Southern Branch 
 of the 
 
 University of California 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 Form L-l 
 
 DA 
 625 
 R43
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 ,'JUN !&/ 
 j 1939' 
 
 
 1 l.".(-8,'2
 
 In the 
 Land of Lorna Doone 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 PLEASURABLE EXCURSIONS 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM H. RIDEING 
 AUTHOR OF " THACKERAY'S LONDON," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK : 46 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET 
 
 THOMAS V. CROW ELL & COMPANY 
 BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
 BY T. Y. CROWBLL & COMPANY. 
 
 TYPOGRAPHY BY C. J. PETERS fc SON. 
 BOSTON.
 
 :PA 
 
 G2.5 
 "X43 
 
 To my Companion on the longest 
 journey of all, 
 
 M. E. R. 
 
 April, /SftJ.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE .... i 
 
 IN CORNWALL WITH AN UMBRELLA ... 23 
 
 COACHING TRIPS OUT OF LONDON .... 73 
 
 A BIT OF THE YORKSHIRE COAST .... 99 
 
 AMY ROBSART, KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK 143
 
 In the Land of Lorna Doone. 
 
 i O ^ "7 
 / i it / 
 
 IT is a very beautiful and romantic 
 coast, this of Somerset and North 
 Devon, with the Bristol Channel flowing 
 between it and the vapory hills and 
 shores of South Wales. From desolate 
 moorlands it drops into the sea by crags 
 and precipices of red and yellow rock, 
 sandstone, and granite, with here and 
 there a narrow sandy or shingly beach, 
 which appears or disappears as the tide 
 comes in or ebbs. Seen from the sea, 
 without a closer acquaintance, it seems 
 to fall inland in softly rolling valleys, high 
 enough for the clouds to rest upon them, 
 but easy of passage, billowed in tran- 
 quillizing curves, peaceful and arable. 
 
 There is no wilder country in England, 
 however, than this. It is all moorland, 
 i
 
 2 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 wild, uncultivated, solitary; open to all 
 the winds that blow; clothed with only 
 gorse and heather and bracken, or clumps 
 of scrub oaks and dwarf pines, in which 
 the wild deer still finds shelter and mul- 
 tiplies. A good part of it is Exmoor, 
 and what is not Exmoor is like Exmoor. 
 Pitiful the plight of the wayfarer who 
 thinks it is as easy to cross afoot as it 
 looks ! He sees from the coast nothing 
 between him and the horizon but one 
 shallow basin after another, with barely 
 a ridge between them ; no steep hills to 
 climb, or gullies to descend; a comfort- 
 able farmhouse, or a cluster of cottages, 
 appears, perhaps, in the lap of one of 
 the valleys. He is spent before he is 
 undeceived. The wild moorland falls 
 away everywhere into dark and difficult 
 ravines ; and the cottages, instead of 
 lying in a vale, are on a cliff with a long 
 descent to the opposite slope. There 
 are few levels on Exmoor, few grades 
 that do not drag the breath out of us.
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 3 
 
 It is uphill and downhill all the way to 
 Lynmouth, whether we come from Barn- 
 stable, Minehead, or Dulverton ; most so 
 from Barnstable, least so from Minehead. 
 
 And the wonderful thing is some- 
 thing unanticipated when one sees the 
 \/ blackness and desolation of the moor- 
 land that while the uplands are so 
 austere, all the valleys, or most of them, 
 especially where they are narrowest, sup- 
 port a vegetation of a richness unsur- 
 passed even in England. Here you will 
 find the hydrangeas growing in colors 
 never seen before; roses climbing up 
 porch and lattice ; the fuchsia as high 
 as the chimneys, and raining like the 
 thorns of Calvary ; myrtle and laurel, 
 and hedgerows that are nothing but 
 solid banks of flower and leaf. 
 
 To come from above is like exploring 
 a nature harsh on the surface, but warm 
 and generous at heart. These combes 
 are cut and threaded by the greenest 
 lanes, in which wild flowers follow the
 
 4 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 march of the months with such response 
 to the soft rains and velvety airs that 
 they outlast their due season. Here you 
 will find well-kept homesteads, a pastoral 
 life, meadows, and orchards in which 
 the fruit, if not showy, is full of flavor 
 and sweetness. There is not a prettier 
 glen in England than Glen Lynn, and no 
 brook makes sweeter music than Bren- 
 don Water ; and Porlock, with its white, 
 thatched, brier-covered cottages (even 
 the village bank is thatched and covered 
 with vines at Porlock), is an unspoiled 
 vestige of the golden age when rafters 
 were low and hearths were wide. 
 
 But look skyward from the combe, and 
 all is verdure, and you see the foliage 
 cease before the upper edge of the slope 
 is reached ; a shelving rock crops out as 
 if it would tumble into the valley, and 
 higher than that is the heather ; a mile 
 or so away the deceptive moorland is 
 seamed with another "goyal," or glen, 
 or combe.
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 5 
 
 \f 
 
 All readers of " Lorna Doone " will 
 
 remember that Plover's Barrows Farm 
 was amid scenes like these. " All above 
 is strong, dark mountain, spread with 
 heath and desolate, but near our house 
 the valleys cave and open warmth and 
 shelter. Here are trees, and bright 
 green grass, and orchards full of con- 
 tentment, and a man may scarce espy 
 the brook, although he hears it every- 
 where. And indeed a good stout piece 
 of it comes through our farmyard, and 
 swells sometimes to a rush of waves, 
 when the clouds are on the hilltops. 
 But all below, where the valley bends, 
 and the Lynn stream goes along with it, 
 pretty meadows slope their breast, and 
 the sun spreads on the water." 
 ^ Every one who comes here brings Mr. 
 Blackmore's romance with him, and this 
 part of Devon is as often called " The 
 Land of Lorna Doone " as by its proper 
 name. Along the coast are Minehead, 
 Porlock, Glenthorne, Lynton, and Lyn-
 
 6 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 mouth, Ley Abbey, and the Valley of 
 Rocks, all scenes in the story. A few 
 miles inland we find Oare, where Plover's 
 Barrows was ; the Doone Valley, in which 
 the outlaws had their stronghold ; Badge- 
 worthy Water and the Waterslide, up 
 which John Ridd climbed with so much 
 difficulty. On the other side of Exmoor 
 are Dulverton, where Reuben Hucka- 
 back prospered under the sign of the 
 " Gartered Kitten," "an honest hosier 
 and draper, serge and long-cloth ware- 
 houseman," as he described himself 
 when the Doones robbed him and set 
 him adrift on the moor, strapped, like 
 Mazeppa, along the spine of a wild 
 pony ; North Molton, where a man of 
 great renown, Tom Faggus the High- 
 wayman, was born; and Tiverton, the 
 chief boast of which used to be its 
 worthy grammar school, founded and 
 endowed in 1604 by " Master Peter 
 Blundell, of that place, clothier." 
 These are no trifling matters to read-
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. / 
 
 ers of the romance, though local histo- 
 ries and gazetteers may not take note of 
 them. They are the verities ; while the 
 family histories of Sir John This and 
 Squire That, with their stag-hunting, and 
 squabbles, and hard drinking, fade out 
 of sight. It is not too much to say that 
 of all that has been written about this 
 part of Devon, nothing possesses us 
 more than Mr. Blackmore's story; and 
 the steady march of history through so- 
 cial and political changes has left no 
 footprints which are scanned with the 
 same interest as those of the characters 
 in the romance. 
 
 Blundell's is at Tiverton still, though 
 changed in its habitation, and they had 
 a Greek play there the other day ; they 
 have more of the classics than knuckles 
 now, but as Exmoor is uncrossed by the 
 railway, which is so destructive of an- 
 cient things, innovation has displaced 
 less there than in other parts of the 
 country N To reach Porlock, Oare, Lyn-
 
 8 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 mouth, or Lynton, we must travel by 
 coach ; and though the distance from 
 London is less than two hundred and 
 fifty miles, the journey takes a day. The 
 roads are hilly and solitary, but in good 
 condition ; too good to satisfy the im- 
 agination, which would welcome as a 
 novelty, in these pampered days, such 
 vicissitudes as John Ridd and John Fry 
 met on their way from Tiverton to Oare, 
 the sloughs in which the horses sank 
 to the withers, the gibbets with their 
 grewsome pendants, and which were the 
 only guideposts to reassure the traveller 
 groping his way through the fog. 
 
 "Then there came a mellow noise, 
 very low and mournsome ; not a sound 
 to be afraid of, but to long to know the 
 meaning of, with a soft rise of the hair. 
 Three times it came and went, as the 
 shaking of a thread might pass away 
 into the distance, and then I touched 
 John Fry, to know that there was some- 
 thing near me ; " so writes John Ridd.
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 9 
 
 " ' Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan ! Vaine 
 moozick as iver I 'eer ! God bless the 
 man as made un do it.' 
 
 " ' Have they hanged one of the 
 Doones, then, John?' 
 
 " ' Hush, lad ; niver talk laike o' thiccy. 
 Hang a Doone ! Hang a Doone ! God 
 knows, it's the King would hang pretty 
 quick if her did.' 
 
 " ' Then who is it in the chains, John ? ' 
 
 " I felt my spirits rise as I asked, for 
 now I had crossed Exmoor so often as 
 to hope that the people sometimes de- 
 served it, and think that it might be a 
 lesson to the rogues who unjustly loved 
 the mutton they were never born to." 
 V' We also miss the excitement (a very 
 pleasurable excitement it must have been, 
 unless the literature of the highwayman 
 cannot be believed) of falling in with any 
 knight of the road, such as the ingenious 
 Tom Faggus, and seeing him gallop off, 
 cocked hat in hand, an epigramjon his 
 lips, and our watch in his pocket. I There
 
 IO IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 are no highwaymen on Exmoor ; but let 
 all travellers beware of " The Carnarvon 
 Arms " at Dulverton. 
 v ~The moor is wild and vacant enough, 
 however ; and he who loves solitude may 
 have his fill of it, if he keeps out of a few 
 beaten paths, like the Doone Valley. As 
 far as he can see, nothing appears to him 
 but the moor, swelling with the softest 
 curves, and dressed with heather, gorse, 
 and the trembling plumes of bracken; 
 the sprinkled gold of the gorse is lost 
 sight of in the rich flood of purple 
 heather, but the scent of both is blown 
 through the air by the sea wind ; for the 
 moor ends on its northern edge in a 
 wall of cliffs. White mountains of clouds 
 float over him ; he hears the bleating of 
 sheep, and sees the gulls circling from 
 the shelves of the precipice. He may 
 have all this world to himself, day after 
 day, and thus be nursed by the wind and 
 the clouds. Nothing will break his iso- 
 lation but the bark of a collie, or, towards
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 1 1 
 
 evening, the chatter of some fruit-gath- 
 erers, who are going home with baskets 
 of blackberries and whortleberries. 
 
 Evening is the time of all times to see 
 the beauties of the moor. The light 
 steals quickly out of the combes, and 
 leaves them in abysses of shadow : their 
 depths increase, and the crests of the 
 land look like islands raised above their 
 purple gulfs. As the sun descends, a 
 shining causeway opens to it a mis- 
 leading pathway of shimmering light, 
 which seems to be too high for the sea. 
 It is a sunburst from a cloud, we say ; 
 it cannot be the sea. But then a fleck 
 crosses it, a darkened sail, and we know 
 that it is the sea, after all, spreading out 
 hundreds of feet below us, beyond the 
 farthest headland, beyond Highveer 
 Point, Great Hangman, and Little Hang- 
 man, all of them of good height, though 
 inferior to Dunkery Beacon, which is the 
 highest point of Exmoor. 
 
 One other sound, besides the wash of
 
 12 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the wave, the rustle of the bracken, the 
 "ah-ah-ah" of the gulls, may chance 
 come over the moorland, a sound that 
 will remind those who hear it of the 
 noise that mystified the inmates of Plo- 
 ver's Barrows Farm, though its cause is 
 not the same. It begins with pulsations, 
 as of the gush of water on soft turf, fol- 
 lowed by the accelerated patter of a 
 heavy rain, and that soon is magnified 
 by the beat of hoofs ; voices become 
 recognizable, though blurred and ob- 
 scured by the more penetrating yelp of 
 hounds and the thumping breathing of 
 horses. The caves of the sea have let 
 loose upon our quietude an army of de- 
 struction, but it passes us with its goad- 
 ings and strainings, and leaves us to 
 peace again with explanations in after- 
 thoughts. That any explanation should 
 be needed would probably be as good a 
 joke as could be heard at dinner that 
 night at any country house in the tri- 
 angle between Minehead and Dulverton,
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 13 
 
 and Dulverton and Lynmouth. Who 
 does not know that the oldest family of 
 the neighborhood is that of the wild red 
 deer, who was here before the Conquest, 
 and fostered after the Conquest to such 
 an extent that death or mutilation was 
 the penalty upon any one less than the 
 king who harmed him ? He is protected 
 still, though he is said to be a very de- 
 structive creature, capable of doing 
 much mischief in the field of turnips or 
 of ripe corn. He is such a devil of a 
 fellow that when he is among the turnips 
 he will take only a bite out of each and 
 throw the rest away. So royal an ani- 
 mal, so familiar with the ways of sport, 
 cannot be so ignoble as to complain 
 after so much protection, when there is 
 a " meet " to hunt him down. 
 
 It would be unfair to the reader to let 
 him think that this country is altogether 
 unspoiled by the tourist and all the evils 
 that follow in the tourist's train. "' Large 
 hotels have grown up at Lynton and
 
 14 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Lynmouth, and precarious and dirty ex- 
 cursion boats I bring " cheap-trippers " 
 from Swansea, Cardiff, and Bristol, 
 only a few, however, compared with the 
 crowds who go to Ilfracombe. The water 
 is too shallow for the steamers to come 
 alongside the jetty, and even in good 
 weather the landing can be made only in 
 small boats. In some tides and winds 
 these do not dare to put out ; and those 
 of the trippers who have meant to land 
 here are carried on to Ilfracombe, which 
 is noisy enough to suit them better. 
 ^ But though the " twin sisters," as Lyn- 
 ton and Lynmouth are called, have not 
 wholly escaped the vanities of changing 
 fashions, they have lost but little of their 
 quietude and beauty. The distance be- 
 tween them is height, alone : Lynton is 
 at the head of the same cliff under which 
 Lynmouth lies in a winding little street, 
 with the East Lynn and the West Lynn 
 flowing into it out of thickly wooded 
 combes and dancing together over
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 15 
 
 bowlders into the sea. Everywhere be- 
 hind us rise cliffs and hills, heather-clad 
 on the tops, which roll away on to the 
 moorland, but on the lower slopes man- 
 tled with a luxuriant foliage, which de- 
 scends until it is bathed with the salt 
 spray. Wherever there is a clearing, it 
 is a garden overflowing with color; 
 wherever there is a wall, some vine has 
 taken fond possession of it and wrapped 
 it up. Reaching down to the entrance 
 of the little harbor (a harbor large 
 enough only for smacks), are strings of 
 ancient cottages, pink, pale blue, and 
 yellow, with thatched roofs and leaded 
 casements, and roses, fuchsias, and ivy 
 climbing over them. Some of them 
 face the street, with gardens choked up 
 with geraniums, hollyhocks, marigolds, 
 sweet-williams, sweet pease, and sun- 
 flowers, and in the rear hang over the 
 stream, with little tropical balconies, 
 and stairs to the water's edge.- An el- 
 bow of sea-wall, with an old tower at
 
 l6 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the end of it, shelters a smack or two, 
 glossy as a porpoise with a pellicle of 
 coat upon coat of tar, and beyond that 
 the breakers rush in and roar over a 
 floor of loose, tumbled bowlders. Sit 
 you down there on the parapet and lis- 
 ten to the gulls as they take their pro- 
 testing chickens farther and farther out 
 and nearer to the voluminous white 
 clouds that follow the south-west wind 
 across the channel like smoke from vol- 
 canic explosions. The splash of the 
 rivers is like a minor chord woven 
 through the sombre harmony of the surf, 
 and the land-birds are still audible along 
 the shore ; the air has lost its sting since 
 it came down from the moor, and has 
 picked up in the gardens other scents 
 besides heather. Sit you down here, 
 and be silent and content ; or, if you will 
 have conversation, there is a fisherman 
 with a beard of gold and a face of fire : 
 he is always propped in his blue Guern- 
 sey shirt against the sea-wall, he or his
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. I? 
 
 mate, who has knowledge of the same 
 things, no more and no less. 
 
 It was on a walk to Lynton from 
 Stoweyy by the way, that the ancient 
 mariner appeared in a vision to Words- 
 worth and Coleridge ; and the same pair 
 of poets had selected the Valley of 
 Rocks above as the scene of " The 
 Wanderings of Cain." 
 V There are more shops and houses at 
 Lynton than at Lynmouth, and nothing 
 to compare with the lovely old harbor; 
 but just to the westward of the town 
 lie the Valley of Rocks and the Devil's 
 Cheese Wring, under which was the den 
 of the old witch, Mother Melldrum. The 
 valley is a sloping trough on the inner 
 side of the cliffs, which rise to a great 
 height along this part of the coast. On 
 one side of it there is a fairly smooth 
 hill, clothed with bracken, gorse, and 
 heather; but on the other, huge bare 
 rocks are piled up in shattered masses, 
 and edge the sky in a crocketed line
 
 1 8 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 much more savage than the crests of 
 the moors, which usually have a long, 
 curved, reposeful sweep. The mouth of 
 the valley opens on leagues of promon- 
 tories, with bays between, Wringcliff 
 Bay, Ley Bay, and Heddon's Mouth ; 
 but set in the middle of it, like a fang, 
 is a sharp, dark gray peak, with caverns 
 and a chafing ring of surf around its 
 base. This is Castle Rock ; and directly 
 opposite to it, on the smoother slope of 
 the valley, the Cheese Wring stands, 
 slab upon slab, as though placed there by 
 the derrick of a mason. A mile farther 
 along the coast, Duty Point is pushed 
 out into the sea, and under its shoulder 
 is Ley Abbey, which in John Ridd's 
 time was the haunt of smugglers. " But 
 De Whichchalse, our great magistrate, 
 certified that there was no proof of un- 
 lawful importation, neither good cause 
 to suspect it, at a time of Christian 
 charity ; and we knew that it was a foul 
 thing for some quarrymen to say that
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 19 
 
 night after night they' had been digging 
 a new cellar at Ley Manor to hold the 
 little marks of respect found in the 
 caverns at high-water weed." 
 v/frearly everywhere in the neighbor- 
 hood there is something to remind us of 
 Lorna Doone and John Ridd. The vis- 
 itors go forth in the morning, book in 
 hand, and make it the gospel for the 
 day. They climb the Foreland at Count- 
 isbury, explore the caves at Ley Abbey, 
 and try to construct hollows in the 
 Cheese Wring to hold a witch. In the 
 churchyards they find more than one 
 John Fry and John Ridd sleeping in 
 sight of the moor and sea ; though there 
 is no John Ridd at Oare, and no farm 
 called Plover's Barrows. But Oare it- 
 self can have changed very little, and 
 answers to the novelist's description. 
 The little church, which could hardly 
 hold more than a score of parishioners, 
 and has no need to, is hidden from the 
 road by lofty trees, in which the nests
 
 2O IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of rooks look like a dark fruit, and over 
 one corner of the churchyard a gnarled 
 ash knots itself, suggesting an antiquity 
 fully as remote as that of the great 
 winter described by Mr. Blackmore. 
 Nicholas Snowe still lives in the parish ; 
 and less than two miles away from Oare 
 the Badgeworthy Water rushes down 
 under the old bridge at Malmsmead, 
 and we stand at the portals of the 
 Doone Valley, holding our breath in 
 anticipation of the chasms, the sombre 
 crags, the sinister bogs, and the treach- 
 erous " Waterslide " that we are to see. 
 But there will be disappointment and 
 chagrin here, unless the reader who fol- 
 lows in our footsteps grants to the 
 romancer the same license in description 
 that he has in his characters. Is Mr. 
 Blackmore's imagination to have no play 
 at all ? Is he to be considered as a 
 pedagogue with a primer of geography 
 in his hand ? or a surveyor with a link 
 and chain and a theodolite, setting down
 
 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 21 
 
 boundaries and dimensions to the frac- 
 tion of an inch ? Those who take him 
 in that sense explore the Doone Valley 
 without seeing its beauties, and come 
 out of it sore from unrewarded efforts to 
 put a rainbow in a bottle. 
 
 The valley is bare and wild, and near! 
 the upper end are several mounds, which 
 are said to mark the location of the 
 Doone huts ; but the scenery is less 
 stupendous than that of the Valley of 
 Rocks, or of many ravines in the course 
 of the East Lynn. One agrees with 
 Reuben Huckaback, that it is a poor 
 place for an ambuscade. Then the 
 " Waterslide," what if it is not appall- 
 ing, and that it is not more than a few 
 inches deep ? It is very pretty, and the 
 way the stream seems to gelatinate over 
 a dark slab in its course is very curious. 
 There is enough resemblance to the 
 description to justify the theory that Mr. 
 Blackmore sat here one day wanting a 
 scene for John Ridd's adventure, and
 
 22 IN THE LAND OF LORNA DOONE. 
 
 that forthwith, in obedience to his magic 
 powers, everything in the glen became 
 magnified a hundred times. He cannot 
 remember whether he did or not, and 
 memory is not a part of the art of 
 fiction. All that he will say lies in a 
 note now before me : " I could hardly 
 tell with long attempts at memory 
 whence and how I picked up the odds 
 and ends, some of which came from my 
 grandfather (rector of Oare), circa 1790, 
 and later. I know not how early, or how 
 late, for he never lived there, but rode 
 across the moors to give them a sermon 
 every other Sunday. And when he 
 became too old for that my uncle used 
 to do it for him."
 
 In Cornwall with an Umbrella. 
 
 TITTLE is left of imaginative simpli- 
 I j city in the English peasantry. The 
 smock-frock is a thing of antiquity ; the 
 insular capacity for wonderment that 
 made any stranger an object of atten- 
 tion in the small villages has vanished 
 in the light which comes from common 
 schools and newspapers an illumina- 
 tion which often leaves an irreverent 
 and prosaic acuteness in place of the 
 more interesting, if also more deplor- 
 able, credulity of ignorance. England 
 is still picturesque in the calm spirit of 
 its life and in its beautiful landscape, 
 but its rustics have lost most of that 
 oddity of character which made them 
 seem belated in contrast with the know- 
 ingness of American villages twenty 
 23
 
 24 IN CORNWALL 
 
 years ago. The bicyclist and pedestrian 
 have invaded every corner, and have 
 communicated some sort of enlighten- 
 ment where they have sojourned. The 
 old inns have modern appliances ; and at 
 some time or other many of the people, 
 taking advantage of "excursions," have 
 felt the disillusionment and expansive 
 influence of London. 
 
 This superstitious and crude simpli- 
 city of character was preserved in Corn- 
 wall longer than in any other county. 
 For centuries its geographical position 
 discouraged intruders. The Celtic pop- 
 ulation held to its primitive language, 
 and little new blood was introduced to 
 ameliorate its austere and difficult tem- 
 perament. From the period when the 
 Phoenicians came to Cassiterides, like 
 importunate creditors, for tin, and the 
 Druids practised their ceremonial and 
 picturesque hypocrisies, this wild terri- 
 tory, girt by the sea on all its boun- 
 daries except the north-east, was fertile 
 in legend and witchcraft.
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 2$ 
 
 The nursery Jack who killed the giant 
 Cormoran was born at Land's End. 
 King Arthur hovered above the western 
 coast in the form of a bird. The " evil- 
 eye " worked its spells, and was recog- 
 nized by the peculiar form of the ball, 
 which was sometimes clear and lustrous, 
 and at other times covered with a filmy 
 gauze ; or the pupil was ringed twice. 
 Any one afflicted by the malevolent 
 glance could relieve himself by bringing 
 away a piece of bread from the hands 
 of the priest at sacrament, and carrying 
 it round the church a certain number of 
 times at midnight. He was then met 
 by a big venomous toad, gaping and 
 gasping ; and when he put the bread into 
 the reptile's mouth, it breathed upon 
 him three times, and thenceforth the 
 evil-eye could not have any influence 
 upon him. Whistling brought a gentle 
 breeze to the farmer when winnowing 
 his corn, and a favorable wind to the 
 sailor. There were phantom ships and 
 spirits in the storm-clouds.
 
 26 IN CORNWALL 
 
 The pixies were sociable, though dis- 
 posed to be mischievous ; they appeared 
 on the hearth-stones unexpectedly, and 
 disappeared as suddenly through the 
 key-holes, without exciting any alarm. 
 They were conciliated by amiability and 
 courage. A farmer's boy was once sent 
 from Portallow to a neighboring village 
 for some household necessaries ; and on 
 his way home, when it was dark, he 
 heard a voice saying, "I'm for Por- 
 tallow Green." " As you are going my 
 way," thought he, " I may as well have 
 your company ; " and he too cried, " I'm 
 for Portallow Green." Instantly he 
 found himself on the Green, surrounded 
 by a throng of little laughing pixies, 
 who now cried, " I'm for Seaton Beach," 
 a place between Looe and Plymouth, 
 several miles distant. Instead of trying 
 to escape from them, however, the boy 
 rejoined, " I'm for Seaton Beach ; " and 
 in another moment he was whisked off 
 to Seaton, where the pixies danced
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 2? 
 
 around him until the cry was changed 
 to, "I'm for the King of France's cel- 
 lar." He offered no objection to even 
 so long a journey as this. " I'm for 
 the King of France's cellar," cried the 
 adventurous youth, as he dropped his 
 parcel on the beach, not far from the 
 edge of the tide. Immediately he found 
 himself in a spacious cellar, tasting the 
 finest wines. The pixies then took him 
 through rooms fitted up with a splendor 
 that quite dazzled him, and in one of 
 the halls the tables were spread for a 
 feast. Though in the main an honest 
 lad, he could not resist the temptation 
 to take away some memorial of his 
 travels, and he pocketed one of the sil- 
 ver goblets. "I'm for Seaton Beach," 
 once more cried the pixies ; and he hav- 
 ing repeated the words, they bore him 
 with them, and reached the place in 
 time to save his parcel from the flowing 
 tide. The next destination was Por- 
 tallow, where they left him to deliver
 
 28 IN CORNWALL 
 
 his parcel to his mistress, who compli- 
 mented him on his despatch. "You'd 
 say so, if you only know'd where I've 
 been. I've been with the pixies to 
 Seaton Beach, and I've been to the 
 King of France's house, and all in five 
 minutes." The farmer said he was 
 " mazed " mad. " I thought you'd 
 say I was mazed," answered the lad, 
 " so I brought away this mug to show 
 vor it," producing the goblet, which 
 secured credence for his story, and be- 
 came the heirloom of many generations. 
 If the pixies have survived these ra- 
 tionalistic times, it seems most likely to 
 be in this country of Druidical remains, 
 of massive cairns, and of "logging" 
 stones, whose ponderous bulk sways at 
 the touch of a woman's hand, while re- 
 sisting any more violent disturbance. 
 Cornwall was one of the last of the 
 counties to admit a railway, and the 
 Falmouth coach still maintained its 
 glory when the others lay dismantled
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 2Q 
 
 in their stable-yards. But that era is 
 past; and now, with a purse and an 
 umbrella, a tourist may see a good deal 
 of Cornwall without inconvenience as to 
 conveyance, though it is probable that 
 both the umbrella and the money, unless 
 the latter exceed twenty pounds, will be 
 exhausted in less than two weeks. 
 
 An umbrella is essential in Cornwall. 
 That mild equability of climate which it 
 has been said would lead a Spaniard to 
 suppose that there was no summer, a 
 Canadian that there was no winter, and 
 an American that the sun never shines, 
 is attended by frequent rains at all sea- 
 sons ; and unless the visitor is prepared 
 to be content for days together with a 
 steady falling rain, it is more than prob- 
 able that he will be defeated in his 
 sight-seeing. The humidity is constant 
 and general. The moisture in the air 
 holds and reveals the colors of the light, 
 and often imparts a foreign richness to 
 all physical objects. It seems like an-
 
 3O IN CORNWALL 
 
 other sky than England's, softer and silk- 
 ier. The clouds that fly over have abun- 
 dant signs of rain, even when they pass 
 without emitting it; and the sea that 
 breaks all along the bristling shore pales 
 under constant mists. The vegetation 
 responds to all these benefactions with 
 a luxuriance that covers nearly all 
 things out-of-doors. At many places 
 the crimson drops of the fuchsias hang 
 before the cottage fronts up to the dor- 
 mer windows and wide eaves of the 
 roofs, upon which grows a moss that 
 mixes its green with the dull yellow of 
 the thatch. On the exposed coast the 
 rocks often have a coating of lichens, 
 and the waxy myrtle leaves few walls 
 undraped. 
 
 The geographical form of the county 
 and its climate are very enticing to 
 birds. Every year it is the first land 
 visited and the last quitted by the in- 
 numerable flocks, which, coming from 
 North-western Africa and South-western
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 31 
 
 Europe, spread themselves throughout 
 England during the summer ; and in the 
 winter its comparatively warm climate 
 is sought by many other birds, driven 
 by cold and want of food from various 
 parts of Great Britain. Four hundred 
 birds are recognized as British, and of 
 these two hundred and ninety have been 
 observed in Cornwall. 
 
 The climate is one of the most curious 
 things about Cornwall. The month of 
 January at Penzance is as warm as at 
 Madrid, Florence, and Constantinople, 
 while July is as cool as at St. Peters- 
 burg in that month. The Gulf Stream, 
 that stands off to the west, warms the 
 wind from that direction, and sends it 
 forward to defeat the rigorous blasts 
 from the north-east. But this air that is 
 so kindly in winter is a tyrant in sum- 
 mer, and, as a local writer has prettily 
 said, " rolls in, cloud on cloud, till the 
 sun is obscured by masses of vapor, 
 which day after day no ray of his can
 
 32 IN CORNWALL 
 
 pierce ; then long pendent streams of 
 condensing vapor float over the lan- 
 guishing ears of corn, or descend in 
 heavy rain to retard and injure the har- 
 vest." It is the west wind that makes 
 an umbrella essential in Cornwall ; and 
 we were quite resigned when, sitting in 
 the "Flying Zulu," the fast train that 
 was to carry us from London to Plym- 
 outh, nearly two hundred and fifty miles, 
 in a little more than five hours, we saw 
 the fateful rain streaming down the win- 
 dows of the car. 
 
 Ever since the adventurous Phoeni- 
 cians came to its shores, concealing their 
 destination from their neighbors in order 
 to keep the business to themselves, the 
 chief resource of Cornwall has been its 
 minerals. What Diodorus Siculus said 
 on the subject is a matter of school his- 
 tory, to which we need scarcely refer. 
 The Phoenicians found the traffic profit- 
 able, and spoke well of the people who 
 maintained them in it. After their day
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 33 
 
 the tin was transported to Gaul, and 
 thence on pack-horses to the mouth of 
 the Rhone. The demand for the metal 
 was increased in the sixth and seventh 
 centuries by the fashion of putting bells 
 in the cathedrals and churches of West- 
 ern Europe, and the introduction of can- 
 non added to it. It was found in the 
 several large surfaces of granite which 
 protrude through clay-slate in Cornwall, 
 and it was also procured in small grains 
 and nodules deposited in alluvial sands 
 and gravels. It reached the market in 
 blocks weighing something over three 
 hundred pounds. 
 
 There is no such romance attaching to 
 the mines of Cornwall as that of the 
 Comstock Lode in Nevada, no such hap- 
 hazard speculation, city-building, and 
 fortune-making. It has been under- 
 ground plodding for very little more 
 than the same amount of toil on the 
 surface would bring. A speculation that 
 netted thirty thousand pounds in thirty-
 
 34 IN CORNWALL 
 
 four years demands a note of exclama- 
 tion at the end of the announcement. 
 But as the miners of the Comstock Lode 
 sought for gold, and, in their ignorance, 
 for some years overlooked the greater 
 advantage of mining the superabundant 
 silver, so the miners of Cornwall for cen- 
 turies ignored the deposits of copper in 
 the eagerness to find tin. The copper 
 did not exist in large quantities ; but the 
 deposits were worth mining, though their 
 value was not appreciated until late in 
 the eighteenth century. In 1789 the 
 production of copper ore in Cornwall 
 alone was 33,281 tons, worth ^"184,308; 
 in 1860 it had reached its maximum 
 quantity, 180,883 tons, and its maximum 
 value, ,1,071,063 these figures includ- 
 ing both Devonshire and Cornwall and 
 since then it has gradually declined. All 
 the mining interests of Cornwall are de- 
 cayed. About three-fourths of the mines 
 are suspended or abandoned, and those 
 in operation employ a small number of
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 35 
 
 "hands" at reduced wages. "If you 
 want to see our Cornish miners," we 
 were told, " you must go to Pennsyl- 
 vania, to Lake Superior, to Nevada ; 
 you'll find very few of them in Corn- 
 wall." 
 
 When we pulled up our blinds at Red- 
 ruth one morning, it was a dispiriting 
 view that we opened. Redruth is the 
 mining centre, a small town in the 
 south-western part of the county, two 
 hundred and sixty-one miles from Lon- 
 don. It consists principally of a main 
 street extending up and down a val 
 ley, in a sorry and scarred country, 
 where the chimneys of many mines 
 spring up. As we looked out of the 
 window, a drizzling rain was sifting 
 through a mist which hung over the 
 barren landscape. The earth was not 
 green or wooded. It had a fallow, ex- 
 hausted look, and, except where the 
 chimneys clustered, it was open and 
 wild. When Nature holds treasure be-
 
 36 IN CORNWALL 
 
 neath the surface, she is generally mo- 
 rose in aspect above. A few miles off 
 in the south-west we could see a lofty 
 and isolated hill, crowned with a bleak 
 and castellated building, which stood on 
 the very apex in an attitude of sullen 
 defiance. It seemed to have belonged 
 to the scene as long as the hill itself, 
 a memorial of unnumbered and unre- 
 membered generations. The eminence 
 was Karn Brea, the last hill in England, 
 from which on fair days the sea is visi- 
 ble on three sides of the county. 
 
 The sides are tangled with gorse and 
 withered ferns, and immense granite 
 bowlders are imbedded in patches of 
 fine close grass. The slope is suffi- 
 cient to make the ascent moderately 
 difficult. When it is reached, the house 
 on the summit is found to be neither as 
 large nor as ancient as it appears from 
 a distance ; but proximity to it increases 
 the interest in its architecture. A mass 
 of bowlders is piled up as if with an un-
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 3/ 
 
 finished design. The bowlders are of 
 enormous size, and all sorts of shapes, 
 though usually rounded on the edges and 
 at the corners. They each weigh many 
 tons, and are probably not less than 
 thirty feet in circumference. As their 
 bed is a soft and grassy earth, and as 
 the usual signs of detrition are not ap- 
 parent about them, and their disposition 
 indicates some intelligent purpose, the 
 way by which they have been accumu- 
 lated excites a degree of curiosity which 
 cannot be definitely satisfied. Antiqua- 
 rians associate the hill with the Druids : 
 there are hollows in some of the stones, 
 which, it is imagined, were used in the 
 sacrffices by which the Druids upheld 
 the dignity and efficacy of their rites. 
 A chapel once stood near the summit, 
 and cromlechs have been discovered by 
 excavation. But the chief interest is in 
 the house or castle, which is posed upon 
 a Titanic group of the bowlders, the in- 
 equalities of their surface being rectified
 
 38 IN CORNWALL 
 
 by the insertion of smaller stones ; and 
 though this foundation seems to be in 
 jeopardy with every gale, it has sup- 
 ported its burden at least since the 
 time of Edward IV. The interior has 
 been plastered into shape as a la- 
 borer's dwelling, and has nothing in it 
 to remind one of the age of its shell. 
 "No hand ever put these stones to- 
 gether," said the laborer's wife, as she 
 served us with a cup of tea ; " but water 
 dug and shaped them out," which, all 
 things considered, is the most reason- 
 able hypothesis. 
 
 There is also on the summit a high 
 pillar of granite erected in 1836 to com- 
 memorate a nobleman whose deeds, 
 which are not historic, should have 
 been colossal to justify this monument, 
 which painfully intrudes on every view. 
 
 On all sides of Karn Brea the mines 
 have left their scars, and the excoriated 
 earth has a purple tinge. But there is 
 little movement, little smoke from the
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 39 
 
 high chimneys, and the scaffolding over 
 the disused shafts is like the skeleton 
 of the departed industry. 
 
 Picking our way through the purplish 
 mud and stones below the Karn, we dis- 
 covered a little old woman laboring over 
 a pile of unmilled copper ore. We had 
 to look twice before we could assure 
 ourselves of her sex : not only was her 
 dress perplexing, but there was an un- 
 reality and weirdness in her person. 
 She was very small, almost dwarfish, 
 with bent shoulders and wrinkled hands 
 and face ; her skin had the texture of 
 parchment, and was curiously mottled 
 with blue ; her hair was thin and wiry. 
 She seemed very old ; but her eyes had a 
 shrewd and penetrating quickness, and 
 her movements were utterly without de- 
 crepitude. Indeed, she applied herself 
 to her work with the willing vigor of a 
 strong young man ; and the work con- 
 sisted of shovelling the heavy blocks 
 of ore into a small wagon resting on
 
 4O IN CORNWALL 
 
 a temporary tramway. Shovelful after 
 shovelful was thrown in with an easy 
 muscular swing, and with much more 
 activity than the average "navvy" ever 
 exhibits. Her petticoats ended above 
 the ankle, and were stained with the 
 hue of the copper ore; her shapeless 
 legs were muffled up in woollen wraps, 
 and her feet incased in substantial 
 brogans. She was not apparently un- 
 comfortable bodily ; but her face had 
 in it a look of uncomplaining suffer- 
 ing, of unalterable gravity, of a habitu- 
 ated sorrow which had extinguished all 
 possibility of a smile. Not understand- 
 ing a question which we put to her, she 
 used the words, " Please, sir ? " a form 
 of interrogation which we often heard in 
 the neighborhood of Redruth. "You 
 seem to be old for such hard work," 
 we repeated. " 'Deed, sir, I don't know 
 how old I am, but I've been at it this 
 forty years. I'm not young any longer, 
 that's sure," she answered, in a clear
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 4! 
 
 voice with scarcely any accent. "Are 
 you married ? " " No, sir ; nobody would 
 ever have me," she continued, without 
 relaxing from her gravity or delaying her 
 work for a moment: "nobody would 
 have me or go with me, as I was always 
 subject to fits terrible they are. I 
 still have 'em once or twice a week 
 sometimes, always with a change in the 
 moon." "How do you account for it?" 
 "Why, before my twenty-fourth year I 
 was in the service of a lady, who threw 
 me down-stairs, and that changed my 
 blood; so, when the moon changes, I 
 have the fits. Little can be done for 
 them when the blood's changed." This 
 superstition was a matter of profound 
 faith with her, but otherwise her manner 
 was remarkably intelligent. She told us 
 that her wages were fourteenpence 
 twenty-eight cents a day; and when 
 we unnecessarily said that she must be 
 tired of work at such a price, she an- 
 swered in a bitter tone, " No use being
 
 42 IN CORNWALL 
 
 tired; when you are tired, there's the 
 workhouse for you." 
 
 She had nearly filled the wagon by 
 this time ; and two younger women, 
 dressed as she was, but more vigorous 
 looking, came to help her; and after 
 spitting on their hands, which were as 
 large and as hard as any man's, they 
 applied themselves with shovels to the 
 heap of ore, falling into a machine-like 
 swing of the body as they scooped up 
 the heavy rock. Two men afterward 
 joined them ; and when the wagon was 
 loaded, they propelled it along the track 
 toward the mill, the women sharing the 
 work equally with the men, if, indeed, 
 they did not use even greater exertions. 
 
 The employment of women under- 
 ground is now forbidden by law, the 
 degradation resulting from it having 
 been perceived by English legislators 
 only when it had become flagitious ; but 
 of thirteen thousand persons engaged 
 in the mines, about two thousand are
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 43 
 
 women, who are employed in various 
 parts of the process of dressing the ore. 
 In the simpler operations, very young 
 girls are useful ; and at the mill we found 
 a large number of them the daughters 
 of miners usually some of them pretty, 
 and all of them neatly clothed and intel- 
 ligent, even pert in manner. They can 
 all write ; and they have an appetite for 
 literature of the Adolphus-Adelina sort, 
 which they devour in penny instalments 
 when their work is slack. There was a 
 time within the memory of men not yet 
 old when an English peasant, spoken to 
 by a well-dressed stranger, was com- 
 pletely overcome, and his abashment 
 took the form of paralysis. But the 
 spirit of the age is not favorable to the 
 cultivation of diffidence or reverence ; 
 the travelling stranger is no longer a 
 hero, and no longer embarrassed by 
 gaping attentions. 
 
 Even a learned antiquarian, in allud- 
 ing to the origin of Karn Brea, which
 
 44 IN CORNWALL 
 
 near the summit is a rabbit-warren, and 
 therefore an attractive place to poach- 
 ers, did not think a little jocularity ill- 
 timed in the consideration of so serious 
 a subject. It is most interesting, he said 
 to his audience, which was quite unex- 
 pectant of any approaching levity, to con- 
 template the successive periods through 
 which Cornwall has passed from the 
 early times, when there were native bury- 
 ing-places, to the cromlech period, the 
 cromlechs seeming to have belonged to 
 different races passing to the south ; 
 after the cromlech period, the Karn 
 shows evidences of the Roman period ; 
 then of the early Middle Ages, and of 
 the late Middle Ages. He once found 
 articles of the Roman-British time, and, 
 finally, said this playful savant, he found 
 a ferret bell. 
 
 The artist who shared our umbrella in 
 Cornwall used his sketch-book while we 
 were watching the young women in the 
 mill, and they were not at all discon-
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 45 
 
 certed when they observed him. Though 
 his manner is characterized by a digni- 
 fied reserve discouraging to familiarity, 
 one of these young persons saucily said 
 to her neighbor, " He's going to put you 
 into a panorama ! " 
 
 Except the old woman whose blood had 
 been changed, we did not meet with any 
 one who entertained any sort of supersti- 
 tion, and who did not more or less frus- 
 trate us in our search for the unleavened 
 and old-fashioned simplicity of character 
 which we expected to find in Cornwall. 
 Those to whom we spoke took as an of- 
 fence to their intelligence our insidiously 
 framed questions, which were designed 
 to betray them into a confession of faith 
 in witchcraft. The sufferer from " fits," 
 in the olden time, either went into the 
 churchyard at midnight, and cut from 
 one of the spouts three bits of lead, each 
 about the size of a farthing, or, if it was 
 a young woman, she sat in the church- 
 porch after service, and as the young
 
 46 IN CORNWALL 
 
 men passed, each of them dropped a 
 penny into her lap, until the thirtieth 
 came ; he took up the pence, and substi- 
 tuted half a crown for them ; and with 
 this coin in her hand, she walked three 
 times round the communion table (when 
 she could get the opportunity, which was 
 a matter of some difficulty, as the minis- 
 ter was not friendly to this sort of thing), 
 and afterward had the half-crown made 
 into a ring, which was a charm against 
 the disease. But even the old woman's 
 credulity did not go as far as this ; she 
 used a patent medicine. 
 
 One day, near Land's End, we met a 
 very infirm old man, who had difficulty 
 in dragging one leg after the other, and 
 whose clothes were of an antiquated pat- 
 tern, to which we fancied his ideas might 
 correspond. He was benign and unsus- 
 picious ; it seemed probable that at the 
 extremity of this very much modernized 
 island we had found one individual in 
 whom legend still bloomed, with its roots
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 4/ 
 
 deep down in the imagination. His in- 
 firmity was caused by rheumatism, and 
 the old Cornish cure for this complaint 
 was the bathing of the parts afflicted 
 with water in which a thunder-bolt had 
 been boiled. " What do you do for it ? " 
 we inquired ; and he looked so very sim- 
 ple that we felt sure that' he sought relief 
 by other means than the vulgar nostrums 
 of the chemist's shop. " Well," he said, 
 " it isn't much good doing anything ; 
 but I mostly try Turkish baths and gal- 
 vanism." 
 
 A local poet has written : 
 
 " The world has grown so wise and grand, 
 There's scarce a witch in all the land." 
 
 It is indeed so. Cornwall reminds us 
 of an old castle which has been stripped 
 of its mantle of ivy. The vine may 
 have been poisonous and weakening to 
 the structure, but it was more beautiful 
 to look at than the naked stones. The 
 superstitions of the people may have
 
 48 IN CORNWALL 
 
 been weeds rooted in ignorance, but 
 they were more interesting than the pro- 
 saic and unimaginative condition which 
 their extraction has left. 
 
 We entered the county where the Ta- 
 mar, reaching up to the north from the 
 Channel, separates Cornwall from Dev- 
 onshire at the busy and picturesque 
 city of Plymouth, where war seems to 
 be an ever-present possibility, and red- 
 coats and blue-jackets preponderate on 
 the streets. The trumpets blare all day 
 long, and the vast iron-clads and trans- 
 ports of the navy are constantly passing 
 in and out of the beautiful harbor on im- 
 perial errands. The Sound is an irreg- 
 ular bay, with the city at the head of it, 
 about three miles from the sea. An 
 enemy would be under the cover of guns 
 from all quarters, so well is the harbor 
 fortified ; but in these times of peace 
 the terraced embankments of granite 
 and turf, with bases of spiked black 
 rocks, are inviting to loungers, and the
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 49 
 
 brownest of the Jack Tars lying on the 
 grass has most likely never seen in his 
 large experience of the world a more in- 
 teresting picture than Plymouth Sound 
 with its fleets of war and commerce, its 
 cliffs reaching to Rame Head at the 
 estuary, the long breakwater that shuts 
 out the violence of the storms, and the 
 softly green heights of Mount Edgcombe 
 on the Cornwall shore. 
 
 For several miles up the river we pass 
 along a continuous line of war vessels at 
 anchor, all " in ordinary," dismasted and 
 apparently abandoned : some of them 
 ludicrously deficient in the speed and 
 strength which their names imply, some 
 that look like immense fortresses, and 
 some that are of the latest pattern. The 
 old line-of-battle ships, two and three 
 deckers, the smaller steam-frigates, the 
 early iron-clad propellers, and the com- 
 pact turret ships of recent build, are 
 drawn up between the peaceful banks of 
 the Tamar, even beyond the magnificent
 
 5O IN CORNWALL 
 
 bridge, half a mile long, one hundred 
 and twenty feet above high-water mark, 
 with which the daring genius of Brunei 
 spanned the river some twenty years 
 ago. From underneath the vertical 
 piers the bridge looks like a great 
 screen, so disproportionate is its width 
 to its length and height. It has only 
 one track upon it, and the trains passing 
 over it are reduced in appearance to the 
 size of toys. 
 
 On the summit of the west bank, it 
 touches the village of Saltash, which is 
 built down the hillside to the water's 
 edge, and which is like most other fish- 
 ing villages in Cornwall clean, solidly 
 put together, unornamental, and a whit- 
 ish-gray in color. The deficiency of 
 color is dispiriting to the artist who has 
 come from the contemplation of the 
 more opulent architecture of the Conti- 
 nent. The cottages, one and two stories 
 high, of concrete, brick, and stone, with 
 diamond-paned windows, have been de-
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 51 
 
 signed to shelter, without any other idea 
 than utility. Their white or yellow walls 
 seem to be vertical strata of the indi- 
 genous rock of their foundations. The 
 sashes and the doors are painted black, 
 and the streets are made of gray ma- 
 cadam. What little color there is gains 
 brilliancy from contrast with these quiet 
 surroundings. The verdure is the green- 
 est, and the fuchsias blaze in relief. Up 
 on the hill, with a somewhat disorderly 
 little graveyard enclosing it, is a serious- 
 looking, square-towered church, like 
 many others in Cornwall, of gray sand- 
 stone, well worn by the weather of cen- 
 turies, which has smoothed all the edges. 
 The church is nearly seven hundred 
 years old, the tower older ; and where 
 time has made a gap or a seam, the 
 "restoration" has been effected in the 
 most economical way. The concrete 
 used to fill in has included the frag- 
 ments of the ruined part, and bits of 
 gargoyles and other carved work are
 
 52 IN CORNWALL 
 
 found imbedded in the plaster. Look 
 from the houses to the people there is 
 an infallible correspondence. The men 
 are brown and strong, a little sad, with 
 large frames, but no spare flesh ; and the 
 women, who are grand at the oar, are 
 scarcely their inferiors in physical pro- 
 portions. They are frank and indepen- 
 dent in manner, gathering their living 
 from the sea. There is little vice among 
 them the smart dresses and chubby 
 faces of their children are certain indi- 
 cations of domestic virtue ; but that 
 some of them fall to the besetting sin of 
 the English may be inferred from what 
 we heard one of them say of a neighbor : 
 " He wass as dhrunk as fourty main- 
 tops'l-sheet blocks." 
 
 We went to Liskeard on fair-day, trust- 
 ing that the occasion would bring in 
 some farmers from out-of-the-way places 
 whose character would be more quaint 
 than that which we had so far seen. 
 But Liskeard proved to be grievously
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 53 
 
 intelligent ; and the men who had cattle 
 for sale bore an extraordinary resem- 
 blance to Yankee farmers, with sharp 
 features and wiry beards without whis- 
 kers or mustaches. They were dressed 
 almost exactly alike, and a hat of one 
 pattern was among them all. A chilling 
 wind and a pouring rain did not affect 
 the business or the amusements. A 
 shivering acrobat, whose white cotton 
 tights were wet through, went on with 
 his performance unconcernedly in the 
 mud of the open street ; while a very 
 small and pathetic clown with a pinched 
 face squeaked his well-worn witticisms to 
 an audience under umbrellas and mack- 
 intoshes. One of the poor tumbler's 
 feats was the familiar rope-trick ; and an 
 old farmer, with a face in which cunning 
 and resoluteness were blended in marked 
 proportions, accepted his challenge to 
 tie him up in such a way that he could 
 not release himself. There was no non- 
 sense in the way the old farmer went
 
 54 IN CORNWALL 
 
 about the business. He pursed up his 
 thin blue lips, and never a smile passed 
 over his hard features. Here was the 
 old Puritan witch-burner destroying an 
 impostor, and exulting in merciless jus- 
 tice. He used length after length of the 
 rope ; he pinioned the wrists, bound 
 ankle to ankle, and secured the waist to 
 the neck so that his victim could not 
 move without turning purple in the face. 
 The odds seemed to be wholly against 
 the poor Bohemian, who made unavail- 
 ing objections to the manner of his treat- 
 ment; while the muddy little clown, in 
 the vermilion of whose cheeks the fast- 
 falling rain had left some dingy streaks, 
 endeavored to divert the farmer from his 
 purpose by irritating and even insulting 
 remarks. But the farmer applied him- 
 self undividedly to what he had set 
 about ; and when he had nearly ex- 
 hausted himself, and wholly used up the 
 rope, he contemptuously shoved Jack 
 the acrobat into the centre of the ring
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 55 
 
 which had been formed, and passed 
 without a word into the surrounding 
 crowd. Jack had evidently caught a 
 Tartar : he stood shivering, abject, and 
 dismayed. This was but for a moment, 
 however. Then an involuntary thrill 
 seemed to pass through his body, and 
 the rope fell in a tangled heap at his 
 feet, as the musician of the troupe with 
 pandean pipes and a drum sent up a 
 victorious flourish from his instruments. 
 
 The farmer went off in silent disconv 
 fiture ; but in recognition of the per^ 
 former's skill, the crowd threw many 
 pennies into the ring, and united in the 
 opinion that " A was a stunner, a was." 
 
 The dialect of Cornwall is not difficult 
 to a stranger ; it is much easier to un- 
 derstand than that of Yorkshire or that 
 of Lancashire, and yet many of the 
 words in use in this southernmost county 
 of England are also current in the north, 
 though they are not heard in the inter- 
 mediate country. In general the Ian-
 
 56 IN CORNWALL 
 
 guage is spoken with an accent rather 
 than with any dialect ; and the voice has 
 a rising inflection, which reaches its ex- 
 treme pitch in the last syllable, as in the 
 English spoken by the Welsh. A few 
 provincialisms have survived, however, 
 with which a stranger may be confused. 
 What could be made of such a descrip- 
 tion as this of a child ? " A es a pinni- 
 kin, palchy, an totlin. A es clicky an 
 cloppy, an a kiddles an quaddles ole 
 day. Tes wisht." It means : " He is 
 little, weakly, and imbecile. He is left- 
 handed and lame, and he fidgets idly 
 about all day. It is sad." Some of the 
 local words have an indigenous vigor 
 which immediately becomes apparent 
 when once their meaning is known. 
 Thus, to be " footy " is to be queer, 
 mincing, or affected ; a " letterpatch " is 
 a slovenly person ; to " gaddle " is to 
 drink much and quickly ; to " ruxt " is 
 to be uneasy on a seat ; to " dowst " is to 
 lower away, as the sails of a vessel,
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 57 
 
 or to put out, as a light ; to " flosh " is to 
 spill; an " okum-sniff ey " is a small, com- 
 fortable glass of grog ; and to " samp " 
 is to prolong the drinking of a glass of 
 grog by adding water and spirits to it 
 from time to time without emptying it. 
 While we were at Penzance a high- 
 pressure sermon was delivered against 
 modern unbelief ; and a fisherman who 
 was asked what he thought of the 
 preacher answered, " Aw ! a stunner a 
 was. He es the boy for the inferels. 
 Iss aw iss; and a sent the sances to 
 shivereens too. Es no good for ould 
 Bardarlagh or Darby to come where a 
 es." Which meant : " He's very clever. 
 He is the boy for the infidels ; and he 
 sent the sciences to shivereens also. 
 It's no use for Bradlaugh or Darwin to 
 come where he is." But the dialect is 
 not usually unintelligible ; and a fair ex- 
 ample of it as it is heard to-day, is a 
 speech addressed by an old miner to 
 the late Mr. Tregellas, a well-known
 
 58 IN CORNWALL 
 
 writer and lecturer on Cornish character. 
 " I've heerd, Maaster T'egellas," said the 
 miner, " that you are a-goin' to give a 
 lecture here to-night in the Town Hall ; 
 and I've heerd, too, that you are goin' 
 to say somefin about me. Now, mind 
 what I say. I'll go to thickey lecture, I 
 will ; and ef you diew say anything about 
 me theere, I'll get up in the middle of 
 the congregation, and tell 'em all tes a 
 lie what you said iss I will." Mr. 
 Tregellas did not accept the challenge. 
 
 From Liskeard it is about seven miles 
 to Looe by one of the narrow-gauge rail- 
 ways, which, though built for the mines, 
 and called "mineral roads," are also 
 utilized by passengers. Looe is on the 
 English Channel, near the mouth of a 
 river, occupying both banks, which are 
 so steep that the roof of one house is 
 often on a level with the first floor of 
 the next house on the slope. It has 
 a foreign air. One can almost shake 
 hands from window to window across
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 59 
 
 the streets, which course in an erratic 
 fashion, and end in confusion. There 
 is an old Guildhall, with an ancient pil- 
 lory in the portico ; and there is a long 
 and low dormer-windowed tavern, which 
 from the outside seems to have been 
 hewn out of the rock, so solid is it, and 
 which inside has a great big settle en- 
 closing the fire on three sides, on all 
 of which a numerous company of fisher- 
 men may usually be found smoking in 
 the flickering light, which throws occa- 
 sional flashes of crimson on their faces. 
 The vegetation drapes every wall, myrtle 
 and fuchsias thriving together in a soft 
 and beautiful web. 
 
 When Looe has been left behind, the 
 details of its simple picture are easily 
 recalled : the narrow and quiet little 
 streets ; the hillsides with their loose 
 drapery ; the white cottages with black 
 doors and sashes ; the weather-beaten 
 men in blue " guernseys ; " the deep 
 green river flowing swiftly in from the
 
 6O IN CORNWALL 
 
 stormy Channel ; the cumbrous-looking 
 yawls and sloops and schooners with 
 rusty brown sails, moored alongside the 
 granite quay; The Jolly Sailors, with 
 its picturesque front and offer of enter- 
 tainment ; and old Parsons, the coast- 
 guardsman, constantly parading the sea- 
 wall at the mouth of the harbor, and 
 consulting an oracular telescope, with 
 which he scrutinizes the horizon for im- 
 possible pirates and phantasmal smug- 
 glers. The feeling left by the review is 
 one of the seriousness with which life is 
 taken. Like most people living on the 
 borders of the sea, those of Cornwall 
 have a manner which declares a patient 
 and lasting sorrow. 
 
 Of the three things copper, tin, and 
 fish which Cornwall produces in the 
 greatest abundance, the fish is a source 
 of no little profit ; and when it is plentiful 
 special thanksgiving services are held for 
 it in the churches. It consists principally 
 of pilchards, which are something like a
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 6 1 
 
 small herring palatable when packed 
 in oil, like sardines, as which they are 
 sometimes sold to the unsuspicious pub- 
 lic, and not objectionable when simply 
 salted and broiled, or potted with vin- 
 egar, spices, and bay leaves. The pil- 
 chards are caught with certainty only 
 off the coast of Cornwall, generally 
 toward the end of October ; and in a 
 good season they arrive in such shoals 
 that the advance guard strands on the 
 low beaches through the pressure of 
 those behind. The principal market 
 for them is along the shores of the 
 Mediterranean. It is said that seventy- 
 five millions of them were caught in one 
 day off St. Ives. But such good luck 
 as this is uncommon, and a scarcity of 
 recent years has left many a household 
 in misery. Last season was unfortu- 
 nate, and the gray clouds that hang over 
 the coast reflect the dejection of the 
 people. 
 
 The fishing villages are much alike
 
 62 IN CORNWALL 
 
 Looe, Polperro, Megavissy (where most 
 of the curing is done), and St. Ives. 
 The last is, perhaps, the most interest- 
 ing. It is on the west coast, built in 
 the elbow of a cape, which forms the 
 southern point of a spacious bay reach- 
 ing some miles inland, and bounded by 
 highlands, with a white shelving beach 
 at the foot of the cliffs. The sea washes 
 the back of many of the houses, to the 
 doors of some of which boats are moored ; 
 and at high water in heavy weather it 
 breaks noisily over the graveyard of 
 the bleak little church. A strong gale 
 was blowing from the south-west when 
 we were there, and the harbor was full 
 of coasting-vessels sheltering from the 
 storm. Many of the smaller fishing- 
 boats were drawn up in long black lines 
 on the banks below Tregenna Castle, 
 where they looked like cannon ; the 
 third wreck of the month was falling to 
 pieces on the sands, and another fleet of 
 larger fishing-boats was moored in the
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 63 
 
 western corner of the bay, under the lee 
 of the jetty. On the jetty were a few 
 disconsolate fishermen, looking out in 
 that far-sighted way which those who go 
 to sea have. Their lugubriousness was 
 communicative. One of them told us 
 that they " found " themselves, and were 
 paid fifty shillings a month, with an 
 allowance of one-ninth of the catch 
 divided among each crew. He had 
 just returned from a cruise along the 
 coasts of Ireland and Scotland, and had 
 not even earned his " grub." " Happy 
 bees them as never goes to say," he said, 
 with good reason. 
 
 We had already been to Falmouth, 
 the port of call near the Lizard, where 
 a large portion of the outgoing vessels, 
 trading with Great Britain, bid good-by 
 to the shore, and where the crews of 
 those inward bound feel the permanence 
 and firmness of earth, and satisfy their 
 eyes with the tranquillizing beauty of 
 vegetation for the first time after their
 
 64 IN CORNWALL 
 
 voyages. Outside Pendennis Castle, 
 which guards the mouth of the harbor, 
 a fierce coast, with jagged pinnacles 
 and perpendicular cliffs, lies north and 
 south, and the land appears more for- 
 bidding than the wild sea. But once 
 the castle is passed, Falmouth is gained, 
 and opens its wide arms to the storm- 
 driven vessels. The arms are a geo- 
 graphical fact, and not a figure of speech. 
 The shores of the harbor are so embayed 
 that they are over sixty miles in circum- 
 ference, and it is about thirteen miles 
 by them from Flushing to St. Mawes, 
 though in a bee-line it is not more than 
 three miles. They are grassy and 
 wooded, and a ship's boat can land 
 easily anywhere. Scarcely has the 
 anchor been dropped from a homeward- 
 bound vessel when (the captain being a 
 good fellow) we see the pinnace or the 
 cutter lowered away, and a part of the 
 crew put off to rejoice like children in 
 the fragrance of the earth. You meet
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 65 
 
 them in the fields beyond Flushing 
 browned to an aboriginal hue, with 
 clothes stained and torn by tar and 
 weather and it is affecting to see 
 their gladness in once more touching 
 a leaf or a bough. 
 
 If it had been a wind-sail rigged in 
 the Southern Ocean to receive every 
 breath of air, Mount's Bay, in which 
 Penzance is situated, could not have 
 been more exposed to the wind than it 
 was during that gale of which we felt 
 the reduced vigor at St. Ives. From St. 
 Ives, on the south- west coast, to Penzance 
 on the south-east, the distance across 
 the country is not more than ten miles. 
 And when we reached the latter place 
 in the afternoon the wind was blowing 
 into the bay as into a funnel, and had 
 whipped the sea into an awful fury. In 
 the morning a fishing-boat had been 
 wrecked, and all its crew of seven men 
 drowned. And all day long the waves 
 had been knocking for admittance against
 
 66 IN CORNWALL 
 
 the cottages on the esplanade, as if in 
 derision of the notices of apartments to 
 let in their windows. The sea ex- 
 ploded submarine torpedoes along the 
 sea-wall, and threw up pillars to a height 
 of sixty feet, which, in breaking, fell like 
 driven snow over the roofs of the houses, 
 smashing windows and breaking in doors 
 where barricades had not been erected 
 by the terrified inhabitants. The street 
 fronting on the bay was strewed with 
 stones several pounds in weight, which 
 had been cast into it by the waves, and 
 roofs three stories high were loaded 
 with masses of sea-weed. The customary 
 affirmation of fishing villagers that any 
 storm which happens to be inquired 
 about is the severest they have ever 
 known became audible in this instance 
 at Penzance. But on the next morning 
 the sea was laughing and scattering 
 jewels in the sun, and the sky was of 
 the friendliest, most innocent, and blue. 
 Penzance is unfitted to endure storms.
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 67 
 
 She wears a garland all the year round ; 
 and her January ornaments have been 
 known to include hollyhocks, mignon- 
 ettes, magnolias, and roses of all kinds. 
 The town is of good size, with a popu- 
 lation of about ten thousand, which is in- 
 creased by summer boarders and tourists 
 going to the Land's End, ten miles dis- 
 tant. The high cliffs are not far away 
 on either side; but in the immediate 
 vicinity the shore is low, and the loftiest 
 object is St. Michael's Mount, the fa- 
 mous pyramid of granite, with the castle 
 on its highest point, some two hundred 
 and thirty feet above the sea. The 
 Mount is ideally picturesque, and sug- 
 gestive of romance. Isolated and not 
 more than a few hundred yards from 
 the shore, it looms up in solitary mag- 
 nificence, encircled by the sea. The 
 granite is craggy, and on the western 
 side almost perpendicular ; but its cold 
 gray is the setting of many patches of 
 turf whose vivid green is not less than
 
 68 IN CORNWALL 
 
 emerald. At one time it was probably 
 connected with the mainland, and even 
 now the meeting of two currents of the 
 ebb tide throws up a natural causeway, 
 which is passable at low water. It was 
 granted by Edward the Confessor to 
 some monks ; and after an exciting his- 
 tory, it became the possession of the 
 St. Aubyn family, by whom the fortress 
 on the height has been converted into a 
 stately residence. The property is held 
 in no ungenerous spirit. The grounds 
 are open to the public, and the penni- 
 less dreamer may seat himself in the 
 shadow of the crags and imagine himself 
 sovereign. Strange ideas float through 
 the brain in the contemplation of St. 
 Michael's of a miniature monarchy 
 created to feed the vanity of its head, 
 of outlawry defying ten thousand instru- 
 ments of the law, of a hermitage where 
 the prevailing disdain of mankind might 
 be cultivated under the most favorable 
 circumstances.
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 69 
 
 On the day after the storm the beach 
 opposite the Mount was strewn to a 
 depth of many feet with sea-weed ; and 
 from two o'clock in the morning, when 
 the wind and sea abated, farmers' carts 
 came to carry it away to fertilize their 
 grounds. Nearly all the boats of the 
 neighborhood had been destroyed dur- 
 ing the previous day, and we had some 
 difficulty in finding one to ferry us 
 across. When we succeeded, and were 
 well out, we noticed that the man at 
 the forward oar was staring at us with 
 curious intentness, and that all the or- 
 ders proceeded from his mate, who was 
 a much younger man. The latter then 
 explained, "Jack's blind hain't you, 
 Jack ? " Jack smiled as if some honor 
 had been mentioned. " He ain't afraid 
 to go anywhere with me, though are 
 you, Jack ? " A confirmatory nod was 
 given to this interrogation. " Goes out 
 alone sometimes. If I say it's safe, 
 it's all right ain't it, Jack ? We've
 
 7O IN CORNWALL 
 
 been mates these nineteen year, and 
 many's the yarn we do have in win- 
 ter." 
 
 Ten miles from Penzance, England 
 ends. The country between has some- 
 thing like an appearance of fatigue, 
 as if Nature had had enough of it. 
 There is a good deal to interest the 
 antiquary, but little of the beauty of 
 fertility. There are ancient stone cir- 
 cles, cairns, and " logging " stones. The 
 cottages are small, and the thatch is 
 held down by stones slung across it by 
 ropes. The gorse is more plentiful than 
 the grass, and where there is a field it is 
 enclosed by low walls of stone, the crev- 
 ices of which are filled with earth. At 
 last we stand on Cape Cornwall, the 
 westernmost point, projecting beyond 
 the savage and much-indented coast- 
 line. We can go no farther in England. 
 The sea glitters before us, and the 
 vessels on it plunge into the waves, 
 and break through the foam. But the
 
 WITH AN UMBRELLA. 7 1 
 
 glitter and openness of the sea and sky 
 do not last. A squall flies up from 
 the south, which turns the umbrella in- 
 side out, and once more we face the 
 north.
 
 Coaching Trips Out of London. 
 
 IF you travel across London, from one 
 point of the compass to another, 
 from Kilburn to Lewisham, for instance, 
 or from Hammersmith to Blackwall, it 
 seems that all of England must be town : 
 the streets, shops, and houses, without 
 any relieving signs of rusticity, except 
 the parks and squares, repeat themselves 
 beyond the bounds of any conceivable 
 city, and we grow tired waiting for the 
 end. But London is like a smoky pearl 
 set in a circle of emeralds. Once out of 
 it, though the escape is slow, and pa- 
 tience is needed, we come upon the Eng- 
 land we dream of over the drawings of 
 Abbey and Hugh Thomson, the Eng- 
 land of " The Quiet Life," of fat mead- 
 ows, flowing verdure, tiled and thatched 
 73
 
 74 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 cottages, mossy, dripping millwheels, 
 hawthorn hedges, inviting inns, and spa- 
 cious parks, where the beeches and oaks 
 throw out rounded, drooping volumes of 
 foliage, that have the soft density of an 
 exhalation, and where the cuckoo, lark, 
 and nightingale are fearless visitors. 
 
 Who, dropping into Buckland, or Brock- 
 ham Green, or Mickleham, or many vil- 
 lages like them, in the warm quiet of a 
 summer's day, would find it hard to be- 
 lieve that the nineteenth century had not 
 slipped them from its chain, and left 
 them pendent to the eighteenth, but for 
 a disillusionary hat or bonnet, and the 
 red sign at the post-office ? 
 
 Hardly a brick is to be seen that has 
 not grown purple with age, and wrapped 
 itself in moss and ivy. Here and there 
 some renewal has been necessary; but 
 the builders who put up many of the 
 houses half - timbered cottages and 
 statelier mansions were old when the 
 eighteenth century was young. Antiquity
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 75 
 
 looks out from pedimented windows and 
 pillared lodge-gates, and, with a no less 
 placid face, from the small, leaded lat- 
 tices of the cottages ; only the roses, the 
 mignonette, and the other flowers, are 
 young, and they spring from a remote 
 ancestry. The may-pole might still be 
 in the Strand, and St. Paul's as far away 
 as St. Peter's, though the town and its 
 passions are fretting and burning under 
 the smoke, less than thirty miles off. 
 
 Come hither by train, if you are rush- 
 ing home from business for the night; 
 but if you have leisure, and a fondness for 
 rustic beauty, and things mellowed by 
 age, and wish to enjoy the magic of the 
 contrast, the only proper way is to come 
 by coach. Twice a day, the coach for 
 Box Hill, as well as that for Dorking, 
 clatters through Mickleham, and the Rei- 
 gate coach will drop you within an easy 
 distance of Brockham Green and Buck- 
 land. 
 
 Because London is so environed with
 
 76 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 beauty, and the roads are good, the 
 coaches thrive ; and of the many pleas- 
 ures of the season, there is nothing to 
 compare with the trips they make, leav- 
 ing town in the morning, and, with two 
 exceptions, returning in the afternoon. 
 You can go by them to Virginia Water, 
 the lovely lake at the edge of Windsor 
 Park, or to Windsor itself; to Burnham 
 Beeches, the noblest in the country 
 " a brotherhood of venerable trees ; " to 
 quaint old Guildford, straggling down the 
 Surrey hills ; to Hertford, by the way of 
 Hatfield and Lord Salisbury's demesne ; 
 to St. Alban's and its abbey, or even so 
 far as Brighton or Oxford, though the 
 last two places are the exceptions re- 
 ferred to, in which the return journey 
 must be made the following day. Last 
 summer, seventeen coaches were running, 
 the nearest destination being Hampton 
 Court, sixteen miles away, and the far- 
 thest Oxford, fifty-five miles. 
 
 The starting-place for nearly all of
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 77 
 
 them is Northumberland Avenue, in front 
 of one of the Americanized hotels of that 
 neighborhood ; and the hour is between 
 ten and eleven. From the beginning of 
 the season, in the spring, till the end of 
 the summer, they never miss a trip, ex- 
 cept on the great race day ; and, though 
 they may not have a passenger, as it 
 sometimes happens in foul weather, they 
 leave punctually, and make their cus- 
 tomary journeys. 
 
 Let it be said, with due respect to the 
 memory of Mr. Barnum, that " the great- 
 est show on earth " is London, and one of 
 its prettiest " features " is the departure 
 of the coaches from Northumberland Av- 
 enue. A smartly dressed crowd is there 
 to see it. Preceded by the musical wind- 
 ing of horns, which rise above the noise 
 of cabs, 'buses, and carriages, the coaches 
 turn into the magnificent avenue, from the 
 Embankment, or from Trafalgar Square, 
 where the fountains are playing over the 
 flanks and manes of Landseer's lions, and
 
 78 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 Nelson stands on the foretop of his own 
 monument. They are party-colored, and 
 lettered on the boot and on the panels 
 with the names of the towns and villages 
 they pass through. There is an inside, 
 of course ; but the blinds are down, for 
 nobody ever wants to be inside. Outside, 
 there are seats for thirteen, including the 
 box-seat, the privileged position, for 
 which a larger fare is charged. 
 
 Everything is clean, fresh, and shin- 
 ing, especially the faces of the coach- 
 men and the guards, who wear white 
 beaver-hats, and nosegays in their but- 
 ton-holes. Flowers are plentiful : women 
 with baskets of roses and blue corn- 
 flowers are selling them on the pave- 
 ment, and everybody must have a 
 boutonntire, to be in keeping with the 
 occasion, whether he is a passenger or 
 merely a sight-seer. The horses are 
 frisky, and in splendid condition ; and 
 as they wheel round, and pull up at the 
 door of the hotel, cutting in between
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 79 
 
 hansoms and other vehicles, it is easy 
 to see that the coachman is a master of 
 his art. The guard is like a tulip in his 
 scarlet coat, with its silver or gold fa- 
 cings ; but his appearance, and his skill 
 with the long brass horn, are not his 
 only recommendations. He can handle 
 the ribbons almost as well as the driver 
 does, and is factotum, not only to him, 
 but to the passengers. Now he is at 
 the horses' heads, or diving under their 
 bellies, putting a final touch to the har- 
 ness, and then bestowing mackintoshes 
 and wraps in the interior, and sticks and 
 umbrellas in the basket, or handing the 
 ladies up to their seats, where their gay 
 bonnets, parasols, and bouquets bloom 
 as a garden. 
 
 The coachman, in a long drab jean, 
 or box-cloth, driving-coat, reaching to 
 his ankles, overlooks it all, with the eye 
 of the skipper of a double topsail ship 
 when the pilot leaves him and the wind 
 freshens on the bar. A score of details
 
 8O COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 are on his mind : he must see that the 
 bridles, or headstalls, do not pinch the 
 horses' ears; that the bits are not too 
 high, or too low, in their mouths ; that 
 bearing-reins, cruppers, pole-chains, and 
 pole-pieces are adjusted so as to be 
 neither too tight nor too loose ; that the 
 pads are well stuffed, and fitted close to 
 their backs ; that the traces are of the 
 right length, and that the pole-hooks are 
 downward. A brass carriage-clock is 
 secured to the dashboard, under the 
 driver's eye ; for unpunctuality is a car- 
 dinal sin, and at the appointed hour, 
 neither a minute earlier nor a minute 
 later, he mounts the box, tucks himself 
 in his apron, and is off, the leaders lift- 
 ing themselves up out of joy, and the 
 guard wreathing his horn like a thread 
 of gold through the noise of the town. 
 
 That coaching is a pleasure accessible 
 to the public to-day, is due to the ap- 
 preciation of the art of driving by rich 
 men and amateur coachmen. The old
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 8 1 
 
 mail-coaches ceased running with the 
 advent of the railways in 1840; and, out 
 of twenty-seven in service up to that 
 year, not one was left. " Few people 
 are aware," says Lord Algernon St. 
 Maur, " of the misery caused by rail- 
 ways to innkeepers, coachmen, guards, 
 post-boys, 'ostlers, and horse-keepers, as 
 it all came to pass so suddenly." 
 
 Had profit been the only considera- 
 tion, the coaches would never have re- 
 appeared ; but there had grown up in 
 England many enthusiastic amateurs, 
 who found delight in driving a four-in- 
 hand, and they revived for their own 
 pleasure what could no longer be a 
 money-making venture. 
 
 Some of them, like Lord Algernon St. 
 Maur and the present Duke of Beaufort, 
 had done wonderful things in the way 
 of driving, and, out of sheer zeal, had 
 shared with the old professional coach- 
 men all the hardships of their lot, taking 
 the reins not merely occasionally, but
 
 82 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 regularly, as though bread and butter 
 depended on it. 
 
 " At first I used to drive to Oxford, 
 and return the next day," says Lord Al- 
 gernon in his reminiscences, " but I 
 soon wished for more work; so, after 
 dining at the Mitre, I used to send for 
 one or two friends who happened to be 
 in the city (Oxford), and we sat together 
 till eleven, when I drove the Gloucester 
 mail back to London, by Henley and 
 Maidenhead, reaching London at six. 
 Then I went to bed for two hours, after 
 which I passed the day as usual. I was 
 very fond of driving by night, as the 
 horses are always so lively ; to hear the 
 ring of their feet in the sharp, frosty 
 night, the rattle of the bars, and the 
 clatter as they rose and surmounted the 
 tops of the hills, was to me the sweetest 
 of music." 
 
 The fact that Lord Algernon could 
 " pass the day as usual," with but two 
 hours' sleep, after the journey to the
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 83 
 
 university town and back, a distance of 
 over a hundred miles, is testimony to the 
 salubrity of the recreation, as well as to 
 his own endurance. But, on occasions, 
 he surpassed this record by a tour de 
 force, as when he drove the Edinburgh 
 mail for seventeen hours at a sitting. 
 
 A no less ardent coachman is His 
 Grace of Beaufort, who while yet a boy 
 used to drive the Brighton coach, of 
 which his father was part proprietor. 
 The passengers, or some of them, used 
 to regard him suspiciously, on account 
 of his youthfulness. 
 
 " I'm not going to be driven by a 
 young chap like you," an old gentleman 
 once protested. 
 
 " Such will be your fate, unless you 
 get off in ten seconds. Sharp's the 
 word ; for in ten seconds the clock will 
 strike, and the coach start." 
 
 The old gentleman remained ; his con- 
 fidence was soon restored, and at the 
 end of the journey he handed the young
 
 84 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 coachman a sovereign as a tip. " Take 
 this ; and if the box-seat is not booked, 
 I will again ride with you to-morrow." 
 
 Another sovereign was given the next 
 day, when his lordship touched his hat, 
 and said, " This will be a good job for 
 old Clark." 
 
 "Who's old Clark?" 
 
 "That fat old fellow standing down 
 there ; he is our ballast ; when the coach 
 is empty, we take him down to make the 
 springs ride pleasantly ; when it is full, 
 we send him up to London, or down to 
 Brighton, by luggage-train, in a coach 
 by himself." 
 
 " Is he your father, that he takes all 
 the money ? " 
 
 " No, he is only my sleeping partner," 
 replied the duke ; " and you know the 
 sleeping partner in a firm gets all the 
 money." 
 
 Clark was, indeed, the professional 
 partner of the duke's father in the 
 ownership of the coach.
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 85 
 
 It is sometimes puzzling to a stranger 
 in England, who watches the coaches 
 departing, to discriminate between the 
 professional and the amateur. Is this 
 person, with the scarlet scarf, the full- 
 skirted drab coat, with pearl buttons, 
 the red, bursting face, and the bandy 
 legs is this the coachman, who works 
 for money ? And this other person, in 
 quieter clothes is he the nobleman, 
 who drives for pleasure, and gives both 
 money and time to what he considers a 
 noble sport? 
 
 It is quite unsafe to depend on ap- 
 pearances alone, and sometimes even 
 conversation is deceptive ; for the pro- 
 fessionals are usually a well-spoken and 
 intelligent class of men, though socially 
 out of the pale of their friends, the ama- 
 teurs. 
 
 I remember the deep interest of some 
 Americans, on the Oxford coach, as to 
 the social status of the driver, a demure, 
 quietly-dressed, fair-faced young fellow,
 
 86 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 with a clear, high-bred accent, and noth- 
 ing suggestive of the stable, or " horsey " 
 associations, about him. How polite he 
 was at luncheon ! And sitting at the 
 head of the table, as the driver, profes- 
 sional or amateur, always does, how so- 
 licitously he watched the plates of the 
 rest of the company, and sacrificed him- 
 self to the needs of others ! What a 
 contrast to the Jarveys of old, who, ac- 
 cording to Lord Algernon, were often 
 very slovenly, and " wore glazed hats 
 such as sailors wear, and had bands of 
 hay or straw twisted round their legs : 
 they were rough in manner and lan- 
 guage, and were much given to drink." 
 
 The conversation between the box 
 and the box-seat usually touches on 
 meets of the hounds, racing, steeple- 
 chasing, and other concerns of the 
 sporting world, or reminiscences of the 
 keepers of the inns on the way, or of 
 the owners of the great estates that are 
 passed, and who are referred to as
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 8/ 
 
 "good-uns " or "bad-uns," according to 
 their reputations or deserts. 
 
 This young man, who drove the whole 
 distance from London to Oxford, had 
 interests and information of a higher 
 and wider scope, and all the tokens of a 
 gentleman. A sprig of nobility ! how 
 easy to see it, and how charming ! said 
 the Americans. But he was a profes- 
 sional, the son of the proprietor of the 
 coach, after all ; though it is not to be 
 doubted that, in the best sense of the 
 word, he was a gentleman. 
 
 In some cases the coach is owned by 
 one or two, or more, gentlemen, who 
 support it for the pleasure of driving it 
 themselves, and employ a professional 
 coachman to take their place on the box 
 when they are unable to be there. In 
 other cases the coach belongs to a pro- 
 fessional, who works it for profit, with 
 the support of as many " subscribers " 
 as he can find. It may be said that the 
 receipts from passengers alone would
 
 88 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 not be sufficient to cover expenses and 
 leave a profit. There are days when the 
 coach is not full some days when it 
 starts out and returns empty. There 
 would be risk, and almost certainty of 
 loss, without the help of the " subscrib- 
 ers." These are gentlemen living along 
 the route of the coach or elsewhere, 
 who, at the beginning of the season, sub- 
 scribe a hundred guineas apiece, or an 
 approximate amount, for the privilege 
 of driving the coach one day a week ; 
 and what they contribute in this way 
 more than covers any deficit arising 
 from the inadequacy of passenger fares. 
 The professional has another source 
 of profit : he buys a fresh supply of 
 horses every spring ; and as he breaks 
 them in, and keeps them in the best 
 condition, never overworking or abusing 
 them, he is usually able to sell them in 
 the autumn, when the coaching season 
 is over, for a handsome advance on the 
 sum he paid for them. Seventy, eighty*
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 89 
 
 and even ninety guineas apiece have 
 been bid occasionally for the horses 
 of a popular coach, when they have 
 been put up at TattersalPs at the end 
 of the season. Nor is this all. It is 
 probable that the professional also 
 keeps a livery-stable, and is a riding- 
 master, who gives lessons in four-in- 
 hand driving, so that, being " in to make 
 both ends meet," as Charles Webling 
 said to me, he is not likely to fail in his 
 purpose. 
 
 The capital needed to work a coach is 
 no trifle. Take, for instance, Webling's 
 own coach, which makes the journey 
 from London to Tunbridge Wells, and 
 back, in one day, a distance of seventy- 
 two miles. There are five changes of 
 horses each way, and in the ascent of 
 River Hill six horses are driven to- 
 gether in one stage. Spare horses, 
 also, are necessary to take the place 
 of those that may show any lameness 
 or exhaustion ; for, since he desires
 
 QO COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 them to make a good appearance when 
 he sells them at the end of the coach- 
 ing season, the owner has no temptation 
 to keep them at work after they have 
 shown signs of disability. Not less than 
 forty-six horses are thus needed by this 
 one coach ; and assuming that they are 
 worth, on an average, fifty pounds apiece 
 (they may be worth much more), it will 
 be seen that they alone represent eleven 
 thousand five hundred dollars. Then, 
 there are the bills of the coach-builder, 
 and the wages of the guard and the 
 hostlers, and the cost of stabling at 
 five places on the road. It is more 
 than the owner would care to make 
 himself liable for, but for the security 
 given by the guineas of those guardian 
 angels of the road, the subscribers. 
 
 Each coach has its own name, or, 
 rather, it is usually the namesake of a 
 predecessor in the old coaching days. 
 Thus the Brighton coach is the " Com- 
 et ; " the Oxford coach, the " Age ; " the
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 9! 
 
 Box-Hill coach, the " Rocket ; " the Vir- 
 ginia Water coach, the "Old Times;" 
 and the Guildford coach, the " New 
 Times." Then, there are an " Excel- 
 sior," a "Wonder," a "Magnet," a 
 "Venture," a "Vivid," a "Persever- 
 ance," and two "Telegraphs." Alto- 
 gether, seventeen coaches were running 
 last summer, an average sufficient to 
 show how strong the revival is; for 
 even before the railways, in 1838, there 
 were only twenty-seven mail-coaches to 
 and from London. Most of them are 
 withdrawn during the winter ; but the 
 " Wonder," to St. Alban's, runs all the 
 year round. 
 
 Seated on the box-seat, on such a 
 summer's morning as June often be- 
 stows on England, the sorriest pessi- 
 mist must feel that life is not long 
 enough, and that his theories are all 
 mistaken. Some of the coaches leave 
 town by the way of Pall Mall and Pic- 
 cadilly, and others by the Embank-
 
 92 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 ment ; and it is the latter way we 
 must choose, for we have in mind a 
 trip that has in it the essence of vari- 
 ous experiences a composite picture 
 of a day's coaching out of London. 
 
 The town is bathed in gold on such a 
 morning, as though another Heliogaba- 
 lus had filled the air with the dust of 
 marigolds and sunflowers, instead of 
 roses. The river is like an amber 
 jelly ; and the gayly-painted barges, 
 drifting down it, alone betray its mo- 
 tion. The Houses of Parliament, the 
 Abbey, and the dome of St. Paul's, 
 are softened and lifted up, as through 
 the medium of a mirage. Flowers are 
 visible everywhere, in the Embank- 
 ment gardens, and in the windows, 
 and on the roofs of the cabmen's shel- 
 ters, girls are hawking them under the 
 lamp-posts, and the donkey-carts of the 
 costermongers go by loaded with them. 
 Never again slander London ; for, see, 
 how quickly that which is dingy in fog
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 93 
 
 and rain becomes beautiful in the misty 
 sunshine ! We cross the river at West- 
 minster Bridge, the guard heralding our 
 approach with "Coming Through the 
 Rye," in clear, brilliant notes, and 
 watch with admiration and wonder the 
 easy, confident way our driver picks a 
 course through the tangled traffic of 
 brewers' drays, cabs, omnibuses, donkey- 
 carts, and tram-cars. There is no sud- 
 den use of the brake, no violent pulling 
 up of the horses. He threads the maze 
 like a pilot in a rock-bestrewn channel, 
 graduating the pace so gently that the 
 variation passes unnoticed, and the 
 horses seem to be going at a canter all 
 the time. The blockade looks hopeless, 
 and delay inevitable ; but it is not so 
 for our driver, who sees clear spaces 
 invisible to others, and glides through 
 them, by close calculations, without 
 grazing a wheel, or showing in his face 
 a moment's uncertainty or irresolution, 
 either of which, of course, would spoil
 
 94 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 the performance. If difficulties occur, 
 it is sure to be when a subscriber is on 
 the box; and though the amateur will 
 do very well on a stretch of country 
 road, we prefer, for our own peace of 
 mind, the professional when we are in 
 the crowded streets, or when a sharp 
 turn is to be made up to the inn-door. 
 Though the coach cannot be any 
 novelty, its coming is a welcome episode, 
 and little " slaveys," in their white caps, 
 with smutched faces, bob up from the 
 areas to see it pass, and giggle when the 
 coachman tilts his whip at them ; and 
 children swing themselves on the side- 
 walk and shout " Hooray ! " as though 
 it made a pageant in itself. Every other 
 vehicle salutes it, and pulls up to make 
 room for it, the doctor in his gig 
 doing his morning rounds ; the young 
 lady in her pony phaeton ; the carrier 
 with his team of shaggy Percherons ; 
 the cabman, and even the glum driver 
 of the creeping tram-car. The only
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 95 
 
 wheeled thing that shows indifference 
 or unfriendliness is the bicycle, and for 
 that your coaching man has nothing but 
 contempt. One bicyclist passes and 
 nods, and in him the driver recognizes 
 an old friend but with what sorrow ! 
 " Ah, but it's a pity to see a good fellow 
 like him come down to that ! " he 
 exclaims. " Why, I think of riding a 
 bicycle myself," one of the passengers 
 (perhaps a subscriber) says, mischiev- 
 ously. " You do, do you ? Well, just 
 let me see you at it ! Don't come my 
 way, that's all ; or, blow me, if I don't 
 run over you ! " 
 
 Even at the end of an hour, when we 
 have made our first change of horses, the 
 town still clings to us ; but its aspect is 
 now suburban. Little villas appear, 
 with gardens and shrubbery around 
 them, each with a romantic name of its 
 own painted on the gate-post ; long 
 rows of houses that stand back from the 
 street have been turned into shops,
 
 96 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. 
 
 which are built out, to the height of the 
 first story, over the gardens that once 
 stood in front of them ; little taverns 
 "Ploughs," "Angels," "Red Lions," 
 and " King's Heads " which have 
 befuddled generations of Britons, show 
 false fronts of modern stucco, and try 
 to make us believe they are juvenile, 
 though over the coping you can see how 
 bent the gables are, and how the tiled 
 roofs sag, and what hoary, dissembling 
 old sinners they are in reality. 
 
 Then we reach the country, and hear 
 the skylark drenching the meadows with 
 its song, and breathe the scent of red 
 and white hawthorn, and see Nature in 
 a smoother, softer, mellower aspect than 
 she wears anywhere else in the world. 
 
 The horses are seldom allowed to 
 gallop ; and their pace, especially when 
 driven by the professional, is so steady 
 and so even that there is no sense of 
 pressure. The miles are reeled off, ten 
 to an hour; and when the carriage-clock
 
 COACHING OUT OF LONDON. Q/ 
 
 on the dashboard tells luncheon-time, 
 the guard, like a prophet, plays a mil- 
 itary call, " Pudding and pie, pudding 
 and pie," and the coach draws up with 
 a flourish at its destination. 
 
 The return journey to London, in the 
 afternoon, repeats the pleasures of the 
 morning, with the variation of tea at 
 one of the roadside inns ; and when you 
 alight at Northumberland Avenue, it will 
 never again be in you to say that you do 
 not love England.
 
 A Bit of the Yorkshire Coast. 
 
 THE rain and the east wind have 
 full swing in Yorkshire ; but the 
 inclemency is not greater than in many 
 other parts of the stormy British Islands ; 
 and the coast from Hull, at which port 
 Robinson Crusoe embarked on his mem- 
 orable voyage, up to the Tees, has many 
 watering-places upon it, to which thou- 
 sands of operatives come every summer 
 from the smoky towns of the country to 
 breathe an air which, unlike their own, is 
 pure and invigorating. 
 
 The view of the county which we get 
 in crossing it from Manchester to Hull 
 is one not to be forgotten. In all the 
 distance we are scarcely ever out of 
 sight of high factory chimneys ; scarcely 
 ever out of sight of a town ; scarcely 
 99
 
 TOO A BIT OF THE 
 
 ever under a sky undarkened by the 
 snake-like coils of black smoke which 
 are forever issuing from the chimneys. 
 The people are pale and fatigued ; and 
 the earth, deprived of its proper sun- 
 shine, supports but a feeble kind of 
 vegetation ; the leaves are begrimed, 
 and even the dew seems inky. After 
 dark, which is hurried on early in the 
 afternoon by the accumulating smoke, 
 the square, featureless, prison-like work- 
 shops, with their many windows lighted, 
 look like illuminated gridirons of a vast 
 size, and a dull red glow in the mouths 
 of some of the chimneys also shows the 
 continuity of labor. 
 
 The transition from this fetid and 
 dismal atmosphere to the high white 
 coast, with the German Ocean chafing 
 against it, stirs up those whose lot is 
 not cast in these dark places ; but the 
 full effect is seen in the operative re- 
 leased for his holiday from the mills 
 and foundries, who hurries down from
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. IOI 
 
 the station to the shore, and when the 
 clean sky and the crisp sea are opened 
 to him, stands in rapture, and eagerly 
 draws the salt air into his lungs. Under 
 these circumstances, and in contrast 
 with the sun-browned fisherman, the 
 "tripper," as he is contemptuously called, 
 with his sallow face and clothes of ugly 
 pattern, becomes a pathetic figure, though 
 later in the day he is sure to offend by 
 his noisy vulgarity. 
 
 But while the many watering-places 
 are a great sanitary benefit to such as 
 he, it is not to be supposed that they 
 wholly owe their existence to poor 
 excursionists of his class, nor is it to be 
 supposed that all of Yorkshire is like 
 the belt which includes Leeds, Dews- 
 bury, and Huddersfield. One of them 
 (Scarborough) is picturesque and bril- 
 liant, and all of them attract visitors 
 from the southern counties as well as 
 from their own neighborhoods. The 
 moorlands and hills are famous for their
 
 IO2 A BIT OF THE 
 
 tonic air, and the county is rich in 
 antiquities. The coast is for the most 
 part bold. The chalk and limestone 
 cliffs are high and precipitous, and some- 
 times weathered into grotesque images, 
 and hollowed out into caverns suitable 
 for use in sensational literature. The 
 villages are familiar to all through pic- 
 ture exhibitions. The houses are roofed 
 with deep red tiles, and bits of wreck- 
 age are utilized with much picturesque- 
 ness of resource. The figure-head of 
 the Eliza Jane smiles with wooden 
 amiability over the door of a little 
 tavern, though it is nearly a quarter of a 
 century since that smack went to pieces 
 on the rocks of Flamborough ; and in 
 a fisherman's garden, the outer fence of 
 which is at the very edge of a cliff about 
 two hundred feet high, we see what a 
 capital porch can be made of the stern 
 of a boat raised up on end. The fauna 
 includes many rare creatures. Flam- 
 borough Head claims to be the most
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 103. 
 
 densely populated breeding - resort of 
 sea-fowl in England. The local orni- 
 thologists put an additional feather in 
 their caps, forasmuch as the migratory 
 birds include four which are not known 
 to visit any other part of Great Britain. 
 
 The people of the county are simple, 
 honest, and robust. Those among the 
 dales of the north-east coast cling to the 
 belief in witchcraft even yet, and speak 
 the language with a strongly marked di- 
 alect, of which we can give no better ex- 
 ample than an extract from a local story 
 by Mr. William Stonehouse of Whitby. 
 
 One Christmas eve Deborah Pruss, 
 the landlady of a wayside inn in South- 
 land, and her pretty daughter Polly, 
 were visited by two neighbors, one of 
 whom, Paul Dowson, asked after a cow 
 belonging to Deborah which had been 
 ailing for many weeks. 
 
 " Hoo is t' hummeld coo gettin' on ? " 
 
 " Whya," replied Deborah, " ah decant 
 kno what ti mak on her; she's sum-
 
 IO4 A BIT OF THE 
 
 tahms betther an' sumtahms warse. She 
 nayther dees nor dows, as t' sayin' is." 
 
 " She's failed sair leeatly, ah think," 
 said Adam Herbert, the other neighbor. 
 
 "Failed, ay," said Deborah; "she's 
 failed all away ti nowt bud skin an' 
 beeans." 
 
 "What yoo'll hev had t' farrier fra 
 Whidby tiv her?" queried Adam. 
 
 " Ay," said Deborah ; " he's been here 
 twice." 
 
 "An' what diz he say aboot her?" 
 resumed Paul. 
 
 " Whya, ah think he dizzent kno what 
 te say," said Deborah. 
 
 " Neea, ah deean't think he diz. Yoor 
 aboot reeght there, Deborah," contin- 
 ued Paul ; " t' farrier's o' neea kahnd o' 
 yuse. Ah've seen that fra t' fust. An' 
 noo ah'll tell yoo what, Deborah : 'f ah 
 was yoo, ah wad just git oor oad neigh- 
 bor Adam here ti gan te Stowsley, an' 
 see t' wahse man aboot it ; for yoo ma 
 tak mah wod for't, that coo o' yours is
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. IO5 
 
 bewitched, as seear as we are sittin' 
 here." 
 
 The local dealer in magic and spells 
 had up to recent years a very lucrative 
 business ; and among his prescriptions 
 was one to nil a cow's heart full of pins, 
 and roast it before the fire at midnight 
 a savory operation which brought 
 witches from their hiding-places. The 
 witches usually accomplished their ma- 
 licious work in the form of some animal. 
 Thus, not many years ago, two old 
 women were said to annoy their neigh- 
 bors by assuming the form of cats, and 
 against one family in particular they 
 worked their evil art. They scratched 
 the door, clattered against the window, 
 and made the night hideous with their 
 cries. On one occasion the people in 
 the house, irritated beyond endurance, 
 armed themselves with various domestic 
 utensils, and, with the help of a sheep- 
 dog, rushed out upon the disturbers of 
 the peace. The cats fled for their lives ,
 
 1O6 A BIT OF THE 
 
 but the dog got hold of one of them, and 
 tore nearly all the fur off its back, and 
 the other, in escaping up an apple-tree, 
 received a blow from a garden rake 
 which broke its leg. 
 
 On the following morning one of the 
 witches was found with a broken leg, 
 and the clothes of the other were so torn 
 that she looked like a bundle of rags 
 when she came out of her house. 
 
 Another family had no luck in any- 
 thing. The horses lamed themselves, 
 and the cows died ; the pigs caught all 
 the illnesses to which pigs are heir ; and 
 on churning-days the butter refused to 
 come unless assisted by the charm of a 
 crooked sixpence. 
 
 One day during the churning, the coin 
 was purposely kept out of the churn, and 
 " t' maister o' t' hoose " took his gun 
 and watched the garden from the loop- 
 hole of an out-building. In the twilight 
 he saw a hare creeping through the 
 hedge, and he shot her. The butter
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. IO/ 
 
 came immediately. During the evening 
 news arrived that the old woman whom 
 they suspected of bewitching them, and 
 causing all their ill-luck, had died sud- 
 denly at the precise moment when the 
 shot had been fired ; and from that time 
 forward the family prospered. 
 
 In a neighborhood where such things 
 are done, it may readily be believed that 
 astrological almanacs are great authori- 
 ties, that there are persons who will not 
 sow seed when the moon is waning, be- 
 cause, as they aver, seed sown under 
 these circumstances never germinates, 
 and that horseshoes are nailed behind 
 outer doors to bar the entrance of all 
 uncanny folks. 
 
 Another feature for which the York- 
 shire coast is celebrated is its jet. Who 
 has not heard of Whitby jet, and ad- 
 mired its unsurpassable lustre, with 
 which it is a compliment to compare a 
 beautiful woman's eyes ? Wherever jet 
 is offered for sale, whether it is in Amer-
 
 IO8 A BIT OF THE 
 
 ica or in England, the dealer insists that 
 it is " real Whitby jet ; " for Whitby jet 
 is known to be finer than any other, and 
 for centuries that quaint little town on 
 the Yorkshire coast has been noted for 
 the manufacture of articles of personal 
 adornment from it. 
 
 Jet is of two kinds, one hard, and 
 the other soft ; and its exact nature is 
 in dispute among those who have given 
 most time to its investigation. To one 
 observer the jet rock in which the hard 
 jet is found seems to be a deposit of sea- 
 anemones, and some years ago a patent 
 was taken out to distil petroleum from 
 it. Experiments proved that ten gallons 
 of a pure oil could be extracted from 
 one ton of it, but the production was too 
 costly to compete with American petro- 
 leum. The hard jet itself, lying in this 
 rock in a horizontal position, is said by 
 some to be the result of a distillation by 
 igneous action from the enclosing shale ; 
 and others again declare their belief that
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 1 09 
 
 it is of a pure ligneous formation similar 
 to coal perhaps, indeed, undeveloped 
 coal, for coal and jet are never found 
 coexistent. The miners express some 
 faith in both modes of origin, and say 
 they believe that the hard jet is of two 
 distinct formations, being both wood and 
 petroleum, now in a state of high bitu- 
 menization. But though geologists dif- 
 fer as to its nature, it is definitely known 
 that it is discovered in compressed lay- 
 ers of variable sizes, generally from half 
 an inch to two and a half inches in 
 thickness, from four to thirty inches 
 wide, and from four to five feet in 
 length. Such is hard jet. 
 
 The soft jet, which is much less valu- 
 able than the hard, is found in sand- 
 stone and shale, much nearer the surface 
 than the latter, and may be of a pure 
 ligneous origin, the fibre and branches 
 of trees being more or less distinctly 
 marked in it. The greater value of 
 the hard is that it wears longer, is less
 
 IIO A BIT OF THE 
 
 brittle, and takes a higher polish than 
 the soft. 
 
 Whitby jet, both hard and soft, has 
 always been considered better than any 
 other; and Michael Drayton sang of it 
 out of his seventeenth-century knowl- 
 edge. The prominence given to it in 
 the shop-window signs, and their em- 
 phasis that the lustrous black jewellery 
 there displayed is made of it alone, 
 excite a good deal of respect for the 
 genuine Whitby article. But do coals 
 really come from Newcastle, and brass 
 buttons from Birmingham ? Is Everton 
 taffy a myth, and are Chelsea buns made 
 at Stratford-le-Bow ? Are Eccles cakes 
 the product of Ormskirk, and is the ori- 
 gin of Ormskirk gingerbread to be traced 
 to Eccles ? Is any truth left in the world ? 
 When we landed at Whitby we were told 
 that Whitby jet principally comes from 
 the Pyrenees ! that the jet is found in 
 such greater abundance in Spain, and 
 obtained with so much greater ease, that
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. Ill 
 
 the search for it in the scaurs of York- 
 shire has been almost entirely aban- 
 doned. Thus were our hopes blighted, 
 and our feelings more damped by dis- 
 appointment than our clothing by the 
 rain that copiously fell upon us day 
 after day. A study of guide-books had 
 led us to believe that we should see the 
 jet hunter following his precarious and 
 perilous calling, swinging over the high 
 cliffs, exploring the crannied rocks, and 
 searching patiently along the detritus of 
 the shore. We found that his occupation 
 is gone, or, if not wholly given up, that 
 it has become but a resource to be taken 
 up when other things fail. 
 
 The manufacture of the crude jet into 
 various articles of adornment continues 
 to be almost a monopoly of Whitby, 
 however, and it has been known there 
 since 1598. Nearly an eleventh of the 
 total population of the town (say be- 
 tween 1,300 and 1,400 persons) are en- 
 gaged in it. And in the language of
 
 112 A BIT OF THE 
 
 commerce the "turnover" is more than 
 half a million dollars a year. The 
 wages of the operatives are from five 
 to thirty shillings a week. 
 
 The crude jet looks like anthracite 
 coal, and comes from Spain in long 
 wooden boxes. It is sawn into the 
 sizes of the objects for which it is in- 
 tended, and then shaped on a freestone 
 wheel. Next the facets are put on ; and 
 it is carved into the desired pattern 
 by men with knives, small chisels, and 
 gouges. It is highly electrical ; and, as 
 the ancient poet has said of it : 
 
 " 'Tis black and shining, smooth, and ever light ; 
 'Twill draw up straws if rubbed till hot and bright." 
 
 Long before it was used for ornaments, 
 it was valued for its efficacy in " driving 
 away devils, dissolving spells and en- 
 chantments, helping the despairing, ban- 
 ishing serpents, and when mixed with 
 the marrow of a stag, in healing the 
 bite of a snake."
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 113 
 
 In small workshops, where the at- 
 mosphere is filled with a black or 
 snuffy dust, the bits of anthracite which 
 the jet resembles gradually take the 
 shape of beads, flowers, fruits, and many 
 pretty things, as they are dexterously 
 wrought upon by the workmen, who 
 often ply their tools without any set 
 design before them; and when the or- 
 naments are complete they are polished, 
 being held against quickly revolving 
 wheels, covered with chamois leather 
 and a composition of rouge and oil. 
 It is the rouge which produces the 
 snuff-colored dust, and gives many of 
 the operatives a peculiar rustiness of 
 appearance. The last thing of all is 
 the " setting," which is done by seal- 
 ing-wax and shellac. Then they are 
 carded, and boxed in cotton-wool, each 
 article being guaranteed as one of "real 
 Whitby jet." 
 
 The trade in jet is immediately af- 
 fected by any national calamity, as,
 
 H4 A BIT F THE 
 
 for instance, the death of a member 
 of the royal family, or any one for 
 whom there is a general mourning. 
 And when the life of the Prince of 
 Wales was in danger, Whitby was 
 thronged with buyers prepared to pay 
 almost any price, who lost heavily by 
 his happy recovery. 
 
 There are a few mines yet in the 
 neighborhood of Whitby. The en- 
 trance to them is through a horizon- 
 tal drift in the hillside a narrow pas- 
 sage some seven feet by five ; and this 
 small tunnel is intersected by cross- 
 drifts, as in other mines. Here the 
 men work cramped up in the darkness 
 and wet, and the rock which they ex- 
 cavate is carried to the mouth in little 
 wagons on tramways. The operations 
 are not extensive. Each mine only 
 employs about six men, who work in 
 " shifts " of eight hours. The seams 
 and jet cliffs are usually rented from 
 the owners of the land by the princi-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 11$ 
 
 pal miner, a lump sum being paid 
 down for the right to work a stipu- 
 lated number of yards. The tenant 
 is not only restricted as to the dis- 
 tance he may penetrate the hillside, 
 but also in regard to the number of 
 men he employs. If he should reach 
 the limit prescribed without exhaust- 
 ing the seam, he would have to dis- 
 continue his operations, or pay an ad- 
 ditional sum for further privileges. If 
 the space leased to him should prove 
 unproductive, and he should find him- 
 self a loser at the end of it, though 
 a few yards farther would bring him 
 to a profitable seam, still he would 
 have to abandon his work, with the 
 long-sought-for treasure in sight, or 
 satisfy the landlord's exactions. 
 
 Jet-hunting is at all times a specula- 
 tive and precarious business ; and it is 
 never more so than when the hunters 
 take to the cliffs, cropping out of which 
 the richest seams have been found.
 
 Il6 A BIT OF THE 
 
 There was a pleasant old man in 
 Whitby, whose occupation for many years 
 was that of a jet-hunter, and who, sitting 
 before his fire with a glass of toddy be- 
 fore him and a long church-warden pipe 
 in his mouth, told us of some of the 
 difficulties of his business, which in his 
 case (a rare one) had yielded a com- 
 fortable fortune. 
 
 " It's just like puttin' thy hond in a 
 lott'ry," he said, between the puffs, as he 
 stared into the slumbering glow of the 
 open fire. " Yo' may soon lose a lot, 
 an' soon gain a lot." 
 
 " Ay," added the comfortable wife, 
 who was sitting by ; " it's all specalation, 
 like gambling on hosses, an' allus was." 
 
 One^of the lucky things that some- 
 times fall to the lot of the cliff hunter is 
 a mass of jet which the weather has 
 separated from the cliff and cast upon 
 the shore ; but oftener than coming 
 upon such a windfall as this he has to 
 search for days which lengthen into
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 1 1/ 
 
 weeks, and for weeks which roll on into 
 months, without reward. 
 
 A more adventurous plan than looking 
 for "waeshed jet" (i.e., that which has 
 been washed down) is to lower a man 
 over the edge of the cliff from above 
 to prospect; and thus suspended, with 
 a bowline knot around his waist, the 
 hunter scans the white face of the rock 
 for signs of the jet. Should he find any, 
 a narrow vertical groove is dug down the 
 face of the cliff to it; and when it is 
 reached, it is tunnelled or "drifted" as 
 in one of the hillside mines. The acci- 
 dents to life and limb in this pursuit are 
 many. In going up and down the cliff, 
 the workman has just room enough " tae 
 step his taoes in," as the veteran told us ; 
 and he is always exposed to some dan- 
 ger from the falling rock. Working 
 alone in his narrow prison through the 
 night, with the sea beating at the foot of 
 the cliff, we supposed that his loneliness 
 would excite his fears.
 
 Il8 A BIT OF THE 
 
 " Nay," said the old gentleman, still 
 puffing his pipe ; " it's cheerful enough ; 
 he has a bit o' candle to look at." 
 
 And whatever consolation he has 
 comes from this " bit o' candle." 
 
 Though the jet interest is decayed, 
 and we did not find the hunters follow- 
 ing their hap-hazard vocation along the 
 shore and swinging over the cliffs, our 
 disappointment soon passed away. The 
 Yorkshire coast has a further interest. 
 It is scarcely surpassed in the British 
 Islands by grander cliffs or bolder head- 
 lands. On one of its promontories the 
 first English song burst from Caedmon's 
 lips. Its people are simple and interest- 
 ing. It possesses what is called "the 
 queen of English watering-places," and 
 among many curious old villages and 
 towns it has one which strikes us as 
 being the most picturesque in England. 
 
 The cliffs are seen at their greatest 
 height near Flamborough Head, where 
 they have an altitude of nearly five hun-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 
 
 dred feet ; and a more imposing view 
 cannot be imagined than that which they 
 present to an observer on the esplanade 
 at Bridlington Quay. They reach out 
 in a splendid sweep miles long, and a 
 dazzling white in color. They are sheer 
 from top to bottom. From the rolling 
 arable land which stretches back from 
 them, a deep fringe of brown mud has 
 been washed down , and against their 
 white faces it looks like a row of tassels. 
 Down below is the sea, sharp and dia- 
 mond-pointed, which beats up against 
 them in some places, and in others 
 leaves a narrow edge of beach, set with 
 shining white bowlders and black frag- 
 ments of wreckage. At the end of the 
 curve, the Head itself is thrust like a 
 wedge into the sea. Solid and defiant 
 as it looks, the sea has not left it un- 
 scarred. Massive pillars have been 
 separated from it, which foretell of fu- 
 ture encroachments ; and the waves have 
 eaten deep, mysterious caverns in it,
 
 I2O A BIT OF THE 
 
 through which the winds moan with 
 unsilenceable grief. 
 
 One of these caverns is called Robin 
 Lyth's Hole, and forms a tunnel from 
 the land to the sea. The entrance is 
 low and difficult ; but, when it is passed, 
 the explorer finds himself in a sepulchral 
 chamber, dark, dripping, and rever- 
 berant, with a roof fifty feet high. The 
 rock is of variegated colors, and polished 
 by the attrition of the seas, which the 
 easterly gales send driving in. The floor 
 seems to have been built by human 
 hands, instead of by the thoughtless 
 gnawing of the elements. Sometimes 
 a shaft of sunlight finds its way into the 
 mouth; and then every drop of water 
 beading on the walls becomes a jewel, 
 and the rocks reveal their iridescent 
 splendors. 
 
 Coming back to Bridlington Quay 
 which, by one of the anomalies of Eng- 
 lish orthoepy, is pronounced Burlington 
 we find it to be, like many other Eng-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 121 
 
 lish watering-places, half new and half 
 old, a little fishing village of antiquity, 
 with red-roofed and picturesque cottages 
 and tawny men, upon which rows of 
 showy new houses, new hotels, and orna- 
 mental parades, have been ingrafted. 
 The old and the new are quite apart. 
 The old taverns still receive the small 
 tradespeople of the town and the boat- 
 masters, who come into the smoky little 
 parlor of an evening, and, after the Eng- 
 lish custom, slowly and seriously drink 
 their allowance of hot grog, while dis- 
 cussing with gravity the news of the day. 
 The new taverns are large and ambitious, 
 with nothing characteristically English 
 about them ; indeed, they are growing 
 more like American hotels every day. 
 Nearly all the new houses are rented by 
 speculative landladies, who have to exer- 
 cise much ingenuity in making both ends 
 meet. The season lasts about two 
 months, and in this brief period they 
 expect to profit enough for the year.
 
 122 A BIT OF THE 
 
 After two months of excitement, of 
 crowded apartments, of romping and 
 aggressive children, and of incessant 
 piano-playing, and almost continuous 
 tea and shrimps, cold mutton and beer.^ 
 they have their establishments to them- 
 selves ; and their many-ribboned caps are 
 seen bobbing forlornly in the windows 
 of their best parlors, upon which the 
 frost of winter has fallen. 
 
 Filey, which is on the other side of 
 Flamborough Head, is just like Bridling- 
 ton. There are the same old-time white 
 plaster cottages abutting on irruptions 
 of modern brick architecture. There is 
 the same admixture of old and new, the 
 same brief prosperity of summer, the 
 same insupportable languor of winter. 
 The tasselled and pennanted landladies 
 are in no wise different from those of 
 the sister village. But Filey has a geo- 
 logical curiosity which does not end in 
 being odd, but is also of some utility. 
 The coast is open to the north for hun-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 123 
 
 dreds of miles ; and to protect the bay 
 from the fury of the storms which rush 
 down, Nature, with kindly forethought, 
 has thrown out an extraordinary ridge 
 of rocks from the northern horn of the 
 semicircle within which Filey lies. The 
 ridge is rough and jagged. Anciently 
 it was called the File, and now it is 
 known as the Brigg. It forms a natural 
 pier or breakwater nearly a mile long, 
 with the ocean breaking on each side of 
 it. To the north of this again the cliffs 
 increase in rugged grandeur. The slop- 
 ing rocks are covered with enormous 
 bowlders, weighing as much as fifty tons 
 apiece ; and innumerable caverns have 
 been hollowed out, wherein are pools 
 full of delicate seaweeds, and pallid 
 living things. 
 
 Seven and a half miles from Filey is 
 Scarborough, which between the first of 
 July and the middle of October is one 
 of the most crowded of English water- 
 ing-places. In beauty of situation it is
 
 124 A BIT OF THE 
 
 all that the imagination can picture it 
 as being. A narrow bay opens out 
 from the German Ocean, locked by high 
 cliffs which as nearly as possible take 
 the shape of a horseshoe. Up the sides 
 of the cliffs, and terraced, one tier above 
 another, to a height of more than two 
 hundred feet, Scarborough is built. 
 Back of the cliffs is a high, undulating 
 country, with one conspicuous hill that 
 almost reaches the dignity of a moun- 
 tain ; cross-cutting them is a deep ra- 
 vine, full of cool foliage. Along their 
 base is a wide strip of smooth golden- 
 yellow sand, upon which the clear blue 
 water of the bay breaks with a moderate 
 surf. The foliage is quite luxuriant, 
 and terrace is separated from terrace 
 by a belt of refreshing green. Such is 
 the situation. 
 
 The great natural advantages have 
 been improved upon by a judicious 
 and spirited local administration. The 
 streets are clean, and well paved or as-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 12$ 
 
 phalted, and the buildings are handsome 
 and varied in architecture. Between 
 the middle of September and the first 
 of October, when the season is at its 
 height, Scarborough holds a constant 
 carnival. The sands are crowded with 
 prettily dressed children and women, itin- 
 erant musicians and acrobats, bathing 
 men and women, and holiday makers. 
 Following the course of the sands is an 
 asphalt drive and promenade, upon 
 which there is a crowd of well-dressed 
 pedestrians and equestrians, and a cu- 
 rious variety of vehicles, landaus, brough- 
 ams, wagonettes, and donkey carriages. 
 At one end of the drive an enormous 
 hotel springs up, which, with its ten 
 stories, seems higher than the highest 
 cliff; and beyond this is the ravine we 
 have spoken of, spanned by a splendid 
 iron bridge. A little farther on still is 
 the Spa, with its showily decorated sa- 
 loons, wherein the visitors assemble to 
 gossip and drink the waters, which have
 
 126 A BIT OF THE 
 
 long been celebrated for their healing 
 qualities. The Spa is the centre of the 
 fashionable life ; but there is movement, 
 color, and variety everywhere. 
 
 Scarborough is not a mushroom 
 growth. It reaches back to the Saxon 
 period, whence its name was derived 
 from two words signifying the town or 
 fortress on the Rock, and still earlier 
 it was probably a Roman camp. 
 
 Up on the northern point of the bay, 
 crowning a majestic headland, girt by 
 savage cliffs that spring four hundred 
 feet out of the sea, is a gray old castle 
 with straggling ramparts, which in its 
 prime presented a resolute face and 
 supreme difficulties to the enemies that 
 attempted to storm it. It is now in 
 ruins, and its prostrate and disjointed 
 fabric seems like a part of the native 
 rock from which the earth has been 
 washed away. It is given up to peace 
 and decay ; and there is no echo, except 
 in history, of the gallant scenes of which
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. I2/ 
 
 it was the centre. Could the gray old 
 walls speak for themselves, they would 
 tell a thrilling story of the assaults they 
 have resisted and the brave hearts they 
 have sheltered. 
 
 Once, when in the great civil war 
 they were besieged by the Parliamen- 
 tary forces, the governor received a mes- 
 sage threatening instant death to him 
 and all within the castle unless he sur- 
 rendered without the shedding of one 
 drop of Roundhead blood. The arro- 
 gant Puritan did not know the courage 
 and hardihood of his foe, and the castle 
 was held against him for nearly a year. 
 
 " Conceiving that I would relent in 
 respect of her being there," the governor 
 wrote, " my wife came to me, without 
 any direction or trouble, and prayed me 
 that I would not for any consideration 
 of her do aught which might be preju- 
 dicial to my own interests or the king's 
 affairs." 
 
 At the end of a year capitulation was
 
 128 A BIT OF THE 
 
 unavoidable ; and the Puritans marched 
 up the craggy steps that led to the sally- 
 port, an exultant horde in sober drab 
 jackets and shining helmets, to drive out 
 the crestfallen and starving Cavaliers. 
 
 In 1655 the castle was the prison of 
 George Fox, the founder of the Society 
 of Friends, who at various times was 
 confined in three different rooms : the 
 first he likened to purgatory because it 
 was filled with smoke ; in the second 
 there was no fireplace or chimney at 
 all, and here, being unable to dry his 
 clothes, his body became benumbed, 
 and his fingers swollen ; but his greatest 
 suffering was in the third, into which 
 the wind drove the rain so forcibly that 
 " the water came over his bed, and he 
 was fain to skim it up with a platter." 
 His jailers made a threepenny loaf last 
 him three weeks, and steeped wormwood 
 in his water. 
 
 Three years later, he was not only 
 free, but was invited to preach at the
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. I2Q 
 
 castle, where he was received with 
 honor and affection. 
 
 Beyond the castle, the summit of the 
 crag on which the ruins are expands 
 into an almost level greensward, which 
 suddenly ends in a perpendicular cliff. 
 
 Looking over that cliff, the last time 
 I was up there, was like looking into 
 the primeval. Vibrating outward to the 
 limits of sight was the colorless and 
 uneven sea, meeting the gray and sad- 
 dening roof of cloud. One object was 
 visible, as solitary as the ark in the 
 flood a serpentine line of black with 
 small eyes of red and green, which 
 slowly and tediously defined itself as 
 a tug-boat with two close-reefed fishing 
 smacks in tow. There was a fascinat- 
 ing despondency in the incompleteness 
 of the view which attracted us to it until 
 the gloom had lowered the spirits to an 
 unendurable point. Then we wheeled 
 round ; and there before us, in the com- 
 fortable semicircle of the bay, lay luxu-
 
 I3O A BIT OF THE 
 
 riant and modern Scarborough, showing 
 itself in the twilight in many a starry 
 cluster of lamps. A turn of the heel 
 had brought us, more vividly than the 
 transition from chapter to chapter of 
 any book, out of the primeval into to- 
 day. 
 
 Scarborough abounds with contrasts. 
 There are narrow little by-ways in it, and 
 many queer little houses, roofed with the 
 ever-welcome and hospitable-looking red 
 tiles. But all things are orderly and in 
 good repair. The old houses do not seem 
 to have been retained because their room 
 has not been wanted, but because they 
 add to the interest and picturesqueness 
 of the place, and they have the neat and 
 well-preserved appearance of being kept 
 for show. The one objection to Scar- 
 borough is the unfair way in which it is 
 treated by the clerk of the weather. It 
 has more than its share of rain. Some- 
 times the rain begins in the very middle 
 of the season, and falls day after day
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 1$! 
 
 from week to week, putting an end to all 
 the festivities, and dampening the people 
 inside and out. Sometimes it is so per- 
 sistent that the visitors are driven away 
 at the beginning of their holiday to 
 re-embrace London with true cockney 
 felicity. 
 
 The most notable place on the York- 
 shire coast, however, is Whitby, which, 
 by the coast road, is only twenty-one 
 miles distant from Scarborough. The 
 coast road borders on the magnificent 
 cliff, and strikes some old-fashioned vil- 
 lages Stainton Wall, from the hill of 
 which the Knights of St. John used to 
 ring a bell, or blow a horn, every even- 
 ing, to direct travellers to their hospi- 
 tal ; and Robin Hood's Town, which is 
 propped up against a precipice, with 
 some of its houses overhanging the sea. 
 There was plenty of room for Robin 
 Hood's Town on the mainland ; and in 
 perching it on a dizzy crag, the builders 
 seem to have been actuated by the same
 
 132 A BIT OF THE 
 
 instinct that prompts a boy to stand on 
 his head. From the railway, we see 
 reaches of dull brown moorland and deep 
 valleys, which remind us of the smaller 
 western canons. The pale primroses 
 blossom on the hillsides with an unfa- 
 miliar luxuriance. 
 
 Let us take our first look at Whitby 
 from the summit of East Cliff, one of 
 the two promontories between which the 
 river Esk enters the German Ocean. On 
 both sides of us is a precipitous line of 
 coast, with bristling cliffs, washed by a 
 boiling surf in some places, and in others 
 fringed with a narrow beach, on which 
 gigantic moss-covered bowlders are piled. 
 The sea itself melts in the extreme hori- 
 zon. The ground at the summit is un- 
 even, and ends in a precipice. The wind 
 strikes us with unrestrained violence. 
 
 Looking to the east and north, we see 
 the embattled cliffs and the restless sea 
 filling the view ; looking to the west, the 
 river cleaving the valley, with the town
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. I3J 
 
 built on both sides of it. The two char- 
 acterizing colors of the picture are red 
 and blue. One house rises above an- 
 other, apparently supported by the cor- 
 nice of that below it; the floor of one 
 seems to be the roof of the other. The 
 roofs are peaked and gabled and dormer- 
 windowed, with tall chimney-pots shoot- 
 ing up from them ; nearly all of them are 
 sheathed with crimson tiles, which, with 
 the lazy blue smoke drifting over them, 
 are the things that give color to every 
 picture of Whitby. The color and archi- 
 tecture are both foreign. The cold gray 
 look of the usual English village on 
 the coast is substituted by a delightful 
 warmth and richness. Leading down 
 from the summit of East Cliff to the 
 town is a curving flight of one hundred 
 and ninety-six well-worn stone steps, up 
 which the worshippers come on Sunday 
 to the old parish church, which stands 
 at the head of the cliff, surrounded by a 
 full crop of gravestones, with the sea be-
 
 134 A BIT F THE 
 
 hind it. It is a very old building of the 
 early Norman period; and the interior, 
 with its undecorated oak and dead-lights 
 in the low roof, is more like the cabin of 
 a ship than a church. For many years 
 Whitby was a favorite resort of James 
 Russell Lowell and George du Maurier. 
 On the cliff, also, are the beautiful gray 
 ruins of St. Hilda's Abbey, which are the 
 crowning glory of Whitby. Oswy, the 
 King of Northumbria, who was a convert 
 to Christianity, vowed that if God gave 
 him the victory over his pagan foes, his 
 daughter Edelfled should be dedicated in 
 holy virginity to the Lord, with a dowry 
 of twelve manors for the foundation of 
 monasteries ; and in part fulfilment of 
 his vow (his prayer being answered) he 
 built this abbey, of which his niece, St. 
 Hilda, was the first abbess. Hilda is 
 described by Prof. J. R. Greene as a 
 Northumbrian Deborah, whose counsel 
 was sought even by bishops and kings ; 
 and through her influence Whitby be-
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 135 
 
 came the Westminster of Northumbria. 
 She was succeeded by Edelfled. 
 
 Many legends are attached to the ab- 
 bey, and some of them are recounted in 
 the following lines of " Marmion " : 
 
 " Then Whitby's nuns exulting told 
 How to their house three barons bold 
 
 Must menial service do. . . . 
 In wrath, for loss of sylvan game, 
 
 St. Hilda's priest he slew. . . . 
 They told how in their convent cell 
 A Saxon princess once did dwell, 
 
 The lovely Edelfled ; 
 And how of thousand snakes each one 
 Was changed into a coil of stone 
 
 When holy Hilda pray'd. . . . 
 They told how sea-fowls' pinions fail 
 As over Whitby's towers they sail ; 
 And sinking down, with flutterings faint, 
 They do their homage to the saint." 
 
 But that objectionable person, the icono- 
 clast, has been here. He tells us that the 
 basis of the story of the snakes turned 
 into coils of stone was in the fossil am- 
 monites which are frequently discovered 
 in the neighborhood ; and that the devo-
 
 136 A BIT OF THE 
 
 tion of the birds may be accounted for 
 by the fact that in crossing the German 
 Ocean in their usual migration they be- 
 came tired, and stopped to rest. 
 
 Caedmon belonged to the Whitby Chap- 
 ter ; and from his lips, during the reign of 
 the founder of the abbey, came the first 
 great English song. 
 
 The ruins show how large and impor- 
 tant the building was. The style is Early 
 English, with some decorated and per- 
 pendicular windows. Shattered as the 
 fabric is, and though the voices of nun 
 and monk are hushed, it is not without 
 devotees. On every sunny day, more 
 than one artist may be seen reproducing 
 the old pile in oil- or water-colors ; and 
 when the artist has a pretty young wife 
 nestling by him, and reading a novel to 
 him, as one we saw had, the introduction 
 of their figures seems essential to the 
 completeness of the picture. Whitby 
 has been painted oftener than any pro- 
 fessional beauty ; and the easel is so
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 137 
 
 common a feature, in the season, that 
 an artist can work in the streets without 
 being irritated to death by peeping chil- 
 dren and ignorant commentators. 
 
 Coming down the winding steps from 
 the cliff, we soon learn what the charm 
 of Whitby is for artists. It is unmodern, 
 a survival of more peaceful and poetic 
 times than ours. It is rich in quaint ar- 
 chitecture, and the atmosphere is full of 
 memories. We hear the voice of the 
 town-crier an institution still cherished 
 in Whitby. John the Bellman is, indeed, 
 one of the best-known characters of the 
 place, and during the fashionable season 
 his services are in constant requisition. 
 Ordinarily the recitals of a town-crier 
 are delivered in a high key and a severe 
 monotone, distressing and exhausting to 
 his voice, and painful to all who hear 
 him. But John's performances are not 
 of this sort : they are musical composi- 
 tions of no little artistic merit. He tunes 
 the pipe to various notes in the scale,
 
 138 
 
 A BIT OF THE 
 
 as illustrated in the following example, 
 kindly taken down for us by Mr. J. Storer, 
 M.B., and each sentence has its separate 
 note and pitch : 
 
 NOTICE. The steamer Emu will leave the 
 
 pier-side this afternoon at 3 o'clock, 
 
 for a trip to Robin Hood Bay, 
 
 1 
 
 Fare, there and back, one shilling. 
 
 Going along the street, we meet an- 
 other celebrity of the town Fish Jane. 
 She has slung her basket from her head, 
 her quick eyes having detected a prob- 
 able customer in a lady standing near a 
 doorway.
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 139 
 
 " Noo, then, are yo' ti hev onny fish 
 ti-day ? " she brusquely demands. 
 
 " Is it quite fresh ? " the lady asks. 
 
 "Fresh, honey? Ay, it's as fresh as 
 paint ; it's just come'd in. Ah'll cut yo' 
 't off by there for a shillin', an' ah's sure 
 it's as cheap as muck." 
 
 The bargain is struck ; and Jane, pro- 
 fuse in her thanks, stops a while for a 
 little friendly gossip with her customer. 
 Then she hoists her basket, poises it 
 upon her head, and repeats her cry of 
 " Fresh fi-i-ish ! " in a shrill, ear-piercing 
 voice. 
 
 Jane is prominent in all times of ex- 
 citement. An ardent Liberal, she decks 
 herself in the party color during the elec- 
 tions, and is always at the front in pub- 
 lic meetings, processions, and the hus- 
 tings. Many a Liberal speaker has been 
 inspired to fresh bursts of eloquence, 
 and many a Conservative has been dis- 
 concerted, by hearing, high above all 
 other voices, Jane's trumpet tones ring- 
 ing out, " Blew forivver ! "
 
 I4O A BIT OF THE 
 
 "Ah, bud she's a good-hearted oad 
 sowl is Jane ! " says a by-stander ; and 
 perhaps we are told how, years and 
 years ago, a certain poor widow died, 
 leaving a boy five or six years old quite 
 destitute. There was a pauper's grave 
 for her, and some of the neighbors gath- 
 ered together to see what could be done 
 for the boy : there was the workhouse 
 for him. Hearing this, the lad began to 
 sob as if his heart would break, and then 
 Jane interfered. 
 
 " Deean't cry, deean't cry, ma honey ; 
 thou shall not be sent to the poor-house," 
 she gently said ; " thou shall just gang 
 hame wi' me." 
 
 Although she had a large family of 
 her own, and the earnings of her hus- 
 band, a fisherman, were scanty, and the 
 full meaning of Kingsley's line, in that 
 song of his, 
 
 " There's little to earn, and many to keep," 
 
 was known to her, she took the little
 
 YORKSHIRE COAST. 14! 
 
 fellow home, and became a mother to 
 him. 
 
 We like Whitby not for its re- 
 sources as a watering-place, but for 
 its historical associations, the antique 
 spirit of its life, and the old red-tiled 
 houses dozing under the wreathing blue 
 smoke.
 
 Amy Robsart, Kenilworth, and 
 Warwick. 
 
 IT must be with an unavoidable pang 
 of disappointment that the senti- 
 mental traveller alights at Warwick, and 
 finds ingrafted on the old town so much 
 that is new and prosaic. The pictures 
 of it that he has seen have never con- 
 fessed to the modernization ; they have 
 shown him only the open-framed, red- 
 tiled, or thatched Elizabethan houses, 
 with latticed windows and projecting 
 gables ; the bastions, escarpments, and 
 skyward towers of the castle ; the ruined 
 bridge across the Avon, with the dis- 
 abling lapses in its span; the well-pre- 
 served antiquity of Lord Leicester's 
 Hospital. He has forgotten how ar- 
 tists separate what they desire from 
 143
 
 144 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 any common placeenvironment ; and he 
 has thought of Warwick, and seen it 
 through the eye of anticipation, as a 
 place made up of ancient buildings 
 and ancient streets, a sleepy town, 
 stealing down through time with an 
 unchanged front, and owing nothing 
 to later days and later fashions. 
 
 Alas ! though these historical monu- 
 ments are still there, many of their sur- 
 roundings are not in keeping with them, 
 but have the freshness, the unromantic 
 and unmellowed properties of our own 
 times. To what is new they seem to 
 bear much the same proportion as the 
 ancestral brooch and other tcinkets 
 which a woman attaches to a costume 
 that in its other features is exclusively 
 modern though this is only so long 
 as our initiatory disappointment is al- 
 lowed to prejudice our observation. It 
 requires a spirited imagination to re- 
 store to those streets the Elizabethan 
 procession which throngs out of the
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 145 
 
 pages of " Kenilworth " the courtiers 
 and swash-bucklers, Dick Hostler and 
 Jack Pudding, Wayland Smith and Flib- 
 bertigibbet, the gay-hearted Raleigh, and 
 the dark-browed Varney. The pressure 
 of innovation comes to oppose their re- 
 turn, not only in the modernization of 
 the streets, but in the intrusion at every 
 point of assiduous, trifle-hunting tourists. 
 
 Of these tourists there are probably 
 two Americans to one Englishman. 
 " Bless you, sir ! I don't know 'ow 
 we could get hon without them," the 
 waiter at the " Warwick Arms " will 
 tell you, after wofully recounting the 
 various causes of the decline in the 
 town's prosperity. 
 
 All summer long you hear them scur- 
 rying through the streets toward the 
 Castle, or the Hospital, or St. Mary's 
 Church, with guide-books tucked under 
 their arms, and their satchels swelled by 
 new souvenirs of travel in the shape of 
 photographs, or paper-weights and ink-
 
 146 AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 pots cast in the image of Leicester's 
 famous cognizance of the Bear and 
 Ragged Staff. Their pursuit leaves 
 no moment unmarked by achievement. 
 Yesterday morning it was the Custom- 
 house and the landing-stage at Liver- 
 pool, and since then they have been to 
 Chester and Shrewsbury. To-day they 
 are debating how they shall apportion 
 their time so that they may be in Lon- 
 don to-morrow. Shall it be Shottery 
 and Stratford, or Warwick and Kenil- 
 worth ? Shakespeare and Ann Hatha- 
 way, or Leicester and Amy Robsart? 
 They glance at Vandyke's equestrian 
 portrait of Charles I., so full of life 
 that rider and horse seem to be ad- 
 vancing down the corridor of the Cas- 
 tle ; smile at the huge caldron known 
 as Guy's porridge-pot ; listen to the 
 legends of the pensioners at the Hos- 
 pital ; hover about the tombs in the 
 Beauchamp Chapel, and read with ques- 
 tioning eyes the epitaph which describes
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 147 
 
 Leicester as the best and dearest of 
 husbands. Then we see them flying 
 off to the station, or disappearing, with 
 their trunks vividly labelled " Wanted," 
 or " Not Wanted on the Voyage," down 
 the broad highway which leads through 
 the matchless verdure of England to 
 Kenilworth and Coventry. Those who 
 do not touch at Warwick on their way 
 from Liverpool to the Continent com- 
 pass it on their return flight across the 
 Atlantic. The bustle continues until 
 summer ends ; and we cannot wonder 
 that the spectres of the past shun it, 
 even though conjured and employed 
 by an imagination fully prepared to 
 rehabilitate them. 
 
 But after September the visitors be- 
 come infrequent, and the old town sinks 
 into a torpor in which, as in the human 
 countenance after a lapse from tem- 
 porary stimulation, we can see and feel 
 its real age. The furrows are deeper 
 than we thought they were at first sight,
 
 148 AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 and the survival of antiquity is more 
 complete. One speculates as to how 
 the place exists, unless it is on the 
 harvest of the summer. High Street, up 
 and down, between the two old gates, 
 is empty, and a footfall reverberates in 
 the disoccupation through long dis- 
 tances. The signs of the prosperous 
 country town are not visible, though 
 Warwick is the capital of the county 
 and a parliamentary and municipal bor- 
 ough. There are no smart traps from 
 neighboring manors with apple-faced 
 English girls on the high box-seats and 
 sleek grooms in attendance ; no far- 
 mers or yokels seldom does one see 
 a market wagon loaded up with fresh 
 green stuff, or a fragrant haycart. 
 Since, however, one cannot make such 
 a statement as this without incurring 
 local displeasure and the peril of being 
 confronted with figures which, in the 
 mind of the disputant, are sufficient of 
 an answer to cover one with confusion,
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 149 
 
 let us qualify it so far as to admit that 
 we are merely recording an impression, 
 and that the impression does not retain 
 images of these things as it does of the 
 vacancy and drowsiness which follow 
 the departure of the tourists. There 
 is nothing unfriendly in our intention ; 
 and it yet remains for us to say how 
 charming and pervasive the inactivity 
 and somnolency are, and how, when 
 we yield to the effect of them, the 
 harsher and more prosaic features of 
 the town recede as in a mist, leaving 
 what is old and mellowed all the more 
 prominent, and making Warwick a very 
 habitable place for kindred spirits, 
 ghosts, and sentimentalists. 
 
 At the very entrance of the town 
 stands a house which, by the dignity 
 of its proportions and the style of its 
 architecture, arrests attention. It is 
 sadly out of repair, but it has a semi- 
 baronial, semi-monastic grandeur in its 
 decay. The grayness of its stone and
 
 I5O AMY ROBSART, 
 
 the sagging tiled roof tell that it is at 
 least twice a centenarian; and ivy and 
 moss spread themselves over the wide- 
 arched porch and over the windows, of 
 which there are no less than nine, of 
 enormous size, partitioned by stone 
 mullions, and filled with small, green- 
 ish, leaded glass. The end windows 
 swell out on both stories, and at the 
 level of the five gables which spring 
 along the roof they form balconies with 
 carved stone parapets. An unobtrusive 
 sign in the weedy, tangled garden, which 
 is separated from the street by iron rail- 
 ings, announces that a tapestried room 
 may be seen between certain hours, and 
 with a thrill of satisfaction the visitor 
 who cares for the picturesque perceives, 
 by another small sign, that there are 
 "Apartments to Let." Originally the 
 old house is said to have been a hospi- 
 tal of the Knights of St. John ; then it 
 was a school ; and now so much of it as 
 is habitable is rented by two pensioners
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 15! 
 
 of the Earl of Warwick to such as are 
 willing to put up with the inconveniences 
 inseparable from its dilapidation for the 
 sake of living under so venerable a roof. 
 For a very small sum per week you 
 may have a sitting-room and bedroom. 
 Imagine the sitting-room : about sixty 
 feet long and twenty feet wide, with 
 wainscoting of black oak, panelled and 
 moulded from the floor to the groined 
 stone ceiling, one end being formed 
 by the mullioned leaded bay windows 
 aforesaid, with tendrils of ivy creep- 
 ing across the small panes of green- 
 ish glass. The light is never more 
 than twilight, even at mid-day; and 
 when you sit down to your chop in 
 the evening, with one candle burning 
 on the little table, you are girt by a 
 shadowy and cavernous darkness. The 
 bedroom is inferior only to the sitting- 
 room in proportions, and for a couch 
 you have a four-post bed. There are 
 drawbacks to all this picturesqueness,
 
 152 AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 as we have already intimated : there 
 is no running water, except when it 
 leaks in with the rain ; the leaded win- 
 dows shake fearfully, and are no match 
 against the boisterous winds which slip 
 in and strike the tenant in the back; 
 the only illumination is by lamp and 
 candle ; and in " the dead vast and mid- 
 dle of the night" there are inexplicable 
 rattlings as though the old knights, 
 arisen from their tombs, were buck- 
 ling on their armor for a new crusade. 
 Living in these old-fashioned quarters 
 we feel that the gulf between Queen 
 Elizabeth's age and our own times is 
 not so very wide, and from them it is 
 not difficult to enter into the past. 
 
 What Shakespeare is to Stratford, 
 Leicester and Amy Robsart are to War- 
 wick. They are the leading personages, 
 in the only drama the little town knows 
 the " stars " in a performance which 
 is repeated so often that by comparison 
 a Chinese play is a mere interlude. We
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 1 53 
 
 refresh our memories of them by read- 
 ing " Kenilworth " again, and perhaps, 
 it must be confessed, do not find it as 
 absorbing as it was when we read it 
 under an apple-tree, though our heresy 
 may not be as flagrant as that of Mr. 
 Howells. Where now is the soldier of 
 fortune who can discourse as Mike Lam- 
 bourne did, with all that facility of met- 
 aphor and expletive, so apt and so varied 
 that they put us into good humor with 
 the unconscionable villain ? All the 
 characters in those days spoke in epi- 
 grams, even down to the hostler at the 
 "Bonny Black Bear," who, when Lam- 
 bourne is in his cups, describes him as 
 speaking " Spanish as one who has been 
 in the Canaries." What innuendo or 
 quip finds Giles Gosling without a repar- 
 tee he who poetizes his own sack so 
 beautifully? "If you find better sack 
 than that in the Shires or in the Cana- 
 ries either, I would I may never touch 
 either pot or penny more. Why, hold
 
 154 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 it up betwixt you and the light and you 
 shall see the little motes dance in the 
 golden liquor like dust in the sunbeam." 
 Knave and knight, the rustic boor and 
 the gartered courtier, have the same 
 knack of saying what they have to say 
 with Macaulay-like precision and with a 
 like appreciation of antithesis and allit- 
 eration. There is some contemporary 
 evidence that the subjects of the fiery 
 Elizabeth garnished their speech no 
 more nor set it in finer phrase than the 
 subjects of Victoria ; no false modesty 
 led them to mince matters, and call a 
 spade a silver spoon. But Scott's char- 
 acters have set speeches which they de- 
 liver ore rotundo, spiced with color-giving 
 adjectives and neat turns of wit : there 
 is not a flash in the pan among them 
 all. Is it life ? Was it ever life ? Did 
 people three hundred years ago speak in 
 this stilted, theatrical manner ? " There, 
 caitiff, is thy morning wage." " Draw, 
 dog, and defend thyself!" "Off, ab-
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. I $5 
 
 ject ! Barest thou come betwixt me 
 and mine enemy ! " Perhaps there may 
 be justification for the assault Mr. How- 
 ells recently made on Scott ; and at all 
 events we advise those who have anath- 
 ematized the courageous American critic 
 to read their " Kenilworth " again, and 
 not to hurl their stones until they have 
 done so. 
 
 But criticism is not part of our inten- 
 tion ; and we had better come back to 
 our tourists, many of whom we may 
 say nearly all have copies of " Kenil- 
 worth " under their arms, and do not 
 question or dispute the historical foot- 
 hold which Scott claims for his charac- 
 ters. We find Mr. William Winter 
 espousing the legend with implicit faith, 
 and confessing that as he presses to his 
 lips a red rose, plucked in the garden of 
 Kenilworth, he has the enviable sensa- 
 tion of touching the lips of the lovely 
 Amy, who " outweighed England's 
 crown."
 
 156 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 The three great sights of Warwick are 
 the Castle, the Hospital, and the Beau- 
 champ Chapel, in each of which we are 
 reminded of the reality of Leicester, 
 though there is but one trifling relic of 
 Amy. The town itself is said to have 
 been founded by Cymbeline, and it is 
 mentioned in the Domesday-book as a 
 borough containing no less than two 
 hundred and sixteen houses. One of 
 the first earls was the famous Guy, who 
 exceeded nine feet in height, and who 
 slew a green dragon and a Saracen giant 
 in single combat. The title has had 
 many wearers : the Beauchamps ; Rich- 
 ard Neville, " the king-maker ; " George 
 Plantagenet, and Edward Plantagenet. 
 For forty-eight years it was dormant ; 
 and then it was conferred on that over- 
 reaching John Dudley, the Duke of 
 Northumberland, who lost his head 
 finally, having done the same thing 
 metaphorically several times before, on 
 Tower Hill. He was the father of Leices-
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 
 
 ter, whose brother, Ambrose, then held 
 the earldom. 
 
 Out of the diamond panes of the 
 chamber in our picturesque lodgings, we 
 look on the smooth grassy court of 
 " New Bowling Green," as the dwarfish 
 little tavern calls itself, with a preposter- 
 ous pretence to a youth which must have 
 ended at least a century ago ; and in the 
 long, melodious, English twilight we can 
 hear the voices of the players softened 
 to an ^Eolian pitch in the mild summer 
 air. The inn is on a curving street 
 which leads down to the Avon, and 
 which has scarcely been touched by the 
 tide of change that has been so busy 
 with alterations elsewhere. Nearly all 
 the houses are ancient, so old, so 
 sunken, and so bent, that one wonders 
 why they do not collapse. The roofs 
 sag, the fronts bulge ; but age seems to 
 have given them a malleable quality like 
 whalebone. The highest is not more 
 than two very modest stories, the upper
 
 I 58 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 projecting over, the lower, and resting 
 on oaken brackets. They are all of the 
 half-timbered variety ; the huge beams 
 being visible in front and freshly painted 
 in broad black lines, while the material 
 between them shows white or gray. So 
 small are the lattice windows, so low and 
 narrow are the doors, that the people for 
 whom they were built must have been 
 inferior in stature to the Britons of to- 
 day, and Earl Guy must indeed have 
 been a phenomenon among them. 
 Marked with age as they are, the cot- 
 tages are very habitable however; and 
 where an open door allows us to peep 
 in, the interior shows us much comfort 
 within a space inconceivable as to cubic 
 feet. The stone floor is pipe-clayed ; a 
 kettle simmers on the "hob;" the 
 crockery glistens on a sideboard ; and 
 there is evidence of a sociability which 
 we should not be unwilling to share in 
 the high-backed settle drawn up at right 
 angles with the hearth. A thriving box
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 1 59 
 
 of fuchsias and geraniums decorates the 
 window ; and at the threshold, in a 
 wicker cage, there is sure to be a bird 
 a starling, a lark, or a fat, confiding bul- 
 finch. 
 
 Such is the approach to the river by 
 the way of Mill Street, and it was be- 
 tween these very rows of cottages, as 
 like as not, that Queen Bess passed on 
 her journey from London to the revels 
 at Kenilworth, with Leicester, Sussex, 
 Raleigh, and Blount in her train. When 
 we reach the brink of the river, the 
 scene is one such as England alone can 
 show. Here there is another group of 
 cottages, probably of later date, with 
 long, narrow gardens, out of which 
 breathes the scent of gillyflowers, migno- 
 nette, sweet-brier, and moss-rose, a 
 tangle of bloom woven as close as a 
 fabric. The Avon comes down without 
 a murmur or visible motion, between 
 banks grassy and solid to the edge, 
 without ooze or underbrush, carrying
 
 I6O AMY ROBSART, 
 
 on its surface pictures of the sky, the 
 fleecy clouds, and the willows which 
 bend over and dip their slender 
 branches into it. Then it is ruffled by 
 a weir for a moment, as an uneasy dream 
 might agitate it, before it falls into a 
 sounder sleep, and glides as peaceful as 
 ever on its course to Stratford. After 
 the weir a new vision appears on the 
 placid surface a vision of a great me- 
 diaeval stronghold, towered and battle- 
 mented, which springs like a precipice 
 out of the foliage along the margin. It 
 has an aerial, phantasmal, insubstantial 
 air as it floats on the stream ; but as we 
 look up from the foot of Mill Street it is 
 verified, battlement by battlement, tower 
 by tower, in the walls of Warwick Cas- 
 tle. Higher up the river is a handsome 
 bridge with carvings and stone balus- 
 ters, a bridge of respectable age ; but 
 the bridge by which Elizabeth came 
 here on that memorable occasion, when 
 she was as much bent on twisting the
 
 KEN IL WORTH, AND WARWICK. l6l 
 
 secret of Amy Robsart out of Leicester's 
 heart as on pleasure, is in ruins before 
 us. The arches are gone, and the piers 
 alone stand out of the stream, their 
 stones quite concealed by moss and 
 ivy. 
 
 According to the novel, while the 
 Queen was making her way to Kenil- 
 worth in state, poor Amy, alarmed by 
 the conduct of Varney and Foster, was 
 flying from Cumnor Hall in the same 
 direction, resolved to throw herself upon 
 the mercy and affection of Leicester. 
 Surely lady never was in sorrier plight 
 than she in that company of mounte- 
 banks, with only Wayland Smith to pro- 
 tect her and provide for her; though 
 Wayland, it should be said, was as much 
 of a gentleman as any of the more be- 
 ruffled and bejewelled personages of 
 " Kenilworth." 
 
 What their route from Cumnor was is 
 a matter of some mystery; for in one 
 place Scott tells us that Amy and her
 
 1 62 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 escort avoided Warwick, and then that 
 they travelled to Kenilworth by the way 
 of Warwick and Coventry, the latter a 
 rather inexplicable proceeding, for Ken- 
 ilworth is between the two. Perhaps 
 they struck off from the main road be- 
 fore reaching Warwick ; and in that case 
 we can imagine them trudging wearily 
 through the quaint villages of Bishop's 
 Tackbrook, Offchurch, and Cubbington. 
 These places looked much the same 
 then as they do now ; and if we should 
 see an Elizabethan figure at the door of 
 one of the thatched cottages we should 
 hardly suspect it to be a masquerade. 
 Changes are infrequent and slow in 
 their operation in nooks of this sort; 
 and a new window here, or a chimney 
 there, is the only alteration a revisiting 
 spirit could discover after an absence of 
 a duration compared with which its mor- 
 tal life would seem less than infancy. 
 The crouching little church at the bend 
 of the road, with its square Norman
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 163 
 
 tower, was old and gray in Elizabeth's 
 time ; and the wind and rain have done 
 little more in the interval than bevel the 
 edges of the stones in the wall, and 
 flatten the jaws of the hideous gar- 
 goyles. No doubt the peasants we see 
 are lineal descendants of those who 
 joined in the throng which filled every 
 approach to Kenilworth on the occasion 
 of the fete. 
 
 "Forefathers and foremothers," as 
 Hawthorne says, writing of this neigh- 
 borhood in "Our Old Home," "have 
 grown up together, intermarried and 
 died, through a long succession of lives, 
 without any intermixture of new ele- 
 ments, till family features and character 
 are all run in the same inevitable mould. 
 Life is there fossilized in its greenest 
 leaf. The man who died yesterday, or 
 ever so long ago, walks the village street 
 to-day, and chooses the same wife that 
 he married a hundred years since, and 
 must be buried again to-morrow under
 
 164 AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 the same kindred dust that has already 
 covered him half a score of times. The 
 stone threshold of his cottage is worn 
 away with his hobnailed footsteps shuf- 
 fling over it from the reign of the first 
 Plantagenet to that of Victoria." 
 
 The wear of season and age, which 
 has not impaired the habitableness of 
 these humble dwellings, becomes elo- 
 quent, however, in the castle at Kenfl- 
 worth, which might have been expected 
 to outlast them for many a year. Leices- 
 ter's palace, that noble structure, which 
 dating from the time of Henry I., 
 often sheltered kings, is now but a ruin, 
 with stairways leading only half-way 
 from floor to floor, and no other roof 
 than the sky in any of its chambers. 
 Still, enough of it remains to enable us 
 to trace nearly all the incidents of the 
 story as Scott describes them in the 
 romance ; and stimulated by the rhyth- 
 mic cumulative splendor of those por- 
 tions of the narrative which bear all
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 165 
 
 readers along with impetuous fascina- 
 tion, the visitors witness, when they are 
 sufficiently imaginative, the re-enactment 
 of Amy's adventures. Here is the point 
 at which the giant warder was posted, 
 past whom she stole with Wayland, 
 while Flibbertigibbet restored to the 
 memory of the huge creature his part 
 in the coming masque ; here was Mer- 
 vyn's Tower, where she sought shelter 
 in the hope of being able to communi- 
 cate with the Earl, and where she was 
 discovered by Lambourne and Tres- 
 silian ; here may yet be seen the great 
 hall in which the throne was placed ; 
 and here, in the Pleasaunce, was the 
 grotto in whose cool recess Amy con- 
 cealed herself, and was discovered by 
 the queen. The tourists are strong in 
 faith, and do not attempt to separate 
 the component admixture of truth and 
 fiction : the novel is a guide-book to 
 them ; and Wayland, Flibbertigibbet, 
 Tressilian, and Lambourne are all ac-
 
 1 66 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 cepted as historical personages. Not 
 in all the chronicles of England is there 
 a chapter equal in magnetism to the 
 story set forth by Scott of the love of 
 this unhappy country girl. 
 
 At Cumnor there is much less to sub- 
 stantiate the romance than here. Not 
 a stone remains of the hall, and even its 
 site is obliterated. The inn is called 
 the " Black Bear ; " but it is not the pros- 
 perous, comfortable hostlery over which 
 Giles Gosling presided with such good 
 humor and tact " moderate in his 
 reckonings, prompt in his payments, 
 having a cellar of sound liquor, a ready 
 wit, and a pretty daughter." Such inn- 
 keepers have gone out of fashion with 
 such shop-keepers as Master Goldthread, 
 the mercer. The old church, in which 
 Papist and Puritan have preached and 
 prayed, has not disappeared; but the 
 testimony it bears throws doubt on the 
 authenticity of the story that Anthony 
 Foster is buried in the chancel " he
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. l6/ 
 
 they called Tony Fire-the-Fagot, because 
 he brought a light to kindle the pile 
 round Latimer and Ridley when the 
 wind blew out Jack Thong's torch, and 
 no man there would give him light for 
 love or money." He lies side by side, 
 in effigy, with his wife, and is extolled 
 in good Latin as a man of many virtues. 
 Coming back to Warwick, we find a 
 few more threads to pick up, especially 
 in the Hospital, which is Leicester's most 
 effective monument. Before the Refor- 
 mation, it was the home of a monastic 
 order, but was bestowed on him by the 
 queen, and by him endowed for the shel- 
 ter and maintenance of a master and 
 twelve poor brethren, tenants, and retain- 
 ers of his or of his heirs. Each pen- 
 sioner receives eighty pounds a year, and 
 has private lodgings within the Hospi- 
 tal, in addition to common privileges in 
 kitchen, kitchen-garden, and chapel. So 
 liberal is the management, so ample the 
 provision so free the benevolence from
 
 1 68 AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 the stigma and parade of charity, that 
 the inmates may well be envied ; but, with 
 the perversity of human nature, they 
 sometimes mutter against their lot, in- 
 stead of constantly blessing the memory 
 of their patron. The bear and ragged 
 staff, the motto and initials of Dudley, 
 are visible at every point in the quaint 
 buildings ; and in the kitchen we are 
 shown a faded bit of embroidery, glazed 
 in an oaken frame, which is said to be 
 the needlework of Amy Robsart, a tradi- 
 tion so insecure at the roots that it puts 
 us in mind of that epigram of Mr. Henry 
 James concerning the method of Taine : 
 " A thin soil of historical evidence is 
 made to produce luxuriant flowers of 
 deduction." But centuries shrink into 
 neighborly and speakable distance here, 
 and allow us to fancy that the verifica- 
 tion by living witness of the tradition is 
 almost possible. The past is completely 
 ours in that snug kitchen. All the oak 
 of rafter, casing, and wainscot is dark-
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 169 
 
 ened to ebony with age, but in a perfect 
 state of preservation. The floor is of red 
 tiles, and the low white ceiling is held 
 up by blackened beams. There is a fire- 
 place so capacious that all the pension- 
 ers might cook their dinners at once, and 
 a settle, adorned with the omnipresent 
 bear, on which all of them, sitting to- 
 gether, might afterward smoke their 
 pipes, as, indeed, they frequently do. 
 The light, sifting through the hinged, 
 leaded windows, set in stone mullions, 
 burnishes antiquated arms and armor 
 hung upon the walls, and brings out the 
 sheen on the fragment of Amy Robsart's 
 embroidery. Even after nightfall there 
 is enough light from the fire that is al- 
 ways kept burning to show the motto 
 across the hearth, " Droit et loyal," the 
 initials R. L., and the date, 1571. 
 
 Presenting to the street a many-gabled 
 front, with peaked windows, open tim- 
 bers, hinged lattices, and carved brackets, 
 the buildings form within a quadrangle ;
 
 I/O AMY ROBS ART, 
 
 and here the brick-work is picked out 
 with the sixteen quarterings of Leices- 
 ter's arms, richly emblazoned, and along 
 the mouldings of the galleries, in old 
 English text, illuminated and sunken in 
 the oak, run various rules for the govern- 
 ment of the inmates : " Honor all Men " 
 " Fear God " " Honor the King " 
 " Love the Brotherhood " " Be kindly 
 affectioned one to Another " " He that 
 ruleth over Men must be Just." 
 
 On the highest spot in the town stands 
 St. Mary's Church, its lofty tower visi- 
 ble for miles around, across field and 
 hedge-row, and its chimes pealing like 
 music from heaven over the fair English 
 landscape. Here, in the Beauchamp 
 chapel, under canopies of lace-like stone, 
 and screens of artistically wrought metal, 
 lies Leicester, surrounded by his coro- 
 neted kinsmen and former earls of War- 
 wick. There is no allusion to Amy, no 
 memento of her. Another wife reposes 
 with him, her hands piously clasped in
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. I /I 
 
 prayer, as his are. The effigy shows him 
 as a solemn-faced, bearded man, the pic- 
 ture of conjugal propriety ; and, if epi- 
 taphs are to be believed, no man was 
 ever more maligned than this gallant 
 and ambitious courtier of Queen Eliza- 
 beth. 
 
 The researches of George Adlard 1 and 
 others have completely undermined the 
 foundations of Scott's romance. Amy 
 Robsart never was Countess of Leices- 
 ter. How could she have been when 
 her husband was not created an earl till 
 three years after her death? She did 
 not appear at the Kenilworth revels, for 
 the castle only came to Leicester with 
 the earldom. Her marriage was not se- 
 cret, but was solemnized in the presence 
 of Edward VI., who records the fact in 
 his diary, and expresses his appreciation 
 of the amusement afterward afforded 
 
 1 "Amy Robsart and the Earl of Leicester: A Critical 
 Inquiry." By George Adlard. London, 1870.
 
 AMY ROBSART, 
 
 him by " certain gentlemen that did 
 strive who should first take away a 
 goose's head which was hanged alive on 
 two crossposts." Leicester was married 
 secretly, though not to her. It was to 
 Lady Sheffield, thirteen years after Amy's 
 death, and two years previous to the rev- 
 els. Amy's father was not Sir Hugh, 
 but Sir John Robsart; not a knight of 
 Devon, but a knight of Norfolk. Scott, 
 indeed, has not allowed himself to be 
 hampered by any rigid adherence to his- 
 toric truth ; though it is true that Amy 
 died mysteriously at Cumnor Hall, and 
 that Leicester felt himself called upon 
 to disprove the suspicion which prevailed 
 that he had connived at her taking off. 
 That he was indifferent to her is shown 
 by his actions and by his correspond- 
 ence. Beyond this, Scott's authority 
 seems to have been a mysterious and 
 melodramatic Jesuit, named Parsons, 
 whose charges against Leicester were 
 repeated at a later period by that garru-
 
 KENILWORTH, AND WARWICK. 173 
 
 lous old chronicler, Ashmole. Let us 
 not be too exacting, however. Truth 
 even wavers on the lips of History her- 
 self when she discards the masquerade 
 of the historical novel, and puts on the 
 academic silk. And it is to be noted 
 that the fable of Amy Robsart convinces 
 the mind of the rustic when fact goes, 
 unheeded, in at one ear and out at the 
 other. Listen to the sounds from the 
 canvas theatre in the field on the Cov- 
 entry road. They are playing a drama- 
 tization of " Kenilworth ; " and, familiar 
 as the story is, the audience listen to it 
 again with undiminished interest, and 
 audibly sob as the corpulent Tressilian 
 pumps up his reproaches against the 
 wayward heroine. 
 
 Preuwork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A.

 
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