Flamborough

“ The little bay, however, known as the South Landing, is one of the two ports of Flamborough: the other, as we shall see after passing the lighthouse, is similar in formation—a mere gap in the cliffs. They might be called providential landing-places, for without them the fishermen of Flamborough would have no access to the sea, except by ladders down the precipice. As it is, the declivity is very steep; and it is only by hauling them up to every available spot, that room is found for the numerous boats. ”

“ A genuine summer day pays a visit nearly once in the season to Flamborough; and when it does come, it has a wonderful effect. Often the sun shines brightly there, and often the air broods hot with thunder; but the sun owes his brightness to sweep of the wind, which sweeps away his warmth as well; while, on the other hand, the thunder-clouds, like heavy smoke capping the headland, may oppress the air with heat, but are not of sweet summer's beauty. ”

“ And Captain Robin, being well-to-do, and established with every thing except a wife, and pleased with the pretty smile and quiet ways of Joan—for he never had heard of her money, mind—put his oar into the sea and rowed from Flamborough all the way to Filey Brigg, with thirty-five fishermen after him; for the Flamborough people make a point of seeing one another through their troubles. And Robin was known for the handsomest man and the uttermost fisher of the landing, with three boats of his own, and good birth, and long sea-lines. ”

“ Salter, with a feeling of exultation which made him forget, for the time, what the whole entertainment was likely to cost, led Lady Flamborough to the head of the room. Her ladyship had evidently been pretty in her youth; but though the remains of a fine woman may sometimes be viewed with a blending of admiration with our veneration, mere prettiness seldom grows old gracefully. ”

“ But I have to grope my way; and it is a hard people, as you say, to deal with. But I have no fear, sir; I shall overcome all Flamborough, unless—unless, what I fear to think of, there should happen to be bloodshed.”
“There will be none of that, Mr. Mordacks; we are too skillful, and too gentle, for anything more than a few cracked crowns.” ”

“ The great entrenchment of Flamborough is consequently the work of flint-using people, and ‘is not later than the Bronze Period.’ And the strangest fact concerning the promontory is the isolation of its inhabitants from the rest of the county, a traditional hatred for strangers having kept the fisher-folk of the peninsula aloof from outside influences. They have married among themselves for so long, that it is quite possible that their ancestral characteristics have been reproduced, with only a very slight intermixture of other stocks, for an exceptionally long period. ”

“ The coast of Yorkshire affords the boldest and grandest scenery on the eastern shore of England. A great protruding backbone of chalk rocks projects far into the North Sea at Flamborough Head, and makes one of the most prominent landmarks on all that rugged, iron-bound coast. This is the Ocellum Promontorium of Ptolemy, and its lighthouse is three hundred and thirty feet above the sea, while far away over the waters the view is superb. From Flamborough Head northward beyond Whitby the coast-line is a succession of abrupt white cliffs and bold headlands, presenting magnificent scenery. ”

“ Flamborough (having felt certain that Robin could never exist without free trade, and missing many little courtesies that flowed from his liberal administration) , was only too ready to lament his death, without insisting on particulars. Even as a man who has foretold a very destructive gale of wind tempers with the pride of truth the sorrow which he ought to feel for his domestic chimney-pots (as soon as he finds them upon his lawn) , so Little Denmark, while bewailing, accepted the loss as a compliment to its own renowned sagacity. ”

“ We find no one to object to our intrusion, and go on towards the village. It is a straggling collection of low, red houses, lacking, unfortunately, anything which can honestly be termed picturesque; for the church stands alone, a little to the south, and the small ruin of what is called 'The Danish Tower' is too insignificant to add to the attractiveness of the place.
All the males of Flamborough are fishermen, or dependent on fishing for their livelihood ”

“ As for this trinket, I do not leave it with you, but I leave you this model in wax, ma'am, made by my daughter, who is very clever. From this you can judge quite as well as from the other. If there are any more of these things in Flamborough, as I have strong reason to believe, you will know best where to find them, and I need not tell you that they are almost certain to be in the possession of a woman. You know all the women, and you skillfully inquire, without even letting them suspect it. ”

“ In a council of the boats, upon a Sunday afternoon, every boat being garnished for its rest upon the flat, and every master fisherman buttoned with a flower—the last flowers of the year, and bearing ice-marks in their eyes—a resolution had been passed that the inland man meant well, had naught to do with Revenue, or Frenchmen either, or what was even worse, any outside fishers, such as often-time came sneaking after fishing grounds of Flamborough. ”

“ No man had ever dreamed as yet of coming to this outlandish place for pleasure of the prospect. So that when this lonely rider was descried from the washing field over the low wall of the lane, the women made up their minds at once that it must be a justice of the peace, or some great rider of the Revenue, on his way to see Dr. Upandown, or at the least a high constable concerned with some great sheep-stealing. Not that any such crime was known in the village itself of Flamborough, which confined its operations to the sea ”

“ Notes and Queries, 3rd ser. ii. 208) , in which he refers to the royal license already granted to him on account of his ‘great age and impotency’ to take his ‘ease and liberty,’ and addresses him as knight of the body, Sir Marmaduke Constable, the elder, ‘called the little.’ In July 1515 he received a charter of liberties constituting Flamborough a sanctuary for felons and debtors, &c. (Pat. 7 Hen. VIII, p. 1, m. 29) . ”

“ My wife observed, that rising too early would hurt her daughters’ eyes, that working after dinner would redden their noses, and she convinced me that the hands never looked so white as when they did nothing. Instead therefore of finishing George’s shirts, we now had them new modelling their old gauzes, or flourishing upon catgut. The poor Miss Flamboroughs, their former gay companions, were cast off as mean acquaintance, and the whole conversation ran upon high life and high lived company, with pictures, taste, Shakespear, and the musical glasses. ”

“ For these were men who liked well enough to receive hard words from their betters who were masters of their business, but saw neither virtue nor value in submitting to superior airs from their equals.
The Royal George, as this boat was called, passed through the fleet of quiet vessels, some of which trembled for a second visitation; but not deigning to molest them, she stood on, and rounding Flamborough Head, passed by the pillar rocks called King and Queen, and bore up for the North Landing cove. Here sail was taken in, and oars were manned ”

“ For the yoke of Flambard was one which, in different ways, pressed on all classes. If the native English, and the less wealthy men generally, were less directly touched by his feudal legislation than those who ranked above them, Flambard had no mind to let poor men, or native Englishmen, or any other class of men, go scot free. Working of the old laws. If his new devices pressed mainly on the great, he knew how to use the old forms of law so as to press on great and small alike. No one was too high, no one was too low, for the ministers of the King’s Exchequer to keep their eyes on him. ”

“ On the very next evening Chippet and I had our first meal in the house of the Flemings. Because I am a realistic novelist, there is nothing, I suppose, in this modern world of ours that can possibly surprise me. The Flemings' house, Mr. Fleming, the numerous little Flemings, and the great Mrs. Farbman herself, were all exactly as I had expected them. There is something to me strangely depressing about Golders Green, and the Flemings' house would have been depressing anywhere. ”

“ It appeared that she and the butler were the only survivors of the prince's original foreign ménage the other servants now in the house being new and collected in Norfolk by the housekeeper. This latter lady went by the name of Mrs. Anthony, but she spoke with a slight Italian accent, and Flambeau did not doubt that Anthony was a Norfolk version of some more Latin name. Mr. Paul, the butler, also had a faintly foreign air, but he was in tongue and training English, as are many of the most polished men-servants of the cosmopolitan nobility. ”

“ Farbman that was lonely, touching, and pathetic. With that swift perception of human nature that is one of the finest gifts I possess, I saw that she was a lonely, unloved woman, whose rudeness and masculinity were largely a covering for a longing for affection and some sort of commendation of her talents and erudition.
Mr. Fleming was, in all probability, the only human being in all her life who had appreciated her brain and industry, and it it was for that appreciation that she clung to him more than for anything else. ”

“ The village of Falmouth is an old, dilapidated looking place, containing, perhaps, one thousand inhabitants. It is situated at the head of tide water, on the Rappahannock, three-fourths of a mile above Fredericksburg, and is connected with the opposite side of the river by a bridge, which crosses directly opposite the centre of the village; half of the bridge, on the Falmouth side, remains uninjured, the rest of the way nothing but the piers remain standing. The length of this bridge was about forty rods, and crossed the river at a height of perhaps thirty feet. ”

“ Ranulf Flambard died in 1128, having spent the last part of his life in doing what he could to redeem the earlier, by his work on the cathedral of Durham, where in worthy style he carried on the work of his predecessor, William of St. Calais. Soon after died William Giffard, the bishop whom Henry had appointed before he was himself crowned, and in his place the king appointed his nephew, Henry of Blois, brother of Count Stephen, who was to play so great a part in the troubles that were soon to begin. ”

“ One writer says of Falmouth that the beauty and popularity of the town is largely due to “letting Nature well alone,” and that it is “one of the few unspoilt and much resorted to places in England.” Be this as it may, there is no possible doubt regarding the very great popularity of Falmouth with yachting and holiday folk. There are yet some people left even to-day to whom narrow streets, none too sharply defined pavements, and quaint domestic architecture appeals, and all of these things may be found in Falmouth. ”

“ From the high ground we could see Falmouth with its sheltered bay and glittering sea beyond. Landward were the villages of Mabe and Constantine, with their great quarries of granite, and in the distance lay wide sweeps of undulating land, barren and treeless, but still beautiful—not with the rich pastoral beauty of our own Kent, yet having a charm of its own. And the air, so fresh and pure, yet soft and balmy, it felt to tender lungs like the difference between milk and cream. To breathe became a pleasure instead of a pain. ”

“ Thus, for human life is a paradox, this knowledge comes when it is no longer of any use, since every woman is not a Ninon de Lenclos.
Of such-like matters were Flamby's thoughts as she sat squeezed up into the smallest possible compass upon her settee, arms embracing knees; and, as was so often the case, they led her back to Paul Mario. It was wonderful how all paths seemed to lead to Paul Mario. ”

“ Falmouth is on a river that empties into Chesapeake Bay. The houses are perched on declivities and hills. There are mills. I love water wheels when they glisten.... We saw scenery much wilder than any in Scotland. It consisted of islands in the Rappahannock, lying above Falmouth. We gazed on them from a long plank bridge. What a pity the Virginians will span their streams with plank instead of stone! A stone bridge overgrown with moss is a bewitching sight. Several Scotch families have lived in Falmouth, tho the place is called Fal from a river in England. ”

“ Then the butler said, “Everything is at your disposal;” and the glove-flapping Prince Saradine came gaily into the room to greet them. They beheld once more that spectral scene—five princes entering a room with five doors.
The prince put the white hat and yellow gloves on the table and offered his hand quite cordially.
“Delighted to see you here, Mr. Flambeau,” he said. “Knowing you very well by reputation, if that’s not an indiscreet remark.”
“Not at all,” answered Flambeau, laughing. “I am not sensitive. Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.” ”

“ The appointment of Flambard is the last recorded act of the Red King on English ground. We take leave of him, as far as the affairs of our own country are concerned, in the new hall of Westminster, placing the bishop’s staff in a hand which doubtless grasped it more readily than the hand of Anselm. Later events of the year. 1099. But we have still to see somewhat of him in two other characters, in either of which he was more at home than in that of the civil ruler. We have to look at him as the hunter and as the warrior. ”