A Month in Yorkshire Part 12

Situate near the foot of a finely-wooded range of hills, the ruin shows effectively with the green heights for a background. More delightful than now must the prospect have been in the early days, and even within the present century, when no great excavations of ironstone left yellow blots in the ma.s.ses of foliage.

The sun went down while I sauntered about, and when I took my last look at the great east window the ruddy blaze streamed through its lofty s.p.a.ce, and as each side grew dark with creeping glooms, filled it with quivering beams whereunto all the glory of gla.s.s would be but a mockery.

Guisborough may claim to rank among watering-places, for it has a spa, with appliances for drinking and bathing, down in a romantic nook of Spa Wood, watered by Alumwork beck. The walk thither, and onwards through Waterfall wood to Skelton, is one of the prettiest in the neighbourhood.

And on the hill-slopes, Bellman bank--formerly Bellemonde--still claims notice for pleasing scenery. The medicinal properties of the spring were discovered in 1822. The water, which is clear and sparkling, tastes and smells slightly of sulphur and weak alkaline const.i.tuents, and is considered beneficial in diseases of the skin and indigestion. And in common with other small towns in Yorks.h.i.+re, Guisborough has a free grammar-school, which, at least, keeps alive the memory of its founder.

Mine host of _The Buck_ said, as we talked together later in the evening about the changes that had taken place, that although more money came into the town than in years gone by, he did not think that better habits or better morals came in along with it. A similar remark would be made wherever numbers of rude labourers earn high wages. Even in the good old times there was something to complain of. George Fox tells us, concerning his proselytes in Cleveland, that they fell away from their first principles and took to ranting; and at the time of his later visits "they smoked tobacco and drank ale in their meetings, and were grown light and loose." And John Wesley, on his first visit to Guisborough, in 1761, found what was little better than practical heathenism. He preached from a table standing in the market-place, where "there was," as he writes, "so vehement a stench of stinking fish as was ready to suffocate me." The people "roared;" but as the zealous apostle of Methodism went on in his sermon they gradually became overawed, and listened in silence. Did their forefathers ever roar when Paulinus preached to them from a mossy rock, or under the shadow of a spreading oak? Wesley, however, made an impression, and followed it up by visits in four subsequent years.

At any rate, there was no noise to disturb the Sunday quiet when I went forth on the morrow. While pa.s.sing along the street I noticed many cottagers reading at their doors, and exposing a pair of clean white s.h.i.+rt-sleeves to the morning sun. Turning presently into a road on the left, which rises gently, you get an embowered view of the town, terminated by the soaring arch. Then we come to Hutton Lowcross, a pleasant hamlet, which suggests a thought of the days of old, for it once had an hospital and a Cistercian nunnery. Hutton joined to the name of a village is a characteristic of Cleveland. In one instance--a few miles from this--it helps out an unflattering couplet:

"Hutton Rudby, Entrepen, Far more rogues than honest men."

We cross the railway near a station, which, as a cottager told me is "Mr. Pease's station; built for hisself, and not for everybody;" and take a bridle road leading to the hill. I fell in with a couple of rustics, who were able to enjoy the scenery amid which they had lived for years. They lay under a tree, at a spot open to the prospect down the valley; and as I commended their choice, one replied "I do like to come and set here of a Sunday better than anything else. 'Tis so nice to hear the leaves a-rustlin' like they do now." But the view there was nothing to what I should see from the hill-top: there couldn't be a prettier sight in England than that.

I felt willing to believe them; and a few minutes later strode from the steep, narrow lane, where ferns, foxgloves, wild roses, and elders overhang the way, to the open expanse of Guisborough moors. Here a track runs along the undulating slope to the foot of the hills, which roll away on the left to the wild region of Black-a-moor, with many a pleasant vale and secluded village between, while on the right spreads the cultivated plain, of which, ere long, we shall get a wider view; for now Rosebury Topping comes clear in sight, from gorse-patched base to rocky apex, and your eye begins to select a place for ascent. It is approachable on all sides; no swamp betrays the foot, but the steepness in some places compels you to use hands as well as feet. The morning was already hot, and I was fain to sit down in the belt of bracken above the gorse and breathe awhile, glad to have climbed beyond reach of the flies. From the fern you mount across clean, soft turf to the bare wall of rock which encircles the northern half of the summit, where the breeze of the plain is a brisk wind, cooling and invigorating as it sweeps across. I threw off my knapsack, and choosing a good resting-place, lay down in idle enjoyment of being able to see far enough.

Who that has travelled knows not what an enjoyment it is to recline at length on a hill-top, the head reposing on a cus.h.i.+on of moss, and to have nothing to do but let the eye rove at will over the wide-spread landscape below? Sheltered by the rock, you breathe the coolness of upper air without its rapid chill, and indulge for a while in lazy contemplation. It is the very luxury of out-door existence. Perhaps you are somewhat overcome by the labour of the ascent, and unconsciousness steals gently on you; and a s.n.a.t.c.h of slumber in such a spot, while the winds whisper of gladness in your ear, and a faint hush floats to and fro among the blades of gra.s.s, is a pleasure which can be imagined only by one who beholds at his awaking the blue sky and the broad earth of the great Giver.

At length curiosity prevails. Here we are a thousand and twenty-two feet above the sea--an elevation that sounds small after Switzerland and Tyrol; but a very little experience of travelling convinces one that the highest hills are not those which always command the most pleasing views. Standing on the top of the crag you may scan the whole ring of the horizon, from the sea on the east to the high summits of the west; from the bleak ridges of Black-a-moor to the headlands of Northumberland, seen dimly through the smoky atmosphere of the Durham coal-fields.

Considering, reader, that I may please myself at times, as well as you, I borrow again from our honest friend, whose admiration of the picturesque appears to have equalled his ability to note the useful.

"There is," he says, "a most goodly prospecte from the toppe of thys hyll, though paynefully gayned by reason of the steepnesse of yt....

There you may see a vewe the like whereof I never saw, or thinke that any traveller hath seen any comparable unto yt, albeit I have shewed yt to divers that have paste through a greate part of the worlde, both by sea and land. The vales, rivers, great and small, swelinge hylls and mountaynes, pastures, meadows, woodes, cornefields, parte of the Bishop.r.i.c.ke of Durham, with the newe porte of Tease lately found to be safe, and the sea replenyshed with s.h.i.+ppes, and a most pleasant flatt coaste subjecte to noe inundation or hazarde make that countrye happy if the people had the grace to make use of theire owne happinesse, which may be amended if it please G.o.d to send them trafique and good example of thrifte." All this is still true; but Tees has now other ports, and Middlesborough, which has grown rapidly as an American town, and the iron furnaces, spread a smoky veil here and there across the landscape, which, when our narrator looked down upon it, lay everywhere clear and bright in the suns.h.i.+ne.

The name of the hill is said to be derived from _Ross_, a heath or moor; _Burg_, a fortress; and _Toppen_, Danish for apex. If you incline to go back to very early days--as the Germans do--try to repeople the rows of basin-like pits which, traceable around the slope of the hill, are, so the students of antiquity tell us, the remains of ancient British dwellings. Were they inhabited when the Brigantes first mustered to repel the Romans? Rebuild the hermitage which, constructed once by a solitary here in the rock, was afterwards known as the smith's forge or cobbler's shop; and restore the crevice which, far-famed as Wilfrid's needle, tempted many a pilgrim to the expiatory task of creeping through the needle's eye. No traces of them are now left, for the remains which Time respected were destroyed some years ago by quarrymen, and with them the perfect point of the cone.

Rosebury Topping was once talked of as the best site for a monument to the memory of Cook, where it would be seen from his birthplace and for miles around. But another spot was chosen, and looking to the south-east you see the tall, plain column on Easby heights, about three miles distant. It was erected in 1827, at the cost of Mr. Robert Campion, of Whitby. At the foot of the hill, in the same direction, partly concealed by trees, and watered by the river Leven, lies the village of Great Ayton--canny Yatton--where Cook went to school after finis.h.i.+ng his course of Mary Walker's lessons. In the churchyard is a stone, which records the death of Cook's mother, and of some of his brothers and sisters, supposed to have been wrought by his father, who was a working mason. It is said, however, that the old man was unable to read until the age of seventy-five, when he learned in order that he might have the pleasure of reading the narrative of his son's voyages of discovery. Of other noteworthy objects in the village are a monument to Commodore Wilson in the church; a Chapel-well of the olden time; and an agricultural school, with seventy-five acres of good land attached, belonging to the Quakers. Farming work and in-doors work are there taught to boys and girls in a thoroughly practical way, carrying out the intentions of the chief promoter, who gave the land and 5000_l._ to establish the inst.i.tution.

A few yards below the rocks a spring trickles slowly into a hollow under a stone, but the quant.i.ty of water is too small to keep itself free from the weeds and sc.u.m which render it unfit for drinking. It can hardly be the fatal spring of the tradition, wherein is preserved the memory of a Northumbrian queen and Prince Oswy, her son. Soothsayers had foretold the boy's death by drowning on a certain day: the mother, to keep him from harm, brought him to this lofty hill-side early on the threatened day, where, at all events, he would be in no danger from water. Fondly she talked with him for a while and watched his play: but drowsiness stole over her and she fell asleep. By-and-by she woke, and looked hastily round for her darling. He was nowhere to be seen. She flew hither and thither, searching wildly, and at last found him lying dead, with his face in the spring.

Looking to the north-east we see Skelton, backed by the Upleatham woods.

Though but a speck in the landscape, it has contributed more to history than places which boast acres of houses. "From this little nook of Cleveland," says the local historian, "sprang mighty monarchs, queens, high-chancellors, archbishops, earls, barons, amba.s.sadors, and knights, and, above all, one brilliant and immortal name--Robert Bruce." We hear of a Robert de Brus, second of the name, trying to dissuade David of Scotland from awaiting the attack of the English army near Northallerton: but the king chose to fight, and lost, as we have already read, the Battle of the Standard. And the sixth baron, Peter de Brus, was one of the resolute band who made his mark at Runnymede, and helped to wrest the right of Liberty from a royal craven.

Then taking a stride to later years, we find the author of _Crazy Tales_, John Hall Stephenson, the occupant of Skelton Castle, an esquire hospitable and eccentric, the Eugenius of Sterne, who was his willing guest:

"In this retreat, whilom so sweet, Once Tristram and his cousin dwelt."

There it was that Sterne bribed a boy to tie the weatherc.o.c.k with its point to the west, hoping thereby to lure the host from his chamber; for Eugenius would never leave his bed while the wind blew from the east, even though good company longed for his presence.

In one of his poems the "crazy" author describes the hill country such as we see it stretching away beyond Cook's monument:

"Where the beholder stands confounded At such a scene of mountains bleak; Where nothing goes Except some solitary pewit, And carrion crows, That seem sincerely to rue it: Where nothing grows, So keen it blows, Save here and there a graceless fir, From Scotland with its kindred fled, That moves its arms and makes a stir, And tosses its fantastic head."

On Eston Nab, that bold hill between us and the Tees, is an ancient camp, and graves supposed to be two thousand years old. Kildale, in the opposite direction, had once a diabolical notoriety; for there the devil played many a prank, and drank the church-well dry, so that the priest could get no holy water. Ingleby Manor, an antique Tudor house, belonged to the Foulis family, who gave a noteworthy captain to the army of the Parliament. And other historic names--the D'Arcys, Eures, Percys, and Baliols--all had estates overlooked by Rosebury. Wilton Castle, not far from the foot of Eston Nab, was built by Sir John Lowther, about fifty years ago, on the site of a fortress once held by the Bulmers.

Now to return for a moment to the hill itself: the topmost rocks are of the same formation as those we saw stretching into the sea at Redcar, uptilted more than a thousand feet in a distance of ten miles. And lower down, as if to exemplify the geology of the North Riding in one spot, a thick stratum of alum-rock is found, with ironstone, limestone, jet and coal, and numerous fossil sh.e.l.ls. And it ill.u.s.trates meteorological phenomena, for, from time immemorial, weatherwise folk have said,

"When Rosebury Topping wears a cap, Let Cleveland then beware a clap."

More than an hour slipped away while I lounged and loitered, making the round of the summit again and again, till it seemed that the landscape had become familiar to me. Then the solitude was broken by the arrival of strangers, who came scrambling up the hill, encouraging one another, with cheerful voices. They gained the rocks at last, panting; two families from Middlesborough, husbands, wives, boys and girls, and a baby, with plenty to eat and drink in their baskets, come from the murky town to pa.s.s the Sunday on the breezy hill-top. How they enjoyed the pure air and the wide prospect; and how they wondered to find room for a camp-meeting on a summit which, from their homes, looked as if it were only a blunt point! They told me that a trip to Rosebury Topping was an especial recreation for the people of Middlesborough--a town which, by the way, is built on a swampy site, where the only redeeming feature is ready access to a navigable river. I remember what it was before the houses were built. A drearier spot could not be imagined: one of those places which, as _Punch_ says, "you want never to hear of, and hope never to see."

"'Tis frightful to see how fast the graves do grow up in the new cemetery," said one of the women, whose glad surprise at the contrast between her home and her holiday could hardly express itself in words.

"It can't be a healthy place to bring up a family in. That's where we live, is it--down there, under all that smoke? Ah! if we could only come up here every day!"

Middlesborough, as we can see from far off, is now a large town, numbering nearly 8000 inhabitants in 1851, and owes its sudden growth to coal and iron. There the smelting furnaces, roaring night and day, convert hundreds of tons of the Cleveland hills every week into tons of marketable iron. The quant.i.ty produced in 1856 in the Cleveland district was 180,000 tons. And there is the terminus of the "Quakers' Railway;" a dock, of nine acres, where vessels can load at all times of the tide; an ingenious system of drops for the coal; branch railways running in all directions; and a great level of fifteen acres, on which three thousand wagons can stand at once.

I stayed two hours on the hill-top, then taking a direct line down the steepest side, now sliding, now rolling, very few minutes brought me to the village of Newton at the foot. With so sudden a change, the heat below seemed at first overpowering. In the public-house, which scrupled not to open its door to a traveller, I found half a dozen miners, who had walked over from a neighbouring village to drink their pint without molestation. Each recommended a different route whereby the ten miles to Stockton might be shortened. One insisted on a cut across the fields to Nunth_ar_p.

My ear caught at the sharp tw.a.n.g of the _ar_--a Yorks.h.i.+re man would have said Nunthurp--and turning to the speaker I said, "Surely that's Berks.h.i.+re?"

"Ees, 'tis. I comes not fur from Read'n'."

True enough. Tempted by high wages in the north, he had wandered from the neighbourhood of _Our Village_ up to the iron-diggings of Cleveland.

I took it for granted that, as he earned more than twice as much as he did at home, he saved in proportion. But no; he didn't know how 'twas; the money went somehow. Any way he didn't save a fardin' more than he did in Berks.h.i.+re. I ventured to reply that there was little good in earning more if one did not save more, when a tall brawny fellow broke in with, "Look here, lad. I'd ruther 'arn fifty s.h.i.+llin's a week and fling 'em right off into that pond there, than 'arn fifteen to keep."

Just the retort that was to be expected under the circ.u.mstances. It embodies a touch of proud sentiment in which we can all partic.i.p.ate.

I found the short cut to Nunthorp, struck there the high road, and came in another hour to Marton--the birthplace of Cook. It is a small village with a modernised church, and a few n.o.ble limes overshadowing the graves. The house where the circ.u.mnavigator was born was little better than a clay hovel of two rooms. It has long since disappeared; but the field on which it stood is still called "Cook's Garth." The parish register contains an entry under the date November 3rd, 1728: "James, ye son of James Cook, day-labourer, baptized." The name of Mary Walker, aged 89, appears on one of the stones in the churchyard; she it was who taught the day-labourer's son to read while he was in her service, and who has been mistakenly described as Dame Walker the schoolmistress.

I caught the evening train at Stockton, which travelling up the Durham side of the Tees--past Yarm, where Havelock's mother was born--past the "h.e.l.l kettles" and Dinsdale Spa, where drinking the water turns all the silver yellow in your pockets--and so to Darlington, where I stayed for the night.

CHAPTER XVII.

Locomotive, Number One--Barnard Castle--Buying a Calf on Sunday--Baliol's Tower--From Canute to the Duke of Cleveland-- Historic Scenery--A surprised Northumbrian--The bearded Hermit --Beauty of Teesdale--Egliston Abbey--The Artist and his Wife-- Dotheboys Hall--Rokeby--Greta Bridge--Mortham Tower--Brignall Banks--A Pilgrimage to Wycliffe--Fate of the Inns--The Felon Sow--A Journey by Omnibus--Lartington--Cotherstone-- Scandinavian Traces--Romaldkirk--Middleton-in-Teesdale--Wild Scenery--High Force Inn--The voice of the Fall.

Facing the entrance to the railway station, elevated on a pedestal of masonry, stands the first locomotive--_Number One_. With such machines as that did the Quakers begin in 1823 to transport coal from the mines near Darlington to Middlesborough along their newly-opened railway.

Compared with the snorting giants of the Great Western, its form and dimensions are small and simple. No glittering bra.s.s or polished steel bedeck its strength; it is nothing but a black boiler, mounted on wheels, with three or four slender working-rods standing up near one end, and the chimney with its saw-toothed top at the other. Yet, common as it looks, it is one of George Stephenson's early triumphs: one of the steps by which he, and others after him, established more and more the supremacy of mind over mere brute matter. It was a happy thought to preserve _Number One_ on the spot where enlightened enterprise first developed its capabilities.

Tees is one of those streams--the "silly few"--which owe a divided allegiance, watering two counties at once. Rising high amidst the wildest hills of the north-west, it takes a course of eighty-three miles to the sea through many scenes of romantic beauty. Yesterday we looked down from Rosebury on the last two or three leagues of its outfall; to-day if all go well we shall see the summit from which it springs. It is a glorious morning; the earliest train arrives, interrupts our examination of the old locomotive, and away we go to breakfast at Barnard Castle, on the Durham side of the river.

There is so much of beautiful and interesting in the neighbourhood, scenes made cla.s.sic by the pen of Scott, that I chose to pa.s.s the day in rambling, and journey farther in the evening. The town itself, old-fas.h.i.+oned in aspect, quiet enough for gra.s.s to grow here and there in the streets, was one of the ancient border-towns, and paid the penalty of its position. It has a curious market-cross, and touches of antiquity in the byeways; and owing to something in its former habits or history, is a b.u.t.t for popular wit. "Barney-Ca.s.sel, the last place that G.o.d made," is one way of mentioning the town by folk in other parts of the county; if you meet with a fellow more uncouth than usual, he is "Barney-Ca.s.sel bred;" any one who shoots with the long bow is silenced with "That wunna do, that's Barney-Ca.s.sel;" and as Barney-Ca.s.sel farmers may be recognised by the holes in their sacks, so may the women by holes in their stockings.

One Sunday morning, a farmer, while on his way to chapel, noticed a fine calf in his neighbour's field, and when seated in his pew, was overheard to ask the owner of the animal, "Tommy, supposin' it was Monday, what wad ye tak' for yer calf?" To which Tommy replied in an equally audible whisper, "Why, supposin' it was Monday, aw'd tak' two pun' fifteen."

"Supposin' it was Monday aw'll gie two pun' ten." "Supposin' it was Monday, then ye shall hev't." And the next day the calf was delivered to the scrupulous purchaser.

The pride of the town is the castle--ruined remains of the stronghold erected by Bernard Baliol to protect the lands bestowed on him by William the Red. Seen from the bridge, the rocky height, broken and craggy, and hung with wood, crowned by Baliol's Tower, is remarkably picturesque. The Tees sweeps round the base, as if impatient to hide itself once more under green woods, to receive once more such intermingled shadows of rock and leaf.a.ge as fell on it through Marwood Chase, and where Balder rushes in about a league above. A mile of sunlight, and then the brawling stream will play with the big stones and crowd its bed all through the woods of Rokeby.

Let us mount the hill and ascend the tower. The bearded hermit who inhabits therein points the way to the stone stair constructed within the ma.s.sive wall, and presently we come to the top, where, although there is no parapet, the great thickness admits of your walking round in safety. The view is a feast for the eye--thick woods marking the course of the river, the trees thinning off as they meet the uplands, where fields and hedgerows diversify the landscape away to the hills; while in the distance the sight of dark, solemn moorlands serves but to heighten the nearer beauty. We can see lands once held by King Canute, now the property of the Duke of Cleveland: we pa.s.sed his estate, the park and castle of Raby, about six miles distant on our way hither; and whichever way we look there is something for memory to linger on:

"Staindrop, who, from her sylvan bowers, Salutes proud Raby's battled towers; The rural brook of Egliston, And Balder, named from Odin's son; And Greta, to whose banks ere long We lead the lovers of the song; And silver Lune, from Stanmore wild, And fairy Thorsgill's murmuring child, And last and least, but loveliest still, Romantic Deepdale's slender rill."

Barnard Castle was lost to the Baliol family by the defeat of John Baliol's pretensions to the crown of Scotland. Later it was granted, with the adjoining estates, to the Earls of Warwick, and on the marriage of Anne Neville with royal Gloucester, the Duke chose it as his favourite residence. You may still see his cognizance of the boar here and there on the walls, and on some of the oldest houses in the town.

The Earl of Westmoreland had it next, but lost it by taking part in _The Rising of the North_. The couplet:--