A Month in Yorkshire Part 11

The Earl of Zetland is the great proprietor hereabouts: the alum-works are his, and to him belongs the estate at Lofthouse--a village about two miles inland--once owned by the famous Zachary Moore, whose lavish hospitality, and eminent qualities of mind and heart, made him the theme for tongue and pen when Pitt was minister:

"What sober heads hast thou made ache!

How many hast thou kept from nodding!

How many wise ones for thy sake Have flown to thee and left off plodding!"

and who, having spent a great fortune, discovered the reverse side of his friends' characters, accepted an ensign's commission, and died at Gibraltar in the prime of his manhood.

And it was near Lofthouse that Sir John Conyers won his name of Snake-killer. A sword and coffin, dug up on the site of an old Benedictine priory, were supposed to have once belonged to the brave knight who "slew that monstrous and poysonous vermine or wyverne, an aske or werme which overthrew and devoured many people in fight; for that the scent of that poison was so strong that no person might abyde it." A gray stone, standing in a field, still marks the haunt of the worm and place of battle.

Tradition tells, moreover, of a valiant youth, who killed a serpent and rescued an earl's daughter from the reptile's cave, and married her; in token whereof Scaw Wood still bears his name.

As I went on, past Street Houses, diverging hither and thither, a woman cried, from a small farm-house, "Eh! packman, d'ye carry beuks?" She wanted a new spelder-beuk[A] for one of her children. We had a brief talk together. She had never been out of Yorks.h.i.+re, except once across the Tees to Stockton, twenty-two miles distant. That was her longest journey, and the largest town she had ever seen. 'Twas a gay sight; but she thought the ladies in the streets wore too many danglements. She couldn't a-bear such things as them, for she was one of the audfarrand[B] sort, and liked lasty[C] clothes.

[A] Spelling Book.

[B] Old-fas.h.i.+oned.

[C] Lasting.

While talking, she continued her preparations for dinner, and set one of her children to polish the "reckon-crooks." The "reckon" is the crane in the kitchen fireplace, to which pots and kettles are suspended by the "crooks." In old times, when a pot was lifted off, the maid was careful to stop the swinging of the crook, because, whenever the reckon-crooks swung the blessed Virgin used to weep.

Skinningrave--a few houses at the mouth of a narrow valley, a brook running briskly to the sea, a coast-guard station on the green shoulder of the southern cliff--makes up a pleasing scene as you descend to the beach. The village gossips can still talk on occasion about the golden age of smugglers, and a certain parish-clerk of the neighbourhood, who used to make the church steeple a hiding-place for his contraband goods.

Smuggling hardly pays now on this coast. They can repeat, too, what they heard in their childhood concerning Paul Jones; how that, as at Whitby, the folk kept their money and valuables packed up, ready to start for the interior, watching day and night in great alarm, until at length the privateers did land, and fell to plundering from house to house. But when the fugitives returned they found nothing disturbed except the pantries and larders.

This was one of the places where the Bruce, proudest of the lords of Cleveland, had "free fisheries, plantage, floatage, lagan, jetsom, derelict, and other maritime franchises." And an industrious explorer, who drew up a report on the district for Sir Thomas Chaloner, in that quaint old style which smacks of true British liberty, gives us a glimpse of Skinningrave morals in his day. The people, he says, with all their fish, were not rich; "for the moste parte, what they have they drinke; and howsoever they reckon with G.o.d, yt is a familiar maner to them to make even with the worlde at night, that pennilesse and carelesse they maye go lightly to their labour on the morrow morninge."

And, relating a strange story, he tells us that about the year 1535, certain fishers of the place captured a sea-man, and kept him "many weekes in an olde house, giving him rawe fish to eate, for all other fare he refused. Instead of voyce he skreaked, and showed himself courteous to such as flocked farre and neare to visit him; faire maydes were wellcomest guests to his harbour, whome he woulde beholde with a very earnest countenaynce, as if his phlegmaticke breaste had been touched with a sparke of love. One day when the good demeanour of this newe gueste had made his hosts secure of his abode with them, he privily stole out of doores, and ere he could be overtaken recovered the sea, whereinto he plunged himself; yet as one that woulde not unmannerly depart without taking of his leave, from the mydle upwardes he raysed his shoulders often above the waves, and makinge signes of acknowledgeing his good entertainment to such as beheld him on the sh.o.r.e, as they interpreted yt. After a pretty while he dived downe, and appeared no more."

Give me leave, reader, to quote one more pa.s.sage, in which our narrator notices the phenomenon now known as the calling of the sea. "The little stream here," he says, "serveth as a trunke or conduite to convey the rumor of the sea into the neighbouring fieldes; for when all wyndes are whiste, and the sea restes unmoved as a standing poole, sometimes there is such a horrible groaninge heard from that creake at the least six myles in the mayne lande, that the fishermen dare not put forth, thoughe thyrste of gaine drive them on, houlding an opinion that the sea, as a greedy beaste raginge for hunger, desyers to be satisfyed with men's carcases."

I crossed the beach where noisy rustics were loading carts from the thick beds of tangle, to the opposite cliff, and found a path to the top in a romantic hollow behind the point. Again the height increases, and presently you get a peep at Handale, traceable by its woods; and Freeburgh Hill, which was long taken for a tumulus, appears beyond.

After much learned a.s.sertion in favour of its artificial formation, the question was settled by opening a sandstone quarry on its side. Still higher, and we are on Huntcliff Nab, a precipice of three hundred and sixty feet, backed by broad fields and pastures. Farther, we come to broken ground, and then to a sudden descent by a zigzag path at the Saltburn coast-guard station; and here the n.o.ble range of cliffs sinks down to one of the pleasantest valleys of Cleveland--an outlet for little rivers. Pausing here on the brow we see the end of our coast travel, Redcar, and the mouth of the Tees five miles distant, and all between the finest sandy beach washed by the North Sea: level and smooth as a floor. The cliff behind is a mere bank, as along the sh.o.r.e of Holderness, and there is a greater breadth of plain country under our eye than we have seen for some days past.

Among the hills, picturesquely upheaved in the rear of the plain, I recognized the pointed summit of Rosebury Topping; and with almost as much pleasure as if it had been the face of a friend, so many recollections did the sight of the cone awaken of youthful days, and of circ.u.mstances that seemed to have left no impression. And therewith came back for a while the gladsome bounding emotions that consort with youth's inexperience.

Some time elapsed before I could make up my mind to quit the turfy seat on the edge of the cliff, and betake myself to the nether ground. The path zigzags steeply, and would be dangerous in places were it not protected by a handrope and posts. At the public-house below the requisites of a simple dinner can be had, and excellent beer. While I ate, two men were busy casting bullets, and turning them out to cool in the middle of the floor. They were going to shoot cormorants along Huntcliff Nab, where the birds lodge in the clefts and afford good practice for a rifle.

Concerning the Nab, our ancient friend describes it as "full of craggs and steepe rocks, wherein meawes, pidgeons, and sea-fowle breade plentifully; and here the sea castinge up peble-stones maketh the coaste troublesome to pa.s.se." And seals resorted to the rocks about its base, cunning animals, which set a sentry to watch for the approach of men, and dived immediately that the alarm was given. But "the poore women that gather c.o.c.kles and mussels on the sandes, by often use are in better credyte with them. Therefore, whosoe intends to kill any of them must craftely put on the habyte of a woman, to gayne grounde within the reache of his peece."

The sands at the mouth of the valley are furrowed and channeled by the streams that here find their outlet; and you will get many a splash in striding across. The view of the valley backed by hills and woods is a temptation, for yonder lie fair prospects, and the obscure ruins of Kilton Castle; but the sea is on the other side, and the sands stretch away invitingly before us. Their breadth, seen near low water, as when I saw them, may be guessed at more than half a mile, and from Saltburn to Redcar, and for four or five miles up the estuary of the Tees they continue, a gentle slope dry and firm, noisy to a horse's foot, yet something elastic under the tread of a pedestrian. At one time the Redcar races were always held on the broad sands, and every day the visitors to the little town resort to the smooth expanse for their exercise, whether on foot or on wheels. For my part, I ceased to regret leaving the crest of the cliffs, and found a novel sense of enjoyment in walking along the wide-spread sh.o.r.e, where the surface is smooth and unbroken except here and there a solitary pebble, or a shallow pool, or a patch left rough by the ripples. And all the while a thin film, paler than the rest, as if the surface were in motion, is drifting rapidly with the wind, and producing before your eyes, on the margin of the low cliff, some of the phenomena of blown sands.

Smugglers liked this bit of the coast, because of the easy access to the interior; and many a hard fight has here been had between them and the officers of the law in former times, and not without loss of life. The lowlands, too, were liable to inundation. Marske, of which the church has been our landmark nearly all the way from Saltburn, was once a marsh. If we mount the bank here we shall see the marine hotel, and the village, and the mansion of Mr. Pease, who is the railway king of these parts. And there is Marske Hall, dating from the time of Charles the First, which, a.s.sociated with the names of Fauconberg and Dundas, has become historical. In the churchyard you may see the graves of s.h.i.+pwrecked seamen, and others indicated by a series of family names that will detain you awhile. Here in April, 1779--that fatal year--was buried James Cook, the day-labourer, and father of the ill.u.s.trious navigator. And truly there seems something appropriate in laying him to rest within hearing of that element on which his son achieved lasting renown for himself and his country. Providence was kind to the old man, and took him away six weeks after that terrible ma.s.sacre at Owhyhee, thereby saving his last days from hopeless sorrow.

Numerous are the parties walking, riding, and driving on the sands within a mile of Redcar; but so far as a wayfarer may judge, liveliness is not one of their characteristics. Now, the confused line of houses resolves itself into definite form; and, turning the point, you find the inner margin of the sand loose and heavy, a short stair to facilitate access to the terrace above, all wearing a rough makes.h.i.+ft appearance: the effect, probably, of the drift. There is no harbour; the boats lie far off in the shallow water, where embarkation is by no means convenient. Once arrived at the place, it appeared to me singularly unattractive.

Wide as the estuary looks, its entrance is narrowed by a tongue of sand, Seaton-Snook, similar to the Spurn, but seven miles long, and under water, which stretches out from the Durham side; and on the hither side, off the point where we are standing, you can see the long ridges of lias which are there thrust out, as if to suggest the use that might be made of them. Twenty years ago Mr. Richmond drew up a report on what he names an "Asylum Harbour" at Redcar, showing that at that time forty thousand vessels pa.s.sed in a year, and that of the wrecks, from 1821 to 1833, four hundred and sixty-two would not have happened had the harbour then existed. "To examine and trace," he remarks, "during a low spring-ebb, the ma.s.sive foundations, which seem laid by the cunning hand of Nature to invite that of man to finish what has been so excellently begun, is a most interesting labour. In their present position they form the basis on which it is projected to raise those mounds of stone by whose means, as breakwaters, a safe and extensive harbour will be created, with sufficient s.p.a.ce and depth of water for a fleet of line-of-battle s.h.i.+ps to be moored with perfect security within their limits, and still leave ample room for merchant vessels." There is no lack of stone in the neighbourhood; and seeing what has been accomplished at Portland and Holyhead, there should be no lack of money for such a purpose.

c.o.c.kles and shrimps abound along the sh.o.r.e: hence visitors may find a little gentle excitement in watching the capture of these mult.i.tudinous creatures, or grow enthusiastic over the return of the salmon-fishers with their glistening prey. And in fine weather there are frequent opportunities for steam-boat trips along the coast. But the charm of the place consists in the broad, flat sh.o.r.e, and, looking back along the way you came, you will find an apt expression in the lines:

"Next fishy Redcar view Marske's sunny lands, And sands, beyond Pactolus' golden sands; Till shelvy Saltburn, clothed with seaweed green, And giant Huntcliff close the pleasing scene."

William Hutton, at the age of eighty-five, journeyed hither for a summer holiday, and wrote a narrative of his adventures, from which we may get an idea of the place as he saw it. "The two streets of Coatham and Redcar," he says, "are covered with mountains of drift sand, blown by the north-west winds from the sh.o.r.e, which almost forbid the foot; no carriage above a wheelbarrow ought to venture. It is a labour to walk.

If a man wants a perspiring dose, he may procure one by travelling through these two streets, and save his half-crown from the doctor. He may sport white stockings every day in the year, for they are without dirt; nor will the pavement offend his corns. The sand-beds are in some places as high as the eaves of the houses. Some of the inhabitants are obliged every morning to clear their doorway, which becomes a pit, unpleasant to the housekeeper and dangerous to the traveller."

I saw no sand-beds up to the eaves, but there were indications enough that the sand-drift must be a great annoyance. The town is comprised chiefly in one long, wide street, which looks raw and bleak, even in the summer. There are a few good shops at the end farthest from the sea; and if you ask the bookseller to show you the weekly list of visitors, it will perhaps surprise you to see the number so great. The church was built in 1829; before that date church-goers had to walk three miles to Marske.

And now my travel from Humber to Tees is accomplished, and I must say farewell to the wide rolling main with its infinite horizon--to the s.h.i.+ps coming up from the unseen distance, and sailing away to the unseen beyond--to the great headlands, haunted by swift-winged birds, which, when winds are still, behold a double firmament, stars overhead and stars beneath; and so, not without reluctance, I turn my back on what the rare old Greek calls

"The countless laughter of the salt-sea waves."

CHAPTER XVI.

Leave Redcar--A Cricket-Match--Coatham--Kirkleatham--The Old Hospital--The Library--Sir William Turner's Tomb--Cook, Omai, and Banks--The Hero of Dettingen--Yearby Bank--Upleatham-- Guisborough--Past and Present--Tomb of Robert Bruce--Priory Ruins--Hemingford, Pursglove, and Sir Thomas Chaloner--Pretty Scenery--The Spa--More Money, Less Morals--What George Fox's Proselytes did--John Wesley's Preaching--Hutton Lowcross-- Rustics of Taste--Rosebury Topping--Lazy Enjoyment--The Prospect: from Black-a-moor to Northumberland--Cook's Monument --Canny Yatton--The Quakers' School--A Legend--Skelton--Sterne and Eugenius--Visitors from Middlesbro'--A Fatal Town--Newton-- Digger's Talk--Marton, Cook's Birthplace--Stockton--Darlington.

However, we will be of good cheer, for Nature forsakes not the trustful heart. Hill and dale, breezy moorland, craggy mountains, and lovely valleys stretch away before us well-nigh to the western tides; and there we shall find perennial woods, where rustling leaves, and rus.h.i.+ng waterfalls will compensate us for the loss of the voice of the sea.

I started for Guisborough, taking a short cut across the fields to Kirkleatham. In the first field, on the edge of the town, I saw what accounted to me for the lifelessness of Redcar--a cricket-match. As well might one hope to be merry at a funeral as at a game of cricket, improved into its present condition; when the ball is no longer bowled, but pelted, and the pelter's movements resemble those of a jack-pudding; when gauntlets must be worn on the hands and greaves on the s.h.i.+ns; and other inventions are brought into use to deprive pastime of anything like enjoyment. That twenty-two men should ever consent to come together for such a mockery of pleasure, is to me a mystery. Wouldn't Dr.

Livingstone's Makalolo laugh at them! The only saving point attending it is, that it involves some amount of exercise in the open air. No wonder that the French d.u.c.h.ess, who was invited to see a game, sent one of her suite, after sitting two hours, to enquire, "vhen the creekay vas going to begin." The Guisborough band was doing its best to enliven the field; but I saw no exhilaration. Read Miss Mitford's description of a cricket-match on the village green; watch a schoolboys' game, consider the mirth and merriment that they get out of it, and sympathise with modern cricket if you can.

The fields are pleasant and rural; haymakers are at work; we cross a tramway, one of those laid to facilitate the transport of Cleveland ironstone; we get glimpses of Coatham, and come nearer to the woods, and at length emerge into the road at Kirkleatham. Here let us turn aside to look at the curious old hospital, built in 1676 by Sir William Turner, citizen and woollen-draper of London, and lord mayor, moreover, three years after the Great Fire. There it stands, a centre and two wings, including a chapel, a library and museum, and a comfortable lodging for ten old men, as many old women, and the same number of boys and girls.

The endowment provides for a good education for the children, and a benefaction on their apprentices.h.i.+p; and the services of a chaplain.

Among the curiosities shown to visitors are a waxen effigy of Sir William, wearing the wig and band that he himself once wore; the likeness of his son and heir in the stained gla.s.s of one of the windows; St. George and the Dragon, singularly well cut out of one piece of boxwood; the fragment of the tree from Newby Park, presented by Lord Falconberg, on which appears, carved:--

This Tre long time witnese beare Of toww lovrs that did walk heare.

It was no random hand that selected the library; some of the books are rare. One who loves old authors, will scan the shelves with pleasure. "I could easily have forgotten my dinner in this enchanting room," says William Hutton. Interesting in another way is the ledger of the worthy citizen and woollen-draper here preserved: it shows how well he kept his accounts, and that he was not vain-glorious. On one of the pages, where the sum of his wealth appears as 50,000_l._, he has written, "Blessed be the Almighty G.o.d, who has blest me with this estate."

The church, not far from the hospital, is worth a visit. Conspicuous in the chancel are the monuments of the Turners, adorned with sculptures and long inscriptions. Of Sir William, we read that he lies buried "amongst the poor of his hospital--the witnesses of his piety, liberality, and humility." There is the mausoleum erected by Cholmley Turner, in 1740, to the memory of his son, who died at Lyon, of which Schumacher was the sculptor, and near it the tomb of Sir Charles Turner, the last of the family. Cook, accompanied by Omai and Sir Joseph Banks, paid him a visit in 1775. Some of the church plate was presented by Sir William; but that used for the communion was thrown up by the sea about a century ago, within the privilege of the lord of the manor.

This quiet little village of Kirkleatham was the birthplace of Tom Browne the famous dragoon, who at the battle of Dettingen cut his way single-handed into the enemy's line, recovered the standard of the troop to which he belonged, and fought his way back in triumph; by which exploit he made his name ring from one end of England to the other, and won a place for his likeness on many a sign-board. You may see his portrait here if you will, and his straight basket-hilted sword.

After a glance at the hall, a handsome building, we return to the road, and ascend Yearby bank--a bank which out of Yorks.h.i.+re would be called a hill. Look back when near the top, and you will have a pleasing prospect: Kirkleatham nestled among the trees, the green fields refres.h.i.+ng to the eye; Eston Nab and the brown estuary beyond. Here we are on the verge of the Earl of Zetland's richly wooded estate--

"Behold Upleatham, slop'd with graceful ease, Hanging enraptur'd o'er the winding Tees"--

and the breeze makes merry among the branches that overhang us on both sides till a grand fragment of a ruin appears in sight--the tall east window of a once magnificent Priory--rising stately in decay from amidst the verdure of a fertile valley, and we enter the small market-town of Guisborough.

Having refreshed myself at _The Buck_, I took an evening stroll, not a little surprised at the changes which the place had undergone since I once saw it. Then it had the homely aspect of a village, and scarce a sound would you hear after nine at night in its long wide street: now at both ends new houses intrude on the fields and hedgerows, the side lanes have grown into streets lit by gas and watched by policemen. Tippling iron-diggers disturb the night with noisy shouts when sober folk are a-bed, and the old honest look has disappeared for ever. In the olden time it was said, "The inhabitants of this place are observed by travellers to be very civil and well bred, cleanly in dressing their diet, and very decent in their houses." The old hall is gone, but the gardens remain: you see the ample walnut-trees and the primeval yew behind the wall on your way to the churchyard. Seven centuries have rolled away since that Norman gateway was built, and it looks strong enough to stand another seven. Under the shadow of those trees was a burial-place of the monks: now the shadow falls on mutilated statues and other sculptured relics, and on the tomb of Robert Brus, one of the claimants of the Scottish throne and founder of the abbey, who was buried here in 1294. Even in decay it is an admirable specimen of ancient art.

From the meadow adjoining the churchyard you get a good view of the great east window, or rather of the empty arch which the window once filled; and looking at its n.o.ble dimensions, supported by b.u.t.tresses, flanked by the windows of the aisles, and still adorned with crumbling finials, you will easily believe what is recorded of Guisborough Priory--that it was the richest in Yorks.h.i.+re. It was dedicated to St.

Augustine, and when the sacred edifice stood erect in beauty, the tall spire pointing far upwards, seen miles around, many a weary pilgrim must have invoked a blessing on its munificent founder--a Bruce of whom the Church might well be proud.

Hemingford, whose chronicle of events during the reigns of the first three Edwards contains many curious matters of ecclesiastical history, was a canon of Guisborough; and among the priors we find Bishop Pursglove, him of whom our ancient gossip Izaak makes loving mention.

Another name a.s.sociated with the place is Sir Thomas Chaloner, eminent alike in exercises of the sword, and pen, and statesmans.h.i.+p. It was here in the neighbourhood that he discovered alum, as already mentioned, led thereto by observing that the leaves of the trees about the village were not so dark a green as elsewhere, while the whitish clay soil never froze, and "in a pretty clear night s.h.i.+ned and sparkled like gla.s.s upon the road-side."

Skeletons and stone coffins have been dug up from time to time, and reburied in the churchyard. On one occasion the diggers came upon a deposit of silver plate; and from these and other signs the presence of a numerous population on the spot in former days has been inferred. Our quaint friend, who has been more than once quoted, says: "Cleveland hath been wonderfully inhabited more than yt is nowe ... nowe all their lodgings are gone; and the country, as a widow, remayneth mournful." And among the local traditions, there is the not uncommon one, which hints obscurely at a subterranean pa.s.sage, leading from the Priory to some place adjacent, within which lay a chest of gold guarded by a raven.