A Month in Yorkshire Part 15

"Chill tell thee what good vellowe, Before the vriers went hence, A bush.e.l.l of the best wheate Was zold for vourteen pence, And vorty egges a penny, That were both good and newe: And this che zay my zelf have zeene, And yet ich am no Jewe.

"Ich care not for the bible booke, 'Tis too big to be true.

Our blessed Ladyes psalter Zhall for my money goe; Zuch pretty prayers, as therein bee, The bible cannot zhowe."

I began to defend the rights of conscience, when, as we came to the foot of the first great hill, the old packman advised me to reconsider my errors, bade me good day, and turned into a cottage; perhaps to sell calico; perhaps to sow tares for the keeper of the keys at Rome.

I made a cut-off, and came upon the road half way up the hill, leaving sultriness for a breezy elevation. Soon wide prospects opened all around me: vast green undulations, dotted with sheep and geese, swelling up into the distant hills and moorlands. That great group of heights on the right--Wild Boar Fell and Shunnor Fell--wherein Nature displays but few of her smiles, is the parent of not a few of Yorks.h.i.+re's dales, becks, and waterfalls. In those untrodden solitudes rise Swale and Ure; there lurks the spring from which Eden bursts to flow through gloomy Mallerstang, and transfer its allegiance, as we have seen, to other counties, and the fairest of c.u.mbrian vales. Our topographical bard, makes the forest of the darksome glen thus address the infant stream:

"O, my bright lovely brook whose name doth bear the sound Of G.o.d's first garden-plot, th' imparadised ground, Wherein he placed man, from whence by sin he fell: O, little blessed brook, how doth my bosom swell With love I bear to thee, the day cannot suffice For Mallerstang to gaze upon thy beauteous eyes."

Talk of royal tapestries, what carpet can compare with the springy turf that borders the road whereon you walk with lightsome step, happier than a king, and having countless jewels to admire in the golden buds of the gorse? It is a delightful mountain walk, now rising, now falling, but always increasing the elevation; so cool and breezy in comparison with the sultry temperature of the road we left below. And the grouping of the summits around the broad expanse changes slowly as you advance, and between the shades of yellow and green, brown and purple, the darker shadows denote the courses of the dales. Wayfarers are few; perhaps a boy trudges past pulling a donkey, which drags a sledge laden with turf or hay; or a pedlar with crockery; but for miles your only living companions are sheep and geese.

With increasing height we have less of gra.s.s and more of ling, and at ten miles from Brough we come to the public-house on Tan Hill, situate in the midst of a desolate brown upland, in which appear the upreared timbers of coalpits, some abandoned, others in work. The house shows signs of isolation in a want of cleanliness and order; but you can get oaten bread, cheese, and pa.s.sable beer, and have a talk with the pitmen, and the rustics who come in for a drink ere starting homewards with cartloads of coal. Seeing the numerous family round the hostess, I inquired about their school; on which one of the black fellows--a rough diamond--took up the question. There had been a dame school in one of the adjacent cottages, but the old 'oman gave it up, and now the bairns was runnin' wild. 'Twasn't right of Mr. ----, the proprietor of the mines, to take away 5000_l._ a year, and not give back some on't for a school. It made a man's heart sore to see bairns wantin' schoolin' and no yabble to get it. 'Twasn't right, that 't wasn't.

Apparently an honest miner lived beneath that coaly incrustation, possessed of good sense and sensibility. I quite agreed with him, and recommended him to talk about a school whenever he could get a listener.

About a mile from the public-house the road leaves the brown region, and descends rapidly to the Swale, crossing where the stream swells in rainy weather to a noisy cataract, and Swaledale stretches away before us, a grand mountain valley, yet somewhat severe in aspect. Gentle, as its name imports, appears misapplied to a rus.h.i.+ng stream; but a long course lies before it: past Grinton, past picturesque Richmond, ancient ruins, towers of barons, and cloisters of monks, and to the broad Vale of York, where, calmed by old experience, it flows at Myton gently into the Ure.

And not only gentle but sacred, for Swale has been called the Jordan of Yorks.h.i.+re, because of the mult.i.tudinous baptism of the earliest converts therein by Paulinus; "above ten thousand men, besides women and children, in one day," according to the chronicler, who, perhaps to disarm incredulity, explains that the apostle having baptized ten, sent them into the stream to baptize a hundred, and so multiplied his a.s.sistants as the rite proceeded, while he prayed on the sh.o.r.e.

By-and-by we meet signs of inhabitants--a house or two; a few fields of mowing gra.s.s; the heaps of refuse at lead-mines, and our walk derives a pleasurable interest from the hourly change, the bleak, barren, and lonely, for the sheltered, the cultivated, and inhabited. More and more are the hill-sides wavy with gra.s.s as we descend, field after field shut in by stone fences, and the dalesmen are beginning to mow. The time of the hay harvest has come for the mountains: a month later than in the south. How beautifully the bright green contrasts with the dark purple distances, and softens the features of the dale! And as I looked from side to side, or around to the rear, as the fallen road made the hills seem higher, and saw how much Swaledale has in common with a valley of the Alps, I felt that here the desire for mountain scenery might be satisfied; and I found myself watching for the first field of grain with as much interest as I had watched for vines in the Val Mont Joie.

I overtook a party of lead-miners, boys and men, going home from work.

The boys could read; but there was only one of them who really liked reading. "He's a good quiet boy," said the father; "likes to set down wi' his book o' evenin's; t'others says they is tired. He can draw a bit, too; and I'd like well to send'n to a good skule; but I only gets two pounds a month, and that's poor addlings." And one of the young men wished that digging for lead didn't make him so tired, for readin' made him fall asleep, and yet he wanted to get on with his books. "It don't seem right," he added, "that a lad should want a bit o' larnin' and not get it." I said a few words about the value of habit, the steady growth of knowledge from only half an hour's application continued day after day at the same hour, and the many ways of learning offered to us apart from books. The whole party listened with interest, and expressed their thanks when we parted at the hamlet of Stonesdale. The lad thought he'd try. He'd emigrate, only his wage was too low for saving.

If I had the missionary spirit, I would not go to Patagonia or Feejee; but to the out-of-the-way places in my own country, and labour trustfully there to remove some of the evils of ignorance. Any man who should set himself to such a work, thinking not more highly of himself than he ought to think, would be welcomed in every cottage, and become a.s.sured after a while, that many an eye would watch gladly for his coming. One of my first tasks should be to go about and pull up that old pedlar's mischievous tares, and plant instead thereof a practical knowledge of common things.

With unlimited supplies of stone to draw on, the houses of Stonesdale are as rough and solid as if built by Druids. Every door has a porch for protection against storms, and round each window a stripe of whitewash betrays the rudimentary ornamental art of the inmates. A little farther, and coming to the village of Thwaite, I called at the _Joiners' Arms_ for a gla.s.s of ale. The landlord, mistaking my voice for that of one of his friends, came hastily into the kitchen with a jovial greeting, and apparently my being a stranger made no difference, for he sat down and began a hearty talk about business; about his boyhood, when he used to run after the hounds; about his children, and the school down at Muker.

I laughed when he mentioned running after the hounds, for, as I saw him, he was, as Southey has it, "broad in the rear and abdominous in the van." His agility had been a fact, nevertheless. I praised the beer.

That did not surprise him; he brewed it himself, out of malt and hops, too; not out of doctor's stuff. I asked a question about Hawes, to which I was going over the Pa.s.s. "Oh!" said he, "it's terribly fallen off for drink. I used to keep the inn there. A man could get a living in that day by selling drink; but now the Methodists and teetotallers have got in among 'em, and the place is quite ruined." Manifestly my heavy friend looked at the question from the licensed victualler's point of view.

Concerning the school down at Muker, however he was not uncharitable.

'Twas a good school--a church school. There was a chapel of ease there to Grinton. Mr. Lowther did the preaching and looked after the school, and the people liked his teaching and liked his preaching. He brought the children on well, gals as well as the boys; that he did.

If, reader, you should go to Thwaite, and wish to have a chat with a jolly landlord, enquire for Matty John Ned, the name by which he is known in all the country round; remembering what happened in my experience. For when, late in the evening, I intimated to mine host of the _White Hart_ at Hawes that Mr. Edward Alderson had recommended me to his house, he replied, doubtfully, "Alderson--Alderson at Thwaite do you say?"

"Yes, Alderson at Thwaite: a big man."

"O-o-o-o-h! You mean Matty John Ned."

Below Thwaite the dale expands; trees appear; you see Muker about three miles distant, the chief village of Upper Swaledale: still nothing but gra.s.s in the fields; and the same all the way to Reeth, ten miles from Muker. There you would begin to see grain. Not far from Thwaite I turned up a very steep, stony road on the right, which leads over the b.u.t.tertubs Pa.s.s into Wensleydale, and soon could look down on the village, and miles of Swaledale, and the hills beyond. Among those hills are glens and ravines, and many a spot that it would be a pleasure to explore, to say nothing of the lead mines, and the 'gliffs' of primitive manners; and any one who could be content with homely head-quarters at Muker or Thwaite might enjoy a roaming holiday for a week or two. And for lovers of the angle there are trout in the brooks.

The ascent is long as well as steep, and rough withal; but the views repay you every time you pause with more and more of the features of a mountain pa.s.s. There are about it touches of savage grandeur, and the effect of these was heightened at the time I crossed by a deep dark cloud-shadow which overspread a league of the hills, and left the lower range of the dale in full suns.h.i.+ne. For a while the road skirts the edge of a deep glen on the left; it becomes deeper and deeper; there are little fields, and haymakers at work at the bottom; then the slopes change; the heather creeps down; the beck frets and foams, sending its noise upward to your ear; screes and scars intermingle their rugged forms and variations of colour; a waterfall rushes down the crags; and when these have pa.s.sed before your eyes you find yourself on a desolate summit.

More desolate than any of the heights I had yet pa.s.sed over. A broad table-land of turf bogs, coffee-coloured pools, stacks of turf, patches of rushes, and great boulders peeping everywhere out from among the hardy heather. The dark cloud still hung aloft, and the wind blew chill, making me quicken my pace, and feel the more pleasure when, after about half an hour, the view opened into Wensleydale. A valley appears on the right, with colts and cattle grazing on the bright green slopes; the road descends; stone abounds; fences, large gate-posts, all are made of stone; the road gets rougher; and by-and-by we come to Shaw, a little village under Stag Fell, by the side of a wooded glen, from which there rises the music of a mountain brook. On the left you see Lord Wharncliffe's lodge, to which he resorts with his friends on the 12th of August, for the hills around are inhabited by grouse. Yonder the walls and windows of Hawes reflect the setting sun, and we see more of Wensleydale, where trees are numerous in the landscape.

Then another little village, Simonstone, where, pa.s.sing through the public-house by the bridge, we find a path that leads us into a rocky chasm, about ninety feet deep and twice as much in width, the limestone cliffs hung with trees and bushes, here and there a bare crag jutting out, or lying shattered beneath; while, cutting the gra.s.sy floor in two, a lively beck ripples its way along. A bend conceals its source; but we saunter on, and there at the end of the ravine, where the cliffs advance and meet, we see the beck making one leap from top to bottom--and that is Hardraw Scar. The rock overhangs above, hence the water shoots clear of the cliff, and preserves an irregular columnar form, widening at the base with bubbles and spray. You can go behind it, and look through the falling current against the light, and note how it becomes fuller and fuller of lines of beads as it descends, until they all commingle in the flurry below. Dr. Tyndall might make an observatory of this cool nook, the next time he investigates the cause of the noise in falling water, with the advantage of looking forth on the romantic and pleasing scene beyond. The geologist finds in the ravine a suggestive ill.u.s.tration on a small scale of what Niagara with thunderous plunge has been accomplis.h.i.+ng through countless ages--namely, wearing away the solid rock, inch by inch, foot by foot, until in the one instance a river chasm is formed miles in length, and here, in the other, a pretty glen a little more than a furlong deep.

At the time I saw it, the quant.i.ty of water was probably not more than would fill a twelve-inch tube; but after heavy rains the upper stream forms a broad horseshoe fall as it rushes over the curving cliff. In the severe frost of 1740, when the Londoners were holding a fair on the Thames, Hardraw Scar was frozen, and, fed continually from the source above, it became at last a cone of ice, ninety feet in height, and as much in circ.u.mference at the base: a phenomenon that was long remembered by the gossips of the neighbourhood.

Hawes cheats the eye, and seems near, when by the road it is far off. On the way thither from Simonstone we cross the Ure, the river of Wensleydale, a broad and shallow, yet lively stream, infusing a charm into the landscape, which I saw at the right moment, when the evening shadows were creeping from the meadows up the hill-sides, and the water flashed with gold and crimson ripples. I lingered on the bridge till the last gleam vanished.

So grim and savage are the fells at the head of Wensleydale, that the country folk in times past regarded them with superst.i.tious dread, and called the little brooks which there foster the infancy of Ure, 'h.e.l.l-becks'--a name of dread. But both river and dale change their character as they descend, the one flowing through scenes of exquisite beauty ere, united with the Swale, it forms the Ouse; and the dale broadens into the richest and most beautiful of all the North Riding.

CHAPTER XX.

Bainbridge--"If you had wanted a wife"--A Ramble--Millgill Force--Whitfell Force--A Lovely Dell--The Roman Camp--The Forest Horn, and the old Hornblower--Haymaking--A c.o.c.kney Raker --Wensleydale Scythemen--A Friend indeed--Addleborough--Curlews and Grouse--The First Teapot--Nasty Greens--The Prospect-- Askrigg--Bolton Castle--Penhill--Middleham--Miles Coverdale's Birthplace--Jervaux Abbey--Moses's Principia--Nappa Hall--The Metcalfes--The Knight and the King--The Springs--Spoliation of the Druids--The great Cromlech--Legend--An ancient Village-- Simmer Water--An advice for Anglers--More Legends--Counterside --Money-Grubbers--Widdale--Newby Head.

Four miles from Hawes down the dale is the pleasant village of Bainbridge, where the rustic houses, with flower-plots in front and roses climbing on the walls, and yellow stonecrop patching the roofs and fences, look out upon a few n.o.ble sycamores, and a green--a real village green. The hills on each side are lofty and picturesque; at one end, on a flat eminence, remains the site of a Roman camp; the Bain, a small stream coming from a lake some three miles distant, runs through the place in a bed of solid stone, to enter Ure a little below, and all around encroaching here and there up the hill-sides spread meadows of luxuriant gra.s.s. The simple rural beauty will gladden your eye, and--as with every stranger who comes to Bainbridge--win your admiration.

Wensleydale enjoys a reputation for cheese and fat pastures and wealth above the neighbouring dales, and appears to be fully aware of its superiority. The folk, moreover, consider themselves refined, advanced in civilization in comparison with the dwellers on the other side of b.u.t.tertubs: those whom we talked with yesterday. "Mr. White, if you had wanted a wife, do you think you could choose one out of Swaledale?" was the question put to me by a strapping village la.s.s before I had been three hours in Bainbridge.

Fortune favoured me. I found here some worthy Quaker friends of mine, who had journeyed from Oxfords.h.i.+re to spend the holidays under the paternal rooftree. It was almost as if I had arrived at home myself; and although I had breakfasted at Hawes, they took it for granted that I would eat a lunch to keep up my strength till dinner-time. They settled a plan which would keep me till the morrow exploring the neighbourhood--a detention by no means to be repined at--and introduced me to a studious young dalesman, the village author, who knew every nook of the hills, every torrent and noteworthy site, and all the legends therewith a.s.sociated for miles round, and who was to be my guide and companion.

Away we rambled across the Ure to a small wooded hollow at the foot of Whitfell, in the hills which shut out Swaledale. It conceals a Hardraw Scar in miniature, shooting from an overhanging ledge of dark shale, in which are numerous fossil sh.e.l.ls. From this we followed the hill upwards to Millgill Force, a higher fall, on another beck, overshadowed by firs and the mountain elm, and which Nature keeps as a shrine approachable only by the active foot and willing heart. Now you must struggle through the tall gra.s.s and tangle on the precipitous sides high among the trees; now stride and scramble over the rocky ma.s.ses in the bed of the stream.

To sit and watch the fall deep under the canopy of leaves, catching glimpses of suns.h.i.+ne and of blue sky above, and to enjoy the delicious coolness, was the luxury of enjoyment. I could have sat for hours.

Wordsworth came here during one of his excursions in Yorks.h.i.+re; and if you wish to know what Millgill Force is, as painted by the pen, even the minute touches, read his description.

But there is yet another--Whitfell Force--higher up, rarely visited, for the hill is steep and the way toilsome. My guide, however, was not less willing to lead than I to follow, and soon we were scrambling through the deepest ravine of all, where the sides, for the most part, afford no footing, not even for a goat, but rise in perpendicular walls, or lean over at the top. Here again the lavish foliage is backed by the dark stiff spines of firs, and every inch of ground, every cranny, all but the impenetrable face of the rock, is hidden by rank gra.s.ses, trailing weeds, climbers, periwinkle, woodbine, and ferns, among which the hart's-tongue throws out its large drooping cl.u.s.ters of graceful fronds.

For greater part of the way we had to keep the bed of the stream; now squeezing ourselves between mighty lumps of limestone that nearly barred the pa.s.sage, so that the stream itself could not get through without a struggle; now climbing painfully over where the crevices were too narrow; now zigzagging from side to side wherever the big stones afforded foothold, not without slips and splashes that multiplied our excitement; now pausing on a broad slab to admire the narrowing chasm and all its exquisite greenery. My companion pointed out a crystal pool in which he sometimes bathed--a bath that Naiads themselves might envy.

In this way we came at length to a semicircular opening, and saw the fall tumbling from crag to crag for sixty feet, and dispersing itself into a confused shower before it fell into the channel beneath. We both sat for a while without speaking, listening to the cool splash and busy gurgle as the water began its race down the hill; and, for my part, I felt that fatigue and labour were well repaid by the sight of so lovely a dell.

Then by other paths we returned to the village, and mounted to the flat-topped gra.s.sy mound, which Professor Phillips says, is an ancient gravel heap deposited by the action of water. The Romans, taking advantage of the site, levelled it, and established thereon a small camp. A statue and inscription and some other relics have been found, showing that in this remote spot, miles distant from their main highway, the conquerors had a military station, finding it no doubt troublesome to keep the dalesmen of their day in order.

Then we looked at a very, very old millstone, which now stands on its edge at the corner of a cottage doing motionless duty as one end of a kennel. The dog creeps in through the hole in the middle. There it stands, an unsatisfactory antique, for no one knows anything about it.

Of two others, however, which we next saw, something is known--the old horn and the old hornblower. Bainbridge was chief place of the forest of Wensleydale--of which the Duke of Leeds is now Her Majesty's Ranger, and at the same time hereditary Constable and Lord of Middleham Castle--and from time immemorial the "forest horn" has been blown on the green, every night at ten o'clock, from the end of September to Shrovetide, and it is blown still; for are not ancient customs all but immortal in our country? The stiff-jointed graybeard hearing that a curious stranger wished to look at the instrument, brought it forth. It is literally a horn--a large ox-horn, lengthened by a hoop of now rusty tin, to make up for the pieces which some time or other had been broken from its mouth. He himself had put on the tin years ago. Of course I was invited to blow a blast, and of course failed. My companion, however, could make it speak l.u.s.tily; but the old man did best, and blew a long-sustained note, which proved him to be as good an economist of breath as a pearl-diver. For years had he thus blown, and his father before him. I could not help thinking of the olden time ere roads were made, and of belated travellers saved from peris.h.i.+ng in the snow by that nightly signal.

Now it was tea-time, and we had tea served after the Wensleydale manner--plain cakes and currant cakes, cakes hot and cold, and b.u.t.ter and cheese at discretion, with liberty to call for anything else that you like; and the more you eat and drink, the more will you rise in the esteem of your hospitable entertainers. And after that I went down to the hay-field, for it was a large field, and the farmer longed to get the hay all housed before sunset. They don't carry hay in the dales, they 'lead' it; and the two boys from Oxfords.h.i.+re were not a little proud in having the 'leading' a.s.signed to them, seeing that they had nothing to do but ride the horse that drew the hay-sledge to and fro between the barn and the 'wind-rows.' Another difference is, that forks are not used except to pitch the hay from the sledge to the barn, all the rest--turning the swath, making into c.o.c.ks--is done with the rake and by hand. So I took a rake, and beginning at one side of the field at the same time with an old hand, worked away so stoutly, that he had much ado to keep ahead of me. And so it went on, all hands working as if there were no such thing as weariness, load after load slipping away to the barn; and I unconsciously growing meritorious. "You're the first c.o.c.kney I ever saw," said the stalwart farmer, "that knew how to handle a rake." Had I stayed with him a week, he would have discovered other of my capabilities equally praiseworthy. We should have accomplished the task and cleared the field; but a black cloud rose in the west, and soon sent down a heavy shower, and compelled us to huddle up the remaining rows into c.o.c.ks, and leave them till morning.

Must I confess it? Haymaking with the blithesome la.s.ses in Ulrichsthal is a much more sprightly pastime than haymaking with the Quakers in Wensleydale.

The hay harvest is an exciting time in the dales, for gra.s.s is the only crop, and the cattle have to be fed all through the long months of winter, and sometimes far into the backward spring. Hence every thing depends on the hay being carried and housed in good condition; and many an anxious look is cast at pa.s.sing clouds and distant hill-tops to learn the signs of the weather. The dalesmen are expert in the use of the scythe; and numbers of them, after their own haymaking is over, migrate into Holderness and other grain-growing districts, and mow down the crops, even the wheat-fields, with remarkable celerity.

Many a hand had I to shake the next morning, when the moment came to say farewell. The student would not let me depart alone; he would go with me a few miles, and show me remarkable things by the way; and what was more, he would carry my knapsack. "You will have quite enough of it," he said, "before your travel is over." So I had to let him. We soon diverged from the road and began the ascent of Addleborough (_Edel-burg_,) that n.o.ble hill which rises on the south-east of Bainbridge, rearing its rocky crest to a height of more than fifteen hundred feet. We took the shortest way, climbing the tall fences, struggling through heather, striding across bogs, and disturbing the birds. The curlews began their circling flights above our heads, and the grouse took wing with sudden flutter, eight or ten brace starting from a little patch that, to my inexperience, seemed too small to hide a couple of chickens.

My companion talked as only a dalesman can talk--as one whose whole heart is in his subject. None but a dalesman, he said, could read Wordsworth aright, or really love him. He could talk of the history of the dale, and of the ways of the people. His great-grandmother was the first in Bainbridge who ever had a teapot. When tea first began to be heard of in those parts, a bagman called on an old farmer, and fascinated him so by praising the virtues of the new leaf from China, that with his wife's approval he ordered a 'stean' to begin with. The trader ventured to suggest that a stone of tea would be a costly experiment, and sent them only a pound. Some months afterwards he called again for "money and orders," and asked how the worthy couple liked the tea. "Them was the nastiest greens we ever tasted," was the answer. "The parcel cam' one morning afore dinner, so the missus tied 'em up in a cloth and put 'em into t' pot along wi' t' bacon. But we couldn't abear 'em when they was done; and as for t' broth, we couldn't sup a drop on 't."

Having climbed the last steep slope, we sat down in a recess of the rocky frontlet which the hill bears proudly on its brow, and there, sheltered from the furious wind, surveyed the scene below. We could see across the opposite fells, in places, to the summits on the farther side of Swaledale, and down Wensleydale for miles, and away to the blue range of the Hambleton hills that look into the Vale of York. Bainbridge appears as quiet as if it were taking holiday; yonder, Askrigg twinkles under a thin white veil of smoke; and farther, Bolton Castle--once the prison of the unhappy Queen of Scots--shows its four square towers above a rising wood: all basking in the glorious suns.h.i.+ne. Yet shadows are not wanting. Many a dark shade marks where a glen breaks the hill-sides: some resemble crooked furrows, trimmed here and there with a dull green fringe, the tree-tops peeping out, and by these signs the beck we explored yesterday may be discerned on the opposite fell. Wherever that little patch of wood appears, there we may be sure a waterfall, though all unseen, is joining in the great universal chorus. Ure winds down the dale in many a s.h.i.+ning curve, of which but one is visible between bright green meadow slopes, and belts, and clumps of wood, that broaden with the distance; and all the landscape is studded with the little white squares--the homes of the dalesmen.

Four miles below the stream rushes over great steps of limestone which traverse its bed at Aysgarth Force, and flows onwards past Penhill, the mountain of Wensleydale, overtopping Addleborough by three hundred feet; past Witton Fell and its spring, still known as Diana's Bath; past Leyburn, and its high natural terrace--the Shawl, where the 'Queen's gap'

reminds the visitor once more of Mary riding through surrounded by a watchful escort; past Middleham, where the lordly castle of the King-maker now stands in hopeless ruin, recalling the names of Anne of Warwick, Isabella of Clarence, Edward IV., and his escape from the haughty baron's snare; of Richard of Gloucester, and others who figure in our national history; past Coverdale, the birthplace of that Miles Coverdale whose translation of the Bible will keep his memory green through many a generation, and the site of Coverham Abbey, of which but a few arches now remain. It was built in 1214 for the Premonstratensians, or White Canons, who never wore linen. Where the Cover falls into the Ure, spreads the meadow Ulshaw, the place from which Oswin dismissed his army in 651. Tradition preserves the memory of Hugh de Moreville's seat, though not of the exact site, and thus a.s.sociates the neighbourhood with one of the slayers of Becket. And at East Witton, beyond Coverham, are the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of Jervaux--Jarvis Abbey, as the country folk call it--a relic dating from 1156. Plunderers and the weather had their own way with it until 1805, when the Earl of Aylesbury, to whom the estate belongs, inspired by his steward's discovery of a tesselated pavement, stayed the progress of dilapidation, and had the concealing heaps of gra.s.s-grown rubbish dug away. Old Jenkins, who died in 1670, remembered Jervaux as it stood in its prime: he had shared the dole given by the monks to poor wayfarers. He remembered, too, the mustering of the dalesmen under the banner of the good Lord Scroop of Bolton for the battle of Flodden, when

"With him did wend all Wensleydale From Morton unto Morsdale moor; All they that dwell by the banks of Swale With him were bent in harness stour."

At Spennithorne, a village over against Coverham, were born John Hutchinson, the opponent of Newton, and Hatfield the crazy, who fired at George III. The philosopher--who was a yeoman's son--made some stir in his day by publis.h.i.+ng _Moses's Principia_, in opposition to Sir Isaac's, and by his collection of fossils, out of which he contrived arguments against geologists. This collection was bequeathed to Dr. Woodward, and eventually became part of the museum in the University of Cambridge.