it--so much so that sometimes we regretted that we had not had the
honour of having been taken prisoner by them on that ever-memorable
occasion!
The next village we came to was Tamerton Foliot, in a lovely situation,
standing at the end of a creek which fills with the tide. At that point
the waters of the Tavy join those of the larger River Tamar, and
eventually assist to form the Hamoaze. Tamerton was a very old
settlement, as Gilbert Foliot, who was Bishop of London from 1163 to
1188, and one of the most prominent opponents of Thomas a Becket,
Archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of that village. There was a
recumbent effigy in the church dating from the year 1346; but beyond
that the great object of interest in the village was an old oak tree
named the Coppleston Oak, because of a very sorrowful incident which
occurred near the church one Sunday morning many centuries ago. It
appeared that a local squire named Coppleston, a man of bad temper and
vile disposition, when at dinner made some gross remarks which were
repeated in the village by his son. He was so enraged when he heard of
it, on the Sunday, that as they were leaving the church he threw his
dagger at the lad, wounding him in the loins so that he fell down and
died. An oak tree was planted near the spot, and was still pointed out
as the Coppleston Oak. The father meanwhile fled to France, and his
friends obtained a conditional pardon for him; but to escape being
hanged he had to forfeit thirteen manors in Cornwall.
[Illustration: TAMERTON CHURCH AND THE FATAL OAK]
We were now fairly off the beaten track, but by devious ways, with
lovely wooded and river scenery to the left and the wild scenery of
Dartmoor to the right, we managed to reach Buckland Abbey. This abbey
was founded in 1278 by the Countess of Baldwin-de Redvers, Earl of
Devon, and we expected to find it in ruins, as usual. But when Henry
VIII dissolved the monasteries, he gave Buckland to Sir Richard
Grenville, who converted it into a magnificent mansion, although some
few of the monastic buildings still remained. He formed the great hall
so as to be under the great central tower of the old abbey, and the
dining-room he formed out of a portion of the nave, while the
drawing-room was at the end of a long gallery upstairs; so that
altogether it formed a unique structure. In 1581, however, it was sold
to Sir Francis Drake, and the mansion contained some relics of his,
amongst which were two drums; there were also a chair and a table made
out of one of his old ships, the _Pelican_, and a fine portrait of Sir
Francis by Jansen, dated 1594. The gardens were very beautiful, as the
trees in this sheltered position grew almost without let or hindrance;
there were some of the finest tulip trees there that we had ever seen.
We were informed that when Sir Francis Drake began to make some
alteration in his new possessions, the stones that were built up in the
daytime were removed during the night or taken down in some mysterious
manner. So one moonlight night he put on a white sheet, and climbed a
tree overlooking the building, with the object of frightening any one
who might come to pull down the stones. When the great clock which
formerly belonged to the old abbey struck the hour of twelve, he saw the
earth open below, and about twenty little black devils came out and
started to pull down the wall. Sir Francis began to move his arms about
and flap them as if they were wings, and then crowed like a cock. The
devils, when they heard the white bird crowing, looked up, and, thinking
the morning must be close at hand, immediately disappeared to the
regions below. We could not learn if or how often these performances
were repeated, but it seemed a very unlikely thing for Sir Francis Drake
to do, and the story sounded as if it belonged to a far remoter period
than that of the Spanish Armada.
[Illustration: DRAKE'S STATUE, TAVISTOCK.]
Drake was idolised in Plymouth and the surrounding country, where his
name was held in everlasting remembrance, and his warlike spirit
pervaded the British navy. At a much later period than that of our visit
even his drum was not forgotten. Whether it was one of those that were
preserved in the old abbey or not we did not know, but it is the subject
of a stirring poem by Sir Henry Newbolt.
DRAKE'S DRUM
Drake he's in his hammock, an' a thousand mile away,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Slung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Yarnder lumes the island, yarnder lie the ships,
Wi' sailor lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe,
An' the shore-lights flashin', an' the night-tide dashin',
He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago.
Drake he was a Devon man, an' ruled the Devon seas,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,
Strike et when your powder's runnin' low;
If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven,
An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago.
Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come,
(Capten, art tha' sleepin' there below?),
Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the Drum,
An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe.
Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound,
Call him when ye sail to meet the foe;
Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin'
They shall find him ware an' wakin', as they found him long ago!
In olden times there existed a much older abbey than Buckland, named
Buckfast Abbey, but it was right on the other side of Dartmoor, and the
abbots and monks formerly crossed from one to the other. In those remote
times there were no proper roads, and the tracks between the two places
were mainly made by the feet of the monks, with crosses placed at
intervals to prevent their losing the way, especially when the hills
were covered with snow. The track still existed, being known as the
"Abbots' Way." The distance between the two abbeys was about sixteen
miles as the crow flies, but as the track had to go partially round some
of the tors, which there rose to an elevation of about 1,500 feet above
sea-level, and were directly in the way, it must have involved a walk of
quite twenty miles from one abbey to the other. Buckfast Abbey is one of
the oldest in Britain, and ultimately became the richest Cistercian
house in the West of England. The last abbot was Gabriel Donne, who
received his appointment for having in 1536 captured Tyndale the
Reformer, who was in the same year put to death by strangling and
burning.
[Illustration: BUCKLAND ABBEY.]
One of the earliest stories of the "lost on the moors" was connected
with that road. Childe, the "Hunter of Plymstock," had been hunting in
one of the wildest districts on Dartmoor, and was returning home at
night, when a heavy snowstorm came on and the night became bitterly
cold. Having completely lost his way, and as his tired horse could go no
farther, he stopped at one of the ancient crosses and dismounted. His
blood, however, began to freeze within him, and to try to save his own
life he killed his horse, and, cutting a great hole in its body, crept
inside. When daylight came in the morning, knowing he was dying, and
that some of the monks would probably find his body when they came to
the cross, he dipped his fingers in his horse's blood and scribbled on
the stone:
They fyrste that fyndes and brings mee to my grave,
The Priorie of Plymstocke they shall have.
His body was found by the "monks of Tavystoke," and buried in their
abbey at Tavistock; and from that time to the dissolution of the
monasteries the Abbey of Tavistock had possession of the manor of
Plymstock, Childe having no children to follow him.
We were sorry that we had been unable to explore Dartmoor itself instead
of only its fringes, so we decided to make an effort to see Dartmoor
Prison, which we were given to understand was only a few miles away. We
changed our course a little and passed on to Walkhampton, where we were
advised to follow the by-road above the Walkham river, from which the
village took its name, this being the easiest and most pleasant way. We
had a nice walk along the valley until we reached Merridale, but there
we succumbed to the attractions of the small inn. We felt that we should
never be able to wait for food until we reached Tavistock, as the
mountain air and the exertion of climbing up the hill had been too much
for us, so we ordered refreshments there instead of at Tavistock, as
originally intended. We had loitered a little on our way up the hill,
stopping to look at the views behind us, which were better than those in
front--a necessary procedure, for we were rather inclined at times "to
keep our noses too near the grindstone," or perhaps, like Othello, to be
"led by the nose as asses are," and to toil up the hills with the
wilderness before us, in total forgetfulness of the lovely scenes
behind. We therefore advise all tourists on a walking expedition to look
back occasionally, since much of the pleasure and beauty of the tour may
otherwise be lost.
[Illustration: VIXEN TOR, TAVISTOCK.]
We had a short walk in the direction of Princetown, where the prison was
situated, but we were not at all favourably impressed by the appearance
of the country, without a house in sight except the inn where our
refreshments were being prepared. Presently we met an official in
uniform, who told us the prisoners were not always kept inside the
prison, but were employed in making and repairing roads and fences and
in cultivating land. He pointed out some men a long distance away who
were so employed, and strongly advised us not to go any farther in that
direction. The only objects of interest on the Moor, beyond the tors and
the views from their summits, were the antiquities, which in that part
were particularly numerous, for without leaving the road between the
prison and Merridale there could be seen a cluster of hut circles, a
kistvaen, a menhir, and a double line of stone rows, and within a short
radius many other relics of prehistoric man, as well as one or two
logans or rocking-stones. We therefore returned with him to the inn--for
even an antiquary cannot live on stones; he ought to be well supported
with both food and clothing to enable him fully to explore and
appreciate the ancient relics of Dartmoor. Our refreshments were quite
ready and were soon put out of sight, and, as we had a downward gradient
to the River Tavy, we had made up for our delay when we crossed the
bridge over the river and entered the town of Tavistock.
The earliest history of Tavistock was no doubt associated with the
prehistoric remains on the hills above, if that had been written; but as
early as the tenth century Orgarius, Earl of Devon, in consequence of a
dream, decided to build a magnificent abbey there, and to dedicate it to
St. Mary. He began to build it in 961, but as he died before it was
completed, his son Ordulph completed it in 981 and endowed it with the
manor of Tavistock and others. Ordulph was also a nephew of King
Ethelred, and, according to tradition, was a giant able to stride across
a riverwed his bad example and to have
inherited his wild nature, for it was said that she was married four
times--twice before she reached the age of sixteen! She afterwards
married Lord Charles Howard, son of the Duke of Suffolk, and after she
had disposed of him--for the country people believed she murdered all
her husbands--she married Sir Richard Granville, the cruel Governor of
Lydford Castle, but preferred to retain the title of Lady Howard. It was
said that she died diseased both in mind and body, and that afterwards
she had to do penance for her sins. Every night on the stroke of twelve
a phantom coach made of bones, drawn by four skeleton horses and
ornamented with four grinning skulls, supposed to be those of her four
husbands, issued from under Fitzford gateway with the shade of Lady
Howard inside. A coal-black hound ran in front as far as Okehampton, and
on the return journey carried in its mouth a single blade of grass,
which it placed on a stone in the old courtyard of Fitzford; and not
until all the grass of Okehampton had been thus transported would Lady
Howard's penance end! The death-coach glided noiselessly along the
lonely moorland roads, and any person who accepted Lady Howard's
invitation to ride therein was never seen again. One good effect this
nocturnal journey had was that every one took care to leave the inns at
Tavistock in time to reach home before midnight.
My Lady hath a sable coach,
With horses two and four;
My Lady hath a gaunt bloodhound.
That goeth on before:
My Lady's coach hath nodding plumes,
The driver hath no head;
My Lady is an ashen white
As one that long is dead.
I'd rather walk a hundred miles,
And run by night and day.
Than have that carriage halt for me
And hear my Lady say:
"Now pray step in and make no din,
Step in with me to ride;
There's room, I trow, by me, for you
And all the world beside!"
The church at Tavistock was dedicated to St. Eustachius, for we were now
quite near Cornwall, a land of saints with all kinds of queer names. The
church had the appearance of having passed through the ordeal of some
severe restorations, but we saw many objects of interest therein. There
was a tomb with effigies of Judge Granville, his wife, and three sons
and four daughters, erected in 1615 by his widow after she had married
again--a circumstance that might give rise to some speculations. The
children's heads had all been knocked off, and the boys had disappeared
altogether; probably, we thought, taken prisoners by some of Cromwell's
men to serve as ornaments elsewhere. There was also a monument to the
Fitze family, including a figure of Sir John Fitze, the last of the
line, who was buried at Twickenham; but whether he was the hero of the
legend or not we could not ascertain.
Thomas Larkham, who was vicar from 1649 to 1660, stood out against the
Act of Conformity, and was dismissed. But he kept a diary, and a page of
it had been preserved which referred to the gifts presented to him after
being deprived of his stipend.
1653, _Nov. 30th._--The wife of Will Hodges brought me a fat goose;
Lord, do them good! Edward Cole sent by his daughter a turkey; Lord,
accept it! _Dec. 2nd._--Sara Frowt a dish of butter; accept, Lord!
_Dec. 6th._--Margaret Sitwell would not be paid for 2-1/2 lbs. of
butter; is she not a daughter of Abraham? Father, be pleased to pay
her. Walter Peck sent me, _Dec. 14th_, a partridge, and Mr. Webb the
same day pork and puddings; Lord, forget not! Mrs. Thomasin
Doidge--Lord, look on her in much mercy--_Dec. 19th_, gave me 5s.
_Jan. 25th._--Mrs. Audry sent me a bushel of barley malt for
housekeeping; Lord, smell a sweet savour! Patrick Harris sent me a
shoulder of pork,--he is a poor ignorant man. Lord, pity him!
There was a curious thirteenth-century chest, trapezium in form, and
said to be the only one of that shape in the West of England. It was of
carved oak, and called a treasure chest, because it had a secret recess
at the back where the priest kept a jewel with which he fastened his
robes. Another old chest contained some ancient Latin writings, the
earliest of which bore the dates 1285, 1325, and 1370, written in old
lettering with what was known as "monk's ink," made from vegetables.
Some of the documents bore seals with rush rings attached, and there was
a black-letter Bible, and a chained book dated 1588, the year of the
Spanish Armada. We were also shown four pewter flagons for Communion
wine, all of the time of Charles I, two churchwardens having each given
one in 1633 and two other wardens one each in 1638. Asked why so many
were required, we were informed that in those days all the people were
compelled to come to church, and it was nothing unusual for quarts of
wine to be used at one Communion, at a cost of several pounds! But in
those days Holy Communion was only administered four times a year!
[Illustration: BRENT TOR, TAVISTOCK.]
Tavistock was one of the four Stannary towns in Devonshire, where
Stannary Courts were established to deal with all matters relating to
tin and the tinners who produced it. Under a charter of Edward I tin was
ordered to be officially weighed and stamped in the towns so appointed.
But while the tinners had the privilege of digging for tin on any
person's land without payment for rent or damage, they were subject to
heavy penalties and impositions in other ways, and especially in the
case of adulteration of tin with inferior metal. The forest laws also in
those early times were terrible and barbarous. To enforce the authority
of the Stannary Courts a prison was constructed in the thirteenth
century out of the keep or dungeon of Lydford Castle, about nine miles
north of Tavistock; and in the sixteenth century this prison was
described as "one of the most annoyous, contagious, and detestable
places in the realm." When Sir Richard Granville, who was noted for his
extremely cruel disposition, was Governor, prisoners were known to be
compelled to swallow spoonfuls of the molten metal they were supposed to
have adulterated. William Browne, a poet born at Tavistock in 1590, in
one of his pastorals perpetuated the memory of Lydford Castle:
I oft have heard of Lydford law--
How in the morn they hang and draw.
And sit in judgement after.
[Illustration: KIT HILL, CALLINGTON.]
We had now to return towards the coast-line from which we had diverged
after leaving Plymouth, and we decided to walk from Tavistock to
Liskeard and stay there for the night. The country was rather hilly, and
in about three miles we crossed the River Tamar, at the same point
passing from Devon into Cornwall, for the river here divided the two
counties. It had made for itself in the course of ages a deep passage
through the hills, which for the pedestrian involved a deep descent and
a sharp ascent on the other side to and from the river. Our way now
crossed the Hingston Downs, where we came to one of the chief landmarks
of Cornwall, named the Kit Hill, at an elevation of 1,067 feet above
sea-level, standing quite near our road. This hill marked the site of a
desperate battle in 835, between King Edgar of Wessex on the one side
and the Danes combined with the men of Cornwall on the other. The Saxons
lost heavily, but they won the battle, and the neighbouring barrows, or
tumuli, were supposed to have covered the remains of those who fell on
that occasion. We were now amongst the tin mines, of which there were
quite a number, used and disused, in sight, some right on the top of the
hills; and from these highlands we could see the two Channels, the
English on one side and the Irish on the other. It was supposed that the
Irish had originally inhabited the whole of Cornwall, but the old
Cornishmen were in reality Celts of a different tribe. One of the miners
told us that on his return from South Africa he could see Kit Hill
distinctly from a long distance out at sea. Some of the tin miners, it
seemed, were emigrating to South Africa, while others were going to
America. Soon afterwards we reached the fair-sized village or town of
Callington, which under the old franchise returned two Members to
Parliament, one of whom had been Horace Walpole, the son of the famous
Robert Walpole. We looked through the church, where we saw a rather fine
monument to Lord Willoughby de Broke erected in 1503. He was represented
as wearing armour and the insignia of the Garter, and at his feet were
two curious figures of monks, said to be unique, for the figures in that
position were invariably those of lions or other animals. A lady from
the vicarage told us that his lordship was the steward of the Duchy of
Cornwall, and an important person, but there was some doubt about his
being buried there. There was another church in the neighbourhood, and
as both the villages belonged to him, he had a tomb made in each, so
that he could be buried in whichever part of his property he happened to
be in when he died, or, as he explained to his friends, "where you drop,
there you may be buried."
There were more temperance hotels, or houses, in Cornwall than in most
other counties we had passed through, almost invariably clean and good,
and it was to one of these that we adjourned at Callington for tea. We
found it quite up to the mark, and we had a splendid feed there both as
regarded quantity and quality, Devonshire cream being evidently not
confined to its own county. It would have been a grand place in which to
stay the night, but, though the weather was threatening, we must place
our average mileage in a safe position, especially as we were now
nearing the end of our long walk. It was nearly dark when we left
Callington, and, on our inquiring the way to Liskeard, a man we saw at
the end of the village said he could put vis in a nearer way than going
along the high road, which would save us a good half-mile in the
journey. Going with us to the entrance of a narrow lane, he gave us very
careful and voluminous instructions about the way we must follow.
Thanking him, we left him, and proceeded along the lane in search of a
farmhouse, or rather a gate at the end of the road leading towards it,
for he had told us we should not be able to see the house itself in the
dark, but should be sure to see the gate, as it was a large one, painted
white, and after passing this we were to make one or two turns which he
described. The sky was overcast and the night very dark, and although
there was a new moon, it was only three days old--too young to be of any
service to us. But we could not find either the gate or the farm, or any
turns in the road, nor could either of us remember distinctly the latter
part of the instructions given to us by the man, one thinking we had to
turn to the right and the other to the left. The fact was, we had
calculated upon meeting some one on the road from whom, we could inquire
further. We had been walking slowly respective
districts had to be weighed and stamped. Probably on that account
Liskeard returned two members to Parliament, the first members being
returned in 1294; amongst the M.P.'s who had represented the town were
two famous men--Sir Edward Coke, elected in 1620, and Edward Gibbon, in
1774.
Sir Edward Coke was a great lawyer and author of the legal classic _Coke
upon Littleton_. He became Speaker of the House of Commons,
Attorney-General, and afterwards Chief Justice, and was the merciless
prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh, and also of the persons concerned in
the Gunpowder Plot; while his great speech against Buckingham towards
the close of the career of that ill-fated royal favourite is famous.
Edward Gibbon was the celebrated historian and author of that great work
_The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_. The history of his
Parliamentary connection with Liskeard was rather curious. One morning
in 1774, when in London, he was asked if he would like to enter the
House of Commons, and when he consented, the "free and independent
electors" of Liskeard were duly "instructed" to return him. But it was
very doubtful whether he ever saw any of the electors, or had any
dealings with the Constituency whatever, although he acted as one of
their members for about eight years. Possibly, as there were two
members, the other M.P. might have been the "acting partner."
Liskeard church was the second largest in Cornwall, and in it we saw a
"Lepers' squint" and also a turret at the corner of the aisle from which
the priest could preach to the lepers without coming in contact with
them, for the disease was very infectious--so much so that the hospital
built for them was a mile or two from the town. "Lepers' squints" had
been common in some parts of England, and as the disease is often
mentioned in the Bible, we considered it must have been imported from
the East, perhaps from Palestine by the Crusaders. We had not seen or
heard of any cases of leprosy on our journey, and we concluded that the
disease could not have been natural to our colder climate, and had
therefore died out as a result of more cleanly habits. The pulpit was
dated 1632, the carving on it being the work of a local sculptor, whose
remuneration, we were told, was at the rate of one penny per hour, which
appeared to us to be a very small amount for that description of work.
Possibly he considered he was working for the cause of religion, and
hoped for his further reward in a future life; or was it a silver penny?
[Illustration: LISKEARD CHURCH.]
The houses in Liskeard were built of stone, and the finest perhaps was
that known as Stuart House, so named because King Charles I stayed there
for about a week in 1644. This was of course in the time of the Civil
War, when Cornwall, as it practically belonged to the King or his son,
did not consider itself as an ordinary county, but as a duchy, and was
consequently always loyal to the reigning sovereign. It was also a
difficult county for an invading army to approach, and the army of the
Parliament under the Earl of Essex met with a disastrous defeat there.
But we must not forget the Holy Wells, as the villages and towns took
their names from the saints who presided at the wells. That of St.
Keyne, quite near Liskeard, is described by Southey:
A Well there is in the West Country,
And a clearer one never was seen;
There is not a wife in the West Country
But has heard of the Well of St. Keyne.
An oak and an elm-tree stand beside,
And behind doth an ash-tree grow,
And a willow from the bank above
Droops to the water below.
St. Keyne introduced the rather remarkable belief that the first of a
newly married couple to drink of the water of her well, whether husband
or wife, should in future rule the home. We supposed that the happy pair
would have a race to the well, and the one who arrived there first
would ever afterwards play the first fiddle, if that instrument was in
use in the time of St. Keyne. But a story was related of how on one
occasion the better-half triumphed. No sooner had the knot been tied
than the husband ran off as fast as he could to drink of the water at
St. Keyne's Well, leaving his wife in the church. When he got back he
found the lady had been before him, for she had brought a bottle of the
water from the well with her to church, and while the man was running to
the well she had been quietly seated drinking the water in the church
porch!
[Illustration: ST. KEYNE'S WELL.]
The story was told by the victim to a stranger, and the incident was
recorded by Southey in his poem "The Well of St. Keyne":
"You drank of the Well, I warrant, betimes?"
He to the countryman said:
But the countryman smiled as the stranger spake,
And sheepishly shook his head:
"I hastened as soon as the wedding was done,
And left my wife in the porch;
But i' faith! she had been wiser than me,
For she took a bottle to church."
It was at Liskeard that we first heard of George Borrow, a tramp like
ourselves. Although we should have been pleased to have had a talk with
him, we should scarcely have been able to accompany him on one of his
journeys, for he was 6 feet 3 inches in height against our 5 feet 8
inches, and he would have been able to walk quicker than ourselves. He
was born in 1803 and died in 1881, so that he was still alive when we
were walking through Cornwall, and was for many years a travelling agent
for the British and Foreign Bible Society. In the course of his
wanderings, generally on foot, he made a study of gipsy life, and wrote
some charming books about the Romany tribes, his _Lavengro_ and _Romany
Rye_ being still widely read. He was a native of Norfolk, but his father
was born near Liskeard, to which place he paid a special visit at the
end of 1853. On Christmas Day in that year, which was also a Sunday, he
walked to St. Cleer and attended service in the church, Mr. Berkeley
being the preacher, and although there was no organ, he saw a fiddle in
the gallery, so fiddles must have then been in use in Cornwall. He would
also see the Well of St. Cleer, which was quite near the church, and
must in the time of the Saxons have been covered over with stone, as the
old arches and columns were Saxon work. Borrow's father was born at
Trethinnick Farm, near St. Cleer, which he also went to see. He left
Liskeard in January 1854 on a tramp through Truro and Penzance to Land's
End by almost the same route as that we were about to follow ourselves.
As he made many notes during his wanderings in Cornwall, his friends
naturally expected him to publish an account of his travels there, after
the manner of a book he had published in 1862 entitled _Wild Wales_, but
they were disappointed, for none appeared.
[Illustration: ST. CLEER'S WELL.]
It was said that Cornwall did not grow wood enough to make a coffin, and
the absence of trees enabled us to see a number of huge,
mysterious-looking stones: some upright and standing alone, others in
circles, or in groups named cists composed of upright stones, forming a
cavity between them in the shape of a chest covered at the top, and not
intended to be opened again, for they had been used as tombs.
Occasionally the stones stood quite near our road, some in the shape of
crosses, while we could see others in fields and on the top of small
hills.
There were some remarkable stones near St. Cleer, including the famous
"Cheesewring," formed of eight circular stones each resembling a cheese,
placed one on top of another and rising to a height of about eight
yards; but the strange part about this curious erection was that the
four larger and heavier stones were at the top and the four smaller ones
at the bottom. It was a mystery how in such remote times the builders
could have got those immense stones to the top of the others and there
balanced them so exactly as to withstand the storms of so many years.
[Illustration: THE CHEESEWRING]
Near this supposed Druidical erection was a rough cave known as "Daniel
Gumb's House
construction, but was afterwards converted into one of the fortresses
which the Normans built in the eastern part of Cornwall as
rallying-points in case of any sudden insurrection among the "West
Welshmen." The occupation of the fortress by the Normans was the
immediate cause of the foundation of the town of Lostwithiel, to which a
charter was granted in 1196 by Robert de Cardinan, the then owner of the
castle and the surrounding country.
An exchequer deed showed how the castle and town of Lostwithiel came
into the possession of the Dukes of Cornwall:
Know ye present and to come that I, Isolda-de-Tracey, daughter and
heir of Andrew de Cardinan, have granted to Lord Richard, King of the
Romans, my whole Manor of Tewington.... Moreover I have given and
granted to the aforesaid Lord the King, Castle of Restormell and the
villeinage in demesne, wood and meadows, and the whole Town of
Lostwithiel, and water of Fowey, with the fishery, with all
liberties, and free customs to the said water, town, and castle,
belonging. Whereof the water of Fowey shall answer for two and a half
knights fees (a "knight's fee" being equal to 600 acres of land).
In the year 1225 Henry III gave the whole county of Cornwall, in fee, to
his brother Richard, who was created Earl of Cornwall by charter dated
August 12th, 1231, and from that time Restormel became the property of
the Earls of Cornwall. Afterwards, in 1338, when the Earldom was raised
to a Dukedom, the charter of creation settled on the Duchy, with other
manors, the castle and manor of Restormel, with the park and other
appurtenances in the county of Cornwall, together with the town of
Lostwithiel: and it was on record that the park then contained 300 deer.
Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King of the Romans, caused extensive
alterations and improvements in the castle at Restormel, and often made
it his residence, and kept his Court there. He was elected King of the
Romans or Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire at Frankfort on January 13th,
1256, and crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle, November 27th, 1257. Edward the
Black Prince, upon whom the Dukedom was confirmed when only seven years
old, paid two visits to Restormel. The first of these was in 1354,
possibly while his expedition to France was being prepared at Plymouth,
and the second in 1363.
In the time of the Civil War the commanding position of the castle
caused it to be repaired and held by the Parliamentarians; but after the
disastrous defeat of their army under the Earl of Essex in 1644 it was
garrisoned by Sir Richard Grenville for the King. In recent times it
was again visited by royalty, for on Tuesday, September 8th, 1846, the
royal yacht _Victoria and Albert_ sailed into Fowey and landed a royal
party, who drove to Restormel Castle. It revived old memories to read
the names of the party who came here on that occasion, for in addition
to Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert, there were the
Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, Lady Jocelyn, Miss Kerr, Mdlle.
Geuner, Lord Spencer, Lord Palmerston, Sir James Clark, Mr. Anson, and
Col. Grey.
The castle was not a very large one, and we were more impressed by the
loneliness of its situation than by the ruin itself, for there was a
long approach to it without a cottage or a friendly native in sight, nor
did we see any one in the lonely road of quite a mile along which we
passed afterwards to the town of Lostwithiel. But this road was quite
pleasant, following the tree-covered course of the River Fowey, and
lined with ferns and the usual flower-bearing plants all the way to that
town.
[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL ANCIENT BRIDGE AND LANDING PLACE.]
Here we rejoined the Liskcard highway, which crossed the river by an
ancient bridge said to date from the fourteenth century. At this point
the river had long ago been artificially widened so as to form a basin
and landing-place for the small boats which then passed to and fro
between Fowey and Lostwithiel.
The derivation of the last place-name was somewhat doubtful, but the
general interpretation seemed to be that its original form was
Lis-guythiel, meaning the "Palace in the Wood," which might be correct,
since great trees still shut in the range of old buildings representing
the remains of the old Palace or Duchy House. The buildings, which were
by no means lofty, were devoted to purposes of an unimportant character,
but they had a decidedly dungeon-like appearance, and my brother, who
claimed to be an authority on Shakespeare because he had once committed
to memory two passages from the great bard's writings, assured me that
if these old walls were gifted with speech, like the ghost that
appeared to Hamlet, they "could a tale unfold, whose lightest word would
harrow up our souls; freeze our young blood; make our eyes, like stars,
start from their spheres; our knotted and combined locks to part, and
each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fretful
porcupine"; but fortunately "this eternal blazon must not be to ears of
flesh and blood," and so we hurried away up the town.
Lostwithiel, one of the Stannary towns, was at one time the only coinage
town in Cornwall, and traces of the old Mint and Stannary Court could
yet be seen. The town had formerly the honour of being represented in
Parliament by the famous writer, statesman, and poet, Joseph Addison.
[Illustration: LOSTWITHIEL CHURCH, SOUTH PORCH AND CROSS]
The church was dedicated to St. Bartholomew, and was described as "a
perfect example of the Decorated period" and the "glory of Cornwall." It
possessed a lantern spire "of a kind unexampled elsewhere in the West of
England"; but as our standard was high, since we had seen so many
churches, we failed to appreciate these features, and, generally
speaking, there were no very fine churches in Cornwall compared with
those in other counties. This church, however, had passed through some
lively scenes in the Civil War, when the Royalist army was driving that
of the Parliament towards the sea-coast, where it was afterwards
cornered and captured. A Provost named Marshall commanded the detachment
of the Parliamentary forces at Lostwithiel, and to show their contempt
for the religion of the Church of England, they desecrated the church by
leading one of their horses to the font and christening him Charles "in
contempt of his most sacred Majesty the King." Meanwhile two Cavaliers,
supporters of the King, and gentlemen of some repute in the county, had
hidden themselves in the church tower and drawn the ladder up after
them. When they saw the Provost preparing to depart, for he was now in a
hurry to get away from the approaching Royalist soldiers, they jeered at
him through a window in the tower. He called to them, "I'll fetch you
down," and sent men with some "mulch and hay" to set fire to the tower
into which the Cavaliers had climbed, but they only jeered at him the
more, which caused him to try gunpowder, intending, as he could not
smoke them out, to blow them out; but he only succeeded in blowing a few
tiles off the roof of the church. The font was a fine one, octagonal in
form, and carved on all the eight panels, though some of the figures had
been mutilated; but it was still possible to discern a horrible-looking
face covered with a wreath of snakes, a mitred head of a bishop, a
figure of a knight with a hawk, horn, and hound, and other animals
scarcely suitable, we thought, for a font.
The army of the Parliament was gradually driven to Fowey, where 6,000 of
them were taken prisoner, while their commander, the Earl of Essex,
escaped by sea. Fowey was only about six miles away from Lostwithiel,
and situated at the mouth of the River Fowey. It was at one time the
greatest port on the coast of Cornwall, and the abode of some of the
fiercest fighting men in the British Isles. From that port vessels
sailed to the Crusades, and when Edward III wanted ships and men for the
siege of Calais, Fowey responded nobly to the call, furnishing 47 ships
manned by 770 men. The men of Fowey were the great terror of the French
coast, but in 1447 the French landed in the night and burnt the town.
After this two forts were built, one on each side of the entrance to the
river, after the manner of those at Dartmouth, a stout iron chain being
dropped between them at nightfall. Fowey men were in great favour with
Edward IV because of their continued activity against the French; but
when he sent them a message, "I am at peace with my brother of France,"
the Fowey men replied that they were at war with him! As this was likely
to create friction between the two countries, and as none of his men
dared go to Fowey owing to the warlike character of its inhabitants, the
King decided to resort to strategy, but of a rather mean character. He
despatched men to Lostwithiel, who sent a deputation to Fowey to say
they wished to consult the Fowey men about some new design upon France.
The latter, not suspecting any treachery, came over, and were
immediately seized and their leader hanged; while men were sent by sea
from Dartmouth to remove their harbour chain and take away their ships.
Possibly the ships might afterwards have been restored to them upon
certain conditions, but it was quite an effectual way of preventing
their depredations on the coast of France.
They seem to have been a turbulent race of people at Fowey, for they
once actually became dissatisfied with their patron saint, the Irish St.
Finbar, and when they rebuilt their church in 1336 they dismissed him
and adopted St. Nicholas to guide their future destinies. Perhaps it
was because St. Nicholas was the patron saint of all sailors, as he
allayed a great storm when on a voyage to the Holy Land. What is now
named Drake's Island, off Plymouth, was formerly named St. Nicholas. It
would not be difficult to find many other churches dedicated to St.
Nicholas on the sea-coast from there to the north, and we remembered he
was the patron saint at Aberdeen.
St. Nicholas is also the patron saint of the Russians, some of the Czars
of that mighty Empire having been named after him. While St. Catherine
is the patron saint of the girls, St. Nicholas is the patron saint of
the boys, and strange to relate is also the patron saint of parish
clerks, who were formerly called "scholars."
When pictured in Christian art this saint is dressed in the robe of a
bishop, with three purses, or three golden balls, or three children. The
three purses represent those given by him to three sisters to enable
them to marry; but we did not know the meaning of the three golden
balls, unless it was that they represented the money the purses
contained. My brother suggested they might have some connection with the
three golden balls hanging outside the pawnbrokers' shops. Afterwards we
found St. Nicholas was the patron saint of that body. But the three
children were all boys, who once lived in the East, and being sent to a
school at Athens, were told to call on St. Nicholas on their way for his
benediction. They stopped for the night at a place called Myra, where
the innkeeper murdered them for their money and baggage, and placed
their mangled bodies in a pickling-tub, intending to sell them as pork.
St. Nicholas, however, saw the tragedy in a vision, and went to the inn,
where the man confessed the crime, whilst St. Nicholas, by a miracle,
raised the murdered boys to life again!
Sometimes he had been nicknamed "Nick," or "Old Nick," and then he
became a demon, or the Devil, or the "Evil spirit of the North." In
Scandinavia he was always associated with water either in sea or lake,
river or waterfall, his picture being changed to that of a
horrid-looking creature, half-child and half-horse, the horse's feet
being shown the wrong way about. Sometimes, again, he was shown as an
old black man like an imp, sitting on a rock and wringing the dripping
water from his long black hair!
On our way towards St. Austell we passed some very interesting places to
the right and left of our road, and had some fine views of the sea.
Presently we arrived at a considerable village inhabited by miners, the
name of which we did not know until my brother, who was walking with a
miner in the rear, suddenly called to me, and pointing to a name on a
board, said: "See where we've got to!" When my brother called out the
name of the place, I ocess of its manufacture being kept a profound
secret by the Chinese, whose country was closed to Europeans.
A story, however, was told of an Englishman who succeeded in entering
China and obtaining employment at one of the potteries, where he
eventually became acquainted with the secrets of the whole business. The
difficulties he experienced in getting out of the country again, and his
adventures and hairbreadth escapes from death, were thrilling to listen
to. The pattern on the famous Willow plates, which he was afterwards
able to produce in England, was commonly supposed to represent some of
his own adventures, and he was thought to be the man pictured as being
pursued across a bridge and escaping in a boat. This, however, was not
correct, as all the views had been copied from the original Chinese
willow pattern, the interpretation of which was as follows:
To the right is a lordly Mandarin's country-seat, which is two
storeys high to show the rank and wealth of the possessor. In the
foreground is a pavilion, and in the background an orange-tree, while
to the right of the pavilion is a peach-tree in full bearing. The
estate is enclosed by an elegant wooden fence, and at one end of the
bridge stands the famous willow-tree and at the other is the
gardener's cottage, one storey high, and so humble that the grounds
are uncultivated, the only green thing being a small fir-tree at the
back.
At the top of the pattern on the left-hand side is an island with a
cottage; the grounds are highly cultivated and much of the land has
been reclaimed from the water. The two birds are turtle-doves, and
the three figures on the bridge are the Mandarin's daughter with a
distaff, nearest the cottage, the lover with a box is shown in the
middle, and nearest the willow-tree is the Mandarin with a whip.
[Illustration: THE LOVE-STORY OF LI-CHI AND CHANG.]
The written history of China goes back for 4,000 years, a period more
than twice that over which English history can be traced; and it is
about 2,600 years since Confucius wrote his wonderful laws. Since that
time his teachings have been followed by countless millions of his
countrymen, and temples have been erected to him all over that great
country, whose population numbers more than 300 millions.
The origin of the legend represented on the willow pattern must
therefore have been of remote antiquity, and the following is the record
of the tradition:
The Mandarin had an only daughter named Li-chi, who fell in love with
Chang, a young man who lived in the island home represented at the
top of the pattern, and who had been her father's secretary. The
father overheard them one day making vows of love under the
orange-tree, and sternly forbade the unequal match; but the lovers
contrived to elope. They lay concealed for a while in the gardener's
cottage, and thence made their escape in a boat to the island-home
of the young lover. The enraged Mandarin pursued them with a whip,
and would have beaten them to death had not the gods rewarded their
fidelity by changing them into turtle-doves.
The picture is called the willow pattern not only because it is a
tale of disastrous love, but because the elopement occurred when the
willow begins to shed its leaves.
Much of the clay at Carclaze was being sent to the Staffordshire
potteries, to be used in the production of the finest porcelain. It was
loaded in ships and taken round the coast via Liverpool to Runcorn, a
port on the River Mersey and the terminus of the Duke of Bridgewater's
Canal, where it was transhipped into small boats, which conveyed it to
the potteries in Staffordshire, involving a carriage of about fifty
miles, After being manufactured into porcelain, it was packed into
crates and again consigned by canal to many places inland and to
Liverpool for shipment abroad, the carriage being cheaper and safer than
if consigned by rail, owing to the fragile nature of the goods. Some of
the earthenware had of course to be sent by rail, but the breakages in
shunting operations and the subsequent claims on the railway companies
caused the rate of carriage to be very high.
In later years the pottery trade became rather depressed owing to
competition from abroad, and a story was told of a traveller from the
Staffordshire Potteries who called at a wholesale house in London where
he invariably got some orders, but on this occasion was unsuccessful.
When he inquired the reason, he was taken to the warehouse and shown a
small china tea service. "Do you know that?" asked the manager. "Yes!"
quickly replied the traveller; "that comes from so-and-so in the
Potteries, and is their favourite pattern and design!" "And what did I
pay for it?" "Twelve and six," promptly replied the traveller. "Ah,"
said his customer, "you are wrong this time; that set cost us 10s. 6d.,
and came from Germany!" The traveller reported the matter to his firm,
who on inquiry discovered that the Germans had erected a pottery on
their sea-coast and, by taking advantage of sea carriage both ways, were
able to undersell the British manufacturer with pottery for which the
clay had been found in his own country.
Arriving at St. Austell, we had a look round the town, and visited the
church, which was dedicated to St. Austell. But in the previous year it
had undergone a restoration, and there appeared to be some doubt whether
the figure on the tower was that of the patron saint or not. There were
other figures, but the gargoyles were as usual the ugliest of the lot.
There was formerly a curious clock there which was mentioned in an old
deed of the time of Edward VI recording that St. Austell's tower had
"four bells and a clok," but the bells had been increased to eight and a
new clock placed in the tower, though the face of the old one,
representing the twenty-four hours in as many circles, could still be
seen. When the old clock had been made, it was evident there was no
repetition in the afternoon of the morning's numerals, as the hours
after twelve noon were the thirteenth and fourteenth, and so on up to
twenty-four. The church porch was quite a fine erection, with a chamber
built over it, at one time used as a sleeping-room by travelling monks,
and, like the nave, with a battlement along the top, an old inscription
over the porch, "Ry du," having been interpreted as meaning "Give to
God." The carving over the doorway represented a pelican feeding its
young with blood from its own breast, and a sundial bore the very
significant motto:
Every hour shortens man's life.
Inside the church there was a curiosity in the shape of a wooden tablet,
on which was painted a copy of a letter of thanks from King Charles I to
the county of Cornwall for its assistance during his conflict with the
Roundheads, It was written from his camp at Sudeley Castle on September
10th, 1643, and was one of several similar tablets to be found in
various churches in Cornwall.
[Illustration: REV. JOHN WESLEY. (_The Founder of Methodism in
England._)]
The Wesleyan chapel at St. Austell, with accommodation for a
congregation of 1,000 persons, also attracted our attention, as it had a
frontage like that of a mansion, with columns supporting the front
entrance, and was situated in a very pleasant part of the town. John
Wesley laboured hard in Cornwall, and we were pleased to see evidences
of his great work there as we travelled through the Duchy; and as
Cornishmen must surround the memory of their saints with legends, it did
not surprise us that they had one about Mr. Wesley. He was travelling
late one night over a wild part of Cornwall when a terrific storm came
on, and the only shelter at hand was a mansion that had the reputation
of being haunted. He found his way into the hall and lay down on a bench
listening to the raging elements outside until he fell fast asleep.
About midnight he awoke and was surprised to find the table in the hall
laid out for a banquet, and a gaily dressed company, including a
gentleman with a red feather in his cap, already assembled. This person
offered Wesley a vacant chair and invited him to join them, an
invitation which he accepted; but before he took a bite or a sup he rose
from his chair, and said, "Gentlemen! it is my custom to ask a blessing
on these occasions," and added, "Stand all!" The company rose, but as he
pronounced the sacred invocation the room grew dark and the ghostly
guests vanished.
We should have liked to hear what followed, but this was left to our
imagination, which became more active as the darkness of night came on.
As we walked we saw some beautiful spar stones used to repair the roads,
which would have done finely for our rockeries.
Late that night we entered Truro, destined to become years afterwards a
cathedral town.
(_Distance walked thirty-three miles_.)
_Friday, November 17th._
Truro formerly possessed a castle, but, as in the case of Liskeard, not
a vestige now remained, and even Leland, who traced the site, described
the castle as being "clene down." He also described the position of the
town itself, and wrote, "The creke of Truro afore the very towne is
divided into two parts, and eche of them has a brook cumming down and a
bridge, and this towne of Truro betwixt them both." These two brooks
were the Allen, a rivulet only, and the Kenwyn, a larger stream, while
the "creke of Truro" was a branch of the Falmouth Harbour, and quite a
fine sheet of water at high tide. Truro was one of the Stannary Towns as
a matter of course, for according to tradition it was near here that tin
was first discovered.
The discoverer of this valuable metal was said to have been St. Piran,
or St. Perran--as the Roman Catholic Church in Truro was dedicated to
St. Piran we agreed to record that as the correct name. The legend
stated that he was an Irish saint who in his own country had been able
by his prayers to sustain the Irish kings and their armies for ten days
on three cows! But in spite of his great services to his country,
because of his belief in Christ his countrymen condemned him to die, by
being thrown over a precipice into the sea, with a millstone hung about
his neck. The day appointed for his execution was very stormy, but a
great crowd of "wild Irish" assembled, and St. Piran was thrown over the
rocks. At that very moment the storm ceased and there was a great calm.
They looked over the cliffs to see what had become of him, and to their
intense astonishment saw the saint calmly sitting upon the millstone and
being carried out to sea. They watched him until he disappeared from
their sight, and all who saw this great miracle were of course
immediately converted to Christianity. St. Piran floated safely across
the sea and landed on the coast of Cornwall, not at Truro, but on a
sandy beach about ten miles away from that town, the place where he
landed being named after him at the present day. When the natives saw
him approaching their coasts, they thought he was sailing on wood, and
when they found it was stone they also were converted to Christianity.
St. Piran built an oratory and lived a lonely and godly life,
ornamenting his cell with all kinds of crystals and stones gathered from
the beach and the rocks, and adorning his altar with the choicest
flowers. On one occasion, when about to prepare a frugal meal, he
collected some stones in a circle and made a fire from some fuel close
to hand. Fanned by the wind, the heat was intensified more than usual,
with the result that he noticed a stream of beautiful white metal
flowing out of the fire. "Great was the joy of the saint when he
perceived that God in His goodness had discovered to him something that
would be useful to man." Such was the origin of tin smelting in
Cornwall. St. Piran revealed the secret to St. Chiwidden, who, being
learned in many sciences, at once recognised the value of the metal. The
news gradually spread to distant lands, and eventually reached Tyre, the
ancient city of the Phoenicians, so that their merchants came to
Cornwall to buy tin in the days of King Solomon. The Britons then,
fearing an invasion, built castles on their coast, including that on St.
Michael's Mount, while St. Piran became the most popular saint in
Cornwall and eventually the patron saint of the miners of tin. His name
was associated with many places besides the sands he landed upon,
including several villages, as well as a cross, a chapel, a bay, a well,
and a coombe. But perhaps the strangest of all was St. Piran's Round,
near Perranzabuloe Village. This, considered one of the most remarkable
earthworks in the kingdom, and of remote antiquity, was a remarkable
amphitheatre 130 feet in diameter, with traces of seven tiers of seats;
it has been used in modern times for the performance of miracle-plays.
One of the "brooks" at Truro mentioned by Leland was the River Kenwyn,
which joined the River Allen to form the Truro River; but before doing
so the Kenwyn, or some portion of its overflow, had been so diverted
that the water ran down the gutters of the principal streets. It was a
novelty to us to see the water so fresh and clean running down each side
of the street--not slowly, but as if at a gallop.
In the time of the Civil War Truro was garrisoned for the King, but in
1646, after a fierce engagement between the Royalists under Sir Ralph
Hopton and Cromwell's forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax, a treaty was
signed at Tresillian River Bridge (a pretty place which we had passed
last night, about three miles outside the town on the St. Austell road),
by which Truro was surrendered quietly to the Parliament.
The Grammar School, where many eminent men had been educated, was
founded in 1549. Among its old pupils was included Sir Humphry Davy,
born in 1778, the eminent chemist who was the first to employ the
electric current in chemical decomposition and to discover nitric oxide
or "laughing gas." He was also the inventor of the famous safety-lamp
which bears his name, and which has been the means of saving the lives
of thousands of miners.
Truro was the birthplace of several men of note: Samuel Foote, Richard
Lander, and Henry Martyn, two of them having been born in public-houses
in the town.
Samuel Foote, a famous dramatist and comedian, was born at the "Old
King's Head Inn" in 1720, and was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1777.
He was a clever actor and mimic, "and kept London in a good humour"; he
wrote the _Mayor of Garrett_ and many other comedies.
Richard Lander, born at the "Fighting Cocks Inn" in 1804, became famous
as an African explorer. He took part in the expedition to Africa which
was the first to discover and trace the Niger. He was injured by savages
and died at Fernando Po in 1834.
Henry Martyn, born in 1781, the son of a miner, was a noble and devoted
missionary. He left home when twenty-four years of age to labour amongst
the Hindus and Mahometans at Cawnpore in India, and travelled in Persia
and Armenia. He translated portions of the Bible and Prayer Book into
the Persian and Hindustani languages, and at last, weary and worn out in
his Master's service, died of fever at Tokat in 1812.
[Illustration: THE FRONTAGE, OLD ST. MARY'S CHURCH.]
St. Mary's Church was built in 1518, and was remarkable for its two east
windows and some fine carving on the walls outside. It was surrounded by
narrow streets and ancient buildings. We had no time to explore the
interior, so contented ourselves with a visit to an old stone preserved
by the Corporation and inscribed:
DANIEL JENKIN, MAIOR,
WHO SEEKS TO FIND ETERNAL TREASVRE
MVST VSE NO GVILE IN WEIGHT AND MEASVRE.
1618.
We now considered that we had arrived at the beginning of the end of our
journey, and left Truro with the determination to reach Land's End on
the morrow, Saturday. We continued our walk as near the sea as the
rivers or inlets would admit, for we were anxious to see as much as
possible of the fine rock scenery of the Cornish coast. We were in the
best of health and spirits, and a thirty-mile walk seemed to have no
effect upon us whatever, beyond causing a feeling of drowsiness when
entering our hotel for the night.
We soon arrived at the quaint little village with a name, as my brother
said, almost as long as itself, Perranarworthal, connected with Falmouth
by a creek, which seemed to have made an effort to cross Cornwall from
one side to the other, or from one Channel to the other. It was at
Falmouth that on one dark stormy night some years previously the ship my
brother was travelling by called for cargo, and the shelter of the
harbour was much appreciated after passing through the stormy sea
outside. Perran in the name of the village meant the same as Piran, and
the small church there was dedicated to that saint, who deserved to be
called the St. Patrick of Cornwall, for he occupied the same position in
the popular imagination here as that saint did in Ireland. It was in
this parish that St. Piran had his Holy Well, but that had now
disappeared, for accidentally it had been drained off by mining
operations.
Gwennap was only about three miles away--formerly the centre of the
richest mining district in Cornwall, the mines there being nearly six
hundred yards deep, and the total length of the roads or workings in
them about sixty miles. No similar space in the Old World contained so
much mineral wealth, for the value of the tin mined during one century
was estimated at ten million pounds sterling. After the mines were
abandoned the neighbourhood presented a desolate and ruined appearance.
[Illustration: OLD ST. MARY'S CHURCH, TRURO. (_The Cathedral of Truro is
now built on the site where this old church formerly stood._)]
Many human remains belonging to past ages had been found buried in the
sands in this neighbourhood; but Gwennap had one glorious memory of the
departed dead, for John Wesley visited the village several times to
preach to the miners, and on one occasion (1762), on a very windy day,
when the sound of his voice was being carried away by the wind, he tried
the experiment--which proved a great success--of preaching in the bottom
of a wide dry pit, the miners standing round him on the sloping sides
and round the top. The pit was supposed to have been formed by
subsidences resulting from the mining operations below, and as he used
it on subsequent occasions when preaching to immense congregations, it
became known as "Wesley's Preaching Pit." It must have been a pathetic
sight when, in his eighty-fifth year, he preached his last sermon there.
"His open-air preaching was powerful in the extreme, his energy and
depth of purpose inspiring, and his organising ability exceptional; and
as an evangelist of the highest character, with the world as his parish,
he was the founder of the great religious communion of 'the people
called Methodists.'" It was therefore scarcely to be wondered at that
the Gwennap pit should be considered as holy ground, and that it should
become the Mecca of the Cornish Methodists and of others from all over
the world. Wesley died in 1791, and in 1803 the pit was brought to its
present condition--a circular pit formed into steps or seats rising one
above another from the bottom to the top, and used now for the great
annual gathering of the Methodists held during Whitsuntide. The idea was
probably copied from St. Piran's Round, a similar but much older
formation a few miles distant.
[Illustration: GWENNAP PIT, REDRUTH.]
Penryn was the next place we visited, and a very pretty place too! It
was situated on the slope of a picturesque hill surrounded by orchards
and gardens, and luxuriant woodlands adorned its short but beautiful
river. The sea view was of almost unequalled beauty, and included the
magnificent harbour of Falmouth, of which an old writer said that "a
hundred vessels may anchor in it, and not one see the mast of
another"--of course when ships were smaller.
The old church at Penryn was that of St. Gluvias, near which were a few
remains of Glassiney College, formerly the chief centre from which the
vernacular literature of Cornwall was issued and whence our knowledge of
the old legends and mysteries of Cornwall was derived. The town was said
to have had a court-leet about the time of the Conquest, but the borough
was first incorporated in the seventeenth century by James I. The
Corporation possessed a silver cup and cover, presented to them by the
notorious Lady Jane Killigrew, and inscribed--"To the town of Penmarin
when they received me that was in great misery. J.K. 1633." Lady Jane's
trouble arose through her ladyship and her men boarding some Dutch
vessels that lay off Falmouth, stealing their treasure, and causing the
death of some of their crews.
In the time of James I. a Spanish man-of-war came unseen through the
mist of the harbour, and despatched a well-armed crew with muffled oars
to plunder and burn the town of Penryn. They managed to land in the
darkness, and were about to begin their depredations when suddenly they
heard a great sound of drums and trumpets and the noise of many people.
This so alarmed them that they beat a rapid retreat, thinking the
militia had been called out by some spy who had known of their arrival.
But the Penryn people were in happy ignorance of their danger. It
happened that some strolling actors were performing a tragedy, and the
battle scene was just due as the Spaniards came creeping up in the
darkness; hence the noise. When the Penryn folk heard the following
morning what had happened, it was said they had to thank Shakespeare for
their lucky escape.
No one passing through the smiling and picturesque town of Penryn would
dream that that beautiful place could ever have been associated with
such a fearful and horrid event as that known to history as the "Penryn
Tragedy," which happened during the reign of James I.
At that time there lived at the Bohechland Farm in the parish of St.
Gluvias a well-to-do farmer and his wife and family. Their youngest son
was learning surgery, but, not caring for that profession, and being of
a wild and roving disposition, he ran away to sea, and eventually became
a pirate and the captain of a privateer. He was very successful in his
evil business, amassing great wealth, and he habitually carried his most
valuable jewels in a belt round his waist. At length he ventured into
the Mediterranean, and attacked a Turkish ship, but, owing to an
accident, his powder magazine exploded, and he and his men were blown
into the air, some of them being killed and others injured. The captain
escaped, however, and fell into the sea. He was an expert swimmer, and
reached the Island of Rhodes, where he had to make use of his stolen
jewels to maintain himself. He was trying to sell one of them to a Jew
when it was recognised as belonging to the Dey of Algiers. He was
arrested, and sentenced to the galleys as a pirate, but soon gained
great influence over the other galley slaves, whom he persuaded to
murder their officers and escape. The plan succeeded, and the ringleader
managed to get on a Cornish boat bound for London. Here he obtained a
position as assistant to a surgeon, who took him to the East Indies,
where his early training came in useful, and after a while the
Cornishman began to practise for himself. Fortunately for him, he was
able to cure a rajah of his disease, which restored his fortune, and he
decided to return to Cornwall. The ship was wrecked on the Cornish
coast, and again his skill in swimming saved him. He had been away for
fifteen years, and now found his sister married to a mercer in Penryn;
she, however, did not know him until he bared his arm and showed her a
mark which had been there in infancy. She was pleased to see him, and
told him that their parents had lost nearly all their money. Then he
showed her his possessions, gold and jewels, and arranged to go that
night as a stranger to his parents' home and ask for lodgings, while she
was to follow in the morning, when he would tell them who he was. When
he knocked, his father opened the door, and saw a ragged and
weather-beaten man who asked for food and an hour's shelter. Taking him
to be a sea-faring man, he willingly gave him some food, and afterwards
asked him to stay the night. After supper they sat by the fire talking
until the farmer retired to rest. Then his wife told the sailor how
unfortunate they had been and how poor they were, and that they would
soon have to be sold up and perhaps finish their life in a workhouse. He
took a piece of gold out of his belt and told her there was enough in it
to pay all their debts, and after that there would be some left for
himself. The sight of the gold and jewels excited the woman's cupidity,
and when the sailor was fast asleep she woke her husband, told him what
had happened, and suggested that they should murder the sailor and bury
his body next day in the garden. The farmer was very unwilling, but his
wife at length persuaded him to go with her. Finding the sailor still
fast asleep, they cut his throat and killed him, and covered him up with
the bedclothes till they should have an opportunity of burying him. In
the morning their daughter came and asked where the sailor was who
called on them the previous night, but they said no sailor had been
there. "But," she said, "he must be here, for he is my brother, and your
long-lost son; I saw the scar on his arm." The mother turning deadly
pale sank in a chair, while with an oath the father ran upstairs, saw
the scar, and then killed himself with the knife with which he had
killed his son. The mother followed, and, finding her husband dead,
plunged the knife in her own breast. The daughter, wondering why they
were away so long, went upstairs, and was so overcome with horror at
seeing the awful sight that she fell down on the floor in a fit from
which she never recovered!
The first difficulty we had to contend with on continuing our journey
was the inlet of the River Helford, but after a rough walk through a
rather lonely country we found a crossing-place at a place named Gweek,
at the head of the river, which we afterwards learned was the scene of
Hereward's Cornish adventures, described by Charles Kingsley in
_Hereward the last of the English_, published in 1866.
Here we again turned towards the sea, and presently arrived at Helston,
an ancient and decaying town supposed to have received its name from a
huge boulder which once formed the gate to the infernal regions, and was
dropped by Lucifer after a terrible conflict with the Archangel St.
Michael, in which the fiend was worsted by the saint. This stone was
still supposed to be seen by credulous visitors at the "Angel Inn," but
as we were not particularly interested in that angel, who, we inferred,
might have been an angel of darkness, or in a stone of such a doubtful
character, we did not go to the inn.
Helston was one of the Stannary Towns, and it was said that vessels
could at one time come quite near it. Daniel Defoe has described it as
being "large and populous, with four spacious streets, a handsome
church, and a good trade." The good trade was, however, disappearing,
owing to the discovery of tin in foreign countries, notably in the
Straits Settlements and Bolivia; the church which Defoe saw had
disappeared, having since been destroyed by fire and rebuilt in 1763. We
did not go inside, but in walking through the churchyard we casually
came upon an ordinary headstone on which was an inscription to the
effect that the stone marked the resting-place of Henry Trengrouse
(1772-1854), who, being "profoundly impressed by the great loss of life
by shipwreck, had devoted the greater portion of his life and means to
the invention and design of the rocket apparatus for connecting stranded
ships to the shore, whereby many thousands of lives have been saved."
[Illustration: MONUMENT TO HENRY TRENGROUSE. (_Inventor of the rocket
apparatus._)]
We had seen many fine monuments to men who had been instrumental in
killing thousands of their fellow creatures, but here was Trengrouse who
had been the humble instrument in saving thousands of lives, and (though
a suitable monument has since been erected to his memory) only the
commonest stone as yet recorded his memory and the inestimable services
he had rendered to humanity: the only redeeming feature, perhaps, being
the very appropriate quotation on the stone:
They rest from their labours and their works do follow them.
Helston was another town where a lovely double stream of water ran down
the main street, rendering the town by its rapid and perpetual running
both musical and clean. The water probably came from the River Cober,
and afterwards found its way into the Looe Pool at the foot of the town.
This pool was the great attraction of Helston and district, as it formed
a beautiful fresh-water lake about seven miles in circumference and two
miles long, winding like a river through a forked valley, with woods
that in the springtime were filled with lovely wild flowers, reaching to
the water's edge. It must have been a paradise for one fisherman at any
rate, as he held his tenure on condition that he provided a boat and net
in case the Duke of Cornwall, its owner, should ever come to fish there;
so we concluded that if the Duke never came, the tenant would have all
the fish at his own disposal. The curious feature about the lake was
that, owing to a great bank of sand and pebbles that reached across the
mouth, it had no visible outlet where it reached the sea, the water
having to percolate as best it could through the barrier. When heavy
rain came on and the River Cober delivered a greater volume of water
than usual into the lake, the land adjoining was flooded, and it became
necessary to ask permission of the lord of the manor to cut a breach
through the pebbles in order to allow the surplus water to pass through
into the sea, which was quite near. The charge for this privilege was
one penny and one halfpenny, which had to be presented in a leather
purse; but this ancient ceremony was afterwards done away with and a
culvert constructed. On this pebble bank one of the King's frigates was
lost in 1807.
[Illustration: A STREET IN HELSTON. (_Showing the running stream of
water at the side of the street._)]
There is a passage in the book of Genesis which states that "there were
giants in the earth in those days"--a passage which we had often heard
read in the days of our youth, when we wished it had gone further and
told us something about them; but Cornwall had been a veritable land of
giants. The stories of Jack the Giant-Killer were said to have emanated
from this county, and we now heard of the Giant Tregeagle, whose spirit
appeared to pervade the whole district through which we were passing.
He was supposed to be the Giant of Dosmary Pool, on the Bodmin Downs,
which was believed at one time to be a bottomless pit. When the wind
howls there the people say it is the Giant roaring, and "to roar like
Tregeagle" was quite a common saying in those parts. "His spirit haunts
all the west of Cornwall, and he haunts equally the moor, the rocky
coasts, and the blown sandhills; from north to south, from east to west,
this doomed spirit was heard of, and to the Day of Judgment he was
doomed to wander pursued by avenging fiends. Who has not heard the
howling of Tregeagle? When the storms come with all their strength from
the Atlantic, and hurl themselves upon the rocks about the Land's End,
the howls of this spirit are louder than the roaring of the wind."
In this land of legends, therefore, it is not surprising that the
raising of that extraordinary bank which blocks the end of the River
Cober, at what should be its outlet into the sea, should be ascribed to
Tregeagle. It appeared that he was an extremely wicked steward, who by
robbery and other worse crimes became very wealthy. In the first place
he was said to have murdered his sister, and to have been so cruel to
his wife and children that one by one they perished. But at length his
end came, and as he lay on his death-bed the thoughts of the people he
had murdered, starved, and plundered, and his remorseful conscience, so
haunted him, that he sent for the monks from a neighbouring monastery
and offered them all his wealth if they would save his soul from the
fiends. They accepted his offer, and both then and after he had been
buried in St. Breock's Church they sang chants and recited prayers
perpetually over his grave, by which means they kept back the demons
from his departing soul. But a dispute arose between two wealthy
families concerning the ownership of some land near Bodmin. It appeared
that Tregeagle, as steward to one of the claimants, had destroyed
ancient deeds, forged others, and made it appear that the property was
his own. The defendant in the trial by some means or other succeeded in
breaking the bonds of death, and the spirit of Tregeagle was summoned to
attend the court as witness.
When his ghostly form appeared, the court was filled with horror. In
answer to counsel's questions he had to acknowledge his frauds, and the
jury returned a verdict for the defendants. The judge then ordered
counsel to remove his witness, but, alas! it was easier to raise evil
spirits than to lay them, and they could not get rid of Tregeagle. The
monks were then sent for, and said that by long trials he might repent
and his sins be expiated in that way. They would not or could not hand
him over to the fiends, but they would give him tasks to do that would
be endless. First of all they gave him the task of emptying Dosmary
Pool, supposed to be bottomless, with a small perforated limpet shell.
Here, however, he narrowly escaped falling into the hands of the demons,
and only saved himself by running and dashing his head through the
window of Roach Rock Church. His terrible cries drove away the
congregation, and the monks and priests met together to decide what
could be done with him, as no service could be held in the church.
[Illustration: KYNANCE COVE AND THE LION ROCK. "The fine rock scenery on
the coast continues all the way to Land's End, while isolated rocks in
many forms and smugglers' caves of all sizes are to be seen."]
[Illustration: NEAR THE LIZARD. "The Lizard Point with the neighbouring
rocks, both when submerged and otherwise, formed a most dangerous place
for mariners, especially when false lights were displayed by those
robbers and murderers, the Cornish Wreckers."]
They decided that Tregeagle, accompanied by two saints to guard him,
should be taken to the coast at Padstow, and compelled to stay on the
sandy shore making trusses of sand and ropes of sand to bind them, while
the mighty sea rose continually and washed them away. The people at
Padstow could get no rest day or night on account of his awful cries of
fear and despair, and they sought the aid of the great Cornish Saint
Petrox. The saint subdued Tregeagle, and chained him with bonds,
every link of which he welded with a prayer. St. Petrox placed him at
Bareppa, and condemned him to carry sacks of sand across the estuary of
St. Looe and empty them at Porthleven until the beach was clean to the
rocks. He laboured a long time at that work, but in vain, for the tide
round Treawavas Head always carried the sand back again. His cries and
wails disturbed the families of the fishermen, but a mischievous demon
came along, and, seeing him carrying an enormous sack full of sand and
pebbles, tripped him up. Tregeagle fell, and the sack upset and formed
the bar that ruined the harbour of Helston, which up to that time had
been a prosperous port, the merchant vessels landing cargoes and taking
back tin in exchange. The townspeople, naturally very wroth, sought the
aid of the priests, and once more bonds were placed upon Tregeagle. This
time he was sent to the Land's End, where he would find very few people
to hear his awful cries. There his task was to sweep the sands from
Porthcurnow Cove, round the headland called Tol-Peden-Penwith, into
Nanjisal Cove. At this task, it is said, Tregeagle is still labouring,
his wails and moans being still borne on the breeze that sweeps over the
Land's End; so as this was our destination, we had rather a queer
prospect before us!
Between Gweek and Helston we crossed the famous promontory known as the
Lizard, which in length and breadth extends about nine miles in each
direction, although the point itself is only two miles broad. The rocks
at this extremity rise about 250 feet above the stormy sea below, and
are surmounted by a modern lighthouse.
Originally there was only a beacon light with a coal fire fanned with
bellows, but oil was afterwards substituted. The Lizard Point in those
days, with the neighbouring rocks, both when submerged and otherwise,
formed a most dangerous place for mariners, especially when false lights
were displayed by those robbers and murderers, the Cornish wreckers.
The Lizard, the Corinum of the ancients, is the most southerly point in
England, and the fine rock scenery on the coast continues from there all
the way to the Land's End, while isolated rocks in many forms and
smugglers' caves of all sizes are to be seen. Weird legends connected
with these and the Cornish coast generally had been handed down from
father to son from remote antiquity, and the wild and lonely Goonhilly
Downs, that formed the centre of the promontory, as dreary a spot as
could well be imagined, had a legend of a phantom ship that glided over
them in the dusk or moonlight, and woe betide the mariners who happened
to see it, for it was a certain omen of evil!
The finest sight that we saw here was in broad daylight, and consisted
of an immense number of sailing-ships, more in number than we could
count, congregated together on one side of the Lizard. On inquiring the
reason, we were told that they were wind-bound vessels waiting for a
change in the wind to enable them to round the point, and that they had
been known to wait there a fortnight when unfavourable winds prevailed.
This we considered one of the most wonderful sights we had seen on our
journey.
As we left Helston on our way to Penzance we had the agreeable company
as far as St. Breage of a young Cornishman, who told us we ought to
have come to Helston in May instead of November, for then we should have
seen the town at its best, especially if we had come on the "Flurry"
day. This he said was the name of their local yearly festival, held on
or near May 8th, and he gave us quite a full account of what generally
happened on that occasion. We could easily understand, from what he told
us, that he had enjoyed himself immensely on the day of the last
festival, which seemed to be quite fresh in his mind, although now more
than six months had passed since it happened. In fact he made us wish
that we had been there ourselves, as his story awoke some memories in
our minds of--
The days we went a-gipsying a long time ago
When lads and lasses in their best were dressed from top to toe,
When hearts were light and faces bright, nor thought of care or woe,
In the days we went a-gipsying a long time ago!
[Illustration: THE "FLURRY" DANCE.]
His description of the brass band of which he was a member, and the way
they were dressed, and the adventures they met with during the day, from
early morning till late at night, was both interesting and amusing.
Their first duty was to play round the town to waken people who were
already awake--sleep was out of the question--children too had a share
in the proceedings. They knew that booths or standings would be erected
all over the town, some even on the footpath, displaying all manner of
cakes, toffy, and nuts that would delight their eyes and sweeten their
mouths, if they had the money wherewith to buy, and if not, there was
the chance of persuading some stranger to come to the rescue! But first
of all they must rush to the woods and fields in search of flowers and
branches, for the town had to be decorated before the more imposing part
of the ceremonies began. Meantime the bandsmen were busy devouring a
good breakfast, for bandsmen's appetites are proverbial. Perhaps they
are the only class of men who play while they work and work while they
play. In any case, after breakfast they sauntered round the town talking
to the girls until the auspicious hour arrived when they had to assemble
in the market square to head the procession of the notables of the town
dressed in all kinds of costumes, from that of William the Conqueror
onwards. My brother was anxious to know what quickstep they played, and
if it was "Havelock's Quick March"; but our friend said it was not a
quickstep at all, but something more like a hornpipe. Was it the College
or the Sailor's Hornpipe? It was neither, was the reply, as it had to be
played slowly, for the people danced to it while they marched in the
procession, and occasionally twirled their partners round; and then
after some further ceremonies they separated and all the people began to
dance both in the streets and through the houses, going in at one door
and out at another, if there was one, tumbling about and knocking things
over, and then out in the street again, and if not satisfied with their
partners, changing them, and off again, this kind of enjoyment lasting
for hours. Sometimes, if a man-of-war happened to be in the
neighbourhood, the sailors came, who were the best dancers of the lot,
as they danced with each other and threw their legs about in a most
astonishing fashion, a practice they were accustomed to when aboard
ship.
There were also shows and sometimes a circus, and the crowds that came
from the country were astonishing. Now and then there was a bit of a
row, when some of them had "a drop o' drink," but the police were about,
and not afraid to stop their games by making free use of their staves;
this, however, was the shady side of the great "Flurry" day.
Meantime every one had learned the strange dance-tune by heart, which
our friend whistled for us, whereby we could tell it had come down from
remote times. Indeed, it was said that these rejoicings were originally
in memory of the victory of the great Michael over the Devil, and no one
thought of suggesting a more modern theory than that the "Flurry" was a
survival of the Floralia observed by the Romans on the fourth of the
Calends of May in honour of Flora, the Goddess of Flowers.
The very mention of the names of band and hornpipe was too much for my
brother, who could not resist giving the Cornishman a few samples of the
single and double shuffle in the College Hornpipe, and one or two
movements from a Scotch Reel, but as I was no dancer myself, I had no
means of judging the quality of his performances. I kept a respectful
distance away, as sometimes his movements were very erratic, and his
boots, like those of the Emperor Frederick, were rather heavy. We could
not persuade our friend to come with us a yard farther than the village.
As a fellow bandsman, he confided the reason why to my brother; he had
seen a nice young lady at the "Flurry" who came from that village, and
he was going to see her now. He was standing in the street on the
"Flurry" day when the lady came along, and stopped to look at the
bandsmen, who were then at liberty, and he said to her jocularly, "Take
my arm, love--I'm in the band," and, "By Jove," he said, "if she didn't
come and take it," to his great astonishment and delight. Apparently his
heart went at the same time, and we surmised that everything else would
shortly follow. After bidding him good-bye, we looked round the church,
and then my brother began to walk at an appalling speed, which
fortunately he could not keep up, and which I attributed in some way to
the effect of the bandsman's story, though he explained that we must try
to reach Penzance before dark.
The church of St. Breage was dedicated to a saint named Breaca, sister
of St. Enny, who lived in the sixth century and came from Ireland. There
was a holed sandstone cross in the churchyard, which tradition asserted
was made out of granite sand and then hardened with human blood! The
tower was said to contain the largest bell in Cornwall, it having been
made in the time of a vicar who, not liking the peals, had all the other
bells melted down to make one large one. The men of St. Breage and those
of the next village, St. Germoe, had an evil reputation as wreckers or
smugglers, for one old saying ran:
God keep us from rocks and shelving sands,
And save us from Breage and Germoe men's hands.
Opposite Breage, on the sea-coast, was a place named Porthleven, where a
Wesleyan chapel, with a very handsome front, had been built. No doubt
there are others in the country built in a similar way, for to it and
them the following lines might well apply:
They built the church, upon my word,
As fine as any abbey;
And then they thought to cheat the Lord,
And built the back part shabby.
After a walk of about two miles we arrived at the village of St. Germoe.
The saint of that name was said to have been an Irish bard of royal
race, and the font in the church, from its plain and rough form, was
considered to be one of the most ancient in the county. In the
churchyard was a curious structure which was mentioned by Leland as a
"chair," and was locally known as St. Germoe's Chair, but why it should
be in the churchyard was a mystery, unless it had been intended to mark
the spot where the saint had been buried. It was in the form of a
sedilium, the seat occupied by the officiating priest near the altar in
the chancel of a church, being about six feet high and formed of three
sedilia, with two pillars supporting three arches, which in turn
supported the roof; in general form it was like a portion of the row of
seats in a Roman amphitheatre.
On the opposite coast, which was only about a mile away, was the famous
Prussia Cove, named after a notorious smuggler who bore the nickname of
the King of Prussia; and adjoining his caves might still be seen the
channels he had cut in the solid rock to enable his boats to get close
to the shore. His real name was Carter. He became the leader of the
Cornish smugglers, and kept the "Old King of Prussia Inn," though having
the reputation of being a "devout Methodist." He was said to be so
named because he bore some resemblance to Frederick the Great, the King
of Prussia. We had seen other inns in the south of the same name, but
whether they were named after the king or the smuggler we could not say.
He seemed to have had other caves on the Cornish coast where he stored
his stolen treasures, amongst which were some old cannon.
One moonlight night, when he was anxiously waiting and watching for the
return of his boats, he saw them in the distance being rapidly pursued
by His Majesty's Revenue cutter the _Fairy_. The smuggler placed his
cannon on the top of the cliff and gave orders to his men to fire on the
_Fairy_, which, as the guns on board could not be elevated sufficiently
to reach the top of the cliff, was unable to reply. Thus the boats
escaped; but early the following morning the Revenue boat again
appeared, and the officer and some of the crew came straight to Carter's
house, where they met the smuggler. He loudly complained to the officer
that his crew should come there practising the cutter's guns at midnight
and disturbing the neighbourhood. Carter of course could give no
information about the firing of any other guns, and suggested it might
be the echo of those fired from the _Fairy_ herself, nor could any other
explanation be obtained in the neighbourhood where Carter was well
known, so the matter was allowed to drop. But the old smuggler was more
sharply looked after in future, and though he lived to a great age, he
died in poverty.
Our road crossed the Perran Downs, where, to the left, stood the small
village of Perranuthnoe, a place said to have existed before the time of
St. Piran and named Lanudno in the taxation of Pope Nicholas. It was
also pointed out as the place where Trevelyan's horse landed him when he
escaped the inrush of the sea which destroyed Lyonesse, "that sweet land
of Lyonesse," which was inseparably connected with the name of King
Arthur, who flourished long before the age of written records. Lyonesse
was the name of the district which formerly existed between the Land's
End and the Scilly Islands, quite twenty-five miles away. When the waves
from the Atlantic broke through, Trevelyan happened to be riding on a
white horse of great swiftness. On seeing the waters rushing forward to
overwhelm the country, he rode for his life and was saved by the speed
of his horse. He never stopped until he reached Perranuthnoe, where the
rocks stopped the sea's farther progress. But when he looked back, he
could see nothing but a wide expanse of water covering no less than 140
parish churches. He lived afterwards in the cave in the rocks which has
ever since borne the name of Trevelyan's Cave. It was beyond doubt that
some great convulsion of nature had occurred to account for the
submerged forests, of which traces were still known to exist.
Soon afterwards we reached a considerable village bearing the strange
name of Marazion, a place evidently once of some importance and at one
time connected with the Jews, for there were the Jews' Market and some
smelting-places known as the Jews' Houses. Here we came to the small
rock surmounted by a castle which we had seen in front of our track for
some miles without knowing what it was. Now we discovered it to be the
far-famed St. Michael's Mount. According to legend this once stood in a
vast forest of the mysterious Lyonesse, where wild beasts roamed, and
where King Arthur fought one of his many battles with a giant at the
"Guarded Mount," as Milton has so aptly named it.
As we were told that the Mount was only about half a mile away, we
decided to visit it, and walked as quickly as we could along the
rough-paved road leading up to it. On the Mount we could see the lights
being lit one by one as we approached, and, in spite of the arrival of
the first quarter of the moon, it was now becoming dark, so we discussed
the advisability of staying at St. Michael's for the night; but we
suddenly came to a point on our road where the water from the sea was
rushing over it, and realised that St. Michael's Mount was an island. We
could see where the road reappeared a little farther on, and I
calculated that if we made a dash for it the water would not reach above
our knees, but it was quite evident that we had now come to a dead stop.
The rock by this time looked much higher, spreading its shadow over the
water beneath, and the rather serious question arose as to how or when
we should be able to get back again, for we had to reach Land's End on
the next day. Finally we decided to retrace our steps to Marazion, where
we learned that the road to the Mount was only available under
favourable conditions for about eight hours out of the twenty-four, and
as our rules would have prevented our returning by boat, we were glad we
had not proceeded farther.
[Illustration: ST. MICHAEL'S MOUNT.]
According to the _Saxon Chronicle_, the inroad from the sea which
separated St. Michael's from the mainland occurred in 1099. The Mount
had a sacred character, for St. Michael himself was said to have
appeared to a holy man who once resided there, and St. Keyne also had
made a pilgrimage to the Mount in the year 490.
The rock rises about 230 feet above sea-level, and is about a mile in
circumference, but the old monastery had been made into a private
residence. At an angle in one of the towers, now called St. Michael's
Chair, in which one person only could sit at a time, and that not
without danger, as the chair projected over a precipice, was a stone
lantern in which the monks formerly kept a light to guide seamen. The
legend connected with this was that if a married woman sits in the chair
before her husband has done so, she will rule over him, but if he sits
down on it first, he will be the master. We thought this legend must
have resulted from the visit of St. Keyne, as it corresponded with that
attached to her well near Liskeard which we have already recorded.
Perkin Warbeck, about whom we had heard at Exeter, and who in 1497
appeared in England with 7,000 men to claim the English throne, occupied
the castle on St. Michael's Mount for a short time with his beautiful
wife, the "White Rose of Scotland," whom he left here for safety while
he went forward to London to claim the crown. He was said to be a Jew,
or, to be correct, the son of a Tournai Jew, which possibly might in
some way or other account for the Jewish settlement at Marazion. His
army, however, was defeated, and he was hanged at Tyburn, November 23rd,
1499, while his wife was afterwards removed to the Court of Henry VII,
where she received every consideration and was kindly treated.
We soon covered the three miles which separated us from Penzance, where
we went to the best hotel in the town, arriving just in time for dinner.
There was only one other visitor there, a gentleman who informed us he
had come from Liverpool, where he was in the timber trade, and was
staying at Penzance for a few days. He asked what business we were in,
and when we told him we had practically retired from business in 1868,
and that that was the reason why we were able to spare nine weeks to
walk from John o' Groat's to Land's End, he seemed considerably
surprised. We did not think then that in a few years' time we should,
owing to unexpected events, find ourselves in the same kind of business
as his, and meet that same gentleman on future occasions!
We shall always remember that night at Penzance! The gentleman sat at
the head of the table at dinner while we sat one on each side of him.
But though he occupied the head position, we were head and shoulders
above him in our gastronomical achievements--so much so that although he
had been surprised at our long walk, he told us afterwards that he was
"absolutely astounded" at our enormous appetites.
He took a great interest in our description of the route we had
followed. Some of the places we had visited he knew quite well, and we
sat up talking about the sights we had seen until it was past
closing-time. When we rose to retire, he said he should esteem it an
honour if we would allow him to accompany us to the Land's End on the
following day to see us "in at the finish." He said he knew intimately
the whole of the coast between Penzance and the Land's End, and could
no doubt show us objects of interest that we might otherwise miss
seeing. We assured him that we should esteem the honour to be ours, and
should be glad to accept his kind offer, informing him that we intended
walking along the coast to the end and then engaging a conveyance to
bring us back again. He thought that a good idea, but as we might have
some difficulty in getting a suitable conveyance at that end of our
journey, he strongly advised our hiring one at Penzance, and offered, if
we would allow him, to engage for us in the morning a trap he had hired
the day before, though we must not expect anything very grand in these
out-of-the-way parts of the country. We thankfully accepted his kind
offer, and this item in the programme being settled, we considered
ourselves friends, and parted accordingly for the night, pleasantly
conscious that even if we did not walk at all on the morrow, we had
secured our average of twenty-five miles daily over the whole of our
journey.
(_Distance walked thirty-four and a half miles_.)
_Saturday, November 18th._
We had ordered breakfast much later than usual to suit the convenience
of our friend, but we were out in the town at our usual early hour, and
were quite astonished at the trees and plants we saw growing in the
grounds and gardens there, some of which could only be grown under glass
farther north. Here they were growing luxuriantly in the open air, some
having the appearance of the palm-trees we had seen pictured in books.
We had been favoured with fairly fine weather for some time, and
although we had passed through many showers, we had not encountered
anything in the nature of continuous rain, although Cornwall is
naturally a humid county, and is said to have a shower of rain for every
day in the week and two for Sunday. We kept near the edge of the sea,
and the view of the bay, with St. Michael's Mount on one side and the
Lizards on the other, was very fine; but the Mount had assumed quite a
different appearance since yesterday, for now it appeared completely
isolated, the connection with the mainland not being visible. We were
sure that both St. Michael's Mount and Penzance must have had an
eventful history, but the chief event in the minds of the people seemed
to have been the visit of the Spaniards when they burnt the town in
1595. The Cornishmen made very little resistance on that occasion, owing
to the existence of an old prophecy foretelling the destruction of
Penzance by fire when the enemy landed on the rock of Merlin, the place
where the Spaniards actually did land. Probably it was impossible to
defend the town against an enemy attacking Penzance from that point, as
it was only about a mile distant.
We returned to our hotel at the time arranged for breakfast, which was
quite ready, the table being laid for three; but where was our friend?
We learned that he had gone out into the town, but we had got half-way
through our breakfast, all the while wondering where he could be, when
the door opened suddenly and in he came, with his face beaming like the
rising sun, although we noticed he glanced rather anxiously in the
direction of the remaining breakfast. He apologised for being late, but
he had not been able to obtain the conveyance he mentioned to us last
night, as it was engaged elsewhere. He had, however, found another which
he thought might suit our purpose, and had arranged for it to be at the
hotel in half an hour's time. He also brought the pleasing intelligence
that we might expect a fine day. The trap duly arrived in charge of the
owner, who was to act as driver; but some difficulty arose, as he had
not quite understood the order. He thought he had simply to drive us to
the Land's End and back, and had contemplated being home again early, so
our friend had to make another financial arrangement before he would
accept the order. This was soon negotiated, but it was very difficult to
arrange further details. Here our friend's intimate knowledge of the
country came in useful. There was no direct driving road along the
coast, so it was arranged that our driver should accompany us where he
could, and then when his road diverged he should meet us at certain
points to be explained by our friend later in the day. Mutual distrust,
we supposed, prevented us from paying him in advance, and possibly
created a suspicion in the driver's mind that there was something wrong
somewhere, and he evidently thought what fools we were to walk all the
way along the coast to Land's End when we might have ridden in his trap.
We journeyed together for the first mile or two, and then he had to
leave us for a time while we trudged along with only our sticks to
carry, for, to make matters equal in that respect, our friend had
borrowed one at the hotel, a much finer-looking one than ours, of which
he was correspondingly proud.
[Illustration: PENZANCE]
[Illustration: DOROTHY PENTREATH'S STONE, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH.]
He insisted upon our seeing everything there was to be seen, and it soon
became evident that what our companion did not know about the fine rock
scenery on this part of the coast of Cornwall was not worth knowing, so
that we were delighted to have him with us. The distance from Penzance
to Land's End was not great, but by the route selected it occupied the
whole of the day, including many stoppages, and we had a glorious walk.
The weather had been rather squally yesterday, and there was a steady
breeze still blowing. We enjoyed seeing the breakers dash themselves
into foam against the rocks and thunder inside the fissures and caverns
below. Occasionally we got a glimpse of the red tinge given to the
smoother waters of the sea by the shoals of pilchards passing along the
coast, so that in the same journey we had seen the water reddened with
herrings in the extreme north and with pilchards in the extreme south of
Britain.
At Newlyn we were delighted with the quaint, crooked little passages
which did duty for streets, and we were informed that the place was
noted for artists and fish--a rather strange combination. We learned
that when first the pilchards arrived at Land's End, they divided into
two immense shoals, one going in the direction of Mounts Bay and the
other towards St. Ives Bay, the record catch in a single haul at that
place being 245 millions! There was a saying at Newlyn that it was
unlucky to eat a pilchard from the head, as it should be eaten from its
tail; but why, it was difficult to define, unless it was owing to the
fact that it was the tail that guided the head of the fish towards the
coasts of Cornwall.
We also passed through a village named Paul, which had been modernised
into St. Paul. Its church had a rather lofty tower, which stood on the
hill like a sentinel looking over Mounts Bay. This place was also burnt
by the Spaniards in 1595. It appeared that George Borrow had visited it
on January 15th, 1854, as he passed through on his way to Land's End,
for the following entry appeared in his Diary for that day: "Went to St.
Paul's Church. Saw an ancient tomb with the inscription in Cornish at
north end. Sat in a pew under a black suit of armour belonging to the
Godolphin family, with two swords." We copied this Cornish epitaph as
under:
_Bonnas heb duelth Eu poes Karens wei
tha pobl Bohodzhak Paull han Egles nei_.
which translated means:
Eternal life be his whose loving care
Gave Paul an almshouse, and the church repair.
There was also an epitaph in the churchyard over the grave of an old
lady who died at the age of 102, worded:
Here lyeth interred Dorothy Pentreath, who died in 1778, said to have
been the last person who conversed in the ancient Cornish, the
peculiar language of this county from the earliest records, till it
expired in the eighteenth century in this Parish of St. Paul. This
stone is erected by the Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, in union with
the Rev. John Garrett, Vicar of St. Paul 1860.
Under the guidance of our friend, who of course acted as leader, we now
passed on to the famous place known as Mousehole, a picturesque village
in a shady hollow, with St. Clement's Island a little way out to sea in
front. This place, now named Mousehole, was formerly Porth Enys, or the
Island Port, and a quay was built here as early as the year 1392. We saw
the cavern, rather a large one, and near it the fantastic rocks
associated with Merlin the "Prince of Enchanters," some of whose
prophecies applied to Cornwall. At Mousehole there was a large rock
named Merlin's Stone, where the only Spaniards that ever devastated the
shores of England landed in 1595. Merlin's prophecy in the Cornish
language reads:
_Aga syth lyer war and meyne Merlyn
Ava neb syth Leskey Paul, Penzance
hag Newlyn_.
which means, translated:
There shall land on the stone of Merlyn
Those who shall burn Paul, Penzance,
and Newlyn.
Jenkin Keigwin. There was a
[Illustration: THE CAVERN, MOUSEHOLE.]
They also burnt Mousehole, with the exception of one public-house, a
house still standing, with walls four feet thick, and known as the
"Keigwin Arms" of which they killed the landlord, rock here known as
the "Mermaid," which stood out in the sea, and from which songs by
female voices were said to have allured young men to swim to the rock,
never to be heard of again.
We next came to the Lamora Cove, where we walked up the charming little
valley, at the top of which we reached the plain of Bolleit, where
Athelstan defeated the Britons in their last desperate struggle for
freedom. The battle lasted from morning until night, when, overpowered
by numbers, the Cornish survivors fled to the hills. After this battle
in the light of the setting sun, Athelstan is said to have seen the
Scilly Islands and decided to try to conquer them, and, if successful,
to build a church and dedicate it to St. Buryana. He carried out his
vow, and founded and endowed a college for Augustine Canons to have
jurisdiction over the parishes of Buryan, Levan, and Sennen, through
which we now journeyed; but the Scilly Islands appeared to us to be
scarcely worth conquering, as, although they comprised 145 islets, many
of them were only small bare rocks, the largest island, St. Mary, being
only three miles long by two and a half broad, and the highest point
only 204 feet above sea-level; but perhaps the refrangible rays of the
setting sun so magnified them that Athelstan believed a considerable
conquest was before him.
We next went to see the "Merry Maidens" and the "Pipers." They were only
pillars of stone, but our friend assured us they were lively enough once
upon a time, and represented seven young but thoughtless ladies who
lived in that neighbourhood. They were on their way to Buryan church one
Sabbath day when they saw two pipers playing music in a field, who as
they went near them began to play dance tunes. The maidens forgot the
sacred character of the day, and, yielding to temptation, began to
dance. By and by the music became extremely wild and the dancing
proportionately furious. The day was beautifully fine and the sun shone
through a clear blue sky, but the pipers were two evil spirits, and
suddenly a flash of lightning came from the cloudless sky and turned
them all, tempters and tempted, into stone, so there they stand, the
girls in a circle and the pipers a little distance away, until the Day
of Judgment.
By this time we were all getting hungry, as the clear air of Cornwall is
conducive to good appetites; but our friend had thoughtfully arranged
for this already, and we found when we entered the inn at Buryan that
our conveyance had arrived there, and that the driver had already
regaled himself, and told the mistress that she might expect three other
visitors.
The old church of St. Buryan was said to be named after Buriena, the
beautiful daughter of a Munster chieftain, supposed to be the Bruinsech
of the Donegal martyrology, who came to Cornwall in the days of St.
Piran. There were two ancient crosses at Buryan, one in the village and
the other in the churchyard, while in the church was the
thirteenth-century, coffin-shaped tomb of "Clarice La Femme Cheffroi De
Bolleit," bearing an offer of ten days' pardon to whoever should pray
for her soul. But just then we were more interested in worldly matters;
and when, after we had refreshed ourselves in a fairly substantial way,
our friend told us he would take us to see a "Giant's Castle," we went
on our way rejoicing, to regain the sea-coast where the castle was to
be seen, but not before the driver had made another frantic effort to
induce us to ride in his trap.
[Illustration: THE "KEIGWIN ARMS," MOUSEHOLE. "They (the Spaniards) also
burnt Mousehole, with the exception of one public house, a house still
standing, with walls four feet thick and known as the 'Keigwin Arms.'"]
The castle of Treryn, which our friend pronounced Treen, was situated on
a small headland jutting out into the sea, but only the triple vallum
and fosse of the castle remained. The walls had been built of huge
boulders, and had once formed the cyclopian castle of Treryn. Cyclops,
our friend explained, was one of a number of giants who had each only
one eye, and that in the centre of the forehead. Their business was to
forge the iron for Vulcan, the god of fire. They could see to work in
mines or dark places, for their one eye was as big as a moon. Sometimes
they were workers in stone, who erected their buildings chiefly in
Europe and Asia, and their huge blocks of stone were worked so nicely
that they fitted together without mortar. Treryn Castle was the
stronghold of a giant who was stronger than most of the other giants who
lived in those parts, and was, in addition, a necromancer or sorcerer,
in communication with the spirits of the dead, by whose aid he raised
this castle by enchantment from the depths of the sea. It was therefore
an enchanted castle, and was kept in its position by a spell, a magic
key, which the giant placed in a hole in a rock on the seacoast, still
named the Giant's Lock. Whenever this key, which was a large round
stone, could be taken out of the lock, the castle and the promontory on
which it stood would disappear beneath the sea to the place from whence
it came. Very few people had seen the key, because its hiding-place was
in such a very dangerous position that scarcely any one was courageous
enough to venture to the lock that held it. To reach the lock it was
necessary to wait for a low tide, and then to walk along a ledge in the
side of the rock scarcely wide enough for the passage of a small animal,
where in the event of a false step the wanderer would be certain to be
dashed to pieces on the rocks below. At the end of this dangerous path
there was a sharp projecting rock in which was a hole wide enough for a
man's hand and arm to pass down, and at the bottom of the hole he could
feel a rather large but smooth stone in the shape of an egg, which he
could easily move in any direction. Then all he had to do further was to
draw it out through the hole; but the difficulty was that the stone was
larger than the aperture, and the mystery was who placed it there.
[Illustration: ROCKS NEAR LAND'S END.]
The dangerous nature of the approach, in addition to the difficulty of
getting back again, was quite sufficient to deter any of us from making
the attempt; even if we gained possession of the magic key we might have
been taken, with it and the castle and promontory, to the enchanted
regions below, so we decided to refrain, for after all there was the
desirability of reaching home again!
It was a very wild place, and the great rocks and boulders were strongly
suggestive of giants; but our friend would not have us linger, as we
must go to see the famous Logan Rock. In order to save time and risk, he
suggested that we should secure the services of a professional guide. We
could see neither guides nor houses, and it looked like a forlorn hope
to try to find either, but, asking us to stay where we were until he
came back, our friend disappeared; and some time afterwards he
reappeared from some unknown place, accompanied by an intelligent
sailorlike man whom he introduced to us as the guide. The guide led us
by intricate ways over stone walls, stepped on either side with
projecting stones to do duty as stiles, and once or twice we walked
along the top of the walls themselves, where they were broad enough to
support a footpath. Finally we crossed what appeared to be a boundary
fence, and immediately afterwards found ourselves amongst a wilderness
of stones and gigantic boulders, with the roar of the waves as they beat
on the rocks below to keep us company.
It was a circuitous and intricate course by which our guide conducted
us, up and down hill, and one not altogether free from danger, and we
had many minor objects to see before reaching the Logan Rock, which was
the last of all. Every precaution was taken to prevent any accident at
dangerous places on our way. Amongst other objects our guide pointed to
the distant views of the Lizard Point, the Wolf Rock Lighthouse, and the
Runnel Stone Bell Buoy, and immediately below us was the Porthcurnow Bay
and beach. Then there were some queerly shaped rocks named the Castle
Peak, the "Tortoise," the "Pig's Mouth," all more or less like the
objects they represented, and, as a matter of course, the giants were
also there. Our guide insisted upon our sitting in the Giant's Chair,
where King Arthur, he said, had sat before us. It was no easy matter to
climb into the chair, and we had to be assisted by sundry pushes from
below; but once in it we felt like monarchs of all we surveyed, and the
view from that point was lovely. Near by was the Giant's Bowl, and
finally the Giant's Grave, an oblong piece of land between the rocks,
which my brother measured in six long strides as being eighteen feet in
length. The Logan or Swinging Stone was estimated to weigh about eighty
tons, and although it was quite still when we reached it, we were easily
able to set it moving. It was a block of granite, and continued to
oscillate for some little time, but formerly it was said that it could
not be moved from its axis by force. This led to a foolish bet being
made by Lieutenant Goldsmith of the Royal Navy, who landed with his
boat's crew on April 8th, 1824, and with the united exertions of ninbeautiful earlier in the year, as the gorse or
furze was mingled with several varieties of heather which had displayed
large bell-formed blooms of various colours, and there had been other
flowers in addition. Even at this late period of the year sufficient
combination of colour remained to give us an idea how beautiful it must
have appeared when at its best. From some distance away we could see the
whitewashed wall of a house displaying in large black letters the words:
"THE FIRST AND LAST HOUSE IN ENGLAND," and this we found to be an inn.
Here we were practically at the end of our walk of 1,372 miles, which
had extended over a period of nine weeks. We had passed through many
dangers and hardships, and a feeling of thankfulness to the Almighty was
not wanting on our part as we found ourselves at the end. We had still
to cross a narrow neck of land which was just wide enough at the top for
a footpath, while almost immediately below we could hear the sea
thundering on each side of us. As we cautiously walked across in single
file our thoughts were running on the many Cornish saints in whose
footsteps we might now be treading, and on King Arthur and the Giant
Tregeagle, when our friend, who was walking ahead, suddenly stopped and
told us we were now on the spot where Charles Wesley stood when he
composed a memorable verse which still appeared in one of his hymns:
Lo! on a narrow neck of land,
'Twixt two unbounded seas I stand
Secure, insensible;
A point of time, a moment's space,
Removes me to that heavenly place
Or shuts me up in hell.
As we were crossing the narrow path we had not thought of the Wesleys as
being amongst the Cornish saints; but where was there a greater saint
than John Wesley? and how much does Cornwall owe to him! He laboured
there abundantly, and laid low the shades of the giants and the saints
whom the Cornish people almost worshipped before he came amongst them,
and in the place of these shadows he planted the better faith of a
simple and true religion, undefiled and that fadeth not away!
We must own to a shade of disappointment when we reached the last stone
and could walk no farther--a feeling perhaps akin to that of Alexander
the Great, who, when he had conquered the known world, is said to have
sighed because there were no other worlds to conquer. But this feeling
soon vanished when with a rush came the thoughts of those dear friends
at home who were anxiously awaiting the return of their loved ones whom
they had lost awhile, and it was perhaps for their sakes as well as our
own that we did not climb upon the last stone or ledge or rock that
overhung the whirl of waters below: where the waters of the two Channels
were combining with those of the great Atlantic.
[Illustration: ENYS-DODNAN, ARMED KNIGHT, AND LONGSHIPS.]
We placed our well-worn sticks, whose work like our own was done, on the
rock before us, with the intention of throwing them into the sea, but
this we did not carry out.
We stood silent and spell-bound, for beyond the Longships Lighthouse
was the setting sun, which we watched intently as it slowly disappeared
behind some black rocks in the far distance. It was a solemn moment, for
had we not started with the rising sun on a Monday morning and finished
with the setting sun on a Saturday night? It reminded us of the
beginning and ending of our own lives, and especially of the end, as the
shadows had already begun to fall on the great darkening waters before
us. Was it an ancient mariner, or a long-forgotten saint, or a
presentiment of danger that caused my brother to think he heard a
far-away whisper as if wafted over the sea?
[Illustration: LONGSHIPS LIGHTHOUSE, LAND'S END.]
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil: for Thou art with me; Thy rod and Thy staff they
comfort me.
HOMEWARD BOUND
(BY MR. ROBERT NAYLOR)
We retraced our steps to the "First and Last House in England," where we
found our driver waiting for us with his conveyance, which we had now
time to examine, and found to be a light, rickety, two-wheeled cart of
ancient but durable construction, intended more for use than ornament,
and equivalent to the more northern shandrydan or shandry. The strong
board which formed the seat was placed across the conveyance from one
side to the other a few inches below the top-rail, and would slide to
any point required between the front and back of the trap, the weight of
the driver or other passengers holding it in its place. It would only
hold three persons, including the driver. The first difficulty that
presented itself, however, was the fact that we were not sufficiently
provided with warm clothing to face the twelve-mile drive to Penzance in
the cold night air; but, fortunately, our friend had an overcoat which
had been brought out by the driver; so after a short consultation we
arranged that I should sit between the driver and our friend, a
comparatively warm position, while my brother sat on the floor of the
conveyance, where there was a plentiful supply of clean dry straw, with
his face towards the horse and his back supported by the backboard of
the trap, where our presence on the seat above him would act as a screen
from the wind.
After arranging ourselves as comfortably as possible in our rather novel
positions, with which we were rather pleased than otherwise, we
proceeded on our way at a brisk speed, for our horse was quite fresh and
showed no disposition to loiter on the road, since like ourselves he was
on his way home.
Lighting regulations for vehicles were not in force in those days, and
conveyances such as ours carried no lights even on the darkest night;
but with a total absence of trees, and lighted by the first quarter of
the new moon, we expected to reach Penzance before the night became
really dark.
The conversation as we passed into the open country was carried on by
the three of us in front, as my brother could not join in it owing to
his position; and we had just turned towards him with the jocular
remark, "How are you getting on down there?" and had received his reply,
"All right!" when, with scarcely a moment's warning, we met with an
accident which might have killed him and seriously injured ourselves. We
suddenly crashed into a heavy waggon drawn by two horses, the first
wheel of the waggon striking dead against ours. The force of the
collision caused our seat to slide backwards against my brother,
pinning him against the backboard of the cart, but, fortunately for him,
our driver, who had retained his hold on his reins, jumped up at the
same moment and relieved the pressure, so that he had only the weight of
two men against him instead of three.
Meantime all was confusion, and it was a case of every one for himself;
but the only man who was equal to the occasion was our driver, who with
one hand pulled his horse backwards almost as quickly as the other
horses came forward, and with his whip in the other hand slashed
furiously at the face of the waggoner, who was seated on the wide board
in front of his waggon fast asleep and, as it afterwards appeared, in a
state of intoxication.
Our conveyance was on its proper side of the road and quite near the
fence, so that our friend jumped out of it on the land above, quickly
followed by myself, and, rapidly regaining the road, we ran towards the
horses attached to the waggon and stopped them.
A tremendous row now followed between the waggoner, who was a powerfully
built man, and our driver, and the war of words seemed likely to lead to
blows; but my brother, whom in the excitement of the moment we had quite
forgotten, now appeared upon the scene in rather a dazed condition, and,
hearing the altercation going on, advanced within striking distance of
the waggoner. I could see by the way he held his cudgel that he meant
mischief if the course of events had rendered it necessary, but the
blood on the waggoner's face showed he had been severely punished
already.
Seeing that he was hopelessly outnumbered, unto God Who made it!
We waited for the peroration of his fine sermon, which came with
startling suddenness, like our accident yesterday, for he concluded
abruptly with the following words:
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring
every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be
good, or whether it be evil.
My brother took shorthand notes of portions of the sermon for future
reference, for we were both greatly impressed by what we had heard, and
conversed about some of the points raised as we returned to the hotel.
Later in the day we attended the Wesleyan chapel, where we formed two
units in a large congregation, as we had done in the far-off Wesleyan
chapel of the Shetland Islands. Here again we appreciated the good
service, including the fine congregational singing.
Early on Monday morning we started by train for home; but travelling by
rail was much slower in those days, and although we journeyed the whole
of the day and late into the night which followed, we did not reach our
home at Thelwall until Tuesday, November 21st, at two o'clock in the
morning, where we awoke the sleepers by singing "Home, Sweet Home"
beneath a bedroom window on the east side of Cuerden Hall, where we knew
our father and mother would be waiting for us--as they are now, but in
no earthly home.
[Illustration: THE ROCKERIES AT THELWALL.]
The news of our arrival soon spread through the surrounding country,
where we were well known, and for a time we were lionised and visited by
a host of friends, and our well-worn sticks, which at one time we
thought of leaving in the sea at Land's End, were begged from us by
intimate friends and treasured for many years by their new owners in the
parish of Grappenhall.
Considerable interest had naturally been taken locally in our long walk,
for we had been absent from our customary haunts for seventy-five days,
having travelled by land and sea--apart from the actual walk from John
o' Groat's to Land's End--a distance nearly a thousand miles. Everybody
wanted to be told all about it, so I was compelled to give the
information in the form of lectures, which were repeated in the course
of many years in different parts of the country where aid for
philanthropic purposes was required. The title of the lecture I gave in
the Cobden Hall at Hull on January 25th, 1883, was "My journey from John
o' Groat's to Land's End, or 1,372 miles on foot," and the syllabus on
that occasion was a curiosity, as it was worded as follows:
John O' Groat's House and how we got there--Flying visit to Orkney
and Shetland--Crossing Pentland Firth in a sloop--Who was John o'
Groat?--What kind of a house did he live in?--A long sermon--The
great castles--Up a lighthouse--The Maiden's Paps--Lost on the
moors--Pictish towers--Eating Highland porridge--The Scotch lassie
and the English--A Sunday at Inverness--Loch Ness--The tale of the
heads--Taken for shepherds--Fort William--Up Ben Nevis--The Devil's
Staircase--Glencoe--A night in Glen-Orchy--Sunday at
Dalmally--Military road--The Cobbler and his Wife--Inverary and the
Duke of Argyle--Loch Lomond--Stirling Castle--Wallace's Monument--A
bodyless church--Battle of Bannockburn-Linlithgow Palace--A Sunday in
Edinburgh, and what I saw there--Roslyn Castle--Muckle-mouthed
Meg--Abbotsford, the residence of Sir Walter Scott--Melrose Abbey--A
would-not-be fellow-traveller--All night under the
stairs--Lilliesleaf--Hawick--A stocking-maker's
revenge--Langholm--Taken for beggars--In a distillery--A midnight
adventure in the Border Land--A night at a coal-pit--Crossing the
boundary--A cheer for old England--Longtown and its parish
clerk--Hearing the bishop--Will you be married?--Our visit to
Gretna-Green--Ramble through the Lake District--Sunday at
Keswick--Furness Abbey--A week in the Big County--Stump Cross
Cavern--Brimham rocks--Malham Cove--Fountains Abbey--The Devil's
Arrows--Taken for highwaymen--Tessellated pavements--York
Minster--Robin Hood and Little John--A Sunday at Castleton--Peveril
of the Peak--The cave illuminated--My sore foot and the present of
stones--March through Derbyshire--Lichfield Cathedral--John
Wiclif--High Cross--A peep at Peeping Tom at
Coventry--Leamington--Warwick Castle--Beauchamp chapel--In
Shakespeare's House at Stratford-on-Avon--Inhospitable Kineton--All
night in the cold--Banbury Cross--A Sunday at Oxford--March across
Salisbury Plain--Stonehenge--Salisbury Cathedral--Where they make
carpets--Exeter Cathedral--Bridport--Honiton--Dawlish--A Sunday at
Torquay--Devonshire lanes--Totnes--Dartmouth--Plymouth and the Big
Bridge--Our adventure with the 42nd Highlanders--Tramp across
Dartmoor--Lost in the dark--Liskeard--Truro--Tramp through the land
of the saints--St. Blazey--St. Michael's Mount--A Sunday at
Penzance--Catching pilchards--The Logan Rock--Druidical remains--The
last church--Wesley's Rock--Land's End--narrow escape--Home, sweet
home--God save the Queen.
To this lengthy programme the secretary added the following footnote:
Mr. Naylor is probably one of the few men living, if not the only
one, who has accomplished the feat of walking from one end of the
kingdom to the other, without calling in the aid of any conveyance,
or without crossing a single ferry, as his object was simply
pleasure. His tour was not confined to the task of accomplishing the
journey in the shortest possible time or distance, but as it
embraced, to use his own words, "going where there was anything to be
seen," his ramble led him to view some of the most picturesque spots
in the kingdom.
After this lecture I wired my brother, "I only got as far as York." As
he knew I had gone to Hull by train, he read the telegram to mean I had
only been able to reach York that day, and he imagined how disappointed
my friends in Hull would be when I did not arrive there in time to give
the lecture. But he was relieved when he afterwards discovered that my
wire referred to the lecture itself. He thought I had done well to get
as far as York, for "John o' Groat's to Land's End" was much too large a
subject to be dealt with in the course of a single lecture.
[Illustration: LAND'S END.]
[Illustration: [signature of] John Naylor]
IN MEMORIAM
Time plays many pranks with one's memory. The greatness of the journey
is no longer with me, and my companion has been called away. But this
much stands out clearly in my recollections: my brother was the leading
spirit of the adventure--his was the genius which conceived it and it
was his courage and perseverance which compelled us to keep on in spite
of many difficulties.
I have now set out our peregrinations at length from the diaries we kept
during the journey. The record, such as it is, I give to those who knew
us as a tribute to his memory.
[Illustration: BEESTON TOWERS.]
JOHN NAYLOR.
BEESTON TOWERS, CHESHIRE, 1916.
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