Gallows Hill

“ On the side of the Crasg overlooking the churchyard, and a few yards west of the high road, is the Cnoc a Croiche, or "gallows hill," overhanging a steep ravine (see page 116) .
Surmounting the Crasg we rapidly descend, and passing the new Free church (which actually contains a stained-glass rose window) on the left, and the Free church manse with its well-kept garden on the right, we reach at last
The Gairloch Hotel. ”

“ Now Kirkchrist is one of the farm-towns of Galloway, many of which in the old days have been set like fortilices high on every defenced hill. Indeed, the ancient tower still stands at one angle of the square of houses, where it is used for a peat-shed. But by an outside stair it is possible to get on the roof and view the country for miles round. On one side the Cooran burn runs down a deep ravine full of hazel copses feathering to the meadow-edges, where big bumble bees have their bykes, and where I first courted Rachel, sitting behind a cole of hay on the great day of the meadow ingathering. ”

“ One or two smaller hills, from fifty to a hundred feet high, stand near to us, rising out of the low meadow and wooded land. Some are in our hands, and some are still Turkish. One hill in particular, lying at the other end of the Salt Lake, inland from its centre, is called Chocolate Hill, and I learn D.H.Q. are to be there to-night. I hear also that there is to be a battle to-day. Many troops are landing, including a whole Division of Yeomanry, amongst them the Warwicks, Worcesters, and Gloucesters. ”

“ And suddenly, as we ride along, a lovely valley is seen below: old-world farmhouses and gabled cottages come into view, nestling amid stately elms and beech trees already touched by autumn's hand. As we gradually descend the hill, everything looks more beautiful than ever this morning; for we have had a gallop. For to-day at least we shall be in a thoroughly good temper. Whatever the morrow may bring forth, everything will appear to-day in the best possible light. Such an excellent tonic is a fast gallop over the walls for banishing dull care away. ”

“ Descending the slope of the ridge that divides Gold Hill from Virginia City a strange scene attracts the eye. He who gazes upon it for the first time is apt to doubt if it be real. Perhaps there is not another spot upon the face of the globe that presents a scene so weird and desolate in its natural aspect, yet so replete with busy life, so animate with human interest. It is as if a wondrous battle raged, in which the combatants were man and earth. ”

“ Pondering deeply, he ascended the leafy lane that leads between high railings from Notting Hill to Kensington.
It was so far from traffic that every tree on either side was loud with the Spring songs of birds; the scent of running sap came forth shyly as the sun sank low. Strange peace, strange feeling of old Mother Earth up there above the town; wild tunes, and the quiet sight of clouds. Man in this lane might rest his troubled thoughts, and for a while trust the goodness of the Scheme that gave him birth, the beauty of each day, that laughs or broods itself into night. ”

“ It was not till late in April that he could send her his impressions of Gallipoli.
"Take the dilapidated out-houses of a real old English farmyard, add to them every seedy, cracked, ricketty, wooden structure to be found in our slums, with a sprinkling of Thames-side huts, and tumble them all down higgledy-piggledy on a bare round hill sloping to the sea, scatter about a few slender white minarets, and you have the town--a place without shade, without water, without food. ”

“ The surrounding country was perfectly flat but for Gallow Hill, and not at all green but for the glebe and the riverside meadows, while the only trees of any account were the rectory elms and those in the Mundham grounds. It is true that on Gallow Hill three wind-crippled beeches brandished their deformities against the sky, as they may do still; but the country around Essingham is no country for trees. It is the country for warrens and rabbits and roads without hedges. ”

“ The god of property and his Forsytes great and small, leisured, official, commercial, or professional, unlike the working classes, still worked their seven hours a day, so that those two of the fourth generation travelled down to Robin Hill in an empty first-class carriage, dusty and sun-warmed, of that too early train. They travelled in blissful silence, holding each other's hands.
At the station they saw no one except porters, and a villager or two unknown to Jon, and walked out up the lane, which smelled of dust and honeysuckle. ”

“ Of the neighbouring hills, “Gallocks” is thought to be so called because there the high judicial powers of the lords were exercised in the view of all men, and “Grabhurst,” the castle ridge, is said to be named from an entrenched wood, though this use of the word “graff” is unknown or unusual in English nomenclature, and “Hirst” or “Hurst” belongs rather to Sussex and Kent than to Somerset. The fact is that the hill in old deeds is spelt “Grobefast,” and is at this time colloquially “Grabbist.” Near it is a lofty detached hill known as “Conygaer,” crowned by a tower of the last century. ”

“ Revolutions on the horizon; Fleur in Spain; no comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the Bayswater Road. In the irritable desolation of his soul he went into the Goupenor Gallery. That chap Jolyon's water-colours were on view there. He went in to look down his nose at them—it might give him some faint satisfaction. The news had trickled through from June to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to his mother, from her to Soames, that the house—the fatal house at Robin Hill—was for sale, and Irene going to join her boy out in British Columbia, or some such place. ”

“ The river is wide and rapid, and the sound of the great fall, called The Forths Gateway, is very distinguishable from the road. Gads Hill lies between this river and the Mersey: it is 2,588 feet high, very steep, and clothed with lofty forest, in which several of the larger shrubs become small trees.—In ascending this hill, a large Black Snake crossed the path, and I could not induce my horse to pass the place where it had been without leading him. On the top of the hill there are some pretty, grassy openings, called the Emu Plains ”

“ Next to Sharon Hill comes Glenolden, where hill and dale, wood and meadow and a beautiful stream, offer all the picturesqueness that can charm an enthusiastic or artistic eye, together with good building-sites and every advantage that fertile and forest-clad land can give to one who would exchange the heat and pavements of a city for rural life. ”

“ He has been a munificent benefactor to the town of Dudley. No man in the kingdom has done more for his immediate community in the same order of good will and good works. In the first place, he has given the town such a park as no one else had to give, if disposed to do it. It is the Castle Hill already noticed, with all its winding walks, weird caverns and gorges, and avenues between, low-arched with braided hawthorn branches, and whitened and perfumed with the sweet sheen and breath of their spring flowerage. ”

“ Gwalior is very remarkable as a military position, owing to the relation which the city bears to a strong and lofty hill-fort. ‘The rock on which the hill-fort is situated,’ says Mr Thornton, ‘is completely isolated; though seven hundred yards to the north is a conical hill surmounted by a very remarkable building of stone; and on the southeast, south, and southwest, are similar hills, which form a sort of amphitheatre at the distance of from one to four miles. ”

“ There is little to see or remark upon in the three miles between Chalk and Gad’s Hill. Two old roadside [Pg 87] inns, each claiming to be a “half-way house”; a lane that leads off to the right, towards the village of Shorne; a windmill, without its sails, standing on the brow of a singular hill; these, together with the great numbers of men and women working in the fields, are all the noticeable features of the road until one comes up the long, gradual ascent to the top of Gad’s Hill. ”

“ North and south are swamps and ravines, which so nearly approach each other as to leave but a narrow and broken passage on the east side. The gaol, a strong brick building of two stories, not inferior to a strong redoubt, with some other buildings, commanded the approach. "The crown of the hill on which it stood, was sufficiently spacious for manoeuvering the whole British army, and the houses and fences afforded shelter against all attempts of the American cavalry or mounted militia," while, in case of defeat, the bridge in their rear afforded as secure means of retreat. ”

“ Guildford Castle occupied a natural platform of nearly six acres upon the slope of the chalk hill, far below its summit, and from 40 to 80 feet above the river. The platform, inclining gently towards the stream, terminates at about 80 yards from its bank in a low cliff of from 10 to 12 feet high, in parts replaced by, and in parts resting upon, a steep, natural slope or talus, which dies away 40 feet lower down into the meads traversed by the river. The crest of this cliff or talus is occupied by Quarry Street, and forms the west front of the castle. ”

“ In two miles from Market Harborough, as proclaimed by the milestones—which spell the name of the town and Leicester, “Harbro” and “Lester”—one comes to Gallow Hill, with a fragment of old road, rugged and sunken, on the right hand, where the highwaymen used to lurk under the shadow of the gibbet-tree. At the cross-roads below stands what was once an inn, now divided into squalid tenements; and on the tall ridge to the right stand the villages of East, or Church, Langton, Thorpe Langton, and Tur218 Langton, remarkable for the doings of a former incumbent. ”

“ Take him, hankering after what she could not give him—youth, white innocence, Spring? It would be infamous, infamous! She sprang up from the fern, and ran along the hillside, not looking where she went, stumbling among the tangled growth, in and out of the boulders, till she once more sank breathless on to a stone. It was bare of trees just here, and she could see, across the river valley, the high larch-crowned tor on the far side. The sky was clear—the sun bright. A hawk was wheeling over that hill; far up, very near the blue! ”

“ This was strange, I thought; for water as a rule does not run uphill. I followed the damp track with my eye to where it turned round the corner of the cabin trunk into the alley where the cabin stores were kept. On the other side were stowed the ropes, canvas, oakum, spun-yarn and such items of the mate's department. The stores were in my care, and it was my business to investigate; so I crawled toward the alley; but I halted halfway with my hair standing on end and my heart thumping like a hammer. For peering at me from the darkened alley was the cheerful face of Gallegher! ”

“ In old times the process was far less merciful; sometimes the condemned man stood in a cart, which was drawn away from under him; sometimes he had to mount a ladder, from which he was thrust by the hangman. Until 1832 malefactors in England were sometimes hanged by being drawn up from the platform by a heavy weight at the other end of the rope. Death in these cases was by strangulation. At the present time executions in the United Kingdom are private, the gallows being erected in a chamber or enclosed space set apart for the purpose inside the gaol. ”

“ Our hill to-day is certainly in the heart of a district about which the average dweller within 40 miles of Glasgow knows less, we are persuaded, than he does of some of our colonial possessions. And yet it is not more than 12 or 13 miles from the city. We can return as we came, or make for the old Toll House on the road between Fintry and Campsie, and get the train at Lennoxtown, or we can take a walk along the ridge of hills for 2 or 3 miles to the east, and make for Gavel Station, a mile or so on the near side of Kilsyth. ”

“ There is no good to be gained by stating the name of every hill we notice.
Soon after leaving Loch Rosque a curious hill is seen away to the left, which is said in all the guide-books to resemble the profile of a man's face looking skywards, and by a stretch of the imagination any traveller may arrive at the same conclusion.
The ascending road now tends to the right. Near its extreme [303] height an improvement in the line of the road was effected about 1874. The original piece of road is visible a little above to the right. It is a pity some other Gairloch roads are not similarly improved. ”

“ The testimony of maps is not wholly either in favour of a triangular gallows, or of the site as indicated by the maps of Mackay and Rocque. In a few the gallows is shown as consisting of three pieces. In one map such a gallows is shown at some distance to the west of Edgeware Road. But the maps are small and unimportant with one exception—John Seller’s map of the county of Middlesex, 1710 and 1742. In these the gallows of three pieces is placed just within the angle formed by the junction of the roads. ”

“ East of this respectable hill, to use Sir William Hamilton’s language, is a declivity of about one-quarter of a mile, and there Galtybeg rises in a yet more regular cone; and between the two hills is another lake, which from its position seems to have been once the crater which threw up Galtybeg, as the first mentioned was the origin of Galtymore. Beyond p. 153the former hill is a third lake, and east of that another hill; I was told of a fourth, with another corresponding mountain. It is only the mere summits of these mountains which rise above the lakes. ”