Mrs. Rodolph Stawell

“ The old town and the new are separated by the long harbour, with its crowd of gaily painted cobles, its quays, its rows of nets hung out to dry; and so, from the windows of the Royal Hotel on the one cliff, one can look across the water at the other cliff, and the old houses closely packed upon the slope, the red-tiled roofs, the high-pitched gables, the queer passages; and raised high above these the grassy hilltop, the long, low church, the sloping graveyard where Mary Linskill lies, the tall grey cross of Cædmon. Crowning all stands the ruined abbey on its height. ”

“ So great is the variety of scenery and interest that all must somewhere find the landscape that appeals to them. Some will remember those moors of Cleveland that have no visible limit, and some the many-coloured dales of the West Riding, and some the straight roads of the plain where the engine hums so gaily. Some will ever after dream of the day when they followed the course of the wooded Tees; others will dream of the distant towers of York or Beverley, or of the heights and depths of the Buttertubs Pass. ”

“ In the motorist's life there are hours that can never be forgotten. It may be some hour of sunshine that haunts us, when the warm wind, we remember, was heavy with the scent of gorse or pungent with the stinging breath of the sea; or some hour when the road lay white and straight before us across a moor, and the waves of heather rolled away from us to the horizon in long curves of colour, and as we sped over the miles we seemed no nearer to the shore of the purple sea nor to the end of the white straight road ”

“ The fine high-road that skirts the eastern moors, the road on which we have been travelling since we left Scarborough, comes to an end, in a sense, at Helmsley; for here it splits up into two roads, each of which we must follow for a time. Helmsley itself has its attractions. Among them are an open market square and an ancient cross, pretty houses and an inn covered with flowers, a tiny stream running through the town from end to end, and a castle-keep upon the hill. ”

“ Beyond West Tanfield the scenery grows in beauty, for we are nearing the hills. Masham lies prettily in a valley, with a setting of moors and dales, gold and emerald when the sun is shining, soft grey and green when the day is dull. Skirting the little town we go on our way to Jervaulx.
The site of Jervaulx is not beautiful, but pleasant and peaceful. It lies in a private park, so the car must wait beside the gardener's cottage while we walk, borrowed key in hand, across the field to the scattered fragments of what was once a great Cistercian abbey. ”

“ Be that as it may, the country is now so open that as we draw near Sheriff Hutton we may see with a thrill, if we look very intently along the far horizon, the faint, elusive gleaming of York Minster.
The castle of Sheriff Hutton is more impressive at a distance than close at hand. It is visible miles away across the flat country, and the jagged outlines of its cluster of towers stand up so imposingly against the sky that one is led to expect something rather vast and effective. ”

“ It is a place of enchantment, where the spell-bound poet can only stammer helplessly, and the plain man for a moment feels himself a poet.
Returning to the main road, we follow the wooded Tees to Barnard Castle. For miles the river is as we saw it at the meeting of the waters, darkly shadowed by trees and bound by rocky banks; more beautiful in itself than Wharfe or Swale, though flowing through a valley that cannot be compared [82] to the other dales except at its head: but there, I think, excelling them all. ”

“ If Fountains Abbey speaks of power, Rievaulx breathes peace. Taking everything into consideration, I think its beauty has only one rival in England. The valley of the Rye is far lovelier than Studley Park; the building itself is far lovelier than Bolton. Only Tintern can rival it; not even Tintern can eclipse it. For at Tintern the feeling of Cistercian seclusion can only be acquired through the imagination: a high-road is close at hand; a brisk trade in picture postcards and Goss china is carried on at the abbey door; to be alone is almost impossible. ”

“ It is at Cropton that the moors first come into sight. The scenery has been uninteresting since we left the Forge Valley, [128] and it is with all the more delight that we suddenly, at a turn of the road, find the landscape filled with colour and warmth and beauty, with hills green in the foreground and gloriously crimson against the sky. The road curves and twists and curves again, as though hunting for Lastingham among the little valleys. It seems to be altogether lost, and then suddenly we find it. ”

“ The flat land is laid out like a map below us; far away upon the horizon—which is level as the sea—rises "the huge tall steeple" of Howden; and between the plain of Yorkshire and the rising-ground of Lincolnshire are the sullen waters of that great river that has brought England so much of her prosperity. Not always, however, has the Humber brought prosperity. More than a thousand years ago the fleet of the avenging Danes, Hinguar and Hubba, swept up between these low banks, to lay this rich country waste. ”

“ Harrogate is exactly what one would expect it to be: a place of large hotels and fine shops, a place whose ideals are comfort and prosperity. Those who like to motor round a centre—a plan which has many advantages—could hardly find a better base for their operations.
"The great merit of Harrogate," wrote George Eliot, "is that one is everywhere close to lovely open walks." Our field has widened since her day, but Harrogate's great merit is still its merit as a centre. In this respect it is superior even to York, though in itself not worthy to be named with that incomparable city. ”

“ Not many miles from Pickering, at the very brink of the moors, is a village whose name is familiar to lovers of old buildings and students of church history, and whose charms of seclusion and quietness are so endearing that even the unlearned are likely to think of it again and again with affection. I do not think "excursions" ever go to Lastingham. There is nothing there to attract those who visit a sacred ruin to play games in its aisles, or to sit on the high altar till it becomes necessary to enclose it with a railing, or to photograph their fiancées under its arches. ”

“ Only one or two of all these things are left, and even they are now as sore decayed as was the pier of Henry VIII.'s time. Yet Scarborough is still exceeding fair; so fair that it overcomes all one's prejudices against popular watering-places; fair even in spite of huge hotels and a beach black with people, and rows of ice-cream stalls, and braying bands, and hoarse hurdy-gurdies, and all kinds of music. It is built at the junction of two bays, between which the castle juts out on "a rock of wonderful height and bigness, inaccessible by reason of steep craggs almost on every side." ”

“ In the north aisle of the choir, near the entrance to the Percy Chapel, is the visible symbol of that right of sanctuary, the Fridstool, the plain rounded seat in which he that sat was safe even though he were a murderer, the sacred centre of the six circles that conferred each its own amount of security. To this Stool of Peace, in the days when it stood beside the altar, many a man—indeed many a ruffian—has owed his life and the freedom he so little deserved. It was to this very seat that Richard II.'s half-brother, Sir John Holland, came hurrying through the night. ”

“ Beautiful it must be at all seasons and in all weathers, but it is only when the air is clear that the head of Swaledale may be seen on one side of the ridge and the far-away slopes of Wensleydale on the other, and it is only when the sun is sinking that those distant hills are washed with gold. The moors sweep round us far and near; a line of dark firs crosses them mid-way; patches of vivid green break through the heather; and down in [58] the valley the Swale shows as a thin thread of twisted silver. ”

“ Quite lately a wide road with an embankment has been built from bay to bay round the base of the castle promontory. Those who have loved the rough rocks that once were here feel naturally that this new drive spoils the beauty of the place. But, after all, Scarborough is not designed for lovers of wild nature. The mischief was done here long ago. The new drive is a boon to thousands who have to take their pleasure in bath-chairs, and in this place of esplanades and lawn-tennis court and smart clothes a little more artificiality is no great grievance. ”

“ We have too long accepted the roof of a railway station as our first view of such places. It is not an inspiring view. But to see York Minster from afar, shining under the evening sky and lifted high above the city; to watch it growing larger and larger, rising higher and higher, increasing in beauty every moment, until at last one drives slowly into its huge shadow ”

“ Nearly every one has felt, on passing through the entrance in the south transept, that breathless sensation of awe that is almost fear, of reverence that is almost worship. The first sight of those immense arches, so absolutely simple, so indescribably majestic, with the lancets of the Five Sisters behind them, is overwhelming. It is only gradually that memory returns, and the great nave slowly fills with the processions of the past, with the weddings and funerals and coronation pageants that have swept by, century after century, to choir or chapter-house. ”

“ Beyond the chasm the bare hillside rises again above our heads in magnificent curves, glowing with colour, and cleft here and there into purple gorges. Slightly above the road on the left are the Buttertubs, strange crater-like hollows of unplumbed depth, appearing at intervals beside us, with sharp rocks bristling through the grass at their mouths. As we slowly descend, the hills of Swaledale rise before us like a wall blocking the defile ”

“ Only those who have secured special permission are admitted to see this castle and its splendid Elizabethan Hall, of which the fame has reached many who were never in it. It is, according to all accounts, a marvel of rich ornament, of oaken panels and delicate inlay, of carved mouldings and stained glass and armorial shields.
A road with a perfect surface carries us [157] out of the village to the top of a hill—where one patch of heather by the wayside reminds us that we are on Grimston Moor—and on through Brandsby to Stillington. ”

“ It seems to guard the boundary between the poetry of Lastingham and the prose of the ordinary world, for the beauty that makes such a perfect setting for the place ends suddenly on the brow of the hill, and we speed away among commonplace fields and hedges to join the high-road by way of Appleton-le-Moor. ”

“ No man knows the spell of York till he has approached it by road in the evening. Of all the fresh experiences that the motor-car has brought to us there are few from which the imagination gains so much as from this way of entering old and beautiful towns. ”

“ Now in Yorkshire the places that are unfrequented are very few indeed, and it is in connection with this fact that the motorist has the greatest advantage over every other kind of tourist. He can choose his own time for visiting Bolton or Fountains or the incomparable Rievaulx; he can see them when the dew is on the grass and the glamour of solitude is in the woods. To be alone with our emotions is what we all desire in the presence of wide spaces or stately aisles ”

“ A little more than a hundred years later John Baliol, King of Scotland, was rashly refusing to be at the beck and call of the English king. "Has the fool done this folly?" asked Edward. "If he will not come to us we will come to him!" So John lost his crown, and Barnard Castle saw the Baliols no more. It was given to the Nevilles, and so with many other things fell into the capacious hands of Richard III., who actually lived here for a time, and has left his symbol, the wild boar, upon the oriel window. ”

“ The maimed church that stands below the castle on the slope is not now so imposing as once it was, but it is still a fine building and has four chantries. In its shadow lies Anne Brontë. From the road leading to the castle gate, at a point near the fountain, one may see by looking over the wall of the churchyard the upright stone that bears her name. When she was dying, her sister Charlotte, with the desperate hope of those who despair, brought her to Scarborough, whose bay and headlands gave her the last pleasure [116] she had. ”

“ He became the gentlest of his line, a lover of learning, a watcher of the skies; and though at last Skipton came back to him, and Brougham, and Pendragon, and many another castle, he lived here quietly in this simple tower above the wooded Wharfe, befriending the poor, reading his books, and now and then reading the stars as well, with his friends the monks of Bolton. ”

“ It is hard to turn away from the sea so soon. If we find it too hard to bear we may stay at Scarborough for a couple of nights, and, taking a short run down the coast, may see Filey, and the white cliffs of Flamborough, and the beautiful priory church of Bridlington, in a few hours. Then we can turn westwards with less discontent, especially if we make a short détour by Scalby, Hackness, and the Forge Valley.
Hackness lies in a nest of trees. Every road that leads to it is lovely. ”

“ A modern note is struck as we drive out of the town past the racecourse, and find to our pleasure that the splendid road is "treated" with some preparation that makes it absolutely dustless. This is the road by which the Stewart Kings approached York with so much show and colour, and by which their supporters marched away, defeated, but with honours of war. ”

“ A narrow, precipitous gangway, with a right-angled turn in the middle, is the only means of passing from the quay to the ferry-boat. The transit is a matter of difficulty for any car—for a large one it is impossible. Hull, however, is a progressive place, as befits the town of that most progressive king who saw its possibilities so long ago. Very soon, we cannot doubt, the shipping of a car on the shores of the Humber will be less like a feat in a circus than it is at present. ”