Ingleborough

“ I believe he’d put some scent on his handkerchief and some pomatum on his hair even if he were going to be shot.”
“Hist! Listen,” said West quickly; “they’re on the stir.”
Ingleborough started up, for a voice was heard giving an order, and it was as if a stick had suddenly been thrust into a beehive and stirred round.
“Right!” said Ingleborough, in a low tone. “Now’s our time! Take a long deep breath, and let’s make the plunge. It will be all right if you keep close to me!” ”

“ Let’s mount and make a dash for it.”
“Very well!” replied Ingleborough quietly. “Perhaps it would be best!”
“Then as soon as you are up we must ride towards them till we are clear of these bushes, and then off we go to the right.”
“Good; but it must be sharp work, for of course they will see us the moment we are up!” answered Ingleborough.
“We must risk it, Ingle,” said West. “We never could keep them at bay. Let’s have action: it would be horrible to be lying behind a rock with the sun beating down upon us. Now then, get hold of your rein!” ”

“ The day was exceedingly fine, and the prospects, in crossing over the sands, were splendid. The whole coast of the bay, from Peel Castle round to the shore beyond Lancaster; the stern crags of Warton and Arnside Fells, on the right; farther eastward, the well-known form of Ingleborough, whose broad head, not apparently of very great elevation, is still visible from every considerable hill in Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, and seems to lift itself in serene and unchanging majesty over the neighbouring hills ”

“ To the inhabitants the huge rock is a recreative resort: seats are placed at its base; a zigzag path leads to the summit, whence the views over the valley of the Ribble are very picturesque and pleasing. On the north-west the broad top of Ingleborough is seen peeping over an intervening height; Penyghent appears in the north; and southerly, Pendle Hill rises within the borders of Lancashire. Very beautiful did the dewy landscape seem to me the next morning as I sat on the cliff top while the sunlight increased upon the green expanse. ”

“ The scenery is wild and gaunt, and is much the same as the moors at the head of Swaledale, described in an earlier chapter. In every direction there are opportunities for splendid mountain walks, and if the tracks are followed the danger of hidden pot-holes is comparatively small. From the summit of Ingleborough, and, indeed, from most of the fells that reach 2,000 feet, there are magnificent views across the brown fells, broken up with horizontal lines formed by the bare rocky scars. ”

“ And this and much more as the fugitives cantered easily along through the darkness, giving their ponies their heads and letting them increase the distance more and more, till all at once West broke the silence by exclaiming: “I say, Ingle, is it really true?”
“Is what really true—that Master Anson’s a fat beast?”
“No, no; that we have escaped and are riding away at full liberty to go where we please? It seems to me like a dream, and that in the morning we shall awake and find ourselves once again in that dreary wagon.”
“Partly true, partly imaginary,” said Ingleborough bluntly. ”

“ It is true, that some twelve or fifteen miles down the valley, there was a house or two tenanted by gentry—one that might, by a liberal courtesy, have been designated as a castle—but above Ingleborough Hall, to the northwestward, there was no manor-house or dwelling of the aristocracy at all, until the road left the ghylls, as those wild glens are designated, and joined the line of the great northern turnpike. It was extremely singular then, to say the least, that a gay troop of riders should appear suddenly in that wild spot, so far from anything that would be likely to attract them ”

“ And with a brightening evening we come to Clapham—a cheerful, pretty village, [Pg 184] adorned with flowers, and climbers, and smooth grass plots, embowered by trees, and watered by a merry brook, lying open to the sun on the roots of Ingleborough. Looking about for an inn, I saw the Bull and Cave, and secured quarters there by leaving my knapsack, and set out to seek for the guide, whom I found chatting with a group of loungers on the bridge. Bull and Cave seemed to me such an odd coupling, that I fancied cave must be a Yorkshire way of spelling calf ”

“ The prospect hence takes in all the western sea, and sometimes reaches the isle of Man. The Cumberland and Westmorland hills are of such a nature as I never saw before: I took them for clouds at first, not only from their height, but figure; consisting not of long ridges, but pens, or sugar-loaves, suddenly breaking off. Eastward is Ingleborough, a very strange hill, having a flat place at top, like a table: they say there are some works upon it, and some stones placed like a bower: Camden takes notice of it as rising gradually eastward. ”

“ Some bushy hazels grew at intervals along the lines of the wall; and a few ash-trees as the winds had sown them. To the east and west some fields adjoined it, in that state of half cultivation which gives a human character to solitude: to the south, on the other side the brook, the common with its limestone rocks peering everywhere above ground, extended to the foot of Ingleborough. A craggy hill, feathered with birch, sheltered it from the north.
“The turf was as soft and fine as that of the adjoining hills ”

“ West was disposed to say; but he followed his companion’s example, letting himself sink sidewise like a dying quadruped, feeling the despatch crackle beneath him as he lay listening to the trampling of horses growing more distant, and waiting for Ingleborough to speak.
“Seems a stupid sort of dodge!” said the latter at last; “but I thought it better to let them think we were hyaenas than human beings.”
“But we had a narrow escape of being shot!” replied West.
“Yes, and escaped. If they had taken us for human beings we should have been either shot or taken prisoners. Now we’re safe!” ”

“ One of these, which we have penetrated to a distance of 350 feet, may turn out to be the entrance to as wonderful a chain of caverns as those of Eastwater. Long Kin Hole, Helln Pot, and other tremendous cavities in the Ingleborough district, still promise good sport. Of all the varieties of cave forms these vertical holes are the most impressive, and also the most perilous to explore. No exploit stands out more finely in the record of that intrepid explorer, M. Martel, than his single-handed descent into Gaping Ghyll, the first ever accomplished. ”

“ The Hornby Castle referred to was built by one of the Normans on the site of a Roman villa, and the ruins near are those of a priory reared in the sixteenth century. The vale of Caton, within a five-mile walk of Lancaster, at the navigable limit of the Lune, moved the poet Gray to remarks which might fairly be applied to more than one spot in Lunedale. These are the words: “To see the view in perfection, you must go into a field on the left. Here Ingleborough, behind a variety of lesser mountains, makes the background of the prospect. ”

“ What a little busy bee of a Susie you've been to get all those extracts ready by this time. I've got nothing [Pg 35] done all the while I've been away, but a few mathematical figures, and the less I do the less I find I can do it; and yesterday, for the first time these twenty years at least, I hadn't so much as a "plan" in my head all day. But I had a lot to look at in the moorland flowers and quiet little ancient Yorkshire farmhouses, not to speak of Ingleborough, who was, I think, a little depressed because he knew you were only going to send your remembrances and not your love to him. ”

“ Like most hobbies, rock-gardening provides an endless topic of interest for its devotees, and the lore of the subject is inexhaustible. At any rate, Mr. Reginald Farrer, who is a recognized authority on the art, by no means exhausted his stock of information and anecdote in his previous work, 'My Rock Garden.' That garden, as most of his fellow-enthusiasts know, is on the slopes of Ingleborough in Yorkshire, and it is a place of pilgrimage for the faithful of this cult. ”

“ You may, if you wish, but I shall remain to make inquiries."
"I will remain with you, sir, of course. It would not be safe to leave you alone in such a neighborhood as this."
"It would be quite safe. You forget that it was in just such neighborhoods I passed my young days. I know them better than you appear to do, Inglefield. The people we see about us are respectable members of society--quite as respectable as ourselves. As to remaining, please yourself. I do not feel at all out of place in such society."
"Nor do I, sir," said Mark Inglefield, with a frank smile. ”

“ Her fine ballad, “High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire,” was one outcome of those early days. In middle life she came to live in London, and she wrote of the city and its shifting and unending throng; but her best pages are those, whether verse or prose, that reflect the things of the seashore and waterside, the “empty sky,” [Pg viii] the “world of heather,” which she knew as a child in Lincolnshire and Essex. Ipswich, Filey Brig in Yorkshire, and other places are to be counted in her own history ”

“ All in the sleet and the snow,
And he looked around on shore and sound
As he stood on Plymouth Hoe.
Till a pillar of spray rose far away,
And shot up its stately head,
Reared and fell over, and reared again:
"'Tis the rock! the rock!" he said.
Straight to the Mayor he took his way,
"Good Master Mayor," quoth he,
"I am a mercer of London town,
And owner of vessels three,—
"But for your rock of dark renown,
I had five to track the main."
"You are one of many," the old Mayor said,
"That on the rock complain. ”

“ But the blue eyes of Michael Moon brightened and hardened with a light that Inglewood did not understand. Many centuries, and many villages and valleys, would have been happier if Inglewood or Inglewood's countrymen had ever understood that light, or guessed at the first blink that it was the battle star of Ireland.
"Nothing can ever alter it; it's in the wheels of the universe," went on Inglewood, in a low voice: "some men are weak and some strong, and the only thing we can do is to know that we are weak. ”

“ In Kensington, a suburb of London, in a two-story-and-a-half stone house, cream-colored, lives Jean Ingelow. Tasteful grounds are in front of the home, and in the rear a large lawn bordered with many flowers, and conservatories; a real English garden, soft as velvet, and fragrant as new-mown hay. The house is fit for a poet ”

“ The result is, weariness of heart in Havre, cheerfulness and joy at Ingouville. The law of social development has forced up the suburb of Graville like a mushroom. It is to-day more extensive than Havre itself, which lies at the foot of its slopes like a serpent.
At the crest of the hill Ingouville has but one street, and (as in all such situations) the houses which overlook the river have an immense advantage over those on the other side of the road, whose view they obstruct, and which present the effect of standing on tip-toe to look over the opposing roofs. ”

“ On the Inglebys’ side of the wall lay a modern well-kept garden, not more than twenty years old. Edwin’s mother had a passion for flowers, and his father had made the gratification of her pleasure his favourite hobby, so that Edwin’s earliest memories of both of them were associated with the gathering of fruits and blooms, with the rich odours of summer, or, above all, the smell of newly-turned earth. This summer Mr. Ingleby had planted the long bed that stretched along the side of the house towards the door in Mrs. Barrow’s wall with masses of delicately-coloured stocks. ”

“ Being the central figure of the domestic circle, the fire threw its strongest light on his massive and sturdy frame, reddening his rough visage, so that it looked like the head of an iron statue, all aglow, from his own forge, and with its features rudely fashioned on his own anvil. At John Inglefield’s right hand was an empty chair. The other places round the hearth were filled by the members of the family, who all sat quietly, while, with a semblance of fantastic merriment, their shadows danced on the wall behind then. ”

“ Arthur Inglewood followed his old friend—or his new friend, for he did not very clearly know which he was. The face looked very like his old schoolfellow’s at one second and very unlike at another. And when Inglewood broke through his native politeness so far as to say suddenly, “Is your name Smith?” he received only the unenlightening reply, “Quite right; quite right. Very good. Excellent!” Which appeared to Inglewood, on reflection, rather the speech of a new-born babe accepting a name than of a grown-up man admitting one. ”

“ The longer they stayed in London the more delighted they were; so was Peter; the Polytechnic alone was worth all the joys of the country put together; but when they came back again at the end of April, and all the land was full of singing-birds, and the trees were in blossom, and the sweet smiling landscape looked so full of light, and all was so fresh and still, then the now absent Joseph got hold of Laura's imagination again ”

“ The elections being over, London became very full. The new members hastened up. The nobility and country gentry came crowding in, and all the new houses in the Strand and Charing Cross were occupied, and a throng of young Cavaliers filled the courts and precincts of the palace. As soon as the King arrived, Inglesant went into waiting in his new post, in which great responsibility in the keeping of the royal household, especially at night, devolved upon him. ”